Remus Lupin was sitting on the stairs of the common room in Gryffindor tower. A plate was balanced on his lap, a piece of cake with bright blue frosting, and on his head was a gold and silver party hat. The hat was tilted, sitting awkwardly atop his hair, and the soft bit of curls that formed in his hair hung upon his forehead as he looked down, his eyes deep chocolate brown, matching the cake he was picking at and eating with his fingers. Music was playing from a radio one of the muggle girls had - it was crackly and not as loud as the Gryffindor parties of their later years, the ones when Sirius had his record player.

"Hey, are you having a good time, mate?"

Remus looked up. It was Sirius, and Remus watched Sirius sprawling over the stairs as though he'd been poured on them.

"I can't believe you lot did this."

"One day, I'll have a job and I'll buy you a stupendous present." Sirius said, "Anything you like, you can have."

The desire was there, right there, the chocolate eyes searching Sirius's face. "Anything?" 

Why hadn't he seen it then?

Gods, even in this fucking -dream? vision?- he couldn't hardly resist those eyes. How had he resisted them then? How had it not been him, Sirius, who had made the move?

"Anything at all," Sirius answered.

The anything that Remus really wanted from Sirius was plain there on Remus's face.

 The others had come over at some point, their arrivals blurs in Sirius's memory. But there was Lily and James bantering as usual. James going on about when his own birthday was ("the 27th. yup.") and Lily was pressing a kiss onto Remus Lupin's cheek. "Thanks for being born, Rey," she said and he was turning quite red.

"Oi are you going to kiss me like that come the 27th?" James asked, excited.

"No, Potter, I'm not," Lily answered flatly. A moment later, she'd given Remus a second kiss on the cheek... 

"TWO kisses? You ruddy prat."

"Rey's just got it going on with the ladies, James. And also with the gentlemens." Gods, why was he such an idiot? Sirius wondered, why was he such an idiot to Remus about it? When the rawness of the moment was so plain on Remus Lupin's scarred face?

"I haven't got anything going on with the gentlemens yet," Remus replied.

"Well there you are, Rey, an absolute sea of prospects. Who do you fancy? I'll go and fetch them for you."

Remus's eyes had met Sirius's. And they held for several long moments as James explained why Remus should choose Andy Woodhouse and Peter pointed out the bucky teeth as though he were one to talk about bucky teeth.

"So c'mon, mate, out with it, who is it that you fancy?"

"I'm not telling you, you ruddy idiot."

"Why not!"

"Because...  I don't reckon he would feel the same way back."

"I'm betting that he's more camp than a row of tents.... the bloke's gayer than gay!"

"Even if he was gay - he'd probably turn me down based on how ugly I am."

Even now, even now watching the vision, Sirius could feel the wind knocked from him when Moony - his precious Moony - said those words. Remus - that perfectly lanky, beautiful-eyed boy - thought himself ugly? When that was so far from the truth? Sirius could've gone on for days about any feature of Remus Lupin's face. There were so many things that he admired about that face... 

"Oi, what the hell is this? Don't you go saying that - ever. You're not ugly, mate." 

Sirius was so glad he'd said it. He would've had to go and fetch a time turner to say it if he hadn't said it. He never could've let the vision pass without going and saying it if he'd stayed silent.

"With all my scars and such... it's just hard to love a monster."

Sirius stared directly into Remus's eyes. Deep, dark brown... happy eyes... precious good eyes with a hundred facets of intelligence, flecked with loyalty and strength, with humor and the best kind of sarcasm... Sirius had seen monsters. He'd been raised by them, hadn't he? Sirius Black knew monsters. Those eyes - they didn't belong to a monster. Those eyes looked like hope. Those eyes looked like safety. They looked like a hundred thousand words that Sirius couldn't form, even to this day, having looked into them for hours by now. He reckoned he could look at them for years and never quite find the precise words to say what he saw in them.

"Any man would be insane not to want you, Remus Lupin. You can't possibly think you're not easily the most amazing person in this entire school..." He'd meant in this entire world. Why had he limited it to the school when he knew that you could be in England, Argentina, Canada, Australia, China, India, or Baltimore and there would be no competition still. "...You're so damn good, Rey. There isn't a bloody person alive that could ever truly think of you as a monster."

Gods alive, those eyes.

Those eyes... those eyes as they stared down at a text book, warmed by the fireplace on the carpet of the common room, as the scars across his nose glowed pink in the contrast on his face, all jagged and raw. That one horrible, awful streak, breaking across Remus Lupin's otherwise perfect, gentle features. 

Remus was more than just a werewolf.

He was brave...

And there he was blasting back fifteen death eaters

"Why does everyone I love die? Why, Sirius?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Don't ever leave me Sirius."

"I wouldn't leave you Moony."

"Swear it."

"I swear it."

"Voldemort did this." His voice was suddenly quite cold. "I'm going to kill him."

"What?"

"I'm going to kill him." Remus marched into the cave over Hogsmeade, fists balled, determined as all hell. 

And suddenly he was seeing it from another perspective. Lily's - it was Lily's magique amour after all, too, Sirius realized suddenly, and he felt odd, seeing a memory not his own, like watching a film of something new, yet as worn-in as though he'd watched it a hundred thousand times before.

CRACK!

Remus in the middle of the library at Fallengunder. Remus Lupin's eyes - a terrible green rage in them, a fire that had never burned so brightly as that in all the time Sirius had ever known him. Jaw set, mouth sneering, the gentle features hidden beneath a determined, fiery rage unmatched by any other that Sirius had ever seen in any man's eyes.

Voldemort, spinning about, amusement in his eyes, "Mr. Lupin, to what do we owe the --"

That amusement gone before Remus had even finished the spell.

"ROMBARDA!" A whip of magic lashed from Remus's wand, cracking the floor at Voldemort's feet with an almighty force that seemed to shake the entire castle of Fallengunder, a gorged crater that sent Voldemort jumping back in surprise. A burst of energy came off Remus so powerful that the windows of the library burst, imploding at the near-audible line that sent a ripple of a shiver down Sirius's back now, a year later. People were thrown to the floor... Greyback leveled with two quick spells, sent flying across the room... "ANYONE ELSE?" Remus yelled, and the grown-ass Death Eaters were backing away, terrified...

"Such strong magic for such a young boy! I'm most impressed," Voldemort said.

"At least you're impressed by the wand that will kill you."

Two jets of light, meeting in the middle with a great snapping sound, both spells expiring into one another with a ripple of electricity that sent the hairs on Sirius's arm on end as he sat, eyes closed, in the Howling House. He could feel Lily's hand in his, could feel her grip tighten on him, could feel the current in his veins....

The determination of Remus Lupin filled them both.

"Oh," Lily gasped.

"Bloody hell." It was Regulus's voice that said it, and Lily's gasp had come from across the table in the Howling House and from the vision as well.

The strength of Remus Lupin's magic was something unparalleled at that moment.

It was the power of love.

It was magique amour.

It was devastating and beautiful and painful as a blade being shoved through the skin and Sirius felt Lily's hand shaking in his... and it was suddenly as though Remus were in a spotlight in the vision, surrounded by a pool of pale white light, the rest of the world falling away into darkness, into a blur and the pale light fell upon him and there was a tremendous cracking sound.

Sirius could feel it in his back. He let out a shout. "Oh fuck."

Lily was sobbing.

"Remus is always back by now. Do you reckon something's wrong?" Sirius's voice was over the sight of Remus.

Remus was convulsing, standing up, his eyes rolled back, his bones cracking, breaking, reforming...

"Blimey he is late," James's voice.

Remus's mouth and nose was breaking, the jaw cracking... his face bursting into a snout that was jutting out, enlongating...

"I don't like the way he looked before he left. He was peakier than usual. Did you notice? The dark rings under his eyes?" Sirius again.

"He said it was a bad moon," Peter pointed out.

I see a bad moon a-risin'... I see trouble on the way...

"Professor, where is Remus?"

I see earthquakes and lightning'... I see bad times today... Don't go around tonight, well it's bound to take your life... there's a bad moon on the rise...

"Dumbledore has taken Mr. Lupin to St. Mungo's." She was on the verge of tears, the way her voice shook, the thickness of her accent...

"He's alive, isn't he?" James asked.

"...alive but very badly injured..."

I hear hurricanes a-blowin'... I know the end is coming soon... I fear rives over flowin'... I hear the voice of rage and ruin...

Remus lay on the floor, his knees cracking backwards, the legs of the wolf forming from the legs of a boy. Hair sprouting up, feeling like carbonation beneath the skin, hissing like the foam that formed in the mouth as the gut rearranged, as the heart dropped through re-forming ribs and a spine that clicked out of and back into place one vertebrae at a time... ears tearing and growing and the teeth. Oh fuck the teeth, the teeth breaking the jaw, breaking the gums... the taste of coppery blood filled the mouth and the pain.... it was... excruciating...

Sirius wanted to open his eyes. He wanted to stop. Wanted to get out of that pain. It was just... it was so much. It was too much. He hurt - every part of him hurt. He knew, of course, without knowing that it was like this. Being an animagus didn't feel like this. He knew that Remus said the transformation to werewolf hurt and he could see the pain on Remus's face, could see it in the bags under his eyes and in the flinches and winces, the slow pace, the whimpers and the staggered walk... the weakness. He'd felt it in Remus's weight on his shoulders as he'd held him up, and the way he seemed to lose strength in all his bones... Sirius had felt remus Lupin from the exterior, felt it when his body went limp...

But this.

This was more than Sirius had ever imagined. And it was inside and outside and everywhere forever, it seemed, like being poked by twenty million needles in all at once, like feeling yourself torn in every direction, like the bones were on fire from pain, like you'd do anything to just pass out.

"Does it hurt?" Sirius asked.

Remus was sitting on the bed in the dormitory, the Exploding Snap game lay between their knees. "Does what hurt?"

Sirius shifted uncomfortably, wishing he hadn't asked the words that had been in his head. Then, very quietly, "...this? This tension between us?"

Remus stared at the game board. "I've  never felt worse."

"I mean, obviously besides transforming on full moon nights?"

Remus's eyes moved up and Sirius's did too and they locked. "No."

"But you said that was the worst feeling in the world?"

"I was wrong."

Their eyes never broke apart, instead, the memory did.

"Guys... can I have a moment alone with Sirius, please?"

"No," Sirius whispered. "No, no, I don't want to see this again."

"Hang on," Lily whispered back. "Hang on, Sirius."

"I - I don't want --" Sirius's voice cracked.

"It's okay," Lily's voice was firm. "It's almost over."

"Sirius... why?"

"I was trying to - to protect... the secret... I'm sorry."

"For which part? The part where you planned to use me as a weapon or the part where you were nearly killed? And not only yourself but also Severus and James?"

"For all of it."

And they were back at the exploding snap. "The silence between us," Remus murmured. "Silence between us has always been the most painful thing to me... and I'd transform a thousand times rather than have that silence between us."

Sirius was on his knees. "Forgive me, Remus... forgive me..." he was wrapping his arms around Remus's waist. "Please, please... I'll never... I'll never betray again, I'll never..."

"Sirius, how can I trust you again?"

"Moony no."

"I trusted you... I've forgiven so many things because I thought... I thought this one thing, above everything, that --"

"Please. Please don't give up on me... not now... not when I need you the most, Remus, please, I  - I made a mistake, I made a mistake... I didn't mean to... Please... I need you... I need you, I need you, I ---"

"I NEEDED YOU!" Remus cried out. "YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HURT ME! Don't turn this on me like I'm the one who's wrong for protecting myself! You aren't the one that's been betrayed here. Why are you making me feel as though I've somehow betrayed you?"

"Do you wish I'd never been born, Remus?"

Eyes met again.

That silence. The most painful silence.

That was the sort of silence that dementors are born in, Sirius thought.

"Has a boy come through here?" Lily's voice was desperate, frantic. "About this high - with blonde hair, sort of unruly with curls and honey-green eyes?" And she was running through the tunnel, running as fast as she dared, not knowing the way as well as the boys. And there he was, in the alcove, on the couch, crying.... the broken boy wolf. "Remus... it's me, Lily... I'm so sorry, Remus, I heard what happened. Whatever made you do it?"

"He said kind words to me," Remus whispered.

She gently smoothed his hair ad ran her fingers softly over his cheeks, despite the horrible scars.

"How was the kiss? Was it everything you thought it would be?" Lily asked.

Remus blushed and he sat up. "It was nice. I wish it had lasted longer... wish he'd kissed me back... but... but it was nice."

"What did his lips feel like? Were they soft?" Lily's eyes were encouraging.

"They were sort of dry, I don't think he drinks enough water..."

Then Remus was curled up on his bed, Sirius could see him in the reflection of a mirror, just over his shoulder. "Of all the things I've ever done in my life, that is the one thing that I regret the most."

"You regret kissing me?"

"More than anything," Remus replied.

Achlys stirred in Sirius's chest. You see, she whispered.

Fuck off Achlys. You weren't there, Sirius thought.

What do you think, Sirius, that I only came after that night in the cave? You made me yourself, didn't you? I didn't enter you, I was born in you. I was born in the silence. I was born in moments like this, born from the very depths of your own self... The darkness inside of you... And you could easily make more of me... a whole legion...

"Was it because it was a bad kiss?" Sirius asked.

"Your lips were dry," Remus complained.

"My lips aren't usually dry," Sirius said.

"Well good for you for having wet lips then," Remus said.

"Were dry lips the only reason you regretted it?"

"There were loads of reasons, but that was one of them."

"What else? I mean, I didn't really kiss back, so you can't judge my technique by it..."

"Sirius, I regret it because you've been a total arsehole to me since. Until you need me to transfigure a duckbill off your face that is."

And he was back on his knees, begging, arms around Remus's waist. "Please... please I need you..."

Remus was staring down at Sirius, down over his nose, his eyes stern, mouth twitching something between amusement and excitement. "Oh? You need me?"

"More than I've ever needed anything."

"You're such a dramatic man," Remus said regally.

"I'm your dramatic man," Sirius answered.

Remus's hand was in his hair... and suddenly they were in the flat in East London, and Sirius's back slammed against the wall in the hallway, Remus's hand still in his hair, clinging, desperate, breathless, Sirius's back smarting from the wall he'd just crashed into. Their mouths were moving against each other, and Sirius was gasping between breaths, "I need you, I need you..."

"You always need me," Remus said between kisses, "Maybe tonight, though, it's I who need you?"

And his face was red... and the vision had a funny turn, like a glitch, flickering between the pain and the good... a montage of sound and moments...

"I NEEDED YOU!"

"It's I who need you..."

"I need you, I need you, I need you..."

"Sirius. Please."

"SIRIUS!"

"How can I trust you?"

James's voice cut through. "Remember every detail."

And there was salt in the air... and citrus. Oranges. A pistachio green bowtie. Remus's eyes were wet and threatening tears. "Don't you dare cry dammit," Sirius's voice was choked. "If you cry, I'll cry twice as hard."

"...love is more powerful than human belief..."

And Sirius was hugging Remus... their arms wrapping around each other in relief after some battle or another...

"...more powerful than social standards and expectations..."

Lily was screaming and jumping up and down behind the couch, hugging both of them, her face flush with joy...

"...Love is a magic with an unparalleled strength..."

The sound of the shattering windows at Fallengunder were like a million tiny, tiny little bells tingling all together until it became a mighty roar, a roar of a falling cave, of stones crumbling...

"...able to decimate even the most dark of all magic..."

Sirius was clutching Remus in the dark of the Shrieking Shack, cradling his head and torso in his lap, crying, bent over the unmoving form of the freshly reformed boy, the taste of blood still fresh in the mouth...

"...and all human constructs..."

Fingers were reaching out across musty blankets in the hotel room, outside the world kept moving on, but inside Sirius held onto Remus's hand. He'd never heard the words 'I love you before'... and now it seemed everything stood still while he hung onto them, not understanding the feelings that were raging within him, a stormy sea's waves, tossing about the ship of his heart.

"...an unbreakable vow of love and loyalty..."

...and the wolf was running through the trees, free as a happy dog, barking and playing and there were sticks to run about with and streams to splash through, fallen logs to jump over and chase each other around and through...

"Love is never meant to be broken..."

There were Remus's eyes boring into his, the sun streaking through the window, the logistics figured out, Remus's fingers touching his face. "Are you alright?" one of them whispered, bare bodies touching under blankets that were wrapped around limbs...

"...dedication... patience... faithfulness..."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Don't ever leave me Sirius."

"I wouldn't leave you Moony."

"...until one day a death parts you?"

"Swear it."

"I swear it."

Sirius was staring at Remus Lupin. 

Rey sniffed, rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist, and turned the page on his book. The pink of the scar catching Sirius's eyes once again. It represented everything, didn't they? those scars on Remus's body? But it was more than just a scar. Just like Remus was more than a werewolf. He was everything that Sirius wished he could be.

Everything that Lily wished she could be.

Remus was the bravest person. The most forgiving. He took the hits that life gave him and he held his chin solid and high, he stayed strong. He kept moving on. Remus still knew how to smile, despite everything he'd been through, every storm that life had cast his way. An orphan, a werewolf, a boy - now a man - with a heart of gold that could not be tarnished mo matter what.

Love coursed through Sirius's entire body.

And Lily's too - a double dose for Lily because as she felt her own love for Remus, she felt Sirius's love for Remus, too, and she felt as though she could never catch a breath.

"Fuck it!" Sirius suddenly said.

"What?" Remus started to look up from his book.

But Sirius had already moved, slid his hand into the curls atop Remus's head, pulling him backward so that Remus was forced to be looking up toward the ceiling and Sirius was looking down into his eyes.

"They're green when I'm sad," Remus said. "But brown when I'm happy."

"Like chocolate?"

Chocolate eyes met stone grey.

"I can't take it another bloody second, Moony," Sirius said, and without any further hesitation, he tilted his head to one side and pressed his mouth against Remus's -- hard.

The kiss seemed to last forever... 

So much so that the vision shattered and Sirius and Lily were sitting and facing one another in the Howling House.

Lily was shaking. She let go of Sirius's hand slowly, her palm slipping away from his.

He stared at the table.

The air seemed to throb with the magic pulsating around them.

 Remus's love was very, very, very powerful indeed.

"Holy fuck," Sirius whispered. His skin felt like it was made of stars. He lifted his arms, looking at his hands, turning them over, as though expecting to see the shimmer of the magic that he could feel coursing through them. He looked up at her. "Is it always - like that?" 

Lily shook her head, her face pale with shock and being just so completely overloaded by emotion and the magic. She could feel everything twice. The stars that seemed to cluster about under Sirius's skin blended with her own stars and she felt like the tail of a comet.

"Holy fuck," Sirius whispered again.

They sat in silence for several long moments, neither knowing what to say.

Then Sirius stood up, his chair sliding across the wood floor. "I need a cigarette," he murmured, shaking, and he walked away into the room with the magic habitat, where the trees stretched off like a real forest, an entire world made from magic that felt weak compared to what was rattling about in him. He shook a cigarette from the pack and lit it, his knees giving out so he sat down on a fallen log. He stared at the lit end of the cigarette, at the orange smoldering tobacco leaves. He gripped the cigarette between his teeth, breathed in and exhaled the smoke.

Lily came in when the cigarette was nearly spent. She sank onto the log beside him, and he glanced at her.

"I hate when you smoke those," she murmured.

He put it out, crunching the filter into the last of the ash.

"Thank you," she said.

Sirius nodded.

They were silent for a long time. 

When Sirius returned to the flat, he stumbled in exhaustion.

Remus was laying on the couch, a book on his chest, asleep.

Sirius tore off his leather jacket and chucked it onto the chair by the fireplace, kicked off his boots. He looked at the hallway, drew his wand from his hair, and set a charm that would alert him if Peter's bedroom door opened.

He moved the book away from Remus's chest, closing it and laying it on the coffee table behind him, next to Remus's wand. He lay his own wand there, too, lay it so the wands were crossed at the hilt, to the knot of the moonstone in Remus's cradled the straight, square end of his own.

Sirius knelt down.

His skin still crawled with the feeling of stars and magic so powerful it was nearly audible.

"Remus," he whispered, leaning close to Remus's ear.

 Remus stirred, his eye lashes fluttering slightly for a moment before his eyes started to open.

Chocolate eyes met stone grey.

"Sirius," Remus's voice was a breath. "You don't look made over?"

Sirius whispered, "Oh but everything is different about me, you just can't see it..." and he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Remus's. "Hey," he said quietly.

"Hm?"

"Happy birthday."

Remus smiled.

"I made you a promise once."

"Did you?"

"I told you one day, I'd have a job and I'd get you a stupendous present. Do you remember that?"

Remus blinked sleepily. "Mhm," he said.

Sirius whispered, "Anything you like you can have."

Remus's eyes focused on Sirius.  "Anything?"

"Anything at all, Remus," Sirius said.

Remus stared at Sirius's eyes, and he brought his hand up to Sirius's face, and his fingers ran over the skin of Sirius's cheek, over his jawline, which still hurt from the pain of the magique amor... Remus's finger tips slipped across Sirius's lips, resting against their fullness. That same meaning reflected in them as Sirius had seen in the vision... as he'd seen on the night of Remus's birthday party, way back in Third Year...

"I have all I want already."