Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it ain't mine.

A/N: You may have noticed and will notice in the future, that I often write about Remus reading romance novels – whether he's OOC, or canon. It's probably because they're my secret pleasure occasionally. Also, the thing they're moaning about in this fic is something I do a lot, so I'm not knocking it, I just find it funny XD Anyway, enjoy!

"What're you reading, Rem?" a girl asked as she bounced up and sat on the sofa opposite him. He looked up to see the seventh year Gryffindor girls approaching him: Annabelle, the dark haired sex goddess (as Peter had named her, but not by personal knowledge, more through second-hand gen from Sirius before the Lothario had given up women to ask a smitten Remus out), followed by Lily, James Potter's property (it doesn't need to be said who had given her that title), Clara, the blonde with the breasts (Sirius' creative invention, despite his standing with Remus), and Mary-Ann, the brunette fellow bookworm (fondly given by Remus), settling up around him by the fire.

Remus pulled his legs up beneath him and smile in welcome at them, keeping a finger in his book to mark his place and closing it. The girls liked to come and talk to him when he wasn't in the company of his fellow Marauders, what with him being the resident (sweet – Sirius didn't count in their eyes) gay Gryffindor.

"Ministry of Mischief." Remus smiled at Annabelle, feeling rather smug and trying not to show it, "The new Wanda Wetherby book. My cousin sent it to me yesterday morning."

"Oh no!" Mary-Ann groaned, slapping a hand to her forehead in despair, "I completely forgot about that! I can't wait until the next Hogsmead weekend!"

"It'll be sold out by the time we get there." Lily said miserably.

"You can all borrow mine." Remus said kindly, "Until you get your copies – once I've finished, of course. Perhaps you could take it in turns?"

"You're a genius, Rem" Lily sighed, "I don't think I could go too long without reading it now I know it's out."

"Read us a bit!" Clara begged, shaking her clasped hands and making Remus laugh, "Please? Just the page you're on now!"

"Fab idea, Clara," Annabelle grinned, before turning a pout that looked disturbingly like Sirius' pout on Remus, "Would you read us a story, Remus?"

Remus sighed, never able to resist such an expression, opened his book and looked down to read – which was when he remembered just which part he had been on before he had been interrupted. He looked up at the girls imploringly.

"I don't think this bit is…ahem, suitable." He said beseechingly, knowing he couldn't just skip ahead, as they would ask why anyway, "Let me read another part."

"Ooo," Clara giggled, "Is it a love scene?"

"Um, yes." Remus answered reluctantly. They all giggled together and begged him to read it to them. "Why don't one of you read it? I don't particularly want to—"

"A man sounds better," Mary-Ann urged, her lids dropping a little as she gave Remus a slow smile, "A deep, husky voice always sounds so good reading a love scene."

"Mary-Ann!" Remus exclaimed, surprised at her attitude.

"I need my Wanda Wetherby fix!" the bespectacled girl cried in despair.

"We all do." Lily said, giving Remus her best puppy dog eyes, "Come on, the Common Room's practically empty."

"Everyone's out in the snow," Clara added persuasively, "And we'll tell you if anyone comes in." she added, glancing over Remus' shoulder at the portrait hole.

"Well…" Annabelle said with a grin. The other girls glared. "Oh, fine. We'll tell you. Please read it, Rem?"

"Oh, alright." Remus sighed, unable to supress a smile, "But you all owe me mountains of chocolate for this. Come on, let's sit closer by the fire. I am not repeating anything."

The girls happily complied, gathering around Remus on the floor in front of the fireplace, looking like a perfectly cosy group of friends, swathed in oversized wool jumpers and leaning into each other as the heat of the flames warmed through them and made them lazy and content. To anyone who knew girls like these, they would see them and instantly know that they were up to no good.

"Right, where shall I start…? Okay, here we go." Remus said, feeling embarrassed at what he was about to say out loud. He cleared his throat and started, "Finally, the Minister left, effectively ending the meeting, leaving Logan to answer any forgotten questions from the Ministry Officials and then send them off home for the day. The room emptied quickly, its occupants eager to leave save but two.

"Logan tried to ignore the other man, waving his wand to stack the papers left behind containing decisions and issues left over from the weekly meeting into organised piles, before settling into the Minister's chair at the head of the grand table to start sifting through the minutes for his boss's perusal and to sign the relevant documents to certify law changes decided but ten minutes ago.

"'Kenneth, you can leave now.' Logan said in a firm voice. Kenneth stayed in his seat, watching Logan's hands as they flipped through pages of dull paperwork. He watched his fingers grip his quill as they guided the tip along the parchment, signing his name over and over and making corrections here and there. Eventually, he decided that Logan had worked for long enough. Kenneth got to his feet, letting the heavy wooden chair scrape against the black marble floor, and made his way to the head of the table. Logan kept his eyes firmly on the parchment he was scanning, much to Kenneth's amusement.

"'You look like you need a break,' the apprentice said to the official quietly, reaching down to extract the quill from Logan's fingers and laying it down on the table, 'Let me help you relax, sir.' Logan allowed the younger man to turn his chair towards him, unable to avoid looking up into those dark, hypnotic eyes and nodded reluctantly. He was the man who practically ran the Ministry behind the public façade that was their Minister, so what they were doing could potentially threaten his job if anyone found out.

"Would he ever be able to resist this man? Would he be able to resist him when his wife found out? Would he if his job was in jeopardy all because of this torrid, forbidden affaire? He didn't want to believe that the answer would be no, so he reached up to pull Kenneth down, his hands gripping the younger man's hair.

"Kenneth accepted the invitation smugly and leant down to kiss Logan with a slow indulgence, invading the older man's mouth with his searching tongue, closing his eyes as their heat melded together in that one point of contact. He felt Logan's fingers tangling in his hair, tugging insistently, but did not hurry the kiss along, or touch him at all. He had stayed behind after the dull meeting for one thing and one thing alone – to re-establish his stamp on the Official seated before him.

"Once Logan was pleading with breathy moans for Kenneth to 'please, just do something!', he smiled against the other's mouth and pulled away to kneel before the Minister's chair. Logan looked down at him with lust in his eyes as Kenneth reached for his robes, pushing them up and over his head to gain access to the zipper on his trousers. There was no teasing, no prolonging the moment. Seeing Logan – his Logan – with that woman had made him see red and feel a nearly primal, animalistic instinct to mark his territory. He undid the zipped and reached beneath the elastic of the other man's boxers to firmly grasp his throbbing erection—okay, okay, that was getting hot until that word."

The girls frowned at Remus, blinking and shaking their heads slightly to rid themselves of the dreamy reveries they had all been caught up in at the story and at Remus' soothing voice that had grown huskier and huskier as he had gotten caught up in the narrative, stirring slightly from their positions into which they had relaxed when they had been caught up in Remus' storytelling, Annabelle lying across Mary-Ann's lap, Lily's head in Remus' lap and Clara curled up beside him cosily. Remus was currently frowning down at the book in his lap, a look of dissatisfaction on his face, where and expression of unmistakable lust had been only a second ago.

"I was getting into that." Annabelle pouted.

"I'll bet you were." Lily smirked with an eyebrow waggle James would have been proud of.

"Why did you stop?" Clara asked, still sounding faraway, lifting her head from where it had been comfortably resting on Remus' shoulder.

"You were doing so well." Mary-Anna said, looking a little flushed as she continued to plait Annabelle's hair. Remus shook his head and placed his bookmark carefully before closing the book and putting it down beside him, much to the chagrin of his avid listeners.

"I'm sorry," he apologised with a soft sigh, "As much as I adore Wanda Wetherby's writing and her stories, when she uses that word, it pisses me off so much I can't concentrate on the story anymore."

"What word?" Lily asked, her eyebrows raised at Remus' language as she looked up at him questioningly.

"Erection." Remus said, before shuddering lightly. The girls followed suit, looks of distaste draining their faces of any good memories of what they had just heard. "I refuse to believe that there isn't a better word to use than that."

"I agree. It's awful." Mary-Ann nodded, receiving more nods of approval, "Wounds all clinical and sort of reminds me of my mother giving me the talk."

They all shuddered again collectively.

"Well, what else would Wetherby use?" Clara asked, "I've read that in loads of romance novels."

"How about, rod of desire?" Lily giggled. The others spluttered and laughed, whilst Remus shook his head in amusement, "Or, throbbing member?"

"I think I've read somewhere, purple-headed yoghurt slinger." Clara snickered, earning a playful poke from Annabelle, "Read it in a magazine a while back."

"What about, blue-veined junket pump?" Annabelle suggested, to snorts of laughter.

"You could never beat the sperminator." Mary-Ann said with such a straight face it made Lily choke on her own surprised laugh.

"Vagina miner!" Lily cried, still giggling at Mary-Ann's.

"Thrill drill." Annabelle said with a lewd lick along her lips.

"One hit wonder." Clara snorted, lookin as though the suggestion had a reason behind it. The others – including Remus, who had heard the story – dissolved into more helpless giggles. Once they had quietened, holding their aching sides and trying to stop smiling to relieve their muscles, Lily looked up at Remus, her head still in his lap.

"What about you?" she asked with a lifted eyebrow, "What would you suggest Wetherby use?"

"Well, there is one that Sirius uses that I think is quite appropriate for us—" Remus started with an amused grin. The girls looked eager to hear a rare detail about Remus' and Sirius' sex life, but Remus was cut off by the portrait hole swinging open to admit none other than Sirius Black into the common room. Remus chuckled as the girls groaned in disappointment, but then cooed when Sirius approached and tugged him to his feet for a kiss hello.

"Whatever you're doing, drop it and come upstairs." Sirius demanded imperiously, making the girls swoon sarcastically at his charm. Remus gave him a Look that made the animagus pout and add, "Please, Moony?"

"I'll be going now, girls." Remus informed the group by the fire. They each gave him winks and knowing eyebrow waggles as Sirius grabbed his hand and started to tug him towards the stairs to the boy's dormitories.

"Remus, wait!" Annabelle called after them, sitting up, "You never told us what you and Black call an erection!"

Remus was second guessing his decision to answer when Sirius bent down to wrap his arms around his hips and proceed to throw him over his shoulder, as though he weighed less than a feather. After giving the girls by the fire a lewd wink and a grin, he leapt up the stairs two at a time, his words called over his shoulder before the door to the seventh year boy's dormitory could be heard opening and closing:

"I need help with my homo erectus!"