Peter Giggled

Severus Snape pinched the bridge of his nose between sallow fingers, glaring at the parchment before him. To the casual observer, it would have appeared he was working very hard on a relatively simple Arithmancy problem. The casual observer, however, was an idiot. Snape was indeed working very hard, but the subject of his musings was far removed from Arithmancy.

YOU WANT TO SEE A GODDAMNED FURRY LITTLE PROBLEM SO FUCKING BAD, WHY DON'T YOU GO AND FUCK THE WHOMPING WILLOW.

Black's angry voice ricocheted behind his eyelids; words wended their way through his ears. There was something more to that statement, Snape thought, there had to be. He pondered, sifting through the images, brooding, and suddenly, he remembered: Lupin lying prostrate on a hospital bed, pale, weak . . . covered in long, lateral scratches.

And everything fell together like tumblers meeting key.

Furry little problem. Lupin's constant absences, odd scars, periodically regular illnesses, illnesses that fell every twenty-eight days, every full cycle of the moon. The moon. Lupin was a werewolf.

Snape exhaled slowly. But Dumbledore would never put his student's lives at risk in such a careless manner by allowing dangerous halfbreeds to roam the campus without regulation.

Yet everything pointed irrevocably to the same conclusion. Snape wrinkled his brow.

In the depths of his machinating mind, something stirred, something evil, diabolical, something horrifyingly despicable and loathsome and cruel. A slow, greasy smile crossed his face. Lupin. And where a Lupin, there was a Black.

This would be the perfect opportunity to revenge himself on Black. His little faggoty crush expelled for being a danger to humanity. Their gay little friendship torn asunder like so many rags. And he, Severus Snape, would be championed as a hero to the school for exposing such a horrible, irresponsible danger to the students; parents would hail him as the honorable whistle-blower upon the silly school administration.

Snape grinned broadly. He could practically see the Order of Merlin, Second – no, First Class writing itself in his mind. Now all he had to do was find some proof. . . .

But. Something nagged. What did the Whomping Willow have to do with it?

Whomping Willow . . . clearly it had something to do with Lupin's despicable affliction. A cure? No; such a discovery would be harked in the papers. Perhaps a hiding place, maybe, or a containment chamber? Surely they wouldn't keep a werewolf in the hospital wing. Perhaps. He would see.

Oh, to blackmail Black!

At his desk, Professor Vector pushed his glasses further up his nose and stared curiously at the black haired boy at the back of the room. Severus Snape had always been such a bright boy, one of the most intelligent in his year, just behind James Potter and Sirius Black. But for all his intelligence, he mused, he'd never seen him smile. Looking a little closer, seeing the slightly maniacal glint behind those hooded eyes, he decided he didn't like it at all.

One hour until the full moon. One hour before unimaginable agony – Remus thought it was funny, the way he experienced this every month, yet still couldn't understand exactly what happened as he transformed – one hour until another mad adventure into the forest. One hour.

He didn't like to bring books with him – what if he accidentally stepped on one? or God forbid, bit one? – and his wand was always taken away from him (just in case), and so in the one hour between the door shutting and locking behind Madame Pomfrey's bustling skirts and the searing anguish the moon brought, he usually thought about things, or spells, or magic, or occurrences that happened to sixth year Gryffindor boys like himself.

He thought about how yesterday Sirius turned James' eyebrows into caterpillars that fell into a puddle of soup and drowned. How Peter squealed and overturned his chair as Lily levitated the drowned caterpillars out of James' ruined soup – "My soup!" James cried, "Cursed eyebrow-caterpillars!" – and stuck them back on his face without transfiguring them so that they hung limp and bedraggled and crooked, trickling bits of carrots and meat into James' eyes. How Sirius roared with laughter, and got Margaret Creevey to take pictures.

He started to think about how, twenty-seven days ago, Sirius had kissed him, but he quickly stopped and instead thought about Lily punching James in the face after he asked to have her pirate costume – "It's for me! To dress up with! I mean – to dress you up with! I mean –" and James found himself on the ground, jaw smarting and Sirius grinning lewdly and waggling his eyebrows, "Unfortunate choice of words, mate. Although I wouldn't mind seeing you in a woman-pirate dress."

Peter had giggled, and Remus had snorted and James had smacked Sirius in the head, and they had gone off to Transfiguration, where Peter managed to explode his frog, spattering amphibian guts all over an extremely disgruntled Kingsley Shacklebolt, who threatened to smash Peter's face in with a large tree, each word slow and enunciated and threatening. Fortunately for Peter, Kingsley believed in first warnings, and both Peter and a large tree were saved from traumatic experiences (at least, the tree was. Peter kept trembling sporadically and twitching for the next few days).

He remembered how James had found his self-help books and had stared at them in incredulous disbelief.

"Two Penises are Better than One?" James sputtered, "Good God, what the bollocking hell do they use for their teeth?"

"Er," Remus attempted, "toothpaste. And," a magnificent blush spread across his cheekbones, "maybe toothbrushes."

"What," James asked, waving his arms about agitatedly, "is this bollocks?"

"Could you not," Remus whispered, "not do that." The book was brightly colored and the wizards' teeth really were blinding, and each time James' arm flung itself upwards, he thought that someone was going to see.

"Just bollocking what," James restrained his arms with slight difficulty, "are these?"

"Er. Books."

"Moony, they have mentions of penis in them. They have blindingly white teeth. These are not books. These are eye-killing devil spawn."

For an instant, Remus was reminded of Sirius and thought that Sirius' penchant for giving slightly gory titles of evil had really been rubbing off on James, poor soul.

"Er," Remus said, "yes, eye-killing devil spawn."

"And why would you need eye-killing devil spawn?"

"For killing eyes."

"Wrong answer, try again, mate."

"Er."

"Remus, are you a – a – ho-mo-sex-u-al?" James carefully enunciated the syllables, as if he were a little afraid of their meaning.

"No!"

"Okay. Then why do you have these?"

"Because – because," because Sirius kissed me and I think I might have liked it, Remus wanted to say. "Because." And the words refused to form upon his stonily inanimate lips and tongue and vocal cords, but perhaps it was really the fault of his lungs, which refused to either contract or expand, or perhaps his heart, which did not seem to be properly functioning as the lack of parts of his brain might suggest or . . . .

There was a silence that stretched interminably and awkwardly.

"Remus, is this about Sirius?" James suddenly blurted, looking slightly frightened, eyes worried and round. Remus could only imagine what was going through his head.

"Er."

"It is, isn't it," and James had bolted from the dormitory, leaving behind fluttering pages and the air of apprehensiveness.

Remus sighed, rubbing his shoulder blades against the less-splintered part of the wall. Nothing much had come out of James' realization except a new sort of watchfulness, a slight narrowing of eyes whenever Sirius went off on one of his exhibitionist displays or tangents, a small, pondering frown when Sirius wasn't paying attention. Sirius had noticed, Remus thought, feeling a piece of wood poking his back, he had noticed but hadn't known why James was being . . . protective.

But James had always been like that. Irresponsible but somehow maternal; James made sure they were all okay in the end, kept the group together.

There was a sudden surge of anger – James was a nosy prick, what was he doing going through his stuff anyway. And it dissipated, just as suddenly as it had appeared, fleeting but scarring.

He shuddered as he felt the minutes dwindling under the fiercely glaring face of the moon, as he felt his spine stiffen and snap and arch and break. As he became something less human, something less than himself, angry, angry and snarling, wanting to fill the gaping hole inside with blood.

The wolf screamed in fury and flung itself at the door, again, again, until it splintered under its great, heaving body, thrusting treacherous wooden spikes through its thickly furred coat. Screamed in pain, and flung itself down the hall, where something moved, warm and filled with scents of fear and meat.

There was a jumbled mass of noises the wolf did not understand, something in it shouted in protest and it hesitated, wary. Sprang forward, jaws clicking on empty air. Howled in disappointment and loss, clawing at the sudden barrier.

Something missing, not here, not here, and the wolf bit and shrieked and clawed and did not understand.

Remus only understood when he woke up in the hospital wing, bandaged and exhausted.

"You fucking idiot! You fucking idiot! What the fuck were you fucking thinking!" James was shouting in a hoarse whisper. Remus wondered what he was talking about. Did the plan not go right? Then he remembered – there was no adventure last night, only lonely torment that brought waves of pain.

Sirius sat on the hospital bed opposite, surly and unhappy. Peter sat timidly beside him, looking at his hands.

"Fuck if you're not the fucking stupidest shit to have ever fucking lived!"

Remus groaned, and they all froze.

"Remus!" James cried.

"What," Remus said in a low voice, "happened?"

"Fuck up, James." Sirius snarled, and smashed the door behind him. His rapid, echoing footsteps sounded empty, hollow.

"Fuck." James' eyes flicked towards the door, towards Remus. "Fuck. Moony – fuck. Sirius. Shit."

"James, go." Peter's voice was surprisingly softly firm. "Sirius."

James tore out of the hospital wing.

Remus looked at Peter. "So, what's all this?"

Sirius' arms were covered in blood. For a horrifying split second of eternity it seemed as if Sirius was going to die, a suicide of broken trust, but then James realized the blood was dripping from Sirius' knuckles, dripping from the shattered mirror that spilled its razor-edged pieces into the sink and on the pristine white tiles.

"Fuck," Sirius was yelling, "Fuck!" His fingers tore at the stall door, staining it with blood, tearing off fingernails framed with crimson oozing until James screamed "stop!"

Sirius whirled about and launched his fist towards James' face. Slippery wrists were caught in shaking hands, and they tumbled to the floor, Sirius gasping and choking with tears.

He flopped over onto his back, long hair sticky with snot and salty water. James bent over Sirius' body like a monk at prayer and clutched his best friend's shoulders with self-control that threatened to splinter into suffocating desperation.

"Shit, shit," Sirius whimpered, almost convulsively in time with his coughing sobs of furor and loathing.

"Shut up," James whispered, "shut up, Sirius, shut up, God." He buried his face in Sirius' red-smeared shirt.

The bell rang, meaningless, blankly repeated against sterile white walls, over, and over, and over again.

"Well," Peter was far calmer than Remus had ever thought possible, at least for Peter, "Snape found out how to get to the Shrieking Shack and he saw you."

Remus felt something crumble and turn to nothing in his hands. "He what." Fell from numb lips like leaden bullets against the snow.

"Sirius told him how to get past the Whomping Willow."

Below the disintegration Remus marveled at Peter's cool tone and wondered why Peter had never been like this before.

"You came after Snape, and James went and dragged him out just before you attacked him."

Dust blowing in the wind; Remus could no longer understand.

"James made him shut up for a bit, but I think Dumbledore's going to talk to him."

The bell rang, and its shrillness seemed to shatter Remus to pieces.

"Well," Peter said, "someone has to go to class. And I don't think James or Sirius are. Going, I mean." Peter offered Remus a sort of half-smile, strangely heartening set in his round face. "Cheer up, mate; Dumbledore'll sort it out."

Remus wondered below the surface exactly when Peter had found this strength and reassurance.

Sirius stared at the shards of the broken mirror that littered the floor. He could see bits and pieces of himself: an eye here, lips there. Could see himself as shards laced with red. Wondered if he put the mirror back together, would he be able to piece Remus back together, too?

James had left some time ago, eyes worried and mouth frowning, muttering a spell to make sure no one found Sirius like this. James had left, because if James and Sirius and Remus were missing, people would start to suspect. James had left because he wasn't sure what to do with Sirius anymore.

Sirius didn't really mind. The anger had given way to a quiet sort of emptiness, as if he had run out of feelings after he smashed to tinkling splinters the porcelain of the toilet.

James thought it was ridiculous, the way that Sirius was given to sulking and angry silences full of kinetic anger. He jabbed at his frog irritably.

Peter looked at him, with round eyes. "Is Sirius okay?"

James glanced at Peter. "He's such a berk, sometimes," James said suddenly. "God. I hate him so much right now but he's my best mate, you know, and -" James' hands fluttered helplessly.

Peter nodded his head in a way that fell just short of 'sage-like', and chopped his caterpillar thoughtfully.

"Well, you know, Sirius is just one of those mercurial personalities. You have to take the good with the bad, rather, else you don't get any of him at all," Peter said after a long pause.

James stared at him for a moment. "I'm not really in the mood for homegrown psychology right now, Pete."

Peter looked a little pleased, a little ashamed. "Homegrown, eh? Eh?" He seemed to find it extraordinarily funny, for reasons completely unbeknownst to James.

James looked blank. Peter coughed.

"So, anyway. Sirius."

"Er. Yes. Er. So . . . " James flailed for a conversational topic that would drag Peter away from the sporadic bursts of humour he seemed prone to recently. "Have you seen Moony recently?"

Peter immediately sobered. "No. Well, sort of. Does a foot count?"

"What?" James nearly dropped something rather pointy onto something that oughtn't have pointy things dropped on it.

"Not like that! He's not gone and gotten any bits chopped off of him, if that's what you mean. I just saw his foot sticking out his bed curtain this morning. He's back in the dormitory."

"Oh. Oh. Okay, then," James looked immediately relieved.

"So," Peter hazarded, "is Sirius still in the loo?"

"That idiot. Fucking in love with the fucking toilet, is what. 's been there since fucking yesterday, the stubborn arse." James stabbed his cauldron viciously.

(Sirius had actually emerged, once, in the middle of the night. It was to frighten off a rather unfortunate first year, who had, upon encountering this strange and smelly creature wrapped about a toilet, immediately wet his pants.)

Peter looked faintly worried. "Maybe he's gotten a complex or something. You know, like dependency."

"Dependency? To a toilet?"

"Well, maybe not dependency. Maybe he's using it as a sort of security blanket, like."

James was still skeptical. "But he's got that wotsit up in the dormitory. Teddy-bear thing. If you can call it that. It reeks like dung, though."

Peter mused for a moment, before replying, "But Moony's in the dormitory, right? And the loos smell like . . . well, loos, which smell like that wretched bear-thing. It's like transferred dependency, I think it's called."

James gaped. "Where do you get this stuff?"

Peter shuffled his feet vaguely under the table. "Oh. Er. Library." Really, Peter had been visiting the exact same shelf Remus was introduced to not so long ago.

James goggled. Peter had spent too many years following James around not to know what it meant.

"There weren't any pictures in," he added hurriedly.

James looked disappointed. He didn't see the point in books without good illustrations, even if they did involve loo-scented teddy-bears.

Remus curled himself into a ball against the window. Somewhere above him the moon waned, high and isolated, clear white, beautiful. Dangerous. He could make some comparisons here, but he restrained himself, leaning his cheek against the cool glass of the window, breathing patterned fog. His mind scattered thoughts like pebbles in a rock tumbler, smoothing off the sharp corners, euphemisms that still sliced veracity.

The sky gleamed red outside his paneled view of the world.

Sirius betra-told Snape. Snape knows. The school will know. I'll have to be kil-kicked out. I'm a danger to soc-the students.

There was power, he mused, in words. He continued to run his thoughts over one another, evaluating, drawing conclusions. Surely he'd have to talk to Dumbledore, to sort out the situation. What would he say?

I really didn't mean for them to know, it's just-

They weren't supposed to figure-

I never expected that Sir- . . .

He couldn't . . . he'd . . . And if Sirius tried to talk to him . . .

You utter bast-

I never want to tal-

Why did y-?

He chewed his lower lip determinedly. Closed his eyes. Opened them again. The moon. He could feel it, a tremendous yet exact force that dragged at his bones at precise degrees and lines that threatened to overwhelm even the trees and the grass. If he closed his eyes at just the right angle, the light would radiate off it in four points, like the cross his mother wore around her neck. What would his mother say? The bloody sky blurred at the edges as he shut his eyes, refusing to allow himself to cry, to break down.

Dusk had just barely begun to touch the trees of the Forbidden Forest when Professor McGonagall strode imperiously into the Hospital Wing.

Remus' face was a mixture between horror and relief; the two clashed oddly and left him with his mouth half-open and one eyebrow squirming to the safety of his right sideburn.

"Now, Remus, dear, there's no reason to make funny faces. We all know you're upset, but do try to calm down," Madame Pomfrey admonished gently.

Remus' squirming eyebrow froze somewhere between his eyeball and his hairline and his mouth snapped shut.

"There, that's better, dearie."

"Madame Pomfrey, if you would . . . ?" McGonagall said, eyeing Remus with something akin to pity in her eyes.

McGonagall shifted uneasily as Madame Pomfrey shut the door behind her with a quiet snick. She looked displaced, nervous, even. Her dark robes contrasted severely against the white of the hospital bed, swishing as she sat.

"Now, Mr. Lupin," she drew an aged looking tin of biscuits from the air, "Biscuits? Perhaps some tea?"

Remus shook his head and said quietly, "No, thank you."

McGonagall cleared her throat, offering Remus a smile through thin lips that, through years of practice, was unable to look anything but stern. "I suppose, considering recent events, you'd like to know exactly what is going on."

Remus bit his lower lip again, raising his eyes to McGonagall's austere shins. He barely opened his mouth as he recited Peter's words, "Snape found out how to get to the Shrieking Shack and he saw me. Sirius told him how to get past the Whomping Willow. I came after Snape, and James went and dragged him out just before I attacked him." The words seemed foreign, coming from his mouth.

McGonagall pursed her lips, "A very accurate summary, Mr. Lupin. However, I suppose you wish to know what will happen to all those involved?"

Remus mumbled something which might have been, "I already know," but might also have been, "yellow snow."

"Pardon?"

Remus nodded instead.

McGonagall shook the awkward tension from her shoulders, more at ease in punishment than reassurance, "Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, Mr. Snape, and yourself have been arranged to meet with the Headmaster in his office after dinner. Both Professor Slughorn and I, as the heads of houses of the parties involved, will be present. It will be up to the Headmaster to decide upon appropriate punishments."

Remus winced inwardly, drawing his chin further into his chest.

The discomfited tension resettled itself around McGonagall's jaw line. "I understand that this is a very harrowing time for you, Mr. Lupin –Remus. Is there anything you'd like to discuss with me?" The words came out strange, as if gentility was a foreign concept to the professor.

Remus shook his head again.

"Very well. Until eight o'clock, then."

McGonagall swept out of the ward, and all around Remus sanguine light fell.

"I brought you a shirt and some trousers," James said awkwardly. His free hand fluttered nervously between his ear and the clothes held against his side and ended up jammed into his pocket.

Sirius looked up at the ceiling, stonily silent, blood-stained arms tight against his knees.

"Your hands," James attempted, "are they all right, then?"

Sirius continued to look at the ceiling. James began to feel frustrated – Sirius never talked when he was upset, never fucking ever said anything. It made him feel useless, made him feel helpless.

"You know what," he said, "fuck this." He dropped to his knees and roughly grabbed Sirius' hands. "Scourgify."

There was an answering hiss and Sirius' hands jerked convulsively between James'.

"Accio, bandages."

"Shit," Sirius whispered between clenched teeth, "give me those." He wrenched the white rolls from adolescent hands and yanked them about his own.

Remus lay back, studying again the curves and shadows that shifted through his bed hangings. His Transfiguration text weighed heavy on his chest, grounding him, stopping him from springing up and doing something foolish (like moving). All that was left to do was think, and that he did, carefully arranging the paper dolls of his friends (makeshift family) in his head.

James, his protective streak, like a mother hen, but a little more unbalanced, slightly crazed, maintaining the safety of the group by fists and a mouth like a sailor's. He was mad, naturally, but a predictable sort of madness, the kind you could rely upon to tackle you in the middle of homework and drag you on a broom ride over the Lake to taunt the Giant Squid. Chalk it up to father figure, then, and Remus was suddenly reminded of a Muggle television show he had once watched ("You can date once you're married!" and Remus smiled).

And if James was the father, would that leave Peter as the mother? (his mental James voice screaming, "Noooo! Evaaaanss!") The live-in uncle, then, a constant presence, not particularly remarkable, but occasionally surprising, comforting, and most importantly there.

Which left Sirius, because Remus had never been sure of his own position within the group, the way he slipped quickly from the coddled child to the ("fucking Prefect," groaned discouragingly when he tried to convince them that lighting the Common Room on fire was breaking more school rules than he could count) disciplinarian, but just barely (because they never listened, had they, and he'd never really tried to make them).

But Sirius . . . he noticed his breath had quickened, the textbook rising and falling faster, faster on his ribcage, because his fear had transmuted itself into something small and cruel and vile and angry, but he suppressed that, feeling his face grow hot with the effort, and glanced at the clock on his bedside.

It was time to go.

The air of Dumbledore's office was cool against Remus' burning cheeks. He felt cramped, despite the spaciousness of the room, jammed between a bookcase and a wall, trying to disappear into their shadows. Beside him, James cast about anxious glances. He was fidgety, unnerved, ill at ease.

Peter, too, was nervous, but his nervousness seemed to translate into the damp patches on his shirt; wet, and translucent. If Remus had grabbed Peter's hand, it would have been clammy, and cold.

The two professors loomed ominously, while Dumbledore serenely nodded behind his chair. Remus vaguely wondered what music he was bobbing to, if any.

Remus shoved himself further into his little corner as Sirius stomped into the room, the angry jangling of boots signaling his arrival. There was no anxiety, only anger that clung to the folds of his clothes like cobwebs and jerked at muscles and bone – sharp angles and hard geometry ill-concealed by the softness of robes and school uniforms.

Remus watched him surreptitiously, fascinated. His fingers trembled against his folded arms.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "And that leaves, if I am not mistaken, Mr. Snape . . . ."

The door slammed open, and a sudden wash of icy cold bleached the blood of Remus' body. Right, he thought determinedly, Not looking. Not looking not looking.

"Biscuits, anyone?"

No one wanted any.

Dumbledore sighed, and steepled his fingers. "I am sure we all know why we have gathered here today, but so that we may all begin on the same page, I would like to ask some of you to recount last night's occurrences. Mr. Lupin . . . ?"

Remus mumbled something about not really remembering much, looking determinedly at his feet. Snape hissed under his breath, abominable filth, and Remus blushed, thinking, Don't look.

"Mr. Snape, I will not tolerate slurs of any sort in my office."

Snape glowered, and Dumbledore turned to Peter.

"I – oh, er. Um. Well." Excellent start, Pete old boy, Peter thought to himself. "Er. Remus turned into a werewolf and Snape went and poked at him and James went and got Snape. Er."

"Admirably eloquent statement," Snape muttered. McGonagall made an ill-suppressed tsk of annoyance, and Peter turned blotchily pink. Slughorn coughed uneasily.

Dumbledore ignored them. "Mr. Potter?"

"'gree with Peter."

And Dumbledore looked at him, and kept looking until "so I saw Sni – Snape walking down to the Whomping Willow and so I, er, followed him, and pulled him out when he went in." Which was, of course, a lie, but Snape didn't know that.

They had been there all along – James, Peter, and Sirius. They had hidden in a closet when they heard someone approaching, and had only realized too late that it wasn't a professor walking up the stairs.

"Shit," Sirius had said, "It's Snape."

James had gone icy cold with a strange mixture of fear and fury. "I am going to fucking kill you," and had pelted off to drag that fucking fucking idiot back from the door, where already an angry wolf screamed with the moon.

"– which leaves Mr. Black and Mr. Snape. Mr. Black first, if you please."

Sirius tossed his head angrily. "Snivels was –"

"Mister Black," McGonagall interjected irately.

"No, no, Minerva." Dumbledore waved his hand. "Continue."

"He was provoking me. And I insulted him. And I said more than I ought."

"– his statement was no doubt a calculated –" Snape started.

"Is that all?" cut like knives.

"Yes. That's all."

"Now. Mr. Snape; doubtless you have something to say."

"Sirius Black fully intended to lead me on into a trap in which he knew," Snape spat, "that filthy werewolf would attack me, bringing into question your dubious ability to lead this school safely. I must demand the immediate expulsion of –"

"I would think, Mr. Snape," McGonagall snapped, "that Professor Dumbledore would understand the administrative post of Hogwarts better than a student. Disrespect will not be tolerated."

Behind her, Slughorn hemmed and hawed.

"Minerva, I appreciate your, ah, defence, however, I should like to give Severus an equal opportunity to fully state his opinions, however impertinent in nature towards me they may be. Continue, if you wish."

Snape looked disconcerted and opened his mouth with nothing to say.

"Excellent! It seems Mr. Snape has finished. Now, then," tipping an enormous wink to Remus, "so that we may all return to our beds in good time – fifty points to Gryffindor for admirable consciousness and quick-thinking, and twenty points from both Slytherin and Gryffindor for inter-house quarreling. I should like to speak to Mr. Black and Mr. Snape in private; the rest of you may leave. Minerva, Horace."

Remus' insides squirmed with relief and concern – and just as the door was shutting, he looked back.

Sirius was restless like anything. His bed was lumpy, and the sheets itched, and everything was too hot and bothersome and buggering lumpy.

He really did try. He tried counting to one thousand but found that he could make that sign the Spock-man-thing was always making on that Muggle television show, Star Voyages or something, with his toes. He tried breathing very regularly but then found that counting and breathing and making signs with his toes along with holding conversations with himself in his head was quite possible to do, especially all at once.

Buggre alle this for a lark, he thought, and stole James' pants.

He wandered out into the corridors, clomping vaguely with boots that had half their clamps missing and anyway it wouldn't have mattered if they were there, since he never really laced them anyway.

And so, with his circularly questing mind, untied boots, and James' pants, he wandered about the castle, poking his tongue into places that hadn't seen the light of day for rather a while, and getting his fingers caught on groin plates (Oy, the suit of armor had said irritably, Get yer fingers out 'o there 'for Oi beat 'choo to a pulp, and clanked menacingly, formidably rusty axe in hand).

He traversed the hallways, the empty classrooms, the rooms of tapestries and gently snoring portraits. Yet below his ingenuous curiosity, malcontent began to simmer.

He began to feel unhappy.

He paced, restively, resentfully, kicking at the ground. He wanted to apologise, apologise properly, say sorry and beg forgiveness and look into Moony's face and see it was all right again, see that he could go about laughing his fucking head off, and slurp in people's ears, and not feel guilty anymore.

Instead, he said, "Hey, where'd that come from?" and looked curiously at the door that had mysteriously appeared in the face of a blank stone wall.

"Well," he said, and pushed the door open with scabbed hands.

It was warmly lit, and seemed to contain a great deal of books and pillows and the like. A fireplace crackled cheerfully, and the gentle odor of tea and biscuits permeated the air.

And perched on a particularly squashy-looking pillow with a neatly arranged tray beside him was one (1) Remus Lupin.

They looked at each other, both a little too shocked to do anything.

"Er," Sirius said.

"Um," Remus added.

"Hello," rather strangledly.

"Tea?" Remus said automatically, harking back to his country upbringing where you offered everyone tea even if there was really only enough for one.

"Yes, thank you," and Sirius sat with the reflexes of an aristocrat, which he was, even if he was rather bad at it.

"Urgh." Remus fell off his pillow reaching for the tea set he hadn't noticed was behind him. Being a country gentleman didn't mean you couldn't be a bumbling oaf as well.

Sirius watched with a magnificent blush spreading across his cheekbones as Remus poured hot steaming tea, added milk, cream, and sugar – that was a lot of sugar, Sirius reflected, but then again, he liked his tea very, very sweet, and anyway Remus always made his tea just right – and handed the teacup and its saucer to him.

Their hands brushed, and Sirius flinched. The tea spilled.

"I'm," he burst, "I'm sorry, and I – fuck – I'm such a goddamned idiot and I'm so fucking sorry and there's nothing I can do but say sorry, and fuck –" mortified wetness ran down his cheeks; he was such a fucking girl "– fuck, I, I'm sorry," and everything became a jumbled babble of sobs and snot and words.

Remus put his arms around Sirius and his chin bumped into Sirius' head and his spine was all twisted and the crotch of his pants rode up around his legs in the most uncomfortable sort of way, but Sirius clung to him and cried and cried and cried and it didn't matter that his vertebrae were going to splurt out of his back, and he didn't care if he became sterile for life, because Sirius needed him and he was there and he was needed.

And it was an eternity and a forever they sat there, muffled sobs and bodies that were angles and planes and lines against the spherical geometry of the world.

Sirius' tears gradually passed away into hiccups and hiccups slowly passed into a shuddering silence that was simultaneously amiable and awkward, because, well, they were boys, and boys didn't do this sort of thing; they didn't go around crying and comforting each other, especially not when, when, well, you know.

But it didn't matter – didn't matter at all, even with Remus' spine bent into punctuation and Sirius' knuckles split white beneath the oozing red, and snot mixed with tears mixed with laughter, because Sirius is beautiful when he sleeps.