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“Lay off it, Sirius,” Remus said, leaning back against the headboard. His legs were sprawled ahead of him as he sat on his four poster bed. A Transfiguration book lay open, ignored, on his lap. His tone would tell anyone that he was frustrated, but an amused smile spread across his lips. “What does it matter to you if I’m seeing anyone, anyways?”
Sirius’ lower lip morphed into a pout. “Oh, come on, Moony! You haven’t seen anyone since that one Hufflepuff girl in fourth year. And even then, the two of you hardly held hands, much less…” he trailed off, but his wide gray eyes flashed mischievously, and the werewolf knew exactly what he was insinuating. Remus groaned, pushing himself up off his bed and walked over to his trunk to pull out a set of robes.
“My sex life is privy to me, Pads, and besides, not all of us are trying to sleep with half the year before we graduate.” Remus gave Sirius a pointed look before picking up his school bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “Come on, we have History of Magic. We don’t want to miss another lesson.” Sirius muttered something under his breath about Binns never noticing that they were gone, but he stood up and grabbed his bag anyways.
“Where’re James and Peter?” he grunted, taking the steps down to the Gryffindor common room two at a time. Remus rolled his eyes at him.
“James is out trying to seduce Evans, as always. And Peter’s spending the afternoon with that Ravenclaw bird he’s been seeing.” They walked past a group of third years by a couch and pushed through the portrait, taking a right. Remus switched his bag to his other shoulder as Sirius, in his typical fashion, slung an arm around the smaller teen. “Keep that up and people are going to think we’re a pair of poofs,”
“Ah, to be a poof for you, my fair Moony, is my dream!” Sirius ran a hand through his black curls, his laughter ringing through the hall. “Besides, with all the girls I meet in abandoned classrooms, people would sooner think that I’m seeing your mother than you.”
Remus made a gagging noise and pushed away from the taller wizard. He rolled his eyes and Sirius let out a chuckle as the two stepped into the already-full classroom. The ghost professor didn’t seem to notice the two boys as they stepped in late, and they both took seats near the back. Peter, pudgy as always, ran in a few moments after them and took a seat by Sirius, smiling wildly.
The pureblood raised an eyebrow at the blonde’s wide grin. “Was she everything you ever dreamed, then?” he said, making a rather vulgar gesture with his hands involving a circle and an index finger. Peter’s smile diminished and his expression morphed into one of confusion.
“What, Ava?” he paused for a second, then his jaw dropped. “Oh! No, she ran off with that Slytherin bloke, Daggard. I spent the afternoon watching James try to chase Evans,” as if on cue, the raven haired boy rushed into the classroom, followed by an angry-looking Lily Evans. The redhead took a seat to the left with a group of her friends whilst James sat down next to Peter. “I was just smiling because Evans hexed him. He’s got a pigtail now, the poor man.”
Remus couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter, but he didn’t look up from his parchment on which his quill scratched, taking notes. Sirius, who had yet to unpack his bag, laughed and turned to James. “Well, then, mate? Let us see!”
James turned a fiery red, almost as bright as Lily’s hair. “The tail is on my arse, Pads, and I’m sure you’re not interested in seeing that.”
Sirius opened his mouth, about to make a remark about how he would very much like to see James’ arse, and why didn’t the two of them leave the lesson and go find some abandoned room somewhere, when Remus gave him a light punch on the arm. “Sirius, we’ve got O.W.L.’s this year, get your quill out and study!”
“Ah, Moony, it’s only October,” he said, reaching into his bag and pulling out a roll of parchment anyways. His gray eyes met Remus’ hazel ones and he wiggled his eyebrows, trying to distract him. Remus, not having it, let out a short puff of air and turned back to face the ghost, who was droning on endlessly about the reformation of the Polish Wizarding Government during the 1600’s.
Fifteen minutes passed in relative peace, the only sounds being the scratching of quills and a dreadfully boring lecture. Sirius hardly had two inches of notes on his parchment, and he watched as Remus began unravelling a second roll to write on. His mind turned back to the conversation the two of them had been having before they left for class. He scooted his chair away from Peter, towards Remus, and whispered into the boy’s ear. “What about her, then?” he asked, pointed to a girl with blond hair sitting a few rows ahead of her. “Ravenclaw. She’s a prefect, just like you!”
Remus had to physically restrain himself from slamming his head onto the desk. “Savannah? No, Sirius. Not my type. Knock it off, I’ll find someone when I’m ready!” he whispered back.
“You’ve said that same thing about every single girl I’ve mentioned! Not your type. What, is it because she’s blond? Or too tall? Or too nice?”
Remus rolled his eyes (again! At this rate, his hazel eyes were going to be stuck rolling) but he didn’t give Sirius the satisfaction of answering. The rest of the forty five minutes passed in a similar fashion, with Remus writing and Sirius occasionally pointing out birds and asking if they “were Remus’ type,”. Each time, he was answered with the negative, and eventually he began shaking his head before Sirius even opened his mouth, somehow being able to tell when the animagi was about to point out someone else. It even got to the point where Sirius started speculating over whether Remus maybe had a thing for older women.
O.o.O.o.O
That afternoon, as the Marauders walked out of potions and headed back to the common room to drop off their books before dinner, Sirius started his nagging again. “Right, so none of the Ravenclaws in History were your type. The Hufflepuffs at lunch and Potions weren’t your type. And God knows if a Slytherin was your type you and I wouldn’t be friends. That leaves us Gryffindors, yeah?”
Remus kept his gaze focused steadily on the backs of Peter and James, who were walking ahead of them. He didn’t say anything, but his fingers twitched a bit, and he took a step away from Sirius instinctively. The taller boy let out a whoop of triumph. “So it is a Gryffindor then!” he exclaimed.
Remus closed his eyes for a second and let out a slow breath. When he opened them again, Sirius was looking at him expectantly. “Silence does not concede consent, Sirius.” When the Animagi twisted his eyebrows in confusion, Remus clarified, “Just because I didn’t say anything doesn’t mean you were right.”
“You still haven’t said I was wrong, though. You were quick to shut me down for all the other girls I pointed out,” After a moment of silence, Sirius accepted that he was right, and began prodding Remus with questions again. “Is it Mary? That short brunette that always hangs around Evans?” A quick shake of Remus’ head told Sirius that he was definitely on the wrong track. For the whole walk out of the dungeons and up the moving staircases, Sirius kept trying to narrow down the Gryffindor girls to someone Remus would like. He had gone through almost all the fifth and the fourth years and was about halfway through the sixth year girls when they reached the Fat lady. Peter and James had stopped a while back to use the restroom. Remus shook his head at Sirius’ question - “What about Tahjlyn? She’s pretty cute, but I think she’s dating the Hufflepuff keeper.”
“Inopinatum Expectes,” Remus told the Fat Lady, who took a sip of her painted wine and swung open to let the two boys in. “Listen, Sirius,” he said as the pair of them climbed into the Common Room. It was pretty empty, except for a few lone students finishing up essays. Nearly everyone had gone off to dinner, including the other two marauders. Remus had grabbed James’ bag and Sirius held Peter’s, as they had promised the other two boys to drop them off. “You’re not getting any closer, and you’re not going to be able to guess… whoever it is I fancy, so for Merlin’s sake, please, just shut up.”
Sirius’ eyes widened, and his mouth opened in a moment of realization. “Remus…” he said, a mischievous grin crawling up his face. “It’s Evans, isn’t it? That’s why you haven’t told any of us! Because you’ve got it good for Evans, and if James knew he would end your life. Fuck, how didn’t I see it? The two of you always leave the dorm at late hours of the night, off doing ‘Prefect Duties’. Merlin, Remus, snogging Lily behind our back! How did I not know it?” Sirius’ gray eyes laughed with mischief. “When Potter finds out, he’s going to have a time of it. Why haven’t you-”
“Sirius!” Remus exclaimed finally. The animagi fell short, suddenly a bit worried he had crossed a line. He hadn’t noticed Remus shaking beside him. The boy had dropped the two bags and had both of his hands in his hair. It looked as if he was trying to tear it out.
“Hey,” Sirius said softly, regretting his teasing words. “Moony... Sorry, that was terrible of me. Don’t worry, I won’t tell James. You can tell him on your own time,” he reached his hand out, placing it on Remus’ shoulder in an attempt to be comforting.
The werewolf jerked away. “No, Padfoot! You don’t… Just… Just shut up and listen, alright?” His voice sounded tense, nervous. Remus wasn’t someone who got nervous - he always spoke calmly, even if he didn’t know an answer in class or was trying to turn down someone without seeming rude. But now… his voice shook. His fingers trembled, and Sirius watched as Remus shoved his hands in the pockets of his robes.
“I’m not seeing Evans, Padfoot.” Remus looked up at Sirius for a second then tore his gaze away. “I’m not.. She’s not… She’s not my type, alright? Girls aren’t my type.”
The words, to Sirius, were almost like a gunshot. Loud, terrifying, insanely out of place, and looking back, something he probably should have expected. His mind reeled through different scenes he’d experienced with his friends over the years.
At the end of third year, when Sirius, James, and even Peter had had their first kisses, Remus told them he wasn’t interested in kissing any bird. At the time, it seemed to Sirius that maybe the werewolf just wasn’t ready. In fourth year, when Remus went out with his one and only girlfriend, Remus had told Sirius, to his face, that he didn’t feel anything when he was with her. Not attraction, not arousal, not peace. Even throughout the year, when the other three mauradeers made jokes about wanking off or shagging a girl (although none of them had actually done the latter), Remus never participated. He never talked about fantasies, or what he got off to, or even who he fancied. At least not until today.
The way Sirius reacted in that moment was something he would regret for a long time afterwards. He took a step away from Remus, looking at the boy with wide eyes. His bag slipped off of his shoulder and onto the ground. Something in the shorter boy’s hazel eyes seemed to die as the pureblood backed away from him.
When Remus spoke again, his voice was hardly more than a whisper. It was timid, scared, and cautious - all things that Remus almost never was. “I’ve.. I’m not hungry. Go and meet Peter and James for supper without me.”
And with that, Remus turned around and sped up the stairs to the boy’s dormitory.
O.o.O.o.O
At dinner, Sirius was silent. That hadn’t happened in quite a while, as James dutifully noted. Sirius was pushing his food around his plate with his fork, his eyebrows scrunched in thought. His shoulder-length curly black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which he only ever did while sleeping. After a few minutes of playing with his food, he dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter and leaned back into his chair.
“Pads. Padfoot.” James looked up from his plate of half-eaten lasagna and offered his friend a grin from the other side of the table. “What is wrong, Sirius? You never turn down lasagna, and now… well, you didn’t even grab a piece. Your plate is full of salad.”
The word salad alone usually would have been enough to warrant James a disgusted reaction from Sirius. Instead, the boy sighed and looked up, meeting James’ gaze. “Nothing,” he said after a moment of silence, pulling the hair tie out of his hair and putting it in his pocket. His hair tumbled out over his shoulders, and his gray eyes looked back down at his vegetable-laden plate. He halfheartedly cracked a grin and pushed the plate away from him. He reached for the pan of lasagna and grabbed a spatula to serve himself a piece to prove to James that he was fine, though he was dreading the thought of eating it. How the hell was he supposed to eat something after what Remus had told him?
Luckily, James grabbed Sirius’ wrist and pushed his hand away. “Sirius Black.” he said, his tone seriously. “I have been your best friend for five years, one month, and twenty-two days. I’m not dumb, y’know. I can tell something’s up. Spit it out.”
Sirius sighed and leaned backwards again. His rather fake smile faded and his lips curved into a slight frown. “It’s Remus,” he admitted.
James looked at him, confused. “What? I thought you said he just wasn’t hungry. You know, I assumed he was just tired. The full moon’s in a few days, and you know how his body gets all tipsy for a week or so before. What’s wrong with him?”
A few options seemed to present themselves to Sirius. First, he could quite literally tell James that Remus was… gay? It struck Sirius that he didn’t exactly know what to call him. However, Peter sat next to James, leaning towards Sirius, desperate to hear the drama. A third piece of lasagna sat, untouched thus far, on Wormtail’s plate and Sirius realized that it wasn’t his place to tell James, Peter, or anyone, really. That was something that was probably intimate to Remus, and telling the others seemed to Sirius like he would be robbing his friend of something. He struck that option off the list.
Secondly, he could try to lie again. Maybe tell James and Sirius that yeah, Remus was just having lycanthropy pains, and he was worried about the boy. After all, it had always been Sirius who was the most worried at the full moon - oftentimes even more so than Remus. After the original shock that ohmygodremusisawerewolf had passed, that is. Sirius had been raised to avoid werewolves, to hate them, that they were evil, but after meeting Remus, he couldn’t believe that. How could a boy who folded his socks be evil? But anyways, he knew that James knew him well, and even if he tried to trick them, he wouldn’t succeed. They would catch him in his lie.
So he took his third option - running away. He muttered an apology, almost incomprehensible. Louder, he said, “I’m busting for a pee. I’ll see you in the dorm, yeah?” With that he stood up from the table and walked towards the exit to the Great Hall. From the corner of his eye he saw a head of fiery red hair - Evans - stand up from the Gryffindor table and head towards the exit, too, but he didn’t think much of it.
That is, until the two of them found themselves in the room outside the Great Hall and Lily crossed her arms, walked straight towards Sirius. The boy’s dazed expression faded as the girl approached, and he put on his usual sly grin. In the moment, it felt more like a mask than anything, a way to hide the thoughts running through his head. “Did you need me so badly, Evans, that you had to skip dinner to have me?” he teased, raising an eyebrow. Normally, the flirting and endless teasing would come naturally to him but it felt… forced. Unnatural. His head just wasn’t in the right space.
“Oh, cut it out, Black.” Lily snapped. “What’s wrong with Remus? And don’t try to tell me nothing, because I heard your whole conversation with Potter and Pettigrew. I know something’s wrong.”
Sirius’ flirty facade melted. “Really, Evans, if I didn't tell my best mate, what makes you think I’d tell the Prefect who takes away points just because I hexed Snape one little time?”
Her expression softened. Her voice, when she spoke again, was soft and, dare he admit it, sympathetic. “He told you, didn’t he?”
“Told me what?” Sirius said, but his voice cracked, giving him away. The two stopped while walking and he turned to face the redhead, his breath catching in his throat. Her green eyes were full of understanding and… was that pity?
“Sirius, you can play pretend as long as you want,” Lily almost never used Black’s first name, so she must’ve been serious. “But now that you know that Remus… plays for the other team, so to speak, I should tell you something. I don’t know what exactly he told you, but it’s pretty obvious something’s up with you and him. If you go talk to him, be careful, alright? He’s felt like an outcast for nearly his entire life now - half blood, werewolf, now this. I’ve known since third year - he let it slip during a library visit - but you need to understand, Sirius, that you can’t take this lightly.” Her breath caught. Sirius wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a tear drop onto the floor. “Black, not all of his scars are from the wolf. He hates himself, Sirius, so much. He… if you don’t play this carefully, Remus might not be here for Christmas.”
Lily spun around, letting out a sniffle, and ran into the girl’s bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. A few thoughts nudged Sirius in the back of his head - Why had Remus told Lily in third year, and not his closest friends? How did Lily know about Remus being a werewolf, and how did she know that Sirius knew?
None of the thoughts were fully processed by Sirius, though, except for one - not all of his scars are from the wolf. Before he could understand what he was doing, Sirius spun on his heel and sprinted towards Gryffindor Tower.
O.o.O.o.O
Sirius had seen Remus in a lot of difficult predicaments. He’d seen the boy happy, joyful, full of life. He’s seen him sad, desolate, broken. He’d seen him angry, excited, disappointed, nervous, bored, carefree, silent, boisterous, and even mischievous, though it was rare. One adjective, though, that he would never attribute to Remus was depressed.
Yeah, the boy had gone through some tough spots. Everyone did, but more so with Remus. Once a month, after all, his entire body was broken and forced to become something it inherently wasn’t, and then he had to transform back. And even though the boy kept a brave face, Sirius and his friends knew that it tore him apart. That was the reason they became animagi illegally, the reason they stayed up all night and day during the boy’s transformations, the reason Sirius bought Honeydukes chocolates once a month and brought them to Remus’ bedside in the Hospital wing.
As Sirius climbed the stairs three at a time to the dormitory, from the bare common room, it became more and more clear to him that Remus really was depressed. All the times he hid out in the library, with the excuse of studying… were they just Remus avoiding being social? All the time he spent with his bed curtains shut tight, all the time he buried himself in books and schoolwork, all the time he spent by himself getting ready for his transformation…
Sirius was tempted to slap himself across the face. How could he be so blind? Remus was struggling, with himself, with his life, and Sirius should’ve been there for him. He was his friend and all he was focused on was himself. He had noticed Remus shrinking away from touches, wearing long sleeves more and more frequently, even in the warm September air. He had seen the broken smile that the boy carried around, the way he kept his gaze focused at his feet and his hands shoved in his pockets. And what did Sirius do?
Nothing.
And there he was, worrying about one of his best mates being gay, when that should’ve been the furthest thing from his mind. So what if Remus was into guys? It wasn’t totally unheard of. Sirius’ Uncle Alphard had spent the past twenty years of his life in Croatia with a “flatmate”. In a one bedroom apartment.
And if he was being completely honest with himself, Sirius wasn’t on the straight spectrum, either. Sure, he joked with James about wanking over photos of the female Quidditch players, or joked with Peter about which Hufflepuff girl he’d prefer to shag raw in a broom closet. He’d even shared jokes with the werewolf himself about snogging Evans behind James’ back. But at night, when he was by himself and he had time to actually indulge in his fantasies, his mind wandered. He went from thinking about the very female Ravenclaw chaser to the more bulky, more muscular, more male Ravenclaw keeper. He didn’t dream about shagging a Hufflepuff girl in a broom closet, but he very quickly had realized he wanted to be the one getting shagged in a broom closet.
As for snogging… It wasn’t something he’d ever indulge in with Evans. In fact, the more he shared in those joking conversations with Remus, the more he found his eyes wandering to the werewolf’s lips.
He reached the top of the stairs and was faced with the closed door to the Gryffindor Fifth Year Boys’ dormitory. It seemed daunting, almost as if it challenged him. How far would you go for Remus? Sirius wrung his hands behind his back and let out a long sigh, before stepping towards the door. His hand reached out slowly, almost trembling, and he pushed the door open. He stepped into the room, slowly closing the door behind him.
As expected, the curtains on Remus’ four poster were shut tight. The other three beds were open, unmade, with clothes strewn about them, but Sirius hardly cared at the moment. He took a small step towards the bed, chiding himself for not taking better care of the other boy.
“Remus?” he called out. His voice seemed weird to himself, an octave too high. He let out a slow breath, trying to get the nerves to escape him. The werewolf didn’t answer him, and Sirius realized he must’ve put up a Silencing charm. He pulled his wand out of his back pocket and, gripping it tightly, muttered the counter charm.
“Remus?” he repeated, his voice soft now but at least not nervous. Still, he didn’t get an answer, so he took the final few steps towards the bed. He grabbed the curtain and, taking a deep breath, pushed them apart.
He didn’t know what to expect. Maybe to find Remus sobbing, tucked under the covers. Maybe he wouldn’t find Remus there at all. Maybe even Remus would have fallen asleep, trying to blot out the rest of the world. What he actually found, though, didn’t truly surprise him.
The boy, already wearing his pajamas, was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the mattress, a textbook in his lap. A stack of parchment rolls sat on his left, atop the wrinkled comforter. Remus, quill in hand, was writing on a piece of paper, using the textbook as a solid surface under the parchment. He didn’t acknowledge Sirius.
On any other occasion, Sirius would have passed Remus’ behavior as normal for the boy.
Studying was something every student at Hogwarts did, but Remus took it to another level. But the boy’s red eyes, the stains running down his cheeks, and the teardrops on the parchment he was writing on told Sirius that everything was not okay.
“Remus,” Sirius said for a third time. The boy didn’t look up at him, but he put the quill down and, hands shaking, began to roll up the parchment. He tied it, then added it to the pile next to him. Remus grabbed the textbook and slipped it under his pillow.
He scooted backwards, and Sirius took this as an invitation to join him. He slipped off his shoes and pulled himself onto the bed, sitting, facing Remus, his feet tucked underneath himself. The two sat in silence for a few moments, interrupted only by Remus’ occasional sniffle. After a minute or two of the tension-heavy silence, Remus pushed himself off the bed. He started to make his way to the bathroom, when suddenly Sirius’ hand was on his wrist.
“Remus,” the taller boy repeated.
In that moment, when gray eyes met hazel, something broke. Remus trembled, harder then ever, and suddenly he was letting hard tears fall from his eyes. Sirius pulled him into an embrace and Remus buried his face in the taller boy’s shoulder, sobbing.
O.o.O.o.O
He sat there in silence, Remus in his arms, for the longest time. He was worried that James and Peter were going to barge in, not aware of Remus’ delicate state, and tease them. They didn’t, though, even as the sun went down and the dorm was flooded with darkness. Sirius made a mental note to thank Evans - she must’ve told them to back away for the night, or at least for the time being. As Remus trembled in his arms, Sirius realized a few things.
Firstly, that he had been acting like an awful friend. That had been clear to him for a while now, from not noticing Remus’ depression to caring so much of his sexuality when even Sirius himself knew that he liked boys.
The second thing he realized was that, though he had just broken up with his girlfriend last week, he was very, very gay. Sure, it surprised him to hear that one of his closest friends wasn’t into girls, but this realization of self wasn’t nearly as shocking to him. Yes, he was raised to believe that he had to have children and thus being anything other than straight wasn’t truly an option for him. But, he asked himself, how long had it been since he truly liked any of the girls he’d dated? That fourth year Ravenclaw he’d just left was never really anything more than a distraction to Sirius. As Remus had so strongly put it, girls weren’t his type. And he had no right to judge Remus for that, unless he was willing to judge himself, too.
The third thing he realized was that, even though girls weren’t exactly his type, Sirius himself had a type. A rather specific type, at that.
Sirius Black’s type was boys with chestnut brown hair, with hazel eyes. Sirius Black’s type was boys who wore Prefect Badges and stayed up til dreadful hours of the night not drinking firewhiskey, but studying. Sirius Black’s type was a boy with a scar on his lower lip, with fire white scars running up his arms and across his torso. Sirius Black liked Moony.
Sirius Black’s type was Remus fucking Lupin.
Remus pulled himself away from Sirius around the time when the dormitory was completely dark. He wiped a tear off his cheek and stepped back from Sirius, keeping his eyes trained on the ground.
“We should talk,” Sirius said softly, trying to reach the werewolf’s eye. Remus shrugged halfheartedly, but gestured for Sirius to sit down next to him, so the taller boy did. After another moment of silence, this one a bit more comfortable than the last, Sirius blurted out, “I talked to Evans.”
Remus looked up at Sirius, a bit in shock, his hazel eyes wet. He tore his gaze away quickly. Sirius let out a soft sigh. “Rem, I’m not a therapist. I don’t know anything about mental health, or what you’re going through. What I am is a friend. I’m going to be here for you, yeah? I don’t give a damn about which boy you’re shagging raw in the broom closet,” Remus cracked a soft grin at this, but whatever it was that died in him earlier that day, before dinner, seemed to be slowly coming back to life.
Remus took a deep breath, gathering himself a bit. “So you really.. It doesn’t.. You don’t care that I’m…?”
“Gay? Remus, I spent three years of my life becoming an Animagi so you don’t have to spend one night a month ripping yourself apart. I’ve spent galleons upon galleons on chocolate so that you have something to comfort yourself with while you’re healing. You are one of the closest friends I’ve ever had. If you think that being a poof is going to get you away from me, you’re dead wrong.”
Remus braved a smile. “Thanks, Pads. That… means a lot.”
Sirius only nodded, but he gave the boy a grin back. Remus looked down for a second, his hands on his knees, no longer trembling. Slowly, he began to talk again.
“Sirius, I’ve known that I don’t like girls since I was a second year, when the Gryffindor Beater walked into our dorm on accident, shirtless. I’ve hidden it from everyone. I mean, I’m already a werewolf. I don’t.. I didn’t want to be… to be,” Remus paused, looking down at his hands and steadying them. “To be a poof. And the way everyone joked about people like that, made fun of them, it sort of pushed me into a corner.” Sirius opened his mouth as if to interrupt, but Remus shushed him with a wave of his hand. “Then this morning, you started talking to me about my type, or who I fancy. You told me that I haven’t ever been in a serious relationship, that I’d never shown interest, and I suppose you were right.”
“You were right, though. I do fancy someone. I have for a long time.” Remus’ voice tinged from nerves again, his hands trembling against his knees. “And you’re right, he’s a Gryffindor. And… and… and Sirius, god, I’m sorry, but I have to do this at least once or I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
Remus pushed himself forward and their lips met. The first thing that ran through Sirius’ dumb, dumb, mind was that he was right, that Remus had a thing for a Gryffindor!
Then it struck him that he was that Gryffindor, and Merlin, Remus, one of his closest friends, a Marauder, was kissing him and Sirius was just sitting there and he should kiss back you foul wanker!
Before he had a chance to, though, Remus was pulling away and running to the bathroom. Sirius stood up, lips red, gray eyes wide, as the werewolf slammed the door shut behind him. Remus’ name died on Sirius’ lips as he heard the boy mutter out a locking charm.
O.o.O.o.O
One hour.
Two hours.
Sirius sat on the ground, his back leaning against the bathroom door. On the other side, Remus did the same. James and Peter still hadn’t shown up.
Three hours.
Peter ran into the dorm, breathless. He grabbed his pillow, looked at Sirius, paused, then ran back out of the dorm.
Four hours.
Five hours.
Two in the morning now. Sirius fell in and out of sleep, still sitting against the bathroom door.
Six hours.
Seven hours.
Remus softly pushed open the door to the bathroom. Sirius was passed out, curled on the floor near the bathroom. The werewolf dropped a blanket over the sleeping boy and walked out of the dormitory, oblivious to the absence of the other two marauders. In the common room, he was faced with a sleeping Peter and James. Lily sat, reading, in an armchair by the dying fireplace. Remus took a chair next to her and sat in silence.
Eight hours.
The first early-riser from Gryffindor tower, a sixth year girl, left the common room to go on a jog. Lily spoke up for the first time, and it wasn’t the comforting tone Remus had been expecting, but it did hold care and sympathy. “Remus, if you don’t get your stubborn arse back up to the tower and talk to Sirius, Merlin knows I’ll take away points from the lot of you. And no, it doesn’t matter that you’re a prefect too.” She didn’t look up from her book, but her hand reached out and squeezed Remus’ comfortingly. The boy sighed and walked back over to the dormitory
Sirius was still asleep, so Remus sat on his bed, silent and sober, watching the boy’s chest rise and fall.
Nine hours.
Ten hours.
Two hours before the start of classes, Sirius finally stirred. He looked up around him, his thoughts processing slowly, slowly, slowly, until all at once he realized why he was on the floor. He jumped to his feet, looking around at the open bathroom door, a bit panicked, until he saw Remus on the bed. The boy had fallen asleep, and Sirius took the blanket that was covering him and put it on Remus instead.
Eleven hours.
James and Peter came up to the dorm to grab their school bags before going to breakfast. There were dark bags under both of their eyes. They were met with a sight they hadn’t expected to see - Remus asleep on his bed, covered with a blanket. Sirius lay next to him, not touching but dangerously close, just as asleep as the other boy. The two awake marauders shared a look, then grabbed their books and left.
Twelve hours.
Classes started, but Remus and Sirius were both passed out.
Thirteen hours.
Sirius woke up first, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself too, but his eyes danced around the room, recalling the events of the past night. He turned his head and smiled, seeing that Moony had turned and was sleeping on his side, facing him. He admired the boy’s tender features, his chest rising and falling, his lips opening and closing with puffs of air.
Remus woke up soon after. He’d seen Sirius, and his hazel eyes widened. He tried to scramble off of his bed, but a hand grabbed his wrist.
For the second time in Remus’ life, and for the second time in the last thirteen hours, his scarred lips met Sirius’ red ones.
And that was how he knew, truly, what his type was.