In A Time Of Uncertainty

Part Four, Chapter Nine

"Perce, it's too hot to sleep with you on top of me."

"Too bad," Percy murmured. His hands pressed against Oliver's shoulders. He is alive. He is here and he is mine and he is not dead.

"Percy, really. I love you, but we've got a busy day tomorrow and we really need to sleep. Come on, off." Oliver tried to nudge Percy over to the other side of the bed but was unsuccessful. "I'm right here, beautiful, I'm not going to go anywhere if you lie on your own side of the bed."

"I'm going to Canada on Sunday," Percy said morosely. "If I died you'd wish you'd let me sleep on top of you."

Sitting up, Oliver physically lifted Percy off of him and set his lover down with his head on the other pillow. "You aren't going to die. I'm not going to die," he said with conviction. "We are both going to survive this war and when it's over we'll settle down and live peaceful lives. I'll go back to Quidditch if I can and you'll do what you want. Do you believe me?"

"I believe you," said Percy, "but I don't believe the Death Eaters will be inclined to agree with you."

There was a frustrated sigh and then Oliver took Percy's hand. "Don't let Remus and Sirius depress you, Perce."

"I can't help but let it depress me," Percy said. The fingertips that had touched the dog tag felt different from his other skin. "I don't to be left with memories and a wardrobe with clothes that still smell like you."

Oliver's other hand rested on Percy's neck, and suddenly Percy was overcome with the urge to verify that Oliver was alive. He grabbed him and kissed him hard on the mouth. Oliver let out a small sound of protest.

"Look, in the morning you'll - "

"Ol, just shut up," Percy whispered. He was aroused, not so much from desire as from necessity. He climbed on top of Oliver and quickly undressed him.

"Percy - "

"I need to feel you," he breathed, the trembling in his voice barely restrained. "Please, Oliver. Please."

Oliver lay back and nodded, his lips pressed together. Their lovemaking was brief and intense. I know you are alive because I feel your sweat, Percy thought. I know you are alive because you cry out as I enter you and grip my back as I thrust. As you wrap your legs around mine I feel their weight and know that I am not dead.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

" - up, love, there's someone to see you."

Percy opened his eyes and immediately shut them again. The sun that came in through the window was too bright.

"Percy, Remus is here to see you." A large hand ran its fingers through Percy's hair. "He won't mind if you just throw on your dressing gown and talk to him. Come on, I don't want to keep him waiting. Can you hear me, Perce?"

He forced himself to open his eyes and nodded. "What time is it?"

"Around seven o'clock in the morning. Breakfast is made, I've eaten already. I don't need to be at the Puddlemere pitch until half past nine."

"Remus is here to see me?"

"Yes. Not me, you, he specified you." Oliver opened the wardrobe and took out Percy's dressing gown.

When Percy walked into the kitchen he saw Remus before Remus saw him, although the image took a moment to register in his mind because Remus was wearing a pair of jeans and an un-tucked white oxford shirt. After a second Remus looked up from his plate of scrambled eggs and smiled. "I hope I didn't wake you too early."

"Not really," said Percy in a slightly dazed voice. He sat down on the chair opposite from Remus's seat and reached for a cup of coffee; just as he was taking his first sip Oliver's voice called, "Make sure you eat something other than coffee, Perce!"

Percy rolled his eyes; Remus laughed softly. "The eggs are very good."

"Yeah, Ol's eggs usually are." Percy scooped some from the bowl in the middle of the table onto his plate. "So, he said you - "

"Yes," said Remus. "I want to talk to you.

"First of all," he began, "if a person is going to investigate a place without the owner's knowledge, he would do well to make sure that everything, including dog tags, is exactly the way he found it when he leaves."

Percy's hand froze with his fork over his plate. Oh damn. Oh shit.

When he finally made himself look at Remus he found that the other man did not appear angry. "I don't blame you, Percy," he said. "When I was your age and younger I didn't think anything of going through other people's things if I felt they weren't being completely honest with me."

"I didn't think you were lying," Percy said. "I thought you were - "

"Withholding information?"

"Well, yeah. I mean," he continued quickly, "I couldn't understand how it was that you and Oliver got along so well, after he'd just joined the Order a few days before I did. And when he didn't tell me I didn't know what to think."

"I wouldn't be upset with Oliver," Remus said. "He was keeping a promise he made to me; one that I know now I shouldn't have asked him to keep."

"I'm not upset with him," said Percy, and then, "He promised you he wouldn't tell me about you and Sirius?"

Remus slowly set down his fork and lowered his eyes. "Yes. The reasons I asked him to are a bit complicated, but I'll tell them to you if you want to hear them - " he looked up " - which I assume you do."

"Yes. I do."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"To begin with," Remus said, "when I was your teacher I had the feeling that you were attracted to men. It wasn't anything in particular that you said or did, it was just a general sort of intuition. Perhaps all former closeted prefects have a way of recognizing their modern-day counterparts."

Percy smiled. "You were a prefect?"

"Oh yes. I'm afraid you would have found me a horrible one, but yes, I was a prefect.

"Once I had that feeling, I didn't give it much thought. That year I was hiding two volatile secrets: that I am a werewolf and that Sirius had been my former lover. Either one of those things, in the hands of the wrong people, could have had me legitimately sacked."

"A person can get sacked for being queer?"

"No, a person can get sacked if their lover is Azkaban's most notorious prisoner since Grindelwald and there's reason to suspect their loyalties towards their lover haven't changed. Which mine had, not that I could have proved it. I was fully convinced Sirius was a traitorous murderer and every time I saw his picture in the Prophet I wanted to reach into it and throttle him. Of course I never wanted to believe it, but I'd told myself I would be a fool to keep thinking otherwise.

"As I'm sure you know, the strain of keeping secrets is emotionally exhausting."

"Yeah," Percy agreed, remembering covert glances at handsome boys and the constant fear that someone would notice.

"I had two secrets, and if I didn't keep constant vigilance over both of them my life could take a definite turn for the worse. By the end of the school year I was close to my breaking point. Do you remember the day I became angry at Marcus Flint?"

"I remember when you stared him down and I thought the perpetual calmness might have finally snapped," said Percy.

"Well, it hadn't, but I had. I've become used - a bit too used, Sirius always said - to hiding my emotions. When I become angry I tend to abandon my better judgement. That day I had a point to make and I was going to make it no matter what. So I decided to ask a question, and unfortunately I asked you."

Percy remembered the feel of the blood rising in his face, the alarmed thoughts flashing in his head. "That's all right," he muttered.

"No, it wasn't. If I had given it a second's thought I never would have asked you. That isn't the main part of my explanation, but keep it in mind as I continue.

"You should be proud to know that Oliver was a great help to me shortly after Sirius's death. He joined the Order the day after it happened, and while everyone else's thoughts ran along the lines of 'oh, poor Remus, yet another tragedy in his life', Oliver's were ignorant and that ignorance made all the difference. He didn't pity me. He didn't pity me, and it was the knowledge that someone didn't see me as fragile that helped me to believe in my own strength. When he learned that Sirius had been my lover his opinions toward me didn't change.

"And then he started dating you.

"He confided in me about the relationship - not the intimate moments, don't worry about that, but the general updates and his uncertainties about you. Oliver wanted to be with you but he was worried that you'd talk yourself out of it. At that point, of course - and at this point too, if I'm honest with myself - most of my thoughts were about Sirius. The good times, the things I wish I'd said to him, the things I wish I hadn't said to him, the times when in retrospect we would have been all right if we'd taken the extra minute to listen to each other. My work and Oliver's visits were the only things that interrupted. Before long, the amount of similarities that you and Sirius share occurred to me."

"Really?" Percy asked. From what he had gathered Sirius had been far bolder than he himself had ever been in his life.

"You both had uneasy relationships with your families - although Sirius's were far worse than yours. You share tendencies to say things in anger that you later wish you hadn't said. Both clever, both opinionated, both proud, both somewhat immature at times. Two men with strong convictions. He loved his brother very much, as you love all of yours, but like you he had a hard time tolerating flaws and errors, and that was what drove them apart in the end. Sirius was very loyal like you are, but also like you he was capable, as a young man, of letting other things take precedence over his love and committing an utterly stupid betrayal."

As Remus's words sank in Percy's mouth slowly fell open in horror. "Did Oliver tell you about - about the prefects' bathroom and - "

"The general idea, yes. The details, no."

Percy buried his face in his hands and groaned. "I would never do that to him again, not in a million years, not for - "

"I know." Remus's voice was gentle. "After Sirius tried to turn Snape into a wolf's dinner he never let the thought cross his mind again."

"Wait a minute, he tried to feed you Snape?"

"When the three of us were in school.

"Oliver visited me quite a lot, which I understood. Over time I found myself reacting too strongly to your faults."

"Because they were Sirius's," Percy said slowly.

"Yes. I feared that if I became closer to you my anger would unfairly transfer to you. After embarrassing you in class, I wasn't about to do that. So I told Oliver to promise me he wouldn't tell you about Sirius and me, hoping that the less you knew about me the farther apart we would stay." He smiled slightly and bit his lip. "When I saw the dog tag hanging out of the wardrobe I figured that strategy had run its course, and that the best thing to do would be to tell you the whole truth.

"It was," Percy said. "Remus?"

"Hmm?"

"Did it ever scare you to be with Sirius, knowing that you might lose him?"

"It did," Remus replied. "And in the end, I lost him anyway. Caution will help you; worrying won't."

Percy swallowed hard, tears forming in his eyes.

"But his death wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to us," Remus said.

Percy looked up. "It wasn't?"

"No." Remus's tone was calm; his eyes were at peace. "My biggest fear was always that the dementors would take his soul. He fought them for over a decade and in the end he won. His soul still lives, Percy. It's been separated from mine, but someday the day will come when I will die and our separation will be at an end."

"But what if there is no afterlife?" Percy asked before he could stop himself.

"There is."

"But what if there isn't?"

Remus reached across the table and took his hand. "If this world is a just one, those who love each other will never be apart for eternity," he said. "And if I didn't believe that this is a just world, I wouldn't be fighting this war."