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Let the wind blow through your hair, be nice to the big blue sea
Don’t be afraid of the man in the moon because it’s only me
I shall always watch you until my love runs dry
His joints are aching a bit more than usual. That being said, Remus has learned that that in itself is quite usual for him, this close to the full moon. He breathes in deeply, squeezing his eyes shut, tries to make himself relax, because he knows the pain is worse if he’s tense, but then there’s another spike on his legs and arms and a soft whimper escapes his lips.
Technically, Remus thinks, he could go to the hospital wing. He’s sure Madame Pomfrey would have something for the pain, or at the very least she could give him something to help him sleep a full night. But it’s late, now, well past midnight. Remus is fairly confident that he would be able to find his way to the hospital wing in the dark without getting lost, but he doesn’t want to risk running into someone and getting detention because he doesn’t have a good enough explanation for being out of bed after curfew.
Remus swallows around a lump in his throat and turns his head to bury his face into the soft pillow. He can hear some rustling somewhere behind him and almost stops breathing; it’s probably just Sirius sneaking into James’ bed, like he has been doing a few nights a week since Halloween, when he got an especially nasty Howler from his mother. Remus listens closely, waiting for the sound of the one creaking floor board and Sirius’ soft hiss and the sound of pulling back the curtains around James’ bed across the dorm room.
He can hear none of it.
A beat or two later Remus’ own bed curtains are drawn, slowly, quietly. He turns around with wide eyes, catching a silhouette before it climbs into the bed and pulls the curtains closed again.
“Move over.”
Remus is too stunned to do anything but scoot back until he almost falls off the other side of the bed. Sirius fumbles in the dark for a moment, then crawls under the thick blanket and rests his head on one corner of Remus’ pillow. Remus keeps staring, and once his eyes get used to the dark again he can see Sirius staring right back.
“Wha – “
“I have nightmares, too.”
Remus has never heard Sirius’ voice that sad before, and so he doesn’t bother correcting him on his assumption. He watches as Sirius closes his eyes and relaxes, clearly not intending to leave for the rest of the night, and thinks that in a way, Sirius is right. Being a werewolf is Remus’ own personal nightmare, one he can’t really wake up from.
After a moment Sirius’ breathing evens out, and Remus resigns to his fate of sharing his bed for the night. He closes his eyes and relaxes his shoulders, and eventually falls into a restless sleep.
There are some things you don’t think too much about when you’re eleven years old and have true friends for the first time in your life. You’re just happy to have said friends close.
By the time spring rolls around, it’s almost like some weeks Sirius doesn’t seem to sleep in his own bed at all anymore. Remus has learned the patterns, how Sirius will seek out James when he has a nightmare or wants to talk, how he’ll join Remus for a few nights before and after the full moon, like clockwork. In hindsight, it’s no surprise that Sirius is the first one to figure out Remus’ secret.
What is a surprise, the night before the school year ends and they’re all bound to go home for the summer, is the way Sirius climbs into Remus’ bed when the lights are turned off, and smiles at him, soft and a little scared. For what, exactly, Remus can’t quite tell.
“Will you be alright at home?” Sirius asks. Will the moons be bad without the help from Madame Pomfrey?
Remus gives him a small smile in return. “I’ll be okay.” He’s had dozens upon dozens of full moons at home before coming to Hogwarts. What’s a few more. “What about you?” Are you scared of what awaits for you back in London?
There’s a twinkle in Sirius’ eyes now, that eases a knot in Remus’ chest that he didn’t know he had. “James has invited me to stay with him for a few weeks. I think they’ll let me.”
“That’s nice.”
Sirius hums. He does that a lot. Not when there are a lot of people around, though. Remus is learning that there are different sides to Sirius Black, sides that make themselves known with the people he trusts the most.
“Will you write to me? Maybe we can go to Diagon together before the term starts.”
It sounds nice. Remus keeps smiling and inches a little closer. He’s going to miss sharing a bed with his best friend. “I’ll write.”
Sirius grins and scoots closer until their knees touch under the blanket.
Sometimes it’s not just the two of them. Sometimes it’s James who calls for Remus across the dorm room, and he squeezes in the bed with Sirius between them, and they joke around and laugh about Peter’s snores and plan pranks on the Slytherins. Sometimes it’s all four of them and all their pillows and blankets in the middle of the room in a makeshift bed, tossing and turning and not sleeping a wink. Sometimes it’s just Remus, curtains open and a book in his lap, listening to his friends snooze away in peace.
But the best nights are some of the worst nights of Remus’ life. He feels like the more he grows, the more the days leading up to the full hurt. Having Sirius there doesn’t help, exactly, but he’s a distraction, making Remus read out loud, or asking him question after question about muggle things. When Sirius gets a record player for Christmas from his cousin, and a Bowie album from James, their talks get more colour, more stardust, more dreams. Then after the full, Remus returns to the dorm room and sleeps the day away, and when he wakes up Sirius is asleep right by his side.
They don’t talk about it. What is there to talk about? Remus thinks Sirius might need his company just as much as he needs Sirius’. He’s okay with that.
There’s a moment, a brief minute, when Remus is fourteen and thinks that maybe he’s being weird. But it’s over almost as soon as it starts.
He hasn’t been sleeping well. He’s been quiet about it, trying not to wake up Sirius who has taken a more or less permanent residence in his bed by now, claiming that he doesn’t like sleeping alone anymore. This is fine with Remus. When Sirius is there, Remus has learned to turn the pages of his book softly, to read in the dark and to ignore the way Sirius keeps inching closer. When Sirius is in James’ bed, Remus sits in the middle of his and wonders if there was always so much space. Sometimes on those nights he lies back and stares at the canopy above him and wonders if in another lifetime he could call for Sirius to join him.
Remus has read all the text books for their classes already, and has borrowed Advanced Potion Making from a sixth year prefect. He sits in the dark and pretends to understand what he’s reading, wishing he’d borrowed a book about runes instead. Time keeps ticking, and Remus doesn’t sleep, and he doesn’t learn anything, either.
It must be almost morning when Sirius climbs in. Remus gives him a strange look.
“I thought you and James were asleep.”
Sirius drags the blanket over himself, up to his chin. “He is.” Remus puts his book away and scoots until they’re face to face. “I couldn’t. Too much to think about.”
“Like what?”
Sirius doesn’t answer right away, but he doesn’t look away. Remus looks at Sirius’ eyes, his long eye lashes, the three freckles in the corner of his eye that form a perfect triangle. Last week Remus had overheard some third years giggling about Sirius, saying he’s very pretty. Remus had almost scoffed at them. And you’re just noticing that now? he had wanted to say, you don’t know the half of it. He had caught himself in time. But Sirius is pretty. Very pretty. And there are ways to his pretty that he only shows Remus, in the middle of the night, like this.
Remus constantly tries not to get ahead of himself. So Sirius is pretty. James is pretty, too, in his own more disheveled, sporty sort of way. Lily is very pretty. There are many pretty people in the Gryffindor house, many more when you count the whole school. Sirius is not special in that, or so Remus tells himself.
(There is something very pretty in Sirius’ face right now, though. Something very intense. Remus wants to look away but can’t, and at the same time he knows he doesn’t really want to.)
“Marlene snogged me last night.”
There’s a pit in Remus’ stomach that almost swallows him whole at those words, and he doesn’t even know why. It’s not that surprising – James has been bragging about snogging for two whole months now, and even Peter has a girlfriend. Somehow it has just escaped Remus’ mind to think that maybe Sirius would end up snogging someone, too.
Remus swallows and refuses to look away. “Oh.” He’s not sure how he’s supposed to react in a situation like this. It sounds like a secret, when Sirius says it, but do people usually keep it that way? “How was it?”
Sirius shrugs, his voice low and a little breathless. Excited or exhausted, Remus can’t be sure, he sounds the same anyway. “Good, I think. A little weird. James thinks that’s probably normal, too, at first anyway.”
Right. Of course Sirius has already talked to James about it. James is Sirius’ best friend, they share everything to the point that it’s almost unhealthy at times. Remus doesn’t know why he would have thought that he’s the first person Sirius would come with this. And James is the one with the experience, anyway.
“Have you ever thought about it?”
Has Remus thought about snogging? Sure. What fourteen year old boy hasn’t? And in any case, it’s a topic that’s quite difficult to ignore in a boarding school full of teenagers.
Has Remus thought about himself snogging someone? Well, sometimes. Not that often. It’s not really something he thinks he’ll be able to enjoy. He’s sure he’ll just be so nervous all the damn time. And who would even want to snog him, anyway? The thought is kind of ridiculous.
(Has Remus thought about Sirius snogging?
… Yes. Once or twice.
Sometimes these two questions overlap, and Remus doesn’t know what to do.)
“A few times. Not too much.” Remus tries to sound bored about it, tries to hide away the fact that his skin feels clammy and his throat itches. “I’m willing to wait and watch you three make all the mistakes first, so I can learn from your idiocy.”
Sirius kicks him under the blanket and grins. “Jerk.” He doesn’t move his foot away, letting their ankles rest together when they close their eyes for the few precious hours before breakfast.
The cuddling doesn’t take Remus by surprise as much as it feels like the natural progression of things. He doesn’t like the way it happens the first time, but inside his mind, in secret, he’s very glad it did.
Sirius rarely has nightmares when he shares the bed with Remus. Or if he does, he hasn’t said anything, and he always seems so calm when he sleeps that Remus doesn’t dare asking. Once or twice in the past year Remus has startled awake to Sirius climbing out of bed to join James, the soft hiccup of a cry breaking Remus’ heart when he realises it comes from Sirius. No one mentions those nights, and Remus is just glad that Sirius returns, eventually.
Things have been rough between Sirius and his family since Christmas. Remus doesn’t know all the details, he’s not James, but he knows that Sirius is no longer welcome to the Black family estate, come summer. Remus hasn’t asked, but he has a feeling he knows enough. The haunted look in Sirius’ eyes every time they pass his brother around the castle tells Remus everything he needs to know. James keeps talking about summer, including Sirius in everything like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Remus is equal parts grateful and jealous.
Sirius never sleeps alone, anymore. His four-poster bed between Remus’ and Peter’s has been covered in books and papers and clothes for two months. He doesn’t even pretend to go to his bed in the evenings, and no one questions him – save for Peter’s questioning gaze the first time he sees Sirius pull up the covers in Remus’ bed. (Remus thinks Peter probably doesn’t want to know more than he absolutely has to.)
The thing is, after almost six years, Remus doesn’t think he could go back to the way things were. He looks down at Sirius’ sleeping face and thinks it might break his heart if Sirius was to start sleeping in his own bed, suddenly. He smiles slightly, turns a page, and continues reading his muggle novel.
It’s almost half an hour later that the whimpering starts.
Or rather, the twitching comes first. Remus doesn’t think much of it at first; ever since becoming animagus Sirius has been picking up some canine habits, and some restlessness while sleeping is one of the more annoying ones. This time, however, it’s not quite the same, and when Remus looks over he can see that Sirius’ face is no longer smooth and relaxed. His brow is furrowed, his jaw tight with tension, his eyes scrunched shut so tightly it seems almost painful.
The small noises that leave Sirius’ throat make Remus’ stomach turn. He’s heard them before, every once in a while since they were eleven. Sirius is having a nightmare – and by the looks of it, it’s an intense one.
“Hey”, Remus mutters, alarmed, placing a hand on Sirius’ shoulder and shaking it a little. It’s like Sirius’ whole body is trembling. Remus tightens his grip. “Pads, wake up. It’s just a dream. You’re okay.”
Sirius’ eyes snap open, dark and afraid, and suddenly he looks twelve again. He opens his mouth, gasping for air once, twice, three times before his eyes focus on Remus. And just like that something breaks, and Remus doesn’t even have time to react before Sirius’ eyes well up with tears and his skin gets blotchy and he’s clutching the blanket so tight his knuckles turn white and –
“You’re okay”, Remus repeats, dropping his book and lying down. He throws an arm around Sirius and feels him catch the back of his sleep shirt in his fist, nails digging to his skin. “I’m right here. It was just a nightmare.” Remus doesn’t know if his words register to Sirius. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do. “Do you want me to wake up James?”
Remus hasn’t even finished his sentence before Sirius is shaking his head, his forehead dragging on Remus’ neck. “No. Don’t – just.” The words sound like they hurt coming out, and Remus holds the palm of his hand against the back of Sirius’ head. He’s never touched his hair before, not like this. It feels silky and soft. “Don’t go.”
James would know what to do. He’s Sirius’ best friend, he’s the one Sirius goes to with his nightmares. James has six years’ worth of experience dealing with this; Remus feels helpless.
But while James is Sirius’ best friend, Sirius is Remus’ everything.
“Okay”, he whispers, his lips scary close to Sirius’ ear while he holds him tight and listens to his silent cries. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
When Remus was eleven, he was sure the pains around the moon couldn’t possibly get any worse. By sixteen he knows how wrong he had been.
It’s like every bone in his body is on fire, like every joint is in a pressure cooker. He keeps biting his pillow, forcing himself to stay put. Sirius’ arm around his waist is a comforting weight, but his touch on the little strip of skin on his stomach burns.
A soft whimper escapes before Remus can stop it.
“Moony?” He had thought Sirius to be asleep, but can now feel his body shifting around, a hand on his shoulder pulling him until he’s forced on his back. “You okay?”
Remus tries his best to take a deep breath. He manages on the third try. “I’m fine”, he hisses through his teeth. “Just the moon.”
Another jolt of pain down his spine makes his close his eyes and gasp. His hands grasp for the blanket, his left hand fingers finding Sirius’ hand instead. He tries not to squeeze too hard but knows that Sirius will never complain either way. He never does, even if Remus knows he’s hurting him, even when the wolf plays too rough on a full moon and Sirius greets him in the morning with broken ribs and a grin.
It’s unfair, how little he complains when all Remus can offer him is pain.
“What can I do, Moony?” Sirius whispers, urgent and – and terrified, and Remus doesn’t like that, he doesn’t want Sirius to be scared of him, even though he should be. A hand in Remus’ hair feels a lot better than it did on his skin. “I’ll do anything.”
(Don’t let go, Remus thinks but doesn’t say. Promise me that whatever happens you won’t let go, that it’ll be me you come back to.)
“Just – “ Breathing hurts. Talking hurts. Trying to let go of Sirius’ hand hurts, and not just physically. “Distract me.”
Remus doesn’t know what he expects to happen. Maybe mindless rambling. Maybe a cigarette. Maybe even a recount of the plans for the end of year prank they have been talking about for weeks now and will finally execute after the moon. Maybe none of those things. He just knows that whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t this.
Sirius’ hand on his cheek burns his skin, but he slides it back to his hair on no time. The lips, however, don’t go away. They burn, too, in all the best and all the worst ways, and Remus isn’t sure if he’s hallucinating from the pain (he has to be, there’s no way this would be happening in real life) but he doesn’t dare open his eyes in case he is. It hurts, but Remus never wants it to stop, and it’s all he can think about. All he will ever want to think about anymore.
Snogging Sirius is nothing like Remus imagined it would be. Somehow it’s better and worse at the same time. Remus feels terribly inadequate with his lack of finesse and his clear inexperience, but Sirius tastes very nice, like cheap cigarettes and butterscotch candies. He smells like them, too, and his lips are soft and plush, and Remus is starting to realise that he really doesn’t have a good enough imagination to come up with details like this.
When Sirius pulls back, Remus opens his eyes. They’re close, noses almost touching, and Sirius’ eyes look like stardust and sparkles and shattered glass in sunlight.
“That’s what you do to distract people?”
Sirius grins. Remus has never seen it this close before. He’s beautiful. “Only you. Is it working?”
It is. Remus still feels the pain; that hasn’t gone anywhere. He still feels miserable, and it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be in too much pain and he’ll have to borrow James’ invisibility cloak to get to the hospital wing. But all that being said, when Remus thinks about the kiss, he realises he hadn’t been thinking about the moon for a second of it.
“I’m not sure”, he says, carefully easing his grip on Sirius’ hand to push some strands of black hair out of his face. “Maybe you need to try again.”
And Sirius smiles, and tries again.
Oh, beautiful baby
My heart’s a flame, I’ll love you till Tuesday
My head’s in a whirl and I’ll love you till Tuesday
Love, love, love, love you till Tuesday
Love, love, love, love you till Tuesday
Well, I might stretch it till Wednesday