A History of R/S in 2½ Acts

A History of R/S in 2½ acts

by Minnow

Act 1

Okay, we begin with the good stuff. If history were a sandwich, this would be the still-warm home-baked bread with sesame and sunflower and poppy seeds and plenty of butter.

This is the part with two gorgeous boys doing all the things that make the fangirls go weak at the knees. Here they are sucking, fucking, kissing, naked, in love, fathoms and fathoms deep in love, and having loads and loads of sex to express this love.

The first scene is the Gryffindor common room. Era, MWPP, not too long after the prank: all has been forgiven and forgotten now, though. Say it's the spring term in Sixth Year. Time, around eleven at night, after lights-out, though Marauders disdain traditions like bedtime. At any rate, they should all be up in the dorm. It's late, so late that the fire is burning low.

Peter and James have finally gone to bed, after Sirius spent a good half hour giving them the evil eye.

He wants to talk to Remus. No, he isn't going to confess his undying love or anything like that. He wants to talk to Remus because Remus is the most likely of the other three to understand what he's getting at. Remus knows how it feels to be different. He and Remus have so much in common, in so many ways that neither could begin to articulate. Talking to Remus isn't too different from talking to the sensible voice in his own head: not that he accesses the sensible voice very often.

So, he starts to talk to Remus, but it isn't as easy as he'd imagined.

'Moony, I want to ask you something.'

Remus is yawning. He should have been asleep about three hours ago, and would have been if Sirius hadn't whispered urgently at dinner that he needed to talk to him as soon as they had a chance to be alone.

'Stop yawning, damn it!'

'Sorry, Padfoot. I really am. Just, I'm so tired.'

Sirius, a bit huffy, retorts, 'Oh, well, let's leave it till tomorrow,then.'

'No, it's fine. Come on, Pads. What is it?'

Sirius, always one to plunge straight in, finds himself hesitating, but plunges in anyway. 'I think I'm gay.'

'Gay' is still a slightly esoteric term at that point, not quite universal. James would say 'queer' and he would say it with a slight twist of his lip that meant he didn't quite approve of the concept.

Remus understands the term, or he understands what Sirius is saying, which is the main thing. He doesn't ask Sirius why Sirius has chosen to tell him. He may, at first, think Sirius is pulling his leg, though of course it's unlikely Sirius would keep him up so late just for a joke.

'Well, uh. I mean, are you sure? You're always going out with all these girls.'

Sirius knows that. He goes out with the prettiest, cleverest, sexiest girls in Hogwarts. They virtually queue up for him outside the portrait hole, lines of lovely girls snaking down the staircases and spilling into the grounds.

Sirius looks down at the carpet, drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa, jiggling his leg, not able to keep still. 'I go out with all those girls because I'm scared. Scared of anyone finding out that I don't fancy girls. Right? And if you breathe a word to Prongs I am so going to kill you, Remus.'

Remus is affronted. 'Why would I tell Prongs? And if you're just going to get mad all the time, don't tell me, either. You haven't even given me a chance to say anything yet.'

'I'm not sure I want you to now.'

'Okay, now you've talked yourself into a bad mood, I'm off up to bed. Goodnight.'

Predictably, Sirius grabs Remus by the sleeve of his robes as he turns to go. 'No, don't go. Sorry, Moony. I didn't mean to snap. It's just...this is difficult.'

He remembers Remus in Second Year, when they found out about him, standing there looking - defiant? Yes, though he probably felt a lot more nervous than Sirius feels now. Being a werewolf is definitely scarier than being gay, Sirius thinks. He thinks it, but he doesn't necessarily feel it.

Remus sits down again, trying to draw some warmth from the embers of the fire.

'I told you, Moony, because... Well, partly because you don't seem interested in girls at all. You've never gone out with anyone or anything.'

Remus says, 'I don't go out with girls because of the werewolf thing. You don't know...the amount of things we're not allowed to do. I'm not even sure I'd be allowed to get married. And I certainly can't have children or anything.'

Sirius feels deflated. It's taken all his considerable courage to admit his darkest secret to Remus: and he has many dark secrets, mainly involving his family. He feels almost as if he wants to cry.

'So,' Remus continues, very softly, 'and if you tell anyone I'll kill you. I think I may be gay too. I did sort of sleep with another guy.'

'Oh, right, now we can blackmail each other,' Sirius says, smiling almost mischievously.

*

The second scene is a few days later in the Sixth Year boys' dorm. It's probably after school, and James has Quidditch practise and Peter always goes to cheer him on. Tea in the common room is over, and dinner isn't for a while. The two boys we are focusing on should be doing homework, but they aren't.

Sirius and Remus are sitting in front of the fire, leaning against Remus's bed, legs bent, not too close.

'I really just want someone...to show me,' Sirius says. His voice is low, intent.

Remus looks helpless. 'But how can I? I'm hardly the world's expert.'

'Oh, well then I'll wait till the holidays and pick up some strange man in a pub. How about that?'

Remus flushes. 'You total bastard! I am never going to tell you anything ever again.'

'Remus. Please. I mean, kissing and stuff. Couldn't we just practise that?'

'You practised it plenty with all those girls, Sirius. It's not any different.'

Sirius moves closer to Remus and puts his head on Remus's shoulder. He's almost wishing he'd never said anything to Remus, because of the can of worms he's inadvertently opened. He decided to confide in his friend; he wasn't expecting his friend to confide in him, lots of quite terrifying stuff that he isn't sure he wanted to know.

Remus isn't the best at giving descriptions of sexual acts. He's embarrassed, of course, though you can see he's also a bit relieved: one major secret at a time is enough for anyone. It's hardly My Secret Life: a childhood pal (a Squib, attending a Muggle school) and a bit of experimentation over the summer, and, rather less experimentally, one student befriended after a very drunken session in a Muggle pub at Christmas. Remus doesn't usually drink: he loses control so spectacularly every month that he prefers to keep his head as clear as possible at other times.

But from where Sirius is standing, or rather sitting, it looks as if Remus has a wealth of knowledge about having it off with other guys: though it's his, Sirius's, secret desire. It isn't quite fair. If Remus weren't a werewolf, Sirius thinks, he would be off shagging dozens of pretty girls, leaving Sirius a clear field of pretty boys. Or is there something wrong with that assumption? Probably.

It should be the other way round, Sirius decides. He's the extrovert, and he's the one everyone, but everyone, fancies. Except Peter, who only has eyes for James. He should be taking the lead here, showing the ropes to shy Remus.

Sirius pouts and looks pretty. He can look very, very pretty. Beautiful, gorgeous. He thinks that Remus can too, though where Sirius is in-your-face handsome, Remus is more slow-burn. He's the sort of boy you look at for five years and then suddenly you really see him, the bones, the eyes, and the mouth. Mainly the mouth. Sirius thinks, rather vaguely, that practising kissing with his old friend Moony might actually be erotic in many ways rather than just practical.

*

The next scene is a bit of a cheat, a short scene, three weeks later, in the middle of the night, in the dorm again, with silencing spells and curtains and privacy charms and so on.

'It's your mother,' Remus says. He can't sleep, unusually for him, and he's tossing and turning trying to get comfortable.

'What is?'

'Can you move over a bit, Pads? And those awful woman relatives of yours. No wonder you don't like women. I bet you would if you had a decent family.'

Sirius wonders whether he should feel affronted. 'What are you telling me, Moony? That I'm rotten in bed?' He keeps his tone light, but in fact he is feeling a bit as if someone is about to hit him in the stomach.

Remus starts to laugh. He doesn't often laugh, but when he does he sometimes finds it hard to stop. Sirius is worried that the silencing charm won't hold up to the onslaught. Of course, Moony has a nice laugh, soft and rather sweet. But all the same...

Remus clutches at him, still laughing, and Sirius feels as if his heart is just going to stop. Remus is abruptly quiet, and in the unnatural hush the two boys start to kiss, and that is natural, and it goes on a long, long time.

*

Scenes 4, 5, 6, etc. Many scenes here, too many for one act. But there are many, many acts to consider.

Empty classrooms, the Shack, beds, their own and sometimes James's or Peter's, against walls, in the Hogwarts grounds, you name it.

Oral, penetrative, both or either or neither, because sometimes there simply isn't any time, if you're talking teenage boys who've fallen into this weird thing of wanting to screw each other rotten. Slow, fast, anything in between, because there is always enough time to fit in sex, even if the time is five minutes between break and lunch.

For the potential voyeur, there's very, very slow and gentle sex the morning after in the Shack, with Madam Pomfrey due along any minute to drag her patient away; and Remus may be in pain, but nothing detracts from pain like a really pleasurable diversion.

Or they could have sneaked out to lie under the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the sort of place Snape likes to follow them to, but only in summer, where their naked bodies melt into each other until all boundaries between them are entirely annihilated.

It's sex, just sex. Boys aren't noted for hearts and flowers. But there are a few punctuating moments where they will look up at each other and be quite unable to tear their eyes away, and there'll be altogether too much meaning in those eyes for either to be quite comfortable.

Not much dialogue in these scenes, but there is a point each time when one boy will be asleep, and the other boy will be awake and mutter, 'I love you', very fast, or very softly, or only in his head, or in wolf form howling to the moon, or in dog form barking at the wolf.

Act ½: almost an entr'acte

This is the filling, and it's meagre. There's a thin slice of ham and something bitter that may have got in by mistake. It could be the mustard.

After school: and part of this is well-documented, and part is silence. We do know that in the single photo extant of the original Order of The Phoenix, three of the Marauders and Lily are sitting quite a way away from Remus.

The first scene is a pretty crap flat in London. Sirius owns it.

He's not quite crying. Lily has an arm round him, and has sent James into the kitchen to make coffee.

'I thought,' Sirius says, and stumbles. 'I thought he'd want to share. At least.'

Lily carefully edges round the landmine. 'Well, he's worried. He didn't want to hold you back. You know, he does have a point. You and James, once the war is over. You can do anything you like. But Remus can't.'

'Sod that.'

'I'll go and see what James is doing with that coffee, shall I?'

Lily tactfully withdraws and Sirius blows his nose, and for a moment hides his head in his hands.

*

Count as one many scenes of Order meetings. Sometimes, afterwards, the boy with the tawny hair in his too-big coat that still doesn't seem to keep out the cold, will approach the very handsome boy in the expensive coat with its special warming charms. The dark-haired boy will appear aloof for a moment, look down his nose, even, then suddenly his face will almost break in half with his smile, and he'll put his arm round the other boy's shoulders, virtually dragging him away from the building, as if he doesn't want him to have time to change his mind.

*

Scene 3, and the tawny-haired boy and the dark-haired boy are sitting on a bench in Regent's Park, near the rose garden. The roses are in bloom, and it's a beautiful summer day. They have bread to feed the ducks on the canal.

As always, the tawny boy seems to be the one who wants to move closer, and the dark boy is reserved again. But only at first, because at some point he will usually relax and smile.

'So, how's Harry?' Remus asks.

'He's great. Honestly, Moony, you should see have seen him at the christening.' In true Sirius mode, he doesn't realise how beyond tactless he is being. 'Lily made a special cake for him, with a candle on, and he actually managed to blow it out.' He half-smiles for a moment, amused at the memory, pats Remus's hand.

'Well. I didn't know he was being christened,' Remus says, vulnerable and defensive.

'You know I'm his godfather, don't you?' This time Sirius really can't stop the delighted and delightful grin bursting out. 'Can you imagine, Moony? I'll have to be all grown up and responsible.'

'Oh, Sirius.' It comes out like a sigh, a long sigh. 'I wish...I wish I hadn't been so stupid when we left school. I wish I'd come to live with you.' This is blurted out almost in one breath, and then Remus looks close to tears, exactly the way Sirius looked when he was talking to Lily.

And looks now. 'Moony...it wouldn't be a good time. Not now. Wait till everything's over. Then we'll perhaps, if you.' He looks away, over at a couple of children squabbling at the water's edge.

They leave, Remus stumbling after Sirius who's walking far too fast, Remus completely unable to keep up.

*

Then, Scene 4: Sirius stops abruptly, waits for Remus to catch him up. Remus is actually crying now, or at least his nose is running and he is rubbing his fist over his eyes. Sirius catches him in his arms, and whispers, 'Oh, God, Moony, just. Come home with me. Please.'

'Now?'

'Now. We won't even go and collect your stuff. I'll get you all new. Okay?'

'Yes. Yes.'

It's still about a year away from suspicion and mistrust; just a bit over a year until James and Lily die. And whenever they have a chance to be together, Sirius and Remus are to be found holding each other tighter than tight, gazing at each other with the light of the sun and the moon blazing out of their eyes, kissing, loving. The Order swallows great swathes of time, as it always does, but even the Order is subservient to their great, undying passion.

Act 2

Let's do the bread thing again. This is sliced white mass-produced bread with just a tiny scraping of low-fat spread on it. Thin bread, with no substance or nourishment at all to it, but which leaves a stodgy aftertaste.

Scene 1 is the traditional Lie Low at Lupin's. Lupin's, this time round, is not a cottage but a bedsit: you could call it rooms, if you were being kind. These 'rooms' are above a Quidditch supplier's in Diagon Alley, on the cusp of Knockturn Alley.

Sirius has had a bath in the tiny bathroom, virtually just a cubicle. He's wearing a very threadbare towelling bathrobe, and lying on the narrow bed. Remus is wearing his wizarding robes (you know: shabby, patched) and sitting on the only chair.

'It's wonderful to have a chance to start again,' Sirius burbles. He doesn't look happy: he's thin and wary, twitching at every noise. He's sipping hot chocolate from a chipped cup; but it will be clean, because Lupin has grown obsessive about the scourging spells.

Remus, yet again, seems close to tears. You'd have thought that he would be overjoyed at rediscovering his old friend, his old lover, the man he embraced with such passion in the Shack.

Sirius holds out his arms. 'Come here, Moony. I know I'm not exactly an oil-painting.' His voice falters. 'But I'm still me. Though that's probably the problem, is it?'

Remus, in one movement, goes over and stretches out on the bed next to him, holding Sirius so tight that it would seem he could break. But it's Remus who breaks.

'I can't, Sirius. I can't come anywhere near you.' He's shivering now, and Sirius hugs him tight, trying to calm him. 'Moony, c'mon. What is it? I thought you'd forgiven me?' He sounds very young and very hurt, like he sounded after the silly prank with the Shack.

'It's...God. I don't know how to say this. It's a, a disease.'

Sirius is bemused. 'What? Is this some werewolf thing?'

Remus's voice is shaky. 'Oh, hell, I wish... no, it's a Muggle thing. This disease. You can't cure it. Well, there are spells. But nothing will actually make it go away.'

Sirius looks completely bemused. 'C'mon, Moony. At least I can help you feel better.' He does think that if Remus is walking around looking as healthy as he ever looks, there can't be much wrong with him. Healers and mediwizards can raise the dead, these days.

Remus looks away as he speaks. 'It's like being a werewolf, and if I bite someone he becomes a werewolf. Right? So this thing, it's like if I get close to you, if I even kiss you, perhaps, if you've been chewing your lip and there's an open sore, if I...' This time, he really is crying. He jerks away from Sirius, who is trying to comfort him. 'Even tears, for God's sake. Even tears, Padfoot. Contain this, this disease. Just about anything I do can hurt you. If I transform, if you clean up the blood - well, you mustn't touch my blood.'

'But you scratched me. After, after that evening?'

Remus sighs, again, a long drawn out sigh. 'You were Padfoot. It can't hurt Padfoot. Well, there are animal variations, of course. But this won't hurt Padfoot.'

'So how did you get a disease?'

Remus laughs bitterly. It's not like his happy laugh in Act 1. 'Oh, well, I got a bit lonely, when you were gone. Everything was so dark and miserable. And I met this man. And then he died. And then I found out that a lot of people were dying. This was quite a while ago, right at the beginning, when nobody knew why. I did at least have the sense not to go near anybody, until I'd had a Muggle blood test and got the result. And not after that, of course.' He smiles a bit, more sweetly than he's just laughed. 'Luckily, this isn't confined to Muggles. Well, 'luckily' isn't the right word, really. But it means that St. Mungo's have a special set of charms to keep you alive for as long as possible. Though sometimes I've wondered if I wanted to be kept alive. Then - you escaped. And I had the chance to teach at Hogwarts, and that gave me something to go on for.'

Sirius realises that he is still in Azkaban, and this is another false memory. He transforms into Padfoot, which always works to dispel the visions and delusions. When he opens his eyes he will see the cell, and as everything comes into focus the screaming will start again.

He transforms back, looks around. He is in Lupin's room, lying on the bed, hugging Remus. It's real, as real as the cooking smells wafting in through the open window.

'How long?' Sirius asks. He is surprised his voice will work at all, even more surprised when it comes out sounding adult, sympathetic, firm.

'Nine years. I've had a really good run. And the healing spells are brilliant, as far as they go. But once it's in your body, it's too late.'

Sirius forces himself to ask, 'How much time? Have you got?'

'I don't know. I could go on another twenty years. Though it isn't likely. Or I could get sick tomorrow. Look, Pads, I'm just as likely to die from being a werewolf. I'll die young either way.'

'But we've only just found each other again!' Sirius says, not adult any longer, but sounding like a petulant child.

He really wants to know, but doesn't dare ask, then does. 'Moony - were there a lot? Of others?'

Remus shakes his head. 'You only ever need to get bitten once, Sirius. I told you. There was only one.'

*

Scene: Grimmauld Place. Sirius is looking a lot healthier: he has obviously been eating well. But his eyes are dead when nobody is looking at him.

He hates it that Remus has categorically forbidden him to tell anyone else that he's sick. 'They all know I'm a werewolf. That's enough.' So he's always off on Order business, and every time he comes home, Sirius scrutinises him closely, checking for weight loss and pallor and any other sign that his 'luck' has run out. Not easy with a werewolf, because Remus always looks tired and bruised round the full moon, can lose and regain about half a stone every month.

They can hug, and they can sleep close together; Sirius has persuaded Remus that just touching isn't going to hurt. Not touching like they used to, just touching hair or shoulders or arms. Sirius would quite happily trust in condoms, but Remus won't take even the slightest risk. After the moon, of course, with all the blood, only Padfoot can safely stay to comfort Remus.

He has steeled himself. He can cope, beyond his worries about Harry, his understandable but possibly cruel desire to have someone young and healthy around. Remus doesn't always give off the fierce light he used to; he's quenched, defeated, a lot of the time, though sometimes he still displays his old fire and decisiveness. Not often enough. Sirius thrills inside when Remus tells him to sit down, or be quiet for a minute; it's like having his dear friend back, like the days when Remus would coolly dissect his and James's plans: 'Think, Prongs. If you use a potion, it's going to be detectable. There's an excellent charm that won't make him bald for quite so long but it's not traceable.'

Sirius is drinking too much, and so is Remus, when he's home. He's come a long way since the boy who rarely touched alcohol. He holds his drink better than Sirius does. The two of them get paralytic together. Sirius is quite a mean drunk. He berates Remus for getting sick in the first place; for getting bitten in the first place; for being born, for being conceived.

They're sitting in the kitchen, with empty bottles scattered round on the floor. Not firewhisky, wine. Remus prefers wine, because he can get through a lot before he's too drunk to stand.

'Shouldn't be drinking,' Sirius slurs, pouring himself an eighth or ninth glass: the evening is still young. 'It's bad for the disease, isn't it?' Sirius is the self-proclaimed expert on HIV. He has a lot of spare time, and has had every available book on the subject owled to him by a wizard firm specialising in Muggle literature. 'Shouldn't be smoking. Need your vitamins.'

'I don't smoke,' Remus says. When he's drunk, he enunciates more carefully, almost prissily, his clipped voice at odds with his flushed face, his dishevelled hair and loosened robes.

'Oh. Well.'

The two men, for no reason whatsoever, except that they really are out of their minds, start to reminisce about all the times they have had drunken sex. Not a tactful subject, in the circumstances, but it amuses them while they're anaesthetised by alcohol.

'Prongs's wedding,' Sirius recalls. That was one of the last times they were anything like a couple before the long schism. That was another scene between the tawny haired boy who never was quite one of the group, and the dark-haired boy who was always at the centre. They got drunk, danced together - and succeeded in scandalising Lily's Muggle relatives, the wizarding contingent, Peter and James: everyone except Lily, in fact.

They danced, and then they sneaked away and snuggled up together in the Evans's spare room, on a pile of coats belonging to the guests - it was a winter wedding. Everything those days seemed to have taken place in winter, not a snowy winter garlanded with light, but a bleak winter of dark days and nights that stretched to infinity. The coats were so soft, a couple of fur ones, because in those days rich Muggles wore real fur, cashmere and wool, and the dog and the wolf responded wildly to the variety of fabrics and textures.

They made love as they always did then, when there was never time for gentleness, fiercely and possessively, the champagne and the weeks of deprivation blending into two or three orgasms so intense that Lily came up to tell them to be quiet, the wedding guests could hear. They performed a variety of cleaning spells on the coats, and were very grateful that they were wizards.

Remus grins now, remembering that long-ago nest. 'I was terrified that one of Lily's relatives would go home and find some awful stain and ask her about it.'

Sirius puts his hand over Remus's. 'I said I was dying for a shag. Remember?'

He is drunk enough to say it out loud, to remind Remus that he is actually going to die for a shag. He thinks that it's not ironic, really. Not in the circumstances. No, it's just a bit. Sad. Tragic, in fact. His one relief is that it wasn't one of their many, many times together that has led to this table in this house and the dying Remus opposite him.

Remus changes the subject, as he tends to do. 'That day. That day before we left Hogwarts.' 'That Day' was the worst day, the day they knew that they were going to be apart after school, not together as they had hoped.

The reasons were various: not just Remus's reluctance, as one would have assumed from Act ½. Sirius was having problems with his first flat, was going to have to move, was having trouble finding a buyer. Annoying, adult problems that eighteen year-olds can't really cope with. It was easier, initially, for Remus to live elsewhere. But by the time the problems were solved, the new flat acquired - crap but okay crap - life had moved on.

'That day' they got drunk; not convivially, as at the wedding, but drunk as they are getting now, working their way solidly through about three bottles of firewhisky during the course of an afternoon and evening.

They sat in the common room with their bottles; getting progressively more out of control as bewildered lower school Gryffindors glanced at them nervously from the other side of the room, not sure how to cope with two Seventh Years misbehaving so blatantly in a public place. James and Lily came in and told them off. 'You'd better go up to the dorm,' James said. 'It's not fair on anyone else.'

It was an order from the Head Boy, so they did go up to the dorm, lay on Remus's bed with the curtains not properly drawn, and just for once they didn't care if anyone saw or heard them. Peter, who was trying to pack, was traumatised and fled downstairs to the safety of James.

That time, they both cried. They made love and cried, and made love again and cried some more. It was horribly comical and sobering and utterly miserable all at the same time. The agony and the ecstasy. The story of their romance.

*

We've reached the last few scenes, and they will unravel quite fast. There are good times, like when Harry asks about James and the Pensieve, and they can reminisce as if their lives hadn't got so spectacularly screwed up.

They don't always get drunk. When they are together, they are sometimes happy, but in a fragmented way, a 'what might have been' way. The sort of way that doesn't inspire great feats of imagination in anyone chronicling their story.

When Sirius dies, all Remus can think is: 'I was meant to die first.'

Which leads neatly to the hypothetical epilogue: a full moon, and a wolf trying to claw his heart out.

But of course, the sequel to Sirius's death isn't wild or passionate or conclusive like that. The story simply fizzles out, as all human drama fizzles out in the end, because everyone is going to die in a more or less terrible way. Some have veils; some have long illnesses and pain. Remus doesn't talk much after Sirius dies, anyway, so it's impossible to know what he's thinking or feeling.

End