Lupin's Best Work
By Verbalklepto

Pairing: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Apology: I'm sorry. I had to frame it in something that made me more comfortable. Hopefully it's not too bad.

"Which broom closet would you prefer?"

"Albus, I hardly think that this is appropriate..."

"Nonsense, my dear," a smile, twinkling eyes. "I am the headmaster, after all, and I can think of little more appropriate—"

"—I think the word you're looking for is obscene—"

"—than rewarding the deputy headmistress for her dedication." The smile widens, and Minerva rolls her eyes away from the glinting blue, beaming at her from behind the half-moon spectacles that have fallen so far down his nose as to be rendered useless. Albus wraps his hands around her arm, and Minerva looks for a moment as if she might swat him away, but in the end she continues on beside him down the empty corridor.

"You ought to reward Sybil, too."

Albus's brow furrows, and he coughs, startled. "What?"

"Well, it's only fair. And then of course there's Pomona, and Binns, naturally..."

"You must be kidding."

"How often have you known me to kid, Albus?"

"Rarely, my dear. I do not think, though, that they will appreciate this particular sort of reward..."

She smiles slightly, her lips twisting to the side as they turn a corner, and she pats the side of her head, smoothing a bit of dark, loose hair in an attempt to keep from laughing outright. "Oh, no? And why ever not?"

He pulls her closer to him, swinging her around as though they are on a dance floor so that she is face to face with him; her smile erupts without her consent as he peers over the end of his crooked nose at her and murmurs, "Binns would find it demeaning to carry on any sort of... discourse in a broom closet."

"What of Sybil?"

He leans nearer, their noses almost brushing, "she would contract an abrupt and inexplicable case of claustrophobia, surely."

"Pomona—"

"—has a husband who would be appalled to hear of such a reward system as I have concocted." The words are whispered against her lips, and her grin widens as he snakes his arms around her waist.

"Then I suppose I shall collect their reward, in addition to my own."

The half-moons glint. "If you insist."

He kisses her, then, one hand resting on the back of her neck, the other groping for the handle of the door that sits fractionally to his left. Albus finally manages to open the door, and, tangled in one another's arms, lips locked, the Headmaster and his deputy stumble a little blindly into the broom closet.

"Bloody hell—" comes a voice, suddenly, piercing the intimacy of the moment with the subtlety of a bludger. A lumos charm is muttered, and suddenly the small room is illuminated, revealing that two other occupants are also present.

Minerva gapes. Albus stares.

Remus Lupin stands, bare-chested, with his hands against the wall. Between his arms rests Sirius Black, apparently pressed up against the cold stone, and apparently less clothed than his companion, though Minerva studiously avoids ascertaining such a fact for certain. Remus's hair is mussed, sandy-brown standing on end in places, and slicked against his forehead by sweat in others. Sirius's hands dig still into Remus's back, a string of half-moon fingernail prints dotting Lupin's sallow skin; their chests heave, and their lips are swollen, and even without all of the obvious clues, figuring out what they had interrupted would have only been too easy. The look in Lupin's eyes was positively feral, and with surprise Minerva realizes that it was his voice that had made the couple's presence known, not Sirius's, as she had initially assumed. Sirius, for his part, loses the look of shock quickly – a beat later, his hands fall from Lupin's back and rake through his dark hair, and the smile on his face strikes Minerva as being a little woozy, and his dark eyes glitter with amusement. Remus, though, looks distinctly annoyed.

Sirius's laughter breaks the awkwardness of the moment, and the sound seems to bring everybody back to themselves – Remus runs his hands frenetically through his hair, smoothing it into a semblance of order, fumbling apologies issuing cursorily from his red, kissed mouth; Albus straightens, disentangling himself from Minerva and pressing the edges of his purple robes into straight lines, absently passing a hand over his auburn hair; Minerva's smile pulls into a taut line, and she withdraws her arms from around the Headmaster's neck; Sirius stands from against the wall, and appears for all the world at ease with the situation as he turns around to lift his pants from a pile of broken-shafted brooms.

"Sorry for the interruption, Professors," Sirius says, still looking amused, as he steps into his pants, slides into his shirt, and begins to replace his robes.

Remus mutters something, his cheeks sufficiently red.

"We'll just be getting out of your hair – don't let us spoil your evening –"

"Not so fast, Mr. Black," Minerva snaps authoritatively, trying not to focus too much on the situation in an attempt to combat her smoldering mortification. "It's well past curfew, unless I'm mistaken."

"But Professor—"

"No buts, Mr. Black. Twenty points from Gryffindor for your serious lack of judgement, and your apparent inability to determine what is and is not appropriate in a public setting."

"And what about you?" pipes up Remus unexpectedly, pulling the hem of his shirt down. At the sharp look Minerva gives him, he tacks on, "professor."

"What of me, Mr. Lupin?"

"Haven't you made the same error? I mean, you and the headmaster were—well, you know—"

"—Remus, please don't make me relive—"

"As a professor, I do not have to abide by the curfew."

"You don't have to act appropriately, either?" Two pairs of startled eyes jump to Remus's anxiously composed face, startled by his forwardness. However, the third pair of eyes look nothing but amused, and before Minerva can retort, Albus interjects.

"He does have a point, Professor McGonagall."

Minerva splutters for a second before managing, "pardon?"

Albus surveys the occupants of the room carefully over the wire-rim of his spectacles, his lips curved into a bemused smile. "Whilst Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin certainly should not be out so far past curfew, you and I certainly should not behave thusly. It sets a poor example for impressionable students, does it not, Professor?"

"I suppose," Minerva finds herself saying as Albus steps backward, pushing the door open and wrapping on hand around a dazed McGonagall's arm so as to pull her with him.

"As we are all four of us in the wrong, I suggest a truce."

Remus raises his brows, seemingly oblivious to the open-mouthed stare he is receiving from Sirius.

"Should you be willing to – how shall I put this – forget that you saw us, Professor McGonagall and I may find ourselves forgetting that this encounter ever occurred."

"Certainly, Headmaster," Remus says with a nod.

Albus winks and presses his hands together in a playful, almost childish sort of bow as he dips his head, and closes the door behind him, leaving the two Gryffindors alone in the broom cupboard.

"Where the hell did that come from?"

"What?" Remus asks distractedly, turning to face Sirius, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

"That—you just called out McGonagall."

"So?"

"So, Rem, she's our head of house, and you've been kissing her arse for the past six years."

Remus glares. "Yeah, well, she usually doesn't interrupt me when I'm doing my best work."

The glare fades into a grin, echoed on the face of the dark-haired boy as Sirius lets out a bark of startled, delighted laughter; it doesn't take more than a second for them to fall back into each other's arms.