The Cost Of Loving

The Cost of Loving

Part I

FAO Remus Lupin Esq. Final account from the Wizarding Romance Division, with reference to the love affair between our client and the late Sirius Black. Please do not contact us if your interest payments seem too low, as we cannot remedy any mistakes at this point.

Price: one pretty girl. Paid, Hogwarts, Fifth Year.

Everyone knew that Lily Evans's best friend, Zoe, fancied Remus Lupin. Even Remus knew, which was quite something, because he tended to be absorbed either in work, in the latest machinations of his three best friends, or in recovering from the full moon.

Zoe was pretty, kind, and thought Remus was the most beautiful boy she'd ever seen. Most of the Gryffindor girls swooned over Sirius, and Zoe's best friend had a very secret crush on James Potter. But Zoe found both boys sadly wanting beside Remus, who had an air of mystery that she found intriguing.

She was resourceful, if not quite as brave as most Gryffindors, and sent Lily to plead her cause with Remus just after OWLs. Because Lily and Remus were the Gryffindor prefects they had become quite friendly, which James resented a bit, though he tried not to show it.

Lily said, 'Poor old Zoe, you could give her some sort of encouragement, Remus.'

Remus felt a bit guilty. 'It's better if I don't, Lily. I'm not sure I'm ready for a relationship.'

'Oh, come on,' Lily snorted. 'You're what? Nearly sixteen.'

After their conversation, Remus seriously considered, yet again, asking Zoe out, but of course as a werewolf he couldn't just rush into a romance. He spent some hours debating whether he would be able to tell her his secret, or whether he could actually go out with her and not tell her. His friends' relentless teasing about Zoe was beginning to wear him down as well, though Sirius didn't like her, and was rather scathing about her.

'Just make up your bloody mind, Moony. You'll end up like James, if you're not careful, just going on and on and on about the stupid girl.'

'She's not stupid.'

'She's not as stupid as you are at Potions, granted. But nobody is.'

'Thanks anyway, Sirius.'

'You're welcome. I s'pose she's quite pretty in an insipid way.'

Remus didn't say out loud that her prettiness was far from insipid, because her colouring was very similar to someone else's; her dark hair and grey-blue eyes were the features that had attracted him to her in the first place.

At the very end of term, in the last week of Fifth Year, sitting under the tree by the lake again, Remus tried to make up his mind what to do. A black swan drifted by lazily, stirring the still water, and Remus thought not of Zoe but of his friends, of how he would miss them over the summer. Though he wouldn't miss the way they completely ignored any authority he had as a prefect.

The moment for Zoe didn't quite pass until a December night in Sixth Year. She and Remus might have been happy together; both were destined to escape the first war alive, if not unscathed. They could have married. Zoe would have been terrified of the werewolf thing at first, but she would gradually have accepted it, maybe even become an Animagus in her turn to keep Remus in check.

For a while during that sunny OWLs summer, the hottest of the twentieth century, Remus's destiny was poised on the brink between joy and sorrow.

But a stupid prank intervened, and after that he never could see anyone but Sirius again.

Price: a heart. Paid, Hogwarts, Sixth Year.

Remus couldn't really pinpoint the time or place when he started to love Sirius. Possibly, he finally admitted to himself how he felt at roughly the time Sirius told him about the love letter that had got him banished from 12 Grimmauld Place. Though really, he had probably loved Sirius, at some level, almost from the moment he first met him.

He imagined Sirius sitting in his dark room in the Blacks' London house, writing halting phrases to a schoolmate with three strikes against him in the romantic stakes: he was a half blood, he was a werewolf and he was a boy. He admired Sirius's nerve in admitting that he was in love with one of his best friends. He couldn't quite believe that the beautiful and slightly arrogant Sirius Black could actually love him.

He knew Sirius liked him. He knew that Sirius was concerned about what he went through every month during his transformations, just as he knew that the Animagus idea had been as much a great prank as a genuine desire to help him. He knew that Sirius could be capricious and cruel; but that was only because when he was kind he was so very kind, when he loved you he loved you with every fibre of his being.

When Remus thought about love, he thought of a snowy day, and a first kiss, in the hospital wing at Hogwarts just after the prank. The snow had melted by the next day; the kiss went on for quite some time, so long that he was sure Madam Pomfrey must actually have seen it, seen the boys kissing and tiptoed away again.

Of course she hadn't, because this was the seventies, and she would have had a thousand fits at the sight. Nobody stopped the boys, because nobody would have dreamed that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin had some sort of thing going.

The romance took root, and flourished, flourished quite alarmingly, Remus sometimes felt, not quite able to believe his good fortune in being loved by Sirius Black. And Sirius certainly had his heart, all of it, every beat and every skipped beat.

Price: inhibitions. Paid, December, Sixth Year

They were used to the usual punches, slaps on the back, shoving, wrestling, and the generally physical stuff that teenage boys get up to without it meaning anything at all.

But touching deliberately, actually touching, would be weird, skin on skin, and weirder if you were both boys. How could you do that? A hug and even a kiss in the hospital wing were not so daunting when one of you was on the brink of desperation and the other was drugged up with so many potions that the days since the change were passing like strange dreams with nightmare elements intertwined.

A few days after the prank, and the day he was forgiven, Sirius helped Remus bring his belongings back from the infirmary, and they had half an hour before James and Peter would be out of school. They sat on the floor by the fire, their backs against Remus's bed, and kissed again. This time, they stopped and looked at each other, their breath hitching, before Sirius reached out a tentative hand and brushed back Remus's hair so he could see his face. Then they reached for each other slowly, almost languorously, because half an hour seemed like an eternity.

But it went very quickly, and the door banged, and they just had time to pull away from each other before James was leaping over Remus's bed, thumping him on the back, saying that Sirius had been a bloody fool, hadn't he, and Remus thanked James for saving Snape's life and Remus's bacon, and James said not at all, Moony, and it was time to go down to the common room for tea.

In the next few days, they found that touching may be daunting but not touching was frustrating, and if you were two boys in love with each other in a crowded school, you would spend so much time not touching that touching would acquire an edge of urgency, and so you could get through it. Your legs and feet could touch under tables and desks, and your hands could brush accidentally on the way back to Gryffindor tower, and the odd arm around a shoulder looked innocent enough, because boys could do that. Though perhaps without the galvanising effect it had on these two boys, who spent a lot of time seeking each other out in order to touch.

Price: innocence. Paid, December, Sixth Year

They weren't absolute beginners for very long. A week after their first kiss, they were dawdling down a deserted corridor, not especially wanting to get to Charms. On the way, overcome with sudden lust, Remus pushed Sirius (or Sirius pushed Remus: or perhaps it was mutual) into an empty classroom, where they clung to each other, kissing desperately, until they both cried out in pleasure and perhaps awe; it didn't take long, about two minutes at the most, but that was probably only to be expected. For a first time, it wasn't graceful and it certainly wasn't romantic, but the intensity and heat of the act held a visceral satisfaction that left both boys longing for more, much more, and as soon as possible.

Sometimes 'more' was slow and sensuous, one step at a time, one fleeting touch at a time, tentative and halting and often ending in no more than the briefest of kisses. It depended on how rushed they were, and also on how much homework they had, because Remus always got his homework in on time.

In the nights, they started to risk a few hours in each other's beds, but they didn't go further than kissing and holding each other close until they fell asleep, wrapped in each other's arms, till Remus's watch alarm went off and it was time for Sirius to sneak back to his own bed.

Price: one Muggle watch (See note). December, Sixth Year.

They came into breakfast a bit late, walking rather too close together, giggling. The teachers may have suspected they were on drugs, if they had thought about it, but they didn't, because this was Hogwarts, and a lot of pupils here acted strange sometimes, usually because they'd been hexed or jinxed.

Sirius was pulling at Remus's wrist. 'For heaven's sake, Pads! Don't do that. Everyone will be gossiping about us.'

'Nonsense. C'mon, Moony, let me see.'

Remus slipped off his watch. 'Okay, okay. It's nothing interesting, Sirius.'

It wasn't; it was a cheap digital watch, of the sort that was mass-produced in the mid and late seventies, with a simple quartz mechanism that made it suitable for use at Hogwarts. It had probably not cost more than a fiver, and the brown leather strap was already fraying.

They got to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to each other. While Remus ate his way through a plateful of sausages and tomatoes, Sirius toyed with a bowl of cornflakes, fascinated by his new toy.

'I love the way it hasn't got a round face with numbers.'

Remus snorted. 'That's cos it's digital, you pillock.'

'Moony, how d'you work the alarm?'

'You don't. I do. Don't mess about with it, Padfoot. You'll break it, and then I'll keep being late for everything.'

Sirius edged closer to his bestest, dearest friend. After James, of course. Or perhaps even before James these days. 'Oh, but you liked being late this morning.'

Remus went red. 'Shut up. Peter is giving us very strange looks.'

'He always does.'

The watch was spirited into some hidden pocket in Sirius's robes, and Remus never saw it again. He assumed that it had been lost long ago, or broken and chucked out. Sirius could be very careless with other people's belongings.

Note: The Muggle watch in question is part of the estate of the late Sirius Black, and was found in full working order among his personal possessions. We have therefore withdrawn the interest due on this item.

Price: a sliver of James Potter's friendship. Paid, December, Sixth Year.

The holidays fell comfortably between two full moons - 'comfortably' perhaps not being quite the right adverb, because the December moon had been the occasion of Sirius's prank on Snape. However, Remus and Sirius had plotted for some time to stay at school, especially when they found that they would be the only Gryffindors still at Hogwarts. The plan was to further their sex lives, because even with four-poster beds, silencing spells and watch alarms (now gone, and replaced by a nasty, wailing Siren charm Remus had been forced to implement) there was no real privacy in the middle of a bustling school.

.

Unfortunately, James really, really wanted Sirius to stay with him and help him cope with the annual influx of Potter relatives. James could be very persuasive when he pulled out all the stops. He enticed Sirius with tales of miraculous crackers that exploded in showers of stars, tumbling out jokes so funny you couldn't stop laughing, stockings bulging with gifts like remembralls and sneakascopes and dungbombs and fodder for pranks that would cost an arm and a leg at Zonko's.

When tea was long over and there was still an hour to go till dinner, James regaled Sirius with talk of turkeys roasted to golden perfection, geese stuffed with apples, ducks with crispy skin and cherry sauce, puddings dripping with brandy, cake studded with cherries and pecans and pineapple, that came owl-order from a wizarding company in Texas.

He also spoke of Quidditch practice in the back garden, flying at night, the many ways to trick unwary families and friends, the simple companionship of sharing a bedroom with your very best mate and friend and being able to talk and laugh all night if you wanted to, without pesky Peter grumbling or Remus threatening to hex you if you didn't bloody SHUT UP.

But of course, this was the point at which Sirius ceased to be tempted, and always stumbled. It was precisely the thought of Remus at night that gave Sirius the strength to look James in the eye and honestly tell him that he didn't want to impose himself on the Potters during a time for family.

Remus was supposed to spend Christmas with his aunt, but after he had embroiled her and McGonagall in his absolute refusal to keep up with Potions, no matter what, relations between them had been frostier than usual. She was quite happy, when all was said and done, to allow her troublesome nephew to stay under the care of Hogwarts while she visited her oldest friend, a witch called Amelia whom Remus disliked even more than his aunt.

There were a few minutes on December 23^rd when James hesitated, hovered at the door of the common room for a fraction too long. 'You'll miss the train, mate,' Sirius said, from his chair by the fire.

'Maybe I should stay too. It's not going to be half as much fun without you.'

Remus could see Sirius's heart sinking. And this was the defining moment in the marauders, though James didn't know it, the moment when Sirius's loyalties divided themselves, not neatly but in a complex and potentially messy fashion. 'Come on, Prongs, don't be an idiot.' He lowered his voice, but Remus heard him anyway. 'You know what Moony is. We'll probably spend the whole holiday writing essays and getting ahead with work.'

'You sure you'll be okay? Really, Padfoot, you don't have to feel you must stay.'

'I'll be fine. Just go.'

And James finally picked up his case, pushed the portrait-hole open, and left. Remus could feel his slight hostility prickling at the back of his neck for the rest of the day.

Price: virginity/technical virginity. Paid in instalments, Hogwarts, Sixth Year.

It snowed again that morning, snowed until the Hogwarts Express had started its journey south, with James safely aboard, and then the snow abruptly turned to rain, and for the next week the sky leaked incessantly. The Hogwarts grounds were waterlogged, the cellar flooded, and all outdoor activity, such as the traditional snowball fight, had to be postponed indefinitely.

For Remus and Sirius, the weather was perfect, befitting their intention of getting to know each other better by means of having as many orgasms as they could in the shortest time possible, a common goal for hormonal boys with a few empty days on their hands, and a more exciting goal if there were two of you.

After lunch on the first day, they retired to the dormitory and spent the next few hours lying on Remus's bed, which was nearest the fire, achieving their aim with the minimum of sophistication, by means of hands and mouths and skin and kissing until their lips were sore and swollen. They took a break for supper; because so few people were staying, they didn't dare draw attention to themselves by skipping meals. However, Dumbledore gave them a couple of sharp, not altogether pleasant looks as they ate, their chairs perhaps rather too close considering that there were only seven students sitting at the long table.

Sirius had acquired a dubious Muggle book from some mail-order firm when it became clear that he and Remus would be going a lot further than just kissing, and after rushing through their puddings, they went back to the dorm, and lay in bed together looking through it, rather aghast.

'Will we have to do that?' Remus asked, dismayed, pointing at a very detailed illustration. 'It all looks awfully anatomical.'

'Course it's anatomical,' Sirius laughed. 'Didn't you ever have The Talk?'

Remus looked blank. 'No. What's that?'

'Oh, I forgot. Your aunt wouldn't know, probably.'

'Neither would your mother,' Remus retorted, rather stung.

'How do you know that, if you don't even know what The Talk is?' Sirius taunted him. 'Oh, well, actually, you're right. My father gave me The Talk. It's all about carrying on the bloodline and how to do it properly.'

'That would be with a girl,' Remus pointed out. 'And I do know about it, actually. It's probably a lot easier with a girl,' he went on gloomily, flicking through the book.

'Where's your sense of adventure, Moony? You don't like girls, anyway.'

'Neither do you. I like some girls.'

'So do I. Listen, lots of guys do it together. Otherwise they wouldn't have written this book, would they?'

'I wouldn't call it written,' Remus protested. 'It's mainly a set of instructions. And I'd prefer it without the illustrations.'

'Stop making such a fuss.' Sirius leaned over, plucked the book from Remus's hands and threw it down on the floor. 'There. Bad book. All gone.' He rolled on top of Remus and ran his lips and tongue slowly down Remus's neck, making him groan. 'Listen. We are just bloody going to do it, okay?

'It's going to hurt.'

'No it isn't. Promise. Anyway, you'll get your turn on top too.'

'I'd better.'

'You will. Just relax.'

It wasn't easy, and it took them a while to get there. And it bloody well did hurt, Remus decided, gritting his teeth.

But desire and passion go a long way to obviating lack of technique. They were very close; they were very aroused; they were in love; and, when all was said and done, the book was actually rather helpful.

Price: hearing a confession. Paid, December, Sixth Year.

The two boys lay in the bed by the fire, talking quietly, sated and half asleep. 'D'you still think it'd be easier with a girl?' Sirius teased.

'Well, it may be. But it worked, didn't it?'

Sirius grinned. 'Yes, it worked just fine. And it was so, so much better than with a girl. No comparison.'

'How would you know?' Remus sat up abruptly, his senses alert, quite ready to take a huge blow to his heart, which was suddenly beating at twice its normal rate.

'Oh, shit.'

'Yeah, oh, shit indeed, Padfoot. What was that all about?'

'Do you really want to hear?'

'I think I'd better.'

Sirius lay on his back and looked up at the canopy. The curtains weren't drawn, and in the firelight Remus looked like a golden, dangerous beast.

'Remember I told you about how my mother said I was perverted and sick? Well, you know, I was really trying to be normal. With James and all. James was doing his best to cheer me up, and he always goes out a lot in the holidays.'

Remus refused to be sidetracked into discussing James. 'Get to the point, Sirius. Or I will jinx you to hell and back.'

'All right. It was when I was at the Potters' last summer. Obviously. About a week after I left home. James and I went to a party, and there was this girl - '

'Is she at Hogwarts?'

'No, it was a Muggle party. Before you ask, James does know one or two Muggles. The Potters aren't the Blacks. Thank God. Anyway, she obviously fancied me. And she was really quite pretty. And James was watching us. I mean, when we were talking, before you ask. Not after that. He just seemed sort of curious about what I'd do. And I was still trying not to focus on you, so I really wanted to get off with this girl. Just to prove something to myself. Okay, and to James. So, well, I did.'

'What was it like?'

'Remus Lupin, I can't believe you're asking that question! What d'you mean, what was it like?'

'I'm not talking Turkish, Padfoot.'

'Uh, well, it was okay. I mean, it wasn't like some deep, emotional thing. I did know her name, but that was about it. And she was really throwing herself at me.'

'Yeah, but what did it feel like?'

'Not a tenth as good as it did with you,' Sirius said emphatically. 'No comparison. Well, I already said that. And you and I are friends, aren't we? At the very least. Close personal friends, as James's mum would say. This girl was just - not even an acquaintance.'

'God, that's a bit cold, isn't it? What if she got pregnant?'

'She won't. She didn't.'

'How do you know? Have you been in touch with her?'

'Remus, this isn't the fucking inquisition! I haven't. But James knows her vaguely, and he'd certainly tell me. I did ask her, you know, and she told me not to worry about it. All those Muggle girls are on the pill. That's something that stops them getting pregnant, I gather.'

'Like a sort of charm?'

'No. More like a potion, but you are totally ignorant about potions.'

'That's because I have to swallow so many of the bloody things every month.'

'And because you have less than zero aptitude for the subject, Moony. Hey, am I forgiven? You know I love you, don't you? Not anyone else. Certainly not some Muggle girl.'

'You always are forgiven, aren't you? You lead a charmed life.' Remus snuggled up to Sirius and put his arms round him. They went to sleep then, curled up together like two small children.

Interest: a kiss. March, Sixth Year.

It was the beginning of March, two days after the full moon, and Remus was still feeling tired and shivery, even though it hadn't been such a bad month. Padfoot and Prongs had jollied him into the Forbidden Forest, where they played a bizarre game of Find the Rat; of course, Peter hadn't been idiot enough to try and evade them, but had been hidden snugly behind James's antlers throughout the night.

But the transformations were really painful. He wondered whether this was because of all the sex he'd been having with Sirius; perhaps some resultant rush of hormones had unsettled the wolf. At any rate, he spent a whole day and night in the infirmary, doped up on the wonderful potion Pomfrey called Golden Dreams, and emerged the following morning still feeling groggy.

Sirius, who had spent the past twenty-four hours sulking and miserable, greeted Remus with exultation, and at lunchtime they braved the cold, wrapped in their winter cloaks, and walked down to the far shore of the lake, which was out of bounds. There, Sirius worked a nice warming charm so the two boys were able to sit on the ground. He then pulled Remus close, cupped his face in his hand and kissed him passionately, and Remus kissed him back with equal passion, pain and discomfort forgotten as he held Sirius as tightly as he could, always terrified somewhere at the back of his mind that this beautiful love couldn't possibly last.

They sat there entwined for a long time, until the bell for afternoon school rang somewhere in the distance. Scrambling to their feet, they ran all the way back to the castle, tumbling into the Transfiguration classroom just as Professor McGonagall was starting the register.

Price: one prefect's badge. Paid, March, Sixth Year.

As one of two Gryffindor prefects, Remus had got to know Professor McGonagall's office quite well during the past year and a bit. He wasn't sure whether he liked it or not. On the one hand, as head of Gryffindor, McGonagall tended toward red and gold colour schemes, which reminded Remus of the friendly warmth of the common room and dorm and lulled him into a sort of homely feeling. He also liked the large pine desk, and the vases of flowers dotted around on various surfaces, even in the dead of winter.

On the other hand, McGonagall's office was a bit unpredictable. The sofas would be transfigured into chairs from one day to the next, the curtains might be long and gold one evening, short and striped the next. What was more, the moving photos of all registered Animagi, showing the dizzying change from human to animal in a sort of hologram effect, always made Remus feel slightly seasick.

This evening, the Animagus pictures were ominously still, stuck in their human forms. The chairs were upright and uncomfortable, and there were two of them, facing McGonagall at her mercifully unchanging desk. On the two chairs sat Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, and they were in bad trouble.

McGonagall looked at them coldly, and they glanced at each other, with 'what the hell is all this about?' expressions.

'Right, I don't want to discuss this in detail any more than you do,' she snapped. 'I will tell you that it is about your behaviour at lunchtime today. I assume you both know what I'm talking about.'

Remus's first thought was 'Oh, God, Snape's been following us again, and this is going to be all over Slytherin.' He wondered whether it was worth their while denying everything, but McGonagall had already moved on.

'Mr Filch has given me a full - rather too full, actually - report about the incident. That is all I want to say about it.' She paused. 'Professor Dumbledore has asked me to speak to you about a couple of points raised by your conduct.

'Firstly, we do not encourage close personal friendships at this school. Of course, it's understandable that there will be romances at a mixed school' - she stressed the 'mixed' --'but we prefer these to be confined to Seventh Years, who are of age. And preferably not until after NEWTs, of course.

'Now, Mr. Black, you are seventeen, so though we are obviously concerned about your behaviour, we can't do more than request that you look up Muggle and wizarding laws about the age of consent. As you're estranged from your family we're not going to inform them, but I would ask you to remember that you are still on probation after last term's incident.

'Mr. Lupin, you are underage, and therefore it is the school's responsibility to owl your guardian about this matter. It's up to her to decide what measures she wants to take about it. But the Headmaster and I agree that it's no longer appropriate for you to be a prefect.'

Remus was suddenly very cold. He fumbled with his badge, which was refusing to come undone. He could sense Sirius itching to lean over and take it off for him, but obviously he wasn't going to do that in the circumstances.

He didn't know what he felt, but it wasn't relief or disappointment. Embarrassment, of course; and emptiness, perhaps. Being a prefect, with its meetings and duties, occupied a lot of time, and he now had to find a way to fill it. Sirius's Quidditch ban had given them plenty of opportunities to do stuff well away from James and Peter, and perhaps not being a prefect anymore could also be seen as a good thing. But if the staff had their eyes on him and Sirius, they would probably never even be able to look at each other again.

He didn't even want to think about how his aunt would react to this latest event. After he insisted on giving up his Potions OWL retake, she had almost stopped owling him, which was fine by him, but sometimes a bit scary, seeing as she was his only living relative.

'I think that's sufficient punishment for you, Remus,' McGonagall said, suddenly transfiguring herself from bad cop to good cop. She even sounded sympathetic, which made Remus feel a bit tearful; he certainly didn't want to feel tearful, not here or now.

'Sirius' - what was with the sudden switch anyway? -- 'as you were out of bounds, I am going to give you a Saturday afternoon detention and you will miss the next Hogsmeade weekend.'

'Is that it?' Sirius demanded.

'Excuse me?'

'Well, it seems a bit unfair. Lupin loses his prefect's badge, and I get a detention.'

Remus half expected McGonagall to say 'I'll give Lupin a detention too, if you like,' but of course she didn't. 'Mr Lupin had more to lose because he was in a position of responsibility.'

'It still doesn't seem right.'

'Look, Mr. Black, Professor Dumbledore could expel you like a shot if he wanted to. It's up to you.'

Sirius shrugged.

'I'll take that to mean you accept your punishment. I don't want to hear any more about you two misbehaving. Is that understood?'

Sirius said, 'Yes, Professor McGonagall.' Remus said nothing. His voice wouldn't work.

McGonagall stood up, bringing the interview to a close. She was slightly flushed, her lips compressed. In spite of her authoritative tone, she glanced rather uncertainly at the two boys, obviously at a loss as to why they would want to kiss each other when there was a world of pretty girls out there, in classrooms and common rooms and corridors, at meals and on Hogsmeade visits, most of whom fancied Sirius rotten and quite a few of whom fancied Remus.

One of the Animagus pictures on the wall transformed abruptly with a loud pop, making McGonagall and the two boys jump. 'That will be all, run along now,' McGonagall said, flustered, waving her arms.

At least, Remus thought savagely, she seemed as embarrassed as he was by the whole deal. Served her right, too.

Interest: a reassuring conversation. March, Sixth Year.

Up in the dorm, Remus sat down heavily on his bed, and Sirius perched beside him and put his arm around him. 'God, that was a bit harsh.'

'Especially as we were only kissing,' Remus said bitterly.

Sirius hugged Remus to him more tightly. 'Yeah, but you know, Moony, some of the stuff we do actually is illegal. Especially if you're only sixteen. I could probably get put in Azkaban for corrupting a minor.'

Remus's heart contracted painfully. 'Does that mean we have to stop?'

Sirius looked astounded. 'Since when do we stop doing something just because it's illegal? We're marauders, aren't we? Anyway, I don't think you could say 'only' kissing. As kisses go, it was pretty amazing, wasn't it?'

Remus nodded, his head against Sirius's chest. 'You know, Pads, we're going to have to research a few alarm spells. We could try using the siren I found to replace my watch. Though it may be a bit too loud. And we can look at force-fields, that sort of thing. So if there's a Filch or a Snape within a hundred yards we'll know before they can catch us.'

It would, he decided, be a very useful way of spending all this spare time he was going to have, especially if Sirius helped, and they could work in the library late at night when even the staff had gone to bed.

At dinner, James thumped Sirius on the back, and said, 'Oi, what was that audience with McGonagall about? What have you and Moony been up to?'

Sirius looked so blank that Remus, off the top of his head, concocted what seemed at the time to be a reasonable story, that he and Sirius had been caught red-handed making Polyjuice Potion to turn Snape and various other Slytherins into squirrels. 'It was for, for Padfoot to chase at the next full moon,' Remus babbled.

James queried this at first. 'Come on, you're not telling me Moony made Polyjuice Potion?'

'No, Prongs. I made the potion. But it was Moony's idea, and he stole most of the ingredients.'

'Well, I suppose you've got to do something, now you've been banned from Quidditch,' James conceded, and he and Peter agreed that this was a fitting reason for Remus to be demoted

Price: Howler from an indignant aunt. Paid, March, Sixth Year.

Remus didn't wanted to go to breakfast at all; he knew that it wouldn't be too long before people noticed that he wasn't wearing his prefect's badge, and by lunchtime the news would be all round the school. He just hoped that nobody would ever have the faintest inkling what had really happened.

But Sirius got angry with him. 'You bloody coward. What's the point of skipping breakfast? Then you'll have to skip lessons, and then you'll just be spending your whole time in the Shack. No better than if you'd been expelled. You might as well get it over with.'

He held Remus very close, stroking his hair, and murmured in his ear, 'James and Peter could see me doing this at any moment. Shall I call them? I could give them the full story. I will if you don't get your robes on and come down with me right now.'

Remus pushed him away. 'Oh, all right. But I am going to be really annoyed if anyone asks me about that wretched badge.'

The owls circled the Great Hall, taking care to drop their letters and parcels on tables rather than in plates and bowls and jugs: quite a hard undertaking for a bird not noted for great intelligence.

Remus hadn't heard from his aunt since just before Christmas, when she sent him a card containing five galleons and an injunction to be good and work hard. So his heart sank when he recognised her tawny owl hovering over his cup of tea. 'Oh, no, Sirius, she's sent me -'

But the Howler exploded before he could finish.

Remus Lupin, I cannot believe your disgusting behaviour. How dare you lose your prefect's badge for such filth? If your parents were alive they would disown you.

'Just in case anyone in the school didn't know,' Remus muttered. He then said 'Stupid cunt' loudly enough for most of the Gryffindor table to hear, and emit a collective gasp of 'Lupin!'

'What was your disgusting behaviour? What's she mean, 'filth'?' Peter asked with interest.

'We told you,' said Sirius. 'And remember, we weren't supposed to breath a word to anyone, so shut up about it.'

'But I don't see how it's filthy or disgusting,' Peter persisted.

'Then you haven't tasted Polyjuice Potion,' Remus said. 'Can we change the subject? I never want to hear the p word again.'

'Prefect or Polyjuice?'

'Both.'

The following day, James Potter was made prefect for Gryffindor, and began the journey towards his early grave. The reason for this was that Lily would now start to see him in a different light, and their romance would blossom.

Remus didn't feel guilty about James's fate, of course, because he didn't know. Once he got used to the idea of not being a prefect any more, he stopped being pissed off or resentful, because all he had ever wanted in his life was to go to school and be normal, like other wizards. And as he had school and Sirius, he felt doubly blessed.

Price: rumours. Paid, Sixth Year onward.

For the next few days, Remus and Sirius made a point of sitting as far from each other as they could in lessons, aware that the professors were probably monitoring their every move. They didn't realise that this only increased the number of times they glanced at each other, until Peter asked worriedly, 'What is it with you two? Every time I look up you're staring into each other's eyes.' Sirius replied, 'That's because we love each other very, very much.' Peter went red and snapped, 'Not funny, Sirius! It isn't a joke.'

They were sitting in the common room doing their homework. Sirius risked a peek at Remus, but Remus was concentrating on his Charms essay. He was humming happily to himself as he wrote his name, the date and the title neatly at the top of a roll of parchment and underlined them.

James frowned at Sirius and wondered aloud why he had to be so flippant all the time, and it wasn't fair on Moony to keep giving the poor bloke the impression that he had a big smudge on his face or something. But actually, he was annoyed with his best friend for fuelling the flames, because there was plenty of gossip going round about Sirius and Remus after the Howler. Filch wasn't saying anything, of course, just grumbling as usual, but everyone had heard Remus's aunt's message, and lot of people had seen McGonagall summoning the two boys to her office, so they quite astutely put two and two together.

'Wormtail, if you hear anyone say a word about Sirius or Remus, you're to hex them,' James instructed him. Peter may have been a little disappointed -- he enjoyed gossip - but he always obeyed James. James was especially irritated at the derogatory rumours about his straight friend Sirius. 'I don't even want to think about it,' he said, putting his hands over his ears during Defence, when one of the Slytherins asked him, with genuine curiosity, whether his two best friends really were having it off in the dorm every night.

Obviously, Remus and Sirius didn't hear the gossip, as it was about them. They didn't help matters, though, when they took to disappearing for hours on end at the weekends, taking the Map with them, and coming back to the castle flushed and dishevelled and late for dinner.

'Let's make losing that prefect's badge worthwhile,' Sirius used to say.

Price: constant vigilance. Sixth and Seventh Year.

It took a few weeks - the research, in the furthest, most deserted reaches of the library was constantly interrupted by kisses, and more - but eventually Remus and Sirius came up with a perfect Guardian charm, that warned them through sound and vibration whenever anybody was close enough to intercept them at an inconvenient moment. Its action was similar to that of a Muggle mobile phone twenty-five years into the future.

For the rest of their time at Hogwarts, they used this spell every time they wanted some privacy, and it never failed to work. Which was why they spent so many hours in the library, and Sirius got the unexpected, belated, and unjustified reputation for being a bookworm.

Price: one unanswerable question. Hogwarts, Seventh Year.

James was snuffling in his sleep and Peter was snoring, but Sirius and Remus didn't hear them, as the bed by the fire was surrounded by a very powerful silencing charm. Remus was just thinking about how tired he was, when Sirius asked, 'Why are there only ugly words for something so beautiful?'

'Dunno,' said Remus. 'Maybe it's because most people are ignorant.'

'Stupid,' Sirius said. 'Straight people have all sorts of flowery expressions about sex.

We have words like buggery and sodomy, which never sound like anything desirable. And pederasty.'

'Pederasty's with children,' Remus pointed out.

'Know-all.' Sirius leered. 'Shame you're of age now, Moony.'

'As long as there's love in there somewhere, the words don't matter,' Remus said, not quite looking at Sirius, twisting a corner of the sheet round his right hand, like a bandage, though it was nowhere near the full moon.

'Oh, there's plenty of love,' Sirius said. 'What the hell are you doing with that sheet? You'll tear it, and the house-elves will complain.'

End of Part I