A Morning with Moony and Padfoot
Hey guys. Here's a little last-minute fanfic before I read HBP…oh, I hope the book doesn't destroy my happy slash world inhabited by Moony and Padfoot. Anyway, enjoy.
Warning: SLASH (boy/boy situations), Sirius/Remus pairing. If you can't stomach it, please don't waste your time and mine.
Disclaimer: All HP characters © JK Rowling. If I owned them, it wouldn't be a children's book. ;)
Harry Potter had a nasty habit of trapaising about in other people's memories. No matter how hard he tried, he simply could not control his curiosity. That was why he was to be found one dull afternoon gazing into the abandoned Pensieve sitting on Lupin's desk. The memories stirred innocently in wisps of liquid smoke. Harry brought out his wand and, with a fleeting glance at the door to make sure he was alone, prodded the surface of the mist. The thoughts swirled at the disturbance, eventually coming to rest as a transparent evanescence.
He bent over the Pensieve. Harry found himself looking down at a dormitory much like his own—Gryffindor, judging by the red and gold drapings around the four-poster beds. He leant a little further, and was pitched headfirst into the scene below in a whirlwind of icy blackness.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, Harry felt the familiar wave of dizziness as he took in his surroundings. Bright sunlight was streaming in through the window, bathing everything in an ethereal glow. He reckoned it was probably sometime mid-morning. Fall was clearly encroaching upon the grounds of Hogwarts. The top of the Forbidden Forest was a riot of golds and reds, and the grass was starting to desiccate and take on a starved, weedy appearance in preparation for winter.
The dormitory appeared to be empty except for a lone boy lounging on the bed closest to the door. With a lurch of his stomach, Harry recognized the boy as none other than a younger Lupin—probably sixteen or seventeen. His face was free of lines and his brown hair wasn't streaked with the gray that Harry always associated with his favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. But his complexion was pale and his face pained. The sunlight picked out the pink scars running along his arms and his naked chest, disappearing into the blanket that was pulled up to his waist. It looked as if they had just stopped bleeding. Some of the scars were beginning to scab.
Lupin was wringing his hands, his face anxious. He seemed to be waiting for something, but before Harry could wonder what it could be, the door creaked open and in stepped Harry's godfather, looking much the worse for wear. Sirius's handsome face was offset by red, blotchy eyes and a swollen nose. He had the look of someone who had been crying and had tried hastily to disguise the fact. His hair was disheveled and his gray t-shirt had dark patches where Harry assumed his tears had fallen.
Sirius headed straight for Lupin, looking distraught and more than a little afraid. Lupin, on the other hand, was watching Sirius intently, no doubt taking in his condition. Harry watched as his godfather strode shyly over to the bed where Lupin sat and perched on the edge. Sirius seemed to be gathering his courage for something. He took a deep breath and turned to face Lupin, his face set in an expression of mingled fear and guilt.
"Moony," he croaked, his voice hoarse and dry. "I—"
"Please don't say you're sorry," Lupin interrupted quietly. He wasn't looking at Sirius but was gazing rather fixedly at his hands.
"Why?"
"I hate seeing you like this. You're supposed to be the strong one, remember?"
Sirius snorted viciously. "Me? The strong one?" he asked with a cruel laugh. "You're the one who's strong, Moony. Stronger than I could ever hope to be." Harry thought he heard an inflection of shame in Sirius's voice.
Lupin finally looked up at Sirius. He smiled tentatively, though it was a smile that was full of pain and longing. "I don't know if I can ever forget what you did. When James told me, I didn't want to believe him. It was"—here Lupin's voice broke, and he blinked rapidly, his eyes turned toward the ceiling—"…it was something I never imagined would happen…never imagined you would make happen."
Sirius was crying silently now, tears streaming unheeded down his face. It was so uncharacteristic of the rash and proud Sirius that Harry was used to. He had never seen his godfather loose control like this before. Obviously something had happened between the two—had they had a row of some kind?
"I wanted to hear it directly from you," Lupin continued, fixing Sirius with a penetrating stare. "I want to know your reasons for what you did."
Sirius looked utterly miserable. He hastily wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and stared at the floor, speaking in a low voice as if he was afraid to talk above a whisper. "Snape goaded me…he kept taunting me about my family and my running away. And he was making fun of you…calling you disgusting names because of what we are…what we do…I wasn't thinking." Sirius locked eyes with Lupin, and from his utterly wretched expression he was expecting the worst.
Harry was lost. What did Sirius mean by "what we are" and "what we do"? What did they do that would warrant such horrible names? But his godfather was talking again, and Harry stepped closer to the pair in order to hear better.
"There's nothing I can tell you that justifies what I did. But I—I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't realize what I'd done until I told James and…the expression on his face…I'm sorry."
Harry understood. This must have been when Sirius played that trick on Snape and had told him how to get past the Whomping Willow.
"Do you know what happened to the werewolf that bit me?" asked Lupin, the anger building in his voice. He didn't wait for an answer. "He was killed! Killed! That's what happens to werewolves who attack humans. They're put down! DID YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU TOLD SNAPE HOW TO FIND ME?"
Judging by the shock on his godfather's face, Sirius clearly hadn't known. Lupin seemed to notice this, too, for his voice was considerably gentler, though still cold, when he next spoke.
"You really didn't know?"
Sirius looked horrified. His eyes were welling up with tears again. As quick as a flash, he wrapped his arms around Lupin's shoulders and pulled him into a tight embrace. "Oh, God! I swear I didn't know, Remus. I…God…if I'd known…I never…I didn't think." Lupin struggled against Sirius's hold, pounding his fists on Sirius's back. "Oh, God, Moony. I'm so sorry. I never imagined…I'm sorry."
Lupin stopped resisting, his arms falling limp at his sides. Sirius didn't release him; if anything, he seemed to hold on tighter. Gradually, Lupin inched his arms around Sirius's waist and buried his face into the boy's neck.
Harry looked on with mounting unease. He understood that this was a tender moment, but their behavior seemed slightly…off. There was no awkwardness in their actions, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. Harry couldn't imagine hugging Ron or Hermione like that…or anyone at all, for that matter. But then again, he had always noticed a certain comfort and intimacy that Lupin and Sirius seemed to have around each other.
After what seemed like an eternity to Harry, they broke apart, not meeting each other's eyes. Lupin was silent for a long time. Sirius was looking at him apprehensively, anguish carved into every line of his face.
But when Lupin finally looked up, he was smiling—a true, genuine smile, though there were also tears in his eyes. He reached out a hand toward Sirius's face and cupped his cheek shakily.
"I forgive you, Padfoot," he said.
For a minute it looked as if Sirius would start crying again, but then a slow, tentative smile spread over his face. He scooted closer to Lupin and leaned in so that their faces were merely a foot apart.
"You really do?" he asked as if hardly daring to believe it.
"Yes. It's going to take a while for me to trust you again, but…I forgive you."
"Just tell me what to do, Moony. I'll do anything to have your trust again." From the expression on Sirius's face, Harry knew that he truly meant anything. And, it seemed, Lupin knew it, too.
He smiled and beckoned Sirius forward; Sirius obliged by inching even closer—much closer, Harry thought, than friends had any right to sit. Lupin's next question sent Harry's mind into panic mode.
"Do you love me?" Lupin asked.
Harry forced himself to calm down. Maybe it was just a joke—or maybe that was just the way they talked to each other. Lupin had probably meant "Do you love me as a friend?" But Sirius's answer didn't seem to fit.
"More than life itself, Moony."
"Then don't ever betray me again."
"I won't. I promise."
What was going on? Harry wanted to be back in his room—anywhere except here.
Lupin reached out and grabbed a handful of Sirius's hair, an expression on his face that Harry had never seen before. Harry thought he would faint at Lupin's next words.
"Kiss me."
Surely he didn't mean…surely they weren't actually going to—
But Harry's thoughts whittled away as Sirius leaned closer. If he had not been as shocked as he was, he would have felt embarrassed at having witnessed such an obviously intimate and private moment. But as it was, Harry was having difficulty breathing. He watched, horrified, as the gap between Sirius and Lupin shrunk into nothing.
What were they doing?
Maybe it was a friendly kiss, he thought. They had hugged like that, so maybe they also…kissed…sometimes. It was a pathetic and desperate explanation, Harry knew; he was ready to seize any kind of rationalization at this point.
But not even Harry could entertain the delusion as he watched Lupin circle his arms around Sirius neck and draw him onto the bed.
Panicking now, Harry turned his back to them, clenching his eyes shut. He wanted more than anything to be back in his own room. But the problem was, he had no idea how to get out of the Pensieve. The two times he had fallen into someone's memories before, he had always been pulled out. Harry wracked his brain, desperate for any information that could help.
It was getting increasingly hard to think over the slurping and moaning noises now coming from the heap that was Lupin and his godfather. Harry hurriedly stuffed his fingers in his ears, but he couldn't block out Sirius's rather loud and lustful moan or his accompanied plea.
"Fuck me, Moony." Harry burrowed his fingers further into his ears until he thought he might puncture his own eardrum. "Fuck me. Own me. I want—I want to feel you inside me. Please."
Harry wavered on the spot. There was no doubt about it: he was definitely going to need therapy after this.
Harry ran to the door and attempted frantically to pull it open. But his hands flitted right through the doorknob as if he was a ghost.
Desperate now, Harry backed up to the far end of the wall from where his godfather and Lupin were, his eyes still scrunched tight. But his fingers weren't enough to muffle the raucous sounds of lovemaking emitting from the bed.
Why couldn't they do this kind of thing quietly? Wouldn't everyone be able to hear them?
But they didn't seem to care. Lupin was grunting in ways that made Harry sure he could never look the man in the eye again. Sirius was worse—much worse. He was screaming obscenities at the top of his voice, egging his partner on.
Harry sunk down onto the floor. His head was spinning and he felt nauseous.
Suddenly Sirius shrieked a curse, followed closely by Lupin's equally loud moan. Then all was silent except for the ragged breathing of the bed's inhabitants. Harry's nostrils filled with the tangy, pungent smell of semen.
It seemed as if they had finished. Harry didn't dare look to make sure. But after nearly ten minutes had passed in silence, Harry chanced a peek.
Lupin and Sirius had pulled the bedclothes over their naked bodies (their clothes were scattered all over the floor around the bed) and seemed, as far as Harry could tell, to be asleep. That is, until he heard them conversing in low tones. Despite himself, Harry took his fingers out of his ears.
"That was the best sex we've ever had, I think," Sirius whispered.
Harry made to stuff his ears shut again.
"I love you, Sirius."
"I love you, too, Moony."
Harry felt woozy. If someone didn't pull him out soon, he was sure he would need to be checked in at the psychiatric ward at St. Mungo's. There were so many ways he could have found out about Sirius and Lupin's relationship; this was definitely not the one he would have chosen.
He felt a flare of indignation that they hadn't told him. But then again, they didn't really need to. The signs were always there; Harry had just never recognized them for what they were.
But Harry was sure of one thing: he would never be able to look either of them in the eye again.
And he would never ever ever steal into other people's Pensieves again.
Hope you guys liked reading it as much as I liked writing it. Reviews appreciated. :)