Chapter Text
“POTTER!”
Professeur McGonagall's rage settled over the crowded dining hall, heavy and blanket-like, smothering the surrounding conversations. Each curious eye turned towards the Gryffindor table as intrigue blazed across classmates, everyone wondering the same thing: What did he do this time?
“Oi, Prongs, what now?” Remus tried his best to replace the small smile twisting his lips with a disapproving look. He didn’t quite manage, twin feelings of amusement and fondness fighting off his exasperation.
“Yeah, Prongs, what ever could you have done?”
Sirius Black, all for dramatic entrances, collapsed into Remus’ side. He slid into his seat, batting his eyelashes at James. Remus fought the urge to sit up straight.
“Why Padfoot, whatever do you-“
But James’ voice faded as McGonagall strode over, marching right up to the self-declared Marauders.
“Really, Mr. Potter? Blowing up the Slytherin common room was necessary for you?”
Sirius gasped, clutching his heart.
“Without me? Prongs. You wouldn’t!”
“I'm sorry Professeur.”
James hung his head, but exchanged a fist bump with Sirius under the table.
“It won't happen again.”
“Well I should hope not! Not least because you’ll be in detention until Yulemas.”
This was met with various levels of outrage. Remus raised his eyebrows, part shock and part mild humor at Sirius, who looked as though he just received word that James was to be conscripted to war.
“Come now Minnie, it can’t have been that bad. Our Prongsey would never hurt a fly.”
Slinging his arm across his best friend’s shoulders, Sirius pouted to accentuate his point as he turned pleading eyes on McGonagall. Remus was distantly impressed that she was able to resist- with a withering glare, no less! Remus would’ve folded instantly, had Sirius looked at him like that. Remus supposed that he would give Sirius anything if only he asked, no need for the big eyes and pouty lips. Although Remus also supposed that he actually quite liked the way Sirius’ lips curled into this signature pout, soft and full. Maybe then he would find the strength to deny this boy something, if only for the brief incentive of glimpsing this expression. Maybe then he could-
Remus was staring.
He tore his gaze from Sirius’ pink mouth, and back to the issue at hand: Prongs, three months of detention, so unfair- right.
He was acutely aware of Lily Evans watching him, a smirk playing across her face. Her eyes flickered from him to Sirius, and back again. He looked away as her smile grew impossibly more devious.
Shit.
Now Remus was panicking. He was slipping up and had to get out of the dining hall before things became more obvious. He just needed a break. Some air that was not just exhaled by Sirius, who sat just a few inches to his left.
He needed a cold shower. And a cigarette.
“I have a headache- think I’ll turn in early tonight.”
The other three Marauders looked up from James’ interrogation, desperation for each detail of the prank momentarily replaced with concern for their fourth. James rose halfway from his seat.
“You alright Moony? Need one of us to walk you back to the dorm?”
The full moon was three days ago and Remus was still recovering. Although nothing was broken this time, he still received a few clawings across his chest. But it was another ache that necessitated this departure, one he felt deep in his ribs.
“No, I’m alright. Thanks, Prongs.”
Sighing, Remus rose from his seat.
And promptly lost his balance.
So maybe he was a bit more sore from his transformation than he let on. Stupid knees, always buckling and making it difficult to walk or function like a normal human being.
Sirius shot up to catch him, grabbing his waist and pulling him up. His other hand circled Remus’ wrist, callused fingers burning through his skin.
Remus was on fire.
It’s likely that his face is too.
Sirius's eyes are wide and locked on his. They stay like this for a few seconds, stretching to feel infinite. Then Sirius grins- a wide, transformative thing.
“You know…you’re pretty when you swoon.”
Sirius then, as if he had just thought of the most genius invention to ever grace mankind, exclaimed:
“Swoony Moony!”
Remus groans internally, pointedly ignoring the sly compliment costumed as joking flirtation.
“Oh for the love of the gods do not begin calling me that.”
Sirius regards him expectingly. Remus sighs to make the extent of his exasperation known.
“…please?”
Another grin.
“Alright, if you insist I don’t call you by your new adorable nickname, I guess I can respect that.”
A skeptical look. “Really?”
“Nope. Have a good night, Swoony Moony.”
Sirius’s cheeky wink haunts him as he retreats to the dorm room. The walk takes almost twice as long; Remus has to stop and rest periodically. He refuses to limp.
***
Remus catches sight of his reflection as he steps out of the shower. His new scars are a fragile
pink and puckered, the latest addition to his already ruined torso. The bite mark on his hip is offset by swirling black ink. His soulmate mark.
For the first sixteen years of a wizard's life, their soulmate mark develops one line at a time. A line for every year, a new detail every birthday. Most are able to tell what the mark is years before it reaches its finished form.
Remus is sixteen.
His soulmark is ruined, much like the rest of his body.
Years of repeated scratches, haphazard healing, and scarring has rendered his mark illegible. A mess of ruined skin and abstract ink; a topography of pain and loss. Remus tries to console himself, at least he has a mark. Some don’t. Peter doesn’t, but he’s content with that fact. Says he’s never been interested in romance and doesn’t feel as though he’s missing out at all.
But looking in the mirror now, Remus is ashamed. He traces the jagged lines of his fractured mark. Soulmates are supposed to be the greatest thing in one’s life and Remus ruined the only way to identify that person for himself. He already believed that maybe he didn’t deserve one, but this just feels like additional proof. Another nail in the coffin of his self-imposed misery.
Remus is disgusted with himself.
He pulls on his sleep joggers, decides to forgo his sleep shirt in favor of allowing his new scars to air, and slides into bed.
Maybe hours later, maybe minutes, the four Marauders are all reunited in the dorm. James’ good-natured (and unfortunately booming) voice wakes Remus as the rest of them ready for the night.
Remus doesn’t get up, instead lying still, awaiting sleep’s reclaiming of his consciousness. The lights go out again, curtains rustle, and mattresses creak.
His own mattress dips, and Remus feels a familiar, calloused hand gently push his sandy waves off his face.
He peeks through his lashes, sees Sirius watching him with a fond expression, gentle smile lifting his lips. But there is a sadness in his eyes that Remus both recognizes in himself, and finds wholly unfamiliar on Sirius. It's too much, too vulnerable. It feels like a violation to look upon Sirius in this state. He closes his eyes.
Breath ghosts across his face as Sirius leans closer, hand falling from Remus’ hair to trace the scar on his cheek with a phantom touch. Remus has never felt anything so gentle.
He’s paralyzed.
“Good Night, Remus.”
And he falls asleep there, with Sirius tracing his scars.
***
The rest of the week is as dull as it gets. The Marauders usual shenanigans ground to a halt in the absence of James. The poor boy is rarely seen outside lecture, typically frequenting Slughorn’s dungeon- the detention McGonagall surely knew would be the harshest punishment.
Though it is unclear as to who is really suffering the most: James or Sirius? Without his partner in crime, Sirius’ spirited disposition grew quite forlorn. Try as he might to embody his normal, larger-than-life persona, Sirius was noticeably dimmer without the sunshine that is James Potter.
Or maybe it wasn’t quite so noticeable. Remus once asked Peter if he felt the difference. Peter didn’t. Perhaps Remus was just more in tune with the politics of the group. When it comes to Sirius, he is definitely more observant. He did not tell Peter this, instead simply thanked him for his insight, and returned to their game of Gobstones, which he promptly lost.
It was Thursday night, three days after James’ initial detention, when he waltzed back into the dorm room in a considerably better mood. Remus and Sirius exchanged a curious glance, for who returns from the Potion Master’s dungeon with a spring in their step? Remus closed his novel- an engrossing read about translation and colonialism in the nineteenth century- and tilted his head, asking:
“The detention went well today?”
James turned from where he was grabbing tonight’s pyjamas, the ones with little broom-riding quidditch players bolting across the fabric. Adjusting his glasses, he tried his best to conceal the smile threatening his composure. But if there is one thing about James that nobody can deny, it’s that his smile shone brighter than a constellation in the inky night. And thus it was impossible not to notice when one graced his features.
“Yeah, Moony, it was fine.”
At this Sirius, ever suspicious, bounded forwards.
“Just fine? Blimey James, you look as though you just had the greatest night of your life.”
Sirius, Remus noticed, was not doing as good of a job at masking his jealousy as he thought. The idea that James could have as much fun without him hurt, surely, but that also begged the question of what the hell happened that resulted in James enjoying a detention. One given to him by Minni- Professeur McGonagall, no less.
“If you must know Pads, there was someone else in my detention tonight, whose company spared me the tedium of Ole Sluggy’s tasks.”
With a wink, James disappeared into their shared bathing chamber.
Peter snorted. “What unfortunate soul would end up in Slughorn’s detention alongside James Potter? They must’ve done something terrible.”
Remus considered this. Who indeed? Likely a Slytherin, he concluded. What was a harsh sentence to most Hogwarts students was a mercy to the Slytherins, who received the benefit of their own head of house in punishment. Still, Remus didn’t envy the person James suffered Slughorn with.
Later, when Remus was leaning on the railings of their porch to have a smoke, the other question that should have occurred to him earlier struck: what Slytherin could James have encountered that left him as… joyful as this?
The window’s curtain rustled behind him.
“Moony?”
It was Sirius, leaning through the window.
In the pale moonlight, Sirius looked ethereal. His dark lashes contrasted his mischievous eyes, which glinted and shone brilliantly, a firecracker set to sparkle. His flawless skin and pink, pink lips taunted Remus as he climbed through the arching glass. A perfect curl fell across his forehead as he pitched forwards, foot caught on the metal framing of the window.
“Ah, merde,” Sirius whispered, ring-clad fingers sliding up the wall for purchase. Remus desperately wanted to wind his hand in the stray curl. To stretch it out and watch as it sprung back into its perfect shape.
When Sirius is nervous he does this with his curls, separates them and pulls on the strands. Every time they bounced back; a certainty, a sure thing. Remus wants to pull on Sirius' curls and listen to him gasp. He wants to plunge both of his scarred hands into his hair and not think guilty thoughts about how his ruined skin doesn’t belong beside the oceanic perfection of Sirius’ dark, dark ringlets.
Remus misses his chance. Sirius impatiently brushes the intruding strand back from his face, where it was inevitably tickling his nose. His black nail polish is chipped.
“Have you got another?”
Remus is momentarily confused, until Sirius gestures to his cigarette, which he had accidentally put out in his distraction. He grabs for the carton and pulls out two more, wordlessly offering the other to Sirius, who joins him at the balcony. Sirius’ arm is warm as it brushes against Remus. They’re standing close, shoulder to shoulder, as if the September air would lose its bite if they were together.
They don’t say much. The need for arbitrary chatter is forgotten among those who know each other well. Instead, they are content in the silence, in the presence of the other. Remus finds it hard to breathe, although from the smoking or the raven-haired boy is anyone's guess. He thinks of earlier, of Sirius’ ill-hidden jealousy at the prospect of an outsider jeopardizing the sacred bonds of their little group of four.
“He’s not going to find a new best mate in detention and forget all about you, you know?”
Sirius exhales, smoke curling from his lips, and considers this.
“I just-”
It’s difficult for Sirius to talk about his feelings. Remus knows this, recognizes how hard it is for him to find proper words of expression. He jokes a lot, but sometimes Remus wishes it was easier for him to share what is truly weighing on his conscience. But Remus never, ever, wishes Sirius was different.
“Sometimes it’s just like he’s all I have, my only family. I don’t know..”
The rotten, selfish part of Remus screams that Sirius has him, and is he not enough? But in the logical part of his brain, he knows what Sirius really means. And he knows what Sirius really needs right now. A friend, a confidant.
So he lets Sirius speak, and he listens, occasionally responding in that thoughtful way of his. He does not think about Sirius’ lips; does not think about how his skin looks impossibly soft in the moonlight.
At some point, Sirius rests his forehead on Remus’ shoulder, his cigarette long forgotten. Remus vaguely wonders if this is because Sirius cannot bear it any longer to look him in the eyes whilst he speaks, as if the weight of his honesty requires a sacrifice of connection.
And there they stand, numb from the cold, but each drunk off the presence of the other.
Eventually, Remus begins to shiver.
“Where is it?”
Remus makes an inquisitory noise.
“Your coat, where is it?”
At this Remus rolls his eyes, gesturing to Sirius’ chipped nails.
“One of us here is in desperate need for a coat, and it certainly isn’t me.”
“Funny. Go inside, Remus, if you refuse to bring a jacket with you. You get cold so easily.”
While part of him wants to protest, refute this subtle reference to his fragility, a larger part of Remus remembers the time he contracted frostbite. Madame Pomfrey had found him in the shack as a first year, fingers completely blue. He had transformed back earlier than usual, and was left shivering in the harsh February temperatures for hours with only a thin blanket, desperately pleading with the sky to reveal the sun, to make morning come faster.
“Alright Pads, you win.”
As Remus made his way to the window, he paused, turning around to behold Sirius a final time.
“He’s not going to forget you, yeah? I don’t think that's possible.”
Remus would know. He’s tried desperately.
“Cheers.”
Sirius doesn’t turn around. But Remus can hear the smile in his voice when he says:
“Nighty Night, Swoony Moony.”
***
Remus should’ve known how incredibly mistaken it was to think that Sirius’ possessiveness over James’ friendship could be solved with a simple chat.
It was this foolishness, or rather, Sirius’ jealousy, that resulted in the black-haired boy grabbing Remus by the arm and dragging him down to the dungeons.
“What are you doing?” Remus hissed, trying to break out of Sirius’ iron grip.
With an overly exaggerated sigh, Sirius yanks Remus by the arm and pushes him into a nearby broom closet. Hurrying in after, Sirius closes the door and leans against it. Remus starts forwards to grab the door handle.
Sirius roughly pushes him back against the wall, hands on his shoulders. Their eyes lock, and breaths tangle in the infinitesimal space between their faces. Sirius blinks slowly, and Remus is mesmerized by the motion. He distantly wonders how lashes so thick don’t levitate Sirius off the ground with every shutter of the eyelid.
Sirius pulls back, coming to his senses first.
“Sorry.”
His voice hitches slightly on the second syllable, becoming a touch more breathy than usual. It was almost unnoticeable.
Remus heard it.
He clears his throat.
“So, would you like to tell me why you pushed me into a supply closet like a madman?”
At this, Sirius’ face pulls into that familiar smirk, and Remus feels his chest tighten. He thinks of another scenario, in this same closet, where he would be allowed to kiss that smirk right off of Sirius’ pretty lips. But this line of thinking was dangerous, and there was no use entertaining such idle fantasies. Remus looks away guiltily.
“Prongs has another detention tonight!”
“Yes, Padfoot, I am aware. Have you forgotten that he has detention every night until December?”
“But Moony, you don’t understand. Prongs has detention tonight…and I have his invisibility cloak.”
“Nope. Absolutely not.”
“But Moony,” Sirius whines, “You don’t even know what I was suggesting we do with the cloak.”
“You want to spy on Prongs to see for yourself what, or more specifically, who, is making him return to the common room with a smile the size of your ego.”
Every night after that first a week ago, James had been coming back to their dorm in varying states of joy. Remus thought he had even heard the boy sigh fondly one or two times. But whilst Remus was definitely intrigued, he refused to violate the privacy of his friend to satiate his curiosity. The same could not be said of Sirius.
“You wound me, Moony.”
“I know you.”
He’s not sure why it feels like a confession, yet here, in the dark of the broom closet, it does. But confession or not, his sentiment falls on unhearing ears.
“Come on Moons, I don’t want to do this alone. And aren’t you even the slightest bit curious? I’ll bet you are- I’ll put ten galleons on it!”
“Sirius, if there is anything he wants you to know, he will tell you. I don’t think James would want you creeping on him whilst wearing his own cloak!”
“Twenty galleons.”
Remus’ willpower of reasoning never stood much of a chance against Sirius Black. It never had. And he had to admit that he was at least a little bit curious.
“Please.”
Sirius begged, a slow smile softly gracing his features. His eyes widen innocently, and the full effect of his puppy dog stare is focused on Remus. It was more powerful than all the magic they learned at Hogwarts, more powerful than even the imperious curse.
“Please.”
Sirius drew out the last syllable. He moved forwards slowly, wrapping his arms around a still Remus, caught like a deer in headlights, unable to move, to think coherently. Enveloping him in a hug, he used his vantage point in the embrace to gently pull Remus’ ear towards him. Sirius hand found the side of his face, and he whispered:
“Please, Moony.”
Remus was gone already. He would’ve done whatever this boy asked of him. He would’ve given him the world, the sun, the stars- if only he was allowed. And then Sirius said the one thing that crumbled his resolve entirely.
“For me?”
Anything for you, Padfoot.
“Alright.”
***
It was quite stuffy under the cloak, and Remus had to bend his knees to prevent their shoes from being revealed to the hallway passerby. They exited the supply closet after Sirius managed to coerce him into stalking James, rushing to a nearby alcove in which they could slip under the Potter’s invisibility cloak.
(Sirius had begun to put on the cloak from within the closet, to which Remus fondly, though with much exasperation, called him an idiot. Really, what was he thinking? Other people were sure to see the door open and close of its own accord).
Making their way down to the dungeons took some maneuvering. Several times they were forced to duck behind a lone statue or quickly turn down a less populous hallway. Invisibility didn’t equate to immortality in hallway collisions. Once they had to ascend several floors just to avoid the self-important footsteps they recognised to be Snapes’.
Remus had grabbed Sirius this time and dragged him into the side stairway rarely used by students. Taken by surprise by the sudden movement, Sirius tripped over the cloak’s hem, pulling it completely off himself and Remus. This only worsened the tangle of material around Sirius’ legs, and he pitched backwards. Remus surged forwards to grab him, catching him about the waist.
His fingers were pressed into the skin of Sirius’ stomach where his untucked school shirt rode up. Remus couldn’t make out a soulmark from the skin he could see. Not that he was looking, of course- soulmarks were intensely private aspects of the body.
Remus thought it funny that a boy with skin of ice could ignite this fire underneath his fingertips.
Remus felt alive. Remus also couldn’t help himself:
“And look who’s the Swoony one now. Clumsy, are we?”
Sirius’ eyes widened a fraction small enough that Remus could convince himself of his vivid imagination. But there was no mistaking the elegant red dusting the high cheekbones of one of his oldest friends for fantasy.
It was devastatingly real.
And the flush spread, brightening his dark eyes and catching across the face of this beautiful boy, this star. The one person in the world Remus would give everything to. The one person in the world Remus would give anything to have.
His Padfoot smiled then, a grin both soft and encompassing.
A grin steeped in mischief.
“Only for you, Moony. Only for you.”
Remus was still holding Sirius’ waist and realised his thumb had betrayed his better judgment. It was drawing small spirals on Sirius’ pale midriff as though it had a mind of its own, or more accurately, as though it listened to the inner monologue at the back of Remus’ mind. The inner monologue that he was constantly cautioning himself against.
Remus let go, drawing in a shaky breath.
“Well we had better be going, right Pads? Don’t want to be late for your stalker-y ambitions.”
“Right,” said Sirius slowly, expression inscrutable. “Let’s go.”
The pair made it to the dungeons without further issue. The innocent touches they had exchanged after the broom closet- a brush of the hand, a bump of the shoulder- were banished for the rest of the journey, both boys doing their best to avoid touching the other. Remus walked with his arms flush to his sides, and Sirius with his crossed over his chest.
That is, until Sirius’ hand shot out to slap him cleanly across the face.
“Oi Pads! What the fuck?”
But his voice was muffled as Sirius covered his mouth. Because Sirius hadn’t tried to slap him, he was telling him to shut up. Right.
Remus has the ridiculous urge to lick Sirius’ palm, if only to see how he would react. He resisted.
“Sorry Moony, don’t want you to think that I’d ever tire of hearing you run your ever-eloquent potty mouth, but it's right there.”
The ‘it’ he was referring to was a non-descript stone archway. Torch light filtered through the classroom, the only one in the hall to have an opened door. The site of James’ detentions for the coming future. Sirius’ arm shot out, holding Remus to the wall as he looked conspiratorily around.
“Oh for heaven's sake, we’re invisible, you lunatic.”
Remus was quickly tiring of the dramatics. Now that they were here, their plan seemed irredeemably stupid. What were they to do, peer around the doorframe like cartoon criminals? Or perhaps they would take turns sneaking into Slughorn’s main lecture room and report back to the other on the comings and goings of a dear friend. It just didn’t sit right with Remus.
However, it seemed that the same moral dilemma did not befall Sirius, and slowly they crept forwards. Step by step, hand somehow in hand, the two inched towards the door. Remus could hear laughter as they grew closer. It sounded like two people. Remus suspected Slughorn was long gone. The professeur was infamous for leaving his prisoners after supplying them with a kilometer-long list of chores.
James’ laugh was easy to identify. It was bright and loud and always, always unexpectedly delighted. It was as if James was surprised anew by the multitudes of joy that the world contained each time he laughed.
There was another there, too. A shyer, slower laugh. One that was more self contained, less free. As if this person was afraid joy came with a price, that each time they laughed they grew closer to the limit, that inevitable point where one realizes that happiness has been harming you the entire time.
He sees James first, who is, by the looks of it, supposed to be scrubbing the crusty pot laying forgotten in the basin. He wears a Slytherin tie around his head, the tail occasionally obscuring his vision in the left eye. Each time it slides in front of his glasses, his ready smile increases in magnitude- dazzling, blinding.
Remus briefly congratulates himself on his deduction skills. He knew it must have been a Slytherin! And then he sees this mystery person, this boy that has James utterly enraptured.
He has a smattering of freckles across his delicate nose, highlighted by the rose tint of his cheeks. He’s flushed with joy, eyes bright yet still slightly weary. His dark, curly hair falls past his ears in familiar ringlets. He’s telling a story, rapidly gesturing with his hands to accentuate his tale. James’ nods along, all fond smiles and doe eyes, completely mesmerized.
Sirius slides to the floor beside the archway and runs a hand through his hair. He tips his head back until it rests against the wall, eyes closed.
It's undeniable, really, that James Fleamont Potter is completely,
utterly,
hopelessly,
bewitched by Regulus Arcturus Black.