Fic: Falling Star
Falling Star
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: R/S
Rating: PG-13
Era: MWPP, Fifth Year
Summary: Sirius can’t stop touching Remus.
Genre: Le fluff! A bit thoughtful too.
Dedication: Dear mushroom18, this is finally your birthday fic!
Now crossposted to the_kennel and remusxsirius.
Falling Star
Sirius doesn’t want to do anything that might be misconstrued. It’s just...his hands sometimes seem to act of their own accord. He’s always ached to stroke Remus’s hair, which looks as if it would feel like a kitten’s fur: not quite blond, not quite brown, but a soft, tawny colour. Now the Marauders are with Remus after the full moon, it’s sometimes physically impossible for him to avoid a touch here and there.
If it’s a deathly cold December and your friend is lying helpless on a bed, you can’t help wanting to smooth back his hair; and if your touch lingers, well, he won’t notice. Anyway, it warms him, doesn’t it? He’s nearly asleep, and when Sirius strokes his forehead, he puts up his own hand and clutches Sirius’s, and Sirius holds it for a fraction too long. He’d really like to lick Remus’s fingers, suck them: where that desire comes from, he hasn’t a clue. Perhaps it’s something to do with his Animagus form. He can’t resist laying his own finger on Remus’s slightly parted lips, as if to quiet him, though he’s quiet enough. They’re soft and vulnerable, and the sensation is a bit like being tickled, though Sirius doesn’t feel like laughing.
He knows it’s wrong to want to be so close to Remus, knows there’s a nebulous line you mustn’t cross called going too far. His father’s warned him about it in some detail, though of course he’s talking about girls, and touching another boy means nothing. It’s friendly, and a lot of the guys do it: James is a great one for arms flung round shoulders.
But James’s arm round his shoulder doesn’t feel the same as when he sits at Remus’s bedside in the Hospital Wing and says, ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’ and Remus says, ‘No, it’s completely different now you’re all with me.’ He includes the others in his smile, of course, but Sirius, as his forearm casually brushes Remus’s, has to struggle to keep his breathing steady, not for the first time that morning.
It’s almost a relief when the holidays start. He's happier at school than at home, but at least he won’t feel constrained like this all the time, won’t have to clasp his hands on his lap so they don’t stray.
Because he’s already had the stumbling Talk with his father during the summer, he panics a bit when he’s summoned to speak to him again after supper on Christmas Eve. He even wonders if his father’s guessed about his obsession with Remus, though surely that isn’t possible. At any rate, it’s unusual for him to be invited to the gloomy study, with shelf after shelf of books in identical green leather bindings, and a desk-lamp so dim that Sirius is always tempted to do a Lumos spell on it. Better not, though, because who knows what evil genies are slumbering in the shadowy corners, just waiting to be wakened?
It turns out that his father, with rather unfortunate timing, now considers him old enough to hear about the dark side of those hormones so useful to keep the pureblood strains flourishing.
‘Homo-sexuals,’ Orion Black says, pronouncing it like two words, with a long o. ‘They prey on pretty boys like you, Sirius. You need to be constantly alert. When I was at school, there were quite a few older boys on the prowl.’ He shakes his head and his voice tails off. He’s smoking a Russian cigarette and offers Sirius one, a concession to his turning sixteen. Sirius takes it and waits for his father to light it with his wand. He’s glad of that steadying first puff, because his hand is actually trembling, and the Gryffindor inside him says scornfully, ‘Scared of your own father? Idiot!’
Orion seems to know quite a lot about what boys can do to other boys, to Sirius’s great surprise, because his father has always seemed old, sexless, dry. Obviously, he’s been reading manuals in order to educate his son, which Sirius appreciates, though he’d rather he hadn’t bothered. He doesn’t want to imagine his father as a young boy, perhaps even a handsome one, with the black hair and grey eyes characteristic of this particular wizarding line.
‘Crushes are fine, but there are boys who want may want to touch you inappropriately. When I was at Hogwarts, there were two boys in my dorm who were far too friendly. Not what you’d expect of a Slytherin, and I’m sure Gryffindors are no better.’ When Sirius doesn’t reply, his father lowers his voice. ‘I wouldn’t want your mother to know about these things, but they often slept with each other. Sometimes their Silencing Spells went wrong, and we could hear exactly what was going on.’
Sirius, his cheeks burning, is now glad of the low light, and refrains from looking at his father for a few minutes. Orion must be embarrassed too, because he charges Sirius with relaying this information to Regulus. ‘Your brother’s a bit young, but I hope you’ll keep an eye on him and make sure there are no older boys after him.’
He wishes his father hadn’t gone into such detail, because after he gets back to school, the words ‘touch you inappropriately’ spring into his mind every time he glances at Remus bent over his parchment, taking notes in his extraordinarily smudgy writing. Possibly, his parents can’t afford really good-quality quills.
Sirius has the idea of buying Remus a new quill as a late Christmas present and putting it in his trunk while he’s not looking. He does this in on a full moon evening, when Remus is already with Madam Pomfrey and the dorm is as dim as his father’s study, lit only by the flickering fire. He’s supposed to be at dinner, but has missed pudding in order to sneak up here quietly so James and Peter won’t find out what he’s doing and look at him as if he’s mad, or, worse, tell Remus. Not that Remus would mind: his face would break into a wide smile and he’d probably hug Sirius and say ‘Thank you, Padfoot,’ and Sirius really wouldn’t be able to stay in control.
He lies on Remus’s bed for a minute, imagining they’ve cast a perfect Silencing Spell and are tangled together; that Remus is kissing him back, and they’ll have the whole, long night together without interruption. Then, he shakes himself like Padfoot does, because it’s time to go to the Willow and be Padfoot, and guard Remus from the wolf.
The following morning, Sirius tries not to look at Remus naked on the messy, bloodstained bed in the Shack, but even when he closes his eyes, he can’t blot out the image of him lying with his legs drawn up to his chest, still tense from the transformation. But it’s all right to massage his back, because it relaxes him, helps to ease him into sleep. Besides, James and Peter are there too, so nothing can happen, nothing at all. If Sirius longs to curl himself round Remus, nobody can see his thoughts, so they don’t count. If he’s burning from inside with frustrated desire, that’s his business.
In real time, away from the full moon, things ought to be different. They all have girlfriends now they’re in Fifth Year; it's expected, and nobody wants to be seen to be different, except James, who’s holding out for Evans. Remus has Angela, Sirius has Rose, a third cousin twice removed - and a blood traitor, by Black standards - and Peter has Drusilla: three almost interchangeable fellow Fifth Year Gryffindors. Peter and Drusilla are rather demonstrative, and Sirius knows they’ve kissed at least. Remus is always reticent about anything personal, but he and Angela spend their time together playing chess in the common room. They certainly never sneak up to the dorm. The sofa by the window has become ‘their’ sofa, where they sit and chat when Remus isn’t annihilating Angela: her chess is woeful, and he is something of a master.
Sirius feels he has to try at least, and he’s gone as far as Rose will let him, which isn’t that far, but far enough. His father would probably turn a blind eye if he knew, though he mightn’t be so complacent if he found out what Sirius fantasises about when he closes his eyes and kisses her. He doesn’t see curves and soft flesh, but the hard, bony angles of the boy who lies broken every month in the Shrieking Shack. When reality impinges, when Rose takes off her robes and lets him touch her breasts, he sometimes feels as if his whole life is supremely futile.
He deludes himself that it may not be the thought of Remus that helps him respond to Rose; maybe he really is aroused by her small, pink nipples. But he can’t help thinking that if he squints, she could almost be flat, and he could be touching a boy’s chest; and he can’t help knowing that he would far rather be touching a boy; or one particular boy. If he ever does get turned on when he’s lying on his bed with Rose, it’s because he’s imagining hair that feels as soft as it look, and wide, happy hazel eyes - Rose’s are blue - and a hollow at the base of the neck where you can press kisses when someone is asleep, or imagine doing so.
He tells James and Peter in some detail about his encounters with Rose, though he rarely says a word to Remus. In fact, when he’s been with her he avoids looking at Remus at all.
Sometimes, though, the pressure gets too much, steamy session after steamy session, during which Sirius has kept his eyes tightly shut so as not to see Rose’s face, and eventually he does tell Remus about her; it seems almost disloyal not to, considering how much Remus features in every encounter. ‘She’s got a really great body, you know, and she doesn’t keep asking me to back off.’
While he speaks, he keeps his hand on Remus’s shoulder, as if for comfort. Remus doesn’t flinch from his touch: in fact, he seems fascinated.
‘Are you in love with her, Padfoot?’
Sirius laughs. ‘Hey, I’m not Prongs! Don’t be such an idiot, Remus.’
‘What’s it like, though?’ Remus asks, and Sirius hears himself blurt out, ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
He pulls Remus down next to him, and says, ‘Just imagine I’m Angela.’ Remus sniggers at this, but plays along docilely enough.
Sirius would really love to lie on top of him, pin him to the bed like a trophy, like a butterfly, so Remus will never elude him again. He’d love to draw the curtains round his bed, lie with him until the end of the world, just touching him, just keeping him close.
But all he can do is turn to Remus and hold him, too tightly, more tightly than he’s ever held Rose; more tightly than you should hold a friend when you’re showing him how to seduce a girl into taking her robes off.
He wants to bite and suck; he wants to feel his teeth against Remus’s collarbone, wants it to be like one of those dreams where he wakes up sated, with a memory of a hoarse voice and a lean body with legs as long as his and no curves, of someone who touches him back until he’s overwhelmed with pleasure.
He forces himself to pull away, then nuzzles Remus’s neck, for no reason except that he simply can’t help it. Remus isn’t fazed, but just says, ‘Hey, Padfoot, you’re not a dog now.’ He sounds perfectly happy, and Sirius feels separated from him by a whole gulf of lost innocence, as he remembers his dreams of last night and the night before.
He hugs Remus again, and Remus laughs and says, ‘You should show Prongs, not me. I really don't want to kiss Angela, and he’s going to need plenty of practice if he ever catches Evans.’ He then ruffles Sirius’s hair affectionately, a gesture to which Sirius’s whole body responds so violently that he has to turn over and hide his face in the pillow.
He asks Remus, ‘Why don’t you want to kiss her?’ but Remus doesn’t reply. They go down to the common room, where Remus acts as if everything’s normal, sitting with Angela on the usual sofa, opening his Muggle Studies textbook and settling down to read the chapter on Dogs for Christmas: A Muggle Tradition. He doesn’t even glance across at Sirius, but Sirius can’t stop staring at him, reliving those few minutes on the bed when he could feel Remus’s unresisting body against his.
Even after that, Remus doesn’t seem to suspect anything. For a couple of days, Sirius studiously avoids looking at him, worried by what he might find in his face: revulsion, perhaps, or apprehension. But on third day, when Sirius comes late to Transfiguration, out of breath from running across the Quidditch pitch, Remus turns to him with clear, guileless eyes, and mouths, ‘Saved you a place, Padfoot.’ It’s as if they’d never lain on the bed together at all. Sirius doesn’t know whether to be glad or to despair.
He slips into the seat beside Remus, who pats his knee, obviously unaware of the effect he’s having, and whispers, ‘We’re transforming quails and small birds today. Into candlesticks, would you believe? I don’t see the connection, do you?’
His mouth close to Sirius’s ear sends tingles down his spine: the feeling is so intense that it’s almost painful.
Transfiguration is bad enough, but Sirius finds it even more difficult to sit through Defence Against the Dark Arts, Remus’s best subject. Remus positively glows when Professor Rivendell asks him to demonstrate some complex wand movement to be used against Boggarts. Sirius wishes that Remus would shine like that for him - rather a wasted wish as Remus usually does include Sirius in his enthusiasm. He’ll turn to him and say, ‘What’s your Boggart, Padfoot?’ He’s always so eager to help, so confident of his power to banish Sirius’s worst fear.
‘Mine’s the moon,’ he confides, though Sirius has already guessed that. ‘What’s funny about the moon is that it actually does look like green cheese. I imagine the wolf eating it, and that always does the trick.’
No doubt Remus assumes that Sirius’s Boggart is something simple, like his mother in a rage, or Regulus telling tales about him to Snivellus and the other Slytherins.
It has been both those things in the past. But Sirius’s Boggarts are as volatile and changeable as he is. Who knows what his unconscious will manufacture next? It may well be Professor McGonagall discovering the existence of Padfoot, but equally, more likely at the moment, it could feature Remus in some way. Boggarts are simple enough, but the sight of Remus looking at him in disgust, even if it’s only a Boggart, would probably undo him completely.
‘You can’t see it, Moony,’ he mutters. ‘Bit grisly.’
‘Oh.’ Remus is disappointed. ‘I like grisly things. I could help you think up some way to make it funny.’
He’s sitting very close to Sirius, and Sirius finds himself actually sweating, almost weak with longing. He knows he should move away a bit, just a bit, just scrape back his chair a fraction, but he can no more do it than he could risk Remus seeing his Boggart. It does occur to him briefly that Remus isn’t moving back either, but then why should he? He’s talking about a lesson to his friend, and the lack of space between them could hardly be construed as an invasion. If it were James instead of Remus, Sirius probably wouldn’t even register the distance between them.
By the Easter holidays, Sirius is in a state of near-collapse. During the last week of term, it’s almost more than he can bear to see Remus on the sofa by the common room window, the sun in his hair, absorbed in his game of chess with Angela. He drags Rose up to the dorm again, draws her down on to his bed. He’s rough with her and makes her touch him, though she doesn’t really want to, keeping his eyes tightly shut so he can imagine that the hands stroking him are Remus’s, which are also slender with long fingers.
When he’s home again, he finds his father in a particularly expansive mood. Orion’s always had safe investments in businesses like Ollivander’s, but suddenly the price of wands has shot up with the impending war the adults keep whispering about. ‘Made five thousand Galleons in ten minutes,’ he boasts to his sons at supper that first evening.
After Walburga’s excused herself to go and supervise the new house-elf with the dishes, he winks at Sirius and says, ‘Have you had a word with your brother, then?’
‘About what?’ Regulus says, and Sirius goes red and mutters, ‘No, not yet.’
In future years, the story of Sirius leaving home will assume an anecdotal simplicity: the Gryffindor rejecting his family’s political views. That’s true enough, but the reasons aren’t quite so straightforward. In reality, the first seeds are sown this evening, this very pleasant evening, a few months before the event. Orion’s in an expansive mood, hitting the port quite hard, offering both his sons a glass. Regulus swigs it down like water and giggles, a bit girlishly.
Orion winks at Sirius, as if to say ‘I’m sure you can hold your drink better’, and Sirius winks back, feeling oddly childish and oddly adult at the same time. He thinks about how distant his father was when he was younger, how much closer they’ve grown recently. And he understands, with a sudden flash of clarity, that his father wouldn’t only be angry and repelled by his irrational feelings for Remus: he’d be disappointed. He wouldn’t be proud of Sirius any more, wouldn’t introduce him mock-casually to guests as ‘my grown-up son,’ wouldn’t glance conspiratorially at him over port and cigarettes.
Such a tiny insight, but it’s an epiphany nonetheless. Back at school, Sirius often returns to that image of his father and Regulus in the dining-room on a warm spring evening, with the French windows open to the garden. There’s not much of a garden at Grimmauld Place, but in those days it’s still cultivated, and the new moon is just rising over the small lawn.
When Remus sits next to him in History of Magic, Sirius closes his eyes and tries to recreate the feeling of the port going down his throat, sweet and warming, and his father’s throaty laugh as Regulus holds out his glass greedily for another drink. He thinks of it as the mental equivalent of a Banishing Spell: as long as he can hold the remembered moment, he’ll be safe. Safe from Remus; safe from himself.
It works for a while, until Remus dozes off and lays his head briefly on Sirius’s shoulder, before jerking awake again and glancing round rather shiftily. But the damage is done, and Sirius has to admit that, unfortunately, there’s no lasting antidote for lust.
The first full moon of the term falls in mid-May. This is Scotland, not London, and it’s unexpectedly chilly. Remus is shivery in the morning, restless, as if the night’s adventures have given him a fever. James tucks the bedcover round him, and Peter watches a bit helplessly, saying, ‘Shouldn’t we fetch Pomfrey?’
‘Yes, of course,’ says Sirius, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Let’s do that, and she can find out that we’re illegal Animagi who’ve been running round with a wolf.’
‘If Dumbledore didn’t twig after your prank, Pomfrey’s not going to,’ James says, and Sirius says, ‘And we’ll keep it that way, okay?’
Remus restlessly throws off the bedcover, and his teeth start chattering again. Sirius doesn’t wait for James this time but takes charge. ‘It’s getting late. Prongs, you and Wormtail better go off, and I’ll stay with him till Pomfrey comes. I can hide in the cupboard when I hear her.’
When they’ve gone, Sirius casts an Alert Alarm on the door so he’ll know when Madam Pomfrey is approaching, and he puts the bedcover back over Remus,
He just wants to warm him, as he did in December, but it’s spring now, in spite of the cold, and the cherry tree outside the Shack is in blossom. Sirius shivers too when he looks up and sees it through the grubby window, shivers and lies on the bed next to Remus, hugging him close and muttering, ‘It’s all right, Moony, it’s okay.’
There’s no excuse of Rose now, or Sirius trying to show Remus how to get off with a girl, just the two of them in the empty room, and Remus hugs Sirius back as if he’s being rescued from drowning. Sirius has a sense that Remus’s needs are different from his, emotional rather than physical, yet somehow the two of them coalesce in that instant and cling together frantically. When Sirius’s mouth meets Remus’s, they don’t stop until they’re kissing each other deeply, until Sirius feels dizzy and light-headed, as if he’s about to shatter into pieces.
The Alert Alarm goes off, and he leaps up from the bed and into the wardrobe, managing to make it just before Pomfrey comes in, evidently concerned to see Remus lying on the bed with his face flushed.
‘Was it a bad night, dear?’
Sirius opens the cupboard door a crack so he can see Pomfrey help Remus up and into his robes, though she then lets him stand on his own: Remus has to walk back to the castle without charms or support, to keep his limbs supple. This may be the latest word in werewolf health, but Sirius winces as Remus makes his faltering way to the door. After he and Pomfrey have gone, Sirius can actually feel the emptiness of the room unfurling around him and wonders how anyone can come into the Shrieking Shack and imagine it’s haunted.
He relives the kiss at least forty times during the morning. Remus, up in the Hospital Wing has probably forgotten all about it; well, why should it mean anything to him? He was tired and in pain, clutching at the nearest warm body, probably still confused between human and wolf, acting purely on instinct.
But when Remus is allowed downstairs at lunchtime, for the first time ever he looks away when Sirius comes bounding up to say hello; looks away and then down, his face red. He’s silent all through lunch, barely eating anything, grunting a few monosyllables when James asks how he is.
The afternoon passes slowly and miserably. In Defence Against The Dark Arts, Remus doesn’t shine at all, but sits dull and silent in a corner. Even the professor notices, but doesn’t comment: after all, it is the day after the moon.
They finally talk after tea, because Sirius never can leave well enough alone. Another day of distant Remus will finish him off; he’d rather fly away on his broomstick and never come back to Hogwarts again. He even asks Peter and James to give him ten minutes, so they don’t come barging into the dorm.
He’s debated saying it was an accident, that he’s missing Rose, who’s been working hard for her OWLs, but in the end he decides just to keep things simple, or as simple as his complicated emotions can be.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, sitting on the bed beside Remus. ‘I couldn’t help it. It won’t happen again.’
‘It’s okay,’ mumbles Remus, and then, curiosity obviously getting the better of embarrassment, adds, ‘I thought you were always touching me by accident. But you weren’t, were you?’
The chips are down, and it’s Sirius’s turn to go red and look away. ‘It’s...your hair,’ he says, rather feebly. ‘I mean, it looks so soft.’
Remus has the grace not to make any cracks like ‘It isn’t always my hair you touch.’ He simply nods and admits, ‘I don’t mind if you touch me. I mean, I could get used to it. I could probably even like it.’
It isn’t the start of anything: not yet. OWLs begin a week later, and Remus is studying night and day. Sirius has to be content with looking, but he does manage to drag Rose down to the lake a couple of times, under the pretext that he’ll test her on Charms.
Now he knows how it feels to kiss Remus, the fantasies aren’t so effective. Rose’s soft mouth can’t be mistaken for Remus’s, her hipbones feel too rounded, and she refuses to do any of the things they did before Easter. ‘I have to work, Sirius. I don’t want to be distracted.’ She sounds so like Remus for a second that Sirius is tempted to give their snogging session another go, but decides against it. He ends up testing her after all, finding out more about Concealing Charms than he really wants to know.
There are compensations, of course. He can sit opposite Remus in the library pretending that he doesn’t mean their feet to touch under the table, though Remus probably isn’t fooled any more. And he always finishes exams early, even OWLs, which gives him a chance to check out Remus as he painstakingly writes out his answers. He’s already noted that the new quill, even with an Anti-Cheating Charm on it, really does improve Remus’s handwriting; which is good, because that’ll probably improve his OWL marks as well.
Once exams are over, with just four days to go until the holidays, the Fifth Years are excused normal lessons and assigned various tasks round the school. The Marauders are kept apart on principle: James gets to do Quidditch training, Peter feeds Flobberworms and Kneazles, Sirius goes to help Professor McGonagall in Lost Property, where his Summoning skills come in useful. Remus, as a prefect, is allowed to supervise First Years at break, which leaves him too much time, in Sirius’s opinion, to hang round with Angela and her friends, who seem to have drawn equally simple jobs. Sirius finds out that it’s possible to miss someone even if you still see him every day: he has no idea how he’s going to manage a whole six weeks without Remus.
On the last morning of term, he knocks over the salt when Remus sits down next to him at breakfast. His voice wants to say, ‘How’re things, Moony?’ but he finds himself asking politely, ‘Could you pass the marmalade please, Remus?’ and thanking him afterwards. The cuff of Remus’s robe brushes against Sirius’s hand as he takes the jar, and he can feel his palms going sweaty.
James taps his forehead. ‘Are you sick, Padfoot? Or practising to give dinner-parties for your cousins, or something?’
‘Shut up, you wanker!’ The expletive seems to echo round the Great Hall, and Sirius gazes down at his plate, counting the crumbs of toast. He’s certain Remus is trying to catch his eye, but refuses to look up.
In Gryffindor Tower, the trunks are packed and labelled, the beds in the dorm stripped. James is crowing because Evans seems to have forgiven him for the recent débâcle with Snivellus. ‘She actually scowled at me, Padfoot! She really saw me! She gave this amazing frown, like you wouldn’t believe!’
‘That’s brilliant,’ says Sirius, though he isn’t really listening; he’s suddenly desperate for a few minutes with Remus to set things right. Otherwise, he’ll spend the next two years behaving like some lovesick girl, clamming up whenever Remus comes near him, or even, Merlin forbid, blushing and giggling.
Remus is in the common room with Angela. They’re not playing chess, just sitting on the sofa, deep in conversation. Her dark hair looks even sharper and more wiry than usual, and Sirius dislikes the way her leg is nearly touching Remus’s, as if she has some claim to him. Remus doesn’t even seem to notice, but he does get up at once when Sirius stands in front of him and says abruptly, ‘Hey, we need to talk. Alone.’
Angela, flustered, mutters something about the Hogwarts Express, and flees to her dorm.
‘You didn’t have to be so rude to her,’ Remus says.
‘I wasn’t. I was being rude to you. To make up for breakfast.’
They slip out of the front door, avoiding McGonagall and her Lost Property stand, and start to walk down to the Forbidden Forest. As they skirt the lake, Sirius takes Remus’s hand, gently, tentatively, though he wants, no, he needs, to fling him to the ground and smother him with kisses.
Instead, he simply touches his face and asks, ‘Can I write to you? In the holidays?’
‘Of course,’ Remus says, and Sirius notes that he’s shining again, and when he smiles it’s as if a light has come on behind his eyes, and everything isn’t only all right: it’s wonderful.
This will be the summer Sirius runs away, though he doesn’t know yet that his life is going to change dramatically before he sees Remus again. He’s already composing his first letter: Dear Remus, if we don’t sleep together next term I’ll go mad. I’m already going pretty mental just imagining all the things I want to do to you, and want you to do to me... In August, Sirius’s mother will find several other letters like that stuffed under his bed. No doubt the ones he’s actually sent are a bit less fervid.
But that’s all to come. At King's Cross, as Remus walks away from Platform 9¾ with his parents, Sirius waits until he reaches the barrier, then calls, ‘Bye, Moony!’ and waves wildly at him, craning his neck to watch the Lupins disappear into the station.
‘Padfoot, you’re really acting like an idiot today,’ James says, and Sirius gives him a mock-punch on the shoulder before they go their separate ways.
End
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: R/S
Rating: PG-13
Era: MWPP, Fifth Year
Summary: Sirius can’t stop touching Remus.
Genre: Le fluff! A bit thoughtful too.
Dedication: Dear mushroom18, this is finally your birthday fic!
Now crossposted to the_kennel and remusxsirius.
Falling Star
Sirius doesn’t want to do anything that might be misconstrued. It’s just...his hands sometimes seem to act of their own accord. He’s always ached to stroke Remus’s hair, which looks as if it would feel like a kitten’s fur: not quite blond, not quite brown, but a soft, tawny colour. Now the Marauders are with Remus after the full moon, it’s sometimes physically impossible for him to avoid a touch here and there.
If it’s a deathly cold December and your friend is lying helpless on a bed, you can’t help wanting to smooth back his hair; and if your touch lingers, well, he won’t notice. Anyway, it warms him, doesn’t it? He’s nearly asleep, and when Sirius strokes his forehead, he puts up his own hand and clutches Sirius’s, and Sirius holds it for a fraction too long. He’d really like to lick Remus’s fingers, suck them: where that desire comes from, he hasn’t a clue. Perhaps it’s something to do with his Animagus form. He can’t resist laying his own finger on Remus’s slightly parted lips, as if to quiet him, though he’s quiet enough. They’re soft and vulnerable, and the sensation is a bit like being tickled, though Sirius doesn’t feel like laughing.
He knows it’s wrong to want to be so close to Remus, knows there’s a nebulous line you mustn’t cross called going too far. His father’s warned him about it in some detail, though of course he’s talking about girls, and touching another boy means nothing. It’s friendly, and a lot of the guys do it: James is a great one for arms flung round shoulders.
But James’s arm round his shoulder doesn’t feel the same as when he sits at Remus’s bedside in the Hospital Wing and says, ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’ and Remus says, ‘No, it’s completely different now you’re all with me.’ He includes the others in his smile, of course, but Sirius, as his forearm casually brushes Remus’s, has to struggle to keep his breathing steady, not for the first time that morning.
It’s almost a relief when the holidays start. He's happier at school than at home, but at least he won’t feel constrained like this all the time, won’t have to clasp his hands on his lap so they don’t stray.
Because he’s already had the stumbling Talk with his father during the summer, he panics a bit when he’s summoned to speak to him again after supper on Christmas Eve. He even wonders if his father’s guessed about his obsession with Remus, though surely that isn’t possible. At any rate, it’s unusual for him to be invited to the gloomy study, with shelf after shelf of books in identical green leather bindings, and a desk-lamp so dim that Sirius is always tempted to do a Lumos spell on it. Better not, though, because who knows what evil genies are slumbering in the shadowy corners, just waiting to be wakened?
It turns out that his father, with rather unfortunate timing, now considers him old enough to hear about the dark side of those hormones so useful to keep the pureblood strains flourishing.
‘Homo-sexuals,’ Orion Black says, pronouncing it like two words, with a long o. ‘They prey on pretty boys like you, Sirius. You need to be constantly alert. When I was at school, there were quite a few older boys on the prowl.’ He shakes his head and his voice tails off. He’s smoking a Russian cigarette and offers Sirius one, a concession to his turning sixteen. Sirius takes it and waits for his father to light it with his wand. He’s glad of that steadying first puff, because his hand is actually trembling, and the Gryffindor inside him says scornfully, ‘Scared of your own father? Idiot!’
Orion seems to know quite a lot about what boys can do to other boys, to Sirius’s great surprise, because his father has always seemed old, sexless, dry. Obviously, he’s been reading manuals in order to educate his son, which Sirius appreciates, though he’d rather he hadn’t bothered. He doesn’t want to imagine his father as a young boy, perhaps even a handsome one, with the black hair and grey eyes characteristic of this particular wizarding line.
‘Crushes are fine, but there are boys who want may want to touch you inappropriately. When I was at Hogwarts, there were two boys in my dorm who were far too friendly. Not what you’d expect of a Slytherin, and I’m sure Gryffindors are no better.’ When Sirius doesn’t reply, his father lowers his voice. ‘I wouldn’t want your mother to know about these things, but they often slept with each other. Sometimes their Silencing Spells went wrong, and we could hear exactly what was going on.’
Sirius, his cheeks burning, is now glad of the low light, and refrains from looking at his father for a few minutes. Orion must be embarrassed too, because he charges Sirius with relaying this information to Regulus. ‘Your brother’s a bit young, but I hope you’ll keep an eye on him and make sure there are no older boys after him.’
He wishes his father hadn’t gone into such detail, because after he gets back to school, the words ‘touch you inappropriately’ spring into his mind every time he glances at Remus bent over his parchment, taking notes in his extraordinarily smudgy writing. Possibly, his parents can’t afford really good-quality quills.
Sirius has the idea of buying Remus a new quill as a late Christmas present and putting it in his trunk while he’s not looking. He does this in on a full moon evening, when Remus is already with Madam Pomfrey and the dorm is as dim as his father’s study, lit only by the flickering fire. He’s supposed to be at dinner, but has missed pudding in order to sneak up here quietly so James and Peter won’t find out what he’s doing and look at him as if he’s mad, or, worse, tell Remus. Not that Remus would mind: his face would break into a wide smile and he’d probably hug Sirius and say ‘Thank you, Padfoot,’ and Sirius really wouldn’t be able to stay in control.
He lies on Remus’s bed for a minute, imagining they’ve cast a perfect Silencing Spell and are tangled together; that Remus is kissing him back, and they’ll have the whole, long night together without interruption. Then, he shakes himself like Padfoot does, because it’s time to go to the Willow and be Padfoot, and guard Remus from the wolf.
The following morning, Sirius tries not to look at Remus naked on the messy, bloodstained bed in the Shack, but even when he closes his eyes, he can’t blot out the image of him lying with his legs drawn up to his chest, still tense from the transformation. But it’s all right to massage his back, because it relaxes him, helps to ease him into sleep. Besides, James and Peter are there too, so nothing can happen, nothing at all. If Sirius longs to curl himself round Remus, nobody can see his thoughts, so they don’t count. If he’s burning from inside with frustrated desire, that’s his business.
In real time, away from the full moon, things ought to be different. They all have girlfriends now they’re in Fifth Year; it's expected, and nobody wants to be seen to be different, except James, who’s holding out for Evans. Remus has Angela, Sirius has Rose, a third cousin twice removed - and a blood traitor, by Black standards - and Peter has Drusilla: three almost interchangeable fellow Fifth Year Gryffindors. Peter and Drusilla are rather demonstrative, and Sirius knows they’ve kissed at least. Remus is always reticent about anything personal, but he and Angela spend their time together playing chess in the common room. They certainly never sneak up to the dorm. The sofa by the window has become ‘their’ sofa, where they sit and chat when Remus isn’t annihilating Angela: her chess is woeful, and he is something of a master.
Sirius feels he has to try at least, and he’s gone as far as Rose will let him, which isn’t that far, but far enough. His father would probably turn a blind eye if he knew, though he mightn’t be so complacent if he found out what Sirius fantasises about when he closes his eyes and kisses her. He doesn’t see curves and soft flesh, but the hard, bony angles of the boy who lies broken every month in the Shrieking Shack. When reality impinges, when Rose takes off her robes and lets him touch her breasts, he sometimes feels as if his whole life is supremely futile.
He deludes himself that it may not be the thought of Remus that helps him respond to Rose; maybe he really is aroused by her small, pink nipples. But he can’t help thinking that if he squints, she could almost be flat, and he could be touching a boy’s chest; and he can’t help knowing that he would far rather be touching a boy; or one particular boy. If he ever does get turned on when he’s lying on his bed with Rose, it’s because he’s imagining hair that feels as soft as it look, and wide, happy hazel eyes - Rose’s are blue - and a hollow at the base of the neck where you can press kisses when someone is asleep, or imagine doing so.
He tells James and Peter in some detail about his encounters with Rose, though he rarely says a word to Remus. In fact, when he’s been with her he avoids looking at Remus at all.
Sometimes, though, the pressure gets too much, steamy session after steamy session, during which Sirius has kept his eyes tightly shut so as not to see Rose’s face, and eventually he does tell Remus about her; it seems almost disloyal not to, considering how much Remus features in every encounter. ‘She’s got a really great body, you know, and she doesn’t keep asking me to back off.’
While he speaks, he keeps his hand on Remus’s shoulder, as if for comfort. Remus doesn’t flinch from his touch: in fact, he seems fascinated.
‘Are you in love with her, Padfoot?’
Sirius laughs. ‘Hey, I’m not Prongs! Don’t be such an idiot, Remus.’
‘What’s it like, though?’ Remus asks, and Sirius hears himself blurt out, ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
He pulls Remus down next to him, and says, ‘Just imagine I’m Angela.’ Remus sniggers at this, but plays along docilely enough.
Sirius would really love to lie on top of him, pin him to the bed like a trophy, like a butterfly, so Remus will never elude him again. He’d love to draw the curtains round his bed, lie with him until the end of the world, just touching him, just keeping him close.
But all he can do is turn to Remus and hold him, too tightly, more tightly than he’s ever held Rose; more tightly than you should hold a friend when you’re showing him how to seduce a girl into taking her robes off.
He wants to bite and suck; he wants to feel his teeth against Remus’s collarbone, wants it to be like one of those dreams where he wakes up sated, with a memory of a hoarse voice and a lean body with legs as long as his and no curves, of someone who touches him back until he’s overwhelmed with pleasure.
He forces himself to pull away, then nuzzles Remus’s neck, for no reason except that he simply can’t help it. Remus isn’t fazed, but just says, ‘Hey, Padfoot, you’re not a dog now.’ He sounds perfectly happy, and Sirius feels separated from him by a whole gulf of lost innocence, as he remembers his dreams of last night and the night before.
He hugs Remus again, and Remus laughs and says, ‘You should show Prongs, not me. I really don't want to kiss Angela, and he’s going to need plenty of practice if he ever catches Evans.’ He then ruffles Sirius’s hair affectionately, a gesture to which Sirius’s whole body responds so violently that he has to turn over and hide his face in the pillow.
He asks Remus, ‘Why don’t you want to kiss her?’ but Remus doesn’t reply. They go down to the common room, where Remus acts as if everything’s normal, sitting with Angela on the usual sofa, opening his Muggle Studies textbook and settling down to read the chapter on Dogs for Christmas: A Muggle Tradition. He doesn’t even glance across at Sirius, but Sirius can’t stop staring at him, reliving those few minutes on the bed when he could feel Remus’s unresisting body against his.
Even after that, Remus doesn’t seem to suspect anything. For a couple of days, Sirius studiously avoids looking at him, worried by what he might find in his face: revulsion, perhaps, or apprehension. But on third day, when Sirius comes late to Transfiguration, out of breath from running across the Quidditch pitch, Remus turns to him with clear, guileless eyes, and mouths, ‘Saved you a place, Padfoot.’ It’s as if they’d never lain on the bed together at all. Sirius doesn’t know whether to be glad or to despair.
He slips into the seat beside Remus, who pats his knee, obviously unaware of the effect he’s having, and whispers, ‘We’re transforming quails and small birds today. Into candlesticks, would you believe? I don’t see the connection, do you?’
His mouth close to Sirius’s ear sends tingles down his spine: the feeling is so intense that it’s almost painful.
Transfiguration is bad enough, but Sirius finds it even more difficult to sit through Defence Against the Dark Arts, Remus’s best subject. Remus positively glows when Professor Rivendell asks him to demonstrate some complex wand movement to be used against Boggarts. Sirius wishes that Remus would shine like that for him - rather a wasted wish as Remus usually does include Sirius in his enthusiasm. He’ll turn to him and say, ‘What’s your Boggart, Padfoot?’ He’s always so eager to help, so confident of his power to banish Sirius’s worst fear.
‘Mine’s the moon,’ he confides, though Sirius has already guessed that. ‘What’s funny about the moon is that it actually does look like green cheese. I imagine the wolf eating it, and that always does the trick.’
No doubt Remus assumes that Sirius’s Boggart is something simple, like his mother in a rage, or Regulus telling tales about him to Snivellus and the other Slytherins.
It has been both those things in the past. But Sirius’s Boggarts are as volatile and changeable as he is. Who knows what his unconscious will manufacture next? It may well be Professor McGonagall discovering the existence of Padfoot, but equally, more likely at the moment, it could feature Remus in some way. Boggarts are simple enough, but the sight of Remus looking at him in disgust, even if it’s only a Boggart, would probably undo him completely.
‘You can’t see it, Moony,’ he mutters. ‘Bit grisly.’
‘Oh.’ Remus is disappointed. ‘I like grisly things. I could help you think up some way to make it funny.’
He’s sitting very close to Sirius, and Sirius finds himself actually sweating, almost weak with longing. He knows he should move away a bit, just a bit, just scrape back his chair a fraction, but he can no more do it than he could risk Remus seeing his Boggart. It does occur to him briefly that Remus isn’t moving back either, but then why should he? He’s talking about a lesson to his friend, and the lack of space between them could hardly be construed as an invasion. If it were James instead of Remus, Sirius probably wouldn’t even register the distance between them.
By the Easter holidays, Sirius is in a state of near-collapse. During the last week of term, it’s almost more than he can bear to see Remus on the sofa by the common room window, the sun in his hair, absorbed in his game of chess with Angela. He drags Rose up to the dorm again, draws her down on to his bed. He’s rough with her and makes her touch him, though she doesn’t really want to, keeping his eyes tightly shut so he can imagine that the hands stroking him are Remus’s, which are also slender with long fingers.
When he’s home again, he finds his father in a particularly expansive mood. Orion’s always had safe investments in businesses like Ollivander’s, but suddenly the price of wands has shot up with the impending war the adults keep whispering about. ‘Made five thousand Galleons in ten minutes,’ he boasts to his sons at supper that first evening.
After Walburga’s excused herself to go and supervise the new house-elf with the dishes, he winks at Sirius and says, ‘Have you had a word with your brother, then?’
‘About what?’ Regulus says, and Sirius goes red and mutters, ‘No, not yet.’
In future years, the story of Sirius leaving home will assume an anecdotal simplicity: the Gryffindor rejecting his family’s political views. That’s true enough, but the reasons aren’t quite so straightforward. In reality, the first seeds are sown this evening, this very pleasant evening, a few months before the event. Orion’s in an expansive mood, hitting the port quite hard, offering both his sons a glass. Regulus swigs it down like water and giggles, a bit girlishly.
Orion winks at Sirius, as if to say ‘I’m sure you can hold your drink better’, and Sirius winks back, feeling oddly childish and oddly adult at the same time. He thinks about how distant his father was when he was younger, how much closer they’ve grown recently. And he understands, with a sudden flash of clarity, that his father wouldn’t only be angry and repelled by his irrational feelings for Remus: he’d be disappointed. He wouldn’t be proud of Sirius any more, wouldn’t introduce him mock-casually to guests as ‘my grown-up son,’ wouldn’t glance conspiratorially at him over port and cigarettes.
Such a tiny insight, but it’s an epiphany nonetheless. Back at school, Sirius often returns to that image of his father and Regulus in the dining-room on a warm spring evening, with the French windows open to the garden. There’s not much of a garden at Grimmauld Place, but in those days it’s still cultivated, and the new moon is just rising over the small lawn.
When Remus sits next to him in History of Magic, Sirius closes his eyes and tries to recreate the feeling of the port going down his throat, sweet and warming, and his father’s throaty laugh as Regulus holds out his glass greedily for another drink. He thinks of it as the mental equivalent of a Banishing Spell: as long as he can hold the remembered moment, he’ll be safe. Safe from Remus; safe from himself.
It works for a while, until Remus dozes off and lays his head briefly on Sirius’s shoulder, before jerking awake again and glancing round rather shiftily. But the damage is done, and Sirius has to admit that, unfortunately, there’s no lasting antidote for lust.
The first full moon of the term falls in mid-May. This is Scotland, not London, and it’s unexpectedly chilly. Remus is shivery in the morning, restless, as if the night’s adventures have given him a fever. James tucks the bedcover round him, and Peter watches a bit helplessly, saying, ‘Shouldn’t we fetch Pomfrey?’
‘Yes, of course,’ says Sirius, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Let’s do that, and she can find out that we’re illegal Animagi who’ve been running round with a wolf.’
‘If Dumbledore didn’t twig after your prank, Pomfrey’s not going to,’ James says, and Sirius says, ‘And we’ll keep it that way, okay?’
Remus restlessly throws off the bedcover, and his teeth start chattering again. Sirius doesn’t wait for James this time but takes charge. ‘It’s getting late. Prongs, you and Wormtail better go off, and I’ll stay with him till Pomfrey comes. I can hide in the cupboard when I hear her.’
When they’ve gone, Sirius casts an Alert Alarm on the door so he’ll know when Madam Pomfrey is approaching, and he puts the bedcover back over Remus,
He just wants to warm him, as he did in December, but it’s spring now, in spite of the cold, and the cherry tree outside the Shack is in blossom. Sirius shivers too when he looks up and sees it through the grubby window, shivers and lies on the bed next to Remus, hugging him close and muttering, ‘It’s all right, Moony, it’s okay.’
There’s no excuse of Rose now, or Sirius trying to show Remus how to get off with a girl, just the two of them in the empty room, and Remus hugs Sirius back as if he’s being rescued from drowning. Sirius has a sense that Remus’s needs are different from his, emotional rather than physical, yet somehow the two of them coalesce in that instant and cling together frantically. When Sirius’s mouth meets Remus’s, they don’t stop until they’re kissing each other deeply, until Sirius feels dizzy and light-headed, as if he’s about to shatter into pieces.
The Alert Alarm goes off, and he leaps up from the bed and into the wardrobe, managing to make it just before Pomfrey comes in, evidently concerned to see Remus lying on the bed with his face flushed.
‘Was it a bad night, dear?’
Sirius opens the cupboard door a crack so he can see Pomfrey help Remus up and into his robes, though she then lets him stand on his own: Remus has to walk back to the castle without charms or support, to keep his limbs supple. This may be the latest word in werewolf health, but Sirius winces as Remus makes his faltering way to the door. After he and Pomfrey have gone, Sirius can actually feel the emptiness of the room unfurling around him and wonders how anyone can come into the Shrieking Shack and imagine it’s haunted.
He relives the kiss at least forty times during the morning. Remus, up in the Hospital Wing has probably forgotten all about it; well, why should it mean anything to him? He was tired and in pain, clutching at the nearest warm body, probably still confused between human and wolf, acting purely on instinct.
But when Remus is allowed downstairs at lunchtime, for the first time ever he looks away when Sirius comes bounding up to say hello; looks away and then down, his face red. He’s silent all through lunch, barely eating anything, grunting a few monosyllables when James asks how he is.
The afternoon passes slowly and miserably. In Defence Against The Dark Arts, Remus doesn’t shine at all, but sits dull and silent in a corner. Even the professor notices, but doesn’t comment: after all, it is the day after the moon.
They finally talk after tea, because Sirius never can leave well enough alone. Another day of distant Remus will finish him off; he’d rather fly away on his broomstick and never come back to Hogwarts again. He even asks Peter and James to give him ten minutes, so they don’t come barging into the dorm.
He’s debated saying it was an accident, that he’s missing Rose, who’s been working hard for her OWLs, but in the end he decides just to keep things simple, or as simple as his complicated emotions can be.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, sitting on the bed beside Remus. ‘I couldn’t help it. It won’t happen again.’
‘It’s okay,’ mumbles Remus, and then, curiosity obviously getting the better of embarrassment, adds, ‘I thought you were always touching me by accident. But you weren’t, were you?’
The chips are down, and it’s Sirius’s turn to go red and look away. ‘It’s...your hair,’ he says, rather feebly. ‘I mean, it looks so soft.’
Remus has the grace not to make any cracks like ‘It isn’t always my hair you touch.’ He simply nods and admits, ‘I don’t mind if you touch me. I mean, I could get used to it. I could probably even like it.’
It isn’t the start of anything: not yet. OWLs begin a week later, and Remus is studying night and day. Sirius has to be content with looking, but he does manage to drag Rose down to the lake a couple of times, under the pretext that he’ll test her on Charms.
Now he knows how it feels to kiss Remus, the fantasies aren’t so effective. Rose’s soft mouth can’t be mistaken for Remus’s, her hipbones feel too rounded, and she refuses to do any of the things they did before Easter. ‘I have to work, Sirius. I don’t want to be distracted.’ She sounds so like Remus for a second that Sirius is tempted to give their snogging session another go, but decides against it. He ends up testing her after all, finding out more about Concealing Charms than he really wants to know.
There are compensations, of course. He can sit opposite Remus in the library pretending that he doesn’t mean their feet to touch under the table, though Remus probably isn’t fooled any more. And he always finishes exams early, even OWLs, which gives him a chance to check out Remus as he painstakingly writes out his answers. He’s already noted that the new quill, even with an Anti-Cheating Charm on it, really does improve Remus’s handwriting; which is good, because that’ll probably improve his OWL marks as well.
Once exams are over, with just four days to go until the holidays, the Fifth Years are excused normal lessons and assigned various tasks round the school. The Marauders are kept apart on principle: James gets to do Quidditch training, Peter feeds Flobberworms and Kneazles, Sirius goes to help Professor McGonagall in Lost Property, where his Summoning skills come in useful. Remus, as a prefect, is allowed to supervise First Years at break, which leaves him too much time, in Sirius’s opinion, to hang round with Angela and her friends, who seem to have drawn equally simple jobs. Sirius finds out that it’s possible to miss someone even if you still see him every day: he has no idea how he’s going to manage a whole six weeks without Remus.
On the last morning of term, he knocks over the salt when Remus sits down next to him at breakfast. His voice wants to say, ‘How’re things, Moony?’ but he finds himself asking politely, ‘Could you pass the marmalade please, Remus?’ and thanking him afterwards. The cuff of Remus’s robe brushes against Sirius’s hand as he takes the jar, and he can feel his palms going sweaty.
James taps his forehead. ‘Are you sick, Padfoot? Or practising to give dinner-parties for your cousins, or something?’
‘Shut up, you wanker!’ The expletive seems to echo round the Great Hall, and Sirius gazes down at his plate, counting the crumbs of toast. He’s certain Remus is trying to catch his eye, but refuses to look up.
In Gryffindor Tower, the trunks are packed and labelled, the beds in the dorm stripped. James is crowing because Evans seems to have forgiven him for the recent débâcle with Snivellus. ‘She actually scowled at me, Padfoot! She really saw me! She gave this amazing frown, like you wouldn’t believe!’
‘That’s brilliant,’ says Sirius, though he isn’t really listening; he’s suddenly desperate for a few minutes with Remus to set things right. Otherwise, he’ll spend the next two years behaving like some lovesick girl, clamming up whenever Remus comes near him, or even, Merlin forbid, blushing and giggling.
Remus is in the common room with Angela. They’re not playing chess, just sitting on the sofa, deep in conversation. Her dark hair looks even sharper and more wiry than usual, and Sirius dislikes the way her leg is nearly touching Remus’s, as if she has some claim to him. Remus doesn’t even seem to notice, but he does get up at once when Sirius stands in front of him and says abruptly, ‘Hey, we need to talk. Alone.’
Angela, flustered, mutters something about the Hogwarts Express, and flees to her dorm.
‘You didn’t have to be so rude to her,’ Remus says.
‘I wasn’t. I was being rude to you. To make up for breakfast.’
They slip out of the front door, avoiding McGonagall and her Lost Property stand, and start to walk down to the Forbidden Forest. As they skirt the lake, Sirius takes Remus’s hand, gently, tentatively, though he wants, no, he needs, to fling him to the ground and smother him with kisses.
Instead, he simply touches his face and asks, ‘Can I write to you? In the holidays?’
‘Of course,’ Remus says, and Sirius notes that he’s shining again, and when he smiles it’s as if a light has come on behind his eyes, and everything isn’t only all right: it’s wonderful.
This will be the summer Sirius runs away, though he doesn’t know yet that his life is going to change dramatically before he sees Remus again. He’s already composing his first letter: Dear Remus, if we don’t sleep together next term I’ll go mad. I’m already going pretty mental just imagining all the things I want to do to you, and want you to do to me... In August, Sirius’s mother will find several other letters like that stuffed under his bed. No doubt the ones he’s actually sent are a bit less fervid.
But that’s all to come. At King's Cross, as Remus walks away from Platform 9¾ with his parents, Sirius waits until he reaches the barrier, then calls, ‘Bye, Moony!’ and waves wildly at him, craning his neck to watch the Lupins disappear into the station.
‘Padfoot, you’re really acting like an idiot today,’ James says, and Sirius gives him a mock-punch on the shoulder before they go their separate ways.
End