Chapter Text
“Euuuuurrgghhh,”
Sirius cracked an eye open. He was in his Gryffindor dorm room, the best place on earth as far as he was concerned with the best mates but something was up with Remus. He had been shifting around for the last hour. Sirius sat up and pulled the curtain around his bed back and leaned over to read the clock on his nightstand. 2:14 am. Maybe Remus was having a nightmare. Sirius was well-versed in treating those, Reggie got them all the time.
“Remus?”
Next Sirius heard a long whine. Maybe Remus got terrible nightmares too, perhaps from whatever gave him those large scars across his face. He tiptoed out of his bed and crossed to Remus’ pulling his curtains apart. Twisted up in his blankets lay Remus’ small frame, like the bed was swallowing him up.
“Remus?” Sirius said in a hushed tone.
Remus’ eyes flew open and he sat up quickly. “Sirius, what are you doing here?”
“I…I just wanted to check if you were alright. I heard you groaning and whining.”
A flush spread across Remus’ face and his eyebrows knit together as he seemed to absent mindedly rub at his leg.
“Nuffin’, I’m fine.” Remus groaned a softly again and he continued to adjust how he was sitting.
The sight before him was one Sirius knew well. Remus was in pain.
“Remus, are you alright? Is something hurting you?” Remus spent a lot of time in the hospital wing. He had always been cagey about why but he and James were hard set on getting to the bottom of it. Maybe this was related.
“Sirius, go away or I’ll bite your head off.”
“No you won’t. You're in pain, what’s hurting you? I want to help.”
“There’s nothing to fucking be done.”
Slightly taken aback by the language Sirius plowed forward. “Oh come on. I know your mother is a muggle so you may not know but there’s lots of magic to-“
“Stop.” Remus whimpered. The whimper is what got Sirius to pause.
“It just happens sometimes, my legs hurt.”
Sirius was confused. They hadn’t had quidditch practice yet that week. He couldn’t think of anything else they’d done that day that would lead to Remus’ legs hurting.
“Been going on secret runs have you? I didn’t think that kind of thing would be your cup of tea.” Sirius said.
“It’s not, it’s my joints…”
His joints? Sirius had heard of joints hurting but it was always with far elder members of his family. What did they do for it? Sirius was familiar with general muscle pain relieving potion, potions for flesh wounds. His memory conjured up an image of his aunt Cassiopeia’s husband running an ointment onto her hands, rubbing over her knuckles until well after the ointment had been absorbed. Perhaps something like that would help.
“Budge up,” Sirius pushed at Remus’s thigh to get him to scoot over.
“Oi, fuck off to your own bed or James’, I need to sleep.” Remus said.
“Right because sleep was coming so easily to you before,”
“Easier…” Remus grumbled.
“Please? I think I can help.”
“Nothing helps.” But Remus scooted a bit, wincing when his weight shifted to his legs.
“We’ll figure it out. Is it your knees?”
“Knees, ankles, hips…” Remus listed listlessly.
“Alright. Can you describe the pain again?”
“It’s…warm…it feels swollen, achey like a muscle but different. Creaky,”
It definitely sounds like what happened to aunt Cassie’s hands. “Alright Im going to give something a go and you have to keep it between us.”
“What?! What’re you going to do?” Remus scrambled up the bed away from Sirius for a moment, pain be damned.
Sirius did feel a bit embarrassed for what he was about to do. Not for helping his friend of course, just how it could be misconstrued. His friend was hurt. He was going to help. It was actually quite heroic Gryffindor behavior if you look at it like that. “Well, I can’t have my failure publicized if I can’t figure this out on the first go.”
“Have you got a charm for this?” Remus glanced for Sirius’ wand but didn’t see it.
“No.” Sirius only ever saw his aunt and uncle touch each other this way. They were some of the loveliest people in his life. His parents never touched each other. His parents touched him sometimes but it was never nice.
Remus scooted back down after hesitating and closed his eyes. Sirius saw Remus ease the tension in his body slowly and watched his eyebrows knit back together as his pain came back into focus and he pulled a breath in. “Whatever, go ahead.”
Sirius took a small breath and placed his hands on either side of Remus’ knee closest to him. “Both legs?”
“Yes,”
Starting with the leg closer to him Sirius gently put his hands on Remus’ knee, wrapping around so his thumbs had a good vantage point around the kneecap where the achey bits presumably were. Remus initially looked away, possibly ignoring Sirius but shortly his eyes closed and an exhale escaped his lips. Sirius watched it go.
“Is this helping?”
“Mhm…”
“Oh that’s great, this is easy.” Sirius felt bolstered. He continued to rub into and around the kneecap, moving outwards to the surrounding flesh. After he’d given the knee quite enough attention, he quickly moved down Remus’ calf giving it a bit of attention before moving onto his ankle. His ankles were a more delicate thing. Sirius hoped he wasn’t pulling Remus’ leg hair too much. He seemed to have a bit more than Sirius had. Guess that’s the Welsh in him.
“The ankles don’t really hurt that bad…” Remus shared startling Sirius from his focus.
“Ah okay, point taken.” Sirius wrapped up and scooted a little closer to Remus to reach over and begin kneading his other knee. This got another exhale. It felt so good to be useful. Sirius had been paying close attention to Remus all year. He really was a fascinating creature. His maturity was beyond the other boys in their dorm. He was taken ill often, and had to miss class but Remus never let it affect his grades or miss assignments. Sirius would have happily taken the Professor’s offers to excuse assignments if he had been sick enough to land in the hospital wing.
Once Sirius had done the same thing to Remus’ right leg as his left, Remus was noticeably calmer but his shoulder were still pulled up a bit. Remus had also said his hips hurt. Slowly Sirius reached out and put a hand on Remus’ hip and Remus cracked an eye at him.
“It’s just bone…”
“Yeah,” Remus began to feel around his own hip. “Not sure how you’d get in there. You’ve done enough, you can go back to bed.”
“I bet they still hurt. They’re the biggest joint.” Sirius wasn’t sure how he figured this but it made sense.
“Yeah…” Remus conceded. “They’re probably the worst part.”
“Oh, well maybe just your thighs real quick will help for now.”
“Maybe…”
Sirius brought up his elbow while leaning down.
“Oí! What’re you trying to do? Looks like youre gonna elbow drop into my crotch!” Remus exclaimed.
“Oh you git, it’s a big muscle, I need something larger than my hands. Now be still.”
Remus had the gall to chuckle at him so he must be feeling better. Sirius kneaded both of Remus’ thighs, sticking to the outside where he remembered his own muscles ache from Quidditch practice. “Better?”
“Loads actually. Thank you…”
“Of course, couldn’t stand by while a brother was in pain,” and he jutted his chin out for dramatic effect.
“Alright, alright, your bedside manner is incredible. Now, get off.”
Sirius’ face instantly returned to a look of earnest concern. “You’ll be able to sleep?”
“Yeah, I’ll have to figure out something for these hips but for now I’m good. Thank you, leave please.”
Sirius laughed, thoroughly convinced his friend was feeling better and stood just to collapse on his own bed.