Chapter 5
The prank is not going well, so far Remus has spent 10 hours and 36 minutes working on this with Sirius in the past 3 weeks but who's counting?
It’s not hard to find time alone with Sirius as James spends one hundred percent of this time with Regulus. Peter is harder to get away from as unlike James he can bring his girlfriend up to the dorms without being killed by a certain older brother, that's probably the only reason they haven’t spent more time on the project if Remus is honest, which he nearly always is with himself.
The crush on Sirius hasn’t quieted down in the slightest, each time Sirius sits down on his bed or leans closer to him to find a better route on the map. The whole thing didn’t really need that much planning but Sirius didn’t ever really seem to mind spending time with Remus on this.
“Ok, so if we leave the dorm tonight at one we will be able to get the potion and get out and back to bed before James does his five am run”
Sirius was sitting on his bed staring at him, his grey eyes were piercing into the side of Remus’ head and Remus was trying his best not to turn his head and stare right back. The map was on his lap with about ten books open in front of him and Sirius to his right.
“That should work”, Remus said, eyes trained on the map. He would not look at Sirius. “If we don’t get caught”.
Sirius threw himself in front of Remus and what was he meant to do, look away, no if Sirius was right there then he was going to enjoy the view.
“Oh Moony, I would never let you get caught; my love” Sirius threw his arm over his eyes dramatically and it was a good thing because Remus could feel his face burning. Why did Sirius have to say these things?
“Right”, Remus coughed to clear the air blocked in his throat or was it all the blood that was suddenly rushing to his head. “Yeah, we’ll do it tonight when Bambi goes to sleep”
“I don’t think Bambi’s gonna stick”
“I agree”
“What was the name you liked again?”
Sirius took his arm off his eye and turned to Remus with his signature Sirius Black grin. “Padfoot”
“That’s a pretty shit name”
Sirius once again threw his arm over his eyes, this time in mock offence. Even while being an idiot Sirius looked like a fucking god. He really was the brightest star, he shone like no one else. That was about the only innocent thought on Remus’ mind at that moment. The idea of shoving Sirius against a wall and making him squeal was one of the louder thoughts.
“Hey Moons”, Sirius said, pulling Remus from his thoughts with the lovely reminder that he was not on his bed with Sirius the way his mind was clearly telling him he could be.
“Hey Pads”
Sirius looked up at Remus and if any of the blush on his face had left it was quickly rushing back.
“I told you it was a good name”, he said with that signature grin.
“It’s not”
“It is”
“It isn’t”
“It- you know what? It doesn’t matter”. Sirius rolled his eyes and turned away from Remus and towards James' bed. “Did you ever find out who the tie belonged to?”
Remus was suddenly starting to feel warm and why, oh why did James have to involve him in his annoying fucking love life with annoying fucking Regulus Black. Well that's not true, James’ love life was really fucking annoying but Regulus was not. He was actually quite nice once you got to know him. Sirius had been the same in first year, it was like you needed to shed a layer to get to the truth beneath and after that there was the real them that they kept hidden for the people that they trusted. It was really quite sad if you looked at the reasons why but Remus presumed it was down to the years of abuse that they had to face before Hogwarts and when they went home for the holidays.
“Nope, did you?” Remus said, trying to sound genuine.
“No, it was really weird though” Sirius turned to look at Remus locking eye contact so Remus could drown in the ocean that was Sirius’ eyes.
“How so?”
“It was a Slytherin tie”
“So?”
Sirius shot him a flat look before stating quite clearly. “We don’t even talk to the Slytherins that much, they’re never at the parties or other stuff”
“Maybe James knows some people you don’t”
“I don’t think so,” Sirius said, brushing off Remus’ words as if he knew for a fact that they were untrue. He was probably right. “But, the only Slytherins I can think of off the top of my head are Snape, Mulciber, Dorcas, her friends Evan and Barty,” Sirius said, counting them on his fingers.
Remus was staring to fucking sweat. He DID NOT want to be the one to have to be the one that had to convince Sirius not to kill his best friend and chosen brother for fucking his other, biological brother. He could already hear Sirius calling it incest.
“Well I guess there's Reggie” Sirius continued, eyebrows furrowed and a look of confusion on his face before letting out a puff of air as a look of relief washed over his face. “That would be practically incest though”.
And there it was. Sirius was never gonna get over this when he found out. And he was an alibi, one that helped keep the secret. Sirius was going to hate him. What is he meant to do now?
“Might be nice to have him as a brother in law”
Remus could work with that. “That would be so cool, then he would be legally your brother, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah, he would” Sirius had a happy little smile on his face, one Remus didn’t feel he should be seeing. It felt private, one of those little things that no one will remember but make all the difference when needed. The smile didn’t take long to leave Sirius’ face but the happy look stayed in his eyes and he couldn’t breath. If this was what drowning felt like he was sorry that he had ever learned to swim, he would drown in Sirius’ eyes forever.
“James wouldn't do that though”. And suddenly he could breathe again. Oh to be oblivious. Remus missed it sometimes, not knowing that James was a stupid piece of shit that was no doubt shagging Sirius’ brother as they spoke.
“Sometimes I think it should be James that is the dog he's so loyal”
“Oh piss off, I’m loyal!”
“Never said you weren’t”
Sirius pulled himself up from the bed and he could feel himself stiffen at how close Sirius was getting. He reached his hand down into Remus’ lap and Remus stopped breathing again. Sirius slowly picked up the map as Remus’ eyes followed his arm the entire time, breath caught in his throat, trying and failing to turn his eyes away from Sirius’ arm as he slowly brought the map to his chest.
“Mischief managed” Sirius muttered, tapping the map with his wand. “I think we’ve done enough planning to last us a lifetime”
Remus gave him a nod, still not able to breath. Sirius was right there, right there. But he had always been hadn’t he? Why was it only now that he had noticed the way that Sirius held himself, the way his jaw was set perfectly below his soft, pink lips.
“I’m going to take a shower” Sirius was talking again and Remus had been staring. Shit, had Sirius seen him staring at his lips.
It was only when Sirius walked into the bathroom that Remus was able breathe again, if he had another three years of this he was going to explode.