Three Acts

Three Acts

The Beginning

It all began with hot breath on his lips and blurred blue eyes above his and a low husky voice saying, "Thanks, mate, I owe you one."

Remus managed an unclear, burbling reply, and went promptly back to sleep. The next morning, James woke him up and looked disapproving. "You should stop sleeping in here," he told Remus, gesturing at the common room as Remus sat up, yawning. "For Christ's sake, these sofas are probably covered in first-year germs."

"We were all first-years once," Remus told James, between more yawns. He began to fold up his blanket.

James continued; he was like that. "You've got to stop waiting up for Sirius to come in." He stuck out his chest in some semblance of authority.

"Maybe," Remus agreed, and draped his folded blanket over his arm as he made for the stairs to the dormitory. Behind him, he heard James hiss exasperatedly and start fluffing up cushions with an unnecessary amount of force. Halfway up the stairs, Remus knocked on the boys' bathroom door. "Anyone in there?"

"I'll be out in a minute," he heard Sirius' voice shout. Remus continued up to the dormitory to deposit his blanket and collect his shower things. As he reached the bathroom again, Sirius came out, hair wet and plastered to his head and dripping onto his white school shirt.

"Thanks for waiting for me last night," he said to Remus, resting a hand gently on his arm. His fingers were still wet.

Remus shrugged. "That's all right."

"You don't have to."

"I said, it's all right."

Sirius smiled tentatively. "Good."

"Who were you with, last night, anyway?" Remus shifted his weight to his left foot.

"Anna. She's a Ravenclaw," Sirius explained.

"Of course," Remus said. "She's in my Arithmancy class."

"That's the one," Sirius agreed. He was still holding onto Remus' arm, and appeared to suddenly realise it. He let it drop, and looked away, suddenly reddening. "Well, I'll see you at breakfast, then."

"Yeah. See you at breakfast," Remus replied.

Sirius smiled again, quickly, and began to run up to the dormitories, swabbing at his wet hair with a towel. Remus went into the bathroom. Its windows were all steamed up and he could see faint outlines on the mirror where Sirius had drawn smiley faces in the mist with his finger. It smelt like Sirius' shower gel, which wasn't really a surprise but still, Remus sniffed it appreciatively. It was a good smell, and reminded him of friendship and trust and the way Sirius shook back his hair casually to keep it out of his eyes.

Remus wondered for a moment why he was still thinking of Sirius, and turned on the shower. He had to wait for a couple of moments for the water to warm up, and then stepped under it. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His scar was shining as if there was silver under his skin, a ridged area of raised flesh over his chest that was, he thought, incredibly unattractive. He was still very wary of taking off his shirt in front of the other boys, and had only ever swam in the lake with them while wearing a t-shirt to protect himself, so he said, from sunburn. He ran his fingers over the scar. It went from just below his left collarbone to above his right nipple, and he hated it. Not that he wasn't covered in other scars, pinkish lines up and down his arms and over his back where he'd scratched himself, but the one across his chest, where the wolf had bitten him, was by far the worst.

He shuddered, and began to wash his hair.

===

That night, Sirius didn't have any dates for Remus to stay up and wait for. He didn't quite know why he'd delegated that task to himself, waiting for Sirius to get back, huddled up under a blanket in the common room, but he had, and he was used to it by now, and he'd learnt how to sleep with oddly-shaped cushions jabbing him in the back.

Instead, the four of them played Exploding Snap, and then had a chess tournament. Peter was humiliatingly defeated by Sirius, and Remus just about beat James, so the two of them went head-to-head and sat around a chessboard until two o'clock in the morning, when Sirius' queen went on strike because she needed her beauty sleep.

"I was winning, though," Sirius insisted to Remus as they went upstairs, who shook his head.

"That's blatantly untrue," he pointed out. "I'd taken both your knights and I was about to take your queen before she got all huffy."

They'd reached the dormitories, and Sirius stalked in and threw himself onto his bed.

"Who won?" James demanded sleepily.

Sirius narrowed his eyes at Remus. "It was unresolved."

Remus thought of other things that had happened through the evening, like the way their fingers had touched accidentally, and how the firelight fell on Sirius' hair, and how they'd laughed, and said, "Yeah, it was unresolved."

===

The next morning, Remus awoke to find a large black dog licking his face. Understandably, this was somewhat of a surprise, and he scrambled away from it, and said loudly, "Oh my God, there's a dog in my bed!" The dog smiled at him - now it was smiling? How the hell did dogs smile? - and was suddenly Sirius. Remus scrambled backwards away from him. "Oh my God, there's a Sirius in my bed!"

Sirius poked him. "Don't be stupid, Remus, did you like it?"

"Did I like what?"

"Me! The dog!"

"It was wonderful, Sirius, I--" Remus began blandly, and then blinked. "Wait, you were the dog?"

Sirius nodded, a delirious smile on his face.

"How?" Remus managed.

"I'm an Animagus!" Sirius squawked. "I woke up early and I was lying in bed wondering if I'd be able to do it and then suddenly I decided to try it, and then I was a dog! What was I like, was I fearsome and scary?"

Remus thought about it. "You were more... licky."

"Well," Sirius said. "Is that a good thing?"

"I've got your spit all over my face. It's debatable."

"Oh." Sirius looked crestfallen for a moment, and then there was the sound of stamping footsteps and James put his head between Remus' curtains. His hair was even wilder than normal and he wasn't wearing his glasses, so an uninviting squint had taken their place.

"Will you two keep it down? I'm trying to sleep!" he demanded.

Remus prudently did not mention the numerous mornings when he'd been woken up by loud explosions from James' corner of the room.

Sirius was grinning again. "Guess what, Jamesy, I can do it!"

"Do what?"

"It! I can turn into a dog!"

James' annoyed face changed suddenly and he flung himself onto Remus' bed as well. It was like a sort of strange party, Remus thought madly, and suppressed a wince as James shifted and elbowed him in the stomach. "You're joking, oh my God! Really?"

"Yeah, I'll show you, two seconds--"

And before Remus' eyes, Sirius' body warped and twisted until he was a large black dog, which began to leap all over Remus, waving its tail so wildly that the whole back part of its body was shaking, and James was roaring excitedly and hugging the dog and saying things like "You've done it, Sirius!"

Remus said, very quietly, "What the hell is going on?"

James turned to face him. "It was going to be a surprise..." he began, and then stopped. "Turn back, Sirius, we can tell him together. I'll go and get Pete."

He disappeared and Remus heard him bounce happily up and down on Peter's bed. The dog turned awkwardly back into Sirius, who removed his body quickly from on top of Remus'. "Isn't it great, Moony?" he said eagerly.

"Er," Remus said, feeling entirely confused and bewildered and why did his best friend suddenly have another personality that manifested itself as a large black dog? It was far too early for this, he thought fervently.

"It's for you, Moony, it's all for you--" Sirius was interrupted by James, who'd returned, dragging Peter by the arm.

"Whassappened?" Peter mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

Sirius morphed into the dog and back again, and Peter's eyes widened. "I knew you could do it!" he said, breathlessly.

Sirius nodded. "I know, and now you two'll be able to do it soon as well, and--"

"You two are going to be Animagi as well?" Remus said loudly. "But... why?"

James looked at the other two boys. "Shall I tell him?" They nodded, and James grinned. "We've been thinking a lot about your transformations recently, ever since we barged in on you in the hospital wing in second year..."

Remus could remember that morning. His friends had stood around the bed, gazing down at him with a mixture of pity and revulsion in their eyes, and when he'd woken up, Sirius had touched his hand, the one that wasn't bandaged, very gently and said, "We know, Remus. We're not stupid. And we don't mind."

"And," James continued, "we saw how much it hurt to be a werewolf, and how you scratched yourself so you didn't hurt anyone else. And we found out that werewolves didn't hurt other animals, just humans. So we decided to help you by being animals."

Remus could feel a lump in his throat, and tears springing to his eyes. He blinked them away very firmly. James was staring at him with a smile of foolish pride, and Peter was rubbing his nose and grinning, and Sirius' hip was against his as he looped an arm around Remus' shoulders and muttered, "Don't cry, silly."

"M'not," Remus insisted, because he wasn't, anymore, and could find no other words. But his friends seemed to understand anyway.

===

The morning after Padfoot had spent the night at the Shrieking Shack was, somehow, much more bearable than normal. Remus woke up in the ramshackle, dusty bed, and the first thing that he saw was Sirius peering anxiously at him. His forehead was blessedly cool and, hazily, he caught sight of the facecloth and bowl of water in Sirius' hands.

"S'time?" Remus muttered, his tongue feeling like cotton wool in his mouth.

Sirius checked his watch, a big gold pocketwatch that his father had given him when he started school. "Nearly seven."

"Pomfrey'll be here soon."

"Yeah," Sirius agreed.

Remus blinked, and more of the room swam into focus. "What happened last night?"

Sirius shrugged. "Well, I was wearing the Cloak and followed you when you were let into the tunnel. Then I transformed into Pads--"

"Pads?"

"It's what James calls the dog. Padfoot, for long. I changed into him right before you transformed." A small crease formed between Sirius' eyebrows. "I never knew it was like that, really. So... well, painful, I suppose. I'm sorry I didn't work harder to be Padfoot sooner. And then you started trying to rip yourself up, it was horrible, so I barked to get your attention. And then you started trying to fight with me, and I rolled over to show you my neck, I don't know how I knew to do that but I did, and the fighting got less violent and more... playful, I s'pose. And whenever you tried to bite yourself and scratch yourself I tried to distract you, by barking or nipping at you or trying to get you to play, and most of the time it worked." He nodded. "And then you started to transform back, and once you were finished I picked you up and put you in the bed because you looked cold."

"Thanks," Remus said quietly. He began to very carefully test his limbs, and discovered that being with Padfoot had worked wonders; his muscles didn't scream nearly as much as they usually did, and the scratches that usually covered his arms and legs weren't nearly as apparent. "It worked," he told Sirius. "A lot."

A very relieved, bright smile spread over Sirius' face. "Really?"

"Really-really. I don't hurt half as much as normal, Pomfrey's going to go mad with curiosity." Remus extended one arm. It ached, of course, but that was expected; the difference was that blood wasn't dribbling from a million gashes, and that he wasn't curled up on the splintered wooden floor. "Thanks, Sirius."

"Any time," Sirius said honestly. "I'm coming back next month."

"Are you sure?"

Sirius' eyes widened. "Of course! You've waited for me all those nights in the common room. I owe you this. Also, I want to do it, if it makes you not hurt so much in the morning."

Remus could feel himself relaxing, and beginning to drift off into slumber. "Thanks, Pads."

"That's all right." Sirius' voice sounded faraway. "And why do you wait for me, anyway?"

Everything was becoming hazy and blurred. "Cause I've got to," Remus murmured. "Just to make sure that none of the girls have had their wicked way with you."

Sirius sounded faintly amused. "And why's that?"

Remus was nearly asleep already when he replied, "Because it's you."

===

As Remus had predicted, Madam Pomfrey was indeed amazed at the changes that had occurred. "Why, you're not half as scratched as normal!" she said, as she stretched a bandage around his ribcage and he grimaced. "Your guardian angels must have been with you last night."

"Yeah," Remus agreed, and suppressed a smile.

===

The next night, which was a Saturday, Sirius didn't have a date. James pretended to have a heart attack and fall out of his chair when Sirius sat down next to Peter on a large, squashy settee.

"What, you're not going out with anyone at the moment?" he asked.

Sirius shrugged. "Nah. Didn't feel like a date tonight."

James struck a position of woe and alack. "Could it be that the original Gryffinwhore has in fact given up shagging?"

Sirius spluttered and swatted at him. "No, of course not! Shut up, James, Lily's looking at you, I think she's finally fallen in love with you."

James' eyes immediately went to Lily, who was in fact staring at him with a look of immense disgust. He pouted his lips at her and fluttered his fingers. She pretended to stick her fingers down her throat, and turned back around to talk to one of her friends.

"It pains me," he complained. "Why won't she ever agree to go out with me?"

Remus hazarded a guess. "Because she's got more than one brain cell?"

James hit him with a cushion. "Shut up, Moony."

"Don't say that name so loudly, you prat, everyone'll realise!"

James looked around, and shrugged. "No one's listening, and anyway, if they did hear, they wouldn't know what I was on about."

"Nothing new there, then," Peter remarked.

James made a noise of concession. "It's not my fault if my amazing and lofty ideas are too complicated for normal human minds to comprehend."

Peter snorted. "Or not."

"Huh." James kicked the low table in front of them lightly. "So now we're all here for once, how did the transformation night go?" He turned his gaze to Remus and Sirius.

Remus glanced over at Sirius, who was letting a foot bounce off the side of the sofa and not looking at anyone. "It went all right," he said, very tentatively.

James' eyebrows rose. "All right? Not better than that?"

"No!" Remus objected. "It went as well as it could have gone. It was... good. Very good."

"Er, okay," James said, looking from Remus to Sirius, who was still studiously not looking at him, and back to Remus again. "So the wolf doesn't attack Animagi?"

"Nope," Remus said. "Apparently not."

Sirius was still sitting there silently and half-ignoring everyone, his arms tightly folded across his chest. James said, "I'm looking forward to when all four of us can go out together at the full moons," slightly desperately.

"Me too," Peter agreed in a high voice.

Sirius stood up and announced, "I'm going up to our room."

When he was gone, James blinked, his brown eyes wide behind his glasses. "What's with him?"

Peter shrugged. "Dunno. I think I prefer him as Padfoot, he can't whinge then."

"I agree," James said heartily. "D'you want to play snap? Remus?"

Remus stared at the pack of cards that James was waving under his nose, and shook his head. "Er, no. Thanks. Maybe later, or tomorrow, or something."

"All right," James said good-temperedly. "How about it, Pete?"

Peter nodded, and Remus slowly tuned out, brow furrowed, thinking about Sirius. Suddenly he stood, and began to make his way up to the dormitory, ignoring the plaintive voices of Peter and James behind him.

===

The room was silent, but the curtains on Sirius' bed were only half pulled across. Remus could see his feet, clad in thick, heavy walking boots that were caked with mud, resting on the covers.

"Sirius?" he asked. "You in here?"

No reply, and then he heard a sigh. "Remus, is that you?"

"Yeah. Is it all right if I come in?"

"Suit yourself."

Remus pulled the curtains around Sirius' bed open a little more, and then perched on the side. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Why?" Sirius was lying down, his hands behind his head, staring resolutely up at the crimson drapes overhead.

"I was just wondering." Remus exhaled heavily. "What was with you downstairs?"

"Nothing," Sirius said, after a pause.

"Are you sure?"

"I said, nothing." Sirius shifted a little, bringing one hand down to rest on his flat stomach. His shirt rose a couple of centimetres, and Remus told himself very sternly to stop looking at that inch of brown skin.

Remus sat in silence for a moment. "So why aren't you out with some girl at the moment?" he finally said.

Sirius wrinkled his nose. "I didn't really feel like it."

"Not up for dating at the moment?" Remus asked, a note of laughter in his voice.

"Ha bloody ha, you know as well as I do that I'm always up for dating." There was a note in Sirius' voice that didn't quite ring true.

Remus shrugged. "I know that you were acting like an arsehole just now in the common room."

"I was not!" Sirius said defensively.

There was a pause as Remus Looked at him.

"Well, I was just--oh, I don't know. I didn't mean to act so, y'know, arseholey, but I just--I didn't want to talk about that transformation night," Sirius confessed finally, and then glared at Remus. "So, yeah."

"Any particular reason?" Remus made himself slightly more comfortable on the edge of Sirius' bed.

The other boy wriggled uncomfortably. "I just don't want to talk about it, all right?"

The conversation seemed over, and Remus was about to get up when Sirius said, "I just don't want the others to be there. Next time, I mean."

Remus lifted an eyebrow. "What, for the transformation?"

Sirius sighed, and sat up, pulling his t-shirt down. He swatted a shiny lock of black hair out of his eyes. "Well, yeah. I don't know why. It's not because I had fun as such, because I didn't, not really, I was worried about you and me and, well, you know what I mean..." Sirius had a habit of speaking in very confused run-on sentences, Remus noticed detachedly. "But in the morning when it was just us two, it was nice. Not that I don't like being around James and Pete, cause I do, you know that. But I don't ever seem to get to spend any time with just you, and, well. As I said before, it was nice." Sirius folded his arms, and pouted, and glared at Remus as if to say that if Remus challenged him, he would be instantly defeated.

Remus felt a sudden wave of relief wash over him. "You're jealous?" he heard himself ask, and inwardly kicked himself. It had been the wrong thing to say; Sirius' face was darkening.

"M'not, I'm not jealous," he said, "what do you think I am, some pratty little first-year?"

"I didn't mean it like that, Pads," Remus said softly. "If you want to know the truth, I liked it as well. It was nice, waking up and you being there. I hope it happens more often."

Sirius was gazing at him with a strange sort of intensity and all of a sudden Remus heard his own words replayed in his head, and said, "Er, not like that, don't worry." He laughed, but it sounded false, and Sirius slumped down onto his elbows.

"I'll see you later then," Sirius said. It was a clear dismissal, and Remus nodded.

"Later, then."

===

The next morning (or, more accurately, at three o'clock in the morning), Remus awoke with a large, heavily breathing lump on his legs. He shifted slightly and wondered whether his legs would be contorted into the position of half-folded for the rest of his life or not. Experimentally, he wriggled his toes. The lump shifted, and growled lazily.

"Padfoot?" Remus hissed. "That you?" It had bloody better be Padfoot, he thought darkly. If it wasn't, he'd scream.

The lump began to crawl up next to Remus, who moved a little to his left so it'd have enough room, and whined softly in his ear. The dog's weight was warm, and comforting, and as Remus curled up beside it, he thought hazily that it was getting increasingly hard to remind himself that Sirius and Padfoot were in fact one and the same, and--oh God, it was Sirius in his bed.

As if Padfoot had read his mind, suddenly he was gone and there was a Sirius in his place; Remus could only just see him in the dark, but his eyes were glittering and like dark pools in his face, and his hair was wild and sticking-up all over the place. He smelt slightly like Firewhiskey - from James' secret trove, Remus thought knowledgeably. Remus could feel Sirius' heart racing as he pinned him to his bed, strong hands on Remus' shoulders, and said, his face very close to Remus', "I'm not letting you get away that quickly."

Remus said, "Get off me, Sirius. You're pissed, aren't you?" and tried to pretend that he wasn't stretching his arms around Sirius' shoulders and drawing him closer.

"Only a bit," said Sirius, shrugging slightly. His chest was pressed against Remus', body stretched across his, and it was deeply uncomfortable for Remus, as he was much smaller and lighter, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Why're you here?" Remus asked, noticing vaguely that it was getting more and more difficult to breathe.

"Take a guess," Sirius murmured, his teeth white as a wolf's in the dark.

Remus said, "Hmm," because he had what seemed like a million guesses but he was suddenly worried that they were all wrong. Sirius' hair was in his eyes and Remus reached up a hand to tuck it behind his ear. He'd been wondering what it feels like on-and-off over the last few weeks, and it wasn't a disappointment, smooth and silky.

"You smell nice," said Sirius, beginning to burrow his head into Remus' chest and kiss a sloppy trail up his neck. Remus froze for a second and then allowed himself to exhale heavily and jerkily. Every nerve ending on his body appeared to be standing on end as he smoothed his hands roughly up and down Sirius' back, and the other boy's sticky kisses that smell of whiskey approached his mouth.

Finally Sirius kissed him for real, his lips smooth and strangely harder than Remus half-expected, as if his teeth were pushing into them. Remus opened his own mouth obediently for a moment, but then pushed on Sirius' shoulders and broke away, rolling him over so that Remus was sitting quite comfortably with one leg on either side of Sirius' chest. Sirius blinked up at him, blue eyes wide, and grasped at the front of Remus' pyjama jacket to pull him down again.

Sirius' mouth tasted of cigarettes, and Remus dragged himself away again. "When'd you start smoking?" he queried breathlessly.

Sirius shrugged beneath him, messy long hair spread out black against the white pillows, and said, "My mum hates smokers."

That was enough explanation for Remus, who nodded vaguely and began abruptly to kiss Sirius again because the other boy's full lips seemed to be demanding it.

===

There weren't any awkward 'coming out' moments because James pulled open Remus' bedcurtains first thing the next morning to find two of his best friends naked and draped over each other.

He leapt backwards, clapped his hands over his glasses, and shouted, "By Merlin, my eyes!"

Remus lifted a sleepy eyelid and was about to berate James for shouting first thing in the morning, but then felt the warmth of Sirius' fingers splayed on his hip, and said "Er," instead.

"Er indeed!" James bellowed.

Beside Remus, Sirius moved slightly. His nose was pressed into Remus' shoulder, his soft hair tickling Remus' skin. "Whassappening, Moony?" he mumbled.

"Er," said Remus again.

From the jolt beside him, Sirius had clearly opened his eyes to see James hovering like an angel of doom over them, his mouth wide in an 'o'. "Oh my God," Sirius said in a strangled voice, which was a strange expression coming from a pureblood, Remus thought detachedly, they usually said something like 'Godric!' or 'Merlin!'

"Close the curtains now, James," Remus said, trying his best to sound detached. He could hear sleepy just-awoken annoyed noises coming from the direction of Peter's bed, and James obediently pulled the curtains across, his face still aghast.

Sirius had his face buried between Remus' shoulderblades and was muttering something that sounded like "Shit fuck bollocking hell..."

Remus twisted around slightly, and said "Are you all right?" in what he hoped was a concerned voice.

Sirius nodded and then shook his head, moaning softly. "Bugger," he said, "I'm hungover. And James saw us, and, oh Merlin..."

Remus flattened his palm against Sirius' forehead. The other boy's skin felt hot, and his eyes looked out-of-focus and bloodshot. He was pale, with a slight tinge of green, and his hair was slightly greasy. Remus thought, oh my God, I slept with him.

"I think I'm going to throw up," Sirius groaned, and suddenly dry-retched, his hand over his mouth.

Remus said, "Well, get the bloody hell out of my bed, then!" which on hindsight probably wasn't the most sensitive thing in the world to say, but it worked, as Sirius staggered out through the curtains and Remus averted his eyes as he heard another horrible retching noise.

He heard Peter say, "That's disgusting, Sirius!" and James reply, "Not as disgusting as what I just saw," in a dark voice.

Remus threw himself back down onto his bed, which felt slightly empty now Sirius wasn't in it, and covered his eyes.

===

Over breakfast, Peter and James wouldn't stop staring at him.

Remus buttered his toast silently and, when they still hadn't stopped, said "What?" in an irritable voice.

James shook his head and said, "I can't believe it."

He appeared to have got over his earlier disapproval, and was caught between awe and intrigue. Peter seemed slightly confused, but accepting.

"So, you fancy boys then?" James asked, after Remus made no response to his previous statement.

"So it would appear," Remus said lightly, and took a bite of toast. Sirius hadn't appeared for breakfast, preferring to spread himself over the toilet bowl and moan quietly, and Remus felt strangely loath to say anything without him there.

James nodded. "Right, then." He was still staring at Remus, who decided to ignore him. After a pause, he shrugged and turned away, presumably to pester Lily, who was sitting opposite him and trying to pretend she hadn't noticed he was there.

Peter blinked and turned away from Remus. "There's only marmalade with bits in," he observed. "I bloody hate marmalade with bits in. Stuff like orange juice and marmalade, they're made instantly evil when they've got bits in. It's unnatural."

Silently, Remus passed him the other kind of marmalade, the sort without bits in. Peter said approvingly, "Good, the normal stuff. Thanks."

Remus said, "That's all right," and then grinned. "Thanks, Pete."

Peter winked at him. "S'okay. And anyway, I've known what's going on for ages."

Remus choked on his toast. "But nothing's been going on!"

"Sirius hasn't just been meeting girls, you know," Peter said airily. "There was that Gideon Prewitt from the year below, and I think he had a very brief thing with Rastaban Lestrange..."

"A Slytherin! But Sirius hates Slytherins!"

"Even I can admit that Rastaban's got a very nice arse, and as I'm as straight as the next man. Except, obviously, when you are the next man, which you appear to be at this moment in time," Peter said fairly.

Remus conceded. "Perhaps. But still, I didn't know any of this..."

Peter looked slightly puzzled. "How? I thought you waited up for him at night."

"I did! I mean, I do. But I thought I was waiting up for him to get back from dates with girls, not boys." Remus felt thoroughly flustered.

"Sometimes you were," Peter said cryptically. "He's been dating around a lot, you know that." He looked away for a moment, and then concentrated on spreading the bit-less marmalade over his toast as he said, "I think he's been waiting for the right person."

"Oh," Remus said, and frowned. There was a pause. "D'you think he's found him now?" he finally ventured.

Peter looked up and flashed him a genuine smile. "I reckon you two are going to be fine."

From just down the table, Remus heard Lily screech, "No, James Potter, you vile beast, for the last time, I'm not going to show you my bra, even if you can tell via x-ray vision that it's red and lacy! Which, just so you know, it's not!"

James slid back down the bench, slightly abashed, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "It was worth a try, right?" he said.

Remus said, "Probably."

James ruffled his hair, making it stick up even more wildly than before, and fell upon a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. Remus hoped, vaguely, that everything would soon return to normal.

===

When he returned to the common room to collect his books for Transfiguration and Arithmancy, Sirius was curled in a corner of a sofa, looking pale and wan.

"How do you feel?" Remus asked, remembering that the last time he'd seen him, Sirius had been pleading with everyone to go to breakfast and let him die alone, which they had.

Sirius shrugged, a narrow shoulder lifting. "Bit better, I suppose. I never knew hangovers could be as bad as that."

"You've been drunk before," Remus pointed out.

Sirius frowned. "Not that drunk."

"Hmm," Remus conceded, and then felt a sudden pang of lurching fear tug at him. "Exactly how much do you remember of last night?"

Sirius shrugged weakly. "Snatches, I suppose. Not everything, but some stuff, I, I don't know really..."

"Ah," Remus said vaguely, feeling suddenly as if something very important had been taken from him. "All right," he said, in a voice that somehow didn't seem to sound like his. "I need to be off to Transfiguration."

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again, as if he'd thought better of it. Finally he said, sounding tired, "I'll see you later then, Moony."

"Yeah," said Remus, still in that strange hollow voice, "later."

===

"You fancy him then," said Peter.

"Well, yeah," Remus answered, honestly. "But he can't remember, Pete, he can't sodding remember. So what's the bloody point?"

On the other side of the sofa, James bashed his head into his Transfiguration textbook and muttered, "I can't believe I'm friends with nancy-boys!"

"Oh, you knew it all along," Peter told him comfortably.

James looked aghast for a moment, and then shrugged. "Well, yes."

Peter returned his attention back to Remus. "He does fancy you, you know."

Remus screwed up his nose. "I bet he doesn't," he said darkly, "I bet this is all an evil ploy to get me to say, yeah, I fancy Sirius, so you lot can all laugh at me."

Peter frowned. "We wouldn't do that. Well," he continued after a pause, "I wouldn't do that. And I don't reckon Sirius would go that far with a prank. Specially not against you."

"He did go rather far," Remus agreed miserably, and tried to shake away the memory of Sirius' warm lips on his own.

"Wow, that was too much information," said James brightly.

"Sorry," said Remus, even more dejectedly.

James sighed, and moved up a few inches, so his shoulder was pressing into Remus'. "You know I'm just making fun of you, right?" he said frankly. "I know I piss around sometimes but I do just want you to be happy, you and Sirius."

Remus exhaled loudly. "Thanks, James. But I just don't know, all right? I don't know anymore."

James was gazing across the common room at a red-haired figure as he said, sounding uncharacteristically serious, "I know what you mean. I really do."

"She'll go out with you one day," Peter told him kindly.

"I know," James said confidently. "But why must she keep torturing me like this? Should I ask her out again? Yeah, I think I will."

"Don't," Remus advised him.

"I think I will," James repeated, a sudden manic smile on his lips. He raised his voice. "Oi, Evans, will you go out with me?"

She shouted back, "I'd rather eat your glasses!"

"That could be arranged," James called.

Lily made a disgusted noise. "That didn't even make sense, you pathetic excuse for a human being!"

James turned back to Peter and Remus. "She didn't agree," he reported to them.

"Maybe if you stopped calling her 'Evans'," Remus suggested peacefully.

James frowned and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "That'd take the thrill out of our relationship, wouldn't it?"

"Hmm." Remus decided to tactfully not mention that Peter and the Giant Squid had a more fulfilling relationship than James and Lily.

"But back to you," James said, leaning forwards confidentially towards Remus. He paused expectantly. "Well?"

"Well what?" Remus said.

"What are you going to do?" James asked.

Remus slumped backwards, his head in his hand. "That's the thing, you see. I don't know. I really bloody don't know."

===

The next night, Remus woke very early with Padfoot curled on his feet again. He wriggled his toes until the dog woke up, sniffing disgruntledly, and crawled up the bed towards him. Padfoot rested his head on Remus' chest, who thought vaguely, No one could ever believe he's a real dog. His eyes are too blue.

Remus reached out a hand and gently scratched Padfoot behind his ears. The dog nipped gently at his wrist, and closed his eyes. Remus said drowsily, "Good dog," and went back to sleep.

When he woke in the morning, Padfoot had transformed back into Sirius. He was sleeping quietly, one hand underneath Remus' pillow and messy black hair falling across his face, clad only in pyjama bottoms. The skin of his chest looked very smooth and golden, and Remus could remember only too well how it felt to run his fingers over it. For a moment Remus' hand hovered over a thick lock of dark hair, but Remus snatched it away. Another day, perhaps. Another lifetime.

He got up, careful not to wake Sirius, and decided to have a shower.

===

Remus scrutinised his chin in the mirror above the sink, and wondered if he would have to shave that day. No such luck, and he felt a strange mixture of relief and disappointment as he turned off the running water. The bathroom was humid, and old pictures that had been drawn on the mirror in the steam had resurfaced. Remus ran a finger around the outline of a smiley face with a speech bubble saying 'SIRIUS = SEX' and felt he had to agree.

He picked up his wet towel from the floor and draped the bathmat over the edge of the bath. When he opened the door to leave, there was an aggressive figure half leaning over the doorframe, bright blue eyes flashing indignantly.

"Hello," said Remus, somewhat redundantly.

Sirius jabbed a finger into his chest and pushed him backwards into the bathroom. "Where'd you go?" he demanded.

"To shower," Remus answered, which was true.

"You could've woken me up, Moony," said Sirius sadly. "You could've at least said good morning or something."

"Sorry."

Sirius' face seemed very close to his all of a sudden, so it was no surprise when the other boy growled frustratedly and mashed his lips against Remus'. There was an unfortunate clash of teeth and Remus could tell that Sirius hadn't brushed his yet; nonetheless, he kissed back just as fervently, his hands clamped to either side of Sirius' head as he drank him in like sunlight.

Sirius pulled away, half-gasping, and said fiercely, "I won't forget this, I couldn't," and Remus knew that he was telling the truth. Moonlight and starlight, melded together like some excruciating rainbow that broke the sky with its brightness, and Sirius was clinging to him and his heart was beating a frantic rhythm that was perfectly in tune with Remus' own.

TBC.