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When Remus starts awake, it’s dark beyond the mullioned windowpanes. Parchment sticks to his face. He peels off Millicent Bulstrode’s essay on grindylows, and the words are smudged. His cheek is probably smeared with ink stains, but it’s hardly a loss—the essay is abysmal, nearly a word-for-word copy of the textbook. It was afternoon when he began marking essays, but the full moon’s grip has only just released him, and he is still aching.
It is unusually gloomy. The fire smolders on the husks of hollowed-out logs, its glow the only light in his office. He wonders if he has missed dinner—it could be five o’clock or midnight. He has no idea. Although hunger knocks politely into his thoughts, he really can’t imagine dragging himself down to the kitchens. Crawling into bed is the only thing he wants.
Something like a breath rattles behind his chair, and he stiffens.
At first, he thinks it’s Peeves. It wouldn’t be the first time Peeves tried to startle him, after all, but Peeves is not one to wait patiently to spring a joke on someone. Though he is dizzy with sleep, Remus tries not to move too quickly when he realizes he cannot remember where he set down his wand. Fear jolts through his legs.
Warm breath brushes his neck, and he knows; even before the knife touches his throat, he knows. He knows because the hours were always counting down to this. Each day had brought him closer to the inevitable. This was always going to happen.
Not now, Remus pleads. Not now, not this.
The knife is gentle against his skin—a warning to keep quiet. The knife spares him the horror of hearing that voice again. Perhaps he can die without its mockery, without sinking into its familiarity. The knife speaks well enough for that old voice.
But he is not so fortunate. A ragged sleeve reaches past his shoulders, and a hand, emaciated and nearly blue, shuffles through the stack of grindylow essays. A ribcage is hard against the back of Remus’s head.
“You know the job’s jinxed…don’t you?”
The voice is so unlike the one Remus remembers that he flinches. He can’t go far because the knife won’t allow it.
“But maybe…” Sirius croaks. “Maybe the jinx doesn’t work on werewolves. Or maybe you don’t care. Perhaps Professor Lupin’s not here to stay…perhaps he’s only here because of a certain escaped prisoner…”
Remus ignores the thunderous heartbeat in his ears. His chest aches with it, and he finds that he must remember how to breathe. He wills his body to ease, softening the tension of muscle from his jaw to his shoulders, all the way down to his toes. If he is going to make it out of this moment alive, he cannot lose his nerve, and if he cannot stay alive, he will, at least, bring Sirius down with him. He owes Albus Dumbledore that much.
“Is there something you need, Sirius?”
The bark of laughter is startling. The knife nicks his skin, but he doesn’t notice until it stings a few seconds later. Remus doesn’t think it was on purpose.
“Why?” Sirius asks. “Are you busy right now?”
“Well, I was in the middle of marking essays.” He fights to keep his voice cool and light. Can Sirius hear the fury building in it? “I’m a bit behind, you see. The full moon,” he explained.
“Should I help you?” The fingers curl around Millicent Bulstrode’s essay. “I remember grindylows. Oh, but this one’s not very good… Is that why you fell asleep?”
The voice chuckles in his ear, a rasping sound as Sirius parses through a pile that is already marked. The Gryffindors’ essays. Hermione Granger’s is on top—Remus likes to save her essays for last because they take little time to mark, which is a relief when he is exhausted from doing the rest. Sirius eventually finds Harry’s.
“You like him, I suppose,” Sirius murmurs.
It’s hard to deny. Remus had written glowing comments in the margins of Harry’s essay because, while Hermione Granger is technical and logical, Harry has an instinct for defensive magic.
“Can I keep this?”
It isn’t a question. The essay disappears. Absurdly, Remus means to protest because he must return the essay to Harry with his remarks. How will he explain that he misplaced it? And as soon as the thought occurs to him, he almost laughs.
“He won’t appreciate the theft,” Remus remarks. “And anyway, what will you do with it?”
“I’m his godfather… Can’t blame me for taking an interest in the boy.”
This is only an attempt to rile him up, and Remus knows it. Knows it but can’t stop the flood of heat in his face. Where is his wand? He cannot search his pockets, nor can he shuffle the parchment on the desk to look. Has Sirius already found it?
“Tell me, Moony,” Sirius purrs in his ear. “How does it feel, teaching him? Christ, he looks so much like James… Flies like him, too. I’ve watched him, you know. Every time he trains, I watch him.”
Of course, Remus thinks. Of course Sirius has been here this whole time, but Remus has never thought Sirius would play with his food. Why is he watching Harry? What has he got planned? If he has such easy access to his prey, why hasn’t he gone for the kill?
“What’s he like?” Sirius presses. “Is he like James?”
Remus exhales to calm himself. “If you’ve come to kill me, Sirius, I’d prefer if you just got on with it.”
The chair swivels, and before him is Sirius, every bit as menacing and grotesque as the posters and papers depict him. He looms with a grin. His robes are filthy and threadbare, his hair is heavy and matted, and his body is emaciated. Hunger has scooped hollows into his cheeks. He looks nearly dead, but his eyes are burning.
“You want me to kill you?”
“Well, no, not particularly, but I imagine it’s what you’ve come to do, isn’t it?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
This is unlikely, so Remus scoffs. “Right. Then, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave. To answer your question, yes, I am busy—”
He is not allowed to stand, which is made clear when Sirius pushes him back into the chair. The knife whizzes through the air and stabs into the desk; Remus’s right sleeve is trapped between blade and wood. Sirius captures the other hand and squeezes the wrist until the fingers are numb.
The face above him is no longer smiling.
“Why haven’t you told anyone?” Sirius demands.
Remus surreptitiously tugs on his sleeve, but it is immovable.
“Told anyone what?”
“About me. About Padfoot.”
That, he cannot answer. Not to Sirius, not to himself.
“But Padfoot isn’t how you’ve broken into the castle,” Remus tells him.
“Of course it’s how I’ve broken into the castle, Remus! Are you mad? How do you reckon I’ve avoided capture this long?”
Remus doesn’t want to believe what he already knows. Shame fills him, just as it does whenever Dumbledore asks him what else Remus can tell him about Sirius. He is failing Dumbledore, has already failed him, and he is terrified that Harry will pay the price for his ego.
It’s a bit funny, he thinks. Even Sirius is surprised by him.
Fingers are tilting his chin up. He wants to avoid those eyes, so haunted and penetrating, but he can’t. He never could. There is a glimmer of hope in Sirius’s gaze.
“What do you know, Moony? Do you know the truth? Is…is that why you’ve kept my secret?”
“The truth?”
Whatever flame of prayer Sirius held a moment ago has extinguished. His eyes narrow.
“Ah,” says Sirius. “You’re just scared, is that it? Scared of what Dumbledore will say if you confess to what you did? What you let us do?”
Remus tries in earnest to wrench either hand free. Sirius, annoyed, kicks his feet apart and shoves a leg between Remus’s knees. It stirs something—feelings he’s not had in more than a decade, feelings he hid from Sirius for years. Sirius had never noticed, of course. He was always preoccupied with James or the Order, but never Remus, and now, there is only the two of them and nothing in between.
He is drowning in the muck of humiliation, and he is sinking into an endless hole of misery as he realizes those feelings never went away. They’re still here. And they’re betraying him. Betraying James. Betraying Lily’s sacrifice.
Sirius must see it too because he frowns.
“Get off me,” Remus tells him quietly.
Sirius doesn’t. He pushes a knee firmly between Remus’s thighs, and he must feel it. He knows. His bewilderment grows.
“You can’t be serious.”
In earnest, Remus wrenches at his sleeve. He tries to wriggle from Sirius’s grasp. If only it hadn’t been the full moon so recently, he might have won, but he is so tired and his bones ache. Sirius threads his free hand in Remus’s hair and curls his fingers so Remus cannot look away. That calculating look, the one Sirius wears when the thoughts are flying behind his eyes, is fixed on him.
“You’re not Dumbledore’s good boy, are you?” says Sirius. “You’ve been lying to him. You haven’t been protecting me—you’re protecting yourself. That’s a very bad boy, Moony. How disappointing. Oh, but you must be all torn up inside. What if I’d hurt someone, eh? What if I’d managed to kill Harry? Would that have been worth it, Remus?”
Remus doesn’t have the energy to do more than glower. He is straining against his trousers. Heat has flooded every inch of his body, drenching him in shame and thirst all at once. If Sirius kills him now, it will be deserved. I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry, Peter.
Shame makes his arousal agonizing because the more he thinks that this is all wrong, the more he wants it. The more he wants Sirius to lash him to the chair and get him off, the more he wants to choke on Sirius and beg for something he can’t name.
But for all that Remus is confused, Sirius is just as astounded and disgusted, and it makes it worse that even the murderer is ashamed of him.
Whatever Sirius wants, he never says, as if all of this has troubled him too much. Remus should feel triumphant—he’s beaten Sirius. For once, in a battle of wills, Remus has emerged the winner. Then, Sirius lets him go, wedges the knife from the desk, and the sleeve is free. It’s clear he means to leave, but Remus won’t allow it—he lunges for Sirius.
Sirius whirls and catches Remus by the arms. Air rushes as Remus is flung toward the desk; he nearly collides with it, but his hands slam into the tabletop before he can bash his head against it. A hand shoves hard between his shoulders, forcing Remus down; the wind knocks from his lungs when the edge punches into his belly.
“Is this what you want?” Sirius rasps, pressing his hips against Remus’s backside.
Everything is a sharp edge. There is nothing soft in this. Sirius’s fingers are cruel, biting into the wrist that he forces against Remus’s spine. The bones of a pelvis jut into his arse. Sirius is hard, too, and that shocks Remus so much that he almost gets free.
“You’d force my hand, would you?” Sirius growls. “Will you say I made you do it? So you can get off and then blame me?”
Remus can’t suck in enough air to snarl at him—and he doesn’t want to. He wants Sirius to keep him pinned. He wants this and hasn’t known until now, but he can’t admit it until a hand rubs between his cheeks, groping. A feral sound rumbles from him as he grinds his teeth and tries not to bend into that hand.
His knees are loose. The desk is too low, and his legs are just long enough that he is bent awkwardly and can’t find his footing.
When Sirius lets go of his wrist, Remus struggles to prop up onto his elbows. The fire has now almost gone out, and the drizzle from outside seeps into the room. He feels the damp chill of winter’s approach as his trousers and underwear are wrenched down his hips; they pool around his ankles.
He is looking down at dozens of student essays. There are fingers in his mouth, and he sucks before he is told to do so because he knows that this is all Sirius will offer him, and he’s glad he does because the same fingers pull out to rub his opening.
“This must be killing you,” Sirius says, his voice low. “I think you’d strangle me if you didn’t want me to fuck you. You’ll live with this shame for the rest of your life, Moony. You’ll always know that you jeopardized Harry’s life because you wanted this. How does that feel, Professor? How does this feel?”
“Fuck you,” Remus breathes.
Pain shoots through him as Sirius rams his fingers inside. Remus pitches forward with a sharp yelp.
“Kindly, fuck you, actually. Watch your mouth, Professor.”
There must be a more eloquent way to do this sort of thing, but Sirius is businesslike. He is efficient like a pianist who is technically gifted but hates the composer. By the time this is finished, Remus’s lip will be bitten through because it’s the only thing keeping him from moaning with each thrust of those fingers. The inkbottle rattles, and he knows it’ll spill all over the grindylow essays if he can’t control himself.
He doesn’t want those fingers as much as he needs them to be Sirius’s prick filling him up instead, so he pretends, squeezing his eyes closed, wishing Sirius would talk to him—tease him, at least, because the tick of the clock by the fire is too loud and his grunts are becoming something wild and pathetic. And he feels it—that undeniable pleasure of losing control, of letting an animal take over. He is so careful not to let his grip slip, not to let himself reveal how monstrous he really is, but it is hard to deny that he is desperate to escape his humanity.
Release is imminent, and Sirius knows it.
Remus cries out as the pressure leaves him, and he thinks that Sirius will finish inside of him, but all he feels is cold air. For a moment, he waits. The clock ticks and his blood cools. He is dreading what he’ll find or won’t find if he turns around. He’s terrified that Sirius has gone. He cannot bring himself to look and feels the chill of isolation as it chokes his office before he can confirm that he has been left alone again.
It shocks him when he feels a brush against his backside. Sirius pets him with a knuckle, and the tenderness breaks Remus. He can’t fathom that it’s kindness that tips him over the edge, and he collapses forward, stroking himself, releasing over his own hand, shuddering as Sirius caresses him in that same, gentle way and coaxes him through it.
When he is finished, he feels Sirius guide the underwear and trousers back up his legs, and then Sirius eases him into the chair. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Sirius wipes the tears from his cheeks.
“I can’t believe I—I—” The words won’t come to him.
“I’m sorry, Moony. I’m so sorry.”
Even in the darkness, Remus can see that he really is sorry, but it doesn’t matter. No amount of penitence will bring back James or Peter; none of it will bring back Lily or heal the scar on Harry’s head. It won’t mend all of those families whose mothers and fathers and siblings were murdered that cold November morning. It won’t fix the years of loneliness that Remus has endured. When he reckons with this—that there is home to return to—he tears his gaze away to look down at his lap.
He doesn’t move when Sirius kisses his brow.
“You don’t have to feel ashamed,” Sirius tells him thickly. “I shouldn’t’ve said that.”
He doesn’t look when Sirius gets up with a ragged sigh.
“I’ve left something here for you. Just…look at it when you can. Then…then you’ll understand. And hopefully you won’t feel like you do now.”
Sirius isn’t foolish enough to kiss him, so when he leaves, it feels wrong. It feels like he’ll come back, but he doesn’t, and Remus sits for a long time, his hand filthy and his head empty.
When he finally lights a lamp, he sees what Sirius has left. It doesn’t alleviate his shame like Sirius promised. Instead, it makes him ill. What he finds on the pile of grindylow essays is a clipping of Ron Weasley’s family on holiday in Egypt—a photograph carefully torn from The Daily Prophet, and he doesn’t know what it means.