Third Year

Sometimes it seemed to Remus Lupin that his entire Third Year had been designed to remind him that he was not like other people. It would trick him into thinking, for a little while, that he was just any thirteen-year-old boy, playing Quidditch and making up pranks with Sirius and James and Peter. One day he would be doing something perfectly ordinary, like researching a Crispus Capillus charm to make Sirius's hair curl wildly for a week; the next he would be smiling tightly at his friends before Madam Pomfrey led him to the Whomping Willow, and as he turned to go he would always be struck afresh with the realization that he would never be like them, could never be no matter how much they pretended.

Third Year was supposed to be a very exciting one. They were allowed to go to Hogsmeade now, which sent Sirius and James and to a lesser degree Peter into paroxysms of delight. He, on the other hand, had been in the infirmary during both visits, and although Sirius always returned with a bag or two full of candy and toys and especially chocolate for him, and he strongly discouraged James and Peter (with threats and, occasionally, fists) from making it seem like they'd had the time of their lives, he knew better. He could almost smell it on them, the high excitement from running and throwing snowballs and looking at marvelous gadgets, although his olfactory senses were the same as any other person's three-hundred-fifty-three days out of the year. It was of no use to assure himself that he would have been miserable because of the crowds of people and the fact that he hadn't any money. He would have enjoyed just seeing James and Sirius galumphing around like the pair of great clumsy albatrosses they always were, while Peter hung back, smiling nervously at their high spirits and biting his index finger.

There was another reason Third Year often made him feel like he was in his infirmary bed watching the rest of the world like a Quidditch match through the window, and that was that at thirteen, his class was starting to develop finer feelings that made it possible to enjoy the company of the opposite sex in a way they had not previously.

Honestly, he thought crossly in early February, everyone seemed to be getting stupid "crushes" on everyone else, while he looked on in mostly tolerant amusement. He supposed it would happen to him eventually- only that summer, James had still been of the opinion that girls were nasty, pesky things, and now look at the state of him. He who had always been so proud of the fact that he'd never missed a meal in his life, not once, not from the very first time he could suckle, was ignoring his lunch in favor of flinging bits of paper into Lily Evans's hair. If he were the least bit clever, he'd have realized that Lily had put some sort of repellent charm around her head, and the bits of paper fell harmlessly to the floor. But James pushed on doggedly, ardent in his quest to pester her until she got mad enough to yell at him.

This behavior puzzled Remus completely. He knew he was still rather underdeveloped physically for a thirteen-year-old boy, especially compared to Sirius, who had shot up and filled out alarmingly in the past year. Perhaps that was why he had no desire to participate in the strange mating rituals he saw around him on a daily basis. At any rate, girls remained the same baffling things he'd always thought them, and he had no hankering to become more mature if it meant he had to put himself at their mercy.

At least in this one instance Sirius was happy not to imitate James. He threw no bits of paper in anyone's hair (except mine, Remus thought ruefully, but usually those are notes. "Oi, do you have the notes from Charms? Skived off to read something about the YOU-KNOW-WHAT. And do not think that because you never ask what we're doing, that means I will spill my guts because I will never tell Moony"). Sirius was, on the other hand, the recipient of many stares and giggles behind hands, the occasional "accidental" bumping into in the hallway, and more than a few Secret Admirer owls. Sirius took it in stride, but then, he thought fondly, Sirius was vainer than a herd of peacocks, and a hundred times more clueless. He seemed to have no idea what girls were on about, although he liked the attention enormously and gave a wide vacuous smile whenever he was accosted by one of them.

Even Peter was at least aware of the opposite sex. He'd lately taken to haunting the Ravenclaw table to catch a glimpse of Jane Jarvey, who occasionally talked to him in the hallway. I'm the lone Marauder completely uninvolved in romantic contretemps, he told himself a trifle smugly, and oh, he thought later, how pride does go before a fall.

Playing chess with James in the Gryffindor common room one evening, he was at present quite perfectly happy. He was thirteen, his homework was done, the full moon was still a week away, his belly was comfortably full, and he was playing chess with someone who had the skill and patience to be a worthy foe. Peter hadn't the skill, and Sirius hadn't the patience- or the inclination. "Bollocks," he always said with an imperious wave of his hand when Remus or James tried to teach him. "Bloody old man's game."

Upon reflection, James generally had the skill and patience to be a worthy foe. Today it was only fifteen minutes before Remus glared at him. "Checkmate in three moves. Have you turned into Peter?" he asked exasperatedly.

James sighed, gloom permeating every pore of his lanky body. "No," he replied. There was a ringing note of self-pity in that single syllable that warned Remus of forthcoming Lily-induced moaning. James did not disappoint. He fell back onto the maroon couch, his hands spread wide in supplication. "Moony, have you ever been in love?"

Remus snorted. His queen was polishing her nails, waiting patiently for them to resume their game. "No, and glad of it, for it's made you into a boob," he said crushingly, hoping it would penetrate James's thick skull.

But James, bent on unburdening his soul, ignored that last bit and mournfully beseeched, "Maybe you can tell me how to get rid of it then."

Now the queen had taken out her mirror and was putting on lipstick. She was having a fling with one of the knights, he had discovered, and wanted to look her best. Remus watched her for a full minute before he finally looked up at his friend, once a mighty Gryffindor, now just a lowly, whining teenage boy. He sighed heavily. Thank God Sirius wasn't in love with anybody- he'd be intolerable. "Well, James, what are your symptoms?"

James sat up straight and ran a hand through his messy hair, messing it up even further, then he stopped. "Well, that for instance. I'm extraordinarily preoccupied with how I look in front of her. I seem to have this sixth sense as to when she's in the room, and as soon as she is I can't stop fiddling with my hair, I'm like a simpering little girl." He sighed a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his toenails. "When somebody says her name I feel like I'm going to chuck it. But- in a good way, if that makes any sense."

Remus privately thought that it didn't. There was only one person whose name made him feel like throwing up, and that was Severus Snape's, but there was no pleasure mingled with the nausea. There was only violent mutual dislike, aggravated by the fact that every time Snape saw him, he made cruel, cutting fun of him. He had no defenses against this kind of treatment, no idea how to protect himself against the barbs and slings the other boy shot at him except to withdraw deeply into himself, silent and cold and utterly impassive. Only Sirius could jolly him out of what they called the Moony Moon-face- usually by playing some tremendous, loud, many-detention-getting prank on a lot of Slytherins.

James pulled Remus's thoughts away from greasy hair by wrapping his arms around his knobby knees. "I can't stop thinking about her. If she'd even so much as look at me like I were a human being I might be able to get over it. But I act like a mentally deficient orangutan around her, and I say things I don't mean, and when she's in the room I can't pay attention to anything else but the fact that her hair is very red and very shiny. Like a tomato. With arms and legs."

Remus frowned and scratched his nose. "You don't go round telling her this, do you? Because if you do, mate, a hex is the least of your concerns."

That earned a baleful glare. "Oh, you're a lot of bloody help, you unfeeling bastard. How you got a reputation for being someone a bloke could turn to in times of need, I'll never know."

He snickered. "Sorry. Do go on. Obsession fascinates me."

"You've really never felt anything like this for anybody, Moony?" James asked, his hazel eyes aggrieved behind his spectacles. "Am I insane then? I mean obviously I am, but am I incurable?"

Remus bit his lip. Perhaps if he made an effort to be more cruel, James would shut up. He could go on for hours if left unchecked. "Yes."

An agonized groan erupted from James's mouth and he flopped sideways on the couch, burying his face in the material. Remus shook his head and swept his chess pieces into their box because clearly he would be getting no good chess from James today, and the queen was wailing because now she would have to miss her rendezvous with the knight. "I told you that you were a boob and you didn't listen. You are a boob."

"You haven't any feelings whatsoever, Moony. You just wait until you fall in love with somebody. I hope she's a troll. I hope she makes you clean her troll ear wax. You'll be a pitiful ball of sick-making lovey-doveyness, Moony, I know you will. I'll laugh."

Remus patted the untidy dark head resting on the couch and said, "If I fall in love with a troll, you are permitted to laugh. Until then, you may want to remember that your face is resting where Sirius spilled that potion the other day, the one that needed the scum from the bottom of the bathtub."

"You are going to be a professor someday, Moony, if you aren't careful," James warned him hollowly.

He started upstairs, shaking his head at the wreck of a Marauder left behind him. Honestly, the thought of being such a moron over a girl. He was relieved when he got to their room and Sirius was there, a welcome, Exploding-Snap-bearing respite from raving lovelorn idiots.

After a dinner during which Lily finally threatened James with bodily harm, Remus did his homework with Peter and read Pickwick Papers until it was time for the lights to go out. He could already tell, could feel it in his bones, that tonight was going to be the first night of restlessness. He had always had a hard time sleeping during the week or so leading up to the full moon, and until last January, he would have been tossing and turning the whole night, finally ending up reading a book to pass the time before dawn ("Fifty points from Gryffindor because Monsieur Moony is an old man," Sirius had roared when he found out Remus read instead of plotting mayhem) and existing in a state of miserable exhaustion all day. But since last January...

After the lights had gone out, he felt a long, warm body slide into his bed behind him and smiled. Since last January he'd slept through all his restless nights, and Sirius was the reason. Since his friends had discovered his condition, they tried to visit him every morning after a Transformation. Sirius was the only one who was there every single time, but then Sirius never seemed to need sleep like other human beings. At any rate, he remembered telling him during one of those early-morning infirmary visits that the only thing that helped him on those nights was when his mother traced her fingers along his back. From infancy it had put him to sleep within minutes. At the time Sirius had given him that look that was part envy, part amusement, but he'd said nothing. Until one restless night five days before the full moon, he felt Sirius crawl into his bed, just like tonight, whispering, "Can't sleep, can you?"
"No," he had whispered back, glad he wasn't the only one awake, wondering what prank Sirius wanted help with.

"Turn on your belly," Sirius had told him, and he'd wordlessly complied, hoping the spell Sirius was about to test on him had no adverse side effects. But there was no spell, and no prank. He had only put his warm fingers on Remus's back and begun to rub the skin lightly through his shirt, exactly the way his mother had when he was very small. When Remus murmured that he didn't have to do this, even as he sighed appreciatively and began to slide into unconsciousness, Sirius had only said, "Ssh, Moony, just go to sleep."

Since then, Sirius did it nearly every night leading up to the full moon, except over the summer holidays. The first few times he protested mildly, unable to understand why Sirius would do this for him. Sirius tried to explain, "Look, Moony, it's like when I bring things back from Hogsmeade for you when you're too sick to come. I can see that you're unhappy, and you're in pain, and I can't have fun if I don't at least try to help you. I can tell you're really exhausted, and this is something I can do for you that's really easy. Plus, if you fall asleep in History of Magic, who's going to get our notes then, I ask you? Think of poor Peter, and his mushy brains."

He still didn't entirely understand, but he was too far gone now to question it anymore. If Sirius wanted to rub his back until eternity, he was never going to stop him, he liked it far too much. And it was so nice to be able to sleep soundly, warm and comfortable and somehow reassured, though he was never sure what he was being reassured of. He loved the companionable, hushed atmosphere around them as Sirius's slim fingers ran over the tender skin of his back, writing messages and stories and Arithmancy problems in the dark. Sometimes he struggled to stay awake, to prolong the enjoyment of the experience.

Like tonight, he thought, murmuring incoherently in drowsy, satisfied pleasure. He could easily have fallen asleep ten minutes ago. But when Sirius wrote, "A long time ago, in a land far away, there lived a little boy with brown hair and a teddy bear named Wembley and smelly feet", the tension in his joints and his brain seemed to uncoil and he was too cozy to want to sleep.

"I should never've told you about that teddy bear," he said muzzily, half into his pillow, "And I haven't got smelly feet." The fingers on his back paused, then spelled out "NO INTERRUPTIONS MOONY," followed by a gentle pinch on the side of his belly where he was most ticklish, such a Sirius thing to do, that mixture of soothing him and making him laugh and startling him that was his own unique brand of entertaining Remus.

I could spend the rest of my life like this, he told himself. I can almost understand what James is talking about, that feeling of the entire room being taken over by one person. Sirius is like that- he takes over every room he's in. He makes it so I can't ever see anybody else, the great annoying ponce.

Maybe that was why he hadn't fallen prey to the epidemic sweeping their class. He'd been too busy seeing Sirius. Feeling as malleable and pliant as taffy under Sirius's touch, he snuggled a little closer to the warmth of his body. There was simply no way he could have this with a girl. We'll just have to be crabby old bachelors in a grotty flat then, yelling at children to get off our lawn, was his final thought as he was lulled to sleep at last.

When he woke early the next day he was aware of three things that made this morning different from every other morning. The first was that Sirius was still in bed next to him, having apparently fallen asleep soon after Remus the night before. When Remus turned they were facing each other, and Sirius's head was very close to his. His hand was also still on Remus's back, which gave him a tiny thrill in the very basest pit of his belly. The second thing was that he was hard beneath his pyjama bottoms, something which had happened many times before, but never with somebody else in the bed. The third thing was that the second thing was caused by the first thing, which made only a moderate amount of sense in his head.

It was stupid of him not to realize it before, he thought calmly, gazing at Sirius. No wonder the thought of chasing after girls held no appeal for him. Appeal was right here next to him, in the form of a lively, mischievous, boastful boy who confessed that he sometimes couldn't sleep with the lights off because his mother had locked him in the garret for impertinence when he was five and forgotten about him, then wrestled with him and tickled him and pulled his hair and got him into trouble and once accidentally almost got him drowned by the squid. Appeal was very early light spilling into his carelessly closed bed curtains, wantonly throwing itself across the sleeping form of Sirius Black- for even sunlight, it seemed, couldn't resist him.

He stared at Sirius's finely drawn face- at the seven freckles across his aristocratic nose (how somebody so silly could look so dignified, he would never know), at the long eyelashes, at the jaw that was beginning to be almost cruelly sharp now that his face was losing its childish roundness, at the black eyebrows that peaked in the middle, lending him a slightly wicked air, at the graceful indentation in his lower lip- until his bladder forced him out of bed.

He turned away from Sirius, shrugging off the warm hand on his back and stalking toward the bathroom. His fingers were shaking as he pulled his shirt over his head, and he flung it roughly into the corner when he realized it was one of Sirius's. For exactly three minutes he was angrier than he could ever remember being in his life- angry at himself for always choosing the hardest path, at fate for making him different in yet another way, at Sirius for being...well, Sirius. As if he didn't have to censor himself enough already, he thought furiously as he turned on the shower and stepped in, telling the shower head, "Give me cold water, please". The icy spray made him temporarily unable to think, which was good, but then his lungs seized up from the shock and he couldn't breathe, and that was bad. "All right, best make it warm water then," he told the shower, and it complied. He leaned his forehead against the chilly tile and wanted to die. He allowed self-pity to overwhelm him for another few minutes, but soon enough his sense of self-preservation came in to rescue him, along with his pride and his rationality. There was no reason whatsoever to go to pieces because he was attracted to boys, or Sirius in particular. In a way, he had known for a long time, hadn't he? He had. In that small, unprotected chamber of his brain that only he knew the combination to, he had admitted it to himself in a hundred different, panicky ways in the last year or so. Every time Sirius pulled him close in affection and he was flooded in giddy heat; every time he had lulled himself to sleep imagining a body under his- a body that coincidentally felt a lot like Sirius's, every time he had secretly rejoiced over a complicitous glance between the two of them when only they knew the joke...he had known.

Well. There was only one thing to be done. Remus closed his eyes, letting water hit the crown of his head, spilling down his face and his neck. He was going to ignore it until it either went away or became a non-issue. It wasn't as though he were in love with Sirius or anything; he just wanted him. Pushed against the shower tiles, his body shaking, their lips a quivering breath apart, so close he could feel the swift thumpthumpthump of his heartbeat... His chest hitched convulsively and he pushed the unwelcome thought away. That was not going to happen, and he'd be damned if he spent all his time looking for signs, looking for a way to make Sirius into something he could never be. It would destroy their friendship, and there was nothing on earth Remus would do to jeopardize that one solid good thing in his life, his friends.

But, he thought as an irrepressible shiver laced through him, the rest of him didn't seem to agree with that, not at all. The rest of him, he noted, was reacting quite fiercely, which was odd in and of itself. Although he was used to this and knew how to take care of it (one could not live in the constant company of other boys for two years without being well-informed on the subject of wanking), his body had never been swayed by one thought or the other before. It always just happened rather randomly. Like a sneeze. He let his hand run over his belly, past the odd scar or two or three on his stomach, down the line of fine hair that had appeared there seemingly overnight, and reflected that this was not random. Nothing sneeze-like here. Kissing Sirius, that unprotected chamber of his brain whispered, and called forth the image, making a heavy pulse begin to beat between his legs, kissing him mindless, those intent gray eyes half-lidded and wild and hazy with want while he nibbled on that perfect mouth-

No. His hand sprang away from his body as if he had burnt himself and he asked the shower to go cold again. I am not going to think about Sirius at all that way, he's my best mate. No more. His lips were tinged blue by the time his erection had gone away, and only the thought of Sirius looking at him with disgust and hatred in his eyes kept it from coming back.

Classes passed like dreams, and for once he was glad of his lycanthropy, which proved a reliable excuse for his distraction and general irritability. Without a great deal of difficulty, he passed notes back to Sirius, helped Peter with his homework after school, played chess with James and beat him soundly, and the entire time he had only one thought on his mind and that was How am I going to survive tonight?

When the lights went out and he lay under the blankets staring at the ceiling he knew he had a dilemma. Sirius would be crawling into bed with him in a matter of minutes. If he refused to let Sirius touch him, he'd know something was wrong and likely pester him until he was further round the bend than he currently was. He might even confess, he thought and blanched.

The curtains rustled and he heard Sirius whisper, "Moony? I can't sleep, can you?" Hating himself, knowing he was a coward and he was going to suffer for it, he fought to breathe deeply, pretending to be asleep. Sirius tried one more time, his voice hesitant and confused, then he withdrew with a small huff and Remus could hear him going back to his own bed. He burrowed miserably into his blankets and did suffer, for he couldn't sleep the entire night, and now that he had pretended to Sirius that he was asleep he couldn't get up and get a book to pass the time either. He had nothing to distract him from his thoughts, and they circled round and round to the same thing, round and round, Sirius Black Sirius Black Sirius Sirius Sirius, until he clutched his head and thought he'd go mad.

Sirius, his face a deathly shade of pale when he was sorted in Gryffindor; Sirius crawling into his bed with a "Budge over, I'm freezing and James kicks", neither of them admitting to each other that they were terrified and homesick that first year; Sirius, rubbing his back after he was violently sick into the rubbish bin by his infirmary bed, the day he and James and Peter came to tell them they knew, they knew and they didn't care; Sirius, curled into a silent, tearless ball on his bed after one of his mother's letters, seemingly unable to move except for his fingers entwined with Remus's; Sirius, cruel and careless in a thousand small ways, his spine straightened by pride, looking down his nose at everyone except James and Remus and, occasionally, Peter; Sirius, who was the only person in the world who knew he was ticklish.

He was still lying on his belly, his gritty eyes staring sightlessly at the small bit of the room he could see through the gap in his curtains, when James's Quidditch clock began to berate them. "Oi! Half past five, ya lazy buggers. Oi! Half past five..." He knew Sirius would wake immediately, because he was inhuman, and would be in the shower first, bellowing dirty limericks. James would slither out of bed several minutes later, bleary-eyed and swearing when he stubbed his toes, and Peter would be shaken awake ten minutes before they had to be down for breakfast. Normally Remus would be just before James, but today he waited until after so he wouldn't have to face Sirius.

The day was vague, fuzzy-headed agony. He hadn't had to deal with sleeplessness for over a year, and he found his tolerance was severely lowered.

"The bloody hell is wrong with you, Moony?" Sirius muttered after a Transfiguration class in which his quill had not transfigured into a spoon, but instead had shot up into the air and buried itself into the wall behind them, quivering, Remus thought, with a sort of feathery indignance. "I thought you slept last night."

Remus swayed on his feet a little bit and smiled. This, he had discovered, was not a bad state at all. He was utterly numb, and when one was utterly numb, one could not be thinking about fancying one's mates, could one? He shook his head, still smiling, not seeing James exchange a concerned look with Sirius. "I woke up again," he lied, "Woke up. Tired."

"Tonight," Sirius squeezed his shoulder gently, though he was scowling, "Tonight I'm going to make sure you stay asleep. You're about to pass out, Moony."

He knew he should feel dread at this, but there was only relief. Tonight he would be able to sleep. When night fell and Sirius climbed into bed beside him, there was absolutely no thought of fancying anyone...well, maybe a passing one, a little niggling Mmmmm...but Sirius's fingers were hot through his shirt and he was asleep almost before his eyelashes fluttered shut.

The next morning he waited again until Sirius was done showering before he went in, and emerged shivering so hard he bit his tongue. He was a little steadier in his classes, but not by much. Potions, for example, was a dismal failure. His Sleeping Draught was achieving a perfect consistency, which almost never happened, when he made the mistake of glancing up. His eyes immediately rested on Sirius's desk. To be more specific, Sirius's hands on Sirius's desk. They were long-fingered and slim and rough-knuckled, calloused and nail-bitten and lovely, and Remus was unable to stop remembering that those hands had been on his body the night before, and his potion turned a brittle purple and shattered the phial he was pouring it into. Snape was sneering and Professor Dirge was taking points in exasperation, but he couldn't really hear either of those things through the blood pumping in his ears. "I'm fine," he said thickly when James asked him if he was all right, his face hot.

So, he reflected when the sun began to sink on the third restless night. He had given himself two options. Ignore it until it went away, or let it become a non-issue. Clearly, he wasn't going to be able to ignore it. Just the sight of Sirius lying on his side studying this evening, his shirt riding up just enough to afford anyone a glimpse of the white, boyish dip of his belly, the pale skin as soft as goose-down, the line of silky dark hair running like an arrow under his trousers, made him shaky and sweaty. I want him, he told himself, I don't care if I'm not allowed to, I want him and I want him to touch me. I can't touch him back, I can't do anything else about it, but I want his hands on me. It's not going to kill me. Shakespeare was right- men have died and the worms have eaten them and all that rubbish, and anyway, I've got to sleep sometime, haven't I?

With the air of a person who knows he's drowning and doesn't care, he undressed for bed and lay there waiting. When the curtains were pulled back and he heard Sirius whisper, "Can't sleep, can you?" he broke out into goose-bumps even though he was hot and flushed and butterflies were playing a rollicking game of Quidditch in his stomach, and he lifted his head and whispered, "No", then buried his burning face in his cool sheets and waited for the touch on his skin.

When the words "In the gray bed there is a chocolate-loving git named Moony" appeared on his back, Remus had to bite his lip to hold back a choked cry. This was not the lazy, gentle feeling he was used to, the one that soothed him to sleep. His skin felt as though every nerve had been exposed, and when Sirius's index finger ran across them, one point of white heat, every single one of those nerves was connected to his groin. He shuddered and his hips rocked reflexively against the bed. Sirius pulled his hand away for a moment in alarm, then laid it palm-down on the small of his back as if to calm him. It did the exact opposite, and that heavy pulse between his legs began to beat again, driving everything out of his head except the need for release.

Sirius's lips were very, very close to his ear- so close, in fact, that they brushed it, and it was so difficult to suppress his groan that a puff of exasperated air escaped his lips while he shivered from the top of his head, where his scalp tightened, to his toes, which curled- as Sirius whispered, "Are you okay?"

He was going to die of it. Sod Shakespeare, he was now completely sure that men, many men, had died and the worms had eaten them, and they had died because they had been in situations exactly like this one. One droplet of sweat slid down his nose and fell onto his pillow as he forced himself to calm down enough that he could say in a steady voice, "I'm fine, I had an itch."

He braced himself and managed not to move a single muscle when the writing began again on his back. "Moony is a spaz."

Oh God oh God, he chanted in his head, his hands clenched hard in his sheets as he tried not to rub his hips against the bed. Oh God, I'm going to scream, I'm going to roll over and put his hand between my legs, I'm going to die if he doesn't stop touching me but I'm going to die if he does...

It took him half an hour to slow his breathing enough that he could actually pretend to have fallen asleep, and it was one of the most difficult half-hours of his life, laying utterly still even though his body wanted desperately to arch into the touch while Sirius's fingers traced lines of shivery heat all over his skin. For the first time he didn't even pay attention to what was being written on his back, trying to think about anything but what was happening, trying and failing to ignore Sirius's proximity and warmth and his steady breathing and his scent, all of which made Remus want to tug at his earlobe with his teeth, making his breath hitch while Remus rubbed the soft skin at the small of his back and pushed their hips closer in a steady rhythm, and this time when his thoughts circled around Sirius they were not about Sirius himself but about his body, his lovely slim long-legged body, and his imagination was delving into places he wasn't entirely sure were physically possible, though he was willing to try-

He was almost weeping when Sirius finally whispered, "Good night, Moony," and left.

He waited until Sirius had padded off in the direction of the bathroom before he grabbed his wand and murmured a Silencing Spell on his bed, then rolled over onto his back, gasping, his hands on his sweaty face. He was throbbing between his legs, so painfully hard that he couldn't ignore it, couldn't wish it away, there wasn't enough cold water in the world and to be honest he didn't care anymore, he slid his hand down his body, under the waistband of his pyjamas and then into his pants, and oh, he bucked his hips into his hand and let his head roll on the pillow it felt so good, thick and slippery and slick, and he had to muffle himself in the crook of his elbow because even with the Silencing Spell he didn't trust anybody not to hear anything, and he was imagining that his hand was Sirius's hand, between his legs, stroking him slowly, and he was panting short sharp breaths against his arm that were starting to become gaspy moans, and the rocking of his hips was tightening as he drew closer and closer and closer, and he was no longer even moaning but whimpering, his arm pulling away from his face so his hand could fist in the sheets, clenching harder and harder and harder, and he forgot about the Silencing Spell, forgot about everything but the liquid pleasure coursing through his entire body and he was so close he was sobbing Sirius Sirius Sirius Sirius and his head was hitting the headboard and he didn't care because he was spilling hot and wet and helpless into his hand, pulsing over and over and over until he lay shaking, completely shattered.

Rational thought did not return to him for several minutes. When it did he became aware that his body had cooled considerably and he was shivering in his sweat-damp clothes. His pyjama bottoms were a mess, and his eyes were stinging, his chest tight. Grabbing his wand, he muttered "Scourgify", which took care of both sweatiness and stickiness, and he burrowed into his blankets, refusing to cry even though his lower lip was trembling dangerously. In the aftermath of orgasm, he finally allowed himself to admit it. He was in love with Sirius. If he were perfectly honest with himself he had been for some time, or at least it had been lurking unseen, waiting for him to notice that Sirius was everything to him, a gigantic, yellow, annoying sun, taking up all his attention and his time. After several days of having dealt with it, he was not afraid that it was obvious anymore, for if it had been nobody would have hesitated to say anything. He would have woken up with it tattooed on his forehead.

So, he had admitted it to himself, and nobody was going to find out. All the same, he was going to have to be careful. Behind his scatterbrained exterior, Sirius had a frightening brain, and when he focused it on something he always figured it out. How often, Remus wondered, had it been focused on him? Too many times. This was one thing that couldn't be figured out or laughed off- if his friends knew, they wouldn't think it was a grand adventure like being a werewolf. The words began to run together, a litany in his head as he slid into a troubled sleep, Sirius will never be in love with you. Never. So you had better get through this phase of being in love with your mate, sharpish. You can do that. You know how to pretend, Remus. You've done it all your life. It'll be okay.

I hate Third Year.