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pretty things, so what if i like pretty things, pretty lies, so what if i like pretty lies- rufus wainwright, pretty things
Remus has no idea how he ended up here, in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, the temperature sitting just over the line of warm that lends itself to uncomfortable, surrounded by a din of indecipherable conversation. As far as his memory serves him, he’d vehemently argued against a party to celebrate Gryffindor’s win over Slytherin in Quidditch, arguing that it was a Wednesday night, that he had runes in the morning, conjuring excuse after excuse as to why it was a terrible idea.
However, James and Sirius had entered their JamesandSirius(no longer two entities but a singular collective) bubble and had already whipped the whole house into a frenzy as they all spilled into the common room, cheeks pink from the November chill and voices filled with glee overlapping one another.
Remus had been hoping to maybe make an escape up to his room for at least a moment, but as soon as he makes it through the portrait James sweeps an arm over his shoulders and drags him into the center of the fray. Remus would never, ever say that he regrets becoming a Marauder, however, every once and a while(frequently) he wishes that he had slightly less rambunctious friends. But as this was now his seventh(and final) year, he had come to accept the fact that it would never come to be, and occasionally let himself be wrapped up in their infectious joy.
He feels a small smile creep over his face as James spins him in a circle, moving to music from a charmed record player that is nearly deafened by the sounds of voices weaving together in cacophonous disharmony. “Dance with me, Moony!” he cheers right in Remus’ ear.
“Not all of us were brought up taking ballroom dance lessons, Prongs,” Remus replies dryly.
“Not that kind of dancing! The muggle kind, grooving and all that,” James says, doing some sort of shaking motion that leaves Remus mildly disturbed.
“What’s going on over here? Moony refusing to dance again?” comes a velvet voice from directly behind Remus, who startles before he realizes it’s source.
Suddenly there are hands on his waist dragging him backwards until he bumps what he assumes to be the body of Sirius Black. “He means like this, Moony,” the voice is in his ear now, breath ghosting over it’s shell. He feels Sirius’ hips sway behind him before he spins in his hold to shoot him an accusatory glare(all while trying to ignore the hands burning at his waist).
“I don’t think you’ve ever actually seen muggles dance, Pads,” he says, trying to extract himself from his friend’s vice-like grip.
“I’ve danced with Mary! Plus there’s not much to it, just a lot of twisting in strange directions. Once you’ve been subjected to learn to waltz under fear of torture nothing is that much harder,” Sirius says, his hands staying resolutely at their new home on Remus’ waist.
Remus’ stomach gives a funny twist like it does every time he’s reminded of Mary and Sirius’ short term relationship. They dated briefly during fourth year, and while both of them have stated it was never very serious and that they would rather (in Mary’s words) kiss a troll then do it again, images of them kissing in commonrooms and holding hands in the Great Hall swim burrily behind Remus’ eyelids. He’s aware that jealousy is unbecoming, but when has he ever been “becoming” anyway.
He’s yanked suddenly out of his wallowing by a sharp pinch at his shoulder. Sirius has since spun them back around and draped himself over Remus’ back, and has apparently decided it’s a good idea to bite his shoulder.
“Pads, what the hell?” Remus says, finally managing to extrapolate himself from Sirius’ tangle of limbs.
To his credit, Sirius at least pretends to be somewhat ashamed. “You were drifting away, Moony my boy! Join the party! I know you pretend to hate them but I swear I saw you having fun twards the end of the last one, when you were dancing with Evans,”
Remus doesn’t linger on how strange it is that Sirius(despite being very drunk at the time) remembers that Remus was with Lily at the end of the last party. “First of all, we weren’t dancing, I was asking her about our runes homework from the day before. And second of all, I wouldn’t say I was having fun, I would say I was less miserable than usual,”
“First of all,” Sirius mimics, “You were definitely swaying to the rhythm, at the very least. And second of all, don’t be like that! You’re only miserable when you’re moping or I’ve pissed you off or it’s close to the full moon,” He pauses, and gives Remus a subtle once-over, as if to decide if any of those three apply. “And I don’t think any of those are true tonight, unless I’ve somehow pissed you off. So live a little! You don’t have to dance, but at least stick around. We want you here, Remus,”
He pairs this surprisingly sincere dialogue with a suspiciously dog-like pout, and Remus has a sudden vision of Padfoot. He also catches the glance of James, who has surprisingly not left through all of this, and who is nodding vigorously.
Remus sighs. He supposes even the responsible ones have to take a break sometimes. He lets Sirius loop through one of his arms and James the other, and gets dragged into the fray.
~~~
Remus has decided that sticking around at this party is the worst decision he’s ever made. It’s so late into the night it’s probably morning and all of the younger students have gone to bed(he’s sure James is behind them leaving en masse, but he hasn’t the faintest clue how). He is facing down perhaps his most dreaded situation imaginable(and he breaks limbs and rips himself apart on a monthly basis)- a glass bottle that Mary has somehow found, a group of seventh year Gryffindors in a circle, eyes anticipatory, and a subtle hum of tension in the air.
Remus loves Mary MacDonald with all his heart, truly, and doesn’t know what he would do without her most of the time, but right now, with her cheer of “Let’s play spin the bottle!” still ringing in the air, he thinks he might despise her.
After the shocking revelation that some of the pureblood wizards and witches did not know how to participate in spin the bottle(“Honestly what do you lot do at parties without us muggleborns? Waltz?” said Mary indignantly) Mary and Lily had taken up the job of explaining how it worked.
“Basically we all sit in a circle and snog one another” Mary says.
Lily lets out a sigh that Remus felt echoed the one building in his chest. “Thank you for that detailed explanation, Mary. How it actually works is that we take turns spinning the bottle in the center here, and whoever it lands on you have to kiss,”
Peter raises his hand, and looks reasonably intimidated when Lily points at him, one eyebrow raised. “But what if I land on a guy, or one of the girls lands on another girl?”
“Oh no, whatever shall we do?” Marlene quips, catching Dorcas’ eye from across the circle and stifling a giggle.
Remus focuses every molecule of his will in not glancing over to see Sirius’ reaction.
“I think I answered that when I said whoever you land on is who you kiss,” Lily responds, tossing a glowing red lock of hair over her shoulder.
Peter looks a little scared of her. Remus almost forgets the gravity of his situation and stifles a grin. He often wishes he had even a pinch of Lily Evans’ mysterious power to intimidate.
“Since I explained the rules, I’ll start,” Lily says, and a new tension blankets the room. “Oh and one more thing- you can always tap out if you’re truly uncomfortable, and kisses on the cheek are allowed, too. No one’s forced into anything right now and there’ll be no teasing of anyone who taps out. Am I clear?”
There’s a chorus of nods and yeses, and Remus thinks he might even hear a “ma’am” thrown in. He shoots Lily a small grin, and she winks in response.
Then, she takes the bottle in hand and spins it with a flick of her wrist, it spins all the way around the circle then continues to slowly make it’s way twards Remus’ direction. At first he thinks it might make it’s way over to him, but it crawls its way past and stops directly in front of James.
There’s a collective inhale across the circle. James’ pining over Lily is a tale as old as time for the Gryffindor seventh years, and for Gryffindor house at large. While James has grown more mature since their fifth year(where the infamous Incident with Snape has made Lily immediately lose what little fondness she had ever had for him) and Lily has slowly warmed up to him over the past year or so, most everyone(except James) had given up on the two of them ever actually getting together.
The man himself currently looks halfway between beaming with joy or vomiting immediately. Mary wolf whistles(always helpful).
“Shut up, MacDonald,” says Lily as she crosses the circle, takes James’ face in her hands, and plants a short kiss directly on his lips. There’s a collective cheer that even Remus partakes in. James looks stunned, dazedly raising a hand slowly to his lips.
“Don’t know how I’m supposed to follow that,” Marlene says as Sirius and Mary share a collective laugh at their friend’s expenses. Remus feels a little bit sick at the sudden realization that he’ll be going last.
Marlene spins the bottle in a way that could only be deemed as aggressive, and it spins almost twice around before landing in front of (to his dismay) Remus. There are more cheers(if slightly less enthusiastic ones) and Marlene fixes Remus with a smile that can only be described as someone trying to placate a small child or maybe a frightened animal(this, Remus supposes, isn’t too far off). Marlene struts across the circle, turns Remus’ jaw and then plants a soft kiss against his cheek with a smack that sounds far too loud.
Dorcas whistles and then bursts out laughing, Marlene starts giggling as well, both of them privy to a joke only they know. Remus just feels grateful she didn’t want to attack his lips Lily-style. They have a common understanding, Remus thinks, without ever having to really say it. Remus had caught Dorcas and Marlene stumbling out of a broom closet late in their fifth year, and a few weeks later Marlene had seen Remus staring at Sirius as he napped in the common room, had sighed a quick “oh” and then wrapped Remus in a tight hug. They’d never truly addressed the common thread between them, but when Marlene shoots Remus an over-the-top wink as she settles back in place across the circle Remus doesn’t hesitate to wink back.
Because of this, he misses the deep scowl that has settled itself into place over Sirius’ features.
The next few rounds pass without much trouble. Mary plants an overdramatic kiss to Peter’s cheek, leaving him scowling and a little dazed, blood sitting high in his cheeks.
Sirius kisses James solidly on the lips, wrapping his limbs around him and yelling “COME HERE PRONGS MY LOVER!” before tackling him to the ground. Remus ignores how this makes him feel overwhelmingly jealous at his core and takes place in the raucous round of applause that follows.
In a streak of luck, Dorcas lands on Marlene and the two share a kiss just shy of indecent, Dorcas’ hands tangling loosely in Marlene’s hair, Marlene nearly in her lap, before separating with wild grins to more cheers. Remus makes sure to cheer extra loud, to which Marlene sends him a soft smile.
To Peter’s horror and everyone else’s amusement, Peter lands on Lily. James looks slightly murderous even though Peter’s lips barely touch Lily’s cheek before he’s scampering(rat-like) back across the circle.
James lands on Marlene, to which Marlene bursts out laughing. She presents him with her hand, which he kisses the back of, and they proceed to waltz around the room to a chorus of boos from the rest of the group. They separate with an over-exaggerated bow from Marlene and a curtsey from James.
Remus, caught up in the momentary joy that exists simply from being in the presence of his friends is suddenly hit by a wave of nausea when he realizes that it’s his turn, the final spin. His hands shake slightly as he reaches out for the bottle, and watches it spin once, then quiver as it turns slowly through it’s second spin. Past James, Past Peter, and slowly past Dorcas. Remus’ heart stops as the bottle quivers then stops, directly in front of Sirius.
Remus feels like he might be sick, but his body moves without permission of his brain, stumbling diagonally across the circle until he’s planted himself right in front of Sirius, the object of his affections since before he really knew what affection meant.
“Hi, Moony,” says Sirius with a signature crooked grin, but there’s something off behind it, something dangerous, something almost vulnerable.
“Hi, Pads,” Remus breathes back, not trusting his voice not to shake.
Slowly, he reaches out and cups Sirius’ jaw with one trembling hand. Before he knows it, he’s leaning in, eyelids fluttering closed, and the last thing he thinks before his vision goes black ishe’s so pretty.
With all of his pent up tension, Remus expected his kiss with Sirius would be something vaguely violent, like when the Wolf and Padfoot tussle on the edges of the Forbidden Forest. But instead it’s achingly gentle, the stuff romance is made out of. Remus shifts forward until his knees are bracketing Sirius’ lap, and feels Sirius’s lips part with a soft sigh. One of his hands goes to Sirius’ waist, the other shifting from his jaw to tangle lightly in Sirius’ hair. He knows it’s lasting too long but once he opens his eyes the illusion shatters, and they’ll change from RemusandSirius, one entity with limbs wrapped around each other, sharing breath, to Moony and Padfoot, separate, never quite saying what they feel or what they truly mean.
Unfortunately, even wizards are subject to mortal needs like oxygen, they pull away, and Remus opens his eyes to dead silence and slack jaws from his friends. He quickly scrambles back from where he’d half-crawled into Sirius’ lap and settles back into his place in the circle, face flaming.
And then Marlene, angel that she is, starts clapping. Then there are more claps and more whistles and James gets up with a groan. “Well, I don't think we can top that, can we? Plus, Quidditch practice tomorrow- 5am sharp! That means you, MacDonald. And you, McKinnon, don’t think you can get away with it because we shared a lovely waltz,”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Marlene, looking very much like she’s dreaming of it.
“Fuck you, Potter,” says Mary at the same time, looking murderous.
They all slowly get up, James shooting a hopeful glance in Lily’s direction.
Shockingly, she meets it, and smiles. “Goodnight, Potter,” she says, then turns and struts up the stairs to the girl’s dorm.
James is left standing slack-jawed, until Peter slaps him on the shoulder to get him moving.
The two of them and the rest of the girls head up the stairs, and Remus makes to follow them before Sirius grabs his wrist and draws him back.
Remus sighs. He figured this might happen. There was clearly something different about their kiss and the ones their friends all shared, and he was too naive to think Sirius wouldn’t pick up on it.
“Look, Pads. I’m sorry if that got weird, I don’t know what came over me,” He starts, determined to defuse the situation before it can start. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I promise. It’s late, we have class tomorrow, let’s go to bed,”
Sirius doesn’t reply for a long moment, grip still tight on Remus’ wrist. “I meant it,” he says, after a moment more.
“What?” Remus responds, too taken off guard to say much of anything else.
“I meant it Remus. This isn’t-” He cuts off, tugging a lock of hair in frustration. Remus thinks it makes him devastatingly handsome. “This isn’t a one-person thing, this isn’t just on you, alright? It takes two people to really make a kiss. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but that was one hell of a kiss we shared,”
Remus is shocked speechless.
“We’ll talk in the morning, alright? Just don’t run away from me,” He leans forward, cupping Remus’ jaw softly in a mirror of what Remus did earlier, and presses a kiss oh-so-achingly-gentle to Remus’ cheek.
“Good night, Moony,” he says, and Remus follows him, in a daze, up the stairs.
from where you are to where i am now, is it’s own galaxy, be a star, and fall down somewhere next to me