“I Wonder Whether You Feel as Strangely Drawn towards Me as I Do to You”
The year was 1976, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, alongside their friends, were about to return to Hogwarts after winter break. Everyone was there: Remus sat by himself, focused on his book, Peter and Marlene were asleep, and James and Sirius were plotting some prank. They were on the Hogwarts Express, on their way back to the castle, when Lily and Mary began to suspiciously talk among themselves. During the break Mary had had to read The Hobbit to her little brother and remembered Lily mentioned she’d read it too a while ago.
“I’m telling you, it’s a bloody brilliant book!” said Lily enthusiastically.
“You say that about every book.” answered Mary, a bit fed up.
“Well, they are amazing!” the redheaded girl stated once more.
“Oh, please! It’s a children’s book. How amazing can it really be?”, said Mary.
“See, there’s where you’re wrong. It is so much more than that!” Lily interjected “Tolkien managed to simplify very complex concepts, like war, loss, and grief, and put it in a simple way. He wrote it for his children! It even rhymes, Mary! That man was a genius!” concluded Lily.
“Remus, love, please back me up here”, pleaded Mary.
Remus, who had his head stuck in a potions book, looked up and said: “What’s the fuss all about?”
“Tolkien. The Hobbit. She says its just a boring book.” Lily explained, glaring at her friend.
“Oh for god’s sake, I never said it was boring! It is cute, but it’s a children’s book! It’s not like he changed the wold with it, now. Did he?” insisted Mary.
“Uhh, he sorta did, Mary.” said Remus.
“Remus John Lupin, what are you even saying? So much for backing me up, huh.” replied Mary raising her voice.
“Well, he then went and wrote The Lord of the Rings, The Simarillion, and invented a whole language on his own while he was at it.” explained Remus.
Lily smiled fondly at her tallest friend and commented “It is also pretty impressive considering he wrote about dragons, wizards, and so on, without knowing those things really existed. Before Hogwarts I could have never imagined dragons and all the other magical creatures were part of the world.”
“How do you know he was not a one of us? A wizard, I mean.” wondered Remus.
“Because he knew his English, Nordic, and German philology. If I recall correctly, he died a couple of years ago. Dad loves those books; he read them to me. Tunnie wasn’t so kin on the whole magic stuff, least when I got my letter, but dad made Tolkien part of my bedtime stories. I remember Tolkien’s death because dad was sad. He once told me Tolkien explained how medieval literature influenced his work. You know, Beowulf and such”. They, in fact, did not know about Beowulf and such, but nodded in agreement.
“Well, I had no idea about that. When you put it that way, yes, the man was a genius.” answered Mary. After a few seconds she finally said “I do fancy the book, but if you lot had to read a book more than five times to an 8 year old, and had him you doing the different voices and all, I promise you would not be fond of Bilbo Baggins”. Mary deadpanned and Lili chuckled. James, having heard Lily’s laughter, chimed in:
“What are you so passionately discussing?”
“Books, Prongs. Wanna join in?” answered Remus, patting the empty seat next to him.
“Uh, I didn’t even know you lads had a bookclub”, said James as he sat next to Lily, giving Remus a small apologetic smile. Remus smiled back, shaking his head whilst trying to not laugh at his lovesick friend.
“We don’t!” said Mary crossing her arms.
Lily’s smile got wider: “Well, this might be one of those rare instances where Jame— I mean, Potter is right. We should form our very own bookclub! We can meet in the common room and discuss anything and everything about them. What do you think?” she looked at her friends expectingly.
“I’d like that”, Remus simple stated. “What about you, Pads?”
“Well,” Sirius, who had decided to take the empty seat next to Remus and put his legs on Remus’ lap, finally said, “It depends on the type of books you lads decide on. I’m not much interested in reading about potions or herbology”.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Black. We’ll, of course, read muggle books. It’s high time all of you discover good authors”, muttered Remus looking at Sirius. Those blue eyes seemed to glow as he said “Moony, I could simply kiss you right now! Count me in. We’ll read anything you say, won’t we, Prongs?” nearly shouted Sirius as he smiled. Remus simply panicked, looked down, grabbed his book, and opened it at once, not caring which page he was “reading” now. He just needed to hide his blushed face.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever she wants.” James almost whispered, staring adoringly at Lily, who tried to hide a smile.
“Guess I’m outnumbered.” Mary added in a defeated tone, resting her head on Marlene’s shoulder. “I love you people too bloody much to say no to you.” she said smiling at her friends. “But no Hobbit, you hear me?”, she threatened staring directly at Lily, who nodded whilst Remus chuckled. Neither Marlene nor Peter knew they now were part of a bookclub.
***
As expected, Remus and Lily were in charge of the list of books. Remus had written to Hope and told her about their extracurricular activity. Hope had replied shortly after, offering to send his son and his friends whichever books they needed if they sent her the money. Once Remus told his friends, they had all agreed. Sirius and James immediately offered to pay for the books and after some arguing the friend group agreed. Both Sirius and James said they had too much money that could be used to do something good, especially for their friends. Besides, that way the rest of them could spend their savings at Hogsmead. Remus made the mental note to save that money and buy Sirius the coolest Queen vinyl record he could find.
Everyone who had read or had contact with muggle books was asked by Lily to suggest a tittle. As it turned out, the first book they read was Carmilla. It had been, much to Lily’s surprise, Marlene’s suggestion. After bargaining with Lily, who had at first suggested they meet once a week until everyone mentioned it was not enough time to read a whole book between classes, homework, and everyone’s personal activities, (Sirius had argued, too, it would be unfair to make Remus’ mum go to the bookstore every week), the agreement was to meet the last Thursday of the month in the common room after classes, but before diner, and share their thoughts on the monthly book. That gave them a three hour long window if the discussion were to be longer than expected.
Sirius decided to read Carmilla once the last week of the month started. Usually, Sirius’ Mondays consisted of wandering through the castle or staring at Remus doing homework whilst Sirius pretended to read. If Remus had noticed his habit, he never commented on it. To Sirius homework wasn’t a problem, so much as a bore, so that Monday afternoon he’d stuck to Remus, who was on his daily library time, and opened the book. He figured he could admire Moony if Carmilla was too boring. There was something captivating, hypnotizing even, about watching Remus so focused on his assignments. Sirius had never questioned why he liked to stare at Remus, to him Moony doing anything was marvelous. Beautiful enough to be admired. Surely there was nothing deeper going on; form the moment they met, he had always liked to look at Remus. He’d come to appreciate it even more after those dreadful months where Remus ignored Sirius’ existence. Once he noticed his thoughts were drifting to that time, he stoped himself and opened the book. Remus had already told him it was a good one with some very interesting things happening in the plot. He could tell by the way his eyes shone he wanted to say more, so much more, but was holding himself back so as not to spoil the book to Sirius.
He had no expectations whatsoever, but even with Remus’ warning, he was taken aback when he discovered Carmilla was not only about a female vampire, but about a lesbian vampire. The descriptions captured him: Sirius had never been to Germany, but the mention of a castle in the middle of the woods, surrounded by nothing but endless nature, as well as the presence of French governesses were familiar enough. They reminded him of those briefs periods when his family traveled to the French countryside. Of course the Blacks were bloody rich and had more than one enormous mansion that remained empty save for the few weeks when Orion and Walburga decided to leave Grimmauld Place. Those were some of Sirius favourite times; he and a chubby toddler Regulus playing together in the woods, pretending they were just boys. Not the heir and the spare of some truly ancient, but not at all noble, house whose descendants expected them to comply to some archaic ideas, just a little boy with his even smaller brother playing around. Those were definitely simpler and happier memories that haunted Sirius from time to time. It seemed too many things haunted Sirius’ thoughts these days.
Although it was a fairly short book, Sirius didn’t finish it before dinner. He ended up daydreaming of traveling abroad with his friends. He thought how much Remus would enjoy eating all sorts of new foods, of how James would be so keen on making new friends, and how Peter would complaint, but ultimately join them in whatever they wanted to do. What brought him back from the Schloss, the frightened narrator, and his traveling plans was Remus’ hand on his shoulder. He looked up and met those warm, brown eyes. “Shall we go, Pads? I’m starving.” stated Remus. “Sure, sorry. You were right. This is amazing” said Sirius as he closed the book, stood up, and followed Remus.
After dinner Peter stayed in the common room playing chess with a fourth year and James went with Lily for a walk. Remus asked “What do you reckon so far?” as he changed into his pajamas. Sirius looked surprised “I don’t know. Is Carmilla going to kill her? Will she turn into a vampire? Will they kiss? So many questions, so many possibilities!” Remus let out a small laugh “I could spoil the ending and tell you what I think about it, if you’d like”, he offered. Sirius gasped, pretending to be offended, “How very dare you! No, my lovely Moony. As much as I want to know your thoughts on everything, I will be patient and wait til Thursday”. Remus snorted, but din’t push further.
Once Wednesday rolled in, Sirius had finished the book and his mind was restless. He recalled how vampires did exist, but were nothing like Carmilla. They were within the same category as zombies, as a sort of mindless, humanoid being that thirsted after human blood. Sirius had never seen one, but words like “parasitic nature” and “dark creature of a dangerous disposition” came to his mind. He’d heard they were merely ugly creatures who lurked in the shadows. He wondered if those descriptions were true, considering how werewolves were held in the same regard and Sirius knew his Moony was nothing like he’d read in the defense against dark arts books. He understood the narrator to a certain extent; he, too, believed his friend was beautiful and intriguing. An amazed Sirius wanted to know more about the way muggles perceived the other magical creatures. His imagination made him restless. He took a look at the clock on the wall: 4:00 am. He’d stayed up until 4:00 am. Great. He fell asleep thinking of he and his friend roaming freely underneath a full moon. The last thing on his mind were soft, brown curls and gentle, matching eyes.
Thursday afternoon finally arrived, Remus offered to make some tea and was setting the cups on the coffee table when his friends sat down. To no one’s surprise, Lily and James sat together on one of the two-piece couches, Peter and Marlene had each grabbed an armchair and sat on them; Mary opted to place a big cushion on the floor and rest her head on Marlene’s lap. Sirius and Remus sat together on the other two-piece couch. Lily, barely containing her excitement, told her friends “Marls is the one who suggested this book, so she should be the one leading our meeting”. Marlene smiled and began: “Sheridan LeFanou was an Irish writer and Carmilla is, perhaps, his most famous work. The book was written a little over a hundred years ago, in 1872”. She told her friends she only came across the book because a nice girl with whom she’d gone out on a couple of dates had gifted her it.
“Oh, so she was trying to confess through a book recommendation?” asked Mary, excited at the prospect of some gossip.
“No, I believe I was the only other lesbian she knew, so she tried to make something out of it. We’re still friends, but I never fancied her and she never fancied me” answered Marlene, shrugging.
“What’s you favourite thing about the book?” James asked, sensing that was all Marlene would share about that girl. “Hard to say”, Marlene replied, “I really love the atmosphere. It feels as though Laura guides you into a sense of terror. You can feel her anxiety, but also her curiosity toward Carmilla”. Everyone nodded in agreement.
Sirius perfectly understood Marlene’s sentiment. He wanted to say so many things, but his mind, as the traitor it was, could only focus on so many things. He was willing himself not to fall asleep, but seating next to Remus wasn’t helping much. Remus was always warm. He also usually nudged Sirius on the ribs if he saw his friend was drifting away. Except this time he was also trying to stay awake. The full moon had just passed and that only meant Remus had to deal with an aching body for a couple of days. Both of them had somehow cuddled next to the other. Sirius rested his head on Remus shoulder and Remus laid his head on top of Sirius’. Battling his tiredness Sirius finally spoke: "Did this come out before Dracula?”
“You know Dracula?” Mary asked.
“Course I do. It’s one of my favourite books”, an offended Sirius replied.
“I believe so,” Lily said.
“Maybe that's the reason those girl vampires try to seduce Jonathan Harker.” Mary wondered.
“Well, it’s not as if Harker was so opposed to the idea” added Sirius, finally feeling a burst of energy, stretching himself. “But he was also being seduced by Dracula himself”, he smirked.
“There you go again!” an annoyed Peter groaned. “For merlin’s sake. Do you need to make everything weird? It’s ok if you like… those things, but not all of us do. Stop it”.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Wormtail?” spat Remus. Them raising their voices had caught the attention of others. There were some second year students who looked a bit frightened and scurried to their bedrooms, whilst a group of fifth year girls merely started at them , waiting to see what was about to unfold.
“I just… we agreed on this book, not on that Harker lad” tried to explain Peter looking at his friends, hoping one of them would take pity on him and stop both Remus and Sirius. He loathed having so many eyes on him. Once he noticed no one would save him, he lamely added “It’s already difficult enough to read a book amidst the other things”.
“Sure. You say that cause your life is so exiting, full of plans and whatnot.” deadpanned Sirius, his voice dripping with sarcasm. If Peter’s face was red before, it now looked like a tomato. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out of it.
“Uh, boys, shall we go back to Carmilla?” Lily intervened, preventing the other boys from further speaking and glaring at the group of girls who scattered away after feeling Lily’s gaze on them.
“Lily’s right”, added James, scolding at his friends. “If you lot want to fight, do it elsewhere”. Although the comment was directed at his three fellow marauders, he specifically looked at Peter.
“Sorry, Lils”, said Sirius. Remus could see the way Sirius had fisted his hands, his knuckles white from the force he was exerting, how they slightly trembled. He put an arm around Sirius’ shoulders, squeezed his friend’s arm and muttered “Alright, Pads?” Sirius looked at Remus, then at his own hands, unclasped them, and nodded. “Yeah, cheers”.
“For god’s sake, boys! Stop it. I still want to know what Lily thinks of the book and I want to see how James will just aggressively agree with everything she says. You are not ruining that for me.” Mary teased. They all laughed, knowing she was right about James.
The discussion turned friendly again. Lily proceeded to explain her favourite part was the construction of Carmilla as a threat. She though it was marvelous to have girls as the protagonists of the story. It was not just a love story, but a story about a friendship and the end of it. Remus added he liked how, to muggles, vampires represented what they feared most. With Carmilla it was about women having agency, not only in regards to power, but in regards to their sexuality. If it sounded scandalous in their time to imagine a woman seducing another woman, he couldn’t imagine the outrage it must’ve caused back then. James agreed with both of them, he said it was nice to see women being evil and having agency, as much as it was allowed back then. Marlene nodded and said “That’s right. Let us girls be mean, and evil, and queer”. She only lamented the ending, for Laura didn’t end up with Carmilla. Peter said he liked how men worked together to save Laura, especially how Vordenburg discovered the hidden tomb and finally stabbed the creature. No one commented further on that. Mary and Sirius focused on the ending, arguing it was definitely a love story since it seemed Laura was trying to convince herself Carmilla’s death had been for the best, but all those years later she hadn’t overcome neither the memories, nor her feelings. They concluded it was a great book and once again thanked Marlene for the recommendation. They left for dinner, feeling happy to be in each other’s company.
***
That night Sirius dreamt of vampires. His dream began in a fairly innocent manner; LeFanou’s words echoed in his mind: “She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements were languid—very languid—indeed”. In his dream he could picture his family’s French estate. The old, 18th century mansion stood isolated in the depths of Normandy. He could see a silhouette standing outside his balcony. He stood up and walked towards the glass doors, but stopped abruptly when he passed the mirror. Everything felt eerily familiar, except he didn’t feel like himself. He looked again at the mirror and saw his reflection; his eyes widened half in terror and half in awe when he saw he was not him, but rather his female version. This Sirius wore a white cotton nightgown that complimented his now curvy body. It stopped just above his feet. He still had his black curls, but they were longer, almost reaching half his back. His face looked softer and more delicate, too. Before he could properly process his new body, he turned his head towards the balcony; he could feel there was someone waiting for him. He grew impatient and ran to the person. He opened the doors and saw Remus.
He didn’t look like the Remus he was used to, but come heaven or hell, Sirius would always recognise Remus. Words from the book echoed in his mind once again: "Her complexion was rich and brilliant; her features were small and beautifully formed; her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; her hair was quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently thick and long when it was down about her shoulders. […] It was exquisitely fine and soft, and in color a rich very dark brown, with something of gold”. Remus extended a hand towards Sirius and he immediately took it. He wasn’t frightened for himself. He was scared for the beautiful creature standing in front of him. Would Remus suddenly disappear? Would something come between them and tear them apart? He felt a dreadful panic, extended his arms, and whispered “Tu es lá! Je veux te prendre dans mes bras.”* and Remus simply let Sirius do it. He allowed Sirius to take him in his arms. Of course he’d hugged Remus countless times before. It had always felt natural to be next to him, but this was different. It felt different.
Sirius recalled he’d never embraced Remus like this; one of them almost always put an arm around the shoulders of the other, perhaps briefly squeezing the other’s arm, and that was it. Not in his dreams, though. Sirius had both of his arms around Remus’ neck, marveled at the soft hair brushing against his palms. Had Remus always had such soft hair? Sirius wanted to caress it forever, he decided after a few seconds. His friend’s arms were around his waist, their bodies nearly pressed together. Never before had anything felt so right. He felt safe, complete, as if his body was made to fit with Remus’. They stood there for a couple of minutes. Then Sirius rested his head on the crook of Remus’ neck and felt Remus’ lips on his hair. Startled and feeling his erratic heartbeat, he looked up, looking at those brown eyes, and pleaded: “Ne me quitte pas, s’il te plait. Tiens-moi”**. Remus smiled at him. Sirius could clearly see adoration and hunger in those eyes and shuddered. Remus lowered his head, smiled softly at him, and Sirius knew he was about to be kissed. He could feel those dreadful millimeters between them disappearing, the impatience in his mind tuning into desire. Just as his lips were about to touch Remus’, a loud thud woke him up. Peter had just ran to the bathroom and decided to close the door as loudly as possible, it seemed.
Sirius sat up, rubbed his eyes, and took a couple of breaths to calm himself down. Fucking Wormtail had to ruin everything as he always did. He stopped himself from cussing Peter out, thinking that would only wake James and Remus up. That moment of silence and clarity allowed him to realise something obvious. He was angry because maybe—no, he definitely—wanted the Remus of his dream to kiss the Sirius of his dream. He then asked himself why he felt murderous towards Peter. “Well,” he thought “if it had been one of my other friends, I’d feel thankful my dream ended there. It would rather been a nightmare”. Oh. Oh. Oh, no. He went from wanting to murder Peter for waking him up to wanting to bash his own head against the wall. The realisation hit him: he fancied Moony.
*"You’re there. I want to hold you in my arms".
** "Don’t leave me, please. Hold me".