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The first thing he notices that morning in any detail is the way Remus’s scar — on the right side of his chin stretching from lip to jawline — moves with his mouth as he draws from a cigarette. It’s stark white in the cold, an exclamation. The mark turns Sirius’s stomach. He spends hours at night thinking about that scar and how it would feel against his mouth. The presence of it haunts his nights, an apparition of taunting desire. They stand by a tree that shadows a wide pond at the back of their school grounds, before the frost covered grass transitions into forest. It is December cold, frigid and hazy dark at nine am. The tips of Sirius’s fingers have gone red, his fingerless gloves doing little to protect him from the temperature but making it easy to roll a fag. James leans against the tree, grey beanie shoved over his curls, hair poking out from beneath it and fanning over his forehead and ears. He persists in smoking with his gloves on, awkwardly pinching it between thumb and forefinger, eyes crossing as he takes each drag. They’re quiet this morning, an echoing silence seeming to stretch across the grounds, far enough away from any students bundled in coats and scarves traversing across the courtyard and gravel paths between dorms and the dining hall.
Sirius keeps ruminating on Remus’s scar and the slick-hot feeling in his chest every time he catches a glimpse of it, and how their elbows keep knocking when one of them takes a drag. Peter skips stones across the pond, school jumper pushed up to his elbows, tartan scarf pulled around his blond head. There is the lapping of the water at the shore and the tap of Peter’s stone as it skips along the water before thunking to the bottom, and little else.
Sirius adjusts his scarf, lights a new cigarette and says, “The Christmas Ball. Are we wearing matching outfits this year?”
James straightens, glancing at Peter then Remus. Sirius frowns and watches him scuff his shoe along the dirt. Remus’s face remains unchanged bar a slight crease between his brows. Peter stops skipping stones and joins their huddle.
James fumbles, “Listen, Sirius. I’m thinking -”
“You better not be fucking -”
James begins speaking louder, “It’s fine! Sirius! Come on.”
“James.”
“Mate, I’m going with Lily. I’ve asked her. We’re going to the ball together.”
Sirius pauses, chewing at the inside of his cheek. James and him have been best friends since the first week of year seven when they arrived at Hogwarts College with scuffed knees and the endless energy of eleven year old boys. They shared a drafty room with exposed brick walls and thin carpet and stayed up all night flicking through James’s sports magazines and talking. After receiving the first detentions of their year group in their Friday maths lesson for disruptive conduct, it had bonded them for life. They were brothers. Remus and Peter shared the room opposite them in the years sevens and eights boy block. Their first weekend before classes, they shared the chocolate and crisps James and Peter’s parents had packed them on the floor of their dorm and even at eleven, Sirius found himself watching Remus push his hair back or adjust the sleeves of his jumper, gripping them in his hands.
As the years went on their group expanded, and then there was Mary and Lily, Marlene and Dorcas. Friendships forged over essays in the library, yellow lamplight illuminating their tables late into the evening. Parties and visits into town, searching the charity shops with Marlene and Lily; hangovers and nights spent crowded in each other’s rooms watching films. Sirius was kicked out of home in year ten over the Christmas holidays after coming out at his Father’s party, loudly and dramatically, in front of other conservative MP’s and important political players. The Potter’s took him in. Sirius slept in James’s bed the entire holidays despite the room they had for him, often crying, often comforted by James. These days there is rarely a thought that enters James’s head that he isn’t privy to and vice versa. They are each other’s palm life lines, a matching set.
In the still cold, mist clouding the peaks of their dorm house in the distance, Sirius isn’t pleased. His chest is tight. He sniffs and says, “Fine.”
James drops his cigarette and rubs beneath his glasses with a gloved hand. “Sirius,” he sighs.
“Peter,” he tries then feeling like a dog pawing at the back door, “Remus?”
Peter adjusts the scarf around his head and scrunches his mouth to the side. “Amelie asked me. I’m — I’m going with her.” He shrugs, “I’m sorry. You know I like her.”
He groans, rolling his eyes, “Come on,” and turns to Remus, gripping his coat zipper and looking up at him with wide eyes. The corner of Remus’s mouth pinches, warping the scar once again. “It’s our final Ball! We’ve all gone to every dance and god forsaken function this fucking school has put on together. You can’t leave me like this.”
“That’s a significant part of why Pete didn’t get laid until last year despite the fact that we live at a co-ed boarding school,” James inputs.
Without taking his eyes off Remus, he says, “Mate, you still haven’t gotten laid bar that one blowjob from that Italian exchange student. What was his -? Franco. The blowjob from Franco.”
James sighs heavily. “I like sex to be meaningful.”
“Oh my god-”
Remus pulls away from his grip and steps back, scrubbing at his jaw with his bare hand, blue at the fingertips from his poor circulation. “I don’t know,” he sighs, “I might be going with someone. I don’t — um.” He walks backwards as he speaks and trips over a dip in the grass, stumbling and arms flailing before he finds his balance. Sirius looks up to the dark grey sky, thick clouds crowding out the watery sunlight. He groans, kicks the ground and starts after Remus, jogging to catch up.
“Who are you going with?” he asks. “Are you dating someone?” Remus shakes his head, shrugs. He is smudged against the grey morning, a sketch in gold and brown. Sirius is panting with the pace of their walking. Something desperate sprawls across his ribs. He tries again, “Are you with someone? Why haven’t you told me you’re dating someone?”
Remus briefly closes his eyes and mutters, pained, “Don’t worry about it, Sirius. It’s nothing.” And, “Please.”
Sirius closes his mouth as James and Peter catch up, cheeks flushed. He huffs and latches onto Remus’s elbow with both hands, feigning indifference as jealousy caverns him. “Marlene and Dorcas better be on a fucking break again,” he says to all of them, ignoring his sinking stomach, the dread stumbling down the rungs of his spine, the spiced cinnamon scent of Remus beside him.
///
Marlene and Dorcas are, in fact, broken up, which he learns that evening in Marlene’s room, comforting her as she sobs onto his shoulder. He presses her into his chest and rubs her back, reassuring her they’ll be back together by the holidays as the last five break ups and reconciliations have evidenced.
“We’re done this time,” she sniffs, sitting up and wiping her eyes. The ochre brown colour is shiny with tears, snot dripping from her nose. Sirius smooths her uneven black-box-dye hair back with both hands, stretching the wrinkles at her forehead, and she shakes her head. “It’s over. She’s sick of me. We aren’t getting back together, I just know it.”
“Well, then fuck her.”
“She’s your friend too,” she mumbles.
“Still. She sucks right now because you’re crying. Thus, we can hate her.”
Her face crumples and she chokes out, “I could never hate her,” beginning to cry again.
After calming Marlene down and watching several episodes of Downtown Abbey, they agree to go to the Christmas Ball together. Sirius makes her swear that even if she and Dorcas get back together (and history says they will within the next week) that she’ll still attend with him. In theory, he has averted a crisis. In reality, he still cannot stop thinking of Remus’s scar and Remus’s mouth and the way he sounded as he said he might be going with someone to the ball.
///
Snow blankets the dining hall skylights, muting the weak morning light. It is a grey-blue eight am; Sirius has the strange feeling of being underwater, everyone moving slowly, their skin a milky white. He sits and munches on his toast, drifting into the day as James shovels cereal into his mouth on the bench across from him, waving around a bacon slice with his free hand.
The dining hall is one of the oldest buildings in the school, connected to an array of creaking wood and frigid flagstone classrooms, whiteboards bolted atop old chalkboards. The entrance doors tower above students but reach only half the height of the tall ceilings. Intricate details are carved into the wood, looping designs that in all his years at the school, he has never bothered to look closely at. Food is served to one side of the hall on white cloth-covered tables housed in silver chafing dishes and glass platters. There are unspoken rules of where one can sit in the hall. The younger years — sevens and eights — are cornered to benches by the food near the teacher’s tables. As students age, they move further from the teachers and closer to the entrance with the year thirteens taking up an unnecessary amount of space in the far back corner. Close to the entrance without interruption from the steady stream of students during meal times as well as the draft that inevitably flows in, while avoiding the potential gaze of teachers. It leaves them free to slip the occasional unreported stimulant during the more stressful times of the school year.
Sirius, thinking of the energy he’s going to have to possess in twenty minutes for his drama lesson, pours another mug of coffee.
“You’re going to be anxious,” James comments, mouth full.
Sirius stares at him. “I’ll be fine.”
James raises his eyebrows, “You always say that and yet history would suggest otherwise.”
“Stop mothering me.”
“Never,” he replies, reaching forward with his non-bacon hand to stroke Sirius’s cheek, “you’re my darling precious Sirius.”
Sirius jerks out of the way, grabbing James’s hand, “Ugh, not now.” He presses his hand hard into the table, James wincing. Dark freckles spot the backs of his warm brown hands, nails bitten short, wide palms and long fingers. He knows these hands. He picks James’s hand up again, bends his fingers back briefly then bites the side of his palm.
James pulls his hand back and wipes it on his shirt. “Oh man. You’re in a bitey mood today.”
“Always,” he says, finishing off his toast.
“Save it for the bedroom.”
“For the last time,” Lily appears, dropping her plate of scrambled eggs and toast on the table, “we are not having a threesome with Sirius.”
Sirius grins. “Hi. I could take you to heights of pleasure you’ve never even imagined.”
“Hello,” she replies, “that’s a repulsive image.”
“I don’t know -” James murmurs, eyes a little glazed.
“James,” they say simultaneously, Lily exhausted but fond, Sirius with delight. He has the urge to lick James’s cheek, overwhelmed with affection for him and the way a curl by his forehead is sticking directly out at his temple.
Lily leans her weight against James and he immediately accommodates her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tucking her against him. Dark circles shadow beneath her eyes and her mess of auburn curls are shoved into a knot atop her head, a pencil sticking out of it.
“Chemistry is killing me,” she sighs and shoves some eggs into her mouth. She pulls a face, mouth turning down. “Oh god,” she says, leaving her mouth open, “I’m so optimistic about the scrambled eggs every time.”
“Personally, I haven’t eaten scrambled eggs here since November in year seven,” Sirius comments. The eggs are rubbery and always lukewarm.
Lily glares at him. “Aren’t you so smart.”
James hands her the bacon he has been holding for several minutes and she devours it. “When did you go to the library this morning?” he asks, rubbing her upper arm. He wears a devoted look as he gazes at Lily, eyes soft. Sirius looks at his plate then across the hall through the arched windows.
“I was there a bit after six,” she murmurs then groans loudly. Lily is taking chemistry, biology and maths A-Levels, smarter than all of them and determined she’ll be a doctor. Sirius has no doubt. At twelve he watched her kick the knees out from under a boy two years older than her because he wouldn’t give her dropped books back, and at fifteen lead the student walkout against measuring girl’s skirt lengths each week. She is the most determined and just person he has ever met, a five-foot-two bundle of curls and bony elbows with a smile like fate. He thinks of all this ending, the filmy days of youth, time passing like a slinky, like it’s already a soft-edged memory: sleepy mornings complaining over breakfast, evenings by the fire in their common room, his friends always close. His chest gets tight, scooped out, heartbeat echoing.
Peter joins them with a banana and a milky tea, pressing in beside Sirius as the last minute rush of students grab the remains of breakfast before classes begin. He asks, “Remus around?” as Sirius scans the room for him, perpetually late to anything in the morning. He regularly misses breakfast and shuffles into their lessons blinking sleep out of his eyes, hair sticking up and tie askew. When they were younger, before they both came out and touching began to feel dangerous, Sirius used to jump on his bed to wake him up, tackling him into the sheets, his skin sleep-warm and eyes puffy.
His gaze catches on Remus by the food tables. Sirius’s heart kicks into rhythm and Remus rubs his eye with the heel of one hand, the other holding a plate of toast. The weak sun pushing in through the windows knocks against his shoulder and neck, soft white light illuminating that stretch of skin from collar to jaw where Sirius knows a mole sits. It takes him a moment before he registers the other boy Remus is speaking with. They’re laughing as they move along the line. Sirius tries to pull up the boy’s name from the recesses of his mind. He looks familiar. Dark curly hair and broad shoulders, school blazer and jumper straining against them.
Still watching them, he asks, “Who’s that? That bloke Remus is with?”
James turns around then looks back at Sirius. Sirius drags his eyes to meet his as James blinks then knuckles up his glasses. “That’s Oliver. On the football team with me. We’ve gone to school with him since year nine mate.”
“Do you really expect me to know everyone in our year?” he protests, a scowl edging onto his face.
Lily says, “Yes.”
“God.”
Peter adds, “We’ve, like, hung out with him before. Many times over the years, mate, what the hell.”
Sirius sighs. Lily laughs. “My god you’re self-absorption knows no bounds.”
“I reserve my energy for a select few people. No one else registers,” he sniffs, tossing his hair back. He’s grown it out over the last year, returning after summer with it triumphantly sitting at his shoulders, curling lightly. He tries not to be vain about it but it’s difficult. It involves an extensive washing routine.
Peter snorts into his mug, “A select few.”
“What?” he retorts, frowning, then glances at Remus and Oliver again. They are walking towards the entrance doors instead of towards the table. “Do you think this is the guy he’s seeing?”
“Remus is dating someone?” Lily asks.
James says, “No.”
At the same time, Sirius says, “Yes.”
“We don’t know if he’s dating anyone,” James replies.
Sirius rolls his eyes. “Why else would he say he’s going with someone to the ball? Why wouldn’t he go with me?” A strange beat of silence settles over the table, the clatter of cutlery and clack of shoes fills the space. Sirius is itchy.
Lily sighs, glancing at James then says, “If you really want to go with Remus, why don’t you ask him properly?”
Sirius stares at his plate. The raspberry jam has coagulated on the cold toast crusts. Heat sifts down his arms, up across his cheeks. His hands feel too big as he grasps his plate and mug and stands. “I don’t want to go with him that badly. I just don’t understand why he won’t tell us who he’s going with. I know who James and Peter are going with, right?”
Lily looks at him with wide eyes, mouth pulling down at the corners. The gaze settles at his sternum, splitting him open, thumbnail to orange skin. He shakes his head as if he’s brushing everything off, watching still as Remus walks out the hall. Remus’s first lesson is at the far building on the east side of the grounds which means he’ll walk the open hall connected to the courtyard before Sirius has to split off to the drama department. Usually, they walk this route together.
He mutters, “It doesn’t matter,” and dashes off, dropping his dishes into the provided trays, jogging once he exits the building and hits the courtyard, slushy snow melting along the path. Students rush past, scarves pulled up around their mouths, some scooping the remains of the untouched snow at the edges of the courtyard and pelting them at their friends, squeals shifting across the brisk, empty cold. He spots Remus entering the open hall between buildings, gothic arched cut outs of the stone exposing it to the winter air. His head is ducked low as he walks; a flash of copper-gold in the muted light, hair frizzy and touching his collar. Sirius speeds up and catches Remus in the hall, touching his elbow for his attention. He startles, stumbling as he notices Sirius beside him. Sirius steadies him with a hand at his waist, feeling his warmth through his crinkled shirt and jumper.
“Alright?” he asks, grinning. Two spots of pink appear on Remus’s cheeks, spreading downwards in an uneven inkblot; Rorschach blush. Sirius’s heart thuds. Remus’s breaths bloom in white clouds from his mouth. Sirius drops his hands and keeps walking.
“Alright,” mumbles Remus. “Didn’t see you this morning.”
Sirius’s back teeth clack together. “I was sitting where we always are.”
“Sorry,” he says in his low, rough timbre, the Welsh lilt softened after years spent away from home but still there if you cared to listen, which Sirius always does. “Just busy this morning.” He pauses, frowning, mouth crumpling just so, and Sirius stumbles on a raised flagstone watching his expression. “I was talking with Oliver about our history essay,” he provides, “proper stressed that it counts now.”
“Right. Who’s Oliver?”
“What do you mean?” Remus asks, glancing at him with incredulity, almost laughing. “We’ve known him since year nine.”
Sirius shakes his head, irritation biting at him. “I haven’t.”
He frowns, “Uh – you know him? He’s in our history class. He comes to the pub with us sometimes.”
“Sounds familiar, I guess,” he offers, vaguely remembering Oliver on the fringes of their group when it grew on a Friday night in town. “I don’t know.”
“Right.”
They’re reaching the end of the hall and Sirius is too hot beneath his scarf and jumper and leather jacket, sweat beading behind his neck. His body feels hollow, a lone marble clinking between his bones — his body: a pinball machine. He asks, sharp, “Why don’t you ask me for help? What question are you choosing because I could change mine and we could work on it together. Easier for the both of us then, yeah?”
Remus pauses where the hall meets the open mouth of the next building, standing to the side. “Um – I don’t.” He tugs at the unravelling sleeves of his jumper, pinching a thread between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m almost finished.”
Folding his arms, Sirius keeps pushing, too hot, “Why do you need Oliver’s help then? It’s not due for a week. Why are you finished?”
Remus closes his eyes for a beat. When he opens them, his expression has gone blank. “It’s due in five days and we have mocks soon. I’m getting it out of the way.” He pauses, chewing on his lip like he tends to do when he’s focused on something. The action knocks at Sirius’s back teeth, sits in his mouth. Remus asks, “Why are you being weird about Oliver?”
Sirius flushes, cheeks growing hot. Scowling, he looks away from Remus into the building. It smells of damp and old wood. “I’m not. I just don’t get why you would go to him for help. Is he the guy you’re seeing?”
Remus scoffs. “What – no. I’m not -” He sighs. As Sirius glances at him again, he’s pressed himself against the wall behind him, pulling at the sleeve thread. “Stop being strange,” he says, standing straight.
“I’m not being strange!” Sirius retorts, a vague sense of injustice shadowing everything else, “You’re being strange!”
“What?” he snaps, eyes narrowed and mouth pulled thin.
Sirius almost says, the marble on the tip of his tongue, about how he wants him so much it’s a permanent ache; a broken rib in his chest. How he just wants Remus there, beside him. He doesn’t understand why Remus will sit next to him on his bed, year after year, and look at him the way he does — something helpless and honest but maybe just a trick of the light — only to pull away from Sirius for weeks at a time, citing studying as an excuse and leaving Sirius helplessly alone; dog left out in the cold, waiting. He keeps waiting. He pretends he isn’t.
They’re standing close, he realises. Their chests almost touch. Sirius sways forward and Remus’s chin tilts, jaw hardening. A moment of suspension slips over them, a broken clock minute. A hand pulls at Sirius’s blazer and he steps back, turning to face the person. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Remus walk off, long legs carrying him across the room and into the knot of moving students.
Dorcas stands before him, thick braided hair pulled behind her shoulders, wide dark eyes watching him carefully. He always feels particularly watched around Dorcas, like she has found something in him and has been picking at it ever since. “Have you spoken to Marlene?” she demands.
Sirius holds back a groan. “Yes,” he says.
“How is she?”
This is a conversation he has endured five separate times in the course of Marlene and Dorcas’s relationship. The drama is wearing thin, even for someone like him. “She’s doing fine.”
“How fine?”
“You know,” he says, “she’s getting along. Do you know why you broke up?”
Dorcas frowns. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Before summer, they had broken up and no one had been able to find out why from either of them. It turned out there hadn’t been a reason. Sirius figures it’s safe to check now — Marlene had been vague the other evening. “Just asking,” he says.
“She’s impossible,” Dorcas says, rolling her eyes, “that’s why.”
Sirius has it on unfortunate good authority from staying in Marlene’s guest room for a weekend over the summer — along with the rest of their group — that Dorcas very much likes this about Marlene.
“Right,” he mutters, checking his phone and realising he’s about to be late if he doesn’t get going. The drama classrooms are some of the furthest on campus. “If you and Marlene get back together I’m still going with her to the ball. That is not my problem.”
Dorcas scoffs and begins walking away, calling out over her shoulder, “We are not getting back together, Black!”
///
The thing about Remus and Sirius is that they’re just friends and have always been friends. They have also kissed two and a half times over the course of their friendship. The first half-kiss occurred at age thirteen. They had been friends for over a year. A bruise sat at Sirius’s ribs from where his Father shoved him into the banister over Easter break and every time he glanced at Remus his heart seemed to kick up speed, make him light-headed and nauseous in a way he hadn’t used to. As spring stumbled across the Scottish highlands, the sun peeling back its layers to warm the grounds, Remus kissed Sirius in a game of spin the bottle on a Friday evening in the rec room. It had been a quick press of lips. Sirius had been struck by how warm his mouth was. It had ended before Sirius could react, needing James to pull him back from his kneel in the middle of the circle, hands laying neatly on his thighs. The nerves and the heart rate began to make sense. Neither looked the other in the eye for a week. After, they pretended nothing happened.
The second time was during the summer between year ten and eleven. That year they spent several weeks of the holidays trawling the Potter estate; the four of them swimming in the lake behind the copse of trees — shared by several other families in the surrounding area — camping, and devouring Euphemia’s cooking: chole bhature and daal, homemade naan and sweet phirni. It was during one of their nights camping, James and Peter asleep beside them in their sleeping bags. They’d been drinking from a bottle James nicked from his dad, rum or whisky that tasted smoked and sweet, burning on the way down. Sirius was tipsy and found himself turning towards Remus. He was already facing him atop his sleeping bag. The fire was dying, lighting him at his jaw, orange flared and shadowed.
Sirius, struck, swallowed whole by the vast and aching night sky above, asked, “Do you remember when we kissed?”
Remus nodded. “It was my first,” he whispered.
The fire snicked and threw up embers. It hadn’t been Sirius’s. He’d kissed several girls and one boy in the years since. He often thought of the way Remus’s bottom lip felt between his own, soft and warm and dry. Without a word, Sirius leaned on his elbows across the gap between them and kissed Remus again. At fifteen, he knew he liked boys. He knew he liked Remus. He knew there was this gasping want inside him that flared when Remus was near; this feeling in his bones, his gut, pulling at his spine to press his hands to Remus’s thin hips and do something. They kissed for what felt like hours, pressing gasps into the damp skin of necks, Sirius bruising Remus’s collarbone where it jutted out of his threadbare sleep shirt. Sirius stared at the bruise for days until it faded. They didn’t speak about it that time either.
The third time lives in the cramped crawl space of his mind where his seventh birthday and the night he arrived at the Potter’s resides. The memory has a feverish edge, tacky with old desire and worn over with the involuntary snap in Sirius’s memory when he’s alone and can’t help but think of the one gasp Remus allowed himself to emit. They’d been in Sirius’s room, relishing the fact they no longer had roommates as year twelves. A high was dissipating from smoking in the woods by a rotting treehouse — a go-to meeting spot for many students engaging in illicit activities. Sirius can never recall the order in which he had ended up straddling Remus’s hips but he does remember Remus kissing him first. The moment last year sparked a patented Remus avoidance campaign and Sirius had been volatile and hurt for weeks, hooking up with various boys while drunk, hoping Remus heard about it. If he did, he never mentioned it.
///
After lunch, Sirius sits at his desk staring at the blank page titled History Essay: KILL ME NOW. His room is cold, the heater behind his bed creaking as it warms itself, struggling to reach him by the window. He looks out at the snow covered grounds, firs and ash trees dotted around the paths. He watches two figures trudge along the icy path, heading towards the house. The older students live in the expansive houses built, in the early years of the school, for the headmaster and department heads to live with their families, now converted into individual dorms with poor heating and a fire-warmed living room layered with plush red and gold carpets and books lining the walls. The younger students are subjected to 1970s brick monstrosities hidden towards the back corner of the grounds. As the figures move closer, he recognises Lily’s curls and Remus’s uneven gait — the nerves in his right leg damaged from thigh to the shin from an accident when he was a child. At the back of Remus’s wardrobe there is a walking stick he never uses but needs some weeks when the muscles around his hips seize and walking becomes difficult.
Sirius smiles, watching as Remus and Lily enter the building, hearing the door shut, their footsteps clamouring up the stairs. He settles on the bed, waiting. Ten seconds later, his door opens and knocks against the wall, Lily tumbling in, cheeks damp and red, scarf trailing behind her. Remus slopes in after, nodding his chin at Sirius and perching on the end of his bed. Sirius spreads himself out, easing back on his pillows, kicking his legs onto Remus’s lap. Remus accommodates the intrusion, rolling up his trousers and tapping out a rhythm on his ankles. And so their game of pretend continues: nothing happened this morning, everything is fine. Sirius turns to Lily sitting on his desk chair, her Mary Janes kicked off and legs tucked beneath her.
“And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
She blinks slowly at him then pulls out a crumpled joint from the waistband of her tights. “This,” she says and proceeds to light up without cracking a window.
Sirius gasps, “The head girl smoking weed?”
Lily flips him the bird. Remus asks, “Did you guys hear Caradoc and Benjy were caught fucking in the dressing rooms?” and accepts the joint from Lily, taking a long drag, cheeks hollowing. His eyelids sink as he exhales, chin tipped up, lips barely parted.
Sirius takes the joint from Remus’s slack hand and asks, choked on the exhale, “When?”
“This morning.”
“Fuck sake,” he groans, “I have to look them in the eye this afternoon at rehearsal.”
“Ms Jones caught them apparently,” Lily adds.
Sirius snorts, “I guarantee she just said sorry and left them to it.”
Lily tips her head back and cackles. “That’s exactly what happened.”
“At least they finally hooked up,” he muses, “the tension was getting unbearable in rehearsal.”
Lily hums and inhales again. The room grows hazy, sweet smoke sifting in the air. Remus asks, “How’s that coming along? The musical?” His eyelids are puffy, red straining in the whites of his eyes.
Sirius smiles, presses his thumb to the edge of it. “Alright,” his head gets heavy; time warps around him, sticky toffee slow motion, then returns to normal. His heartbeat knocks in his chest. He’s melting into his bed. “Just been singing,” he continues, words feeling too large for his mouth, “you know.”
Remus laughs, rough and seized with a sharp cough at the end. “Fascinating.”
“Thank you,” he replies, leaning further into his pillows, rubbing his feet along Remus’s thigh because it’s warm. “Remus,” he murmurs, “will you do the sets.”
“Not a chance,” he says. “Ask Peter.”
Remus’s mother, Hope, is a carpenter and painter. Remus grew up tottering behind her banging his thumbs with small hammers as he learnt how to construct bookcases and stair railings. Sirius has seen the photographs in the cottage in Wales: Remus in tiny paint-splattered dungarees, flowery sun hat shielding him from the thin sunlight in his back garden, Hope beside him on her knees in matching dungarees, both holding paintbrushes beside a small bookcase. Lyall, Remus’s father, behind the camera and long gone by the next year of childhood photos. Remus has helped with set design in drama club productions throughout the years, dragged into it by a begging Sirius.
Sirius props up on his elbows and pouts. “He’s already doing it.”
Remus glances at him, mouth twisting at the right corner. “Fine.”
Lily clears her throat. “Right. I’ve got to go. Uneducated children in need of tutoring await,” she says, standing and swaying into the desk as she shoves her stockinged feet back into her shoes. Her curls have grown frizzy in the heat of the room.
“You’re an angel Evans,” Sirius says.
“I know.”
“Leave James for me?”
She grins, hovering by the door. Her eyes are weed-swollen. “Of course.” She steps through the door, calling back, “Bye darlings, be good.”
Sirius shuffles until his back is against the wall and his shoulder touches Remus’s. “Want to watch a movie?”
“Mmm,” mumbles Remus and when Sirius looks at him, his eyes are almost closed, mouth parted. A thin line of saliva sits along his lower lip.
Sirius looks away, swallows. He places his laptop on his desk chair and scrolls through several streaming services before giving up and putting on Doctor Who.
“At least you didn’t put on Love, Actually.”
“There’s not enough time for that masterpiece,” he replies, pressing into Remus’s side. He is warm and the tag of his jumper sticks out behind his neck. Downy soft hair sits just above it, bare gold in the fading light.
He rolls his eyes, glancing at Sirius with a small smile, scar warping — a puzzle as a mouth. “Every storyline is quite horrible. No one is actually in love.”
“But Remus,” he grins, warm, the room soupy and slow like he could scoop his hands into the air between them and drink it down, “don’t you find that love, actually, is all around us.”
“Oh for -” he groans, pushing Sirius away and grinning this loose smile, “you’re ridiculous.”
Sirius laughs, pressing close again. The laptop plays in the background, white noise. Remus keeps looking at Sirius and his hair falls across his forehead, flat and staticky from his beanie. He smells of cinnamon, of the milky biscuits one eats as a child. The sight of him knocks into Sirius’s chest each time, a heart attack, a broken-rib-bruised-lung sight. Sirius leans closer. Remus blinks slow. The seconds — as they always do before they kiss — become vertigo-inducing, the world pulling itself apart, waiting. Their breaths knock into each other’s mouths, hot. Sirius closes his eyes and the warmth disappears, a void of cool air before him. Opening his eyes, Remus stands above him, hand running through his hair, other pulling at the fraying jumper sleeve.
“Remus -” he tries, dread sinking through him.
Remus shakes his head. “Sorry, um,” he sighs, pressing a wrist across his eyes. “Sorry,” he drops his arm, “you should know.”
His jaw clenches. He’s too hot. “What? What should I know?”
“I have a boyfriend.” Silence flattens its palm across the room, stifling. Remus continues, stepping back, pulling the beanie from his jacket pocket, “I, um, well. Not exactly. He’s not exactly my boyfriend but it’s pretty much, um, there. And we’re going to the ball together. That’s why -”
Sirius pulls his legs against his chest. The high starts tumbling down his spine. He shivers. “Okay. Yeah.” He knocks his head against the wall. “Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You just didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you everything!” Remus snaps, loud. Then quieter, fragile, “You don’t get everything.”
Sirius unfolds from the bed. Snaps the laptop shut. They stand with the desk chair between them. The heater clicks. “Okay,” he says.
Remus looks down, mutters, “I’ve got to study,” and leaves, closing the door carefully behind him.
Television static quiet remains. He sits on his bed, hands between his knees and breathes. He wants everything from Remus. A desire he tries to dampen, tries not to let choke their friendship. He is — always — too much; his want: a boy-carcass forever bleeding out. Sometimes, he thinks, in moments where his shoulder touches Remus’s and he doesn’t pull away, when he smiles all warm and sweet just for him, that perhaps Remus wants him back. But Sirius has always been a good storyteller, especially the stories he tells himself.
///
Fifteen minutes pass sitting with this frantic hurt, hot and alive in his chest, before he realises he’s going to be late for rehearsal. He pulls on his coat and scarf and gloves and treks across campus, frigid winds knocking into him from the left. He almost slips on ice twice and by the time he reaches the small school theatre, he’s freezing and furious, nose running and lips sore at the corners. Dumping his coat on one of the crooked hangers at the entrance, he finds Marlene cross-legged on the stage’s scuffed black floor. He leaves the rest of his things on a chair in the audience, sitting with Marlene, script bulging and crinkled with scrawled notes and coloured tabs kept close to his chest.
Without greeting, Marlene asks, “Have you read The Caucasian Chalk Circle yet?” Her black hair is pulled into a braid at the back of her head, pieces spilling out across her jaw, brown roots peeking through.
“Fuck my life.”
“You forgot.”
“Yes.” Sirius scrubs his eyes, raw from the walk.
“I would say me too,” she sighs, “but it’s just the break up.”
Ms Jones enters from stage right draped in fabrics that Sirius is unsure are part of her outfit or from costuming their musical: A Nightmare Before Christmas. Sirius and Marlene are playing the leading couple.
He says, “Remus is fucking someone else.” Benjy and Caradoc walk in holding hands. “Or they’re boyfriends. I don’t know.”
“Oh. That’s strange.” Marlene places her script — crisp and still white in its green binder, colour-coded tabs sticking out the sides. An odd juxtaposition to the chaotic rest of her appearance: brown roots showing in her hair, smudged dark eyeliner below her lids, baggy joggers and LCD Sound System shirt — on the floor in front of her as Ms Jones gestures for them to begin their stretching. Joanna, a year eleven, is chosen to lead it today.
Sirius leans forward, legs straight, fingers skimming his toes. “I’m thinking the only answer now is to drop out and join the circus.” He grimaces as he sinks deeper, hamstrings twinging. “Or run away to Australia. Something normal.”
“Good plan,” she grunts, face scrunching up. “Can I come with you?” They unfold and press their feet together in front of them, moving in a swinging motion side to side.
“Sure, why not?” he mutters, pressing his forehead to his ankles.
“Why is Remus with someone else? I just — I don’t get it.” They move to standing. Marlene holds his gaze. She’s one of his best friends aside from the boys. Her mouth pulls down and she rolls her eyes at him. He cracks a smile.
“It’s complicated,” he shakes his head. A lull sweeps the stage as Ms Jones discusses with Benjy, her assistant director, how to begin rehearsal. “We don’t — talk about it. We just, I don’t know.”
Marlene hums, pushing her thumb into his ribs. He squirms away, batting her hand. “Kiss a bunch every now and then and pretend it never happened?” She fixes him with a look, all harsh mouth and soft eyes. “And then you both wonder why the other never wants you. Talk man,” she sighs.
“Oh,” Sirius scoffs, folding his arms, scanning over the stage as his peers talk and exclaim, younger ones huddling together and whispering, the dancers running through a portion of their number. “Because talking is working so well for you.”
“At least I’ve been dating Dorcas off and on for three years. What have you got to show for all your pining?”
He groans. Regulus appears at his side, silent in his black turtleneck and leggings, long and gaunt, a shadow as a boy. His hair is curlier than Sirius’s, scraped back with a headband and his wide, dark eyes watch Sirius. There’s a tiny smile pinched at the corner of his mouth. In the early years of Regulus joining the drama club, Sirius avoided him. It was after he’d left home and Regulus was still living there, still quietly accepting whatever their parents touted as truth. But every term Regulus came back from holidays with this Edward Munch The Scream stare; hollow and frightened. It pulled at Sirius’s spine and guts and wherever the familial loyalty and brotherly protection resides in his body. Sirius loves his brother — they are the same blood, same hands, tilted; funhouse mirror versions of each other. He’ll protect him with his life, especially now he’s found his own way out. Still a better son than Sirius ever was but an avoidant one. Last year, he came to the Potter’s for Christmas, sat stiff and neat on the brocade sofas nibbling on Euphemia’s endless array of homemade snacks with a desperate hunger that Sirius still struggles to shake from his own body. Regulus lives in his chest like a stone, hard and furious and there. He’s also a fantastic singer and actor, an asset to the drama club if they don’t mention the dancing.
Marlene says, “Regulus. You look like a stiff wind will blow you over.”
Sirius frowns. “Have you been eating?” He grasps Regulus’s elbow and he squirms out of the hold, scowling. It sits askew on his face.
“Yes, mother. I have been eating. God.” He pushes a curl behind his ear and rolls his shoulders.
Sirius scoffs, rolling his eyes. Regulus tilts his chin, looking away. Marlene snorts.
The stand off is broken by Ms Jones calling, “Sirius!”
“Right,” he says. Regulus kicks his ankle as he passes and Marlene flips him the bird then waves at a group of girls, pulling Regulus along with her.
He breathes in, breathes out.
Ms Jones is wide-eyed and huffing about in her fabrics when he reaches her. “Sirius,” she gasps, “I need your help.” He isn’t technically part of crew on this production but he’s been head of the drama club for two years now, as well as acting in every production they’ve put on since year seven as a little rabbit in Wind in the Willows.
“What do you need?” he asks. The chatter in the theatre, Ms Jones’s lavender scent, Benjy clutching thick binders to his chest and gesturing at a group of tiny year sevens and eights to follow him, it pulls at something in the centre of him. His bare feet are planted on the cool stage. The magic of something piecing itself together within these four walls finds him. It quiets him. When he’s on stage he doesn’t have to think about anything else. The tight heat in his chest begins to dissipate.
Ms Jones rubs her forehead. “Oh, how are your solos coming along? I just — the chorus has fallen behind on a few numbers but we still haven’t blocked a few of those middle scenes. We’re really running out of time. I know your busy, darling.”
Sirius breathes in, breathes out. Pulls his shoulders back. “I’ve got all my solos tight. I need to polish up my second act and I’m fumbling with some of the opening choreo but I can help in the first hour. In the second we can do a run through of the opening fifteen and then whatever else you want?”
Ms Jones sighs and pats his cheek. “You’re brilliant. Help Benjy with the young bats. They’re struggling with every entrance, please.”
He grins, already walking towards the rehearsal rooms, “I’ve got you.”
///
People press into the common room, perched on sofas and leaning against walls, a pulsing heartbeat of activity at ten oh two pm on a Friday night. Two and a half weeks till their mock exams: a night at the pub turned breathless common room party. Teachers and dorm supervisors get lax when the students turn eighteen and Hogwarts is a liberal school — they don’t enforce gender segregation in the dorms except for sleeping, and even then it isn’t difficult to work around the boozed-up sleep of Mr McCain on the weekends. Sirius leans near the fire, drinking cheap red wine that tastes like the cigarettes he’s been smoking all night. They’ve switched on the lamps and turned off the overhead lights, fire blazing. The lighting lends itself to drunkenness, everything soft and dripping like candle wax. Mary twists Dorcas around in the space between kitchen doorway and common room, Mary’s curls flashing a burnt red in the flickers of firelight. James sits with Lily on the sofa, arm around her shoulders, both speaking with Pete who is sitting cross legged on an adjacent armchair, throw wrapped around him, mug of mulled wine cupped between his palms. Peter gives the distinct impression of an oracle in the darkness rather than an eighteen-year old-boy from Yorkshire with a penchant for folk music.
Remus is missing. The thought knocks around behind Sirius’s molars, bitter. He hasn’t seen him in twenty five minutes — since they returned from the pub. Sirius has drunk two glasses of wine in that time and smoked one cigarette, shivering on the front steps. He blinks slowly. The music — Beach House — seems to surge, swallowing Sirius whole, becoming sound and bone and flesh. He blinks again and the feeling recedes, slinks down his ribs and plays him like a xylophone. His whole body rings in the absence. He thinks: I should find Remus.
He shoulders through the crowd and ignores James calling out, “Alright mate?” The stairs are dark and quiet. One hand on the wall, trailing his ascent. He climbs and thinks: Remus’s room. The hallway is bright and spots bleed into his vision. He breathes in, out, heartbeat panting in his ears. Keeping one hand to the wall still, he walks to the left door at the end, the wood like a chipped tooth by the door handle. As he reaches the door, he thinks: he better not be sleeping. And then he enters the room and hears a sharp, familiar gasp as bile flashes up his throat. He thinks: fuck.
Remus’s hair is mussed, cheeks blotched red. He’s pressed up against the desk by a boy with dark hair and a hand down his trousers. The top three buttons of Remus’s shirt are undone, exposing the sparse dusting of brown chest hair and three freckles that line up below his clavicle. Sirius clenches his jaw, eyes burning. His chest tightens. The seconds sink into his fingers.
He exhales slowly. He grins and steps forward, perfecting his act (boy: not in love with his best mate), “Sorry mate! This is the boyfriend then?” He sticks out his right hand. “Sirius, what’s your name?”
The boy steps back from Remus, pulling his hand clumsily out of Remus’s trousers, and they both adjust their clothing. Sirius stares at the cork board between their heads. He drops his hand, realising where the other boy’s hand has just been.
“I’m Brad,” he says, smiling. He’s got a swooping fringe and an easy smile and Sirius hates him.
“Brad?” he repeats with a contorted smile, a ventriloquist puppet.
“Yes,” Brad confirms, running a hand through his hair.
“Sirius,” Remus says, sharp warning in his voice. He keeps tugging at the collar of his shirt, fingers restless. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his body, the angles of him knocking into the desk and chair.
Sirius raises his brows. “Right. Came in here because there’s a — uh. There’s a Peter emergency. He’s vomming. I’m too pissed to deal with it.” He stumbles to the right. His fingers are cold and his chest is very hot.
Brad laughs, bright. “Been there. I should head off anyway. I have to study tomorrow, just got distracted.” He kisses Remus’s cheek and steps around an unmoving Sirius, patting his shoulder. “Nice to meet you. See you round, mate.”
Remus flashes a smile at Brad before the door clicks shut. The murmur of voices shifts through the house into the room, unspooling in the dead air between them.
Sirius repeats, “Brad?”
“Sirius.”
“What kind of fucking name is Brad? You’re fucking a guy named Brad?” he scoffs, straightening his shoulders, tipping his chin.
“It’s a normal name!” Remus crosses his arms over his chest, shoulders curling inwards — a pencil sketch erasing itself. Everything about him is this soft brown: his jumper, trousers, hair. Sirius wants to grasp the edges of him and hold him in place. Place his mouth to where Remus begins and the rest of the world ends, that liminal space.
Sirius scoffs, “He sounds like he goes fox hunting on the weekends.” Even to his own ears, he can hear the elongated oh in fox, his years of breeding seeping through his affected accent of now.
Remus presses his palms to his eyes for a beat. His voice has kicked up higher, “You went fox hunting with your father when you were a kid! You did that!”
“I don’t anymore,” he retorts, growing louder, “I don’t fucking live there!”
“That doesn’t exactly matter in regards to the argument you are currently trying to make.” Remus huffs. “Why the fuck did you come in here anyway? Why didn’t you knock?”
“I don’t know!” Sirius shouts. “I don’t know. I just — I was looking for you.”
“Why? I know Pete’s fine. You’re an abysmal liar.”
Sirius bites the inside of his lip. “I was looking for you. I hadn’t seen you since the pub.”
“Yeah,” Remus rolls his eyes, “I was busy.”
Sirius sniffs. “Right.” He tugs his shirt sleeves down. “Fine.”
Remus’s eyes soften watching him. He swipes his nose with the back of his wrist. The tip is red from cold, dry patches of skin around the bottom. “Just — knock next time, yeah?”
“Yeah. Course,” he mutters, stepping back. His stomach lurches, nausea leaking through him.
“Why —” Remus stops. Sirius looks at him, his downturned mouth and careful eyes. He can’t read him, balled up and repressive as he fights with Sirius — he has always been inscrutable like this. Sirius finds the doorknob and leaves the room, heart beating, beating, alone.
///
“How long’s it been?” James asks.
The sun is pushing through the film of cloud cover spilling milky sunlight across the ground. The snow has begun melting into icy patches, skeletal tree branches reaching into the horizon. Sirius smokes, leaning against the tree by the pond, scarf tucked high against his chin. James squints at him, crunching on an apple.
“Six days,” he replies, mouth turning down. His eyes are itchy and heavy.
“You haven’t spoken to each other in six days?” James asks, brows rising.
He knocks his head against the trunk, throwing the cigarette on the ground. “I’m going crazy. I can’t focus. I can’t study.”
“Why don’t you talk to him?”
Sirius scoffs, twisting and picking at bark. It’s rough, a brittle grey-brown. “What kind of question is that? I walked in on him with Brad. His – his hair was all fucking mussed and his lips were red and -”
“Normal things to notice,” nods James, pulling two straights from his pocket and handing one to Sirius.
“Piss off,” he pouts, taking the cigarette. He leans in for James to light it.
James lights his own and takes a long drag. Smoke spills from his mouth as he coughs out a laugh. “Mate. Get a grip, honestly.”
Sirius lets the smoke sit in his lungs, burning. Petulant, he says, “No.”
“This has happened before.”
“But not,” Sirius pauses, the image of Remus kissing someone else flashing in his mind; the scene etched into his brain stuff, “not like this. Walking in on him. He has a boyfriend.” Quieter, “He’s never had one of those.”
James is quiet for a moment. Wind ruffles the curls sticking out from his beanie. “Did you expect him to wait around forever?” he asks softly.
“Well that’s my plan!” Sirius stops. Takes a drag. “What do you mean wait around? He’s always running away. He doesn’t want me.”
James says, “You are so beautiful -”
“Thank you.”
“- and so stupid,” finishes James.
“Oh.”
He sucks a deep drag from his cigarette and speaks around his exhale, voice choked, “I’ll ask you this: what have you done to make him think you like him?”
Smoke scrapes the back of his throat and he coughs out his drag. “It’s obvious isn’t it! Everyone else knows. We’ve kissed. I’ve kissed him!”
James presses his thumb below his chin, hand splaying over his mouth. He sighs through the finger gaps. “You’ve kissed a lot of people.” He drops his hand. “Sometimes immediately after kissing him.”
Sirius’s stomach sinks. The scarf is tight around his neck. “Right.”
James drops his cigarette on the ground. It falls with the small pile at the base of the tree where they always drop them, white paper turned bile-yellow. “You need to tell him. You know Remus. He would never think you actually like him.”
“That’s ridiculous. He’s so lovely. He’s caught me sniffing his hair before.”
James blinks. “We’ll come back to that. Make a move! You’ve got to know. You both do. The not knowing is killing you.”
Sirius drops his own cigarette, shoving his hand beneath his armpit, fingertips burning with cold. “And what if he rejects me.”
James softens, head tilting to the side. He’s wearing his mother’s expression — the wide brown eyes and full mouth pulled down, a careful concern. “Life goes on,” he replies, as if he knows.
To the school, softly, Sirius asks, “And what if he hates me?”
“He never would.” James clasps his shoulder, pulling him to his chest and forcing their walk back. Lips and stubble pass over Sirius’s temple, a messy comforting. The day is grey at the edges, closing in on itself. Sirius thinks of himself; the way he is loud and quick to anger and laugh and cry, always overflowing. A matchstick flame, over and over again. He has always had this feeling that he really is quite easy to hate. He has just been waiting for them to notice.
///
Later that evening, Sirius sits in the corner of the dining hall. The enormous Christmas tree in the entrance hall flickers glowing gold light into the room, right where Remus stands by the doors. He’s wearing a thick jumper, a rich dark green and brown, sleeves pulled over his hands. The lights
create shifting shadows across his cheek and jaw. He’s beautiful. The sight is almost enough for Sirius to ignore Brad standing in front of him, pulling at Remus’s jumper and grinning. It gouges at his chest, makes soup of his insides — the heat of his jealousy. The chicken and vegetables in front of him sits untouched. Halfway across the room, Remus tips his head back and laughs and Sirius splits his fingernail on the edge of the table, a splinter piercing the tender skin beneath . It stings. He watches the sweep of Remus’s throat, the sharp cut of his jaw. With this distance, he can’t quite see it but he knows the jut of Remus’s Adam’s apple, the thin skin of his throat. The place beneath the hinge of his jaw where his pulse beats, where Sirius has placed his mouth just the once.
He watches Brad laugh and his lips touch Remus’s cheek as they part. Sirius’s eyes sting. He sucks at the splinter in his finger. Once Brad finally leaves, Remus wanders over to the table, stumbling as he spots Sirius sitting with his untouched dinner.
Pausing at the bench opposite, his face is blank, scar barely visible in this light. “Hello.”
Sirius raises both brows, heart beating fast. Mary — sitting diagonally across from Sirius reading at the end of table — rises and leaves, meeting Sirius’s gaze with a wincing half-smile.
“Hey,” Sirius sniffs, poking at his dinner with a fork. The splinter still sits in his finger. Then, feeling brave, “Haven’t seen you around much.”
Remus sits, arms folded in front of him. “Yeah.”
His voice slips down his spine, warm and soft — the honey and lemon tea Remus drinks when he’s ill. Sirius scoffs. “Yeah?”
“What?” he retorts, leaning forward. His scar pulls with his mouth. Sirius keeps his gaze above it.
“What? You’re asking — right. It’s nothing.”
Exhaling slowly, Remus says, “I’ve just been — busy. Yeah. Just — I haven’t.”
“Yeah,” Sirius murmurs, pushing his plate to the side, “yeah, I know.”
“How’s the musical coming along?” he asks, picking a bean from Sirius’s abandoned plate and taking a bite.
Sirius meets his gaze — dark brown, long lashe s — this abandoned lighthouse look still pulling at his sternum, always, always. “It’s fine. Good. Practically done, just smoothing out the kinks, you know.” Still holding Remus’s eyes, heart pounding, palms sweating, pulling on this thread of bravery till it knots in his stomach, he blurts, “Actually, I’ve been busy, yeah, so I haven’t been around but it’s been a week because — w ell that’s a long time, isn’t it? We live next to each other. So there may have been some avoiding. And, um, I was doing that because I really — that scar by your lip.” It’s moving with his mouth, stark white beside his freckles.
Remus frowns. “What?”
“I always find myself looking at it.” He inhales sharply. “And I don’t like Brad. Because, um, I’m jealous. I don’t like it.”
Elbows still planted on the table, Remus is very quiet. He’s watching Sirius, his lighthouse eyes, his mouth etched thin. “Jealous?” His exhales are sharp and quick. “Like...as friends?”
For a time-stretched second, he sees the boy before him all golden and ruffled, beautiful and not his. And then he laughs, “No. Not like friends. Not at all.” He stands, shaking, adrenaline curdling in his stomach.
“Sirius -”
“Got to dash,” he mumbles, not waiting for Remus’s reply. For the gentle rejection and the moving on graciously and wanting to jump into the pond at the back of the grounds and perhaps get hypothermia in the hopes Remus will worry, will care.
He makes it outside to the winter dark and its frantic cold before he cries.
///
The next weeks pass in a blur of late nights in the library and even later ones in rehearsal, tired and delirious trying to remember his lines and cues for the musical while also cramming for mocks. He barely sees his friends except for hazy mornings, eyes sticky with sleep as they swallow down jam toast and mainline coffee. There is one snowball flight, delirious and vicious outside their dorm, and an afternoon spent drying out by the fire. A brief moment in the middle of wreckage, Sirius caught Remus’s gaze and smiled, because they were twelve years old and everything was easy again — he hadn’t confessed his feelings, they weren’t avoiding each other — with Remus’s beanie pulled low over his ears, cheeks flushed deep red. And then Remus looked away and it all became very real as eighteen year old boys who don’t know how to act. The hollowed pain in Sirius’s chest stretching wider, consuming.
Now, Sirius’s mocks are finished, opening night has passed him in frantic heartbeats and the pounding blaze of stage lights; he has a suit dry cleaned and ready for the Christmas ball on Thursday night before they head home. There’s another show tomorrow then his final production with Hogwarts is finished. The bustle of people around him changing and exclaiming over a small mistake in the opening act are background noise. The lit mirrors curving around the dressing room shine gold across his face. He’s smeared with white face paint, even paler than he usually is with heavily lined eyes, black shadowing across his eyelids. He looks haunted in his makeup and half-removed costume, a skeleton teetering between the real world and the one he inhabits on stage, in this theatre and drama classrooms. Everything is ending; his days are full of saying goodbye to moments he has spent years falling in love with. In the mirror behind him, a figure appears — Remus smiling, just so. Sirius flushes, pink flaring beneath the white paint.
He turns. Remus is holding flowers, holding them out to Sirius. “Well done,” he smiles.
Sirius’s stomach drops to his guts. He can’t feel his fingers. “Thank you,” he murmurs, accepting the flowers — a slightly drooping collection of white and purple petals, sprigs of green leafy twigs bunched between. It’s lovely. Remus is lovely, looking at him with those eyes, his wonky smile, his scar. Sirius bites the inside of his lip.
“You were brilliant,” says Remus, shaking his head. “As always.”
Sirius places the flowers on his dressing table. “Thanks. Where’s James and Peter?”
“Uh — outside. Waiting.”
“Okay.”
There’s a silence like a candle guttering. Sirius rolls his shoulders back and looks at Remus once more. He laughs, just a bit. “God. It’s all strange. Last performance tomorrow. I’ve loved this club.” He gestures at the room, the tiny year sevens and the friends he’s been performing with for years all together, the promising year nines he’s been mentorin g, united by this shared experience. It’s like a secret only they know, an answer to a very important question.
“I know,” Remus murmurs. He’s standing close. Sirius could push his hand out and hold his jumper. It’s a very specific desire, to grab hold of the front of his shirt or jumper and keep him there, before Sirius. How he would be able to feel Remus’s heat through the fabric, how he could pull him closer.
Sirius says, “That shrubbery looked just fantastic.”
Remus’s smile cracks, widening as he laughs, “I think I might have a career as a painter.”
“It’s not too late to change your degree.” And then, because he’s impulsive and clattering through his remaining adrenaline; because there are questions he’s desperate to ask like do you feel the same, please tell me you feel the same (like a child, begging. Like him, as a child, begging at his mother’s bedroom door), he asks, “How’s the boyfriend?”
“Oh,” Remus says, mouth snapping shut. His cheeks go red. Sirius frowns. “Well, um, fine.”
“Cool,” he nods, thinking maybe it would feel good, cathartic, to punch the mirror.
“Um, Sirius-”
“Hey,” he interrupts, turning towards his dressing table, hands grappling for makeup remover amongst the debris of his stuff, “I should finish up. I’ll be out soon. You can just meet me at the house. Or I know James likes to wait. So.”
Remus clears his throat. The sound of the dressing room spills across Sirius’s consciousness; it is so loud. He didn’t realise. “Right. I’ll, uh, go. See you later.”
“Yeah,” Sirius murmurs, “later.”
The door snaps shut, a girl shrieks with laughter, and without a word Marlene appears behind him and wraps him in a hug. She says, “You missed a note in the finale.”
///
The final evening of term provides snow. By quarter past four the sky is dark, and by five a gentle dappling of it is coating the grounds. The dorms are alive with the evening: boys passing in and out of each other’s rooms, swigging liquor from shiny silver flasks and puffing cigarettes out the window, frigid breeze blowing in. Cologne stagnates in the air, spicy and rich. James has been in and out of Sirius’s room five times in the last hour, fretting about his hair — there’s nothing they can do — and his outfit and whether his shoes are polished enough. Peter sits on Sirius’s bed, dressed and ready in a simple black suit making vague affirmative noises as Sirius dresses. Music plays from every room, blasting rap and crooning Alex Turner, and it’s all nostalgic even before it has all ended as Sirius tucks his loose tie around his neck, leaving it fashionably undone. Peter scrolling on his phone, James manic, the shouts and calls of the boys he has grown up with as they reach another small ending; it sits strange and aching in his chest.
Remus has been in and out of his own room, progressively dressed each time. The sight of him in a towel, damp and flushed from the shower has looped itself around Sirius’s intestines. The stoop of his shoulders, soft spine ridges poking out, the fine hairs curling at the base of his neck. He smelled of cinnamon. Sirius had been standing in his doorway, silk shirt thrown on and tastefully unbuttoned at his chest, yelling at James down the hall. Two seconds of eye contact had spilled its guts between them. Sirius can’t think.
At six, Sirius is ready. He turns to Peter. “How do I look?”
Peter shoves his phone into his pocket and stands. “Handsome.”
Sirius grins, shrugging on his coat. “So do you.”
Peter flushes and Sirius tugs him in for a one-armed hug. Peter slips him the flask amongst it. The vodka burns down his throat. James arrives with his hair sticking up, still looking stunning in a velvet navy suit. “The girls are ready,” he announces.
As a herd, the sixth form boys exit their dorms and scatter across the grounds to the girl’s houses. They don’t have to walk far, thank god, as none of them are truly dressed appropriately for the weather. In the girl’s house, similarly loud and smelling of cologne and perfume, they gather for photos beside the fire, huddling in various formations and with their dates. Sirius stays in the kitchen with the vodka, shaking, when Remus poses for photos with Brad, awkward smile and his hair falling in his eyes. He’s feverish with the need to brush it off his forehead.
After photos, everyone is tipsy and warm, and they brave the walk to the dining hall, Sirius’s arm linked with Marlene’s. The front hall is packed when they arrived, brushing snow off their shoulders. Sirius dusts melting flakes from Marlene’s braided hair, close enough he can smell her spearmint gum. He receives a glare from Dorcas as he steps back.
He laughs, slipping off his coat and folding it over his arm. “Are you and Dorcas back together?”
Marlene presses her lips together, looking away. “Yes,” she mutters.
Sirius cackles, elbowing her side. She scowls. “Of course you are.”
“Not of course! We were very mature, working it out -”
“- were horny.”
“- and we’ve learnt from our mistakes!”
Sirius smirks. Shakes his head. “I’m happy for you. But I still get the first dance with you.”
She scoffs and links their arms. They’ve been shuffling forward through the front hall, Christmas lights lining the walls and wrapped around the bannisters, blanketing everything in a hazy yellow. Inside the dining hall, the space is echoing with voices. It’s transformed from the everyday long tables and chairs to a sweeping winter ball. Paper snow flakes hang from the ceiling, twisting slowly around. Some tables have remained, white cloths thrown over them and spilling over with food and deep crystal punch bowls. The old sconces are lit with dripping candles and string lights crossing from wall to wall above their heads. Small high tables are scattered around the dance floor, chairs pushed to the edges of the room in clusters. The enormous Christmas tree stands at the front of the room before the dance floor, decorated with red and gold baubles and the array of decorations gathered from students over the years.
James appears at his side as they’re taking in the room, Lily holding his arm. She’s wearing a flowing sage green dress, long sleeves floating as she moves her arms. Her eyes are lined with white, her hair and freckles bright against her pale skin and dress.
“You look beautiful, Lily,” he says.
She smiles, “So do you.”
“Alright,” James sighs, “time to dance?” Marlene and Lily groan, dragging behind James and Sirius as they beeline for the empty dance floor. The music is soft and slow as the night begins. He pulls Marlene in, hand on her waist, the other holding her hand. She rolls her eyes but waltzes with him. She has a similar upbringing to him although with much nicer parents, and these kinds of dances are muscle memory now. He remembers being young, four or five years old with chubby knees and clumsy elbows paired with Marlene in their horrible dance lessons, palms sweaty as they clutched each other. Back then, Marlene had soft brown hair and a choppy fringe her sister cut when their parents were out. Sirius thought she was the coolest girl ever. Tonight, beneath the warm string lights, she is still the coolest girl ever with her black-lined eyes and sharp cut suit. They are almost picture perfect, if.
Sirius’s eyes drift to the edges of the dance floor, to Remus standing by the tall tables, glass clutched in his hand. His shoulders are rounded, standing as if he could disappear. Brad is nowhere near him and Sirius frowns. Marlene follows his gaze and sighs, steps back as the song finishes.
“You should go,” she says.
“I think that’s a bad idea.”
“Where’s his date, Sirius?” She raises her brows before turning to an approaching Dorcas.
His fingers are numb. He is touching the edges of the evening and it’s pliable, it’s sticky. He aches with want. Remus watches him as he approaches, setting his glass down on the table then pushing it around with his fingers to the perfect spot.
“Hi,” he murmurs. His heart thuds.
Remus raises his eyebrows. The scar pulls by his mouth. Sirius dies a little. “Hi.”
“Where’s Brad?”
“I don’t know.”
Sirius can’t help but scoff. “Shit date.”
Remus shrugs. “Are you having a nice time?”
Well, he thinks of saying, the boy I’m in love with has come with someone else and everything is ending and it’s all quite awful. But he doesn’t, he says, “I guess,” with this hook beneath his tongue.
Remus clears his throat. Pushes his hair back. “I suppose Marlene and Dorcas are back together,” he comments, nodding behind him.
Sirius glances over his shoulder. They are wrapped up in each other, on the edge of the dance floor and barely dancing. The song has changed to something energetic, that has everyone singing along.
“At least she still came with me,” he shrugs.
Remus pauses. Then, “I’m sorry we couldn’t all go together.” He coughs and rubs at his cheek, over the raw dry patches.
His stomach twists. Remus has loosened his tie already. It sits at his collarbone, buttons undone. “James was always going with Lily this year.”
“Yeah, but,” Remus starts without continuing, quiet.
The music switches once again to something softer and Sirius picks at his own anxiety like a scab, waiting for it to bubble with blood. His heart beats hard. He asks, “Do you want to dance?”
Remus blinks. A smile hitches on his lips. Nodding, he murmurs, “Yeah.”
Sirius nods. “Cool.” He steals Remus’s drink and downs it. Remus’s mouth wobbles into something like a smile, more complicated. Sirius grins, tosses his hair and strides onto the dance floor, hoping desperately Remus follows.
In the middle of the crowd it’s like they are almost invisible, everyone focused on their partners. The rest of the room drinks and talks, festive and high on the beginning of Christmas holidays. They meet, shuffling closer, lining themselves up. Remus’s heat pushes against Sirius’s body as they hover close. He inhales his cinnamon scent. Remus places his hands on Sirius’s hips. He can feel them shaking. Sirius exhales, laying his hands on Remus’s shoulders. Rough suit fabric scratches his palms. If he stretched his fingers up he could skim them across the overlong hair at Remus’s tender nape. They move in a shuffle, awkward. It is perfect, to Sirius: the way Remus’s exhales knock against his cheek, their chests brushing, shoes scuffing against each other.
Remus pulls back and looks Sirius in the eyes. Winter-faded freckles scatter across his nose. Sirius has tracked the progression of those freckles every year. Each season, how they fade and darken, push up onto his temples and his forehead and retreat to just the fragile skin across his nose, below his eyes. Sirius commits it to memory, a study of one boy.
Remus breaks the silence between them. “I like this shirt.” He plucks at the open collar. Sirius blushes.
“You always laugh at me when I wear it,” he says, tipping his chin up. This close, the several inches between them feels enormous.
Remus shakes his head, licks his lips. “I’ve always liked this shirt. You look really — good.”
Sirius blushes again. His heart slips out of beat. Everything is quiet. They watch each other. Remus’s eyes dart across his face, to his lips. Sirius moves his hands up Remus’s shoulders, to his neck. The warmth at his palms his overwhelming. He wants to put his mouth to the skin.
“Sirius,” Remus whispers.
His breath hitches. “You should probably get back to Brad.”
Remus shakes his head. “We aren’t dating.” He pulls Sirius closer. His hands are still shaking, sliding below Sirius’s jacket. “You know,” he says, breathless, “when you said what you said here, in the hall, I felt kind of. Insane. But I don’t know. You’ve been making me feel crazy for years.”
Sirius stops dancing, pulling away, keeping his hands on Remus’s neck. “What do you mean?” He wants this so much it almost feels awful, like a joke that Remus is saying this. Like he’s just being nice.
“I think you know.”
Sirius sets his jaw. “I — I don’t know. What do you mean?” On a hitched breath, the years within it, “You always ignore me.”
Remus exhales quickly, stare intense. He grabs Sirius’s hand from his neck and links their fingers. “Come on,” he mutters, pulling him through the crowd and passed their friends — James waving his arms about with wide eyes, like even from the outside this scene is significant. Remus leads him through the entrance hall and behind the main stairway to a shadowed alcove. It takes Sirius a moment with the dust and darkness.
It was the first day of classes. The four of them went to breakfast together and then Remus wandered off. Peter and James had to go to their homeroom while Sirius and Remus had their own class. He found Remus in this alcove. He was tiny when they were twelve, shorter than Sirius and very thin. He always had heavy shadows beneath his eyes, scuffs on his shoes. Sirius wanted to look at him for hours even then. He found him fascinating. That first day, Remus was lost, hands shaking ever so slightly when Sirius pressed their palms together and lead them into the hall amongst the other kids that seemed so old and tall that it seemed impossible they would ever be like them.
In the alcove now, Remus is panting. He says in a rush, “I have loved you since we met. Before I knew what any of it meant.” He gasps out an exhale. “I just didn’t think you’d ever feel the same.”
It is still, dark and quiet. Their heavy breaths. Sirius breaks it with laughter, delirious. Remus’s face folds and he reaches out, touching his cheek, grasping his neck and pulling him close, against him. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he whispers so Remus feels his breath on his mouth. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you always — ignore me. After we -”
Remus presses closer, lips brushing the corner of his mouth. “Well you’re — you. God. Why would it mean anything to you? Why would I mean — anything?”
Sirius is bold, overwhelmed and dangerous like skinned knees and two am and hot open mouths. “I’m obsessed with you.”
Remus swallows, grinning, eyes crinkling. “Yes, but you’re obsessive.”
Sirius inches closer, says into Remus’s mouth, “Mainly about you.”
“Oh,” he exhales and Sirius kisses him, quick and frantic. He parts his lips and makes the kiss deep, pushing his fingers into Remus’s hair and gripping. Remus’s breath stutters and Sirius grins and teeth get involved for a moment but it is still the sexiest thing he has ever experienced. Remus sinks his hands down his back, into his pants and grips his arse, pushing them together. Sirius moans. Remus scrapes his teeth over his lip.
“You definitely,” Sirius mutters, trailing his lips over his jaw, down his neck, “aren’t dating Brad?”
Remus grips the back of his head, pushes their hips together. “God no. Just — I was trying to get over you, make you jealous I don’t know.”
Sirius pulls him down so their mouths hover closer. “It worked you fucking psycho.” Remus kisses him, messy, grinds again. “Oh my god,” Sirius says, “can we skip this I need your hands in my pants.”
“I’m not that easy.”
Sirius laughs, “Yes, you are.”
“Yeah,” Remus giggles, sweet and soft and the sound blooms in Sirius’s chest. This precious boy. “But no. We should stay for a while.”
Sirius groans. He is right but suddenly Sirius has the boy he has wanted for years, has cried over and lusted after, and stepping back into a crowded room when he could be touching him does not feel right. Remus pulls his hands away, resting them at Sirius’s waist, thumbs below his ribs. They stop kissing and stand with their foreheads together, smiling. Shadows cut across Remus’s face casting strange shapes. Sirius’s hands are still wrapped in his hair. In a few minutes they will go back inside and greet their friends like nothing has changed except their hands will be all over each other. And Marlene will make a snide comment and Sirius will smile and Remus will press his face into his crown, these perfect moments. A photograph memory. But for now, they grin at each other, holding, breathless. There are endings and there are beginnings; and there is this moment here, all at once.