The fire was blazing cheerfully. Sirius was stretched out on the sofa in front of it, apparently contentedly watching the patterns the firelight made on the ceiling. Lupine gave up trying to read the section of the Daily Prophet he'd been staring at and tossed it in a pile on the floor. The Ministry wizards in the front-page photo scowled at him and brushed themselves off pointedly.
"Full moon tonight," he said.
"You wouldn't know it in this weather," Sirius said. The rain was beating against the windows of the flat, bathing the street outside in gloom. "My congratulations to whoever invented fireplaces."
"Some enterprising Muggle, I imagine," Lupin said, smiling despite himself. "You're trying to change the subject."
"Just an observation."
"It's a small flat." That statement of the obvious fell into polite silence. He tried an apologetic smile. "With the potion, it's not really dangerous, but I usually try to arrange for privacy."
Sirius looked at Lupin from the sofa without moving. "I'm tired. I feel awful. I'm a hunted criminal. If I leave, I'll have to spend the night wandering around the neighborhood as a black dog. In the rain."
"Yes. Well. Fine. Pay no attention to the werewolf in the corner."
"As you say. Toss me a piece of the paper, will you?"
Lupin rolled up the paper and tossed it toward the sofa. Sirius fielded it neatly and snapped a section open, disappearing behind it. Lupin could hear the soft rustle of turning pages as he went to retrieve his "medicine" from its place in a kitchen cabinet behind the tea.
He downed the foul stuff with a grimace and started to make tea to take the taste out of his mouth, but stopped before he had put the kettle on. His hands were tingling, and as he set the porcelain canister down very gently he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. He filled a bowl with water instead, and set it on the floor.
Sirius was still reading the paper when Lupin came back into the room, although he glanced up as Lupin drew the drapes across one window and headed for the other one.
"Almost moonrise," Sirius said. "Do you want me to change?"
"Like in the old days?" Lupin smiled wearily. "You don't have to. I should sleep through most of it. Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine."
"I can see that it would have been convenient in the old days. Although I've found our exploits good training for a life of crime." Sirius grinned. "I wouldn't have lost fifteen points from Gryffindor that time you shredded my robes."
"And just think, if you'd been a little slower that time I might have killed you." The tone of his own voice startled Lupin.
"What brings this on?" Sirius said carefully after a pause.
"Self-consciousness, maybe. I'm usually safely locked out of sight of prying eyes at this point."
Sirius sat up and folded the newspaper.
"Why don't I take my prying eyes into the kitchen and let you change, then? I can make myself some tea."
"I'll go. I don't know how long-I'm not sure-" He took a deep breath. His skin was crawling with a pricking heat. "I never do make any sense at this point, do I?"
"Not a bit. What are you looking at me like that for?"
"Go on, drop the other shoe. It's not like you to miss a straight line."
"All right, you never make much sense anyway."
"Thank you," Lupin said, a little shakily. "The world will not now spin off its axis."
"You're getting that look," Sirius said. "One of us ought to go if you don't want me to watch you change."
"Going," Lupin said, and suited action to words, shutting the bedroom door firmly between them. He stripped off his robe and dropped it in a corner on top of his slippers. He glanced down. Socks, he thought. Can't be a werewolf in socks.
He sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled with his socks, taking measured deep breaths. There was a moment of extreme clarity; he felt as though he could feel the sound of the rain. Then it started; first the feeling of falling in all directions at once, and then the familiar pain.
Just a little longer, he told himself, as always. Just a little longer.
He had learned to stay still after the change until the lingering pain passed. He stood, finally, testing his balance on the springy mattress, and then jumped down from the bed.
He looked up at the window, attracted despite the potion and his better instincts to the moonlight he couldn't see, but passed it by. The window, he knew, was safely shut. There was a warm fire in the other room, which was nearly as attractive. He stopped at the doorway. The door was also shut.
He pawed at it, claws scrabbling on the wood, and then made himself stop, thinking about each motion. If he stood on his hind legs-he managed, although his front paws hit the door with a thud-maybe he could manage the doorknob. He tried, and only ended up pounding the door into its frame again.
Sirius muttered something in the other room, and the knob turned and the door swung open. "There. You'll thank me for saving your door," Sirius called.
Lupin edged around the door. It was harder than he had expected to step out into the firelight where Sirius was waiting. He took a few hesitant steps into the room and stopped. He reminded himself that the potion was fully in effect. He would not feel the awful gnawing hunger, the need to rend and tear.
He paced deliberately into the firelight and met Sirius's questioning eyes. He looked away almost at once, making a low sound deep in his throat. The werewolf was balking at the flood of conflicting emotions, its whisper in the back of his head becoming a growl.
He could have controlled it if his human self hadn't shared the urge to retreat. He backed away from Sirius without thinking, closer and closer to the edge of panic. He found himself backing into a corner behind an armchair, his claws scoring the wood of the floor.
"Easy, Remus. You don't really want to explain a hole in the floor to your landlady."
Lupin heard springs squeaking in the sofa and then Sirius's footsteps. He backed further into the corner, trying to hide in the shadows.
"Remus? Are you all right?" There was an uneasy silence, and then he could hear Sirius talking quietly, not to him. After a few minutes, he heard different, heavy footsteps, the steps of a large dog.
The black dog stopped at the edge of the shadows and looked at him steadily. Lupin bared his teeth. The dog bared its own, looking unimpressed. Lupin growled experimentally.
The dog drew itself up to its full height, forcing Lupin to look up at it to meet its eyes. He let the weight of its gaze bear him down, knowing that Sirius could pin him easily if he wanted to. He crouched low, backed against the wall, with no way to escape.
The realization that he was trapped brought a flood of relief. He whined softly, and looked away from Sirius, twisting to bare his throat. He felt the pressure of Sirius's jaws on his throat, and for a moment couldn't breathe.
Then Sirius released him, and he whined again, his throat stinging. Sirius rested his head against Lupin's shoulder for a moment and then lay down next to him, pressing him firmly into the corner. Lupin tried to find a comfortable position to settle in, turning as much as he could while pinned by Sirius's weight.
It was quiet. Being unable to speak meant there was no need to fill the silence. He could simply lie there, feeling his breathing slowing, and the warmth from the fire starting to lull him into sleepiness.
After a while Sirius rolled closer to the fire, leaving him room to move. He stretched, got to his feet, and padded around to lie down on Sirius's other side on the hearthrug. He closed his eyes, listening to Sirius's breathing and the crackling of the fire.
Moonset woke him. It was still dark outside, and the fire had dimmed to red embers. He was cold, and ached from head to toe; he got up quietly, making the black dog twitch in its sleep, and dressed. The clock on the dresser said five a.m.
Lupin came back to the fire and sat down on the floor, leaning against the sofa. Sirius's paws twitched in his sleep, dreaming of chasing or being chased. Lupin couldn't tell which. He patted Sirius's head as he would have an ordinary dog's, feeling the softness of the black fur, and then stopped as the dog stirred restlessly under his hand.
He got up, looking around for Sirius's robe.
"It's on the table," Sirius said from behind him. "You could light the fire again while you're at it."
Lupin slipped his hand into the pocket of his dressing gown for his wand and murmured "Incendio." He could feel the fire blaze up in response. He found the black robe and handed it to Sirius, who pulled it on gratefully. Both of them watched the flames for a while.
"Thank you," Lupin said after a while, unable to resist filling the silence now that it was possible to speak. Sirius shrugged.
"You were right," he said. "I should have gone out. I suppose I thought it would be all right because it was me."
There wasn't much Lupin could think of to say to that. Sirius watched the fire again, shadows flickering across his face.
"Do you remember when we all wanted to be Aurors?" he said. "Somebody had lost something-"
"Celia Janson. It was her diary. Severus took it."
"Severus was hounding her half to death because James liked her."
"I always thought it was because you liked her."
"You figured out where the notes were, and I distracted Severus, and we both should have known she'd end up at the Midwinter Ball with James."
Lupin smiled.
"Virtue is its own reward."
"You would say that. James was convinced we had a promising career in law enforcement ahead of us."
"James grew out of it," Lupin said. "You didn't."
Sirius shook his head.
"That's just because I always wanted to get to the top. James wasn't like that. You remember how people were when he settled down with a wife and a baby. I was as bad as anyone, pushing him not to waste his time."
"I don't think he wasted it," Lupin said. "I think he spent it just the way he would have wanted."
"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it," Sirius said, his voice uneven. Lupin made a point of poking at the fire for a while. Finally Sirius took the fireplace poker out of his hand. "I'm not crying," he said.
"You? You never cry."
"That's because I'm a heartless bastard." Sirius jabbed violently at the fire, sending sparks swirling up the chimney. "What right have I got to still be here if he's not? He was the best of us."
"He was," Lupin said. "But you were the strongest."
"That's not how it's supposed to work."
"Because it's not fair?"
"Yes. Because it's not fair."
"The world isn't. You live with it."
"That was always easier for you."
"It had to be. I was the one who knew I couldn't really be an Auror when I grew up."
"Because a lot of people are prejudiced idiots."
"Because I was bitten by a werewolf when I was three, which very nearly ruined my life. The fact that it didn't is because I've had a lot of help."
"The fact that it didn't is because you're too stubborn to let it."
"That's an accident, not a virtue." Lupin shrugged. "The world is full of accidents."
"Do you think Harry surviving was an accident?"
"I believe in the power of love, Sirius. Just not in justice."
The fire was crackling brightly. Sirius put the poker down and stretched out with his chin on his hands.
"What do normal people talk about?" he asked after a while.
Lupin thought about the question seriously. "Quidditch, I think. And politics."
"I could talk about politics."
"I'd rather you didn't right now, actually."
"Fair enough."
"I think Muggles talk about television."
"Huh."
"What am I going to do about the floor?"
"Say the dog did it?"
"My lease doesn't allow pets."
"We can fix it."
"Inconvenient that it doesn't all get better in the light of day."
Sirius shrugged. "You live with it."
"Didn't we used to be more cheerful?"
"Older and wiser?" Sirius suggested.
"Something like that." There was a long stretch of quiet. "Is it morning yet?"
"We could say it was."
Lupin got to his feet. "I'll make some tea. We can talk about politics."
Sirius followed him into the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe.
"On one side, the combined forces of darkness," he said. "On the other side, the two of us and our secret weapon, a pot of tea. Does that seem a little unmatched to you?"
"Sugar?" Lupin asked calmly.
"Why not? Life is short."
"It's good tea."
"Well. I'm sure that will make all the difference."
"Have a little faith," Lupin said, and handed him the sugar bowl.
"Full moon tonight," he said.
"You wouldn't know it in this weather," Sirius said. The rain was beating against the windows of the flat, bathing the street outside in gloom. "My congratulations to whoever invented fireplaces."
"Some enterprising Muggle, I imagine," Lupin said, smiling despite himself. "You're trying to change the subject."
"Just an observation."
"It's a small flat." That statement of the obvious fell into polite silence. He tried an apologetic smile. "With the potion, it's not really dangerous, but I usually try to arrange for privacy."
Sirius looked at Lupin from the sofa without moving. "I'm tired. I feel awful. I'm a hunted criminal. If I leave, I'll have to spend the night wandering around the neighborhood as a black dog. In the rain."
"Yes. Well. Fine. Pay no attention to the werewolf in the corner."
"As you say. Toss me a piece of the paper, will you?"
Lupin rolled up the paper and tossed it toward the sofa. Sirius fielded it neatly and snapped a section open, disappearing behind it. Lupin could hear the soft rustle of turning pages as he went to retrieve his "medicine" from its place in a kitchen cabinet behind the tea.
He downed the foul stuff with a grimace and started to make tea to take the taste out of his mouth, but stopped before he had put the kettle on. His hands were tingling, and as he set the porcelain canister down very gently he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. He filled a bowl with water instead, and set it on the floor.
Sirius was still reading the paper when Lupin came back into the room, although he glanced up as Lupin drew the drapes across one window and headed for the other one.
"Almost moonrise," Sirius said. "Do you want me to change?"
"Like in the old days?" Lupin smiled wearily. "You don't have to. I should sleep through most of it. Thanks to the marvels of modern medicine."
"I can see that it would have been convenient in the old days. Although I've found our exploits good training for a life of crime." Sirius grinned. "I wouldn't have lost fifteen points from Gryffindor that time you shredded my robes."
"And just think, if you'd been a little slower that time I might have killed you." The tone of his own voice startled Lupin.
"What brings this on?" Sirius said carefully after a pause.
"Self-consciousness, maybe. I'm usually safely locked out of sight of prying eyes at this point."
Sirius sat up and folded the newspaper.
"Why don't I take my prying eyes into the kitchen and let you change, then? I can make myself some tea."
"I'll go. I don't know how long-I'm not sure-" He took a deep breath. His skin was crawling with a pricking heat. "I never do make any sense at this point, do I?"
"Not a bit. What are you looking at me like that for?"
"Go on, drop the other shoe. It's not like you to miss a straight line."
"All right, you never make much sense anyway."
"Thank you," Lupin said, a little shakily. "The world will not now spin off its axis."
"You're getting that look," Sirius said. "One of us ought to go if you don't want me to watch you change."
"Going," Lupin said, and suited action to words, shutting the bedroom door firmly between them. He stripped off his robe and dropped it in a corner on top of his slippers. He glanced down. Socks, he thought. Can't be a werewolf in socks.
He sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled with his socks, taking measured deep breaths. There was a moment of extreme clarity; he felt as though he could feel the sound of the rain. Then it started; first the feeling of falling in all directions at once, and then the familiar pain.
Just a little longer, he told himself, as always. Just a little longer.
He had learned to stay still after the change until the lingering pain passed. He stood, finally, testing his balance on the springy mattress, and then jumped down from the bed.
He looked up at the window, attracted despite the potion and his better instincts to the moonlight he couldn't see, but passed it by. The window, he knew, was safely shut. There was a warm fire in the other room, which was nearly as attractive. He stopped at the doorway. The door was also shut.
He pawed at it, claws scrabbling on the wood, and then made himself stop, thinking about each motion. If he stood on his hind legs-he managed, although his front paws hit the door with a thud-maybe he could manage the doorknob. He tried, and only ended up pounding the door into its frame again.
Sirius muttered something in the other room, and the knob turned and the door swung open. "There. You'll thank me for saving your door," Sirius called.
Lupin edged around the door. It was harder than he had expected to step out into the firelight where Sirius was waiting. He took a few hesitant steps into the room and stopped. He reminded himself that the potion was fully in effect. He would not feel the awful gnawing hunger, the need to rend and tear.
He paced deliberately into the firelight and met Sirius's questioning eyes. He looked away almost at once, making a low sound deep in his throat. The werewolf was balking at the flood of conflicting emotions, its whisper in the back of his head becoming a growl.
He could have controlled it if his human self hadn't shared the urge to retreat. He backed away from Sirius without thinking, closer and closer to the edge of panic. He found himself backing into a corner behind an armchair, his claws scoring the wood of the floor.
"Easy, Remus. You don't really want to explain a hole in the floor to your landlady."
Lupin heard springs squeaking in the sofa and then Sirius's footsteps. He backed further into the corner, trying to hide in the shadows.
"Remus? Are you all right?" There was an uneasy silence, and then he could hear Sirius talking quietly, not to him. After a few minutes, he heard different, heavy footsteps, the steps of a large dog.
The black dog stopped at the edge of the shadows and looked at him steadily. Lupin bared his teeth. The dog bared its own, looking unimpressed. Lupin growled experimentally.
The dog drew itself up to its full height, forcing Lupin to look up at it to meet its eyes. He let the weight of its gaze bear him down, knowing that Sirius could pin him easily if he wanted to. He crouched low, backed against the wall, with no way to escape.
The realization that he was trapped brought a flood of relief. He whined softly, and looked away from Sirius, twisting to bare his throat. He felt the pressure of Sirius's jaws on his throat, and for a moment couldn't breathe.
Then Sirius released him, and he whined again, his throat stinging. Sirius rested his head against Lupin's shoulder for a moment and then lay down next to him, pressing him firmly into the corner. Lupin tried to find a comfortable position to settle in, turning as much as he could while pinned by Sirius's weight.
It was quiet. Being unable to speak meant there was no need to fill the silence. He could simply lie there, feeling his breathing slowing, and the warmth from the fire starting to lull him into sleepiness.
After a while Sirius rolled closer to the fire, leaving him room to move. He stretched, got to his feet, and padded around to lie down on Sirius's other side on the hearthrug. He closed his eyes, listening to Sirius's breathing and the crackling of the fire.
Moonset woke him. It was still dark outside, and the fire had dimmed to red embers. He was cold, and ached from head to toe; he got up quietly, making the black dog twitch in its sleep, and dressed. The clock on the dresser said five a.m.
Lupin came back to the fire and sat down on the floor, leaning against the sofa. Sirius's paws twitched in his sleep, dreaming of chasing or being chased. Lupin couldn't tell which. He patted Sirius's head as he would have an ordinary dog's, feeling the softness of the black fur, and then stopped as the dog stirred restlessly under his hand.
He got up, looking around for Sirius's robe.
"It's on the table," Sirius said from behind him. "You could light the fire again while you're at it."
Lupin slipped his hand into the pocket of his dressing gown for his wand and murmured "Incendio." He could feel the fire blaze up in response. He found the black robe and handed it to Sirius, who pulled it on gratefully. Both of them watched the flames for a while.
"Thank you," Lupin said after a while, unable to resist filling the silence now that it was possible to speak. Sirius shrugged.
"You were right," he said. "I should have gone out. I suppose I thought it would be all right because it was me."
There wasn't much Lupin could think of to say to that. Sirius watched the fire again, shadows flickering across his face.
"Do you remember when we all wanted to be Aurors?" he said. "Somebody had lost something-"
"Celia Janson. It was her diary. Severus took it."
"Severus was hounding her half to death because James liked her."
"I always thought it was because you liked her."
"You figured out where the notes were, and I distracted Severus, and we both should have known she'd end up at the Midwinter Ball with James."
Lupin smiled.
"Virtue is its own reward."
"You would say that. James was convinced we had a promising career in law enforcement ahead of us."
"James grew out of it," Lupin said. "You didn't."
Sirius shook his head.
"That's just because I always wanted to get to the top. James wasn't like that. You remember how people were when he settled down with a wife and a baby. I was as bad as anyone, pushing him not to waste his time."
"I don't think he wasted it," Lupin said. "I think he spent it just the way he would have wanted."
"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it," Sirius said, his voice uneven. Lupin made a point of poking at the fire for a while. Finally Sirius took the fireplace poker out of his hand. "I'm not crying," he said.
"You? You never cry."
"That's because I'm a heartless bastard." Sirius jabbed violently at the fire, sending sparks swirling up the chimney. "What right have I got to still be here if he's not? He was the best of us."
"He was," Lupin said. "But you were the strongest."
"That's not how it's supposed to work."
"Because it's not fair?"
"Yes. Because it's not fair."
"The world isn't. You live with it."
"That was always easier for you."
"It had to be. I was the one who knew I couldn't really be an Auror when I grew up."
"Because a lot of people are prejudiced idiots."
"Because I was bitten by a werewolf when I was three, which very nearly ruined my life. The fact that it didn't is because I've had a lot of help."
"The fact that it didn't is because you're too stubborn to let it."
"That's an accident, not a virtue." Lupin shrugged. "The world is full of accidents."
"Do you think Harry surviving was an accident?"
"I believe in the power of love, Sirius. Just not in justice."
The fire was crackling brightly. Sirius put the poker down and stretched out with his chin on his hands.
"What do normal people talk about?" he asked after a while.
Lupin thought about the question seriously. "Quidditch, I think. And politics."
"I could talk about politics."
"I'd rather you didn't right now, actually."
"Fair enough."
"I think Muggles talk about television."
"Huh."
"What am I going to do about the floor?"
"Say the dog did it?"
"My lease doesn't allow pets."
"We can fix it."
"Inconvenient that it doesn't all get better in the light of day."
Sirius shrugged. "You live with it."
"Didn't we used to be more cheerful?"
"Older and wiser?" Sirius suggested.
"Something like that." There was a long stretch of quiet. "Is it morning yet?"
"We could say it was."
Lupin got to his feet. "I'll make some tea. We can talk about politics."
Sirius followed him into the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe.
"On one side, the combined forces of darkness," he said. "On the other side, the two of us and our secret weapon, a pot of tea. Does that seem a little unmatched to you?"
"Sugar?" Lupin asked calmly.
"Why not? Life is short."
"It's good tea."
"Well. I'm sure that will make all the difference."
"Have a little faith," Lupin said, and handed him the sugar bowl.