Chapter Text
When Sirius wakes up, the last thing he remembers is his hand reaches towards a very surprised, glowing, Remus. Which is enough to make him worried that he’s gone mad. As he sits up and opens his eyes, he lets out a rather undignified croaking noise.
There’s a sudden movement to his right and there’s Remus himself, sitting in a very awkward position, now turned to him. The two boys stare at each other, wide eyed, before they both exclaim at once, ‘Are you alright?’
Remus laughs a little bit, and Sirius tries to as well, but his head is pounding and for some reason, his whole skin feels like it’s tingling. After opening and closing his hands, nothing seems to hurt. It just feels really, really strange.
Sirius turns to Remus. ‘So.. you were glowing?’ Which is not a sentence Sirius Black thought he’d be saying today.
‘So were you.’ Remus responds quickly. ‘You were trying to cast some spell - what was it?’
Sirius sat back for a moment, trying to think. What spell was he trying to cast? His mind does a rewind of the lesson they were sat in. ‘Oh - OH! Right!’ He exclaims and leaps forward in the bed. THAT’S what the weird tingling is. He’s about to explain to Remus when he hears those all too familiar footsteps and groans inwardly.
Madame Pomfrey’s cold hand flies up to his forward as she starts questioning him immediately. ‘How are you doing, Black?’ She doesn’t notice when Sirius flinches. Sirius doesn’t notice that Remus does.
‘Fine, I’m fine. Just a headache. That’s all.’ She frowns and taps his forehead lightly, and immediately the pounding stops. Sirius wonders whether to tell her about the tingling on his skin, but if they spell worked, Remus must be feeling it too, and he clearly hasn’t said anything.
Sirius sits up and swings his legs off the side. ‘May I go? There’s nothing wrong with me. Really, I’m just wasting the precious bed space.’
After some debate, Pomfrey lets the two of them go with more instructions to drink water and don’t strain yourselves and promises to return if anything feels strange. As they walk down the hallway to the dorms, slower than usual, Remus and Sirius talk.
-
‘Where is everybody? What time is it - was I knocked out long?’
‘A whole hour. Charms was the last lesson, so everyone’s in their dorms. Are they allowed to stay or should I let them know that Sirius Black wants everybody out and about?’
Sirius laughs and Remus smiles, blushing a bit. He looks away to hide it and asks, ‘You feel it too, right? The weird feeling on your skin?’
‘Yeah!’ Sirius says, alarmingly enthusiastically. ‘I was trying out this spell but I must’ve done something wrong.’
‘And?’ Remus groans when Sirius gives him a blank look. ‘The spell! What spell were you trying to cast?’
‘Oh! Well,’ Sirius is smirking now. ‘It was a pretty cool idea I had - not exactly a prank, but maybe in the future it could work as one. It was supposed to be some kind of spell to connect two papers so that instead of passing notes, we’d just scribble something on one paper and it’d appear on the other.’
‘That’s..’ Genius. It sounds like something a seventh year would create or even a graduated charms student. But here’s Sirius Black, bored in fourth year, doing it himself. ‘So what happened?’
‘I was trying to cast it on us so that when we wrote the magic would transfer onto the paper. But instead I think I should’ve cast it directly onto the papers, but the wand movement would have to change so that the magic would be contained..’
There’s silence for a couple of moments as Sirius became lost in elaborate wand movements and Remus tried to remember the passcode for the dorms. ‘Flibbertigibbet?’ He tried, surprised when it works. They step into the dorms and as James and Peter jump over to them, another thought occurs to Remus.
‘So the tingling - does that mean instead of the papers being connected.. We are?’ Sirius’s head snaps up and they stare at each other, wide eyed. Right then, Remus isn’t thinking about writing messages on each others hands. He’s thinking about the transformation he has to go through once a month and if Sirius will have to do that as well now.
‘We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.’ But Sirius’s eyes are dark and as he turns to Peter and James to explain, Remus heads over to the chair nearest to the fire and flops down, staring into the flames.
-
Much, much later, when everybody's gone to bed, Sirius sits down on the floor next to Remus and holds out a quill. ‘Want to do the honours or shall I?’
Remus leans over and takes the quill. Their hands brush and Sirius’s flies back quickly, his dark hair covering his face. Is he.. Embarrassed? Remus forces himself not to think about it and instead, using his left hand to write on his write, scribbles, Hi
‘ Wicked.’ Sirius whispers, more to himself than anything as he watches the letters appear on his hand. ‘But, seriously - Hello? That’s what you decide to write? With every single beautiful word in the dictionary, you go with Hi?
‘Oh, shut up.’ Remus says, laughing. ‘You write something.’ He hands over the quill and Sirius takes it in his right, posing fake thoughtfully with the quill against his lip and his bright blue eyes facing upwards for a few moments before answering on their left hands.
The words Everyone says hi .. and the girl next door… and the guy upstairs appears on his hand and Remus leans over to swat the quill away from Sirius. ‘Stop it! Is this David Bowie?’
‘Of course.’ Sirius grins. ‘Who else?’
‘Who else?’ Remus mimics, smiling too. ‘So is this what’s going to happen? Are song lyrics going to appear every time I look at my hands?’
‘Unless you want something else..’ Sirius raises his eyebrows and Remus feels himself blush again , ‘Yes. Probably. Or, I dunno, until this wears off.’
‘Is it ever going to wear off? Is this forever now?’
Sirius doesn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘I don’t - I don’t think that’s a great idea.’
‘Because of Moony?’ Remus asks, and something flashes across Sirius’s face.
‘No! Well, yeah, maybe - but also, no, not only that.’
‘What else?’ He doesn’t respond, and Remus leans forward. ‘What else, Sirius?’
‘We’ll go see Pomfrey tomorrow about it, okay?’ Sirius says, standing up and offering a hand to Remus as well. There’s something in his tone and his eyes look a bit shifty. Sirius always has, always will be terrible at keeping secrets from his friends. Remus knows better than to push it but as he takes his hand and they walk together up the stairs to their beds, the possibilities fly through his head.
Is it fighting? Does Sirius get in some brawls he doesn’t want his friends to know about? It could explain the strange bruises that sometimes appear - or is it a girl? Dread fills Remus as he lays awake in bed. A girl. Could Sirius be dating a girl? He had a fling or two last year but that wasn’t really dating.
Remus closes his eyes and tries to get the image of Sirius kissing some girl out of his head, jealousy running through him. I’m just jealous that he got a girlfriend before us all. Remus chants inside his head. I’m not jealous of the girl. I’m just jealous he got a girlfriend before us.
Because this connection between the two of them really isn’t going to help with the massive crush Remus has on Sirius.