Eleven Things Sirius Black and Remus Lupin Have in Common

Eleven Things Sirius Black And Remus Lupin Have In Common

by Minnow

Friends

They both have two best friends, James and Peter. There may be other friends in other houses, but nobody talks about them.

Chocolate

They both like chocolate. Sirius prefers dark chocolate, and Remus likes anything with nuts in it, but hates strawberry and orange creams. Chocolate frogs are okay, but rather too mass-produced, especially for Sirius's well-bred palate. Just before the moon, Remus will eat anything chocolate, however inferior, even stale chocolate that's he's found at the bottom of his schoolbag.

Books

They both like to read. Remus has a weakness for Muggle Victorian children's novels. Sirius has a collection of wizarding adventure novels, Tales from the Auror's Floo. Remus thinks they are the most boring books ever written: no romance, no mystery, just dry accounts of missions against evil dark lords.

Sirius also has a few books about yachting, a sport that rich wizards indulge in but Sirius will never be able to afford. Remus has suggested that he does something else instead, like getting a motorbike and charming it to fly. That was meant as a joke.

Robes

They both wear wizarding robes most of the time. Sirius's are new and expensive, though this year, Seventh Year, they are beginning to look slightly worn. Remus's robes are always shabby and patched. Both of them detest dress robes, and any occasion when they're forced to wear them. Sirius's most embarrassing memory is of taking Raine Ollivander to the Yule Ball in Sixth Year, while Remus flatly refused to go near the event. Everyone stared at Sirius in his grey robes, and though he knows they were all secretly lusting after him, he still wished he could curl up and die. If Remus had been there with him, in the faded amber dress robes he keeps rolled in a ball in his trunk, Sirius might have had a better time.

As the above shows, Sirius isn't always as confident as he seems. Though he did dance enthusiastically with Raine at the Ball, and even held her close for a couple of slow songs. James got a bit flustered then, and plucked at Sirius's sleeve, and said 'Oi, mate, Moony will kill you if he finds out.' Lily Evans, who was with some nondescript Ravenclaw guy, perked up her ears at this. One of the reasons she finally went out with James in Seventh Year was that overhead exchange. The first question she asked James on their first date was 'What's going on between Black and Lupin?' She calls Remus by his first name usually, but not to one of his mates.

James was relieved to have a topic of conversation. He wiped his sweaty palms on his robe (pretty new, good condition, black), and said 'Oh, uh, they, uh, have this thing. Evans, you have beautiful eyes.'

Lily is happy to be going out with James, but she sometimes finds herself looking across the common room to see what his two best friends are up to, if anything.

Marks

They are always tied in Charms. Always. No matter what topics come up on the exam, or that they get different marks on different parts of the paper - Remus is skilled at intellectual charms, like Handwriting Spells, whereas Sirius is good at active ones, like the Running Shoes charm. They have, for six years, ended up with the same result every summer. It's usually well into the nineties, too, which pleases Remus's parents, if not Sirius's. The difference between them is that Remus's parents go through his reports at least twenty times, reading and interpreting every single teacher's comment. 'What does Professor Antwick mean, Lupin's ingredient preparations for Potions far exceed his practical skill at the subject? And how can you only get 14% in an exam? Don't they give marks for preparation now?'

Sirius's parents, when he had parents, didn't do more than glance through his report, picking up especially on his DADA mark, which was always high, like all his grades, but never quite as high as Remus's. 'Well, son, I am astounded you haven't learned even the rudiments of Avada Kedavra,' his father might say, coldly, as if it were all Sirius's fault. 'I don't know what Hogwarts is coming to! In Phineas's day, the students could cast an Unforgivable by the end of Third Year.'

Sirius's mother sometimes used to pick up on the Headmaster's comment. 'What does he mean, your behaviour is erratic? You are a Black, Sirius. We behave impeccably at all times. Do you understand?' She always managed to make the last three words sound like a threat.

Remus's parents do the Muggle thing of getting him a reward for a good report. So far, he has acquired books he was dying to read, chocolate, records and a poster of his favourite Quidditch Team, the Wigtown Wanderers.

Sirius, whose marks are better overall, especially given Remus's inability to do Potions, has never had a reward. Not even when he got the Year Prize for Care of Magical Creatures and a special commendation for his work with baby dragons. Hagrid, the gamekeeper, congratulated Sirius on that occasion, not without some envy, and gave him a tin of rock cakes, which Sirius and the other marauders later charmed to pelt the Slytherins during their Quidditch match against Ravenclaw.

Divination

They both secretly enjoy Divination, and are doing it for NEWTs. Remus actually sees things in his crystal ball, but will never tell anyone except Sirius, who has a knack for reading the Tarot.

Remus discovered his talent at the very beginning of Fifth Year. He used to be puzzled by Sirius appearing every time he glanced into the crystal ball. In fact, he thought it must be his overactive imagination. For a long time, he worried that other people gazing into crystal balls could also see Sirius and him, and guess at his obsession with his friend, who happened to be another boy.

He saw in the crystal things he was too shy to see in real life. For instance, he once captured what was almost a snapshot of Sirius gazing over at him as he scribbled notes in a History of Magic lesson. Sirius's expression was wistful, yearning even. In fact, he was looking at Remus exactly the way Remus felt about him.

Remus did actually take the visions seriously enough to glance over at Sirius during lessons in his turn to see if he was just hallucinating or what. He thought the incense fumes in Divination class might be turning his head, like the strong potions Madam Pomfrey gave him after the full moon. He was quite surprised to notice that every time he looked in Sirius's direction, Sirius would go a bit red and turn abruptly away.

About two months into Fifth Year, Remus started seeing animals in the crystal: a big black dog, a stag and a rat. They appeared insistently every lesson, running with a shadowy figure Remus couldn't discern.

He guessed what the vision might mean. But he didn't dare hope it would come true, until one morning after the full moon he woke aching but unscarred to find a black dog dozing beside him on the bed in the Shack. He wasn't surprised when his three best friends told him all about how they had finally managed the transformations. They were bursting with pride, Peter in particular. But Remus hid his lack of surprise well, because he was so moved and happy.

He's never told Sirius about that particular vision, though he has confided in Sirius how the crystal indirectly brought them together. 'I wouldn't have dreamed you'd even look at me if I hadn't seen it in the crystal,' he said. Sirius replied, without irony, 'Professor Chiron is right, Moony. You can see things with the Inner Eye that aren't obvious.'

Remus hasn't yet retorted that the way Sirius was ogling him was pretty obvious, once you knew to look. And perhaps knowing to look is what really counts. Instead, he leans over and kisses Sirius, slowly and luxuriously, and Sirius kisses him back, nipping his lips playfully and working his way down Remus's body, both of them discarding clothes as they go.

Sirius in his turn hasn't told Remus about the two weeks just before they got together, with The Lovers appearing at the head of every Tarot spread, until the disastrous day of the Prank when the Falling Tower covered the entire cross.

Whenever he reads the cards for Remus, Remus has The Magician where Sirius has The Moon. These cards aren't entirely trustworthy: The Magician glitters and shines and charms, but his charms can be illusory. The gentle Moon can be cold and uncaring. So far, neither has ever been reversed.

Sometimes, Remus has seen pictures in the crystal that have made him go hot all over, like the time he saw him and Sirius on his bed, snogging, and probably more, only Remus had to look away because his head was spinning and the professor was walking towards his table, and he didn't want anyone else to see. When he looked back, the pair of them on the bed had been replaced by a boring grey fog, but he has seen many visions like that since, and he has to say that all of them have later come true. He never records any of them, of course. He records the mundane ones, like seeing Gryffindor win the Quidditch cup.

Good Looks

Sirius thinks Remus is beautiful, and Remus knows that Sirius is. Obviously, they wouldn't fancy each other so much if they found each other ugly, but together they do sometimes seem like two halves of a perfect whole. The idea of soul mates is a girl's fantasy, of course, and Lily Evans dreamed it up after James told her his two best friends were an item.

Their faces are still slightly childish, not quite formed, with the beauty that extreme youth confers.

Remus has the sort of dark blond hair that will probably pass for light brown in later life, but while he is seventeen and eighteen this year, it retains its golden highlights, the tint of wild honey. He is quite tall: exactly two centimetres -- about an inch, in those days -- shorter than Sirius. Their relative heights make kissing and everything else easy, and both hope that the other won't have a sudden growth spurt and screw up their comfortable access to each other.

Remus's eyes are hazel, a mixture of light brown, green and blue with amber flecks. They are Pisces eyes, beautiful eyes, and his gently curving mouth is also rather beautiful. His nose is fine, straight and not too long, and his cheekbones delicate rather than sharp like Sirius's. Because he is so thin, he does look fragile, not quite girlish but not like a Quidditch Beater either.

Sirius, of course, is the best-looking boy in the school, with cheekbones and hollows and eyelashes and hair and everything to die for. When he and Remus are together, though, as Lily has noted, Sirius's more overtly good looks don't automatically knock Remus out of the equation. In fact, you look at both of them, from one to the other and back again, from the delicate fair boy to the strongly built dark one, like they are somehow one, even though they are so different. Perhaps because they are so different: different seasons of colouring, autumn and winter; different smiles, small and timid, wide and confident; different hands, long-fingered and artistic, square and practical. Lily occasionally finds herself imagining Remus's long fingers stroking Sirius's hair, Sirius's capable hands cupping Remus's face, hazel eyes gazing into grey as they lean towards each other for a slow kiss.

Sometimes, Lily fantasises more about Potter's friends than she does about James himself. But she excuses herself, because she'd hardly fancy either of them: she just likes to think about what they do to each other, and how it feels, and whether it hurts.

Tolerance For Pain

Both Remus and Sirius have high pain thresholds, Remus a physical tolerance he owes to the wolf; Sirius an emotional resilience he owes to the Blacks. As far as their relationship is concerned, this has caused a few problems. Remus is happy to be passive at least half the time, loves the sweet invasion of his body and his senses, finds it quite addictive. The pain exists, but he can bear the pain, because it is never going to approach the monthly pain of the transformation. It's actually the point where the pain becomes pleasure that can be intolerable, just too much sometimes, so he screams out, because you can't hold such feelings inside, screams out Sirius's name and the names of any deities that happen to come into his head. He screams in a way he would never scream in pain. He might even cry, because beauty can be too intense to bear.

He also likes to be on top, of course, and Sirius who can weather the heartbreaks, the emotional disappointments of love, cannot take the physical pain. He might groan, find it hard to adjust at first to another body so very close to his, inside his, hurt and hurt for a long, lingering time before the pleasure kicks in.

But Sirius, with his high tolerance for emotional abuse, is stoical about disagreements and estrangements, like the time he and Remus had the big row in the common room, the day Sirius told him he'd asked Raine Ollivander to the Yule Ball.

'What?' Remus said, going as white as chalk. Then, recovering, he laughed and said, 'Okay, Pads, I fell for it! We've got to discuss how we're going to get out of it, anyway. Or perhaps we can just go along, as if we didn't have dates, and sit together. That'll be easiest.'

'Hey, Moony, I really did ask her. Look. I knew you wouldn't like it. But we agreed, we don't want anyone but Prongs and Wormtail to know. If Sirius Black of all people doesn't have a date, everyone'll be talking.'

'Oh, right,' said Remus, white with rage now. 'So you ask the prettiest girl in school, who could go with anyone. And you think she's acting as a blind? Why not let her go with one of the other blokes who'll ask her? Who might actually fancy her? Or do you just not want to admit you fancy her?'

'Come on, Remus. You've noticed she's the prettiest girl in the school, haven't you? So don't be such a hypocrite.'

'Or do you want a threesome?' Remus spat out.

That was so uncharacteristic that Sirius had to laugh, and he put his arm round Remus's shoulder, and said, 'You're being an idiot.'

It was the wrong thing to do to a werewolf with hurt feelings, especially in front of the group of Sixth Year girls, including Lily Evans, who were now staring at them from the other end of the common room, though they were keeping their voices down, or so they imagined.

Remus shoved Sirius away so hard that he staggered, and stormed out of the common room and to the library, where he stayed for the rest of the day. It was Saturday, so he missed his and Sirius's usual appointment at the Shack for some very hot touching and groping - they hadn't actually had sex yet then - and hurt himself as much as he hurt Sirius.

For the next few days, they stayed aloof and didn't talk to each other, and that was when Sirius's high pain threshold came in really useful. He was able to act completely normal, laughing and talking with James, teasing Peter about the Haircut that Wouldn't Grow Out -- ever afterwards, Remus privately thought that was the week that scarred Peter for life -- and ignoring Remus so discreetly that no-one else noticed. Sirius was a master of the glance that didn't include Remus, the casual arm round the shoulder that hovered just above and never quite got there, even the smile on the lips that didn't reach the eyes.

Remus was so miserable that he hardly registered those not-quite-gestures that excluded him so totally; not until a couple of days in, when he was at least able to concentrate in Transfiguration, to the extent of making his pencils all the same length, thickness and with leads sharpened to identical degrees. He took a savage pleasure in the twenty points for Gryffindor he gleaned.

Then, Sirius finally cracked: he couldn't be said to have cracked first, because Remus was so depressed that he'd given up totally and completely. He even shrugged off what should have been a happy moment in Divination when the Dark Glass showed him and Sirius absorbed in doing things that nobody estranged would be doing; things they hadn't even done yet, and which would have been enthralling if Remus had been in a less sceptical mood. As it was, he did at least jot down a few notes on how they managed it, and those came in useful a while later.

Sirius said, solemnly for him, that they had to talk. Remus didn't see any point talking just to split up when they were split up anyway, and he'd never laugh again, and he was going to ask out that pretty Hufflepuff who always dropped her books and giggled when she saw him in the library, and then Sirius would be sorry.

But Sirius dragged him off to the empty classroom where Rowena Ravenclaw had taught Ancient Runes many centuries ago, when they would practically have been Modern Runes. It had been left almost untouched ever since, as a shrine to one of the founders and her peculiar methods of decoration: there were the usual pupils' drawings of runes on the walls, but the main feature was stuffed birds, hundreds of them, all with brilliant and exotic plumage. In Victorian times, the Headmaster had made the house-elves arrange these in great glass globes, so at least they didn't shed their feathers all over the place.

Sirius's 'talk' started with him pressing Remus up against a bird-free wall and kissing him thoroughly, rather too thoroughly, because Remus was really, really pissed off as well as being miserable, and didn't want to respond to Sirius in any way. Even inadvertently. But he didn't push him away. After about fifteen minutes, Sirius broke away to cough, because the room was very, very dusty.

'I thought you'd understand,' he said, as casually as if they had just been having this conversation, 'that it's for both of us. I'll dance with her a couple of times, and be seen to be with her, then I'll come and sit with you and we can get drunk and make rude comments about everyone else's dress robes.'

'I don't see the point,' said Remus, still sulking.

'Yes, you do. Why don't you ask someone? Raine's friend hasn't got a date. You could take her.'

Remus was indignant. 'That girl with the fair hair? She's horrible. She goes round jinxing First Years. I've taken hundreds of points off Ravenclaw for her. I don't know why she wasn't in Slytherin.'

'Only because she's not a pureblood. If you're still noticing when girls are horrible, I haven't got to you properly yet.'

He started to kiss Remus again, a bit more deeply, and then they sank to the floor clutching each other, and then they'd made up the argument; though it did flare up later, when Remus refused to attend the ball but heard from Peter how many times Sirius had danced with Raine.

Humour

It could be said that James and Sirius are the ones to share the same sense of humour, and it would be true: they're like brothers, best-ever mates, and they find exactly the same things hilarious. Remus doesn't find it funny at all when James hexes Snivellus, for instance. And he's the one who isn't so busy cracking up about the latest way to achieve chaos among the Slytherins at mealtimes that he can't spot the flaw in the plan to add vomiting powder to all the puddings in the Great Hall.

But even so, he and Sirius can often be seen giggling together - 'like bloody girls,' James sometimes mumbles to Peter, genuinely perturbed - in the corner of the common room. When they pass notes in History of Magic, they seem to find each other's remarks hilarious.

Anyone else reading their notes would be puzzled as to what the joke is. Lily Evans, squinting over Sirius's shoulder from her seat behind him, can't understand why he's snickering at 'Map work, passage to Honeydukes, M and P to do without help.'

And even James and Peter wouldn't understand how 'Break, the broom-cupboard, beside the portrait of Zonko's founder' could make both their friends dissolve into helpless laughter.

When McGonagall rhapsodises about the many uses of a wand for Transfiguring gemstones, they look across at each other and snort loudly. Sirius has been threatened with detention for this. Remus usually manages an angelic, prefect-ish expression and avoids McGonagall's wrath.

Crushes

In the past, they've both had crushes on other boys. In fact, they've had crushes on each other. That was before, of course. Now, their feelings are a bit different.

Remus had a crush on Sirius from as far back as he could remember. Since Third Year, possibly even longer. He was incredibly embarrassed about it, even ashamed, at first. He worried about what it might mean, that he found himself making a spectacle of himself, in his eyes, whenever Sirius Black was nearby. Which was quite often, because they shared a house and a dorm.

It was to get Sirius's attention that Remus first started joining in the pranks Sirius and James used to plan with so much imagination and so little logic or order. Not that Remus is especially logical: he can see the larger picture, that's all.

But his original butting-in, as he perceived it, of 'No, that won't work', was purely gratuitous. He just wanted Sirius to look at him, to open his grey eyes a bit wider, to cock his head to one side, consider for a moment, and say to James, 'You know, he's right. We can't possibly use Shrinking Solution.'

Every time he opened his mouth, Remus would feel embarrassed about interfering - nobody'd asked him, after all - but gratified that Sirius, who normally only really noticed James, was actually taking him in, seeing Remus Lupin in all his lack of glory. Though of course, he was only interested in Remus's input, Remus reminded himself.

Anyway, at least Remus's interference did Peter a favour, because gradually the tiny unit of James and Sirius expanded to include the other two, and wonders like Animagi and magic Maps were born.

Favour to Peter or not, Remus still found himself noticing things about Sirius that he told himself were purely for reference: yes, he had a crush, fine. But he might want to be a writer one day, and then he'd have to describe exactly how Sirius's mouth was so totally sensuous when he was looking serious, slightly down-turned, pouting almost, so you could just lean across and place a kiss on it. Remus thought that someday a woman character in one of his best-selling novels would think about her boyfriend's mouth like that.

Sirius had a crush on Remus for quite some time: possibly even since First Year, when that incredibly cool, self-contained boy who'd spent the entire journey on the Hogwarts Express gazing out of the window, saying not a word to anyone, was sorted into Gryffindor just after he was.

He was also ashamed of it, and ashamed that he always noticed things about Remus he didn't think he should notice about another boy; such as the texture of his fair hair, and the way it was cut straight across, so you could see how thick it was. For years, he wanted to touch Remus's hair, just to see what it felt like. Those were bad, wrong thoughts, he knew. He felt more assured when he noticed general things, like Remus's disappearance at the full moon every month, and his mother's cyclical illnesses.

When he found out Remus was a werewolf, his crush deepened rather than lessened. He's a bit ashamed of that still. Because he knows that even his friendship with Remus, at the most superficial level, is not a friendship his parents would approve of. He finds it paradoxical that those dark creatures who spawned him would abhor another dark creature so much; but that's the Blacks for you.

When he became Padfoot, his crush entered another phase. In real life, he has never played with Remus in any childlike way. He's played with James, because the Blacks and Potters always used to spend summers in the same exclusive wizarding resorts, and Sirius's family on holiday were slightly more relaxed about the children Sirius associated with. He and James have built sandcastles together, played hopscotch with the girl cousins -- though neither of them would admit that, even under threat of torture -- have vied against each other in games of hide and seek.

But of course, at Hogwarts, at big school, you put away the childish games. Oh, the boys play chess and exploding snap, and wrestle from time to time, to get rid of some of that enormous pent-up energy of boys growing up. Sirius even wrestled with Remus once or twice, in the days before they were together, but he found it disturbing, so generally he used to avoid physical contact with him.

As Padfoot, though, as the nearest in species to the wolf, he has become like a child again, dashing round with an overexcited, wild and happy wolf, who outruns him often but never fails to stop and wait. Even the wolf feels a tug, a connection to the dog. It saddens Sirius that Remus can never remember the games of tag or chase, rolling in the grass, the feel of the wind in his fur, the joy of bounding across the hard ground in the moonlight.

Sirius is Remus's key to the transformation, the one reliable source of what happens every moon. Sirius can describe the wolf, which, he thinks secretly, has eyes very like Remus's, deep and somehow sad, even if golden rather than hazel. Sirius interprets their friendship on those nights to Remus, returns to him the hours he has lost. Now that they are far more than friends, these reminders of their original, strongest link are precious to both boys. And Sirius feels as if a new link has been forged, as if they have now been children together, playing as he used to play with James, which somehow brings them even closer.

Commitment

They have in common that they are in love with one of their best friends, and they're both boys, but it's become a detail of no importance in the larger picture that Remus can always see, and has taught Sirius to see as well.

They rather stumbled into love, via their crushes. And in spite of Remus's prophetic visions in the crystal, they didn't get together until Sixth Year. In fact, there was a very definite point where the excess emotion tumbling wildly about came to a head, just after the Prank.

It started off as one of the worst days of Sirius's life. Dumbledore insisted he go and explain to Remus, and Sirius was dreading facing his friend, seeing him desolate and betrayed. Sirius felt wrong-footed rather than guilty anyway, and still grumbles occasionally that Snivellus was asking for it.

The four hours they spent together in the hospital wing, Sirius explaining about Snape as best he could, and Remus rather struggling to understand what was going on, were unexpectedly free of stress. Sirius hadn't factored in that Remus would be completely doped up on painkilling potions; mercifully, Sirius thinks now, because otherwise they mightn't ever have talked to each other again.

Though he wasn't sorry about Snivellus, Sirius was sorry to have caused Remus any grief. He felt he owed him something, so he told him about the crush he'd had for so long. It helped that Remus's eyes would occasionally flutter closed, and he had to reopen them with an effort.

'D'you understand, Moony? That I really, really like you, and didn't want to do anything to hurt you?'

Remus giggled a bit. 'Really, really like.'

'Hey, are you all right? D'you want me to call Pomfrey?'

'Yeah, and get more of that Potion. It's great stuff, Pads. You should try it.'

'Okay, listen. Remus. D' you understand what I'm saying? About sending Snivellus to find the wolf in the Shack?'

It took a while before Remus's medication had worn off enough for him to have a full grasp of the facts, but by that time it was too late for him to be angry, because he'd already, drunkenly, declared that he had a big crush on Sirius too.

He also let Sirius kiss him. Or rather, Sirius sat at the edge of the bed and looked at Remus lying on the plump, rectangular white pillow, his face almost as pale, his surprisingly dark lashes veiling those eyes Sirius liked, loved, so much. It was dark in the infirmary too, that winter morning, and the lamps were always dim there so as not to disturb the patients.

He actually thought Remus might be falling asleep, so he leaned over and put his lips on Remus's, just to see if Remus was awake enough to realise what was going on.

It was possibly a Gryffindor moment, to reassure himself that he belonged there after his almost Slytherin act of betrayal. It took a great deal of courage, in case Remus had only been acting dopey, and would reach up and punch him in the face.

Remus wasn't asleep, but he seemed quite happy, and obediently opened his mouth to allow Sirius further access. Sirius was a bit taken aback, but obliged anyway, just to see what it felt like. It felt good.

When they broke apart, Remus started giggling again, rather hysterically, and said, 'Does that mean we're engaged now?'

Remus was joking of course, and Sirius was only joking when he said 'Yes.' Obviously. Still, he sometimes thinks about that moment now, and then he might ponder, simply meandering where his thoughts lead him, that he and Remus are just as engaged as James and Lily are. Oh, they won't have diamond rings or a wedding or guests or fancy robes - just as well, considering their shared dislike of dress robes. But they'll certainly be together, or that's what he plans. He should probably ask Remus, just to make sure, but he doesn't feel he needs to.

End