Chapter Text
Friday - 10:10 pm
Remus stands there in dumbstruck silence as Sirius leans into Devin and kisses him. He doesn’t know whether to feel embarrassed or enraged, but regardless, the adrenaline coursing through him is telling him to act.
“Hey!” Remus shouts over the music, getting jostled about by a few drunk Huffelpffs trying to dance. Sirius and Devin don’t react, so Remus walks right up to the table and backhands Sirius’ leg. Hard. “I said hey.”
Sirius breaks his and Devin’s kiss, looking down at Remus through lidded eyes. “The fuck you want?” he slurs. He raises the prop vial back up towards his mouth, but Remus reaches out and snatches it from his hands, just wanting to take something away from him. Wanting to make him as mad as Remus feels. “Give it back!” Sirius demands, reaching for it and nearly falling off the table in his attempts to reclaim it.
“Leave us alone,” Devin snaps, swinging his foot towards Remus’ shoulder.
Remus dodges out of the way and keeps his attention on Sirius. “I thought - I thought I meant something to you,” Remus blurts. “But I guess I was just another person you wanted to snog.”
Sirius seems to have given up on reaching for the vial, and looks at Remus with a slightly confused expression on his face. He doesn’t acknowledge anything the other boy has yelled at him, and instead says, “That stuff smells good. You should try some.” He then turns back to Devin and kisses him again.
Remus feels like he’s about to explode. He has the creeping sensation that if he doesn’t leave, he might punch someone.
A hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Let’s take a walk,” Lily says quietly. Remus nods.
10:19 pm
Anyone could have predicted that they’d end up back in the auditorium, which thankfully is empty. Remus marches up onto the stage, looks down at the vial in his hand, and promptly smashes it on the ground.
“Remus!” Lily scolds him, but her expression softens once she realizes that he’s burst into tears.
He sinks down onto his knees beside the broken bits of glass and buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. Lily immediately kneels down next to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders, holding him while he cries. They sit like that for a long while.
“I thought - I thought I meant something to him,” Remus says for the second time that night.
“I know,” Lily murmurs against his hair.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want to like him in the first place. I just knew something like this would happen.”
Lily pulls away slightly, sitting back on her heels. “But isn’t it better to fall in and out of love, as opposed to never falling in love at all?”
Remus laughs, and it’s a bitter sound. “Absolutely not. Falling in love is bullshit.”
Lily opens her mouth - likely to reject this - but pauses mid-way and sniffs the air. “What’s that smell?” She looks down at the smashed vial and the pink liquid seeping over the floor of the stage. “It smells like . . . quidditch equipment and James’ hair.”
Remus furrows his eyebrows at her. “No it doesn’t - it smells like whiskey, and Sirius’ leather jacket.”
They make eye contact, and everything clicks into place.
“Amortentia,” they say simultaneously.
10:31pm
“Turn that blasted music off,” Professor McGonagall demands, stepping through the portrait hole of the Gryffindor common room like a warrior stepping onto a battlefield.
The room falls instantly quiet as the music cuts out and all heads turn to face her. Remus and Lily stand slightly behind, looking on in awe at the way she commands the room. Telling her had been a good call.
“Sirius Black,” McGonagall says gently, walking through the crowd - which parts before her - and stopping in front of the table that he and Devin are standing on. “Drink this, dear.” She hands him a vial with a greyish liquid inside, and Sirius, never one to directly oppose this specific professor, obeys. Almost instantly a sort of sharpness returns to his eyes, and he looks over at Devin with a horrified expression.
“You cunt,” he hisses.
“Normally I would scold you for the use of such strong language, Mr. Black, but in this case I feel it is justified.” McGonagall turns sharply to the second boy. “Devin Davis, if you would come with me.” Everyone watches in a stunned sort of silence as Davis is escorted from the room. McGonagall turns at the last minute before closing the portrait hole behind her and says, “Go to bed, children. I think that’s enough for one night.”
And slowly, as though awakening from a haze, they do. The students from other houses begin shuffling their way towards the exit, and the Gryffindors stay behind to help clean up.
“What was that all about?” James asks, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Devin put Amortentia in the vial that Sirius drinks from during the final scene of the show,” Lily explains quietly. “I think he’s about to get expelled.”
“Bloody hell,” James breathes, running a hand through his hair. “How are you feeling, Padfoot?”
But Sirius is only looking at Remus, his brows turned upwards at the center of his face. He wrings his hands. “I’m so sorry, Moony - I-”
Remus runs forwards and hugs him. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says firmly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Sirius tenses for a moment, and then wraps his arms around Remus, hugging him back with fervor. “I know,” he mutters, and Remus gets the sense that he’s saying it more to himself than to anyone else that might be listening. “Hey, Moony?” He pulls back after a while, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “I’m too exhausted to walk upstairs. Can we have another sleepover on the couch?”
Remus smiles slightly. “Of course we can.”
11:23 pm
And so they do. Once they finish helping to clean up the common room, and the rest of the Gryffindors have gone upstairs to sleep, they settle down on the couch together and stare up at the ceiling, just like they did on a night not so long ago. Remus puts his arm around Sirius, and the other boy curls into him, fitting their bodies together underneath the warm blanket.
“Sucks that we can’t see the stars,” Sirius says.
Remus rests his chin on the top of the shorter boy’s head. “They’re still there, though, even when you can’t see them. Like me.”
Sirius snorts, nuzzling into Remus’ neck. “That’s some sappy bullshit and you know it.”
“Yeah, well.” Remus shrugs slightly. “I’m warming up to all this sappy bullshit stuff.”
They’re quiet for a while after that, until Sirius speaks up again. “I have my answer.”
“Hmm?”
“To the question that you asked me in the broom closet,” Sirius says, pushing himself up on one elbow, “about what’s on the other side of the sky.”
“Yeah?” Remus murmurs. “And what great conclusion did you come to? What is on the other side of the sky?”
“Nothing,” Sirius states definitively. “Or nothing that I care about, at the very least. And would you like to know why?” Remus nods, and Sirius looks up at him fiercely, staring him straight in the eyes. Blue into brown. Brown into blue. “Because everything I need is right here,” he says, “on this side of the sky.”
Remus just looks at him, his face splitting into a grin. “That’s some sappy bullshit and you know it.”
“Oh, shut up and kiss me.”