Chapter Text
When Remus first met Sirius Black in fifth grade, she never would have been able to predict the changes that would take place between them in seven short years. They were now Seniors in their last couple of months of high school, and Remus tried to enjoy the relative calm of homeroom before the other members of their self-proclaimed "Marauders" group arrived. Quietly munching on her bar of dark chocolate, she caught sight of the young man she was thinking about strutting up to her with far more pizzazz than any beautiful specimen of human kind should be able to. He waggled his eyebrows at her and she noted that his eyeliner was looking quite even and glittery today.
"Moon to my stars, are you going with anyone to the prom?" he asked far too easily, and she struggled not to blush. There were other students close enough to hear, and she felt pretty self-conscious considering the cut-throat politics of prom invitations that lots of her fellow classmates engaged in.
"Aren't you going with James?" she deflected carefully.
"Nope!" he chirped excitedly. "Lily accepted his invite!"
She frowned. "Didn't he burn the 'Will you go to prom with me?' in her lawn? Not very creative."
"No, it wasn't, but she got a real kick seeing her dad chase his ass down the street and thought it was funny enough to accept." Sirius leaned forward, placing his perfectly manicured hands on either side of her thighs. "So, wanna go with me?"
Shoving the candy into her mouth to gain a few more minutes to think on the request, Remus gave herself a strong lecture. She was a strong independent woman who definitely did not feel inferior in any way lately when she was next to this gloriously confident fiend. Her mary janes, brown pencil skirt and button up looked very nice, thank you very much.
She didn't have to compare herself to the torn jeans, fishnet shirt peeking out from a slouchy t-shirt and leather jacket or even those jelly band bracelets and Hot Topic-esque anime arm bands. She did not have to compete with his perfectly contoured makeup , wavy hair that fell perfectly to frame his face and teeth that had never needed braces to force them into submission. This boy could not be bothered with wearing retainers every night like she did. He also seemed to be rather bare of body hair considering how dark his hair was. And no, she was not jealous of his eyebrows.
"I don't think that I want to go," she finally replied, holding her book bag in front of her body to provide extra protection against his charms.
"Psh, you can refrain from your fanfiction addiction for one night," he teased and she turned red in embarrassment.
"I still haven't finished reading all the Simon and Baz engagement fics!" she huffed in self-righteousness and he barked laughing, leaning forward to sweep a strand of tawny hair behind her ear.
"Simon and Baz will be there waiting for you when we get back."
"It's too late to get a dress anyway," she tried again but with a new and more practical excuse.
"You can borrow one of Andy's," he offered and she wanted to shake his perfect body and scream at him. What possessed him to think that she would look good in anything from the closet of his supermodel cousin?!
"Those are from modeling gigs, Sirius! I'm not going to be walking around in designer dresses."
"Why not?" he huffed.
She gestured down to her body. "I'm not a size zero! And I couldn't make it look good even if I tried! I'm a mere mortal!"
"You'll look just fine," he huffed, completely unperturbed by her resistance. "And it's not like she has much use for them anyway. Won't be doing anymore modeling after her baby is born."
"Sirius..." she groaned, throwing her head back and wishing that he wasn't so good at convincing her to do crazy things.
"C'mon, Remus," he chuckled warmly against her neck. "We already hang out all the time so it's not like going to prom with me will be weird. This is just hanging out with fancier clothes."
It was getting a little warm under her collar with how shamelessly Sirius was leaning against her, so Remus carefully nudged him back with her knee against his stomach and offered a longsuffering sigh.
"Okay, fine, but nothing too crazy. And you know that my dad doesn't like me out too late."
"We can sneak you in," Sirius laughed obnoxiously before squeezing her knee and leaning back. "I'm going to go find out who Pete is bringing, and we can all plot a grand night out!"
"Carry thee on, brave knight!" she encouraged in her best Shakespearean voice before watching him gallop off down the hall to find the others.
*****
"She thinks she's hot shit," a voice echoed in the tiled restroom and Remus froze with her menstrual pad barely opened out of its package. There was no way to finish getting it out of its package without everyone in the restroom knowing what she was doing so she just didn't move.
"I know!" another voice chimed in while two sets of feet stood at the rows of sinks. "The bitch acts like she's got ownership of Sirius or something."
"Like damn," the first girl stated in annoyance, "she couldn't be more obvious about how desperate she is! Did you see her spreading her whore legs for him during homeroom?"
Remus felt her face grew warm, and embarrassment rose up her throat as she clutched the sanitary pad tightly.
"She's been horny for him since forever, but this is just getting crazy. Sirius Black isn't someone she can horde!"
"He doesn't even like her!" the first girl continued. "He'd have already slept with her if he did. Didn't you hear that he and Marlene were fucking up till a couple of weeks ago? Hell, he's slept with half of the girls in school already. It's not like he's shy about hooking up with the girls he likes."
Hot tears welled in her eyes, but Remus took controlled slow breaths and made sure to pull her legs up so her feet wouldn't be seen by anyone looking under the stalls. Not that these girls cared who was hearing them.
"Remus is so weird and fugly," the second girl giggled. "It's obvious that he's friends with her out of habit, you know what I mean? They've been friends for a while, right? Since primary?"
"No, middle school, I think." There was a brief pause and Remus wondered if they were applying more lip gloss. "They were definitely friends in middle school. She wore those dorky glasses back then."
"Ooh, that's right! I forgot about those!"
The girls giggled together for a moment before the door opened and Marlene's unmistakable voice was singing an obnoxious song with Dorcas.
"Oh, hi!"
"Hi, Marlene!" one of the girls greeted. "We were just talking about the dance routine you're planning on doing for the talent show before the prom!"
The girls began chatting loudly and excitedly, so Remus did her best to swap her menstrual pad out as quietly as possible and then waited for the crowd to thin out. Warning bells went off to let them know lunch was drawing to a close, and as soon as the voices left the room Remus shimmied up her underwear, tights, and skirt and moved to quickly wash her hands and leave the restroom.
*****
"You okay?" Peter whispered as he nudged Remus' arm. James and Sirius were at the front of the classroom and engaged in a quizzing battle courtesy of Mr. Slughorn.
She shrugged weakly and continued doodling at the corner of her paper. "I hate chemistry," she mumbled.
"We all do," Peter whispered with a chuckle. "Except maybe Severus."
He flicked a small crumpled up ball of paper towards the mentioned dark-haired boy, and Severus glanced over his shoulder and sneered at the two. Remus offered him a lazy middle finger and those dark eyes rolled before he was back to hiding under his curtain of hair and taking notes.
"It's not that, it's just..." She glanced back up at Sirius and then stared down at her doodle again. "Should I not hang out with you guys anymore? Is it...like a problem?"
Peter scrunched up his nose in surprise. "Uh, no? I mean, it's never been a problem. What are you talking about, Remus?"
Allowing herself another heavy sigh, Remus shrugged. "I mean, it's different now that we're older. I'm pretty much the only girl who still has close guy friends."
"So? It was pretty much the same all through high school. And middle school."
"Yeah, but you guys weren't sleeping around with everyone back then," she grumbled with a faint blush on her face.
Peter rolled his eyes. "So? It's not like we're trying to hit on you. And we've even been good about our vows of silence regarding details, after that mess with Sirius and James competing for the kinkiest shit they could get a partner to do."
"Thank fuck for that," she whispered with a shudder. The human sexual experience was a lot more vast than she had known before that week.
"Yeah..." Peter agreed as he stared off in the distance with a mortified expression.
They both shook off their grossed out memories and turned back to each other.
"Anyway, it's nothing really, Pete," she mumbled. Her hazel eyes found themselves wandering back to Sirius who was looking a bit pissed off as James pulled in the lead in the quizzing competition. "Just heard some girls talking shit about me. Nothing I should be surprised about at this point, but...yeah."
"That sucks," Peter sighed before leaning over to rummage in his backpack. "Wanna share some sour gummies? I stole them from Sirius' bag this morning."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Girls will be bitches," Peter said around a mouthful of the sugary worms. "Nothin' you can do 'bout it."
Remus pinched his soft arm half-heartedly. "I am a girl."
"Yeah," he shrugged off, "but like only technically. You're too cool to be a girl girl."
"What does that even mean?" she snickered, feeling her spirits lighten and a pleased warmth color her cheeks.
"Ask James," he groaned in defeat. "I don't have the words, and that guy can never shut up. He'll extoll all your non-girl girl virtues."
The two of them fell into a laughing fit which finally caught the attention of the teacher as well as a few surrounding students.
"Ah, Lupin and Pettigrew, were you wanting to be up next?" Mr. Slughorn asked in his nasally voice.
"No sir!" they replied unanimously and attempted to smother their continued laughter.
Soon Sirius was shoving Remus to scoot over to the next foldable chair as he came back from the front of the room, and she groaned in annoyance because that meant that she and Peter had to scoot down two seats each in order to accommodate James as well.
"Why didn't you assholes come from the other side?" Peter complained.
Sirius swung an arm around Remus' shoulders and squeezed. "Hey, are those my sour gummies?!"
Remus grinned widely and showed off the masticated remains of his snack and then promptly almost spit them all over Sirius as he attacked her ribs with his free hand.
"I stole some too!" Peter snorted in glee.
James was busy waggling his eyebrows at the back of Lily's head and Remus found herself putting the mean words of the other girls away.
*****
"Leave the door open!" Hope called from the kitchen as she peeked up the stairs at the two retreating figures.
Sirius rolled his eyes but Remus looked back down and offered a thumbs up. "Okay!"
"Merlin's beard, does she think I'm too shy to do it with a door open?" he complained under his breath.
"You have not," Remus giggled as she hefted the pile of clothing in her arms for a better hold.
"Yes I have," he shot back with a grin that would make all parents frightened.
"Well, not when anyone like my dad was around," she shot back and nodded her head towards Lyall Lupin's office which was located right next to her room.
"Psh, yeah, hell no."
They both had a good laugh and then dumped the pile of dresses and designer clothing from their arms onto her bed.
"Okay, so...how are we going to do this?" Remus asked as she scratched at the back of her head. "Do you have an outfit already picked? Are you going in a dress too? Or something else femme?"
Sirius took his time smoothing out his retro plaid mini skirt and tweaked the fishnet stockings he was wearing under them.
"I haven't decided yet. Thought we could sort you out first and then I'd decide."
"Ugh, you're making this so difficult!" she groaned.
"Just try on all the damned clothes, you whiner!" he laughed as he jumped back to sit on her bed and next to the two piles. "Put on a show for me!"
"I'm not even going to fit in these!" Remus pulled up the first dress and held it against her body, a slinky thing that glimmered like molten gold.
"Just don't zip it in the back," he replied blandly, and then kicked off his boots before getting more comfortable on her bed. "Whatever, we'll get it adjusted or something."
Rolling her eyes, Remus got to work on pulling out the room divider from her closet and setting it up in the corner of her room by the computer desk. It would give her some privacy while she was changing without her having to walk back and forth from the shared bathroom on this floor.
"At least play some music for me or something, Sirius."
"M'kay," he replied easily.
She watched him pull out his phone and began tapping away at it before she stepped behind the divider and began changing clothes. It was weird, she supposed, changing while a guy was in the room. Other girls really didn't do that unless it was with their boyfriends or something, but Remus found herself smiling fondly. This was one of the guys she had to explain menstruation to. A guy who had endured the horrors of puberty in close proximity with her. Who had run to the store and purchased sanitary pads when her period had caught her off guard after some hormonal issues in ninth grade. He'd slept in a hospital bed with her, and he'd held her hair back as she vomited in a trash bin because of a migraine. This was the fool she'd gotten a call from the night he happily lost his virginity.
And a call the night he ran away from home.
"Here. What do you think?"
Remus waddled out from behind the screen and prayed to the deities above that she was not about to rip the thing apart with her thighs. Some band she had never heard was playing from his phone now, and Sirius gave her the "twirl" symbol with his finger. Remus complied without complaint and then he rummaged through the pile and pulled out another dress.
"Try this one."
And so it went until dinner time. Lyall Lupin hadn't allowed the boys to have a sleepover with her once they got to high school, but every few weeks they were allowed to come over for dinner. James was grounded for wrecking his dad's motorcycle in an attempt to get some more secret practice in, and Peter was out of town visiting his grandparents, so it was just the two of them that night. As usual, Lyall barely managed to be nice and Hope asked fond questions about their plans for prom.
After dinner the two friends were back in her room and finished up the clothes trying.
"Ugh," Remus groaned as she fell back on the bed next to Sirius. "That was exhausting."
Sirius was staring at the ceiling.
"Is your dad really going to stick to a 10pm curfew?" he asked hesitantly.
"Mom's been working on getting it bumped up to 11pm," she muttered tiredly, "but you know how he is."
There was some shuffling around at her side and Remus felt a large hand rest carefully against her hip. She turned her head to glance over into this stunning grey eyes.
"But...you're feeling okay, right? Like...it's not because..."
Remus shook her head. "Nah. He just doesn't want me being tempted by the dark side."
"Okay, cool," Sirius breathed in relief.
She'd been in remission since 9th grade. Leukemia had come for her twice already, once when she was 5 and again between middle and high school. Braces and a bald head hadn't been good for her self-esteem, but the photograph of the rest of the Marauders gang surrounding her with their horribly shiny scalps was always tucked in her wallet.
"I'm fine, Sirius," she reiterated as she felt the hand clench a bit more tightly against her hip. Once she laid her hand over his, the tension eased and they laid in silence for a few more minutes.
"He's not going to make you wear a chastity belt or anything, is he?" Sirius blurted out next and Remus choked on her spit as she burst out in a laughing and coughing fit.
Sirius grinned wickedly and laughed along with her.