Caught
Sirius Black was a handsome young man. His striking dark messy hair contrasted his pale complexion, giving him a cold look. That was until he smiled. That smile could melt Remus in an instant. Not just his smile though. When he scowled discontently on the quidditch field, or when he would rant about his family, anger growing in those dark eyes and the veins in his hands protruding.
Remus himself grimussed at times when he looked in the mirror. He had scars that he feared would never fade completely. His monthly transformations left marks that he could cover with sweaters and long robes, but when he returned to his dorm and changed for bed, there was no hiding the evidence of his condition from himself or, as he feared, his friends. Not that they would ever say anything to him. They understood the agony of his transformation, and he knew it was nothing to be ashamed of, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of disgust whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror after a shower.
He was not the beautiful Sirius Black or the reckless and hilarous James Potter, but he knew he had a whit about him, and there was something to be said for his quiet demeanor that hid behind it the schemes the marauders would carry out. He wouldn’t consider himself the brains of the operation, but he most likely was. If it weren’t for him, the others would have been expelled, or, more likely, dead.
It was getting late, and he was still in the library finishing his paper on plants with healing properties. With a sigh, he set down his quill, stretching his arms above his head. His sleeves fell slightly, and he pulled them back down, gathering his books into the crook of his arms before he began winding through the endless shelves. The Hogwarts library was extensive, filled to the brim with books far older than any living soul who wandered the castle. Remus like the smell of the old books and the satisfaction of turning a page over once he was done with it.
It was quiet in the castle this late when he made it to the first set of stairs. Stepping on, he clutched onto the railings. Even now, in his sixth year, the movement of the great stone steps would occasionally make him sweat. When he made to to the next floor, he carefully stepped over the gap. Walking down the hallway he heard the telltale footsteps of someone coming his way. Out of the dim corridor stepped Sirus.
“What’re you doing out so late?” asked Lupin.
“I’d ask the same, Moony,” retorted Sirius.
“If you must know,” started Remus, “I was just finishing up a paper, but I think I want to know what you’re up to.”
A grin crept over Sirius’ face. “Come with me,” he said, gently grabbing onto Remus’ wrist. His heart jumped at the contact. Sirius led them through the castle along staircases and hallways Remus was all to familiar with. Eventually, they came to a halt.
“A blank wall? Sirius, you never cease to impress me,” Remus mocked.
Sirius rustled through the pocket of his robes, eventually producing the map the marauders had created years ago. “You’d be impressed with me, Moony,” he started. “I was tracking down that bastard prefect, Eleanor Wixby. Slytherin, seventh year. She confiscated my self-writing quill. See, I made it all of the way here, tracking her, and then she just disappeared off of the map. At first, I wondered if she was dead. I mean, how else would she disspear off of the map. Then I wondered if there’s something interfering with the map. Like a spell, or maybe a passageway we haven’t found yet. I thought I’d go exploring.”
“And your efforts led you here?”
Sirius nodded. “Yeah,” he said, looking back and forth at the blank wall ahead of them. “Look at the map.” He unfolded the map, opening it up. It took a moment for Remus to locate the two of them on the map, but when he did, he found nothing but a blank wall that acted as the exterior to the castle. “I swear, she walked right into this wall and disappeared.”
Remus shook his head. “There has to be some kind of explanation for this.”
“Exactly. LIke a passageway we missed.”
Nodding slowly, Remus replied, “But then where would this supposed passageway be?” He brushed his fingers along the stone wall searching for any crevasses that would give away a door or a hinge. Remus shook his head. “I’m exhausted. Have fun searching for your secret tunnel. I need some sleep.
Remus jolted awake. Warm hands nudged at his shoulder, and above him someone familiar whispered something he couldn’t make out. As his eyes cleared, Siruis’ dark hair was obvious as it hung down brushing against Remus’ cheek.
“What in Merlin’s name-”
“I found it!” blurted Sirius.
At this, Remus notices James stirred, but it wasn’t loud enough to wake the other boy.
“Found what?” Remus managed, clenching his eyes shut again. It had to be the middle of the night.
“A room,” he exclaimed. “It's like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay,” he muttered, stumbling out of bed, pulling on a sweater. “We have to be quick about this. I’d like to get a reasonable amount of sleep.”
Sirius practically dragged Remus out of the commonroom and into the hallway. Scowling, the dark-haired boy paused before leading the two of them left, then right. Remus, in his exhausted stupor, struggling to keep up. He rubbed his eyes, but the candles lining the halls were still bright blurry orbs. They passed by the potions room. Remus glanced around, hoping their feet pounding against the stone floors weren’t enough to alert anyone to their disregard for curfew.
Eventually, Sirius stopped in front of a blank wall. He closed his eyes, tilting his head down slightly. The way the light cast over his face highlighted his sharp features. Remus couldn’t tear his eyes away from the other boy. That’s when he saw the glimmer of light. Where the floor met the wall a crack emerged, emitting a faint glow. That’s when it climbed upwards, snaking into introquette patterns.
“What are you boys doing out of bed at this hour?” A voice barked behind them.
Like that, the glimmer began to fade, and the wall returned to all it once was: a wall.
Remus spoke up before Sirius said something that would get them into more trouble. “We were on our way back from the library. I’ve been up all night finishing a paper,” he said confidently. He looked the professor in the eyes. It was their muggle studies professor, Bearheart. He couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, and his red hair curled slightly. He was a muggleborn, and constantly faced taunts and jeers because of it. Remus couldn’t entirely blame the man for being curt and ill-tempered, but now, standing in front of the professor, he hoped to appeal to some level of compassion.
“Where are your books?” Bearheart asked.
“I just returned them,” said Remus, glancing nervously at Sirius, who had a sly grin on his face as if he were enjoying this game between Remus and the professor.
“You got up in the middle of the night to return books?”
“Yes, but I also needed one of the books from the restricted section. Just ask McGonnagal. I have a pass to use them as I need.” That was true. In his second year, Remus had asked her if he could learn more about his condition. At first she pointed him at books that could be taken off of the shelves by any student, but eventually, she brought him to dark aisles of books where the spines were chained to the shelves behind them.
“And you, Mr. Black?” asked Bearheart.
“I was accompanying Remus. As you may know, he’s deathly afraid of the dark.” Sirius was grinning in the dim light. Remus wanted to slap him, but there was nothing he could do except sigh.
“Come with me,” ordered Mr. Bearheart.
The two friends exchanged glances. Sirius shrugged and Remus resigned himself to just shrugging back. The professor would probably give them some mundane task to do or write them a detention slip. That was nothing new for them. Just the day prior they had gotten themselves sent to clean windows for a particularly careless foodfight. Although to others it may have seemed that James and Sirius were the troublesome ones, it had been Remus who snuck into the kitchens to enchant the mashed potatoes to pummel the Slytheryns like snowballs.
The halls were abandoned, and the sounds of their feet against the stone floor echoed through the great passageways. It wasn’t a long walk until they reached Professor Bearheart’s classroom. Around the walls were scattered posters from movies Remus was familiar with. There were muggle toys and tools, and hanging at the front of the room was a poster declaring “Muggles are not so different from us,” with a picture of a wizard and muggle side by side. While Remus found the class easy, it was often boring to him, while Siruis found muggle artifacts slightly more interesting. Occasionally he would ask Remus if Muggles really didn’t use quills or how they cleaned their clothes or why they took busses.
“Mr. Lupin, are you familiar with how muggle students are punished?” the professor asked.
“Detention,” he replied quickly.
Bearheart’s lips parted into an unnerving smile. “Yes, yes, but there are far more effective methods. Some of which are going out of fashion, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still useful.” He paused. “Mr. Lupin, you may have had an excuse for being out, but Mr. Black, you did not. Not that either of you are innocent. But I’ll let Mr. Black decide who deserves to be punished.”
At this point, Remus half expected Siruis to laugh and point at him, but his face was suddenly stern. “I’ll take it,” he said with no hesitation.
Bearheart nodded. “Mr. Black, I want you to lean over my desk, hands flat.”
Sirius and Remus exchanged glances, but Sirus did what he was told. The professor when to a cupboard in the corner of the room, rummaging through until he pulled out a stick. Remus knew immediately what Sirius was in store for. Bearheart was going to cane him. Racing through rules and loopholes, he wondered if this was even allowed.
“I’ll take his place,” blurted Remus.
“Mr. Lupin,” Bearheart shook his head. “Don’t think that you’re entirely exempt. Have you have caned anyone before?” Remus was silent, frozen in place. “I take that as a no. Let me show you what to do.”
Bringing back the narrow cane, the professor brought it down with a crack on Sirius’ sit-spot. The boy didn’t make a sound. Remus knew that Siruis could take far worse, but he cringed, watching Siruis’ eyes go dark. With another crack, the professor brought down the cane once more. Remus shook his head.
“No way,” said Remus. “Give us detention for a month, but I’m not doing this.”
“Just do it,” taunted Sirius. “I can take a little tap on the bottom. I don’t know what our dear professor thinks he’s doing.”
“Sirius-”
“Let’s just get this over with. I’d like to go back to bed,” said the dark-haired boy.
Remus’ hands were slick with sweat. Of course he didn’t want to cane his friend, but, for his own purposes, he was concerned. Seeing Sirius bent over that desk, that smug look on his face like a challenge. It sent his stomach turning, and even worse, he could feel that warm feeling travelling downwards… Sirius turned back to look at him as if reading his mind, staring at his crotch. At this, Remus grabbed the cane out of the professors hand, turning his front away from Sirius to escape those dark eyes.
“See, there you go,” mocked Bearheart. “Mr. Black, I expect you to count to ten.”
Remus got into position. He didn’t want to actually hurt Sirius, but if he didn’t swing at all, he knew the professor would just make him repeat the strike. Taking a deep breath, he brought back the cane before landing it on the back of Sirius’ thighs. The other boy flinched slightly at the strike, but he didn’t make a sound.
“Count,” ordered Bearheart.
“Three.”
“Do I need to tell you to start from one?”
Sirius gave a slight laugh, “Well you already gave me two. I thought we were just leaving off there.”
The professor crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t appreciate the attitude.”
“And I don’t appreciate being laid over this desk like a piece of meat. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were getting off on this,” retorted Sirius.
Remus assured himself he wasn’t getting off on this. If this was anyone’s fantasy, it was the professor’s. The professor shook his head. “Clearly you aren’t getting the message. I was being to kind. This kind of disrespect will not be tolerated in my classroom, Mr. Black. Mr. Lupin, please remove Mr. Black's trousers.”
“What?” Remus blurted.
The professor shook his head, “Over the trousers isn’t getting the message across. He needs to be taught a lesson.”
Hesitantly, Remus walked towards his friend. He wrapped his arms around Sirius, going for the tie of his sleep pants.
Sirius leaned into Remus’ ear. “Like what you see?”
Remus didn’t register what he was saying until it was already out of his mouth, “Sounds like you’re enjoying this.”
“What if I was?”
“With talk like that, maybe you do need to be punished,” Remus hushed before pulling away. Maybe Sirius was just doing all of this to alleviate Remus’ guilt. This was all a game to act like he wasn’t ever scared or in pain or anything other than charming and whitty.
Remus was so preoccupied with their back and forth that he didn’t even notice Sirius wasn’t wearing anything underneath the pants. His pale ass was on display, and Remus couldn’t tear his eyes away. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen his friend undressed. After all, they lived together, but this was different. Seeing the beginning of red welts marring his slender figure sent blood to all of the wrong places. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he was immediately handed the cane that he had nearly forgotten about.
“Start from one,” ordered Bearheart.
Remus brought back his arm before landing a quick blow. Sirius jumped slightly.
“One.”
As Remus prepared for the next, he aimed to not repeat a strike on any already irritated skin.
“Hurry up,” urged Sirius.
Remus brought down the next three in quick succession, and Sirius jumped.
“Four.”
When they reached ten, Remus turned to the professor to return the cane. Bearheart just grinned, staring down at Remus’ pants. “Mr. Black, step away from the desk.” Hesitantly, Sirius got up, exposed. He was half-hard. “That’s what I thought. The two of you are just having too much fun. Have you learned your lesson at all?”
Sirius shook his head. “This is just like your class. I haven’t learned anything, and I’m not going to.”
The professor removed his own belt. Remus’ heart pounded in his chest. Was it concern, exhilaration, or some mix of the two? He folded his belt in on itself. “Mr. Lupin, I want you to get a good look at Mr. Black’s face. Back over the desk,” he ordered.
The sound of the belt was louder than the cane, and Remus watched Sirius scrunch his eyes shut. As the blows rained down, Sirius shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He was stubborn, and Remus hoped that his friend would just beg the professor to stop. That’s all he wanted. He wanted to hear Sirius give in and accept defeat. Instead, all Sirius did was give a strained smile, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. When Sirius let out a whimper, the blows didn’t stop. He was struggling to stay standing, legs shaking.
“Have you learned your lesson?” the professor asked.
There was a part of Remus that was disappointed that it was stopped. A twinge of guilt hit him at that thought.
Remus had definitely learned something.