Once in a Blue Moon (COMPLETE)

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Just for Tonight
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The morning of the first of September began early, with all three boys hurriedly preparing for their return to school, a task that, as usual, had been put off until the last possible minute.

Regulus was searching the house for his missing Biology textbook, whilst Sirius and Remus were packing the last of their belongings into their trunks.

Sirius had hidden the small jar of lubricant and a couple of packets of muggle cigarettes into one of his socks, and had stuffed the same at the bottom of his trunk, a place where no one in their right mind would venture. He was now wondering where he could hide his stolen magazines. He didn’t want to take them to school with him, knowing they would be much harder to hide from his friends, but nor did he want to leave them where Kreacher could find them.

Finally, he decided to secure them underneath one of the floorboards beneath his bed. From the volume of dust bunnies under the bed, he was quite sure that Kreacher would never think to go snooping under there.

He was still trying to prise up the floorboard when he heard the sound of his door opening.

“Sirius!” Walburga snapped. “What are you doing under the bed? Come out of there at once!”

Sirius shuffled backwards, his excuse about an escaped chocolate frog already on his lips. Then he decided that he might as well tell her the truth. He had been waiting for her to bring up the matter ever since Kreacher had revealed that she knew he preferred boys, but she had not said so much as a word. Were it not for the occasional glances and veiled comments, he would have wondered whether she really did know at all, or whether Kreacher had somehow found a way to lie to him.

Confronted by her now, Sirius decided that rather than continuing to worry about when she would choose to say her piece, he would take matters into his own hands and pulled the magazines out with him.

“I was finding somewhere to put these,” he said. He didn’t hand the magazines over, but he knew that his mother could see what they were. He stood his ground as he waited for the explosion.

-o-xXx-o-

Remus looked at the dried mud on the soles of the shoes and cast a wary glance at the newly laundered shirts in his trunk.

“You should have put the shoes at the bottom,” Romulus advised him. “And they need cleaning, too.”

“I’m not allowed to do cleaning charms until I’m back at school,” Remus replied as he pulled the clothes from his trunk and stuffed the shoes at the bottom.

Romulus shook his head and frowned. “I meant clean them manually, you know, without magic? It’s not like you’re any good at cleaning charms anyway.”

“I’m better than Sirius,” Remus said, tossing the shirts back into the trunk.

“Kreacher probably spent a great deal of time folding those,” Romulus pointed out.

Remus ignored him and pulled his winter cloak from the wardrobe, wondering why he had even brought it with him for the summer holidays. He tossed it into the trunk as well.

“Have you seen my new quill?” he asked.

Romulus shook his head. “Have you tried looking in the desk?”

Remus nodded and continued to search the room.

“What are you going to do about Sirius?” Romulus asked from where he was casually lounging in the window seat; his gaze was focused on the world outside of Grimmauld Place.

“What do you mean?” Remus replied as he picked up his comb and shoved it down the side of his trunk.

“You’ve been sleeping with him all summer,” Romulus reminded him. “What are you going to do tonight, when you’re back at school?”

“You make it sound like we’ve been shagging,” Remus muttered.

“I said sleeping, and I meant sleeping. You’re the one reading things into it. Ever thought that maybe there’s a reason for that?”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Remus complained. “Sirius knows I’m with Charlie.”

“Does Charlie know that you sleep with Sirius?”

Remus caught the emphasis in his brother’s words and scowled. “Are you going to tell her?”

“If you want more from Sirius, then it’s not fair to lead her on.”

“I’m not! I don’t!”

“And if you don’t want to take things further with Sirius, you should tell him so.”

“I have. He understands.”

Romulus raised an eyebrow. “He does?”

“Fine, he doesn’t understand; he thinks I’m in denial.”

“I agree with him.”

Remus ignored him. He was tired of arguing about this with Sirius, and had no intention of getting into it with Romulus, too.

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius should have guessed that if his mother didn’t want to deal with something, she would ignore it in a way that only she could.

He knew that she could see that the magazines were pornographic. He knew that she could see that the covers bore pictures of half-naked men.

However, it was on neither of these things that Walburga Black chose to focus her fury.

“You dare to bring Muggle magazines into this house?” she hissed as she glared at them, her nostrils flaring with anger.

That the pictures in the magazines were of men wearing little or no clothing appeared to have escaped her notice. Only the fact that the pictures were static was of interest to the furious woman.

Sirius shook his head and angrily flicked open one of the magazines. He found a picture of an entirely nude man and waved it in front of her face. “This is what I want, Mother!” he shouted. “This is what I like… men!”

Walburga froze for only a moment; then she recovered herself and continued to glare at the magazines. “I care nothing for your perversions,” she declared. “You can do whatever you please, with whomever you please, as long as you don’t bring scandal to this house and do your duty as a Black.”

“My duty?” Sirius questioned, already knowing the answer.

“You are the last heir of the line,” Walburga replied. “You will marry a pureblood witch and produce an heir.”

“Aren’t you listening to me?” Sirius yelled. “I like men!”

Walburga waved her hand in dismissal of his cries. “It is of no consequence. It simply means that I will choose your wife for you, instead of allowing you more choice in the matter. Since you have no liking for women, I will choose a suitable bride instead.”

“I don’t want a bride!”

“We all have to do things that we don’t want,” Walburga replied. “It’s a part of growing up. You think I wanted to marry your father?”

Sirius didn’t know what to say to that. Although he knew that his parents had had separate bedrooms for many years, he had always assumed that they were at least in love in the beginning.

“I married where my parents told me to,” Walburga continued. “And you will do the same.”

“But-”

“Enough!” Walburga shouted. “Get the rest of your things packed for school and get rid of those muggle magazines. I want you down in the hall, ready to leave in thirty minutes.”

Sirius nodded, knowing it was pointless to continue arguing, especially since they were already running late. He stuffed the magazines into the bottom of his trunk, guessing that they were going with him to school after all.

-o-xXx-o-

“Remus?” Romulus said.

“What?” Remus sulkily replied. “Going to tell me how to live my life a little more?”

“Rem, listen to me…” Remus sat down on his bed, fiddling with his quill, recovered from inside one of his new Quidditch boots. “Rem, you’ve got to sort things out with the two of them.”

“There’s nothing to sort out.”

“Merlin, you’re stubborn!”

“Learned it from you,” Remus replied. “Are you going to see Cecily later?”

Romulus nodded. “I said I’d stop by this afternoon. I don’t like disturbing her in the mornings; she has a private tutor between nine and twelve.”

“A tutor?” Remus asked, another pang of jealousy hitting him sharply.

“We both had one, too,” Romulus reminded him. “Don’t you remember him?”

Remus shook his head. “The only tutor I remember is you.”

Romulus chuckled. “I wasn’t your first tutor though. There was old Professor Scribbulus before me. He was much better than me, too.”

“You weren’t so bad.”

“I’d probably have done better with a more focused student,” Romulus teased. “The one I had was continually distracted by the pursuit of mischief-making.”

Remus laughed. “You’ll say hello to Cecily for me?” he asked.

“Of course. She always asks after you.”

“She does?” Remus replied with a small smile.

“Oh, yes. I’m quite jealous of the way she asks about you before she asks about me.”

“Does Mother ever ask about me?” Remus whispered. “Or Father.”

Romulus ducked his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Rem.”

Remus feigned a casual shrug. “It’s okay, I guess I shouldn’t expect them to.” He turned back to his trunk and forced the lid closed.

“That would all fit in nicely if you packed it properly,” Romulus told him.

Remus grinned as he forced the straps to meet and did up the buckle. It would all be dragged out again soon anyway, when he was back at Hogwarts.

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius returned from the Prefects’ compartment, only to find that Remus was not sitting in the seat where he had left him. James and Peter were playing Exploding Snap and looked up as he walked through the door.

“Where’s Remus?” Sirius asked as he sat down.

“Gone to sit in Charlie’s compartment,” Peter replied.

James made a sound that seemed to be something that was between a snort and a grunt.

Peter grinned as he dealt Sirius into the next round. “James tried to join them, but Lily wouldn’t let him through the door.”

“She didn’t get you already, did she?” Sirius asked, trying not to laugh. He knew exactly what had happened; Lily had told all the prefects why she was slightly late in arriving at their meeting.

James scowled and grumbled under his breath. “I swear that girl must have spent all her summer looking up jinxes to practice on me.”

“Let’s see them, then?” Sirius asked, nudging James’s long travelling cloak out of the way.

James tried to stop him, but it was too late.

“I told him he looks like a Hobbit,” Peter commented, but that particular joke was as lost on Sirius as it had been on James.

“If you were real mates, you’d look up the counter-jinx and help me get them back to normal,” James pointed out as the other two boys continued to tease him over his newly grown feet.

“At least she made the shoes grow with them,” Sirius snickered.

“It’ll probably wear off by the time we get to Hogsmeade,” Peter added.

“And if it doesn’t?” James asked.

“You can always go leave a trail in the Forbidden Forest and see if you can be mistaken for Bigfoot?” Peter suggested with a wicked grin. Unfortunately, once again his more muggle-oriented humour was lost on the others.

The Hogwarts Express made its way north, the bright sunshine of the south giving way to light rain as they crossed the border into Scotland. Sirius’s mood seemed to match the weather, and the longer he waited for Remus to return to their compartment, the more miserable and gloomy he felt.

He tried to remain cheerful; he didn’t want the other boys to guess what his problem was. It was only a matter of time before James, tactless as ever, brought up the subject of Remus.

“Wonder if wolf-boy’s let her up for air yet?” he asked as he popped another ice mouse into his mouth.

“Don’t call him that,” Sirius said, not bothering to turn away from where he was gazing out of the window.

“It’s only a nickname,” James replied. “He wouldn’t mind.”

“He hates being a werewolf,” Sirius said with a sigh. “I don’t think he would like any nickname that reminds him of it.”

James was quiet after that, or as quiet as a teenage boy with a mouth full of ice could ever be.

They arrived at Hogsmeade right on schedule, and there was still no sign of Remus returning to the compartment.

“I’ll get his trunk,” Sirius said. “Can one of you grab his cloak?”

“I can’t believe he didn’t even come back here to change into his uniform,” Peter commented as he picked up the cloak in question.

Sirius shrugged. “He’ll have to change in the carriage.”

Between the three of them, they managed to gather all their own belongings and those of Remus, and disembarked from the train.

“There he is,” Peter said, pointing across the platform.

James turned to where Peter was pointing. “Oi! Lupin!” he yelled. “Put her down, you randy wolf! We’re not carrying all your crap for you!”

Neither James nor Peter spotted the brief flash of something akin to dismay on Remus’s face at the word wolf, but Sirius saw it and cringed inwardly. He also noticed, and it gave him a brief moment of satisfaction, that Charlene had smiled at James’s words. She clearly had no idea how Remus truly felt about the wolf.

“He’s just being thoughtless,” he whispered into Remus’s ear as they clambered into one of the waiting carriages. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”

Remus nodded. “I know.”

They took their seats and James and Peter climbed in after them, James tripping over his still enormous feet in the process.

Lily and Charlene looked like they were going to join them, but James, still sore about the earlier hex, drew his wand and pointed it at Lily. “You’re not coming in our carriage unless you fix my feet,” he ordered.

Lily smiled up at him. “Not a chance, Potter,” she replied. “Come on, Charlie, we’ll find our own carriage.”

Sirius silently thanked James and Lily for their continued battle of wills, knowing that without it, he would no doubt have been subjected to watching Remus and Charlene holding hands and exchanging soppy glances.

Instead, he was able to sit next to Remus, and enjoy the final leg of the journey with his best friend beside him.

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius tried to ignore that Charlene had sat down at the other side of Remus as soon as they had arrived in the Great Hall for the start of term feast. He was also determined not to notice that the two of them were holding hands under the table, or that their heads were suspiciously close together as they whispered during the Sorting Ceremony.

James, who on rare occasions, like this one, was even more observant than Sirius noticed all of these things that Sirius was ignoring, as well spotting the way that Sirius was holding his fork in a grip that had turned his knuckles white.

“You okay, mate?” he asked.

“Fine,” muttered Sirius, turning his attention back to the feast once more.

The happy couple, as Peter referred to them, stuck together like glue for the rest of the evening. They walked side by side back to the common room, cuddled up together in one of the overlarge chairs, and appeared to be, to all intents and purposes, in a world of their own.

Sirius tried his best to focus his attention on the newest bunch of first years, answering their questions as best he could, but his gaze continued to wander over to Remus, no matter how much he tried to stop it.

Eventually the evening drew to a close. The second and third years were the first ones to disappear up to the dormitories, closely followed by many of the fifth and seventh year students, all with the best of intentions for studying hard in the coming year. The first years followed later, once the excitement of finally being at Hogwarts had died down somewhat. The fourth and sixth years were the final ones to head upstairs, and Sirius was amongst the last to rise from his seat on one of the sofas.

Peter had already disappeared upstairs to the bathroom, and James had declared his intention to follow his example. Sirius decided to make use of the Prefects’ bathroom, and ducked out of the portrait hole at about the same time.

It wasn’t until he reached the door to the bathroom that he realised he had forgotten to get the new password. He knew it was late, and he would be struggling to make it back in time for curfew as it was; he didn’t have time to run around the school looking for another prefect or a teacher.

Shrugging his shoulders, he turned and made his way back to Gryffindor Tower, annoyed with himself, not to mention rather chilled in the draughty old castle.

He arrived back at the tower and sprinted up the stairs to the sixth year boys’ bathroom, narrowly barrelling into James, who was just returning from the same, his hair still damp from his shower. Sirius noticed that his feet seemed to be returning to their normal size; they weren’t quite there yet, but they were certainly smaller than they had been.

“Sorry,” Sirius apologised.

“Thought you’d gone to use the Prefects’ bathroom?” James asked.

“Forgot to get the password off someone,” Sirius replied.

James laughed and shook his head in bemusement, before continuing on his way back to the dormitory. “You’d better hurry,” he called back up the stairs. “Remus is in there, and you know what he’s like about using up all the hot water.”

Sirius laughed, having heard this rumour before, and after spending the summer with Remus, now knowing it was true. He continued up the stairs, leaving James to stumble his way back to the dormitory.

The bathroom was empty, except for the final shower cubicle, and Sirius smiled at the steam coming from it. James was right; he would have to hurry if he was going to get a hot shower.

He quickly shrugged out of his robes and tossed them onto one of the benches running alongside the wall.

He made his way towards the showers, but stalled when he heard a noise that sounded like a whimper coming from the shower at the end… the one that Remus was in.

Sirius’s first instinct was that something was wrong, and he took two quick steps towards the cubicle. He was still several paces away from Remus when a second sound stopped him from moving any nearer.

Unlike the first sound, there was no mistaking what this one was. Remus, clearly believing he was alone, was making no effort to stifle his moans, and suddenly Sirius knew exactly what it was that Remus was doing.

“Shit!” he breathed, backing away as quickly and as quietly as he could.

Sirius knew that Remus was – werewolf attributes notwithstanding – a normal teenage boy. He had told Sirius that he occasionally did it, but Sirius had not really thought any more about his friend’s confession... at least not until now.

Sirius returned to his clothes, struggling into them as rapidly as he could, as he tried not to listen to his best friend pleasuring himself just a matter of feet away.

It was something of a race for Sirius, and he struggled to dress before Remus had finished. He yanked on his trousers and shirt, not bothering to do up the latter, then pulled on his robes. He picked up his socks, underpants and tie and stuffed them into his pockets, and then stepped into his shoes.

He picked up his pyjamas and wash things and crept towards the door as quietly as he could, breathing a sigh of relief when his hand reached the doorknob. He turned the knob slowly, and pulled the door open. Behind him, he could hear Remus moaning even louder. Even the sound of the shower couldn’t disguise his cries as he reached his climax.

Sirius was half out of the door when he heard Remus give a final cry of pleasure, the name on his lips stopping him in his tracks as effectively as Petrificus Totalus.

“Sirius!”

Sirius turned back towards the showers, even though the one Remus was using was around the corner and out of sight.

His name? Remus had called out his name?

Remus, who had spent the journey on the train with Charlene, who had been sitting with her at the feast, holding her hand and kissing her all evening, had called out his name.

He wasn’t sure how long he had stood in the doorway, but when the sound of running water stopped he quickly exited the room and ran back to the dormitory.

“What did you get dressed again for?” James asked when he saw that Sirius had returned.

Sirius looked down in surprise, having scrambled into his clothes so quickly he hadn’t even thought about what he was putting on. “No hot water left,” he whispered, cautious not to wake Peter, and hoping that James would accept his lack of a real explanation. “I’ll shower in the morning instead.”

James nodded and turned over, leaving Sirius to quickly change into his pyjamas and climb into bed.

Sirius was still awake when Remus returned to the dormitory a short while later. He turned his head to watch as Remus climbed into his own bed, trying not to recall all the nights they had slept together during the summer.

He smiled in the darkness, more determined than ever to win over Remus. Straight boys didn’t cry out the name of their male best friend when they came. Remus was no more straight than he was, and Sirius was more sure of that than he had ever been.

A few feet away from Sirius, Remus was also staring up at the ceiling, but unlike his friend, he wasn’t smiling in the darkness. Instead he was sneaking glances across at Sirius, studying his profile in the moonlight.

That was the last time, he told himself; a last moment of guilty pleasure, during which he pictured Sirius instead of his girlfriend. It had become a habit whilst at Grimmauld Place, one he had begun almost immediately after he had begun sharing Sirius’s bed again. One night of lying in Sirius’s arms had been enough to show him how much a certain part of his anatomy had liked it. That was when Remus had decided to make sure that he took care of the problem before going to bed each night, in the hope that it wouldn’t be quite so evident – especially to Sirius – the following morning.

At first he had made a valiant effort to think of Charlene while taking care of the problem, but for some reason he found it harder to bring her face into his mind when the time came. By contrast, he found that Sirius was easy to picture, and despite feeling very uneasy about it, he had soon slipped into the habit of fantasising about his best friend, rather than his girlfriend.

He had told himself it was because Charlene wasn’t around at Grimmauld Place, while Sirius was present the whole time. Remus bit his lip as he sneaked another glance at Sirius; he didn’t have that excuse tonight. He had spent most of the day with Charlene. He had spent a good portion of the evening kissing Charlene. So, why was it the thought of Sirius’s dark head nestled between his legs that had brought him to completion?

Remus closed his eyes to block out the sight of Sirius moving about restlessly in his bed. It didn’t help him; instead, it was merely replaced by the image of Sirius climbing into his bed, hovering over him, touching him, and leaning down to kiss him.

Remus tried to will his breathing to slow down; he tried to stop the fantasy from going any further.

He opened his eyes and looked back across to Sirius. He opened his mouth to whisper his name, but Peter climbing out of bed stopped him.

“You okay?” he asked instead, as the other boy stumbled towards the door.

“Too many cream cakes,” Peter muttered as he left the dormitory.

“Serves you right,” James called after him.

“You had four,” Sirius reminded him.

“So did you,” James replied. “And Remus had five.”

“I’m not the one rushing to the bathroom,” Remus pointed out. “How many did Peter have?”

“Only three, I think,” James said, after a moment of thought. “But he had loads of sugar quills on the train, too.”

“Says the bloke who scoffed his way through a bag of ice mice and nearly two entire boxes of Bertie’s,” Sirius said with a chuckle. “And how many liquorice wands?”

“Not that many?”

“At least a dozen,” Sirius replied, sitting up in his bed and counting off the goodies they had collectively eaten on his fingers.

James shook his head and climbed out of bed. “I didn’t have any pasties from the trolley.”

“Yes, you did,” Sirius argued. “You bought three of them, one for each of us. It’s probably the beans you stuffed into Peter’s pasty that are making him ill.”

James looked guilty as he sat on the edge of Sirius’s bed. “You saw me?”

“We both did,” Sirius told him with a smirk. “You were trying to get rid of the horrible ones, weren’t you?”

James nodded. “If you both saw me, then why did Peter eat it?”

“Because I was bloody hungry,” Peter replied as he came back into the room and joined James on the edge of Sirius’s bed. “I don’t think it was those anyway; most of them were toffee flavour.”

“They were?” James looked thoroughly put out at this bit of information. “They’re my favourites.”

“We know,” Peter replied. “Serves you right for hogging them to yourself all these years.”

“Git!” James accused as he pushed Peter off the bed with a thump.

Peter stood up and threw himself at James, and soon both boys were wrestling on the bed. Sirius pulled his legs out of their way as they continued to pummel each other. It was when a particularly forceful fist came dangerously close to his face that he deserted his bed entirely.

Remus watched Sirius as the other boy judged how to best go about reclaiming his bed.

“If you don’t go back to your own beds right now, I’m claiming one of them!” Sirius ordered.

“Peter’s is full of crumbs,” James warned.

“It’s cleaner than your bed,” Peter countered. “I’ve only been eating in mine. No telling what Sirius will find in your bed – especially considering the sounds you were making earlier… ooooh Lily… ooooh yes… Lily.”

Peter’s mocking was cut off only when James began to pummel his face with a pillow. “I wasn’t!” he yelled. “Why would I be thinking about that bloody shrew when I’m tossing off, after what she did to me this morning?”

Sirius turned to Remus and rolled his eyes. “Guess I’m bunking with you,” he said, wondering even as he spoke, whether Remus would refuse him.

James and Peter continued to fight as Remus lifted the covers in an invitation for Sirius to join him.

Sirius climbed into the bed and the two of them pulled the bed curtains shut. A quick Imperturbable Charm shut out the noise from the other two boys.

“Just for tonight,” Remus said.

“Hmm,” Sirius mumbled as Remus curled up against him.

“I mean it,” Remus insisted. “We’ve all slept in each other’s beds on the odd occasion, but we can’t keep doing it every night, not without the others thinking there’s something going on between us.”

Sirius was tempted to reply with a sarcastic ‘and we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ but instead he closed his eyes and smiled to himself. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he thought to himself. ‘We’ll just see about that.’

-o-xXx-o-

When Remus woke the next morning he was not surprised to find himself wrapped rather thoroughly around Sirius. Something that did surprise him was the sight of the rest of the dormitory; he could have sworn that they had closed the bed curtains the night before.

“Sirius?” he whispered.

“It’s too early,” Sirius mumbled. “Go back to sleep.”

“Sirius?” Remus insisted, a little louder this time. “Did we close the curtains last night?”

“Think so,” Sirius replied sleepily, though his eyes remained closed.

“They’re open now,” Remus whispered.

Sirius ignored him and turned onto his side, burying his face in Remus’s neck with a sigh of contentment.

“Sirius, stop it,” Remus hissed.

“Not doing anything,” Sirius mumbled.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Peter replied, snapping a picture from the foot of the bed. “Wonder how much Rita would pay for this?”

Remus shot up in bed and launched himself at Peter, tackling him to the floor.

Sirius, shocked awake himself, scrambled to the edge of the bed.

“What’s all the noise?” James asked, waking up and glaring around the room. “It’s the crack of bloody dawn, for Salazar’s sake. Shut the hell up and go back to bed!”

Sirius was expecting a comment about which bed he was in, but James merely yanked the covers over his head in an attempt to block out the racket.

“Give it back!” Peter shouted.

“Not until you give me the film,” Remus cried.

“It’s just a bloody picture!”

“I don’t want my picture in the stupid newsletter,” said Remus, as he struggled to open the back of the camera.

“You’ll break it,” Peter warned, trying to pry the camera out of Remus’s hands.

“I’ll give you it back, if you give me the film,” Remus compromised.

“It’s just a picture,” Peter said, though he nodded his agreement.

Remus handed back the camera, and Peter undid the catch that opened the back. He held out his hand and Peter passed him the film. “Thanks.”

“Still don’t see what the big deal is,” Peter muttered.

“I have a girlfriend,” Remus reminded him. “Somehow, I don’t think she’d like to see a picture of me like that in the school newsletter.”

“She’s seen you in bed with Sirius before,” Peter pointed out.

“Yeah, when we thirteen and fourteen years old.”

“So?”

“So?” Remus echoed. “That was different.”

“It was?”

Remus hesitated. “I wasn’t seeing her then.”

Sirius knelt on the bed as he looked down at the two boys. Peter had his back to him, but he knew that Remus could see his face clearly. He raised an eyebrow, giving Remus a meaningful look. He didn’t expect him to admit that there was anything else different between then and now, but they both knew that there was.

-o-xXx-o-

After the first night of term Sirius returned to his own bed and Remus remained in his own. Sirius consoled himself with the knowledge that it was only a matter of time before they were sharing a bed permanently.

Remus was still seeing Charlene, but he no longer shied away from Sirius’s touch, and Sirius made sure that he touched him… a lot.

A nudge with the elbow, an arm around the shoulders, sitting just that little bit closer than before…

Sirius was sure he was making progress with Remus, especially when the first full moon of the term was easier than any of them had been for a long time.

“Told you we’d get things back to normal again,” Remus said as they tucked into breakfast in the kitchen of his house.

Sirius nodded; his was mouth too full of bacon to reply.

“We should be heading back soon,” Remus continued, speaking around a mouthful of food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Romulus scolded, without any real feeling in it. He knew that teaching Remus manners at the table had been a lost cause for years.

Remus rolled his eyes and grinned at Sirius.

Sirius finished his breakfast and stood up to fetch the textbook he had been reading from where he had left it in the basement.

“Remus,” Romulus whispered as soon as Sirius had disappeared. “I need to talk to you.”

Remus frowned in confusion. “About what?”

Romulus shook his head, signalling not yet. “Send Sirius back ahead of you.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. Say you want some sleep or something.”

Remus frowned again, but when Sirius reappeared in the kitchen he did as his brother had asked.

“I can stay with you, if you like?” Sirius suggested.

Remus shook his head. “You can’t keep skipping classes when you don’t have to,” he told him. “It’s N.E.W.T.s and you’ve got your Potions O.W.L. to re-sit next month.”

“You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Romulus interrupted. “You head back to school. I’ll make sure Remus is back for classes this afternoon.”

Sirius agreed, albeit a little reluctantly, and left the Lupin brothers alone.

“So, what lecture do you have in store for me now?” asked Remus, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair.

“You assume I’m going to lecture you,” Romulus commented with a wry smile. “That’s the sign of a guilty conscience if ever I heard one.”

“If this is about that incident in Greenhouse Six, I swear I had nothing to do with it,” Remus began.

“It isn’t about that incident,” Romulus replied. “Though I doubt your argument would hold up against the eyewitness evidence of you and your friends sneaking in there with a book from the Restricted Section and a gallon of Pepper-up Potion just half an hour before the Snapdragons started breathing fire six months before reaching maturity.”

“There weren’t any witnesses,” Remus said.

“The Friar saw you,” Romulus told him. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“So, what is it?”

“Sirius and Charlie,” Romulus replied.

“I thought you were going to leave off hassling me about them,” Remus said with a growl of frustration.

“I never said that. I just let you change the subject every time I bring them up.”

“Oh,” Remus said. “So, any idea who won the Falcons versus Cannons match at the weekend?”

“Not this time,” replied Romulus, shaking his head and pointing Remus back to the seat he had just stood up from.

Remus sat back down, looking more sulky than ever.

“Can I ask you something?” Romulus said quietly.

“Sure,” Remus replied. “It’s not like you’re not going to anyway.”

“What’s stopping you from being with Sirius?”

“I’m seeing Charlie.”

“Pretend for a minute that you aren’t,” Romulus said. Remus opened his mouth to argue, but was immediately cut off. “Humour me, Rem. What’s stopping you?”

Remus looked down at his empty plate and scowled. “I’m not gay.”

Romulus sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Remus, the word you’re looking for here is bisexual.”

Remus looked up at that. His face began to flush, making it clear he knew exactly what Romulus was talking about.

“You like Charlie and you like Sirius, that makes you bisexual,” Romulus said firmly. “Now, what is it that’s stopping you from being with Sirius? Besides Charlie?”

“I can choose whoever I want to be with,” Remus muttered. “I chose Charlie. I’ve been seeing her for six months now. We have a lot in common. I like hanging out with her.”

“But why did you choose Charlie over Sirius?” Romulus pressed on.

Remus glared at his plate again. Why had he chosen Charlie? Because she was there? Because she had sent him the card? Because it was easier?

“People stare at me all the time,” Remus whispered. “Even now, I’m still the freaky werewolf to most of the school. I hate it.”

Romulus nodded sympathetically, even though there was nothing he could do about the position Remus was in, nothing expect offer support when it was needed.

“I hate being stared at. Being a werewolf is bad enough; can you imagine how much more they would stare at me if they knew I liked other boys?”

“Well, at least now we’re getting somewhere,” Romulus replied. Remus looked at him with confusion. “That’s the first time you’ve admitted to me that you actually do like other boys,” Romulus explained quietly.

“I didn’t say that,” Remus argued.

“So, you’re saying you don’t fancy Sirius?” Romulus asked with a smirk.

“I don’t!”

Romulus leaned down and gave Remus a grin that wasn’t entirely pleasant. “In which case you might want to learn how to cast a decent silencing charm, or alternatively find somewhere else to toss one off… somewhere that Moaning Myrtle doesn’t haunt.”

“I’ve not been in the girls’ bathroom!” Remus exclaimed, heat rushing to his face at his brother’s unexpected words.

“You know that Myrtle doesn’t stick to the girls’ room,” Romulus said with a laugh. “She travels all round the school via the plumbing. She heard you one night last week, and asked me if I swung that way, and whether that was why I was refusing her advances.”

“She what?” Remus squeaked.

“She heard you,” Romulus repeated. “Are you calling her a liar?”

Remus’s scowl deepened even more.

“Didn’t think so,” Romulus said. “Remus, I don’t mean to be so harsh with you, but, putting it crudely, if you’re getting off by thinking about Sirius, then you really need to reconsider who you want to be with.”

“I don’t want to be with Sirius,” Remus replied. “I won’t be any more of a freak than I already am! I won’t!”

“Remus, you’re not a freak.”

Remus ignored his brother’s comment as though he had not spoken at all. “I’m with Charlie, and if I break up with her, then I’ll find another girlfriend sooner or later. I won’t be with Sirius or any other boy. I might be the freaky werewolf, but I’m not going to be the freaky gay werewolf, too!”

“Remus…”

“No!” Remus shouted. “I won’t do this. I can’t do this…I can’t.”

Romulus nodded and sighed. “You do know that you’ll only be making all three of you miserable if you keep this up?”

“Charlie isn’t miserable. None of us are miserable.”

“Sirius is, and Charlie will be if she finds out how you feel about him.”

“She won’t find out if you don’t tell her,” Remus warned, ignoring the suspicion that Romulus might be right about Sirius. He knew Sirius wanted more from him, although he had been trying to ignore the fact as much as he could. But even Remus couldn’t fail to notice that his friend was becoming more and more down as the weeks passed.

“And how do you feel about him?” Romulus asked.

“He’s my best friend.”

“Remus,” Romulus warned. “Even if you can’t be honest with Sirius, at least be honest with yourself. Be honest with me. How do you feel about him?”

Remus picked up his mug of tea, even though it had gone cold long ago. He stared at the skin that had formed on top of the liquid and screwed up his nose in distaste. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about him,” he finally whispered. “There can never be anything more than friendship between us.”