All Kidding Aside

Sirius remained poised against the door, trying to decide if continuing to exact physical punishment upon it would do anything to improve his mood. Of course, it would not change the fact that he had just figuratively stomped on Remus's face and that Remus's was the last face he would have liked to have figuratively stomped on. Or literally for that matter. But he couldn't help but consider destroying something inanimate would help ease his guilt.

After pondering this for a time, Sirius decided it would do nothing. Said realization did not spare the door from one final kick before Sirius turned on his heel and stomped further into the room.

"I am an idiot," Sirius declared, wanting to rip his hair from his scalp. "I am the greatest idiot to have ever been conceived. Brainless, spineless idiot!"

Sirius threw himself on to his bed dramatically, covering his eyes with his arm. He heaved a sigh and swiped at one of the bedposts for good measure. He lay there for a few minutes, pondering the last hour or so of his life and wondering just what he was going to do about it.

How was he supposed to explain going ballistic for no apparent reason? He supposed he could do the usual thing, and rely on his humor and hope that Remus overlooked it, but Remus was different from James or Peter. Even if he seemed to brush the incident off, he would insist on examining it and thinking about it and trying to figure out just what it was that he had done wrong to set Sirius off. And it was ridiculous for him to dwell on that because he hadn't done anything.

He had just had sex with someone else and not bothered to tell Sirius about it. And he'd probably had a roaring good time as well, with that someone not named Sirius Black. It had probably been with some girl with a terribly boring name who had been incredibly bored one afternoon. She'd seen Remus's depression over what had happened and pretended to comfort him. She'd probably conned him into bed while Sirius and the others were out a of the room or maybe she'd even gone to see Remus over the summer. How was Sirius to know? She'd coaxed toe-curling orgasms out of him only to drop him in the middle of the afterglow. Remus probably felt pangs when he saw her flitting about the castle and pretending that it had never happened. She had likely caused Remus to swear sex off forever and ever, meaning that Sirius didn't have a chance even if he got Remus incredibly drunk that weekend or any number of weekends after it. Not that he was speaking to Sirius in the first place and all because some floozy had offered Remus a good time and absconded with his virginity just to piss Sirius off.

"Bitch," Sirius muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

How could Sirius explain any of that to Remus? And for that matter how could he explain it to himself? Sure, Sirius knew what those random tingly feelings were now, but exactly how long had he been having them anyway? And how long had he been ignoring them and labeling them something else or pinning them to some girl Remus had been standing next to?

He'd done such a thorough job of ignoring the possibility that he had absolutely no memory of when the damn thing had started. For all he knew, he'd been lusting for Remus Lupin since he was just a twinkle on his parents' handcuffs. It was highly unlikely, but then wasn't it highly unlikely that he was a poufter? He certainly hadn't been expecting it.

But he should have been, and he wanted to know for how long.

Sirius turned back to that same bedpost he had hit a few moments before. He pulled his wand out of his robes and pointed it at the section level with head when he sat up straight. He reached forward, watching as his hand disappeared into the wood. It was a hole he had created and cloaked in his first year to hide one very special item that he was not willing to let even his closest friends know about.

It took him a moment, but his fingers finally curled around the object, tightening against the worn leather. He pulled it out swiftly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that James wasn't hovering just outside the window for... whatever reason James hovered outside of windows. And Sirius was certain that James hovered outside of windows and a lot of other despicable, nefarious things.

Well, maybe not, but it was nice to pretend.

Sirius frowned at that thought, glancing down at the very evidence of that in his hand. It was a book, and that alone would have likely shocked his friends so much that at least Peter would have had a heart attack. All the more shocking was that it had handwriting in it. Sirius's handwriting.

But it was NOT a diary. Sirius was adamant about that. It was merely a record of his greatness that he would one day pass on to his children after the other three were dead because he would not endure the teasing of geriatrics about his not-diary.

"I'm not that bloody bent," Sirius muttered.

Sirius had now admitted that he had... Well, that Remus was more important to him than a regular bloke. And for whatever reason, he felt like revisiting his past, grandiose exploits. He wasn't one for introspection, but he felt he owed it to himself to figure out just how long this had been going on, and how long Sirius had refused to actually admit it. He could have just thought about it, but his memories were tainted by his epiphany. He wouldn't be able to get a proper look at what had happened via a Pensieve as he didn't have one, but this would do.

Then again, if he had lied to himself, what could have stopped him from lying to a book?

He shook his head, flipping open the book to the first page. Sirius was sad to see that he hadn't included a warning to all who read it that they would be killed upon laying eyes on the pages within. He could have gone into great detail about their eyes melting out of their sockets and their innards seeping out through their arsehole or something else equally gruesome. He seemed to remember that there had been some plan of doing that, but apparently he hadn't been patient enough at eleven to scribble it down. He'd merely jumped right in.

'JAMES POTTER IS SECOND GREATEST PERSON EVER BORN EVER! Second to me of course. Mum says that it's good that I think highly of myself. Then again, she also said that it would make me right for Slytherin, but guess she was wrong about that. I hope that Reggie owls me and tells me what color her face turns when she learns of this "disaster." Anyway, James (not Jamie, he throws a royal blue fit if you call him Jamie, which means I will only call him that when he is within earshot and will not waste my time writing it down as that would be very wasteful you see), is very funny.'

'There is another boy, other than the round one named Peter Pettigrew (who has a very unfortunate name, with all the P's and T's and such. I think I will suggest we change it to something inappropriate because I need to see the variety of colors Professor McGonagall can turn. I have a feeling she could turn more than even my mother, in which case she is a very talented woman) with us. This other boy is very quiet and calm and he reads incessantly. Honestly, it can't be healthy, all that reading. I am going to try and take his book and figure out what his name is because I cannot remember what it is because he told me while he was reading and James was poking me and Peter Pettigrew (terrible name) was probably rolling around or something and it was all very distracting and I didn't hear.'

'I have just tried to take his book, but it didn't work! It was quite shocking. He just pulled it out of the way and informed us that if we let him finish the chapter, he has some chocolate hidden somewhere that he will give us. Peter Pettigrew is salivating and James is looking all over for it so that he can steal the book anyway. I have returned to you, blank sheets of paper bound into a book that IS NOT A DIARY because surely you have missed me in the time that I have left you.'

'The others think that I am writing a letter. Ha ha. I am so clever. They have no idea what I'm actually doing.'

'I have decided that this very quiet boy, Remus Lupin (which is a name that I think is only slightly less unfortunate than Peter Pettigrew, whose middle name, as it turns out, is Percival, making him Peter Percival Pettigrew. I offered to kill him straight away to end his long years of suffering, but then he got all wobbly and I told him I was joking. Peter Percival Pettigrew did not find this funny and is eyeing me suspiciously. I think that perhaps one of us is slightly mad, and I hope that it is me), is an all right sort. He seems smart and already has a to-do list with his classes and other things. I have decided to give him a list of all the reasons for why I am amazing because it seems like the sort of thing he would like. He also keeps correcting everyone's grammar, so I will misspell everything HORRIBLY and maybe his brain will explode. Sounds like great fun.'

'Oh, and earlier, a Prefect said "FUCKER IN A HANDBASKET!" when a Third Year stomped on his foot for some reason. He saw me looking and told me not to repeat that, so I have decided that I will greet everyone tomorrow by yelling, "FUCKER IN A HANDBASKET" and running away very, very quickly.'

Well, Sirius couldn't detect any overt indication of eleven year old lust, and if he had, he would have been supremely disturbed. There were some things even Sirius thought were disgusting, though admittedly, he would probably use that idea in a joke sometime in the near future. Just because it was nasty didn't mean it wasn't funny by the by.

The next page only had very little written on it by comparison.

'I have gotten detention for my new greeting, and it is wonderful. James is very jealous. Remus keeps looking at me like I'm mad when he isn't reading. It's the most he's looked up from a book since he's gotten here. I AM AMAZING!'

From there, the not-diary was filled with little more than nonsense. If another person was mentioned, it was usually James. There were pages and pages dedicated to the ridiculous stunts he and James had pulled, and it made Sirius feel slightly nostalgic about a time when he hadn't wanted to beat the boy so thoroughly about the head. Other times there were his thoughts on just how Snape's hair could remain so greasy even after dunking him several times in the lake and why James seemed to lose all cognitive abilities when Lily came within twenty feet of him. There was also an occasional hypothesis about Peter's buoyancy or the possibility that they could roll him down the stairs unharmed (theories they had tested and, unfortunately for Peter, were very, very wrong about). As a matter of fact, Remus was probably in the book least of all. There was an occasional rant on his study habits or his good hygiene and one entry in which Sirius lamented the fact that Remus's Prefect status did not guarantee him the right to rule all of Hogwarts.

Then Sirius turned to the last pages in the not-diary. The final entry was dated March 28, 1975, the day after the full moon that month. Ever since then, Sirius had avoided the not-diary, thinking that perhaps revisiting that day would violate the oath of silence the boys had taken once everything had finally gone back to normal at the beginning of their sixth year. But now the words were staring him in the face, and while he knew he probably should have put it away, he couldn't stop from thinking back to that horrible night and reading what he had said.

'Snape should have died. Snape should have fucking died, I don't care what James says. James can hit me as much as he wants and he can yell until he's blue in the face (which he has done several times now), but I'll never stop thinking that Snape should have fucking died. We could have gotten rid of the body. We could have acted like we had no idea what happened to him. We never needed to tell Remus about what happened. James and I could have just sworn ourselves to silence or maybe even gotten a Secret Keeper or something, and no one would have ever had to have known what actually happened to Snivellus. He would have been perpetually missing, and I don't think anyone would have cared that much.'

'It's all his fault anyway. He just wouldn't shut up about any of it. He kept going on about us having a secret and saying that he was going to find out what it was. He just wouldn't let up, saying that he was going to tell everyone what it was. I told him to shut up, I told him to go the hell away, I even kicked him, but he just kept harping on it.'

'I had to say something. I had to get him off my back. So what if I told him where to go to get himself eaten? He deserved it.'

'James didn't seem to see it that way when I told him. He kept yelling and asking if I wanted Remus to be killed, which is ridiculous. It had nothing to do with Moony. I just wanted Snape dead, and who could blame me?'

'But James had to go and be all noble. He insisted that my ideas of keeping it from Remus and hiding our crime were stupid and childish. He tore out of the room like a bat out of hell to go save his sorry arse, and everyone keeps saying that James was heroic, but I think he was stupid. I told him as much, but he informed me that we aren't talking.'

'Remus isn't speaking to me either.'

'It feels different with him. With James, I feel like he'll have worked out all of his anger in a few days and then everything will be back to normal. He might realize how very wrong he was, but he'd never admit it if he did see things my way. We'll just ignore that last night ever happened and we'll be back to running around the place like madmen very soon.'

'But with Remus... it feels permanent. It feels like he might think he'd be better off without me. I'm beginning to wonder if he was preparing himself for something like this. If he was just waiting for me to fail him so that he could sever all ties that he probably shouldn't have even formed in the first place. It makes me angry, but then just about everything seems to be doing that right now, so I can't be sure if it's him or the way his hair is mussed or Madame Pomfrey's smell or what.'

'I think maybe he hates me.'

'He was so angry when James told him what happened. Well, not at first, but he got there pretty quickly. For a minute he just stared, like he couldn't believe what he had been told. His eyes went wide and his mouth hung open a bit. He wasn't really looking at me or Peter or James. He was looking through us. I think maybe I shivered a bit because it wasn't natural, him acting like that. Then he blinked and he was definitely looking right at me. He looked like I'd betrayed him. I never knew that eyes could hurt that much.'

'Then he started yelling. I can't really remember what he said, but there was a lot of him asking how I could have done such and such and if I was really his friend and a lot of other stuff I wasn't really paying attention to. I wasn't daydreaming, but I couldn't seem to make my brain wrap around the words he was saying. I'd never seen him really angry before. I'd seen him exasperated plenty of times, but I never thought that Remus Lupin had the capacity for fury. It was frightening. It was the most scared I'd ever been of him, and I'd seen him as a werewolf.'

'Eventually I realized that James was standing between us and actually trying to hold Remus back, but of course that's ridiculous. Moony could have thrown him across the room if he really wanted to, but I guess he didn't want to hurt James. Finally, I noticed that James was yelling for me to leave, and I did. I think Peter dragged me out. I don't really remember anything for certain except the look Remus was giving me.'

'I don't understand why they don't get it. I'd never hurt Remus. I would have done everything I could do to keep even Remus from finding out about it. I just wanted Snape gone.'

'But now Snape is still here and he knows about Moony, but Dumbledore says he won't say anything. I'm not sure I believe him, and if Snape does try anything, I'll kill him myself.'

'James tells me I'm being selfish. He says that I was using Remus to get rid of Snape. He says that he can't believe he has to live with me for two more years after this.'

'He doesn't understand that I was trying to protect Remus. Snape wanted to find out, and he's Slytherin. He would have done everything he could have to figure out what was going on, and then he would have exposed us. We would have been shipped off to Azkaban, and Remus would have been kicked out of school and then everyone would have known that they were friends with a werewolf. Then he wouldn't have any friends.
What was I supposed to do?'

'I just wanted to keep it from happening. But now Snape knows and he's not dead and James and Remus and even PETER aren't speaking to me.'

'But only Remus hates me, and I'm not sure if I can stand that.'

"James was right," Sirius muttered. "I was an idiot."

Sirius remembered that it had taken James and Peter two weeks to decide that they could forgive Sirius. Well, James decided. Peter just sort of went along with it. Things had been awkward at first, but then things had gotten relatively normal again.

Except that Remus wasn't with them anymore. Remus didn't even look at Sirius anymore if he could help it. When he had to, it didn't last long. Sirius always looked away.

It had taken James the entire summer to make Sirius realize what a selfish idiot he was. Regardless of his intentions, which James said were not nearly as noble as Sirius maintained, Sirius had put Remus in grave danger by threatening to expose him. If Snape had been killed, Dumbledore would have had no choice but to turn Remus in. The customary punishment for a werewolf who killed a wizard was to be put down. They weren't full citizens, so they didn't get the benefit of a trial. No one would have been able to save him.

Sirius tried to deny that, but eventually he had to admit that James was right. When he did that, Sirius got drunk, really drunk, for the first time and sobbed for a very long time. James tried to get him to go see Remus, but Sirius refused, finding that being sullen was preferable to facing the other boy after what he'd done. The remainder of the summer, short though it had been, was spent at the bottom of a bottle of Fire Whiskey and full of crying jags and fits where he threw his things about in hopes of shattering them. He had been a real wreck, and not even James had known what to do in the face of Sirius's behavior.

At the beginning of Sixth Year, Remus had come up to him and asked for a truce. Sirius still had no idea what had prompted this change, but he hadn't bothered to give that any thought. He'd merely hugged Remus until the other boy complained that his ribs were about to collapse, and even then Sirius had been slow to let go.

"That was it," Sirius whispered softly, his eyes closing as if someone had attached tiny weights to his eyelids. "That was when it started."

Sirius felt a little queasy at the epiphany. His stupidity had been the thing that nearly ended their friendship the first time, and it was also responsible for Remus working out his frustrations in the ways many a man had done before him. But that was not all it had caused. Snape's idiotic ramblings and the threat of exposing Remus had been enough to get Sirius to act like a complete lunatic, lashing out senselessly and risking his friend's life in order to save it. By the time the true extent of his madness was realized, Sirius had convinced himself that it was over and that he had lost a very good friend. And when Remus had offered to forgive and forget and never mention again, Sirius had been deliriously happy. But he had been too depressed at the loss and too overjoyed at the mending for it to be simply marked down as an argument between friends.

The same event that pushed Remus into bed with some nameless woman had been the catalyst that Sirius had been searching for.

"I am truly awful," Sirius proclaimed quietly. "And very, very stupid."

It was at that moment that Sirius heard someone try the door, and he hastily closed the not-diary and hid it in the bedpost yet again. He finished in time to see Remus standing in the doorway stowing his wand back into his robes after using it to open the door.

Sirius swallowed when he saw how clearly worried he was. It hurt. It hurt more than Sirius had wanted to admit. He thought that the fight was somehow his fault when it wasn't. It was Sirius's for being an idiot and that nameless girl for having a working sex drive around Remus. Normally, Sirius would have continued to blame Remus in spite of knowing that information, but things were different.

Sirius could only imagine what he was going to ask when he opened his mouth to speak. He could have said, "What did I do? I didn't mean to upset you. How could I repay you? Pay up on those many, many sexual favors I owe you?"

Sirius shook his head a bit. He really had to figure out a way to stop his mind from running away with him so frequently.

"Moony," Sirius said loudly, halting whatever Remus wanted to say in his throat. "Am I thick?"

Remus stared at him for a moment, utterly unsure of how to respond. He looked as if he was wondering if Sirius were going to use this as an opportunity to attack him. But then he seemed to notice the apologetic twinkle (for Sirius could make his eyes twinkle in numerous ways for just about any occasion) in his friend's eye, and he relaxed. Then a cautious smile crept onto his face and Remus said, "I don't know. Drop your trousers, we'll find out."

Sirius's shoulders sagged in relief, and he was surprised to find that he'd actually been holding his breath. Then Sirius briefly considered doing as Remus had asked for dramatic effect, but given his current situation, he decided against it. Instead, he returned the grin and popped off the bed. He was at Remus's side in a second, clapping him on the shoulder. "Moony, I am a right bastard, and you are free to call me so."

"That wouldn't be right," Remus insisted. "I've met your parents."

Sirius wrinkled his nose. "Moony, if you are going to counter my seriousness with jokes, you need to actually make good ones. That was mundane and unbefitting my best mate."

Remus blinked and stared for a minute. His mouth moved as if he was trying to form words, but his brain was refusing to cooperate with the rest of his body again, a problem that Remus encountered on a surprisingly regular basis. Eventually, he shut it and tried again. This time he succeeded. "Your best mate?"

"Well, yeah," Sirius said, suddenly uncomfortable and showing it, something he hated and avoided at all costs. He all but slapped himself to recover from it. "We've always been best mates, haven't we?"

There was only one time when they hadn't been friends at all, but Sirius had already revisited that once.He would not do it twice in one day.

"I just..." Remus said, his voice still a bit aghast. "Find that a very odd thing for you to say after trying to eat me."

Sirius blinked. "I tried to eat you? The werewolf? I'm not so sure that would have gone over well."

Remus shrugged a bit awkwardly and he looked much, much older. "I just mean that--"

"I know," Sirius said, waving him off. "It's just my way of... apologizing, you great woman."

Remus stared again for a moment, and then looked down, nodding.

Sirius suspected that he'd said the wrong thing and quickly followed it up. "I still mean it, but it occurred to me that I'd never said it before. I mean James,
back when I was speaking to him, he was too, but in a... different sort of way. James was... James, and you... well, you're not James. Actually, you sort of were that one time with the Polyjuice, but that was just to make you turn funny colors really. All in good fun."

Sirius forced himself to stop. He was rambling. Sirius Black did not ramble unless he was doing so with a nonsensical purpose. This was just nonsensical, and he would not have it.

Remus still appeared to not quite know how to react, his eyes darting about like Peter's when he heard loud noises. Sirius was suddenly filled with a rather ridiculous fear that Remus was somehow not thrilled with this information, which Sirius could not begin to understand. After discovering that Remus had felt shut out, even for a minute, but James and Sirius, he'd wanted to undo the damage. He'd thought maybe this would do the trick, and if it didn't, Sirius didn't know what he was going to do short of the naked hula. Then again, he doubted that would be helpful.

Finally, Remus nodded and said, "Okay."

Sirius blinked, a little put off by the small reaction. On the other hand, it was not as if Remus was going to throw himself into Sirius's arms and get all weepy. He would have been tempted to clock him if he had, and Sirius gathered that that was a very inappropriate thing to do to the boy you had a crush on.

"Okay," Sirius repeated, smiling.

"Could I ask a question?" Remus voiced seconds later.

"Only if you raise your hand," Sirius joked, wondering if he would actually do it.

He didn't, and Sirius was a little sad. "Why did you get so upset about the... thing?"

Sirius wondered if he should tease Remus about his inability to say the word now that it had been made personal, but he decided against it. After all, he had to come up with a suitable answer that wouldn't make him seem like a poufter, and that was going to take some quick thinking. It took him a moment, but he managed to come up with a solution that would solve both problems. He batted his eyelashes and leaned in saying, "Didn't you know that I wanted to be your first?"

Remus snorted, pushing Sirius away. "Oh, you're very funny, Sirius."

"No, really," Sirius insisted, his voice leaping up into a falsetto. "It had long been a dream of mine. It was the last thing I thought about in the morning and the first thing I thought of at the end of a long day. It consumed my thoughts and sent me into confession on many an occasion, and eventually they could not come up with penance strong enough for my sinful desires. But it was a beautiful dream nonetheless, and you shattered it, you... great dream-shatter, you."

"Are you going to call me a cad and slap me?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows.

Sirius's shoulders sagged and he dropped into his normal register. "Well, not now that you've suggested it."

Remus bent his head, looking solemn. "I'm very sorry, Padfoot."

"As you should be," Sirius said with a sharp nod. "Some best mate you are."

Remus smiled a bit at that. "I am ever so sorry for not preserving myself for you and hope you will someday learn to forgive me of my transgression."

Sirius shrugged. "Maybe. You know me and mood swings. Inherited from my mother's side of the family, so there's no telling really."

Remus nodded knowingly, still smiling. Sirius was fairly certain that he had smoothed over any of Remus's fears at what had happened, and hopefully distracted him from demanding a real answer. But just in case Remus was doing anymore of that troublesome thinking, Sirius slung an arm around Remus's shoulders that was very palsy until he pulled him down into a headlock.

Remus yelped and bent over at an uncomfortable angle. "Your armpit smells really, really terrible you know."

"I do," Sirius concurred, struggling to keep Remus from throwing him about or something else of that sort. "But you see, I figure that if I keep you in this position, you will tell me who you did the dirty tango with."

Remus groaned very loudly, sounding a bit pathetic. "Sirius..."

"Tell me, or you will never be able to get the stench out of you nose," Sirius threatened.

Remus sighed testily. "Why are you so desperate to know?"

Well, Sirius knew exactly why he was desperate to know. So that he could go out and find this woman and turn her into a mushroom so that he could throw her into a salad he would give to a very old woman who kept forgetting to brush her teeth. But saying this would be a very, very bad plan of action, so he did not.

"My curiosity is insatiable," Sirius admitted. "It's a disease really."

"So is it a really a good idea for me to feed your addiction?" Remus questioned.

"Tell me right now or I will tie all of your socks and underwear to the end of my broom and fly around Hogwarts like it's a banner," Sirius threatened. "And then I will dump it in some mud puddle or quicksand, and you will be entirely without socks and underwear for the rest of your days."

Remus pondered whether or not this was really a good a reason for him to say, but eventually he shook his head (as best as he could with Sirius's arm clamped around his neck anyway) and answered, "It's no one you know. Just some... friend I've known since I was a kid."

Sirius found himself pouting. He had been so hoping that he could march right up to the Girl's Dormitory and exact his revenge, but no such luck. It seemed that Sirius would have no way to carry out his second vendetta for some time, and he found that bothersome.

"How was it?" Sirius asked, pretending to be casual, his arm still trapping Remus in what was probably a very painful position.

Remus was beginning to sound annoyed, and Sirius thought that was mildly amusing. "Very awkward. And speaking of awkward, now that I have told you, you are more than welcome to release me before I get a crick in my neck or you throw my spine out of alignment or something."

Sirius shrugged. "I don't know. This is sort of fun for me."

"I will bite you in a minute," Remus insisted as his face began to change color.

"Not until I tell you where I like it," Sirius countered, grinning wickedly. Of course, before he had a chance to elaborate, Remus did in fact bite, lungingin his direction and then shoving him into a wall. It was the beginning of a rather grand wrestling match that continued all the way down the hall and even after they'd both fallen down the stairs and bloodied themselves up a bit.

Sirius just kept on being himself, business as usual. After all, there was a grand prank to be carried out the next day. Sirius certainly couldn't let the happy feelings between his legs get in the way of pretending to have sex with Remus Lupin.

He stopped rather abruptly as it finally dawned on him.

He was going to have to pretend to have sex with Remus Lupin... when he really would not have minded actually having sex with Remus Lupin.

"Oh, fuck me."