INVESTIGATIONS
It was different in the morning.
All the things that had seemed possible last night in the dark sounded like bad jokes when the sun was up, even inside my own head.
Did that really happen? Did I remember the words right? Had he really said those things to me? Had I really been brave enough to say the things I thought I’d said?
His jacket was folded on top of my backpack, and I had to keep walking over to touch it. That part was real, at least.
It was foggy and dark outside my window, absolutely perfect. He had no reason to miss school today. I dressed in layers, remembering I didn’t have my jacket and hoping I wouldn’t get soaked all the way through before I could find it again.
When I got downstairs, Lyall was gone—I was running later than I’d realized. I swallowed a granola bar in three bites, chased it down with milk straight from the carton, and then hurried out the door. Hopefully the rain would hold off until I saw Peter. Hopefully my jacket was still in his car.
It was really foggy; the air looked like it was filled with smoke. The mist was ice cold where it touched my face, and I couldn’t wait to get the heat going in my truck. It was such a thick fog that I was a few feet down the driveway before I realized there was another car in it: a familiar silver car. My heart did the weird double-thump thing, and I hoped I wasn’t developing some kind of aortic issue.
The passenger window was down, and he was leaning toward me, trying not to laugh at my I might be having a heart attack face.
“Would you like a ride to school?” he asked.
Though he was smiling, there was uncertainty in his voice. He didn’t mean this to be a no-brainer for me, he wanted me to really think about what I was doing. Maybe he even wanted me to say no. But that wasn’t going to happen.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, trying to sound casual.
He drove through the foggy streets, always too fast, barely looking at the road. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, either, just a pale lavender sweater with the sleeves pushed up. The sweater hugged his body, and I tried not to stare. His hair was wound up into a twist on the back of his head—messy, with strands falling out everywhere—and the way it exposed the slender column of his neck was also distracting.
“What, no Twenty Questions today?” he asked me.
“Was that annoying last night?”
“Not annoying, just… confusing.”
I was surprised he felt that way. It seemed like I was the one in the dark. “What does that mean?”
“Your reactions—I don’t understand them.”
“My reactions?”
He glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. “Yes, Remus. When someone tells you they drink blood, you’re supposed to get upset. Make a cross with your fingers, throw holy water, run away screaming, that sort of thing.”
“Oh. Um… I’ll do better next time?”
“By all means, please work on your expressions of horror.”
“Horror isn’t exactly how I’d describe last night.”
He exhaled through his nose, irritated. I didn’t know what to say.
Nothing could make me see him as something to run away from.
“So, um, where’s the rest of your family?”
I didn’t actually want to think about his family. I didn’t want to deal with the idea of more vampires—vampires who weren’t Sirius. Vampires who might inspire real horror.
But the fact was that usually his car was full, and today it wasn’t. Of course, I was grateful. It was hard to imagine something that would keep me out of a car when Sirius invited me in, but a bunch of furious vampires in the backseat might complicate things.
He was just pulling into the school parking lot. Already.
“They took Narcissa’s car.” he gestured to a glossy red convertible with the top up as he swerved into the spot next to it. “Ostentatious, isn’t it?”
“If she’s got that, why does she ride with you?”
“Like I said, it’s ostentatious. We try to blend in.”
I laughed as I opened the car door. “No offense, but you’re totally failing there.”
He rolled his eyes.
I wasn’t late anymore. His lunatic driving had gotten us to school with time to spare. “Why did Narcissa drive today if it’s more conspicuous?”
“My fault—as usual, Cissy would say. Haven’t you noticed, Remus? I’m breaking all the rules now.”
He met me at the front of the car, staying very close to my side as we walked onto campus. I wanted to close that little distance, to reach out and touch his hand again, to put my arm around his shoulders, but I was afraid that wouldn’t be careful enough for him.
“Why do you even have cars like that?” I wondered aloud. “If you’re looking for privacy, there are plenty of used Hondas available.”
“It’s an indulgence,” he admitted with a little half-smile. “We all like to drive fast.”
“Of course,” I muttered.
Under the shelter of the cafeteria roof’s overhang, Peter was waiting with his eyes popping out again. Over his arm was my jacket.
“Hey, Pete,” I called when we were a few feet away. “Thanks for bringing that.”
He handed me the jacket without speaking.
“Good morning, Peter,” Sirius said politely. I could tell he wasn’t trying to overwhelm him, but even his smallest smile was hard to take in stride.
“Er… hi.” Peter shifted his wide eyes to me, trying to reorder his scrambled brains. “Guess I’ll see you in Trig.”
“Yeah, see you then.”
He walked away, pausing to glance back at us twice.
“What are you going to tell him?” he murmured.
“Huh?” I looked at him, then at Peter’s back. “Oh. What’s he thinking?”
His mouth pulled to one side. “I don’t know if it’s entirely ethical for me to tell you that.…”
“What’s not ethical is for you to hoard your unfair advantages for yourself.”
He grinned a mischievous smile. “He wants to know if we’re secretly dating. And exactly which base you’ve gotten to with me.”
The blood rushed to my face so fast I was sure it was beet red before a full second had passed.
He looked away, his face suddenly as uncomfortable as mine felt. He took a small step away from me and gritted his teeth.
It took me a minute to realize that the flush that embarrassed me so much was probably something else entirely to him. That helped cool me down.
“Um, what should I say?”
He started walking, and I followed, not paying attention to where he was leading.
After a second, he looked up at me, his face relaxed and smiling again. “That’s a good question. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.”
“Sirius…”
He grinned, and then his hand shot up and brushed a piece of hair off my forehead. Just as quickly his hand was back at his side. My heart spluttered like it was in actual distress.
“See you at lunch,” he said, brandishing the dimples.
I stood there like I’d been Tasered while he pivoted and walked off in the other direction.
After a second, I recovered enough to see that I was standing right outside the English classroom. Three people had paused by the doorway, staring at me with varying shades of surprise and awe. I ducked my head and brushed past them into the room.
Was Peter really going to ask me that? Would Sirius really be eavesdropping on my reaction?
“Morning, Remus.”
McKayla was already in her normal seat. Her greeting wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was used to. She was smiling, but it felt like a polite thing, not like she was really happy to see me.
“Hey, McKayla. Uh, how’re things?”
“Good. How was the movie last night?”
“Oh, right, yeah. I didn’t actually see it. I got lost and…”
“Yeah, I heard,” she said.
I blinked, startled. “How?”
“I saw Peter before school.”
“Oh.”
“He said you didn’t miss much. The movie was lame.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
She was suddenly really interested in her fingernails. She started chipping the purple paint off one. “Did you have, like, plans before you went? I mean, Peter thought you might have, and I wondered—why even go through the charade, you know?”
“No, no, I was totally planning on the movie. I didn’t expect that… I would get lost and… stuff.”
McKayla sniffed once like she didn’t believe me, and then looked up at the clock. Ms. Mason was working on something at her desk and didn’t seem in a hurry to start class.
“That was really cool that you went out with Peter on Monday,” I said, changing the subject. “He said it was great.” Or I was sure he would have, if I’d asked about it.
She looked at her nails again, but her ears started to turn a little pink. “He did?” she asked in a completely different tone.
“Yeah.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Remember, I didn’t tell you anything. Like, I totally didn’t tell you that he thinks you’re the coolest girl he’s ever known.”
Her ears were even pinker now. “Man code. Right.”
“I said nothing.”
She finally smiled a real smile.
Ms. Mason got up then and asked us to open our books.
I thought maybe I was off the hook with McKayla, but when class was over, I saw her and Mary exchange a look, and then McKayla was picking at her nails again while we walked outside.
“So,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“I was just curious if, you know, we were going to see you at the dance after all? Like, you could totally hang with our group, if you wanted to.”
“The dance?” I looked at her blankly. “No. No, I’m still going to Seattle.”
She seemed surprised, but then she relaxed. “Okay. Oh well. Maybe we can get a group thing together for prom. Share a limo.” I stopped walking.
“Uh, I wasn’t really planning on prom.…”
“Really? Shocking!” McKayla laughed. “You might want to mention it to Taylor, though. She says you’re taking her.” I felt my jaw fall open. McKayla cracked up.
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
“Are you serious?” I demanded when I had control of my face again. “I mean, she was probably joking.”
“Logan and Peter were talking about getting started early and putting together a big thing for prom, and then Taylor said she was out because she already had plans—with you. That’s why Logan’s being so… you know… about you. He has a thing for Taylor. I figure you deserved a heads-up. After all, you broke the man code for me.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell her you’re not taking her.”
“I can’t just… What would I even say?”
She smiled like she was enjoying this. “Man up, Remus. Or rent a tux. Your choice.”
So I didn’t get much out of Government after that. Was it really my responsibility to uninvite Taylor to the prom? I tried to remember what I’d said to her in the parking lot when she’d asked me to the girls’ choice. I was almost positive I had not agreed to anything.
The sky was like lead as I walked to Trig, dark gray and kind of heavy looking. Last week, I would have found it depressing. Today I smiled. There was something better than sunshine.
When I saw Peter sitting by an empty desk in the back row, watching the door, waiting for me, I remembered that Taylor wasn’t the only problem I had right now.
There was another open chair two rows forward… but it was probably better to get this over with and be done with it.
Ms. Varner wasn’t in the room yet. What was with all the tardy teachers today? It was like nobody even cared if we were educated.
I sat next to Peter. He didn’t keep me waiting.
“Dang, son,” he said. “Who knew you had that kind of game?”
I rolled my eyes. “I have no game.”
“Please.” He punched my arm. “Sirius Black. C’mon. Every girl in the school would kill to be you. How did you swing that?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“How long has this been happening? Is it some kind of secret? Like, he doesn’t want his family to know? Is that why you pretended you were going to the movie with us?”
“I wasn’t pretending anything. I had no idea he was in Port Angeles last night. He was the last person I expected to see.” He seemed deflated by my obvious honesty.
“Have you ever been out with him before last night?”
“Never.”
“Huh. Just a total coincidence?”
“I guess.”
It was obvious when I was telling the truth—and obvious when I was evading it. The suspicious, knowing look came back to his face.
“Because, you know, it’s not a secret that-" that I'm a gay mess? I thought "-you’ve been, like, obsessed with him since you got here.” Same thing.
I winced. “It’s not?”
“So, I have to wonder how you turned that around. Do you have a genie in a lamp? Did you find some blackmail on him? Or did you trade your soul to the devil or something?”
“Whatever, man.”
“Exactly how much did you get in the bargain? Bet it was a pretty wild night, eh?”
I was starting to get pissed, but I knew he would twist whatever reaction I showed to make it seem like something else.
I answered calmly, “It was an early night. Home by eight.”
“Are you serious?”
“It was just dinner and a ride home, Peter.”
“What about this morning, though? You were still with him.”
“Still? No! What—you thought he was with me all night?”
“He wasn’t?”
“No.”
“But you were in his car—”
“He picked me up for school this morning.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. He offered me a ride. I wasn’t going to say no.”
“And that’s it?”
I shrugged."It’s not like that.”
He made a disgusted face. “That is, hands down, the most disappointing story I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I take back everything I said about your game. Obviously, it’s just some pity thing.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Ms. Varner showed up then, and the general chatter started to die down while she began writing equations across the board.
“You know what, though?” Peter said under his breath. “I think I’d rather be with a someone normal.”
I was already irritated. I didn’t like the way he talked about Sirius in general, and the way he said normal really bugged me. No, Sirius wasn’t normal, but that wasn’t because, like his tone seemed to imply, he was something… off or wrong. He was beyond normal, above it. Surpassing it by so much that normal and Sirius weren’t even on the same plane of existence.
“That’s probably for the best,” I muttered in a hard voice. “Keep your expectations low.”
He shot me a startled look, but I turned to face the teacher. I could feel him staring at me suspiciously again, until Ms. Varner noticed and called on him for an answer. He started flipping through his book, trying to figure out what she’d asked him.
Peter walked ahead of me on the way to Spanish, but I didn’t care. I was still annoyed. He didn’t talk to me again until the end of class when I started shoving my books—a little too enthusiastically—into my backpack.
“You’re not sitting with us at lunch today, are you?”
His face was suspicious again, and more guarded now. Obviously, he’d thought I’d be eager to show off, to sell Sirius out to make myself look cooler. After all, Peter and I had been friends for a little while. Guys told each other this kind of stuff. It was probably part of the man code thing I’d invented. He’d assumed my loyalty would be with him… but now he knew he was wrong.
“Um, not sure,” I said. No point in being overconfident. I remembered too clearly what it felt like whenever he disappeared. I didn’t want to jinx myself.
He walked off without waiting for me, but then he did a little stutter step and paused on the threshold of the classroom.
“Seriously, what the hell,” Peter said loud enough that I could hear him—as did everyone else within a ten-foot radius.
He glanced back at me, shook his head, then stalked away.
I was in a hurry to get out the door—to see what that was about—but so was everyone else. One by one, they all stopped to look back at me before exiting. By the time I got out, I didn’t know what to expect. Irrationally, I was half-expecting to see Taylor in a sparkly prom dress and tiara.
But outside the door to my Spanish class, leaning against the wall— looking a thousand times more beautiful than anyone had a right to—Sirius was waiting for me. His wide gold eyes looked amused, and the corners of his lips were right on the point of smiling. His hair was still coiled up in that messy twist, and I had the oddest urge to reach down and pull the pins out of it.
“Hello, Remus.”
“Hi.”
Part of me was aware we had an audience, but I was past caring.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Sure.” Actually, I had no idea if I was. My whole body felt like it was being electrocuted in a strange and very pleasant way. My nerves couldn’t process more than that.
He turned toward the cafeteria, swinging his bag into place.
I followed him to the food line. I couldn’t help staring at the back corner of the cafeteria the way I did every day. His family was all present and accounted for, paying attention only to each other. They either didn’t notice Sirius with me, or they didn’t care. I thought about the idea Peter had come up with—that Sirius and I were seeing each other in secret to keep it from his family’s notice. It didn’t look like he was hiding anything from them, but I couldn’t help but wonder what they thought about me.
I wondered what I thought about them.
Just then Andromeda looked up and smiled across the room at me. Automatically, I smiled back, then glanced down to see if she’d actually meant the smile for Sirius. He was aware of her, but he wasn’t responding in kind. He looked sort of angry. My eyes cut back and forth between the two of them as they had some kind of silent conversation. First, Andromeda smiled wider, showing off teeth so white they were bright even across the length of the room. Sirius raised his eyebrows in a sort of challenge, his upper lip curling back just a tiny bit. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and held her hands up like she was saying I surrender. Sirius turned his back to her and moved forward in the line. He grabbed a tray and started loading it up.
I was paying so much attention to this little exchange that I didn’t notice what he had on the tray till the lunch lady was ringing us up.
“That’ll be twenty-four thirty-three,” she said.
“What?” I looked down at the tray and then did a double take.
Sirius was already paying, and then gliding off toward the table where we’d sat together last week.
“Hey,” I hissed, jogging a few steps to catch up with him. “I can’t eat all that.”
“Half is for me, of course.”
He sat down and pushed the overflowing tray to the center of the table.
I raised my eyebrows. “Really.”
“Take whatever you want.”
I sank into the seat across from him.. At the other end of the long table, a group of seniors watched him with wide eyes.
“I’m curious. What would you do if someone dared you to eat food?”
“You’re always curious.” he made a face, then daintily tore the tip off a piece of pizza, popped it in his mouth, and started chewing with a martyred expression. After a second, he swallowed, then gave me a superior look.
“If someone dared you to eat dirt, you could, couldn’t you?” he asked. I grinned at him. “I did once… on a dare. It wasn’t so bad.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised. Here.” he shoved the rest of the pizza to me.
I took a bite. I wondered if it really tasted like dirt to him. It wasn’t the best pizza I’d ever had, but it was decent. While I was chewing, he glanced over my shoulder and laughed.
I swallowed quickly. “What?”
“You’ve got Peter so confused.”
“Tough.”
“He really let his mind run wild when he saw you get out of my car.” I shrugged and took another bite.
He tilted his head to the side. “Do you truly agree with him?”
I had to swallow fast again, and I almost choked. He half-rose, but I held my hand up and recovered. “I’m fine. Agree with him about what?”
“Why I’m here with you.”
It took me a minute to think through the conversation. I remembered things I hoped he hadn’t been paying attention to—like the fact that apparently everyone knew I’d been obsessed with him from day one.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
He frowned. “Obviously, it’s just some pity thing?” he quoted.
I was surprised that he looked irritated. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”
“And I’ll be getting bored soon, will I?”
That one stung a little—this was my biggest fear, and it seemed all too likely—but I tried to hide it with another shrug.
“Remus, you’re being ridiculous again.”
“Am I?”
He smiled a funny half-smile, half-frown. “There are several things I am currently worried about. Boredom is not one of them.” he cocked his head to the side, his eyes drilling into mine. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Um, sure, I guess. If you say so.”
His eyes narrowed. “Well, that was an overwhelming affirmative.” I took another bite of pizza, chewing slowly and deliberately this time. He waited, watching me with the intense little scowl that I knew meant he was trying to get inside my head. When I took a second bite without speaking, he blew an angry breath out his nose.
“I truly loathe it when you do that.”
I took a second to swallow. “What? Not tell you every single stupid thought that passes through my head?”
I could tell he wanted to smile, but he didn’t give in. “Precisely.”
“I don’t know what to say. Do I think you’ll get bored with me? Yeah, I do. I honestly don’t know why you’re still here. But I was trying not to say that out loud, because I didn’t want to point something out that you might not have thought of yet.”
The smile escaped. “So very true. I never would have realized it myself, but now that you mention it, I really ought to be moving along. That girl in my Spanish class suddenly seems alluringly pathetic—” And then he cut off and the smile vanished. “Remus? You know that I’m joking.” I wondered what my face was doing. I nodded. I knew he was joking but that comment about an imaginary girl made me realize that they were a possible threat.
His forehead creased. After a second, he hesitantly stretched his arm across the table toward me, leaving his hand in easy reach.
I covered it with mine.
He smiled, but then he winced.
“Sorry,” I said, pulling away.
“No,” he objected. “It’s not you. Here.”
As carefully as if my hand were blown from the thinnest glass, he rested his fingers on my palm. Copying his caution, I folded my hand gently around them.
“What was wrong just now?” I half-whispered.
“Many different reactions.” His forehead wrinkled again. “Bellatrix has a particularly strident mental voice.”
I couldn’t help it; I automatically glanced across the room, and then was very sorry I had.
Bellatrix was glaring daggers at Sirius' unprotected back, and Narcissa, across from her, was turned around to glower at Sirius, too. When I looked, Bellatrix shifted her furious eyes to me.
My eyes darted to Sirius, the hair standing up on the back of my arms, but he was glaring back at Bellatrix now, his upper lip pulled back off his teeth in a menacing scowl. Narcissa turned around at once and Bellatrix dropped her threatening stare. She looked down at the table with a suddenly sulky expression.
Andromeda looked like she was enjoying it all hugely. Regulus never turned.
“Did I just piss off—” I swallowed before I could finish. A bunch of vampires?
“No,” he said fiercely, then sighed. “But I did.”
I glanced at Bellatrix again for a fraction of a second. She hadn’t moved. “Look, are you in trouble because of me?"
He shook his head and smiled. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he reassured me, a little smug. “I’m not saying that Bella couldn’t take me in a fair fight, but I am saying that I never have fought fair and I don’t intend to start now. She knows better than to try anything with me.”
“Sirius…”
He laughed. “A joke. It’s really nothing, Remus. Normal sibling issues.An only child couldn’t understand.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
I looked at our hands, still folded so very carefully together. It was the first time I’d really held his hand, but wrapped up in the wonder of that was the memory of why he’d offered it to me in the first place.
“Back to what you were thinking,” he said, as if he could read my thoughts.
I sighed.
“Would it help if you knew you weren’t the only one who had been accused of obsession?”
I groaned. “You heard that, too. Great.”
He laughed. “I was entranced from start to finish.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Why are you apologizing? It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only one.”
I stared at him, skeptical.
“Let me put it this way.” he pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Though you are the one person I can’t be sure about, I’d still be willing to place a very large wager that I spend more time thinking about you than you do about me.”
“Ha,” I laughed, startled. “You would totally lose that bet.”
He raised an eyebrow and then spoke so low that I had to lean in to hear. “Ah, but you’re only conscious for roughly sixteen hours in any given twenty-four-hour period. That gives me quite a lead, don’t you think?”
“You’re not factoring in dreams, though.”
He sighed. “Do nightmares count as dreams?”
Red started creeping up my neck. “When I dream about you… it’s definitely not a nightmare.”
His mouth opened just a tiny bit in surprise, and his face was suddenly vulnerable. “Really?” he asked.
It was obvious that he was pleased, so I said, “Every single night.”
He closed his eyes for just a minute, but when he opened them, his smile was teasing again.
“REM cycles are the shortest of all the sleep stages. I’m still hours ahead.”
I frowned. It was difficult to process. “You really think about me?”
“Why is that hard for you to believe?”
“Well, look at me,” I said, unnecessarily, as he already was. “I’m absolutely ordinary—well, except for bad things like all the near-death experiences and being so uncoordinated that I can barely walk. And look at you.” I waved my free hand toward him and all his unsettling perfection.
He smiled a slow smile. It started small but ended with the full array of dimples—like the grand finale at the end of a fireworks show on the Fourth of July.
“I can’t argue with you about the bad things.”
“Well, there you go.”
“But you’re the least ordinary person I’ve ever met.”
Our eyes held for a long moment. Mine searched his, as I tried to believe he could see something important enough to keep him here. It always felt like he was just about to slip away, to disappear like he was only a myth after all.
“But why…” I didn’t know how to phrase it.
He tilted her head, waiting.
“Last night…” I stopped and shook my head.
He frowned. “Do you do that on purpose? The unfinished thought as a way to drive me mad?”
“I don’t know if I can explain it right.”
“Please try.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re claiming I don’t bore you and you aren’t thinking of moving on to some random girl anytime soon.” he nodded, fighting a grin.
“But last night… it was like…” he was anxious now. The rest came out in a rush. “Like you were already looking for a way to say goodbye.”
“Perceptive,” he whispered. And there was the anguish again, surfacing as he confirmed my worst fear.
His fingers ever so gently squeezed mine.
“Those two things are unrelated, however.”
“Which two things?”
“The depth of my feelings for you, and the necessity of leaving. Well, they are related, but inversely.”
The necessity of leaving. My stomach plunged. “I don’t understand.”
He stared into my eyes again, and his burned, mesmerizing. His voice was barely audible. “The more I care about you, the more crucial it is that I find a way to… keep you safe. From me. Leaving would be the right thing to do.”
I shook my head. “No.”
He took a deep breath, and his eyes seemed to darken in an odd way. “Well, I wasn’t very good at leaving you alone when I tried. I don’t know how to do it.”
“Will you do me a favor? Stop trying to figure that one out.”
He half-smiled. “I suppose, given the frequency of your near-death experiences, it’s actually safer for me to stay close.”
“True story. You never know when another rogue van might attack.” he frowned.“You’re still going to Seattle with me, right? Lots of vans in Seattle.Waiting in ambush around literally every corner.”
“Actually, I have a question for you on that subject. Did you really need to go to Seattle this Saturday, or was that just an excuse to get out of saying a definitive no to your bevy of admirers?”
“Um.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You know, you actually put me in kind of a difficult position with the whole thing in the parking lot with Taylor.”
“You mean because you’re taking her to prom now?” My mouth fell open, and then I ground my teeth together.
He was trying not to laugh now. “Oh, Remus”
I could tell there was more. “What?” “She already has her dress.” I had no words for that.
He must have read the panic in my eyes. “It could be worse—she actually bought it before she claimed you for the date. It was secondhand, also, not a large investment. She couldn’t pass up the deal.”
I still couldn’t talk. He squeezed my hand again.
“You’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t do dances,” I said sadly.
“If I’d asked you to the spring dance, would you have told me no?”
I looked at his gold eyes and tried to imagine refusing him anything he wanted. “Probably not, but I would have found a reason to cancel later. I would have broken my leg if I had to.” he looked mystified. “Why would you do that?”
I shook my head sadly. “You’ve never seen me in Gym, I guess, but I would have thought you would understand.”
“Are you referring to the fact that you can’t walk across a flat, stable surface without finding something to trip over?”
“Got it in one.”
“I’m a very good teacher, Remus.”
“I don’t think coordination is a learnable skill.”
He shook his head. “Back to the question. Must you go to Seattle, or would you mind if we did something different?”
As long as the we part was in, I didn’t care about anything else.
“I’m open to alternatives,” I allowed. “But I do have another favor to ask.”
He looked wary, like he always did when I asked an open-ended question.
“What?”
“Can I drive?”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Well, mostly because you’re a terrifying driver. But also because I told I was going alone, and I don’t want him to get curious.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of all the things about me that could frighten you, you worry about my driving.” he shook his head in disgust, but then his eyes were serious again. “Won’t you want to tell your father that you’re spending the day with me?” There was an undercurrent to his question that I didn’t understand.
“With Lyall, less is always more.” I was definite about that. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“Andy says the weather will be nice, so I’ll be staying out of the public eye…" I had started to notice the more he opened with me, the more he nicknames for his siblings, it was cute. "An quad you can stay with me, if you’d like to.” Again, he was leaving the choice up to me.
“And you’ll show me what you meant, about the sun?” I asked, excited by the idea of solving another of the unknowns.
“Yes.” He smiled, then hesitated. “But if you don’t want to be… alone with me, I’d still rather you didn’t go to Seattle by yourself. I shudder to think of all the vans.”
“As it happens, I don’t mind being alone with you.”
“I know,” he sighed. “You should tell Lyall, though.”
I shook my head at the thought of explaining my personal life to Lyall. “Why on earth would I do that?”
His eyes were suddenly fierce. “To give me some small incentive to bring you back.”
I waited for him to relax. When he didn’t, I said, “I’ll take my chances.”
He exhaled angrily, and looked away.
“So that’s settled. New topic?”
My attempt to change the subject didn’t help much.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked through her teeth, still annoyed.
I glanced around us, making sure we were well out of anyone’s hearing.
In the back corner, Andromeda was leaning forward, talking to Regulus. Narcissa sat beside her, but Bellatrix was gone.
“Why did you go to that Goat Rocks place last weekend… to hunt? Lyall said it wasn’t a good place to hike, because of bears.” he stared at me as if I was missing something very obvious.
“Bears?” I gasped.
He smirked.
“You know, bears are not in season,” I added sternly, to cover my shock.
“If you read carefully, the laws only cover hunting with weapons,” he informed me.
He watched my face with enjoyment as that slowly sank in.
“Bears?” I repeated with difficulty.
“Grizzly is Regulus' favorite.” His voice was still offhand, but his eyes were scrutinizing my reaction. I tried to pull myself together.
“Hmmm,” I said, taking another bite of pizza as an excuse to look down. I chewed slowly, then swallowed.
“So,” I said after a moment. “What’s your favorite?”
He raised an eyebrow and the corners of his mouth turned down like he didn’t approve of my question. “Mountain lion.”
“Sure, that makes sense.” I nodded, like he’d just said something totally normal.
“Of course”—his tone mirrored mine, nothing out of the ordinary —“we have to be careful not to impact the environment with injudicious hunting. We try to focus on areas with an overpopulation of predators— ranging as far away as we need. There are always plenty of deer and elk here, and they’ll do, but where’s the fun in that?” he smiled.
“So not fun,” I murmured around another bite of pizza.
“Early spring is Reggie’s favorite bear season—they’re just coming out of hibernation, so they’re more irritable.” he smiled at some remembered joke.
“Nothing better than an irritated grizzly bear,” I agreed, nodding.
He laughed, then shook his head. “Tell me what you’re really thinking, please.”
“I’m trying to picture it—but I can’t,” I admitted. “How do you hunt a bear without weapons?”
“Oh, we have weapons.” he flashed his bright teeth with a wide grin that wasn’t really a smile. “Just not the kind they consider when writing hunting laws. If you’ve ever seen a bear attack on television, you should be able to visualize Regulus hunting.”
I glanced across the cafeteria toward Regulus. I pictured him gripping under the edge of a mountain, then lifting…
Sirius followed my gaze and chuckled. I stared back at him, unnerved.
“Is it dangerous?” I asked in a low voice. “Do you ever get hurt?”
His laughter pealed like a bell. “Oh, Remus. About as dangerous as your slice.”
I looked at the pizza crust and said, “Yikes. So… are you… like a bear attack?”
“More like the lion, or so they tell me,” he said lightly. “Perhaps our preferences are indicative.”
“Perhaps,” I repeated. I tried to smile, but my mind was struggling to fit the paradoxical images together, and failing. “Is that something I might get to see?”
“Never!” he whispered. His face turned even whiter than usual, and his eyes were suddenly horrified. He pulled his hand gently from mine and wrapped his arms tightly around his body.
My hand lay there empty on the table, numb from the cold.
“What did I say?” I asked.
He closed his eyes for a moment, regaining control. When he met my stare at last, he looked angry.
“I almost wish it were possible. You don’t seem to understand the realities present. It might be beneficial for you to see exactly how dangerous I actually am.”
“Okay, then, why not?” I pressed, trying to ignore his hard expression.
He glared at me for a long minute.
“Later,” he finally said. He was on his feet in one lithe movement. “We’re going to be late.”
I glanced around, startled to see that he was right and the cafeteria was nearly vacant. When I was with him, the time and the place were such minor details that I completely lost track of both. I jumped up, grabbing our bags from the floor.
“Later, then,” I agreed. I wouldn’t forget.