Remus yawned and rubbed the morning out of his eyes. Soft dawn light snuck its way through the thick curtains and made a dim blue haze against the wall. Sirius was curled up next to him peacefully dozing, probably dreaming about Bowie or motorcycles or food. Remus gently slid himself out from under the covers and pulled up his pajama pants over his cold legs. He grabbed his recent light read, a thousand page tome on the ins and outs of antimatter magic and on his way out, made sure to tuck in Sirius and place a gentle kiss on his forehead. He took slow easy steps down the cool stone steps and the Gryffindor common room welcomed him with a drowsy warmth.
Remus liked waking up early like this. The common room by dawn was really something special. Tender light glowed through the fog-filmed windows while the hearth threw off a gentle heat. The soft velvet sofa welcomed Remus like an old friend and he tucked his legs into its warm plush cushions. Remus could smell rain through a cracked window. Dampened castle wood and trodden grass from the Quidditch field. The Kitchens beginning to stoke their furnaces for risen sweets and oiling their griddles for breakfast savories. Ancient crumbling stonework. And magic, always magic. Remus could sense it all around him. He heard its shimmer in the air like the vibration of a well-made tuning fork. He felt it in his joints like the foremost rumblings of a well-loved tea kettle coming to boil. The peace would be gone in an hour or two. But, for now, Remus’s mind was at ease.
As he lay in the quiet, Remus remembered the first time he’d found his way into the common room at dawn, all the way back in fifth year when his world had looked a whole lot different:
Remus had always been a stresser. But fifth year was turning out to be something else. Between prefect duties and studying for OWLs, protecting Sirius from his messed up family and keeping up on Marauder's mischief, Remus had been stretched much too thin. Now, just one measly night stood between Remus and his OWL exams. And he was mad as a god damn hatter! Remus knew himself well enough to know that sleep wasn’t really an option tonight. So he convinced James to let him borrow the cloak to sneak in a few extra hours of senseless cramming at the library. It must’ve been nearing four in the morning when the caffeine charm finally wore off and his brain started threatening civil war that Remus began gathering his things. As he drifted through the long hallways under the guise of James’s cloak, the phrasing of complex charms and the details of elaborate potions made flurries through his head. More than anything, Remus hoped that all of the nonsense runes he had crammed at the last minute would decide to stick around long enough to make an appearance on his paper tomorrow. A swell of nervous energy began to build itself up in his chest. Worry and doubt were not uncommon companions for Remus. In fact, his other feelings often played second fiddle when his brain had to choose who to entertain. But Remus had always been this way, a worrywort his father called him. Even when he was little, it wasn't unusual for his parents to find him fretting about one thing or another. One winter when he was eight, he got so worried that the summer fairies would get too cold that he built them a small warming hut of mosses and wood. But that was the thing, Remus never let his worry get in the way of solving a problem. So when it came to learning and preparing and memorizing for his OWLs, Remus took it upon himself to accept his mountainous undertakings with expeditious conviction. He had put in the work and that meant something.
It took Remus a fair bit of whisper-yelling to stir the Fat Lady from her slumber. She begrudgingly heeded to the password but Remus could tell she was not pleased to be awoken. As the portrait hinged open, she mumbled out a huffy little bluster about “beauty sleep” and how he was “being a naughty prefect” before promptly returning to snores. Remus had grown quite sleepy too. The orange fire crackled in greeting and its warmth drew him close. Up until now, Remus had never fully appreciated how sneakily comfortable the big sofa was. The deepness of its cushions and the rolling heat from the hearth had an undeniable effect on his body. He allowed his mind to drift.
Remus was quite fond of the Fat Lady. He found her delightsome in the same way that one might enjoy a drunken countessa in an opera, surely boastful and proud but all with a certain gusto and character that most people simply did not have. She was what Remus liked about magic. It was not its power that drew him in, but the quirk and duality of it all. Magic had a kind of queerness about it, something wild and untameable but also whimsical and sensitive. Such a tricky thing to wrap your head around, magic. It seemed to Remus, at least, that it never quite stayed the same. It was so very different in the hands of a wizard than it was on the wings of a sprite. As it were, Remus could think of many reasons that humans should not have magic. So much of what humans used magic for was self-serving and possessive and vengeful. Many a witch and wizard had used it to cause extraordinary pain, many a human consumed by greed or rage or apathy. For a long time, Remus wondered if magic was the problem all together; that maybe magic was the illness that consumed them and not the other way around. So much could be explained away if magic was simply bad. Sirius’s family, Remus’s curse, the pain of those who are good. Very certainly, parts of it were bad! But that wasn’t the whole truth. How could it be when magic was peace too? Freedom too. It was the heart-thumping, green grass-jumping summers with his friends. It was the life he felt on his fingers when he dug his hands into the earth. It was the stirring in his chest when he kissed Sirius and the heat of their nights together too. It was the Lake and the Castle, the rain and the mud, and the heat of the Sun and the goodness of people. And if magic was all of this…good and bad, love and fear, then who's to say that we can’t be the same. Who’s to say that Remus couldn’t be the same. Maybe magic stuck around because it still has something to teach us. Maybe we would do good to listen for a change.
After that dawn fifth year, Remus had many more mornings of contemplation by the fireplace. And of course, he aced his OWLs if anyone had any doubts about that. Now here he was, two years later, in year seven, getting ready to graduate. It was funny, it didn’t matter how many times he sat by the fire, his mind always found something to think about. And now more than ever, he needed this time to process what was coming. How would things change? What would his life be like once he graduated from Hogwarts? And with the state of the wizarding world changing every day, how would he keep his friends safe, his father safe, himself safe? Every day, more and more magical creatures were pushed to the frays of their world, ostracized, outcast, for fear that they were part of the Dark Lord's forces. Would Remus even be allowed to exist within the folds of society anymore? And Sirius, his Sirius. What of him? His family, well known blood purists had allied themselves with He Who Shall Not Be Named. As if they didn’t hate him already. What would come of their schism, who would suffer as collateral? So many questions and far too many worries. But this was what the common room was for. Parsing them out. Finding the truth. Solving problems.
The echoing drum of feet padding down the stone stairwell pulled Remus abruptly out of his thoughts. He quickly shifted his legs out from under the cushions and propped himself up on the couch arm to see who was coming. With much relief, Remus was greeted by the sauntering frame and kind, drowsy eyes of his boyfriend.
Sirius. His Sirius. He moved like an ocean. Even in his early morning muzziness Sirius had a sort of essence that filled any space. An electricity that made Remus thrum with energy. They both felt it. This rhythmic hum when they were in each other’s spaces.
“Good morning love,” Sirius murmured as he rounded the corner of the sofa, gliding his fingers across Remus’s shoulders. He made a languid descent to the sofa and upon laying, stretched out between Remus’s legs. Indulgently, Sirius nuzzled his head against Remus’s thigh.
“Your hair smells like the Lake” Remus said as he leaned forward to kiss his boyfriend’s forehead. “I do like it when you shower in the Lake.”
Sirius smirked while he gazed up at the golden candelabra and the worn stone ceiling. “Wish you’d been there with me. We could’ve made pretty sounds under the stars,” he mused.
Remus chuckled at this. “James wouldn’t have let us hear the end of it if I had been there with you,” he jested back.
Sirius grinned big and turned over, resting his chin on Remus’s stomach. “Well, James has already heard an albums-worth of our pretty sounds so I guess he’d just have to deal, wouldn’t he?”
It was true. They had subjected poor James and Peter to two years of walk-ins and covered ears, but it really couldn’t be helped. James was always teasing them that they should have been bunnies instead of canines.
Sirius slowly wrapped his arms under the small of Remus’s back. “Do you remember, when we first started dating, how nervous we were to even touch each other?”
A small flush came to Remus’s cheeks, “Yeah. I just couldn’t even believe that you liked me back then.” Remus began to slowly twist his fingers through Sirius’s dark curls.
“And now I can hardly keep my hands off of you,” Sirius gambled, looking up at Remus with a sort of playful keenness. Remus felt his hands travel from the small of his back to the sides of his waist.
“Always playing the role of seductress Padfoot!” Remus jested, ruffling Sirius's hair scoldingly.
“But a fine seductress I make, do I not?! Can you blame me dear Moony?” Sirius quipped through a grin of mischief, his strong hands wandering soft trails along Remus’s middle.
“Blame you? Never!” Remus teased in return. “Though I should hope your sultry tones are for a solitary recipient, and by that, I mean me,” said Remus with a raised eyebrow. He playfully tightened his grip in the other boy’s hair.
“Fret not my love” mused Sirius and began slowly shifting himself up along Remus’s middle. “My allurements I spare for you alone,” pressing slow circle kisses on Remus’s chest.
“Good” responded Remus, loosening his grip on Sirius’s curls and leaning forward to kiss him on the head, content with his answer.
As he leaned back, he felt Sirius’s soft lips continue their trail across his collar bone. He hummed as Sirius gave gentle bites and kisses to the tender skin of his neck. He could feel a growing warmth between his legs as Sirius brought more of himself closer, strong legs shifting his torso forward. Remus opened his legs to close the distance between them. He felt Sirius’s hands working themselves across his body, one under the small of his back guiding their hips together, the other now intertwined with his own above his head. With every shift of their hips he felt a heated flush come to his cheeks, every firm heated friction drew soft moans from them both.
And the way that Sirius was looking at him, his eyes kind and beautiful and needing. Remus felt something deep and familiar stirring in his chest.
His hands were on his cheeks now, warm and wanting.
“Kiss me.”
“Okay.”
And he did. And they held one another. And they made pretty sounds in the light of fire. And their bodies were strong and earthen. And they breathed into the other the life of each. And when they were done they sat, in love, grinning like idiots for a while.
“I’m very happy, Sirius. You make me very happy.”
And Sirius looked at his beautiful boyfriend and he was happy too.
“I love you Remus.”
“I love you too Sirius.”
“I love you Remus, more than I’ve ever loved anything and I don’t know where to put it all.” Sirius had a wild and wondrous look in his eyes. “I know that you know that, but it hits me sometimes, like this, and I can’t just pretend like it doesn’t, and I don’t want to. You make me crazy Remus and for the first time in my life it’s the kind of crazy that I want. And I’m hungry for you. Hungrier than with magic. More than any kind of hunger I have ever felt. When I am with you, I want nothing more than to be with you.”
Remus pulled him to his chest.
“I know. Me too.”
And they embraced, though the world around them was falling apart. They embraced despite the pain of everything.
They would be fine as long as they held each other.