Vice and Virtue

VICE AND VIRTUE

Sloth (July 1973)

It was a sin, they said, to not attend church. Remus often thought about going - sometimes he even got dressed in his Sunday robes and laced his shoes and combed his tangly hair, but when his family got there he'd lose himself in the crowd and slip out to spend the next few hours wandering the Wiltshire countryside. Later his mum or dad would ask, where were you, and he would say, oh, I was there, in the back, you must have missed me.

The truth was he could not take communion. The wafers tasted chalky and the sip of wine made him yearn to grab the whole bottle and drink himself into a stupor, and he did not feel at all like he was consuming the body and blood of Christ. The last few times he'd gone he'd felt ill beforehand from nerves, thinking, what if God can tell, what if he doesn't love me anymore. Remus had let the sermon's Latin words wash over him, words he'd known but couldn't remember the meaning of, and he thought it felt like a Muggle painting of life - a frozen moment of days passing, people coming and going, summer browning into September.

He had not started any of his summer homework, neither had he answered any of his friends' letters. He realized how hard he'd always worked himself in years past, and how nice it felt to let go a little bit, to sink into laziness.

Sirius hadn't sent him a letter, not even one. James and Peter and even Lily and Marlene McKinnon and Fabian Prewett had sent letters, but Sirius Black hadn't. Remus wasn't sure if he'd expected one.

Remus hadn't sent Sirius a letter either, but then Remus also hadn't betrayed Sirius's deepest secret and almost turned the other boy into an unknowing murderer of an unpleasant yet innocent classmate, so Remus couldn't really strike a comparison between himself and Sirius. He did, however, think about Sirius a lot, and for the first two full moons of the summer he'd hissed Sirius's name during the change like an angry mantra, to remind himself of another type of pain.

But now he'd even given that up, and had released the reins of all forms of discipline. Here I am, he thought, lying on his back on his bed or on the grass behind his house. Here I am, he said, to God, or to Padfoot, or to someone.

Avarice (August 1973)

He'd grown over the summer, apparently.

When his parents had bought him new robes before his third year at Hogwarts, they'd bought them extra-big and his mom had hemmed them, taking a little bit more of the hem out each year. But last year the hem had been taken out completely and the robes were still just barely long enough. And now it was August, and the robes were several inches too short, not to mention shabby and faded. It was very clear to everyone that Remus would need new robes for his sixth year.

His father took him to Fagin's Wizard Fashions, a chain clothing store that was a good deal less expensive than Madame Malkin's or any of the shops in Hogsmeade. Mr. Lupin bought Remus six new sets of school robes, two of church robes, and one of dress robes, even though Remus knew his family couldn't afford them.

"Make it out to my Gringotts vault," Mr. Lupin told the sales clerk, and as he scribbled the number and John Brennan Lupin on a slip of paper Remus realized that it was a debt, that his father was paying with money he didn't currently have. It reminded him of the moment he'd realized his family wasn't as wealthy as James's or Peter's or especially Sirius's, and of when he'd come to understand that his family had lost a lot of money since he'd been born, that before leaving Ireland and before the war and before having their son bitten by a werewolf and standing up against the Ministry and the whole story being plastered all over the papers, the Lupins had actually been well off.

Remus knew his family's money problems were his fault, that he had gotten bitten by a werewolf and dragged down the family name, but standing in Fagin's holding his new, expensive robes, he didn't feel guilty at all. He felt angry with his parents for having a child when they couldn't properly support one, angry with God for screwing him over.

Remus got a job working at Honeyduke's. It was on the other side of England from where he lived and he was 16 and couldn't apparate so he had to take the Floo Network, but he didn't mind, because working in Hogsmeade meant he could keep doing it once school started. He liked the end of the month when a post owl flew to his window with a note for one galleon and seventeen sickles.

Remus stored the note in a little box he kept in his school trunk, and he wouldn't spend his money on anything. He imagined being an adult as rich as one of the Malfoys, and buying all his robes at boutiques and all his food from gourmets and being happy. He imagined shouting at Sirius, "Now you can't say I don't know what it's like to be you!" even though he knew it wasn't quite fair, that being as wealthy as the Blacks wasn't the same as being Sirius, and that Sirius had never been happy.

Remus felt like being unfair, though, to Sirius, and he kept working and stashing the small notes in his box like hopes or promises, and refused to spend them on anyone.

Pride (October 1973)

It lay in his hands, the material proof of how hard he'd worked, of how much he deserved a divine dispensation after what he'd been through.

The round red O, painted at the top of his third essay for NEWT level Potions. Very good work, Mr. Lupin, it said. I knew you had it in you, Slughorn had written. About a month into school Remus had remembered that he had caused so many problems for his parents, who did after all love him, and the least he could do was try his best at the things he could control.

Remus could see over Fabian's shoulder the essay lying on the desk in front of Remus's and James's, the essay he knew belonged to Sirius. He could see the grade, even - A. Just "Adequate," the worst grade Sirius had ever gotten in Potions except for that time he'd flunked a test on purpose so he could join "Ickle Moonykins" in his first ever detention.

Remus shook his head to banish the memories and stared into the flame beneath his cauldron. He was happy, he thought, to have done so well. He had done better than Sirius, even, but he wasn't sure how to call what he felt about that.

"Hey, James," Remus asked. "How'd you do?"

"E," he said pleasantly. James's best subject was, after all, Transfiguration. "You?"

Remus wanted to say it out loud, loud enough that the boys working at the desk in front of his could hear. "I got an O," he said grandly. He felt a smile forming on his lips. Sirius turned in his seat and watched Remus with an expression on his face like that of a child who has just been slapped.

Remus looked at the other boy and felt the glowing warmth of validation - he was better than Sirius. He smiled innocently, licking his lips and knowing he looked good, that the fire lit his face and his hair with a warm golden glow. He asked, "Aren't you proud of me, Pads?" He watched Sirius's jaw tighten. "What'd you get?"

"Sirius!" shouted Fabian, and Remus saw that the boys' cauldron was simmering and frothing over. Suddenly it exploded, showering the entire class in foamy orange slime. Sirius caught Remus's arrogant gaze before standing and storming from the room.

Remus looked back at Sirius's empty seat, where the cauldron was tamely rocking to a stop. He wondered if there were good people and bad people, just like there were sinners and saints, or if everyone was mean from time to time.

Envy (November 1973)

Remus didn't think of himself as a jealous person. Sirius was a jealous person. Sirius would parade around, boasting about his beauty or his intelligence or what a rebel he was, how many drugs he'd done. Then, the minute someone else was complimented for something he considered one of his particular talents, he would storm off in a huff, and be irritable for the rest of the day.

Remus could easily see his classmate noticing the girl he liked get noticed by some other bloke, and going completely St. Mungo's with jealousy. If Sirius couldn't steal the girl back, there would be no telling how much to far Sirius could take it - Remus pictured the fist-fights with Snivellus, he pictured the very worst, nastiest pranks the Marauders had ever pulled.

Remus hated Sirius. Or rather, he kept reminding himself that he hated Sirius. He had tried to forget that the other boy existed, but had settled on hating him when it turned out that ignoring him was impossible because the sodding poofter turned up everywhere.

Except that Sirius wasn't a poofter - far from it, in fact. Remus was very clear on that fact, as was just about everyone with eyes, because Sirius was always all over some girl or another. Remus watched over the top of his book as Sirius shoved his tongue down a Fifth Year's throat, trailing his fingers down her neck. "Get a room!" someone shouted somewhere, but neither Sirius nor his conquest made any move to leave the Common Room.

Remus knew that the couple had no idea he was there, since he'd come downstairs after they'd already been going at it for a while, so he figured it would be alright to watch. Sirius, he noticed, was actually a good kisser; I suppose his reputation isn't all talk, Remus said to himself. Sirius sucked on the girl's tongue, dragging it into his mouth, and his hands roamed over her shoulders and back. He bit her lip, dragging his teeth along it hungrily until they dropped it, and it fell back into her smile, red and raw and ready.

There was a nagging feeling in his stomach as Remus watched Sirius pressing tickling kisses down the girl's neck, his curtain of dark, satin hair sliding over his pale, pink-cheeked face. As Sirius pressed his mouth to hers, tangling his hands in her hair, lapping up her lips, lids closed in passion over those bright, blue eyes like Padfoot's, Remus realized he felt nauseous. And then, just then, those blue eyes opened, and wandered over the girl lying in a daze of passion, over the room and then to Remus, and Sirius pulled back from the girl like he'd been burned.

Suddenly Remus realized several things: that he had dropped his book sometime and it had fallen to the floor, bending the pages; that he was clenching the arms of his chair with white-knuckled fingers; that he felt crazy, like a murder convict, like a monster, like the wolf.

"Remus," he heard someone plead as tried to stand and escape to his dorm bathroom. He needed to...get...out...

And then he was doubled over, retching on the floor, and then on hands and knees, and people were crowding around him saying Remus, Remus, you're sick, he's sick take him to Pomfrey, someone, Remus, and he let himself be wiped off and half-carried out of the Common Room and down some stairs and up some other ones and finally laid on a bed.

Wrath (December 1973)

Someone had put flowers and some candy beside his bed. The flowers were small, in a delicate jar, and they were a shocking, lovely blue, and he knew he would hate Forget-Me-Nots forever because they were the same color as Sirius's eyes and he would never be able to forget Sirius, anyway.

"Morning. How are you feeling?"

Remus turned and saw it was Sirius, complete with his black velvet hair and flower-blue eyes. Remus growled at himself; he was not a girl and he had to stop thinking like one.

"Worse now that you're here," he replied acidly, turning over to look out the window, away from Sirius. For a minute or two no sound came from Sirius, and Remus assumed the usually loud and obnoxious Gryffindor had left. He was just about to turn back around when he felt Sirius sit down on the bed behind him.

Remus growled again, this time more loudly. "What part of 'fuck off and leave me the hell alone' doesn't make sense to you?" he demanded.

The bedsprings creaked as Sirius shifted, and Remus thought he might have felt the ghost-light touch of Sirius's fingers on his shoulder before they pulled away. "The part where I leave you alone," he said softly. "I care about you," he gently murmured.

"If you 'care' about me, then do what I ask and fucking leave me alone!" Remus's voice was like an animal noise, quiet but feral and deadly.

"Listen, I know that you like me," Sirius began again, his voice growing more bold as he became frustrated.

"I what?" Remus asked, turning around to glare. Sirius was watching him, and Remus felt imprisoned by those piercing eyes, pinned to the hospital bed like a submissive lover.

"You - " Sirius paused. "I saw how jealous you were yesterday, when I was with Elise."

"Who's Elise?"

Sirius closed his eyes - the blue vanished, and Remus felt instantly more in control. "Gryffindor, a year below us...You know, the one I was snogging..."

Remus shrugged, knowing it would drive Sirius mad. Calmly, he said, "I didn't notice."

"I...Damn it, Remus, stop with all that aloof bullshit! I know you're just pretending..." He took a breath, and began again. "I know you like me, okay? And maybe you're mad at me, maybe you hate me, but that doesn't mean you weren't jealous yesterday, because you were. I know you were, we all saw it."

Remus stared at Sirius. Calm fury, he thought, just like his father had always simmered with when the family got in fights. I guess boys really do turn out like their fathers, Remus realized briefly, and then he said, "You're right, Sirius. I do hate you. I think you are a disgusting, rotten pureblood, just like every Black that has ever come before you. And I wasn't jealous yesterday - I really was sick! It sickens me to think of anyone kissing you and touching you when you reek of snobbery and prejudice and old money and torture and dark magic and evil and Voldemort - !"

In the one second of silence that followed, Remus thought about the most ridiculous thing, cared about the most insignificant detail. Voldemort, he'd said Voldemort instead of You-Know-Who, even though names were supposed to wield power and that was why you called God "God" or "The Lord" and not by his real name, which no one knew because it was too potent. Remus wondered why it was like that, what everyone was so afraid of.

And then the moment had passed, and he was watching Sirius recoil, all expression draining from his face. Remus was secretly scared of Sirius's icy version of hurt, that was pain and anger and cruelty and calm all at once. It reminded him of an old wood engraving he'd seen of Salazar Slytherin.

And then Sirius had turned and stalked from the room, his open robes flapping behind him. And for the first time since the Prank that none of them ever mentioned, it was more than just Moony missing Padfoot.

Remus missed Sirius. And he missed the Marauders.

Gluttony (March 1974)

Remus woke up to the sticky sweet smell he associated with summer mornings, the smell of sunlight and Mrs. Potter's breakfasts and slightly-melted chocolate. It was a memory he was smelling, a memory of the August all the Marauders had stayed at the Potters' before their fifth year.

It had been the morning after James's 15 birthday, and all four of them had been drinking smuggled Red Currant Rum the night before. When he'd awoken James and Peter had still been sleeping off their hangovers, but Sirius had been lying on his bed on his stomach, flipping through the Daily Prophet and drawing mustaches on all the people in the pictures. Remus remembered that morning fondly, because when he had gone over to sit on Sirius and laugh at him, Sirius had grabbed him and wrestled him down until their bodies were close and their faces were closer and Sirius had said, You know who my best mate is, Moony? It's not Prongs anymore...it's you...

"Remus...Remus, are you awake?"

Remus shifted, feeling the cotton of the bedclothes under his cheek. He thought it was tragic, really, how they never used their Marauder names anymore, not after the Prank. He missed the four of them, the notorious group of pranksters, instead of just Remus and James and Peter and then Sirius, all off on his own because he was the reason the Marauders had broken up.

"Remus, you'd better get up, mate, or Pete'll eat your birthday present." Remus blinked and looked around the dormitory blearily, before finding a huge breakfast tray floating in the air beside him. It had porridge and waffles just like Mrs. Potter had made the first morning James was 16, and strawberries drowning in thick chocolate syrup. And lying on the tray spelling out Happy 17^th Birthday Remus were hundreds of the small, tin-foil wrapped chocolates that he and Sirius had clutched in their warm hands that morning, huddled together on the bed, whispering.

"Whoever left it there must have gone to the kitchens, because Merlin knows we didn't have that for breakfast this morning," James went on.

"Who..." Remus began, already feeling his stomach tumbling with want and need, his mouth watering for all the chocolate decadence. Peter looked away from the food just long enough to look clueless, but James's face sported a bemused, devious expression. It made Remus think, Prongs is back.

"A secret admirer, I believe," was all James would say before bursting out laughing and dragging Peter out of the room.

Remus reached out for one of the small chocolates, turning it over and over in his fingers. It was the exact same kind they'd had at James's house - an expensive import from a confectioner in Zurich, absolutely delicious. Remus remembered Sirius's long, slender fingers unwrapping the foil, tearing it in impatience, and carrying the slightly-melting sweet until it disappeared between his eager lips.

Lust (April 1974)

"SIRIUS ORION BLACK, I WILL KILL YOU!" bellowed James as he barged into the Common Room sporting the head of a donkey.

Sirius pretended to cower in fear on the sofa beside Remus. "Oh no! I'm too young to die!"

"I, for one, think it's very erudite," Remus commented wryly. "An obvious reference to Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I didn't realize our Mr. Black had read any Shakespeare."

When James grabbed a sofa cushion and made to attack the dog animagus, Sirius jumped up and ran around the room, screaming, "Doest thou knowest, I am a flower, plucked from the stem before my prime! A goose, that thou hast slaughtered several weeks before Christmas! I will most tragically die a virgin death!" he exclaimed, before both he and James collapsed in laughter.

Remus scoffed. "Give the virgin thing a rest, you git. Do we look stupid to you?"

Sirius laughed and plopped down beside Remus once more. "James does. But anyway, I am too young. No one should ever die at sixteen, still a child - it's very sad."

"You're seventeen tomorrow, you prat."

"You remembered!" Sirius cried. "You've got no idea what that means to me, my dear Moony."

However, Remus had noticed the way Sirius's eyes seemed to follow him, the way his pale cheeks would redden if he got caught staring when Remus was changing for bed, the way Sirius's lips tugged into a smile whenever Remus was laughing, and Remus thought he had an idea.

Sirius had retreated into one of his horrible Sirius moods when Remus was going to have a girlfriend - Sandra, from Ravenclaw - and another, worse one when Remus told him about shagging Sandra, and enjoying it. Sirius himself hadn't dated anyone since before the Prank. And then, of course, there were those drunken nights of Quidditch victory celebration when Sirius just could not keep his hands or his eyes or sometimes even his lips off of Remus, and maybe Sirius really didn't remember his behavior in the morning, but Remus was only pretending to have forgotten.

Yes, Remus was pretty sure he had a good idea of how much he meant to Sirius, but he wasn't sure what he wanted to do about it. He talked to Sirius now, sometimes even called him Padfoot, but what Sirius had done had been an inexcusable betrayal and Remus certainly hadn't forgiven him and couldn't see that he ever would.

So instead he watched Sirius's Adam's apple move up and down as he talked, and imagined sucking on it, and said nothing.

The next morning in the blue-gray dawn Remus crawled out of bed and padded over to the bed next to his. He froze for a moment, to make sure he heard three sleeping heartbeats. Then quietly he pulled aside the curtains and climbed into the foreign bed.

Sirius slept balled up, like a fetus. It was strange to see such a loud, energetic boy who exuded so much sex sleeping like an infant. Remus crawled up until he was holding himself over Sirius's naked chest and he remembered, drawing in a fast breath, that Sirius slept next to naked. "Sirius," he whispered, dipping his tongue inside the sleeping boy's ear. "Pads..."

Sirius jolted awake, and Remus could hear the strong heartbeat racing. "Fuck, Remus!" he panted. Remus wanted to know how much Sirius had felt or remembered.

"You're of age today," Remus murmured, and he could feel how close together they were, and he knew Sirius could feel it too. After a moment, Remus bent down and licked a trail from Sirius's collarbone to just under his ear, and he felt the other boy shiver.

"Please don't tell me you were waiting for that," Sirius gasped. "That would be so like you, trying to be legal and all."

Remus blew air onto the wet part of Sirius's neck. "Oh, what I have planned is hardly legal. Shagging at school - which is a public place - and in front of two underage wizards? Hullo, Azkaban." Holding Sirius beneath him, he pressed his lips to Sirius's, reached inside with his tongue, and tugged on the slack bottom lip with his teeth. "Turn over."

At first it looked like Sirius was going to obey, but then he sat up and possessively grabbed Remus's face in his two hands, smashing their lips together in a passionate kiss that refused to end until Remus tore away for a gasping breath. Sirius said, "Okay."

"Silencio," Remus cast on the red velvet canopy. He moved to straddle the back of Sirius's waist and then reached out, massaging the other boy's shoulders, playing with the longish strands of hair.

"Moony..." Sirius mumbled into the pillow. Remus loved the jolt of pleasure when his groin pressed against Sirius's back, and so he pressed down harder.

"Have you done this before, Sirius? With a boy?"

Sirius gasped as his earlobe was drawn into a hot, wet mouth. "Y-yes. It's loads better than with girls."

Remus nipped at the creamy skin of Sirius's neck, and then bit down, sucking harder. Sirius whimpered and wriggled with desire. Remus reached underneath Sirius and raised his hips up, grasping Sirius's erection through his underwear and squeezing tightly.

"Don't move," Remus told him, and pulled away to remove his own pajamas. He started with the top, fumbling with the buttons. Suddenly there was another pair of hands, working quickly beneath his, from the bottom instead of from the top until they met in the middle.

"Buttons are hard when you're horny," Sirius informed him, sliding the shirt off Remus's shoulders and down his arms. He bent his head to lick and nibble and suck at Remus's scarred neck and chest, murmuring, so beautiful... Remus pulled Sirius's underwear down his thighs, and felt Sirius untying the pajama bottoms, slipping them down, and then Sirius was lying naked on his back underneath Remus, and it was so much harder to lie on top of the boy and look at his face instead of the back of his head.

"You're gorgeous," Sirius whispered to him, and Remus wondered if he had to say anything about the smooth, creamy expanse of skin beneath him, the black satin hair, the wide, alluring smile, the electric blue eyes, or if it was obvious. Sirius pulled Remus's chin up and met his gaze with a grin. "Have you? Before?"

Remus remembered the lazy afternoon last summer when the warmth had melted away his resolve and there had been the boy from the village, not Hogwarts material but still a wizard and carrying with him the allure of transgression and the radiant blond of sunlight and everything a Black wasn't. His eyes were green, not blue, and his smile was quick and lop-sided and cute but not dazzling and he had no idea how much he couldn't reach, how much Remus kept closed off and locked away, and he spoke with the low purr of control and static adoration: come here, baby, bend over, tell me if it hurts... and all Remus was giving was his body in exchange for a world of sensation -

"Yes," he said as he pressed in between Sirius's legs, as Sirius gave himself over. No, he could have said, I haven't, not like this. And then he spiraled away, lost in the feeling that was stronger and better than any piety or grandeur with gilded spires or engraved pews or stained-glass windows, reaching higher and greater than any God, and it spoke to him, panting, whimpering, fuck Remus I love you Moony...

And Remus found himself gasping in air that stung his lungs and stretched out on another warm damp body, his head nestled into a heady-smelling neck, and felt strong gentle hands stroking his arms. Sirius mumbled into the tangle of Remus's wet hair, "Moony, I -"

Remus stiffened, a sort of fear igniting in his belly. "The others will be awake soon..."

"Remus..." Sirius swallowed. "Do you..."

Remus sat up and started pulling on his underwear and pajama bottoms.

"It's alright," Sirius said, dropping back to his pillows with so much casual grace it almost hurt to watch. "Friends shag too, sometimes, right?" and he seemed careless, effortless, light, and the distance between them suddenly was immense.

Remus felt panicked. "I don't know," he said, sinking.

"We're still friends. Aren't we?"

"I don't know," Remus said.

And Sirius didn't nonchalant now, he seemed desperate. "We can forget about it," he whispered. "Please."

Remus shook his head, "no" to something, he wasn't sure what, and he backed up and off the bed and escaped, from the bed and from the pale dawn and from the castle, and he kept running until everything reached him and he collapsed on the roof under the turrets and the cold morning sky, panting and dragging in raspy breaths.

As his heart pounded he looked up through the pulsing sun-streaked sky, something he would want to draw except he had stopped when the world had lost its beauty, up through it to nothing except more sky. Is God even real, he wanted to know, or is that just another lie? Dad says it's true but I don't know, I don't know...Because Mr. Lupin lived in a world that wasn't Remus's and he loved his son and wanted him to be part of it but maybe Remus just couldn't be fully, just like Sirius was always part of and not part of the Blacks -

Please, Moony, he heard, Please, and he thought, Sirius, I hate you,

and he thought of every smile and whisper, the graceful fingers unwrapping the chocolates, a secret moment just theirs, and every touch and brush of hands and the one lazy summer they had spent together at the Potters' falling into bliss instead of disaster, and I love you, Moony, all of it lies,

and he thought of that night, when the boundless canine force inside of him strained at its fetters, lusting after the ripping of flesh and the blinding rush of another's agony, partly because of feral instinct but also because it could sense the human emotions of hurt and anger, and the one waning piece of his tame consciousness seeing Snape and begging, praying, Please, Sirius, Please.

Please be here. I need you.

Forgiveness (May 1974)

It had taken Remus four whole days to think of what to say, and the Marauder's Map to figure out where to go, but now that Sirius was right there sitting by himself on the doorstep to Hagrid's hut, Remus was at a loss again. He looks so sad, Remus thought, and it reminded him of how he felt in empty cathedrals - filled with a kind of melancholy awe that had everything to do with the beauty of where he was and nothing to do with what it meant.

Remus had drawn the Map and, while using it that morning, he'd wished he could draw Sirius, the little sketch lines together forming the brows, the hair, the long, straight nose, the broad grin. But now he watched the boy - a man, now, really - and decided he'd rather draw him like this, such a different Sirius from the loud, wild one he'd always known. Brooding, yes, but quietly and regretfully, and pensive, as he looked out into the distance, hugging his knees to his chest.

"Hey," Remus said, and he wished after that he hadn't spoken because the word had shattered the silence of the Sunday morning. Sirius looked up.

Realizing that there was really a lot of the dog in Sirius, Remus approached slowly, giving the other boy time to back up or growl in warning. Sirius made no move except to look away again and then being near Sirius felt like chasing through miles and miles of snow-covered fields to see a bounding black dog just disappearing beyond the horizon.

"Sirius," he said. "Pads."

"What do you want."

"I want to talk to you." Remus took a breath. "We need to talk."

He closed his eyes and thought about how he really didn't want to say he was sorry because even though he sort of was, he still thought Sirius had deserved to pay a sort of penance for what he'd done, and even though he knew Sirius didn't understand sorry and almost never said it, he wanted to hear an apology first.

He opened his mouth. "Sirius, I'm sorry."

Sirius turned around, then, and he had been crying. Sirius almost never cried. "For what," he said.

"For..." For using you, he thought. For trying to make you hurt the way I did, the way you probably already did on your own. "For your birthday," he said.

"Yeah, well, I was kind of asking for it."

Remus watched him. "You didn't deserve it, though." Remus ran his hand through his hair, tugging on the longer bits. "Listen, I've really been fucking up, lately."

Sirius laughed. "We both have. You don't even know...all the things I've done." Remus did know - James had told him the worst of it, liquor and drugs and sex with nameless men and women but mostly men, anything Sirius hoped he could use to punish himself, or to forget. "Maybe we could blame it on Snivelly, that's always fun...Sorry," he said, looking down. "It's my fault, you know, that...I had no excuse...I was just jealous, and stupid."

"I know."

"I left home, you know. I don't know if anyone ever told you that. I thought about writing you a letter, but I figured you wouldn't read it." Remus watched Sirius's hair as the breeze played with it. It was unbrushed and appeared unwashed, also, but Remus wanted to touch it almost more than when it was fresh and sleek and beautiful. "My mum was talking about werewolves, and I just couldn't bear to hear it, I couldn't bear to sit there and say nothing after what I'd done, after I'd practically proved myself to be one of them,

"So I told her off, and I just might have thrown a plate of roast beef at her, and I ran upstairs and grabbed my wand and broom and flew off to James's. I had to sneak back in the middle of the night, though, to get all my things. I've never been much good at the planning ahead stuff."

Remus laughed. It felt good, he decided, and he hadn't been doing it nearly enough. Sirius watched him, at first seeming offended, but then starting to laugh too.

"I quit going to church," Remus said after a while. "I decided I was angry at God and I didn't want to do anything for him anymore since he didn't do anything for me. Now I don't even know if I believe in him or not." Sirius was quiet. "It grows on you, you know...evil."

Sirius looked at him. "Don't be stupid. Voldemort is evil, Remus! And my parents...So you don't believe in God. Big fucking deal, you know? You believe in something, don't you? People, maybe? Maybe that's all that matters."

Remus sighed and, after a moment, leaned into Sirius, feeling himself mould to the contours of the broad shoulders, the arms built up from years of swinging the Beater's bat. "Yeah. Maybe."

Remus looked at Sirius and found the other man had been looking at him, but averted his gaze as soon as it had been discovered. Remus joined him in staring into the distance: the lake, painted gold with the young sun, and beyond it forest, and pale-peaked mountains and above that a fresh gray sky, a silent Sunday just at its beginning.

Sirius spoke softly, his voice deep and rough. "I really am sorry, you know. Can you ever forgive me?"

The werewolf looked down at his hands. The morning he'd found out, the instant Sirius had admitted what he'd done, the Remus had thought: No, I can never forget this, he will never deserve absolution. He pictured the dark, cold confessional, murmuring to a face obscured by a grate, my son these are mortal sins, you must stop them at once and never repeat them, you must pray to Holy Virgin and to the Savior, beg of our Lord God to grant you passage to Heaven, but what you have done can never be forgiven...Why confess, he thought, except that you are sorry?

He looked again at Sirius, desperate, needing to hear the words. Maybe he doesn't deserve to be forgiven, Remus thought while drawing with his gaze the miserable eyes, the troubled brow, the contrite jaw, the luscious, sinful, beautiful lips, but maybe, maybe he needs to be. Please be here, he'd thought once, I need you.

Remus twisted around and pressed his lips to the delicious, beautiful ones. "Yes," he said. Sirius smiled - an unsure prequel to one of those expansive Sirius smiles, and Remus kissed him again. And I love you too, he said.