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“You bloody tossers!” James screeched like a baby Mandrake from down the corridor, choking on goose feathers as Remus barreled into the nearest classroom, Sirius tailing him and slamming the heavy oak door shut to drown out James’s howling.
“Colloportus,” Sirius muttered as he caught his breath turned to give Remus a smirk, “He’s going to be coughing up feathers all week!” Sirius barked, laughing as he tucked his wand in his back pocket and grinned at Remus, silently admiring the way the other boy pushed a hand through his tawny curls.
“The honey was a bit much, Pads. He’s sure to hex you as soon as you’re back in the tower,” Remus panted and shook his head, mentally cursing himself for joining in on Sirius’s ridiculous plan at the last minute.
“Ha! The wanker deserves to scrape honey and feathers out of his ears all week for not doing my Potions homework,” Sirius shrugged and strutted over to Professor Binn’s desk, dragging a finger along the dusty maple surface before hopping up to take a seat. He’d always thought Professor Binn’s classroom was the stuffiest and most uncomfortable to be in — apart from any of his classes in the dungeons, of course — but being alone in it with Remus after pulling off such a gratifying prank was rather nice.
“Pads, that’s your homework. You should have finished your essay on the potion for dreamless sleep weeks ago,” Remus said with a roll of his eyes as he subtly looked the other boy up and down. In addition to badgering Sirius to prepare for exams and recovering from the recent full moon, Remus had been preoccupied with thinking about the upcoming school disco. More specifically, he’d been considering whether or not he should finally act on the feelings he’d been harboring for his best mate since their second year and ask him to attend as his date. Six years on at Hogwarts and Remus still hadn’t plucked up enough nerve to put himself out there, not when it came to Sirius Black, aka Hogwarts’s sixth-year heartthrob.
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a Marauder, Moony. I’m far too busy planning our next adventure to worry about fluxweed and infusion of wormwood,” Sirius huffed, flicking a stray feather off the sleeve of his robes. “Besides, there’s no way he’ll find us. You have the map and we definitely lost him at that last turn on the third floor.”
“Sirius Black, you open this door! And don’t think you’re off the hook either, Moony!” James shouted, doing his best impression of Mrs. Potter as he pounded on the door with an angry fist. Remus gave the oldest Marauder a pointed look and wondered if rolling his eyes at the other boy for the eighth time that day would be worth it.
“Shite! C’mon, Moony,” Sirius yelped and hopped off the desk as the classroom door shook on its hinges. He grabbed Remus by the hand and hid in the first spot he could think of: a cupboard at the back of the classroom that had been filled with spare parchment and textbooks until Sirius thrust them out of the way to make room for himself and the tallest Marauder.
“You were saying?” Remus asked, shooting Sirius a miffed sort of look as he squirmed, his shoulders hunched over from where Sirius had crammed him in the cupboard like an old dirty mop. The moon had been three days ago and his skin was still crawling from having his bones stretched out and reformed for what must have been the 100th time in his young life. So being in such close proximity to Sirius and feeling the other boy’s hot breath against his skin as they squashed together in the compact space made him immensely uncomfortable.
“I was saying, we need to get our heads back in the game, Moony. The disco is this Saturday and we’ve yet to perfect the color-changing spell,” Sirius said insistently, peeking between the crack in the cupboard door to see if James had managed to break into Professor Binn’s classroom yet. Their plan — well, his and James’s plan, mostly — had been to turn all of the Slytherin’s skin a sparkling sliver to glow under the iridescent lights at the disco. Considering how the fluorescent robes had gone over that Valentine’s Day, Remus didn’t expect the Slytherins would be very fond of their idea. But he’d never been one to successfully talk the other Marauders out of a prank, so he and Peter had gone along with it to save themselves the stress. Plus, Remus privately looked forward to seeing the Slytherins sparkle during the slow songs, sure even Lily would get a kick out of seeing Snape glimmer like a unicorn.
Remus was sure it was just his heightened werewolf senses, but he shivered slightly as Sirius’s earthy scent overwhelmed his nose. Much like Padfoot, Sirius smelled of sweet grass, rich soil, and sycamore bark, but he also smelled of mint chewing gum, tangerine shampoo, and cheap cigarettes. Remus wanted to reach out and push his fingers through the other boy’s hair, to shake it out of the messy bun held up with two purple emery boards he’d nicked from Marlene that morning, and see Sirius’s face as he stood there with his hands tangled in his dark waves.
“Speaking of the dance . . . “ Remus began before his mind caught up to his mouth, and he found himself reaching out to clutch Sirius by his arm. He tried not to freak out because he could feel his friend’s muscles just under his sleeve as he tugged him away from the door so they could face each other, but he was sure Sirius caught the way his breath hitched for a split second.
“What about the dance? I know you and Pete thought turning the Slytherins green would make more sense, but I’m telling you, Moony. When the silver catches the light, the House Cup will pale in comparison,” Sirius said with a smirk, that perfect smile of his making Remus’s heart flutter erratically in his chest.
“No! — no, it isn’t about the spell. Do you have space in that thick head of yours for anything other than pranks?” Remus said with a shake of his head and another roll of his eyes, whispering slightly in case James was still lurking nearby.
“Nope, just great pranks and even better rock ‘n’ roll songs rolling around up here,” he said with a grin and rapped the side of his head with his knuckles, his fingers adorned with an array of silver and black rings of all shapes and designs. Sirius was so damn charming Remus almost forgot what he was about to say. What had he been about to say? Ah, yes, he was about to make the biggest damn fool of himself ever, and that was saying a lot considering what he and the other Marauders hadn’t gotten up to since first year.
“Actually, I meant to ask if you had a date yet,” Remus managed to stammer out before he lost his pluck.
“Why’s that? Were you thinking of asking me yourself?” Sirius asked with a teasing wiggle of his eyebrows. Typical, Sirius was being the facetious nitwit he always was, even though he was right on the money and Remus could have socked him in the gut for how smug he looked. “Well, you certainly wouldn’t be the first. I’ve already had seven offers this week alone. I can barely walk through the halls without these girls throwing themselves at my feet,” Sirius boasted, puffing his chest up so that it was almost flush with Remus’s, making the taller boy’s knees shake.
“I was, in fact, but I suppose there’s no need for me to put an offer on the table when you already have soooo many to choose from,” Remus huffed, eyebrows raised as he looked down at Sirius with a challenging but playful look in his honey green eyes.
The cupboard was quite dark, but there was just enough light peeking through the crack in the doors to illuminate the flicker of fear and hope that flitted across Remus’s scarred features. He didn’t even care that James’s shouting and thumping had faded away, meaning the other boy had either given up or was in the process of breaking at least four Hogwarts school rules to infiltrate Professor Binn’s classroom. Knowing James, it was likely the latter, but Remus hoped Prongs didn’t manage to break in before his conversation with Sirius was over, because he was sure he’d never work up this much courage again and it was already running out quite quickly.
For his part, Sirius’s eyebrows shot up as he raked his stormcloud grey eyes over Remus’s slender face, taking in his square jaw, long nose, and beautiful blond curls. The other boy always looked so exhausted, underfed, and like he might collapse like a withering tree in the wind at any moment, but Sirius had always thought he was handsome enough to have his face plastered across the cover of Seeker Weekly, if Remus ever got over his dislike of flying. All of a sudden, he’d gone speechless, and he wondered if Remus had somehow managed to cast a wandless Silencio charm on him.
“What do you mean?” Sirius finally managed to ask, his eyes never leaving Remus’ as they stared each other down uncertainly. He felt stupid for asking such a simple question, but Remus needed to elaborate right now or Sirius was sure he might spontaneously combust.
“Well, you are a bloody wanker and you’re definitely the most cantankerous Marauder,” Remus said nonchalantly, just to see Sirius’s reaction.
“Oi! I resent that!” Sirius pouted, clearly upset there wasn’t enough room in the little cupboard to stamp his foot like a child.
“—AND,” Remus began again, giving Sirius a pointed look for interrupting him, proud when Sirius took up the same straight-backed pose as he often did when McGonagall gave him the same glare. “Despite your obsession with your hair — I still can’t understand who needs to spend two hours in the loo applying product — and despite your proclivity for spouting truly terrible puns at every available opportunity, I do quite fancy taking you to the dance . . .” he mumbled, biting his bottom lip as he took another huge risk and scooched his hand forward to lace his fingers with Sirius’s. “I, of all people, know your ego doesn’t need a boost but, well, with so many girls ‘tossing themselves at your feet,’ it’s difficult not to be a bit jealous,” he admitted with a blush, grateful that the cupboard was so dimly lit.
“Moony, are you saying you’re jealous? Are you . . . are you saying you fancy me?” Sirius coughed out, feeling quite like all the moisture in his mouth had just been sucked clean out of him. If this was some sort of prank elaborately planned by the other Marauders, Sirius was going to bloody lose it.
“Well, jealous is a strong word, but I suppose it’s fairly accurate,” Remus admitted. “I just . . . at the end of last year when you said you kissed Mary, I . . . I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I still haven’t stopped thinking about it, if I’m honest. I tried to ignore the way I was feeling — I have for years — but, well, when I heard that you were properly seeing someone, it didn’t feel nice. It felt quite horrid, actually,” he mumbled, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest as his throat clenched like he’d just swallowed an entire bag of gobstones in one go. “You must have known, at least a little?” he added, giving Sirius an expectant look. “I think you’re gorgeous, Pads, and you might hex me for saying so but . . . yes, I fancy you. I fancy you more than Peeves fancies pranks and more than the giant squid loves playing fetch with tree branches. I think you’re brilliant and I . . . I know I’d be the luckiest bloke at Hogwarts if you’d go to the dance with me,” Remus finished, swallowing hard and trying to bite a hole through the inside of his cheek as he watched Sirius, desperate for an answer.
Sirius stared at Remus in disbelief, his mouth slightly ajar in a way that made him sure McGonagall would tell him to shut it for fear of catching flies if she could see him now. Remus Lupin, the sweetest, kindest, most bookish, most stubborn boy he’d ever met fancied him?! He had to be dreaming, and he bit back a delirious laugh because he didn’t want Remus to think he was laughing at him or that he was mad — even though the latter was probably true. “I . . . you’re — you’re serious?”
“Well, technically, you’re Sirius,” Remus said softly and managed a little smile at the corner of his lips, still nervous to hear what the other boy had to say.
Sirius stared at him dumbfounded for a long moment and said nothing, making Remus worry this spontaneous confession of adoration had gone completely wrong. But then Sirius pushed a hand through his hair and broke into a wild grin, laughter bubbling up zealously from his mouth like he’d been hexed.
“I always knew you were my favorite Marauder for a reason,” Sirius chuckled anxiously and shook his head, pretending to wipe a happy tear from his eye. “Remus, you’re the smartest wizard I’ve ever met, and you’re bloody gorgeous. Those cheekbones could slice straight through even the toughest roast at the Christmas feast, mate,” he said with a grin. “Of course I’ll go to the dance with you, Moony!” Sirius laughed and squeezed Remus’s hand before leaning in closer to him to examine his pouting pink lips. “If you’ve felt this way for so long, why didn’t you say anything sooner, Moons?”
Remus, struck by the fantastic outcome of his confession, stared silently at Sirius for a long moment and laughed in return, feeling dazed and sure he was caught in a wonderful daydream. “I . . . well, I’m no looker like you, to begin with. And with all my scars — ” he explained, motioning to a fresh gash he’d gotten a few days prior that split down his cheek to his collarbone. “We’ve been friends for so long, and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or risk losing what we already had. Plus, I figured if you were going to date any sort of bloke it’d be James, definitely not me with my tree limbs and . . . all of these,” he motioned to his face in general.
“Oh, Moony. Moony, Moony, Moony, don’t say that,” Sirius cooed, using the playful yet comforting voice he did when he consoled Remus after a particularly bad full moon. “Moons, I think you’re the most handsome bloke I’ve ever seen,” he assured him, reaching up with his free hand to caress Remus’s cheek, careful of his fresh scar. “James is alright but I can’t be with someone who thinks bathing himself in cologne counts as ‘smelling sexy,’” Sirius snorted, and Remus laughed, remembering James’s last attempt to get Lily Evans to go to the dance with him. “No, Moons. I’ve had my eyes on you for years. You’re a bloody marvel to behold and I’d be honored to go to the dance with you,” he breathed so sincerely that Remus could have sworn Sirius had rehearsed his words like lines in a play if he didn’t know otherwise.
Remus opened his mouth to reply, but there was little he could say that would make a difference considering the fact that Sirius had thrown his arms around his shoulders and pulled him down into a deep kiss, crushing their lips together awkwardly before they melted into each other as if their bodies were two halves of a whole. Sirius’s face was pressed up against his own again and teeth were grazing lips in a way Remus had only ever hoped for. Feeling brave again, he pushed his hands up into the other boy's hair, tangling his fingers in the dark locks he'd so often seen fall into his friend's eyes during games of quidditch or while he was pouring over a textbook in search of just the right spell to finish off his latest prank.
"Mmmm," Remus hummed into Sirius's mouth, groaning softly when he felt the other boy's tongue push into his own, his heart leaping in his chest as every inch of his body went hot all over. Teeth clashed and fingers pushed through hair as the boys felt their hearts pounding hard against each other’s chest. Remus could have sworn he was dying from the lack of oxygen as warm lips glided over his own, but it all felt too good to let go. When they pulled apart, their lips were puffy in pink, and Remus could feel Sirius's hot breath against his cheek as they panted, their noses pressed together gently. Remus saw Sirius smirk up at him slightly, and he didn't even mind that he was hunched over in a cupboard or that his body was still sore from his most recent transformation because the boy he'd loved since he was 11 years old was looking at him like he was the king of the world, and Remus Lupin had never been happier in his whole life. He blushed softly and looked down at their intertwined hands in the dark, realizing this was really happening, and he felt like he could faint. “Merlin, no wonder all the girls are always raving about a Sirius Black snog,” Remus panted and offered up a playful smile.
“Oh, they haven’t seen half of what I’m going to show you, my Moonpie,” Sirius smirked, pulling Remus up against him for another deep kiss that sent his mind swirling. Sirius pressed up closer against him, and just as Remus was sure he was about to explode from how wonderful he felt all over, the weight of both their bodies sent the doors of the cupboard flying open and the boys landed with a thud on the classroom floor.
“Shite, are you okay?” Remus asked Sirius as they both rubbed at the backs of their heads, pushing themselves to a sitting position.
“I’ve had worse,” he said and smoothed his hair out. Remus rolled his eyes at the other boy’s vanity but grinned all the same. “Though, I think a kiss might help me forget all about my terrible injury,” Sirius added and Remus gave him a gentle shove before pulling him down onto the floor to kiss him like his life depended on it.
Just then, there was a loud explosion as the door Professor Binn's classroom burst open, a very angry James Potter standing on the other side with his wand clenched tightly in one fist. Remus would have been slightly intimated by the wild look in his eye if it weren't for the fact that he looked like a half-plucked chicken. Clearly caught off guard by two of his best friends snogging on the floor of an empty classroom, James took a split second to assess the situation — giving them a congratulatory nod — before shaking himself out of his momentary lapse of anger. "Out of the way, Moony! You can suck Sirius's face off later — after I bloody kill him!" James shouted and charged forward.
After much scrambling and some intervention from Professor McGonagall and a frightened Peter, the boys found themselves back in their dorm, a little scruffed up but that was hardly unusual. James had been sentenced to a month of detention scrubbing the floors of the dungeon for blowing up a classroom door, and Sirius had gotten two weeks for his prank and his defiance when McGonagall tried to pull him out of the History of Magic classroom, having insisted he needed to stay to finish conducting "very important business" with Remus. McGonagall had rolled her eyes at the boys and coaxed them out of the room with the promise of doubling their detention if they didn't get a move on.
James currently had the curtains drawn around his bed so he could sulk over his detentions and Peter was downstairs playing gobstones with Mary and Marlene, hoping James's bout of self-pity would blow over by dinnertime. That left Remus curled up in his bed, his long legs folded up towards his chest as he pulled a heavy textbook on top of his knees and tried to catch up on his Potions readings. But he'd hardly read three words before Sirius sauntered over to his bed and plopped down with a smirk. Remus watched as he pulled the curtains closed, casting a silencing charm around them that made him raise his eyebrows curiously.
"What are you so chuffed about?" Remus asked with a knowing glint in his eye as he set his book aside, marking the page with a note Sirius had passed him in class earlier that week, asking about an upcoming trip to Hogsmeade. The bed had sunken in where Sirius sat down across from him, grinning like a madman.
"So you're taking me to the dance then, eh?" Sirius asked, crawling forward on all fours to push Remus's knees away and park himself on his lap like a kneazle that had staked a claim on its favorite napping spot.
Remus tried to hide his gulp at the feeling of the other boy's weight on top of him, but his adam's apple bobbed against the center of his throat and Sirius's smirk only grew wider, clearly getting a kick out of making Remus so flustered. "Maybe . . . maybe not. I might have changed my mind since you got me a week's worth of detention for breaking into Professor Binn's classroom," he replied, trying very hard to sound annoyed as he crossed his arms over his chest. But Sirius wiggled his way forward and grinned as he draped his arms around Remus's neck, making him go rigid and then melt a little.
"Details, details. You know you can't resist my charm, Moonbeam," he said and Remus hummed thoughtfully just long enough to make Sirius's confidence waver. Remus smirked at that — Sirius wasn't the only one who got a kick out of making people flustered, after all — and the boys laughed as their lips connected like magnets, fitting together perfectly. The kiss was softer than their others before, but Remus took the time to imbue six years of repressed love into the gentle press of their lips and Sirius seemed to receive his message quite well if the little moan that escaped his throat was anything to go by. "Bloody hell, Moony, I'm going to need you to do that again, as in right now," he panted, looking flushed and so beautiful Remus could have laughed in disbelief.
"Now and forever, Pads," Remus muttered, a smile crossing his lips as he flipped Sirius over to snog him silly for the rest of the afternoon.