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a prank, third year, march
“Wait!”
Sirius stops, jerked to a sudden halt by the hand on his upper arm. He nearly falls, but catches himself at the last minute on the banister. “What?”
“The stairs,” Remus hisses, pointing. Sirius blinks, and Remus rolls his eyes. “It’s a trick step,” he explains. “It’ll make a noise.”
“Are you sure?”
Remus doesn’t deign to answer. He shakes his head in a long-suffering sort of way and skips the step.
Cautiously, Sirius does the same. “How’d you know that was there?” he asks as they reach the top of the flight and head down the corridor.
“I pay attention.” Remus peers into an empty classroom. “How are we supposed to find her, anyways? What if she’s sleeping?”
“She isn’t,” Sirius says with more certainty than he feels. “She patrols for Filch at night.”
“But how will we find her?” Remus repeats.
Sirius shrugs. “We’ll just—hang on.” He stares down the dark hall for a moment, then opens the nearest door and darts into it. “Remus!”
Remus is still squinting into the shadows. “I don’t see anything.”
“Come on.” Sirius yanks Remus through the door and shuts it as quickly and quietly as he can.
“Why are we hiding in a broom cupboard?” Remus whispers.
Sirius lights his wand and realizes that they are, indeed, standing among large cases of Mrs. Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. “I saw her,” Sirius tells him.
“Who, Mrs. Norris?”
He nods. “Big yellow eyes and all. She was coming closer. I figured we’d better get out of the way.”
Remus lights his wand as well, illuminating mops and his own exasperated expression. “I thought we were trying to find her.”
“We can’t do much if she knows we’re out of bed,” Sirius points out. “We have to sneak up on her, or she’ll bring Filch. I don’t know how she does it, but he’ll show up if she’s suspicious.”
“Well, is she gone yet?”
They extinguish their wands and Sirius opens the door a crack. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. “I can’t see her,” he breathes. He steps out of the cupboard.
Remus joins him. “If we don’t finish up in fifteen minutes, I’m heading back.”
“What? No!” Sirius wheels around. “Remus, this is our only chance. If you leave—you know I can’t carry everything my own, I’ll drop it and we’ll lose all the—”
“Oh, calm down,” Remus sighs. “I won’t leave. We’ll get expelled, but I won’t leave.”
“We’re not getting expelled,” Sirius insists. “Now. We have to find that cat.” But no sooner do the words pass his lips than the sound of shuffling footsteps reaches his ears. “It’s Filch!” he hisses. He backs up into the broom cupboard and drags Remus in by the back of his shirt.
Once again, they find themselves with barely enough room to breathe. Remus slumps in dramatic defeat; Sirius can hear the thunk of his head against the wall. “This,” he says, “is going to be a very long night.”
a kiss, fifth year, december
“You’ve got to stop this,” Remus says, his arms crossed and his face like a thunderstorm threatening. “That’s three times this week alone that you’ve asked me to trek halfway across the castle to meet you, and you won’t even say why. Now, spit it out.”
Sirius looks helplessly between him and the knot of Ravenclaws chatting several yards away. The bell is due to ring any minute, and soon there will be even more witnesses. He looks back at Remus, more nauseous than he can ever remember feeling in his life. “Oh, hell,” he mutters, and pulls Remus into a nearby broom cupboard.
It’s not the first time they’ve hidden here, but it’s been a few years—the cupboard is a much tighter space than before. With every breath, Sirius can feel Remus’s exhalations, and there are only a few inches between their bodies. He feels his face burn and is glad it’s dark, glad that there’s not enough room for Remus to cast Lumos.
After a moment, Remus says, “This isn’t exactly what I had in m—mph.”
Sirius cuts off his words, which are entirely unnecessary, by kissing him full on the mouth. It’s a rushed and sloppy thing, having less to do with lack of planning—how many times has he thought of this, how many times has he wanted this—and more to do with proximity and surprise and the short-circuiting of one’s brain that comes from the unexpected realization of dreams.
It is over quickly.
“Oh,” Remus murmurs, and then something else so garbled that Sirius only catches the tail end of it. “…not what I had in mind.”
“Sorry,” Sirius says, he doesn’t know why, because he isn’t—not quite—not yet. His heart is still pounding and he’s still just as nauseous. Hastily he removes his hand from Remus’s shoulder and it hangs empty by his side.
Remus makes a funny noise. “I see why you didn’t—why you took so long,” he says. His voice has regained most of its coherency, with only a slight tremor, like something wild barely bridled.
“Erm,” Sirius says, “yeah.” This isn’t what he had in mind, either. All his imaginings had speeches or fits of passion or some understanding that didn’t need words. None of this fumbling. “Well?”
Several seconds pass, during which Remus is absolutely silent and a number of horrible ideas flash through Sirius’s mind. At last Remus says tentatively, “Could you do it again?”
“Again?”
“Well,” Remus says, and Sirius can’t tell from his voice if he’s smiling or grimacing, “it’s just that I always thought it would be—different.”
“Different?” Sirius notices two things at once: that he seems to be unable to say anything other than the last word Remus has spoken, and that his voice is little more than a squeak. He clears his throat. “Er—what?”
Remus shrugs. The movement is very noticeable in such close quarters. “For one thing, I didn’t think it’d be in a cupboard.”
“Sorry,” Sirius repeats.
“Forget about it.” Unless he’s mistaken, Remus is definitely smiling. “I also thought it’d be me getting all knotted up in the throat.”
“Oh,” Sirius says, and automatically lies because he must maintain his reputation, after all. “But I’m not knotted up in—hang on.” He’s having difficulty fitting the pieces of this queasy puzzle together. Yet something seems about to slot into place. “Hang on,” he says again, “you.” He swallows. “Do you mean—”
“Actually, maybe I am getting a little knotted up.” Remus clears his throat as well and laughs, and there’s a bright and rowdy current to it that Sirius can feel squirming in his own stomach. “So—d’you think, maybe, you could try it again? Properly this time, with some warning.”
Somehow Sirius’s hands are on Remus again, one on his neck and the other fiddling with his hair. “Warning,” he breathes into the small space between them. “Merlin, Moony, you’re telling me you never noticed before?” But whatever excuse Remus might have offered is lost, and Sirius forgets he ever asked, when they lean forward and collide in a mess of teeth and noses, sloppier than the first. The third time, they get it right.
an argument, fifth year, may
“Remus, please—”
With what sounds like a snarl, Remus whirls around and, catching Sirius by his sleeve, tugs him back along the corridor to the broom cupboard they just passed. When they’re shut in the darkness Remus doesn’t light his wand and Sirius, taking his cues, keeps his dark as well. “You’ve got to stop,” Remus hisses.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius whispers. “I don’t think anyone was even listening, but I didn’t know what—”
“No,” Remus says, “you need to stop coming after me like this.”
“Like what? I’ve been—polite, I haven’t—”
“I mean you need to stop apologizing,” Remus says. “I don’t want to hear it.”
That hurts, Sirius can’t deny it. But he shakes his head and barrels on. “You haven’t heard it, you haven’t given me a chance!”
Remus lets out a harsh breath through his nose. “A chance.”
He sounds like a bull, Sirius thinks, if bulls are gangly and soft to the touch. “Yeah, a chance.” Sirius chews on his lip. “Just hear me out?”
“Fine.” The way Remus says it, he’s clearly convinced that nothing will make a jot of difference, but he does say it—Sirius focuses on that. “Well?” Remus demands after a few moments. “Are you going to say anything or not?”
“I’m working on it.” It’s a job not to sound angry, because he is but he’s got no right to be, and he deserves to be ignored and yelled at and exiled, but he doesn’t think he can stand it, he thinks he’d die. “It’s just, Remus, he said—said he’d find out, and it really seemed like he already knew, he was leering and—”
Remus cuts him off. “That’s when you tell me,” he says, “or Dumbledore or McGonagall or Pomfrey or anyone but him!”
“But—he was having a go at you, at your family, you should’ve heard the things he said about your dad!”
“I don’t care,” Remus says in a voice like cracking ice, “what he said about my dad. Even if I did, why do you think I’d want you to fight for me?” He shakes his head. In their closeness, Sirius can hear the brush of his hair. “You should’ve let it go.”
“Maybe,” Sirius allows. He can feel the last threads of hope slipping away and clutches at them, desperately, even as he reaches out towards Remus, who shrugs away from his grip. “I didn’t, though.”
“No, you never do.” Remus bites the words off so that every edge is razor sharp.
“I was only—” Sirius doesn’t often beg, but he can’t keep the pleading note from his voice. “I was trying to help.”
Remus scoffs, and it sounds like another snarl, like the beast he tries so hard not to be. “Next time, don’t bother,” he snaps, and leaves the cupboard without another word.
a good cry, sixth year, september
Sirius escapes the press of students and shuts himself in the cupboard. To his relief, no one notices. He slumps against the wall, hard and unyielding as anything he knows, and blinks in the darkness against the painful tightness in his throat.
He refuses to cry. He’s a Black, tears are as foreign to them as the stars for which they’re named—and that’s what finally sends the tears spilling hot down his cheeks. They taste salty, and for some reason the evidence of his weakness only makes him cry harder. He shoves at the opposite wall, exactly an arm’s length away, punches it and relishes the sound of his knuckles on the stone.
A second later he’s pummeling the wall within an inch of its life. His fists fly in time with his racing pulse and his breath comes fast and uneven because, yes, he is still crying, sobbing really, as he attacks his own refuge. Well, that’s his style, isn’t it, he thinks, the tears dripping onto his collar. Anything that gives him shelter is slated for destruction the same day.
“I—hate—” he grunts, punctuating his blows, but he doesn’t know anything he hates more than himself today so he repeats, “I—hate—”
Remus opens the door, and it’s startling enough that Sirius freezes exactly where he is, one arm drawn back and his face screwed up, blinking in the unwelcome light.
“We’ve only been back a few hours,” Remus is saying, “and you’re already—oh.” His gaze travels rapidly over Sirius and then he steps inside the cupboard and shuts the door behind him. “Give me your hand,” he says quietly.
There’s a disintegration taking place inside of Sirius. His ribs seem to be melting into his lungs. Gasping rather loudly for breath, he does as he’s told, and feels the tap of a wand that heals the broken skin on his knuckles. Without being asked, he proffers the other hand, but there’s no relief from pain. At least, not in any way that makes much of a difference.
“Prongs told me about your family,” Remus says. He sounds carefully neutral, tentative.
“They’re not my family,” Sirius says, too quickly. He swallows. “I’m well shot of them.” But it sounds too much like recitation, learned by rote and not meant at all. “I hate them,” he tries, and it’s a bit better. “I do,” he insists, though there’s been no argument.
“I know,” Remus says, his voice unbearably soft. He is still holding Sirius’s hand, which is confusing, because their reconciliation over the summer was mostly for appearances, and every letter they’ve exchanged has been nothing more than polite prank-planning. His grip is soft, too. “You love them, though.”
Sirius exhales wetly and wishes he were someone else. “I don’t know why,” he mumbles, feeling the downward tug on his mouth again. “They’re twisted.”
“But they’re family,” Remus says, his hands traveling up Sirius’s arms to his shoulders where they rest, still uncertain, an offer of reassurance. “There’s nothing wrong with loving family.”
His heart gives an agonizing yank, and Sirius folds himself into Remus’s arms, sobbing more desperately than before.
“Oh, Sirius,” sighs Remus.
Sirius lets himself be held despite the screaming of his whole body that this is not allowed—he makes himself allow it, because he needs it, because here he’s enveloped in the comfort that is Remus, who knows better than anyone what it is to hate some inescapable, irrevocable part of one’s self. And in the close quiet of his shame, he knots his fingers in Remus’s robes and latches on.
a date, sixth year, february
“Come on,” Sirius says, “in here.” He grins at the puzzled look on Remus’s face as he steps inside.
“What’s the plan?” Remus asks, shutting the door. He lights his wand. The soft glow illuminates the stone, the curves of his body, the light in his eyes.
“I wanted to spend some time together,” Sirius says. He takes Remus’s hands. “Put out the light.”
Remus does. “Is this a date?”
Sirius smiles at the amusement clear in Remus’s tone. “Maybe it’s a bit unorthodox,” he allows, “but we can’t go to Madam Puddifoot’s on Valentine’s Day.”
Remus snorts. “There are about a hundred other places we could go,” he points out. “Nobody would look twice if we went to the Hog’s Head.”
“Really, Moony, you’re as romantic as dirty socks.” He grins, reaching. “If we were in the Hog’s Head, I couldn’t do this.”
With a yelp, Remus bursts out laughing. “You couldn’t do that anywhere.”
“All the better.” Sirius kisses him. “If it helps, you can pretend we’re in public. A nice restaurant, if you like.”
“Getting thrown out,” Remus adds. He runs his fingers through Sirius’s hair and kisses him back. “You know it’s a bit ironic, us shutting ourselves in a closet because we can’t go out in public?”
“Ironic, eh?” Sirius murmurs. He’s concentrating on other things by now. “I’d call it perfect.”
Remus laughs, giddily, the sound loose at the edges. “Only you would call a broom cupboard perfect.”
Sirius presses his lips to the hollow of Remus’s throat and hears him gasp. “Well,” he says, “if you’re here.”
“Sap.” Remus tugs Sirius’s shirt up and traces patterns on his skin, and despite his cool fingertips, Sirius feels as if he’s catching fire. “Happy Valentine’s Day, then.”
“You talk too much,” Sirius complains. “I came in here to have a good shag, not for you to tell me you’d rather be in a tea shop.”
“A good shag?” Remus repeats. He begins to undo Sirius’s trousers. “And you say I’m the unromantic one.”
Sirius presses Remus up against the wall, hard. “Shut up.”
“Make me,” Remus whispers.
Sirius obliges, and kisses his laughing mouth.
a mistake, seventh year, april
“It’s just selfish,” Sirius insists, stalking down the corridor. “Absolutely self-absorbed, the pair of them.”
“It’s not as bad as Prongs and Lily,” Remus points out. “You remember the time—”
“Don’t remind me.” Sirius kneads his temples with both hands. “I will never be able to close my eyes again without seeing it.”
Remus chuckles. “Neither will Prongs, I imagine. He looked like a tomato.”
Sirius shakes his head. “For someone who boasts so much about his virility and otherwise pleasurable company, he’s surprisingly shy.”
“You’re the only one I remember boasting about virility.”
“You would know,” Sirius sniggers. He laughs harder when Remus kicks him. “But, really—I cannot believe we’ve been thrown out of our own dormitory by Wormtail and his consort!” When he receives no response, he turns indignantly. “Moony! This is outrageous!”
“You’re being unfair,” Remus says. “How many times have we nearly been caught? Anyways, it’s not as if we haven’t got options, is it?” He’s grinning.
Only then does Sirius realize that Remus is holding the cupboard door open for him. Rolling his eyes, he steps into the darkness. “It’s not as nice in here when I’m all angry,” Sirius mumbles against Remus’s lips.
“I can fix that,” Remus promises, and proceeds to make Sirius breathless with finesse that is indecent and altogether enviable.
The cupboard is small and cramped and hot, and Sirius can feel both of their pulses in his own body—
The door swings open in a slice of blinding light. A voice surrounds them, saying, “—now that Wormy’s usurped the dormitory—” And James stands staring, with Lily right behind him, both of them pink-cheeked and rapidly becoming redder.
James only gapes for a moment, then sputters, “Hullo—”
Remus has turned crimson. Sirius swallows the high-pitched scream that is threatening to burst from his throat. “Find your own cupboard,” he gets out, and yanks the door shut again.
“Merlin,” Remus whispers, resting his forehead against Sirius’s.
In lieu of the scream, Sirius giggles. It’s still several octaves higher than usual. “We were bound to be found out eventually,” he reasons. “We’ve had, what, five years in here?”
Remus nods. He laughs too, helplessly, his nose bumping Sirius’s. “Things are going to get interesting now,” he says. “It was good while it lasted, all the same.”