A New Kind of Apology

“Remus.”

“Sirius.” The werewolf’s tone was sharper than it normally was by considerable degrees. Sirius winced and picked up his pace to catch up to his friend.

“Look, I’m trying to apologize here,” he said, gesturing with his hands. Remus threw a contempt look over his shoulder before quickly changing direction and disappearing through a tapestry. Sirius huffed and followed.

“Remus! Would you stop being so irrational and slow down for a moment? Would you listen to me?”

Remus spun on his heel, hands flying out to brace himself against the narrow walls of the stairwell in which they stood. His face was contorted in anger, a mask he rarely wore. His brown eyes, normally soft and utterly forgiving, flashed dangerously. All of his emotions lurked within their pools, ever the Gryffindor, wearing his heart on his sleeve.

When he spoke the words rode on a deep snarl. “You want me to stop being irrational? You want me to listen? Fine. I’m listening. Please, Sirius, apologize. Tell me exactly what you were thinking last night? There’s nothing more in the world I want to know – to understand – more than what the fuck was going through your head!”

“Do you even have a clue as to what almost happened?” Remus’s voice steadily rose as he continued with his tirade. Sirius stood one step below his friend of six years, maintaining his silence for once. “You don’t, do you? You didn’t stop for even a moment to consider what you were doing! You never do, Sirius! Everything is fun and games with you!”

“When are you going to grow up? When are you going to pull your head out of your arse long enough to look around and buy a fucking clue?” Remus’s voice dropped to a dangerously low level. “You see what a transformation does to me. You know what I deal with every day, making sure no one finds out, keeping up with my studies, keeping up with my friends, trying, Gods trying, to be normal! And then you go and…Ugh!”

As the noise of disgust ripped from Remus’s throat, he turned once more and all but ran up the remaining stairs. As he ducked out and into a different corridor, he could hear Sirius’s voice calling out.

“Remus!”

“Sod off.”

“Look, I just-”

“No.”

“I just-”

“Fuck off.”

“Remus!”

“If you don’t leave me alone right now, Sirius Orion Black-”

“What? You’ll what, Remus?” Sirius donned his old cloak and swagger with the banter, casting aside the distress and mounting temper of his companion.

“You’ll wish you had been in Snape’s place last night,” Remus growled, voice again low, before disappearing through a doorway. Sirius, ever persistent, followed.

“Remus, if you would just-”

“Mr. Black! Kindly take your seat. You can finish your discussions after class!” Professor McGonagall’s sharp Scottish tongue and demanding presence sent Sirius sulking to his seat. At his side, Remus sat stiffly, staring straight ahead. The other two boys who rounded out their circle of friends, James and Peter, sat at the desk behind them. Sirius stole a glance over his shoulder.

James shrugged and made a bland gesture towards Remus with his hand. Sirius gave a tiny shake of his head at which Peter grimaced. The three had never seen their friend act quite like he had through out the day.

Professor McGonagall began her lecture and Sirius turned to face the front of the classroom, feigning interest in the lesson. An odd twitchy feeling came over him and his eyes began to roam across the classroom. He muttered under his breath to Remus before he even thought the action through, as it was second nature.

“Snape’s glaring at us.”

If possible, Remus’s back went even more taunt with the statement. Never moving his eyes from the teacher, Remus hissed his response. “Of course Snape’s glaring! People want to live. You nearly ended his chance at that.”

Sirius was quite for a long moment. Finally, he leaned forwards, across the desk until he was invading Remus’s personal space. “You’re wrong. People like him aren’t interested in living. They just don’t want to die. There’s a difference.”

Remus’s eyes shot to Sirius’s for just a moment, wider than they normally were. Sirius returned the gaze calmly before slowly sliding back and slumping once more in his seat. The rest of the period passed without incident and Remus melted into the chaos of class change when the bell sounded.

Sirius ran a hand through his hair in aggravation, watching the defeated form of his friend melt into the strands of students. “Fuck,” he mumbled. At his side, James shook his head and Peter tried to keep up.

“You really did a job this time, Padfoot,” James said softly. Sirius shook his head and resisted the urge to growl. This wasn’t how everything was supposed to go! Everyone was making too big a deal out of this and he was reaching the end of his patience with the situation.

“Look,” he said sharply, drawing quick glances from his friends, “it was supposed to be a joke. Everyone’s blowing this out of proportion. No one got hurt. Snape hasn’t said anything and he would have by now if he was going to so no one’s going to get in trouble. Can you all just let it go now and start acting like yourselves again? Fuck. Since when did this become the group of pussies united?”

“Sirius, I just think-”

“I don’t care what you think, James. Not right now.” Sirius ran his hand through his hair again. Vaguely, he noted the students giving him and his friends wide berth and his appearance flickered through his mind. Normally, the self-dubbed Maurders could be seen joking and laughing, pranking one another and teasing other students. For everyone to be moving out of their way as they were said something towards the airs the current trio was giving off.

“Fuck,” Sirius cursed again before turning and heading back in the direction he had come from.

“Sirius! Where are you going?” Peter’s high-pitched voice tracked him through the throngs of students. “You’re going to be late for Defense!”

“I’ll catch up with you later!” Sirius called back without slowing his pace. He slipped behind the statue of a Goblin wielding an axe and pressed himself against the wall until he edged his way back and through the tiny gap hidden there. Trying to organize his thoughts as he hurried along, Sirius followed the secret passage to its end.

Three corridors, the warning bell, two flights of stairs, a secret slide, and the late bell later, Sirius pushed open a door and stepped into a long-forgotten room. “Remus?” he called out softly. A quiet sigh sounded from the far side of the room and Sirius dropped his bag and books by the door, spelling it shut with a quick flourish of his wand.

He picked his way across the room until he reached the far wall. Following the arranged path between dusty crates and broken furniture, he soon reached the spot where Remus sat, head buried in his hands. Coming to a stop, he watched his friend silently, hating himself just a bit and forgetting everything he had planned to say.

“You almost made me a killer, Sirius.” Remus spoke softly, but the words were heard nonetheless. “The one thing I’ve fought against within myself… the reason you and Peter and James learned to change…eleven years of retaliating against this thing that has become a part of me and in one night you almost blew it all to hell. How are you supposed to make me understand that? How am I supposed to forgive that?”

Remus finally lifted his head, resting tortured eyes on his friend. “How?”

“Remus, I-” Sirius swallowed and carded his fingers through his hair. He tore his eyes from his friend and looked around the room as though he could distract himself. There was a tiny, grime-covered window not far away. Its feeble rectangle of light stretched across the floor, reaching for the pair of boys.

Emotions began to bubble up within Sirius and he fought to control them, grasp them, make sense of them or harness them… instead he found himself succumbing to their overwhelming appearance and he lashed out in a burst of anger.

“Snape’s a rotten bastard! You just let him run his mouth and talk all that shite about you, Remus! How the fuck can you stand it? He’s never been nice to you for even half a second and yet you get mad at me for trying to scare him a little? I wouldn’t have let it get out of hand, Remus! I wouldn’t have done that to you! You don’t even trust me enough to believe that!” Sirius began to pace as he shouted, making short work of the small clearing of junk in the large room.

“I just wanted to scare him a bit, make him understand what he was dealing with-”

Remus jumped to his feet, for once, his anger rising to match Sirius’s. “What he was dealing with was a berk and a fucking werewolf, Sirius! What is it going to take to get it through your head how serious the situation was? How serious it is! This isn’t a joke or a prank! You were bringing Severus Snape to meet a teenage werewolf, fully transformed, and you thought that was a laughing matter? What the fuck is wrong with you!”

“Remus!” there was a pleading note to Sirius’s tone. Remus shook his head and attempted to brush past Sirius and leave the room. Sirius, however, was fed up with chasing his friend all over the castle. His hand darted out and closed around Remus’s arm.

Alarm ran over Remus’s features, meeting with the haunted and harried look that always plagued him during the full moon, creating a vulnerable and scared boy for several moments. Remus bounced roughly against the wall and found himself pinned against its cold and uneven surface, held in place by the press of Sirius’s body. All rational thoughts fled as Sirius’s mouth crashed down and over Remus’s, demanding entrance in its harsh greeting.

Everything in the world fled as breath was shared and tongues dueled. It was sloppy and messy, uncoordinated and brutal as teeth clacked against teeth and tongues slid past each other, grazing over lips and plunging into mouths. Their noses and chins became slippery with saliva and the air quickly filled with tiny whimpers and grunts.

At last Sirius pulled away, an abrupt jerk as he yanked his head backwards. His eyes focused in on Remus’s and they stared, panting.

“Wha-?” Remus shook his head, abandoning his question as he cupped the bad of Sirius’s head and pulled. The distance between them closed once more as they met enthusiastically. Remus’s finger curled in on themselves, trapping the long, dark strands of Sirius’s hair in their clutches.

Sirius whimpered and pressed himself closer, his hands searching for purchase as they traveled over Remus’s chest and sides, tangling in the material of school robes. He settled, fingers digging into flesh, as he gripped Remus’s shoulders just to the sides of his neck. As they worked through their kiss, dumping all of their emotional baggage into the duel of mouths, they both became calmer and more sedate.

Still passion fueled, the kiss changed course. There was less a use of teeth and a gentler meeting of lips. The pressure alternated as they dipped, leaned, twisted, and turned with each other. Remus’s fingers played through Sirius’s hair, teasing the length and brushing over the nape of his neck. Sirius’s thumbs stroked over the chords at the base of Remus’s neck, circling over his rapid pulse point and traveling the expanse of skin surrounding it.

When they seemed to have run out of steam, the kisses turning chaste and their breathing limited to pants and gasps, they parted. Remus refused to release his grip on Sirius so they stood, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling as they each fought for control over themselves.

“I wouldn’t have let it get out of hand, Remus,” Sirius murmured. “I swear to you.”

Remus sighed, his fingers tightening their grip in Sirius’s hair. “You don’t know what the wolf is like.”

“No,” Sirius agreed, “I don’t. But… I know what you’re like and whether the wolf is there or not, Remus, you’re still you.”

They lapsed into silence, albeit a comfortable one.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius whispered, glancing up through the fall of dark hair to look Remus in the eyes.

“Can you avoid being so stupid in the future?” Remus asked, a hint of teasing in his voice, warmth in his eyes once more.

“Well, I just went and snogged you so I don’t know if I can really promise that with any hopes of not lying to you…” Sirius trailed off, a wicked grin playing with his lips.

“Yes, what was that about?”

Sirius grinned and gave a one-shoulder shrug. “You wouldn’t listen, would you?”

Remus sighed and gnawed on his bottom lip. “What now?”

Sirius bit back a laugh. “Now we set James and Peter up for the surprise of a lifetime and I get to tame a wolf.”

Remus nearly fell over in his laughter. “Tame me?! Sirius Black, if you think I’m the one in need of taming, you’ve got another thing coming!”

Sirius grinned easily, dipping his head to run his teeth over Remus’s neck. “Mmm… maybe we’ll tame each other then?”

Remus tilted his head, granting access to his… boyfriend?

“Is this going to work or is this going to be another one off for you, Sirius?”

Sirius stopped his attentions of teasing Remus and pulled back. Looking once more into Remus’s eyes, Sirius donned the most serious look Remus thought he had ever seen his friend wear.

“Nothing about you is a one off, Remus. People go from being friends to being lovers to being… everything else there is to be to one another all the time. What would there be to stop us from doing the same? Unless you don’t want it?”

Remus chewed on his lip again before glancing down shyly. “No,” he said softly, “Merlin help me, but I want it.”

Sirius’s answering grin was nearly startling in its sincerity. “Then this is… a new kind of apology.”

Remus grinned and shook his head. “Apology accepted.”