Once in a Blue Moon (COMPLETE)

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Ghosts of Long Ago
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Remus found that sneaking out of the Black house was relatively easy, or at least it would be if Sirius would let him.

“Where do you want to go?” Sirius asked after he had caught Remus putting on his muggle clothes two mornings after his visit to the Ministry.

“Just for a walk,” Remus replied. “You know I don’t like being cooped up all the time.”

“Well, give me a minute to get changed, and I’ll come with you,” Sirius said.

“Wouldn’t you rather spend some time alone with Regulus?” Remus suggested, as casually as he could.

“He could come with us,” Sirius replied. “He knows his way around London even better than me. He’s learned about it in school.”

“I’d rather go alone,” Remus said. “Just this once.”

“Mother won’t like you wandering around on your own,” Sirius pointed out. “You know what she’s like.”

“Then don’t tell her,” Remus muttered. “I just want to go out and take a walk on my own. I do it all the time in Scotland. I don’t want to be shut up in here like a prisoner all summer.”

Sirius gasped and grabbed Remus by the arm. “You’re not a prisoner,” he insisted. “You’re a guest.”

“Guests can come and go as they please,” Remus countered as he pulled his arm out of Sirius’s grip.

“Fine.” Sirius sighed. “At least tell me where you’re going though.”

“Just for a walk.”

“If it was just a walk, you wouldn’t be so secretive about it.”

“I just want some time on my own.”

Sirius huffed, but Remus stood his ground. He knew that if he told Sirius where he was going, he wouldn’t let him out of his sight.

Sirius, knowing he was defeated, backed down with a frustrated sigh of impatience. “Just make sure you’re back in time for luncheon.”

Remus nodded and pulled on his coat. “I will.”

He hoped that Sirius didn’t follow him as he slipped out of the building.

It took Remus half the morning just to make his way to the address of the Lupin family. Then he spent a further thirty minutes just sitting on the bench across the street, wondering whether to knock on the door or not.

Finally, and knowing he would be unlikely to succeed in slipping away from Sirius and the Black household a second time, he walked across the street and pulled the metal chain to ring the bell.

There had been no movement around the building in the time that Remus had been watching it, but the sound of hurrying footsteps indicated that someone was in.

“Who is it?” a small girl’s voice called through the door.

“Are Mr and Mrs Lupin in?” Remus called back.

“Mummy’s in,” the girl called back. “Who is it?”

Remus wasn’t sure if his mother would come to the door if he gave his own name. With that in mind he gave the name of Mr Fenwick, and hoped the girl – his sister! – didn’t question him further.

“Cecily, what are you doing?” an older woman suddenly called. “What have I told you about not answering the door to strangers?”

Remus could hear Cecily moving away from the door as she answered. “I’m never to open the door to anyone. But I didn’t open the door… look… see.”

“Go into the sitting room,” the older woman said. “Go sit with Romulus, go on now.”

Romulus? Remus frowned; he hadn’t seen his brother since the last day of term, and had wondered where he was, when he could have been visiting him at Grimmauld Place. Was he really inside here, visiting their family?

“Who is it?” called the older woman.

“Is that Mrs Lupin?” Remus asked, his voice wavering slightly.

“It is. Who are you?”

“I…” Remus leaned a hand against the door and sighed. He had no idea what to say.

Suddenly, the door opened slightly, and he could see the end of a wand pointing at him. He raised his hands, showing that his own wand was not out.

“Remus?” Celeste Lupin asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“Can I come in?” Remus asked. “Just for a minute or two?”

“You should leave, immediately,” Celeste ordered, her wand still trained on him.

“Not until I talk to you,” Remus insisted, his voice growing stronger with every word.

“You can talk from the doorstep,” Celeste replied. “Say your piece and go.”

“You want me to talk to you from the doorstep?” Remus asked. “Whatever would the neighbours say?”

He could see his mother’s eyes darting around the street and knew that she, just like Sirius’s mother, was eager to keep up appearances in front of the neighbours. “Very well,” she muttered, stepping back and opening the door just wide enough to admit him.

Remus stepped into the hallway, more nervous than he would ever admit, even to himself. In some ways the house was very similar to that of the Blacks. It wasn’t as dark, and the furniture wasn’t covered in snake motifs, but it had the same museum like quality, the same sense of coldness. It also seemed vaguely familiar.

“Have I been here before?” he asked.

“You stayed here for the summer when you were four,” Celeste replied shortly, directing him through one of the doors to the left with her wand.

Remus walked through the door, keeping one eye on the woman behind him, and wishing he had his own wand with him. Instead his wand was safely tucked away in his trunk, awaiting his return to Hogwarts.

“Mother, is that really necessary?” Romulus asked, with a tired sounding sigh of annoyance.

Celeste ignored him. “Cecily, go play in the nursery.”

“But I’m talking to Rom,” Cecily replied with a childish whine.

“His name is Romulus,” Celeste snapped. “You’re not a child any more, you’ll be seven in a few weeks; you should learn to speak properly.”

“She can call me Rom if she wants,” Romulus said with a wink at Cecily. “Remus still calls me Rom, and he’s sixteen.”

“I’d expect no better from a barely educated werewolf,” Celeste sneered. “Cecily, go to your room, now!”

Remus bristled at the barely educated comment, especially considering that if it weren’t for her he might have been at Hogwarts when he was eleven.

“You’d better do as she says,” Romulus advised with a nod to the door. “I’ll come by and see you again soon.”

“Really?” Cecily asked, at the same time as her mother declared that he would do no such thing.

“You going to stop me?” Romulus asked with a smirk as Cecily skipped out the door. “I hear you’ve already applied to the Ministry to get them to bind me to Hogwarts. The application has failed by the way. I lurked about during the hearing, and apparently I’ve not been anywhere near enough trouble to warrant a binding.”

“You’ve no right to be here, tormenting respectable witches and wizards. Terrorising poor Cecily.”

“Cecily is hardly terrorised,” Romulus replied, with a snort of laughter. “She likes me visiting.”

Remus watched as his ghostly brother and his mother continued to argue, their voices rising with each accusation they slung at each other. He took the time to look his mother over. She was tall and thin with blonde hair, and wore makeup that really didn’t suit her colouring. Her robes were, as far as he could tell, fashionable and clearly tailor-made for her. She held her head high and her back straight as she glared at his brother, who merely glared right back.

“And now – allowing that monster to know where we live!” Celeste screamed. “Endangering your poor innocent sister, how could you?”

Romulus stood up and loomed over his mother. Remus had thought he’d seen Romulus angry before. He’d certainly heard him shouting before. But he had never seen him like this. He was very relieved that he wasn’t the focus of his fury.

“Remus is not a monster,” Romulus said in a voice was even more terrifying for its quiet tone. “He’s my brother. He’s Cecily’s brother, and whether you like it or not, he’s your son.”

“He’s the son of that Greyback creature now,” Celeste replied. “And you had no right to bring him here.”

“Er…” Remus began, rather reluctantly in the face of the two furious beings across from him. “Rom didn’t bring me here, I came on my own. I got your address from the Ministry of Magic.”

“They let a monster like you wander around the Ministry like a proper person?” Celeste asked with a snort of contemptuous laughter.

“He’s not a monster,” Romulus hissed at his mother again, before turning to Remus with a glare for him, too. “Though the fact he has come here, when I specifically told him not to, makes me wonder at his intelligence. Remus, you promised me you wouldn’t try to find them.”

Remus ducked his head. “I know. But I wanted…”

“You promised me,” Romulus repeated.

“He’s a werewolf,” Celeste said with a sneer. “He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. All they know is lying and deceit and…”

“Mother, you are really pushing it,” Romulus warned. “Remus, you promised not to try to find them. I told you it was too dangerous.”

“You’re here,” Remus pointed out, feeling slightly braver now that Romulus was no longer glaring quite so harshly at him.

“That’s different.”

“No, it’s not,” Remus argued right back.

“They disowned us, and it’s still dangerous for you to be here.”

“But I’m not on the run any more.”

Romulus sighed and gestured for Remus to take a seat on the sofa, sitting alongside him and running his hand through his hair in frustration. “You’re still in danger from them,” Romulus said quietly. “Anyone can put in a report to the Ministry and say that they are being hounded by a werewolf, and that werewolf gets locked up permanently.”

Remus looked across the room to where Celeste was standing with her wand still pointed at him. “But she’s our mum,” he whispered.

“Are you my brother, too?” a small voice asked from the doorway.

Remus turned to see that Cecily had either come back down from her room, or hadn’t gone there at all. From the mischievous look on her face, he suspected the latter.

“Cecily, go to your room,” Celeste ordered. “He’s a werewolf, he’s dangerous.”

Cecily shrank back a little, but didn’t leave the doorway entirely. “He doesn’t look like a werewolf,” she said. “He looks like Rom.”

“He does at that,” Romulus said with a smile. “Why don’t you come here and say hello to your other big brother?”

“Hi, Cecily,” Remus said with what he hoped was a friendly smile.

Cecily inched forward until she was standing at the opposite end of the sofa to where Remus was sitting. She peered around Romulus curiously. “Are you really a werewolf?” she asked.

Remus nodded slowly. “Sorry, but I’m afraid I am.”

“You won’t bite me, will you?” Cecily asked as she inched closer to Romulus.

Remus shook his head. “I’ve never bitten anyone,” he replied.

“Remus was just your age when he was bitten,” Romulus told her.

“Really?” Cecily asked, before adding importantly, “I’m nearly seven.”

“And a very grown up seven you are, too,” Romulus replied. “Remus is sixteen, a whole ten years older than you.”

“That’s old,” Cecily said, screwing up her nose as she continued to stare at Remus.

“I think this has gone on quite long enough,” Celeste suddenly interrupted.

“I agree,” Romulus replied. “Remus, you should leave. Go back to Grimmauld Place and, for once in your life, do as you’re told, and don’t come back here.”

“Why not?” Cecily asked. “Why can’t my brothers visit, Mummy?”

“They aren’t your brothers any more,” Celeste told her.

“Will you come and visit me later?” Remus asked Romulus, as he stood up to leave.

“I’m sorry,” Romulus replied with a shake of his head. “I can’t enter the Black house. They have wards to keep out spirits like myself.”

“Oh.” Remus felt slightly better at hearing that, knowing that that must be the reason why he had not visited him earlier. He also caught the calculating look his mother gave at hearing about the wards, and suspected she might be looking into some of her own.

Romulus, clearly arriving at the same conclusion, looked at his mother and gave her a knowing smirk. “I think you’ll find that they won’t work on this house,” he told her. “Me being family, you see.”

Celeste gave an incensed look that Remus couldn’t help smiling at.

“I’ll find a way to speak with you soon,” Romulus promised him. “You’ll be back at Hogsmeade for the full moon, won’t you?”

Remus shook his head. “Mr Black says I have to use the Ministry’s Containment Facility while I’m staying with them.”

“He what?” Romulus practically shouted.

“He took me to see it a couple of days ago,” Remus went on. “It didn’t look too bad.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Romulus replied. “They’re just cages, nothing to help make it easier for you, or keep the wolf from trying to escape.”

“It’s only for the summer.”

“What about Sirius?” Romulus asked. “What about how the wolf reacts when he isn’t there with you? Remus, one full moon would be pushing it, but two…”

“Perhaps if the first one is bad, Mr Black will let me go to Hogsmeade with Sirius for the second one?”

“Perhaps…”

“I’ll be all right,” Remus said. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Oh, Rem,” Romulus whispered, reaching forward as if to hug him, before remembering that he could no longer do so.

Cecily, who was still ignoring her mother’s orders to leave the room, turned to Romulus with a querying look. “Can’t you hug Remus?” she asked curiously.

“Afraid not,” Romulus replied with a half smile as he reached out and passed his hand through Remus’s arm, causing him to shiver.

“Do you want me to hug him for you?” Cecily asked.

“You’d do that for me?” Romulus asked. “You’d hug a real live werewolf for me?”

“He doesn’t look very scary,” Cecily said as she approached Remus.

“Cecily, stand back from him,” Celeste ordered.

Cecily, precocious in the extreme, ignored her mother and clambered onto Remus’s lap. She reached round and grabbed him round the neck, hugging tightly. “This is from Rom,” she said into his ear.

Remus looked at his brother who was gazing fondly at Cecily with a sad smile on his face. “How long have you been visiting here?” he asked.

“Ever since I… you know…” Romulus replied. “I thought I could try and haunt them into retracting the warrant.”

“Fat chance,” Remus muttered.

“Yeah, but I figured it was worth a try. Then on my third or fourth visit, Cecily here saw me and demanded to know who I was. How could I resist?”

“Rom comes to visit me lots,” Cecily said as she twisted round on Remus’s knee.

“Does he really?” Remus said. “He visits me lots, too.”

“He always visits you on full moons,” Cecily told him. “He missed my birthday once because he had to visit you.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered.

“Rom said you needed him on full moons because you were scared.”

Remus chuckled. “And how is it that you’re not scared of me?” he asked, knowing that the answer was sitting beside him. Romulus had clearly been coaching the young girl for some time, and teaching her that not all werewolves were evil monsters. From the look on their mother’s face, Remus would guess that she hadn’t known quite how frequently Romulus had been visiting, and looked far from pleased at the revelation.

-o-xXx-o-

“Hiding again?” Regulus whispered loudly as he poked his head round the door to the kitchen.

“Stocking up on food for later,” Sirius replied as he helped himself to a couple of oranges and a jug of butterbeer. “It’s not like I’ll get anything I like to eat at dinner.”

“At least you get to eat dinner with the rest of the family,” Regulus pointed out. “You’re not hidden out of the way like I am. You get to invite your friends to stay here, too. Can you imagine Mother’s face if I asked her if one of my friends from school could visit?”

“You want to swap places?” Sirius asked. “Be my guest.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. Mother and Father are taking an interest in you and trying to find you a bride. It could be worse. They could be threatening to disown you every other day.”

“I don’t want a bride,” Sirius snapped as he pushed past his brother and headed back up the stairs to his room. Regulus grabbed a couple of empty glasses and followed after him.

“Why don’t you just pick one of the girls and have done with it?” Regulus asked as he followed Sirius into his room. “That girl last night was quite pretty.”

“You were spying from upstairs again?”

“Not like I’d got anything better to do. But seriously, what was wrong with her? She seemed quite pleasant and pretty enough. Remus seemed to get along with her.”

“She was vapid and nauseating after five minutes in her company,” Sirius amended with a snort. “Remus gets along with nearly everyone; that’s just the way he is.”

“Where is he anyway?” Regulus asked. “I’ve not seen him all morning.”

“Gone out for a walk,” Sirius replied. His relief at the change of subject was short-lived however, when Regulus returned to the previous topic almost immediately.

“If you don’t accept one of the girls like that one last night, you might end up with a shrewish hellcat like cousin Bellatrix?”

Sirius shuddered. “Don’t even joke about it. I don’t want any wife.”

“You’ll have to pick one eventually, so why not one of the pleasant ones?”

Sirius stood up and closed the door to his room, adding a charm to the door so that anything he said would stay within the four walls. Regulus looked at him curiously. Sirius had tried not to use magic in front of his younger brother whenever he could avoid it, and he knew that by doing so now he had his undivided attention.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to do magic outside of school?” Regulus asked.

“I’m not, but no one will know. They’ll just think it was Mother or Kreacher.”

Regulus nodded and Sirius quickly stashed his wand back into the drawer. Whilst the Ministry might be fooled as to who cast any spells in Grimmauld Place, it wouldn’t do for him to be caught with his wand in his hand by Kreacher or his mother.

“If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell Mother or Father?”

“What is it?” Regulus asked curiously.

“Promise me first. Promise you won’t tell them, that you won’t tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

Sirius sat down on his bed and gestured for his brother to join him. “You really won’t tell anyone?”

“I promised I wouldn’t,” Regulus replied, sounding slightly impatient now.

“I don’t like girls,” Sirius whispered.

Regulus frowned slightly, clearly trying to understand the point that Sirius was trying to make. “I don’t get it,” he finally commented. “Just because you don’t like the girls Mother keeps inviting over…”

“No.” Sirius shook his head rapidly. “Not just those girls, any girls. I. Don’t. Like. Girls.”

“None of them?”

Sirius shook his head again. “I’m not going to get married… ever. I can’t, not when I don’t like girls.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right girl,” Regulus suggested.

Sirius sighed with annoyance. “Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Everyone?”

“Uncle Alphard, Remus, now you.”

“Uncle Alphard usually knew what he was talking about,” Regulus pointed out.

“I know. He told me not to tell Mother until I was of age, and knew for sure.”

“So, if you don’t like girls… does that mean you like boys?”

Sirius nodded and felt his face flushing slightly under his brother’s assessing gaze.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Regulus asked, and Sirius breathed a sigh of relief at his brother’s easy acceptance. Thinking about it, he wasn’t surprised. Just like Remus had accepted his preferences – at least before he had found out where his affections lay – Regulus, too, had suffered prejudices, which made him less likely to cast judgement on others.

“Not really.”

“But you like someone.” It wasn’t a question, but Sirius nodded all the same. Regulus looked thoughtful for a moment until something else apparently came to mind. “What’s it like kissing another boy?” he asked. “You have kissed a boy, haven’t you?”

“Just a few times,” Sirius replied. “The first time was kind of awful, because he didn’t kiss me back and just sort of sat there. The second time was better, but he ran off afterwards.”

Regulus snickered slightly, causing Sirius to flush even more before he grabbed a pillow from behind him and threw it at him. “Sorry,” Regulus apologised. “But if the better kiss was the one that sent him running away, then I guess you must be doing it wrong.”

“You might be right,” Sirius muttered. “It’s not like I’ve had a lot of practice kissing. The third kiss was great though.”

“It was?”

Sirius nodded. “He kissed me back properly, and I really thought I was in with a chance. He was as excited as I was, and I really thought I’d convinced him to choose me.”

“He didn’t?”

“He had a date with a girl just afterwards. He chose her over me. I did wonder later if maybe he chose her because I was a rubbish kisser.”

“Maybe you should practice on a few of the girls Mother invites over,” Regulus suggested with a wicked grin. “It’d keep Mother happy, and help you win over the boys.”

“The thought of kissing one of those girls makes me want to heave,” Sirius replied with an exaggerated shudder of revulsion.

Regulus shrugged his shoulders. “It was just an idea.”

The two boys were quiet for a while, each lost in their own thoughts, Sirius’s revolving around how to get his kissing skills improved enough to win over Remus. Regulus’s thoughts however had taken a somewhat different course. “Sirius?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“How do two boys have sex?” he asked with a puzzled frown. “We do Sex Education at school, but they only teach you about men and women together. Do they teach you the others at Hogwarts?”

“We don’t learn anything like that at Hogwarts,” Sirius admitted. “They don’t teach you how to do it do they?”

Regulus grinned widely. “You mean that there’s a subject I get to learn, that you don’t?”

“But do they?” Sirius asked.

“Wait here,” Regulus replied and he hurried out of the door. He returned a few minutes later with a couple of textbooks. Sirius recast the charm on the room and pulled the larger of the two books towards him.

“Does Mother know what’s in this?” he asked as he flicked through the pages.

“Mother didn’t buy any of my textbooks, remember,” Regulus pointed out bitterly. “I got them from the school library the first couple of years. Then I started pawning wizard coins, and used the muggle money to buy what I needed for school.”

“How many coins have you pawned?”

“A fair few,” Regulus replied, without a hint of remorse. “Though not many since Uncle Alphard…” His voice cracked and faded away as he remembered their shared loss.

“I was sort of hoping you’d stopped pawning the coins,” Sirius admitted with a sigh. “Just be careful, please.”

“Anyway,” Regulus said, changing the subject back, opening the other book and skimming the list of contents. “The books don’t say anything about two men. Though maybe we cover that later. If you tell me how you do it maybe I’ll get ahead on the subject.”

Sirius rubbed his nose and kept his eyes firmly on the book. He was loathe to admit to his brother – his younger brother – that he actually didn’t know precisely how two men went about having sex with each other. He’d thought about it often enough, but still had little more than a vague idea.

“You have had sex, haven’t you?” Regulus asked.

Sirius shook his head. “Not exactly.”

“So, what have you done?”

“Just a couple of kisses and…”

“And?” Regulus encouraged.

“There was this one time when we kind of rubbed up against each other,” Sirius admitted. “You know.” He glanced quickly at his groin and his brother nodded in understanding.

“What was it like?” Regulus asked.

Sirius hesitated, as he thought back to the night in question. His cock twitched in remembrance and he shifted his position slightly to ease the growing discomfort the memory brought. “It was a bit weird, I guess,” he finally replied. “It feels different to when you’re touching it yourself, because you know what you’re doing and you know that if you touch it in a particular spot then it will feel a certain way. You know what to expect.” Regulus nodded. “But when we were rubbing against each other I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I was hard, but I’d no idea he was until I felt him move against me. I could feel him growing harder every second, and knowing that I was the one doing that to him made me even harder. Every movement of his cock against mine felt brilliant, a million times better than my own hand.”

“So, it’s like wanking, but with someone else?” Regulus asked.

“I think there’s more to it than that,” Sirius said. “But that’s all I’ve done.”

“Maybe this other boy you were with knows more?”

Sirius snorted bitterly. “I doubt it.”

“He might.”

“He has a girlfriend now, and they don’t seem to be breaking up any time soon. If he does know anything else about how men have sex, I can hardly ask him.”

“We could look it up in a book,” Regulus suggested. “Or magazines, there’s some in the newsagent next door to the record store I go to. They have some with naked women and others with naked men.”

“They do?”

“Loads of them.”

“How do you know?”

“I bought a couple of the ones with women in to trade at school last year.”

“To trade?” Sirius teased.

“Yeah, to trade,” Regulus replied with a smirk. “Though the flight to Australia was long and boring, and they did help to pass the time.”

Sirius laughed. “Where is this shop?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Regulus jumped off the bed and tossed Sirius some muggle clothing from the wardrobe. Sirius dutifully changed and followed his brother out of the room.

-o-xXx-o-

“They’re at the back,” Regulus said. “But I’ve got no muggle money on me. I spent the last of it a few days ago. Don’t you have any?”

“Never had any muggle money at all.” Sirius searched through his pockets, knowing it was a pointless exercise. “I don’t even have any wizard money on me.”

“We’ll have to come back some other time,” Regulus advised as he turned away from the store and began to walk away.

Sirius continued to look through the window. The girl on the cash register didn’t seem the most observant of shop assistants, and there were plenty of shelves to obscure her view of the magazines at the back of the store. He turned to Regulus who had stopped a short distance away and was looking into the window of the record store. “Back in a minute,” he called as he pushed open the door of the newsagent.

He nodded a greeting towards the girl, who barely glanced up from where she was painting her nails. He reached the back of the shop and scanned the racks of magazines, his eyes searching for what he wanted. Unfortunately there was nothing that was helpfully labelled as a ‘How To’ guide for young men who knew they were gay, but didn’t know what they were doing. He picked up one of the magazines with a half naked man on the cover and flicked through the pages, scanning the titles of the articles with hopeful anticipation.

It didn’t seem particularly helpful, but Sirius kept a hold of it as he grabbed a second magazine from the rack, then a third and a fourth.

“Can I help you?” the girl called across to him.

“I’m fine,” Sirius called back. “Just browsing.”

“This isn’t a library you know,” the girl chided. “Are you buying those?”

“I…” Sirius faltered slightly as the girl, who had apparently not been chained to her seat, strolled towards him.

“You know, if you’re looking for the really hardcore stuff, the owner keeps it out back,” the girl suggested with a wink. “I can close up for lunch and show you, if you like…”

Sirius flushed and looked down at the magazines in his hands.

“A nice looking lad like you shouldn’t have to resort to porno mags,” the girl said.

Sirius stumbled backwards as the girl reached him. He staggered into the racks, and one of the magazines fell from his hands to the floor. It opened on a page that made it very clear what sort of magazine it was. The girl looked down at the magazine with a stunned expression on her face. Sirius didn’t hesitate to use her distraction to his advantage and, keeping a firm grip on the three remaining magazines, he ran for the door.

“Hey! Shoplifter!” the girl yelled. “Stop!”

Sirius ignored her and sprinted out onto the street. Regulus was still looking into the record store and he grabbed his arm and tugged him down the street as he made his escape.

They ran as though their lives depended on it, and if they were caught and their mother discovered what they had done, that may well be the case. They had no way of knowing that the girl from the shop hadn’t even followed Sirius out of the door.

Running first down one street and then another, the two boys finally arrived back at Grimmauld Place with the magazines Sirius had stolen hidden within his jacket, lest their mother see them.

Walburga Black was nowhere in sight when they slipped into the house and the boys hurried up to Sirius’s room before they were spotted.

“I can’t believe you stole them,” said Regulus, after he’d recovered his breath enough to speak.

“I’d have paid if I had any money,” Sirius replied. “I just hope these are worth the effort.” He pulled out the magazines and placed them on his bed. Regulus immediately reached for one and began to flick through it.

“I don’t know how helpful these are going to be,” he said after a minute or two. “This one just seems to be a lot of pictures of naked men and stories that readers have sent in.”

Sirius opened one of the others at a random page and looked at the photograph of the man that was spread across the double page. The nose was too long, the cheek bones a little too well defined, but the hair and eyes were both the exact right shades of brown, and that was enough to send Sirius’s heart racing and his blood flooding to his groin. The man could be Remus in five years time and Sirius let out an involuntary groan.

“You okay?” Regulus asked.

Sirius nodded dumbly as he continued to look into the brown eyes, willing himself not to look lower. But, like a moth that was drawn to a flame, Sirius’s eyes took in the smooth, flawless chest, so unlike Remus’s own scarred torso. The man was posing in a chair, his legs spread wide and his arousal proudly displayed. He felt a stirring in his own groin as he continued to gaze at the model.

“Sirius?” Regulus asked, his voice lower, barely more than a whisper. “What is it?”

Sirius barely heard his brother as continued to stare at the photograph.

“I’ll just leave you alone then, shall I?” asked Regulus in a teasing tone of voice.

Sirius jerked his head up at his brother’s words. “Shit!” he swore as he slammed the magazine shut.

“That bloke looked a bit like Remus,” Regulus commented with feigned casualness.

“Did he?” Sirius replied with an equally fake offhand tone.

“Should have guessed, shouldn’t I?” Regulus continued. “It couldn’t really be anyone else.”

“I’m so screwed,” Sirius whispered. “He’s my best friend, and I’d rather spend the rest of my life with him than the most beautiful witch in the world. Even though he doesn’t like me the same way and we’ll only ever be friends. I’d settle for that. If that was all I would ever have, I’d settle for that.”

“You said he kissed you back,” Regulus pointed out. “And that he rubbed himself against you, too. And don’t think I haven’t noticed whose bed he’s been sleeping in while he’s been staying here either.”

“He has a girlfriend now,” Sirius replied. “I should move on and find another bloke.”

“How do you know which ones are like you?”

“No idea,” Sirius replied with false cheerfulness. “We don’t exactly advertise that we’re queers.”

“You could always try a personal ad,” Regulus suggested as he pointed to the adverts in one of the magazines.

“I doubt any of them would be too pleased to hear from a sixteen year old boy.”

“Maybe not,” Regulus agreed. “But when you’ve left school you could look into it, if you’ve not found anyone else by then.”

Sirius nodded and picked up the third magazine. With the trouble he’d had in acquiring them, he had every intention of reading them all from cover to cover. Surely there would be some helpful information within the pages?

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius did find that although at first glance the magazines were little more than ‘pictures of naked men’ as his brother had put it, there was some information hidden within the articles that helped answer a few of his questions. He didn’t know whether he was relieved or dismayed at finding out exactly how two men went about having sex with each other. On the one hand, it seemed obvious what went where, but on the other Sirius couldn’t help but wonder how the hell it would fit.

He’d seen Remus naked before. By now Sirius had been present at so many full moons that Remus had long since lost his shyness, at least up until he’d found out that Sirius fancied him. Sirius knew roughly what size Remus was and, well, to put it bluntly, there was just no way that he could take him up the arse without breaking something. Likewise, he couldn’t imagine any way that Remus would be able to take his own slightly smaller length, not that Remus was even willing to have him, but still…

“I guess most gay men in the world have bloody high pain thresholds,” he muttered to himself, trying not to wince as his imagination ran riot.

It was several days later that he spotted that several of the advertisements in the magazine were for various brands of lubricant. He cursed himself for his own stupidity, but in the darkest hours of the night he wondered just how much help a tube or jar of cream would actually be.