Math Is Boring

by billy_the_author24

Summary:

To put it bluntly, Remus had the biggest crush on Sirius ever since he had joined his Maths Teacher position. They had met one day when Remus had lodged 14 copies of accidentally printed furry-smut off of the school printer (don't ask it was a mysterious link one of his year seven students had sent him after wishing him a happy new year.) Sirius didn't question it. It was their little joke.
AU fic where the Marauders all work in a British secondary school

Notes:

Hi guys! This is a little silly fic I will be updating spontaneously as a little side piece to my usual fanfiction works. This is an original story produced by the one and only me :0 If you have any suggestions/criticisms/compliments please feel free to comment!
Hope you enjoy :)

Chapter 1: Chapter One - The Grand Goodbye

To put it bluntly, Remus had the biggest crush on Sirius ever since he had joined his Maths Teacher position. They had met one day when Remus had lodged 14 copies of accidentally printed furry-smut off of the school printer (don't ask it was a mysterious link one of his year seven students had sent him after wishing him a happy new year.) Sirius didn't question it. It was their little joke.

 

Ever since that day they had grown ever closer: eating lunch in each-others classrooms, chatting on sports day and even wearing matching bow ties ever Wednesday. This was probably just what casual teachers do to make their workdays go a bit quicker and make the whole experience more enjoyable. At least that was what James was trying to drum into his hollow skull every two seconds. The only thing was Remus' skull was just filled imagining editing Sirius and what songs he would use and the transitions and the lighting... it would be amazing.

 

Remus sits in his classroom hammering away at his computer. He had at least a hundred KS3 Maths tests to mark that he had put off since November last year. It was now January, not too far along the line but considering each of his five classes had just had a forty mark end of term Christmas test and a twenty marker to do with their topics, let's just say it had piled up impressively across his desk.

 

Every other teacher and student had left long ago, James popping in to wave a quick goodbye as he usually did. James is Remus' other friend that he had made soon after Sirius once they helped fix the coffee machine together (as you may have guessed electronic devices hated Remus and Remus feared them right back) and who he had spent a lot more time with since the beginning of term, so much so they had become adequately great friends. Remus knew that all of his and James' classes shipped the two together. Good. At least there were no allegations about he and Sirius... yet.

 

"Knock, knock!" a voice calls from the door, startling Remus immensely. Sirius stands in the doorway in his coat and backpack which also looked to be full of unmarked test papers. At least that was something they could discuss.

 

"God, you scared me!" Remus laughs. "What's up?"

 

"Just wanted to say bye to an old pal." Sirius says as he now leans slightly on the doorway, whether it is due to the heaviness of his backpack or just to make Remus feel even more flustered, he didn't know which. Remus wouldn't complain as he actually looked really, really hot and was admiring the view.

 

Old 'pal'. The words fizzed through his brain and disintegrated into the bottom of his heart.

 

"Ah, well, see you tomorrow!" Remus replies.

 

He wanted Sirius to go before he had a chance to fuck up and say something stupid, before he could have another stray hair out of place and look like a crackhead, before he could stare into Sirius' eyes and wonder why. Why was this the man he had to so hatingly adore? Out of all the millions and millions of men why did he have to fall in love with his one male friend at the school? Like, sure, he had James but James was BORING and did not have the same arms as Sirius did.

 

There was somebody high, high in the heavens who controls the universe kicking a piece of chewed blueberry bubble gum up his ass right now and thinking 'hah! what can we do to make this man look any stupider?'

 

And by the time all of this had run through Remus' head he had just realised that he had been staring into Sirius' soul. A space hangs between them, silent.

 

"Ok." Sirius says. "Bye?"

 

"Bye." Remus mumbles as he violently clicks his mouse a few times. Sirius vacates the room and, once hearing the reception door grunt close, he leans back into his chair and sighs. The pink is still stained on the ceiling from where a year eight had exploded a neon pink highlighter, moving the ceiling tiles at the same time. It's still like that now. No one was willing to risk going on a ladder to fix it.

 

Fourteen more tests. He could do that, surely! It would take him no more than twenty minutes at the most. He'd then get back into his beaten car and perhaps stop at the Co-Op and buy some chocolate. He'd then go and lie on his hole-ridden sofa and doomscroll on Tik Tok while eating leftover pizza from the weekend before. It was fine if it was refrigerated. What a fucking glorious evening he had in store.

 

Chapter 2: Chapter Two - James The Love Guru

Summary:

James comforts Remus and offers some advice.

Cooked may have been an overstatement. Crashing out fulfilled the criteria of his emotions perfectly.

It turns out Remus' method for keeping pizza ‘fresh’ (or remotely edible) had grown predictable so now there were families of ants nesting beneath the pepperoni. It was ok, though, as it was vegan pepperoni so it tastes shit anyway, with or without the ants.

Remus had also discovered that four hours of sleep is not enough to put up with a class of rampaging, prepubescent twelve year olds who were barely capable of writing their own name. Then there were the thirteen year olds, half of whom had sprouted up to be just above his height and were all undoubtedly smarter than him. One of them asked him how a calculator worked. How the fuck was he meant to know that?

But on his lunch break, Remus hid around the back of the staff room cupboard and pretended to be caught up with cleaning bird-excrement off of his stained tie (it really was toothpaste that he got down himself this morning and couldn’t be bothered to change). Once checking that the coast was clear, Remus slides his phone out of his pocket and settles down against the back of the cupboard and begins to watch an unholy amount of ear cleaning videos, much more than what the average human should watch, until somebody appeared out of thin air beside him.

“Hello, you!” James says in a warm tone.

Remus yeets his phone into the cupboard as James stares at the thing, skeptical.

“Remus.. what were you watching?” James asks.

“Oh… uh…” He trail off.

James' face flushes pink. “Because if you want me to I can always leave you to finish- I MEAN FINISH WATCHING, uh-”

 

“Oh, no, no, no!” Remus regains his phone and slides it into his coat pocket, now standing. “So, uh. Do you maybe wanna go to your room? I need your advice on something rather… urgent.”

James nods. They had both done this a few weeks ago and the week before that discussing a certain someone.

They wander towards the English block and up the stairs, a few of Remus' year-eight students staring and giggling as they go past. Remus was somehow shocked how nobody had caught onto him ans Sirius aside from this girl in his year eight class who always could sniff out homosexual love when she saw it. She saw straight through him and all of the rumours that had spread around the school in the past weeks. Subtly she would ask questions about him and James and, although Remus didn't give a direct yes or no answer, would always raise an eyebrow and make a 'hmm' noise as if she knew.

…

“So?” James asks as he closes the door behind them.

Remus bursts into tears.

“Awh, Remus." he takes him into his arms as Remus cries.

“I can’t take it anymore, Jamie! He keeps sending me all of these mixed signals and all of these instances where he’s so close and behaves as if he wants to kiss me and then others as if we are just friends and he calls me ‘pal’ and… and… HE USES CARMEX LIP BALM for lord’s sake!”

“Carmex? But that stuff is low-key shit.” James half-laughs.

“It’s the cheapest at the Tescos near his house, James, get it right.”

“Lord, Remus." James says as he takes Remus' shoulders in his hands . Well, tried to as James was five foot and Remus was bordering six foot two. Bit of a push. “You have to either get the balls and ask him out or die a lonely man! What’s the worst that could happen if you simply… ask if he’d go and see a movie with you?”

“A life of eternal misery and woe.” Remus snuffles.

“You’ll find someone else.” James sighs, “What’s started this off then?”

There’s a brief silence.

“He said goodbye to me last night.”

“Just that?!”

“Yes, just that!” Remus retorts, “What else did you expect? A hug? A kiss?”

“Ah, I don’t know. I just thought you would get like this over something a little more… substantial.”

“Substantial?”

“Well something a little more drastic, then!” Remus shoots him a glare. “Not like it’s a bad thing! A man in touch with his emotions can pull anybody he wants!”

“Then why can’t I just pull HIM!” Remus bawls, bursting into another fit of tears.

“Ugh, if you’re going to be like this we need backup. Proper gay backup.” James sighs as he begins down the stairs. Remus catches him just before the door.

“You don’t mean?”

James smirks.

Chapter 3: Chapter Three - The Gay Washing Machine Assemble (PT 1)

"Are you being sad and gay AGAIN?" Regulus asks as he strides into the room, James following closely behind.

Regulus was the master of the gays. He had been hiding his affair with his dorm roomate all the way back from when he was at private school (what a posh boy, I know) by pretending to be in a relationship with Marlene McKinnon. The two had a lavender marriage when they were twenty, pleasing both of their families. They got along pretty well and Regulus always made Marlene carry the bags whenever he went shopping.

Regulus was used to Remus’ moments like these. They happened frequently and he had been summoned by James on several other occasions when he got himself worked up like this.

“Yes, it’s about Sirius again.” James sighs.

“You do know he’s my older brother… right, honey?” Regulus asks as he picks a piece of Marks and Spencers egg and mayo sandwich from between his teeth and puts down his pink tote bag.

“He knows, but you are the only other remotely sane person in this school so that’s why we need you.” James explains. “Now where’s the other two? I sent a message to the group chat on my way to your room.”

“YOU HAVE A GROUPCHAT ABOUT ME?!” Remus bawls.

“Yes, honey, how else are we meant to discuss how hopelessly tragic you are.” Regulus says..

The door to the room flies open.

“Remus?” Marlene asks. “God, is this about Sirius again?”

 

Marlene was also the other gay icon of the school, having married Miss Meadowes (they had decided to keep their maiden surnames as kids can be kids but they openly discussed their marriage if it ever came up). As Marlene also worked in the maths department, she talked little with Remus and was another regular in situations like this.

Dorcas enters from the doorway.

“Sirius?” Dorcas asks firmly.

“Yes.” The four others reply immediately.

“Oh God.” Dorcas sighs.

James, Regulus, Marlene and Dorcas all sit around on the tables with Remus standing in the middle of them like a big gay washing machine. The bell rings from overhead as the big gay washing machine meeting is dismissed, with seldom advice given. Remus trudged back down the stairs and across the playground and back to his lousy classroom ready to teach some trig.

Chapter 4: Chapter Four - Hopelessly Devoted To You

Summary:

Remus sings musical theatre songs after feeling sad and gay.

Later that night, Remus stayed late again. He was going to do what James said and ask Sirius to go to the cinema. He was going to be just like Jesus and grow a pair as he had done when he was on the cross;but this time Jesus was a sad gay Maths teacher trying to ask out his crush. It would be a whirlwind tornado for him as he’d probably end up trashing his office going insane while he waited. The little crochet frog sits on his desk, staring at him longingly. The frog had been made by one of his year-eight students at the beginning of the term;one of his first gifts since arriving at the school.

It was going to be something incredible; something that would be the foundations of their relationship and keep it standing forever more. But Sirius never came.

Remus had waited and waited and waited until it had just gone seven. As all of his tests had been marked and he had no further emails to answer about missing Sparx homework, he surfed the internet. While doing so he found a nifty sight called AO3 (archive of our own in it’s full title). It was very entertaining with all sorts of love stories that kept him entertained until it had just gone seven.

He had always hated English ever since he was seven. The language disgusted him along with his teacher who always had baked bean stains on her shirt in long orange streaks.

But now AO3 gave him hope. Hope that he had some chance that Sirius will ever like him back.

 

By the time it reaches seven seventeen he finishes chapter fifteen of a fanfiction work he had found called ‘All The Young Dudes’ by MsKingBean89. It was pretty good so far and made him leave the room with tears in his eyes.

He stands in the corridor of the school and locks my door behind him. He stares down either corridor and then towards the staircase on the far end opposite the girl’s toilets. There was nobody there now and almost all of the lights had flickered off.

A little wander couldn’t hurt, right?

He makes his way to the stairs and climb them hesitantly, the lights above his head flickering on as he saunters around the upstairs corridors. He knew what room Sirius usually taught in - the Science one with all of the broken gas taps - a little walk backwards around the one-way system they had installed. There had been an explosion in their when a cover teacher had taught but Sirius had spent the whole day getting it pristine again.

Remus walks past his room and sees that the light has faded in there too.

Sirius had left.
Remus climbs into his car, utterly devastated.

The radio turns on as he drives, ‘Hopelessly devoted to you’ from Grease plays as he pulls out of the school car park and turns a right towards the next town along. It hadn’t been changed since the time he dropped James home and he hadn’t been bothered to change it. James had also forced him to watch the film twice round his house and eight times in his room of a lunch break where he was feeling ‘sad’ and needed ‘a best friend who was kind and caring and had an amazing fashion sense’ to come and watch Grease with him. Remus reluctantly agreed.

He feels his soul tug as the music plays, rolling down the car windows so it was just him and his wheels rolling on the tarmac and the stretching road in front of him.

“But now… there’s nowhere to hide! Since you pushed my love asiiiiiiide!” Remus scream-sings. His voice fills the surrounding trees and it’s just them there, he and Sirius, together in his mind.

God, he really is sad and gay.

He must sing the whole song because by the time it finished his lungs are red raw and he's heaving in breath. Remus sob as he inhales once more. “I LOVE YOU SIRIUS!”

Chapter 5: Chapter Five - Instagram

Summary:

Remus gets a follow request on Instagram from Sirius.

Notes:

Hi guys, sorry for the spam I'm just getting down everything in my notepad that I have written already!

Hope you enjoy :)

On his way home that night, Remus stopped at the local Co-Op and bought a twenty four packet of burger buns. He looked a bit odd going in and that being the only thing he was buying being a six foot two man in a green bow tie and baby blue shirt but there was nobody else to judge him. He wouldn't buy any burgers. He liked the rolls on their own.

Seeming he fancied a bit of sugar he whacked a mars bar onto the checkout and the grand total of his purchases was only three pounds ten.

However that evening as he sat and ate his burger rolls (three and three sevenths to be exact, he was a maths teacher so he calculated it so that the rolls would last him a week) he had done a doom scroll on Instagram instead of Tik Tok as he kept seeing happy couples prancing about together on the previous app. There weren't so many on Instagram as it just seemed to be videos of deers and dogs playing together.

He was partway through watching a woman make a lemon tart on his second burger roll when he had a series of notifications pop up. He clicks on the little love heart in the top right corner.

YOU HAVE THREE NEW FOLLOW REQUESTS!

Maria Singh has sent you a follow request!

Maria Singh was a friend of his Grandmother’s who he had met once at her birthday party when he was seven and got dragged along by his ear. The cake was alright but it stunk of old lady and cabbage and there was far too many fancy tea cups with bunny rabbits painted on. That was the longest five hours of his life.

The second was one of his year eight students who he blocked. The kid had sent him a follow request every day that week.

The third…

Sirius_Black67

Accept?

Remus clicks the button and sends a follow request back, it being accepted immediately.

Sirius_Black67 is now your friend!

Remus’ heart was thumping so manically it felt as if it was going to jump and fly out of his chest. The burger roll drops from his hand and plods onto the floor. His phone follows as it scraped his knee and somehow clicks onto Sirius’ profile.

A photo of Sirius at a wedding stares up at him, two kids hanging off of his arms. He looked so happy with, what Remus assumed, his nephew and niece. Sirius didn't have kids. Surely he would've mentioned having kids if he had any? Sirius never mentioned anything about having a wife nor being married, or even a girlfriend or any past ones for this matter, which meant it must be a family member's wedding. Maybe a cousin or an Aunt and he had been chosen to be the ring bearer considering the rectangular box that was midway through flight towards the floor in front of Sirius on the photo that Remus had caught on closer inspection of the photo. Sirius was good with kids. Of course he was good with kids; he was a teacher! But younger kids. Remus had never considered the idea of having a family but the idea of Sirius being a remotely adequate human being towards the younger of the human race gave him a sense of warmth in his stomach.
Was he overthinking this? Yes, he definetly was delusional and a simp and anything gullible but the AO3. All The Young Dudes. They could do it, so why couldn’t he?

Day after day he had been wishing his life away with no point! Remus didn’t send Sirius the follow request so there must have been an inkling of hope there.

Remus just wanted to go on Pintrest and start planning their inevitable wedding but knew he needed a second take on this… and quick…

Chapter 6: Chapter Six - Remus' Sad and Gay Delusions

Summary:

Remus messages James for some help.

Notes:

HII guys sorry for no update the past few days :(( anyways, here are a few chapters to make up for it!!

James The Book
(last seen online at 01:34)

Remus: HE FOLLOWED ME
HE FOLLOWED ME
JAMES
JAMES GET YOUR ASS ONTO THIS CHAT RN I KNOW YOUR UP

 

James: huh

Remus: HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED HAS FOLLOWED ME

James: ...
so?

Remus: SO IT'S A MASSIVE FREAKING DEAL?!??

James: I follow u on Insta and Tik Tok and I don't like you in that way

Remus: Well you know me and he doesn't

James: u lit both wear matching bowties every thursday what the freak

Remus: It's actually on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays we both wear pink (that's our new thing) BUT STILL!!!

James: ok I'm going to sleep now

Remus: Have you got anything else to say?

James: What am I meant to say? Well done?

Remus: I DON'T FUCKING KNOW MAYBE JUST FUEL MY DELUSIONS A LITTLE BIT MORE

James: Ok I'm messaging the other group chat brb

 

.......

 

REMUS' SAD GAY DELUSIONS

James: He's gone mental

Regulus: meeting on Monday? James' room?

Marlene: on it

Chapter 7: Chapter Seven - The Gay Washing Machine Assemble (PT 2)

Summary:

The Gay Washing Machine assemble to discuss what this follow request means.

Notes:

(just wanted to mention there's a brief discussion about a character that isn't fanon nor canon in the usual Marauders fics who I've entirely created for the purposes of this fic named Graham Bennett who features several times throughout this.)

And so, the weekend passed in a blur and on that Monday Remus met the members of the Gay Washing Machine in James' room where they were already sat awaiting him.

"God, this seems like a cult." Remus sighs as he takes a seat into James' chair and spins aimlessly.

"SO?" Marlene says eagerly from where she was sat on the table beside Dorcas.

"James refused to tell us anything on the group chat other than stating that your mental." Regulus says as he sits with his legs crossed on the too-small-of-a-chair to fit him. "Spill the tea, honey."

"He added me... on Instagram."

Marlene, Dorcas and James all shrug as Regulus lets out the most barbaric yawp known to man.

"HONEY!" Regulus exclaims. "Right, what app does he normally use for socials?"

"Pardon?" Remus queries.

"Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tik, Tinder WHAT APP?!"

"Oh uh... Tik Tok? That's what I usually use, anyway."

Regulus yawps again as he begins to pace the room.

"I'm sorry, I don't know if you two gays are on a different wavelength to everybody else here in this room but what the fuck are you on about?" Marlene asks.

"They're going to get married, I can see it!" Regulus claps his hands. "Ugh you lesbians and straights don't GET the apps. Now, if he adds you on the app he uses most your just friends BUT if he adds you on any other app it means that he's trying to get a bit more info over you to see if your in a relationship, more cute photos of you or to know your favourite pizza restaurant ect.. and if he adds you on Grindr... well, that's a whole other story for another time."

"Don't give him false delusions, Reggie." James warns.

"That is absoloute BOLLOCKS!" Dorcas exclaims. "The way us lesbians do it is so much better and reliable."

There's a pause as everybody stares at Dorcas, awaiting her to explain further.

"Go on then." Regulus prompts.

"SO, you gotta wait two years falling helplessly in love while flirting constantly acting as if either of you do not acknowledge this, write poems and essays and novels about how much you love them before going out to some nineties romcom, eating eachothers faces off in the loos afterwards before buying a flat in Brighton and adopting thirteen cats, simple." Dorcas says before catching her breath.

"Hey, that sounds simular!" Marlene ponders. Her and Dorcas stare into eachother eyes for a second before Regulus fake retches.

"Oh be quiet, Reggie, we all know you hooked up with Graham after last years Christmas party and done worse-"

"SHHH!" Regulus shouts. "That's all in the past now."

The scene is interrupted as Dorcas' phone rings. She takes it before rushing outside and closing the door behind her.

"I mean at least I can get into a stable relationship." Marlene scoffs.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Regulus defends as he stands up and starts squaring up to Marlene. "I am very happy the way I am, thank you very much! And as for your relationship, you can shove that right up-"

Marlene stands and, being considerably taller and stronger than Regulus, causes him to cower back. Marlene laughs as she sits back down and Regulus recomposes himself.

"GUYS DAVID BOWIE'S ALIVE!" Dorcas rejoices as she jumps back into the room, her phone almost flying out of her pocket as she does.

"DAVID BOWIE'S REVIVED WHAT?!?!??!?" Remus jumps as he scrambles towards the computer. Regulus sighs before walking over and patting Remus on the back.

"She means her cat who is called David Bowie who has just came out of surgery for having inflamed testicles, honey."

Remus sighs as he slumps back into the chair.

At the sudden joy of David Bowie's successful ball surgery, Marlene and Dorcas take off leaving the three men sitting around.

"So?" Regulus asks.

"SO what?"

"So what are you doing about my brother?"

"I guess I'll just be woeful and depressed until I die." Remus sighs.

"Or write him a poem!" James suggests as Remus shoots him a deadly glare. He had suggested this before and, for a very brief moment, Remus had considered it... until James came up with potential candidate poems that were so badly composed it would've made Shakespeare gag.

"Well, whatever you do, I'll always be here as your supportive gay uncle who gives you dating advice, ok honey?" Regulus says as he picks up his bag and makes for the door.

"But you're his bro-"

"WELL BEST FRIEND THEN, TA-RA!" Regulus slings his rainbow scarf around his neck before departing.

Overhead, the bell rings. James pulls Remus into a hug.

"Remus, no matter what you do i'll always support you - whether you ask him out or not. I just want you to be happy, that's all!" James smiles.

Remus hugs him back. "Thanks, Jamie."

And Remus walked out the door, a half-grin on his face.

Chapter 8: Chapter Eight - Area Of A Circle

Summary:

Remus has to teach his year eight class how to calculate the area of a circle while rumours swirl.

"And now, Maths!" Remus cheers. His class of year eights groan at his odd enthusiasm. "Right, so today we are going to be doing the circumference and area of circles. Hands up, who doesn't have a calculator?"

Half of the class stick their hands up as Remus reaches for his supplies drawer . He begins to hand around the calculators as the rest of the class explode into chatter.

"You doing anything nice in the half term then, sir?" one of the kids asks him, the same one who he was certain had caught onto him and Sirius. Remus was in-fact going to several gay bars to mope around in Brighton and drink whiskey to his hearts content.

"Nothing." he says as he chucks her a calculator.

She raises an eyebrow. "Well have fun doing nothing, I guess." and before Remus can actually say that he had ordered a new Ikea bookshelf (he had actually and had entirely forgot that he had to go and collect it that night).

"SIR are you SURE you're not going out anywhere with a ... Mr Potter?" one of the more popular boys, having overheard the past conversation, chimes in. The class falls silent, awaiting his response.

"PI!" Remus shouts, discarding the subject. The class reignited into even louder chatter.

"Sir if I memorise... fifty digits of PI will you buy me chocolate?" someone pipes up from the back as Remus arranges his slideshow.

"Yes I will as I can only remember four." Remus claps his hands "NOW the formula for the area of a circle is..."

"A EQUALS R SQUARED TIMES PI!" a voice calls out.

"CORRECT!" Remus cheers as he writes the kids name on the board in one of his green board markers.

They soon got through the lesson before it was time to hand out the worksheets. Remus sits on the edge of his desk and places the worksheets on his head like a makeshift hat as he speaks. "Now, questions one to five done in the next seven minutes!"

The class collectively groan as he chucks the sheets to one of the boys to hand out.

"Sir, do you like David Bowie?" the SAME GIRL asks. What did she even want with asking that question? Sirius had no relation to David Bowie... did he?

"Yep, I do like David Bowie." Remus replies, sweating slightly.

He actually adored David Bowie but wouldn't get into all of that right at that moment.

"Cool." the girl replies. "Hunky Dory is by FAR the best album."

"Agreed!" Remus says.

"Sir, what jobs did you have before this?"

Here we go, the usual bombardment of questions to try and get off topic from doing the actual work.

"I worked in Costa Coffee, the one just down the road, with Ja- I mean Mr Potter!"

"MR POTTER?!" someone at the back of the room shouts.

Remus ponders giving an answer. It was funny seeing everyone think he and his best friend were dating. " RIGHT SEVEN MINUTES UP I WANT ANSWERS, PEOPLE!"

Chapter 9: Chapter Nine - Sirius Black Hates Potassium

Summary:

Sirius is trusted doing Science practical lessons with year sevens.

Notes:

Lol I wrote half of this in the back of my science lesson today so sorry if it's entirely ass

"And now, Science where today we will be blowing up random shit!" Sirius cheers as the bottle of hydrochloric acid drops from the table and onto his foot. "Shit, don't tell anyone about this or how I... just swore out loud in front of a bunch of ten year olds."

"I'm actually twelve in four weeks and eleven days, sir." one of the girls chimes in from the front.

"Right. I don't really know what to do with that information." Sirius shrugs as he reaches for his stacked out cupboard of cleaning supplies, all of which he had stolen from the cleaner's cupboards a few nights ago. He had thought Remus had seen him nick the four packets of baby wipes so had to pop in and say a goodbye. Keep the witness sweet, as they always say.

He tries to clean the floor with the puppy dog tea towel he had bought from Cornwall the year before on the school trip. Regulus had lost half of his class walking around the small costal village and decided to accompany him in the buying of it. Despite the tea towel costing him a whopping thirteen pounds it was not absorbing any of the acid and was instead causing it to smell off and create an odd sizzling noise. Sirius moves the liquid to one side with his shoe. He'll clean it later.

"Now, blowing up shi- I MEAN STUFF SORRY!" Sirius corrects himself. He fumbles around trying to put his safety goggles on before realising that one of the components he needed to blow up 'shit' was all over his shoes and the floor. "And now I need another bottle of this from Ms McGonagall next door christ- HOLY SHIT I FORGOT THAT DOOR WAS THERE!"

The door at the back right hand corner of the classroom that connected his and Ms McGonagall's had flown open, revealing the elderly witch-like woman standing in the doorway carrying a tray of hydrochloric acid. He always hated how she knew exactly what he needed and how to catch him at the worst of times.

"Ah yes, thank you Miss and..." Sirius shakily laughs. Minerva peers at him over the frames of her circular round glasses and places the tray on the back table beside the door. "no, I didn't just curse in front of a bunch of eleven and twelve year old children." .

"Sure." Minerva replies in her cool Scottish accent that only ever seemed to have one monotone with a underlying string of violence. He had adapted to calling Minerva 'The Scottish Dragon' in his own head and while gossiping to his year elevens. It was great fun.

"Now we have that-" Sirius begins.

One of the more geekier kids pipes up from in front of his desk. "God, she's like an Enderman!"

"YES!" Sirius rejoices. He always appreciated when the kids would say random stuff to get him even more off topic and even if he had no idea what it was he would still go along with it. The tray in his hands teeters at the sudden movement and threatens to go crashing onto the floor... again. "Not a clue who the Enderman guy is but yes!"

"Like in Minecraft?" another girl pipes up. "The tall thing with purple eyes who just kind of... teleports around the place and drops dirt blocks and Enderpearls when killed."

"Although Minerva would just drop 'Health and Safety In The Lab' sheets and extra Science protective goggles."

There a few stifled giggles around the class as Sirius begins to add pipettes into the bottles of acid. As he reaches over to grab a few more, his arm accidentally brushes the box of potassium chips into the not-so-dried puddle of hydrochloric acid on the floor.

Despite barely scraping his degree in Science, he had enough lessons from Minerva to teach him just what happens in this reaction and was told the exact words: "Doont ever mix a wee bit of potassium with a wee bit of hydrochloric acid as it will all go kaBOOM in your face like it did to my old PopPop." Minerva's PopPop wasn't dead but had to watch four serieses of 'Friends' to calm down as his life had flashed before his eyes!

"SHIT!"

Chapter 10: Chapter Ten - Sirens

Summary:

Sirius hasn't came out after the fire bell rings.

Notes:

yall thanks for 220 hits on this fic aa! Tysm to all of you and I have SO much planned for this

The fire bell soon follows, distracting all of Remus' maths class who he had just gotten to focus and evacuating the rest of the school.

"Alright, guys, please form an orderly line and exit through the door and down onto the fields, please and thank you." Remus shouts. Nobody complies with his orders and instead they all pile out of the door in a large heap of teenage mess. Remus shrugs on his coat and picks up his bag before following out after them. The tidal wave of kids was enough to scare off any other sane adult who didn't work in the school but the teachers, who had all worked there for at least ten years prior, sipped at their coffees as they waded through as if it was any other normal day.

Remus eventually found himself in his designated fire drill spot with his year seven form, all of whom were quaking in their boots at the mass of people and sudden disruption around them.

In a fire drill it was arranged that each of the forms, two for each house in each year group, would line up in their tutor lines and grouped in their houses. As the school had arranged, all members of each tutor group were of the same house, Remus' happening to be Ravenclaw. The other houses being Gryffindor (who lined up on the opposite side of the field to Ravenclaw as they tried to keep them from seeking as much havoc as possible), Hufflepuff (who were lined up beside Gryffindor. Poor Hufflepuff.) and Slytherin (who lined up next to Ravenclaw). They were peculiar names for secondary school houses as most others had Latin words for the elements or Greek gods, Remus had never questioned it as it was age-old.

"Right, line up in alphabetical order of your surnames if you can so I can take attendance, ok?"

Remus makes his way along the line and, once finished, stands at the front and stares around. He was the first one to have finished the register; something that he had always taken pride in during every one of his training fire drills.

However the sweat beads off of his fingertips, smudging the ink on the paper. Remus glances over towards Slytherin. Where the fuck was he?

Remus stands there another five minutes as other teachers finish their registers and wait patiently for it to be announced that it was all a drill and they could go back to teaching their boring lessons. A few lines over from Remus', in the Slytherin side of the field, is a group of year ten Slytherin's, all of whom belonged to the same form. Sirius' form. Sirius hadn't come to take his class' attendance.

Headmaster Mr Dumbledore (again, another weird name but he had been there as old as time itself and without him the school would tumble down and shatter to fragments) approaches the Slytherin form and takes their attendance, paying no worry as to where their actual form tutor had gotten to.

Ten minutes pass. Another ten.

"Maybe this wasn't all a drill!" one of his year sevens rejoices, "Mr Lupin, is this a drill?"

Remus stood and ignored the boy and prayed that Sirius would emerge from the building and come rampaging out of those doors with some whacky excuse any minute now and that it would be completely ok. It will be ok. It had to be. The shaking of the nerve in his right leg begins to shock up to his hip bone. It always happened whenever he got shaky or nervous or tense, before a job interview or when he was eleven and playing his first rugby match.

An orchestra of sirens begins to whirr somewhere in the distance, evergrowing closer to the school.

"I don't... know." Remus stutters. "Hold up, let me go and have a word with Mr Dumbledore and ask him about it. Oliver, keep the form in check."

"Yes sir!" The younger boy salutes. He knew Oliver would get anxious about the whole fire-drill situation from the times he had sat and cried in his classroom over lunch so shot him a shaky smile. It didn't quite reach his eyes as the boy returned one almost exactly the same back.

His hands begin to grow even more moist as the paper drops from his hands. Shakily, he picks it up. His knees shake in doing so and, as he brings the paper back into his misted view of vision, sees that all of the ink has transformed into an ominous pool of inevitable dread.

"Sir...are you ok?" one of the kids asks. He couldn't tell whom it belonged to as his ears were ringing and his eyes were blurring and his head was a shell. A useless shell.

"No." He replies. "He's dead. I know it."

"What, Sir? Who?"

"Sirius."

Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven - Liam The Female Turtle

Summary:

Remus goes into the burning building to hopefully find Sirius.

"Dumbledore, where's Mr Black?" Remus mumbles as he approaches the frail man. Dumbledore spins on his heel and turns to face him.

"Sirius Black! Oh God, probably getting all of his valuables together before striding out here all full of himself like he usually is. He's only like this because Walburga works here."

Remus knew that Walburga Black was Sirius' Mother - the head of the Senior Leadership Team and by far the scariest. Even her presence feared the most troubled kids to get their asses moving when skiving off lessons and vaping behind the English block.

"But where is he? This isn't a drill, isn't it? Albus?" Remus asks, each of his questions becoming snappier and urgent.

"Sirius Black is probably somewhere around all of these kids! You know what he's like always getting distracted and flirting with the female teachers; he's probably doing that right now. Just go and attend back to your form, Mr Lupin-"

"So you haven't personally seen him leave the building?"

Remus' leg starts twitching again.

"No, but-"

And he legs it, all the way through the football field as fast as his legs could carry him, up the stairs and across the playground to the main building. The main building contained all of the humanities and Science classrooms.

Around the corner in the staff car park pulls in two ginormous red fire trucks, each with a dozen firefighters in neon yellow attire ready to deal with the demons inside. They were already approaching the door now.

Remus was never a fast one and two of the firefighters were already at the door ready to enter the building.

"Excuse me, sir." One of them says as Remus attempts to shove her out of the way. Instead the woman pushes him back and blocks the door. "There is a live fire in this building so I suggest that you make your way down to the arranged fire safety spot. Is there any purpose you need to get into this building?"

"Sirius Black." Remus huffs. He attempts to push past the woman again and this time she shoves him back.

"Is that a child? Sir, is there a child in the building?" the woman nods to two of her other crew as they advance into the building with buckets.

"No.. no.. I made it up. I just wanted to try and get my coat; the expensive one I got last Christmas. Sorry." Remus says as he relaxes slightly and backs down. As the firewoman takes down her guard and makes off back towards the truck, Remus bolts through the metal glass doors as they swing inwards. He turns a sharp right and up the stairs past the girls toilets, the route he had taken only a few days ago. A few days ago when he wanted to see if Sirius had forgotten about him. Now he didn't even know if there would be a Sirius to forget.

"Sirius!" Remus calls. He stampedes along the corridor and around the corner to see plumes of black smoke erupting from Sirius' classroom. He was dead. He would surely be dead and was burning alive in that room right now. The scars on his face would cover his entire back and arms and leave him in wet bandages in hospital for weeks, months even. Who knows if they would get infected and cause some unknown disease that would lead to his inevitable death. He might have choked on the fumes.

"Remus!" A faint voice calls.

He was alive.

Out from the classroom a few doors down from his own was Sirius holding the school pet tortoise, Liam, that was kept in a pen in the Science department by Mr LockHeart.

Of course he was alive.

"Sirius!" Remus says as he makes towards the flames.

"SIR GET AWAY FROM THAT FIRE!" A familiar voice warns. It was the firewoman as she carries a massive bucket of water in either arm. She stares at the fire before immediately retreating.

Sirius stares around to try and find an exit as Liam attempts to crawl from his grasp at a painstakingly slow speed.

"Stop it you little shitting turtle!" Sirius grumbles as Liam finally makes a break for his freedom and lunges forwards. Sirius lunges forward after it.

The fire explodes. Sirius falls back. Remus falls back, his head hitting into one of the walls behind him.

The dancing amber tiger in front of him roars even brighter now with the whisps of black tendril hair sweeped up in the mess. The tiger's stripes are made from a suit arm and leg and a dinsoaur patterned tie. Weird stripes to be on a tiger.

Chapter 12: Chapter Twelve - A Moroccan Tea Party

Summary:

Flashback to the first time Remus and Sirius met.

Notes:

sorry about that last chapter guys pls don't kill me 33

Also pls pick up the reference in this chapter (BBC Ghosts ifykyk)

Kinda a longer chapter uhh idk how it turned out to be this long aaa

The sound of Remus' printer sounds from behind his head, making him jump out of his skin.

Previous to the scare he had been peacefully enjoying his lunch of plain pasta and having a scroll through his socials. Nothing much, as there always is these days.

Curious as to who had accidentally connected to his printer (this had happened before with Sybill Trelawney, who was in the main building in her history classroom, who had a some super-electronic computer that could connect to any other printer in the whole school. Last time she had printed several photos of Henry VIII in his full king attire, codpiece and all.) Remus stood to see a photo of a furry tiger suit. Yes, the suit was furry but it was an actual FURRY tiger suit. Something you would see in the middle of a park on a casual Sunday as two hundred of them all met up.

But this was worse. Ten times worse.

Let's just say that the next image was of some stuff that was on the TOTALLY wrong side of the internet and gave Remus several flashbacks to Henry VIII codpiece.

And all Remus could do was stare at the papers building up as more and more images begin to pour out his printer.

This was his second week here and he was already going to get fired. If anybody walked in right now and saw what was coming out of this printer he would be utterly, devstatingly, historically cooked.

Remus scrambled for a minute, staring around. He turned off his computer and his phone before switching the printer off at the plug. It immediately stopped printing midway through something that could only be described as a Moroccan Tea Party.

A wave of relief filled Remus as he took the images and dumped them into his backpack. If he put them in his own recycling bin and they were seen by the cleaner they were bound to report it and if he put it in any other bin around the school it was still bound to be seen by somebody. He'll shred them when he gets home and pray that he didn't get mugged.

A mugger coming after him expecting watches and IPhones in his backpack and, once going through the whole process of getting it would just find a tin of empty heroes, thirty unmarked year seven bottom set maths papers and a bunch of furry smut. Now Remus just wanted to be mugged to witness that reaction and to not have to go through the pain of all of that marking...

With the problem resolved, he went back to eating his pasta.

A few seconds later a worried face appears in the door.

It was one of the Science teachers of whom Remus recognised for having the wildest year ten form during their practise fire drill at the beginning of term. The whole time they were screaming and hollering and giving each other piggy backs across the football field. The teacher just done a headcount and assumed that it was a drill anyway and his year tens could be held fully accountable if they were late.

Remus jumps again and gestures for the man to come in.

"Are you Mr Lupin?" He asks.

"Yes." Remus replies with a mouthful of pasta. He swallows before patting his chest. "Sorry about that."

"I'm Mr Black. I-uh, I think you should come to the reprographics. Quick." Mr Black says.

Remus abandons his pasta and follows the man across the corridor, past the reception and through a pair of folding doors and into the tiny reprographics room that he had locked.

While Mr Black was unlocking the door to the room, Remus could get a closer look at him.

His hair was shiny and jet-black with a loose curl to it. A matching moustache lay under his nose and a beard surrounding his chin and cheeks with the most gorgeous pair of moon-grey eyes. The strangest thing about him, though, was his sense of fashion. The man was dressed in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, black trousers and a dinosaur tie. The tie had four different types of rainbow dinosaurs on the navy backing making it stand out against the rest of his formal attire.

He was beautiful.

"It said it had came from your computer and I... uh..." Mr Black says as he opens the door to the boiling room.

On the industrial printer was already a hundred copies of the furry smut that were flying from the printer at record speed.

"OH MY GOD IT'S NOT MINE I SWEAR!" Remus shouts as he runs toward the printer and begins to slap across its millions of buttons. "It was coming out of my printer and it wouldn't stop and-"

"It's ok, I get it." Mr Black says as he taps his nose. "Just wanted to check it wasn't anything that hadn't been... purposefully printed out before I chucked it out."

"But wouldn't somebody find it in the bin?"

"Yeah, well in that case we'll just blame it on one of the other old nutters in this place and get them fired."

Sirius sidles up to Remus and begins to press a few buttons on the printer as it slows down to a halt, an odd whirring noise sounding from inside and producing the heat to warm an entire coal factory. Sirius picks up the series of photos from the collection tray and tucks them under his arm, the other stack of printing under his other as he strides out of the reprographics room as if nothing happened. Then, he walks along the corridor and upstairs Mr LockHeart's room and dumps the full stack of accidentally printed photos in the bin.

Liam, the school's pet tortoise, stares up at him while gnawing on her dandelion leaf (yes they had named Liam before knowing her correct gender).

"Don't tell a soul." Sirius whispers to the tortoise. "Good tortoise." He then tips a few remnants of Mini Cheddar crisps into the pen which Liam indulges in immediately.

Sirius then closes the door behind him as Remus stares at him in awe. This guy was so cool.

"Was it a mysterious link from one of your year sevens?" Sirius asks him.

"How did you-"

"They always take advantage of you on your first week, trust." Sirius says.

"How long have you been here?"

"I came in around... Easter Term last year? One of the old Science teachers retired so my Mum bagged me a job here."

Remus stares at him. "Y-your Mum?"

"Yeah. Walburga Black."

He had already heard a lot about Walburga from several of his year tens and was yet to meet this woman who they all feared so greatly.

"Sorry, I don't think I caught your Christian name." Sirius asks. He stops in the middle of the corridor. "I'm Sirius, by the way."

"Remus. Remus Lupin."

"Well, Remus, it's nice to meet you. And let's maybe keep this a you and me thing, ok?"

"Great." Remus replies. Sirius turns before unlocking one of the classroom doors behind him and slipping in. Remus peered in through the window to see the whole place was a tip with several bottles of cleaning spray across the floor. There had almost defintely been a failed experiment at some point.

And for the next of his two lessons, Remus was in a bit of a better mood than usual, even despite the fear that his backpack would drop open and expose the furry smut inside.

Chapter 13: Chapter Thirteen - That Weird Hospital Smell

Summary:

Remus and Sirius get patched up at the hospital.

Notes:

uploading this chapter now as I might not have the chance to later!! Also these chapter might start getting a bit longer than they have been as I am actually LOVING how this fic is going aaa.

The doctor's office was small with a small, barred shut window in the corner. All of the air in Remus' lungs stayed stagnant because, even despite being told he was fine and he had a minor concussion, he didn't want to breathe and then drop dead the next second. The dust seemed to be levitating off of the keyboard connected to an ancient laptop on top of the desk beside the chair he was sat in, swirling in the air like a tornado.

"Hold still Mr Black while I-"

"OWH THAT HURT!" Sirius screeches from behind the blue curtain. From the lights shining from the window behind.Remus could just make out the silhouette of Sirius sitting atop a medical bench with the nurse attending to him, gauze pads being taped around his arms.

"Now put your leg out." The nurse groans. Putting on Sirius' bandages had already taken ten minutes longer than expected and the nurse was growing more tetchy by the second. Reluctantly, Sirius lifts his leg up as it settles on the bench with a thonk. The nurse wraps a bandage around his ankle as Sirius tries to stifle another sob. "Ok, Mr Black, you're good to go!"

"Wait, so no medical note saying I can stay off of work?" Sirius asks.

"Your burns aren't too bad and should heal within a month or so. Change the gauze every day and clean it thoroughly. Is there maybe someone who could help you do those hard to reach spots on your back? Maybe a girlfriend or a roomate, perhaps?"

"Or a boyfriend." Remus almost chimes in but stops himself. He knew it wasn't polite to eavesdrop but when the only thing separating you from the conversation was a thin blue curtain it wasn't easy not to listen.

"I live at home still; science teacher pay is actually pretty shit. I guess I do have my... Mum but she's... you know how she can e and my brother is a total drama queen and freaks even when he sees a scab." Sirius explains.

"Then what about Mr Lupin? You two should be pretty close for him to come looking for you in a burning building."

"Ah, no. Just mere friends. He was probably looking for Liam like I was." Sirius half-laughs. He preps to stand up from the medical table with this hands outstretched in front of him. "But I'm sure he will help, thanks."

Remus shifts as the curtains pull back to reveal a very bandaged-up Sirius black. The entirety of his left trouser leg had been incinerated in the fire along with one arm of his suit blazer so he was now wearing a pair of shorts and tank top from the hospital's lost and found box.The rest of his skin was a mix of ashen patched with miniscule blistering scabs to the stretching white bandages wrapping around his larger wounds and the sterilised squares where bubbling was already occuring beneath the skin.

"Taa dah!" Sirius says as he tries to do jazz hands but regrets it immediately. He winces in pain as he brings his hands both back down to his sides. "SO that old moo bag" he gestures to the exit where the nurse had just dashed off to. "Assumes I can't change my own bandages! I am not going anywhere near my Mother to ask if she would help, let alone Reggie. Wait, I forgot you're remotely new, have you met the other Mr Black yet?"

"Yes, he's in a groupchat about me with several of the other teachers at this school and has been giving me advice on what to do about my fat, crippling crush on you." Remus says in his head but bites back for the second time that day. Instead, he replies with a simple: "Oh, I've heard the name before."

"Cool. I think I'll surely be able to do it myself, though. Those few years in the police force loosened me up."

Sirius had never mentioned he was in the police force before. Remus didn't prompt.

"Well, I'm always happy to help if you need it." Remus smiles, his head dazy and throbbing.

"How's your concussion?" Sirius asks as he gives up on standing and collapses into the spinning chair behind the desk.

"Honestly, fucking aweful." Remus sighs. "We're going to be asked so many questions tomorrow."

"You bet. Although, they'll probably all deem me a hero for going back for Liam, right? Nobody else did!"

"Sure."

Remus wanted to ask about the fire and if Sirius was the one who had caused it. It had came from his room but when it had happened with the substitute before Sirius was all the way in London taking a 'health and safety' course that Minerva had sent him on. Was it one of the students or Sirius himself?

"Sorry, Remus, but I do have one question."

"Fire away. Sorry, maybe wrong choice of words-"

"What had you come back for?"

Chapter 14: Chapter Fourteen - Bus 327

Summary:

Remus and Sirius plan to go back to Remus' apartment.

Notes:

ok sorry if the fire thing was very sudden i didn't really know what to put uhh but anyway hope you like this chapter!!

Remus' reply had been formulating in his head for, in real time, what had been a full minute. However in Remus' head this formulated to ten minutes, which may not seem like a lot longer but when you're sitting face to face with your crush in a doctor's office together and he has just asked you why you ran into a burning building when he was the only one left in there (aside from the turtle of course) it felt like a lifetime.

This could be the moment, the key moment in Remus' life where he confesses his true love with it all ascending from there. Dinner dates, moving in together, meeting the rest of Sirius' family, finding all out about his past, their first Christmas, proposal and marriage ( only if Sirius wanted to ) until they eventually retire and go on to live and dwell in the stars hung above their heads.

But then it could go wrong. Sirius already knew too much about the whole printing incident and could snitch to Dumbledore. Remus would be fired. Sirius could start rumours around the teachers and students, even worse than the ones they had already came up with, that would make Remus and James outcasts.

And if he said nothing at all...

"Mr Lupin and Mr Black!" A voice calls from the doorway. A smiley faced doctor pokes her head around the corner. "You have both been discharged."

The doctor dissapears as Remus and Sirius both stay put in their seats. Sirius is still staring towards him, his eyes full and expecting an answer Remus was still contemplating on. After a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence, Sirius pipes up. "We better get going as they'll need this room for somebody else in a second." Sirius continues before Remus' brain can even compute what was going. "The only question is, where do we go? I don't want to go back to my house because... well, Bella's there working on the other end of the computer for her insurance company and she can get pretty... agitated. I guess we could maybe go in to town, if you're up for it, there's a cafe I know that does super cheap hot chocolate."

"S-sure!" Remus replies. They start down the corridor towards the exit on the far side of the hospital.

"And the other reason I don't really want to go back is because of Orion. He's been up all night on a late shift and, trust me, you do not want to come in his path after one of those."

"Is he, like, a doctor or something then?" Remus asks. Maybe he was working here last night, walking the same corridors as he was right now.

“No, he’s a lawyer. Sometimes when he spends all night up on a case we call it a ‘night shift’ as he is brutal in the mornings.” Sirius explains. “So, what do your parents do?”

“They’re both retired. Live a few towns away.” Remus explains. Sirius nods.

They wait in an odd silence as the lift trundles up to their floor and opens to be empty as they step inside.

“GOING DOWN.” the automated voice sounds from over the speakers

Sirius scuffs his shoe on the metal floor of the lift as it descends creating black streaks across the material.

They didn’t talk until they were standing at the bus stop while Remus examined the bus timetable.

“I didn’t know there was a bus that ran from here to my house!” Remus exclaims. He shivers slightly as a cool breeze flaps the bottom of his coat around. “We can always go there as town is going to be freezing.”

“Only if it’s no bother…”

“Don’t be silly, Sirius, it might be a bit of a tip so I’ll apologies for that.”

Sirius awkwardly laughs as he sits inside the bus shelter. Remus kept his eyes fixated on the little timetable.

He liked timetables - hence the reason he had gone to work in a school. It gave him order and predictability. He liked to know what was going on and what was going to happen next and who he would see, to know that a paycheck will be coming at the end of each month and that the house would be heated.

His parents had retired, just much earlier than they should for their age. His father was a scaffolder who injured his leg when he was thirty after he slipped down a faulty ladder. They hadn’t won the court case as they couldn’t pay for a good enough lawyer and his Mother worked behind a bar in the evenings, bringing home the little she could. They got by as best as they could.

Inside Remus was beaming.

He was taking the guy of his dreams into his house! This is how it always starts in films and books; arranging to go to one of their houses and making small talk until one of you makes a move and it all gets freakier from there.

The three twenty seven bus rounds the corner as Remus flags it down. The bus jitters to a halt as several people hop off. With a deep breath, Remus steps onto the bus with Sirius following closely behind.

Chapter 15: Chapter Fifteen - The Lair Of Remus Lupin

Summary:

Remus takes Sirius back to his flat while discussing their past jobs.

The whole bus journey he and Sirius had tried to ignore the couple beside them who were very deep in kissing. Remus wouldn’t complain though as Sirius budged closer to him the whole way to try and avoid the flailing of limbs beside him so their knees brushed as they went down a pothole or pulled into a bus stop.

Seeming the bus lead into one of the more densely populated towns, at least a hundred other nurses and doctors and cured patients had piled onto the bus after them and even before they had gotten on all of the seats were already filled with school kids, luckily none from Remus’ school but one of the others in the surrounding area, that left them with the four chairs at the back with two already being preoccupied.

Neither spoke the whole journey as Sirius put a stringed pair of earbuds into his ears (he had offered Remus a pair but Remus declined as he didn’t want to get his huge globs of orange ear wax on them. He had gone to the doctor about it before and it turns out there was nothing wrong with his ears and that he was just ‘gifted’ with waxy ears.) and Remus tried to drown out the noises of lips on lips beside him. He thought about death instead, preventing his mind from wandering anywhere else where he would be in the situation beside him with the man next to him and he was NOT thinking about this. Like at all. That was weird.

The bus pulls into Remus’ road as they dodge the couple who were still going at it.

“So, this is the manor of Remus Lupin?” Sirius asks sarcastically as he stares up at the building with his hands in the pockets of the shorts he had been given. He hadn’t been offered a coat but seemed perfectly fine with his normal body temperature in his tank top. Remus was freezing.

“Oi, at least I actually own my own house.” That was a lie, the council paid for his house and he just gave them one hundred and fifty pounds a week to live in it.

“It’s not my fault my pay is dog shit!”

“We both have the same pay; you just have richer taste.”

Remus’ flat wasn’t the most gracious. His whole block was built at least a hundred years ago with the sides yellowing with mysterious black stains running down them. Each window was smoggy and dirty or had net curtains hung up that looked like his Grandmother’s bed sheets. Remus could identify his window on the fifteenth floor with his charity shop stained curtains drawn. Around him turned over bins littered the paths with rogue rats wandering. A police car darts past, full sirens blaring.

“Excoose me, sir.” A voice says from behind Remus as a firm hand rests on his shoulder. Remus jumps and turns to see a drunken man with a cracked beer bottle in his right hand as he sways from side to side. “I was wonderin’ if you knew the way to the train sta’ion?”

“Up there and on the right, just past the Ladbrokes.” Remus says as he pats the man on the back. He was used to dealing with people like him. The worst one had been when one of his neighbours Larry had came knocking on his door at midnight, convinced that Remus was a wizard who had been bitten by a wolf and was secretly undercover as a maths teacher. Weird man.

The man leans in for a kiss from Remus which he politely declines before walking away with Sirius. Sirius looked even more shaken than Remus was.

“What?” Remus asks. “You said you used to work in the police force! You must be used to dealing with drunk blokes like that all the time.”

“Still! I usually did all the stuff with the knives and the… robberies, y’know?” Sirius says. They begin towards the flats and up the fifteen flights of stairs as they continue to talk.

“Wait, what? How come you’ve never told me any cool stories about robbers then?!”

Remus had just assumed Sirius had done all of the talks in the schools about why vaping is bad and not to drugs, not any of the hands on life-or-death situations.

“It never came up.”

“How come you always get the most awesomest jobs and I get the worst ones!”

“Well then, Remus Lupin, what other jobs have you had?”

“Well… uh… I was a scaffolder for a bit, taking my Dad’s place after his injury. Then I worked as a lifeguard for a bit but nothing interesting ever happened there and now I’ve ended up here!” Remus says. He unlocks the door to his flat as the door flies open.

His mind immediately fragments into a thousand tiny pieces all over the floor.

“WHY THE HELL DID I BRING SIRIUS HERE?!??!” His brain screams at him.

Chapter 16: Chapter Sixteen - David Bowie Mug

Summary:

Sirius leaves after a call from Walburga.

Notes:

Thank you to Eskerlator for being my personal AI while trying to think of items to include in Remus' house and ways how he could have gotten strawberry milk down himself :P

Again, another piece of fic I wrote in school (honestly I have nothing better to do) so this is probably ass

Remus hated living up high . It always gave him anxiety whether the place was going to capsize or implode or the building was going to bend like the leaning tower of pisa and fling back up again, sending him flying out the window. It was a flat the council had put him in the day he got his first (proper) job. His old council were used to hearing his name about so they were more than glad to get rid of him.

Due to his fear of heights he always kept all of the curtains and blinds closed so that it looked like a vampire’s lair and hadn’t had any fresh air inside for months. He hadn’t been bothered to do the washing up for weeks with a few plates and plenty of tea cups piling in the sink, swirling water filled with undistinguishable bits of food lay in the depths of the washing up bowl.

Strung across from one wall of the room to the other was his washing line with his cheerio patterned vegan boxers strung alongside his ice cream cone patterned vegan ones. His green and sapphire Christmas jumper was hanging near the almost darkened window, drying from where he had spilt strawberry milk down the front (don’t ask, one of his year nines had put strawberry milk in a water gun and sprayed it into his ear and onto his jumper. He had found it in a quality streets box under his desk a good few weeks later so the whole of his room stunk like spoilt milk for the rest of the day.

“Sorry it’s a mess. I don’t usually have people round.” Remus apologises.

“So no girlfriend then?” Sirius flops onto his second hand Facebook market place sofa and pats it affirmatively. “Or boyfriend.”

Remus’ heart must have flipped fourteen times in his side.

Sirius knew. How did he know? It wasn’t that obvious, was it? Sure, he had a very odd fashion sense and wasn’t the most bothered person when it came to his students using homophobic language (he had heard it all before and the words didn’t seem to bother him as much anymore.). Had Sirius really caught onto all the tiny things about him: how he never talked about the women in his life, how he overly-approved when people talked about their straight relationships, how he flushed so red when they done the pride assembly at the beginning of the year?

Surely it wasn’t that noticeable.

Remus shook his head and instead hurried to the kitchen to make hot chocolate.

“You making a cuppa?” Sirius asks.

“No, hot chocolate. Do you want one?” Remus replies.

“Yes, please.”

Remus pulls down one of his chipped Bowie mugs from his cupboard and pulls out a Electric Light Orchestra one for him. He had found the mix matched band mugs at a boot sale for two pounds and had nabbed them up straight away.

Remus made the hot chocolate as the thoughts ran through his head like wildfire.

He did have a bit of a feminine walk and laugh sometimes and didn’t have one of those shaved at the sides haircuts most men have nowadays. His hair was longer on the top, more messy and flowy, but that was the way he liked it. It never seemed to sit in one position and moved with the wind.

As Remus finished stirring the hot chocolate powder in with the water, the opening to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ begins to blare as Sirius squeaks in shock and answers his phone. Maybe the hot chocolate could take a little more stirring…

“Mother, I’ll be back to work as soon as possible, I promise. Sorry you had to cover that, they’re not overly bad. At least it wasn’t the year nines! Yes, Mother, I’m with Mr Lupin, the new maths teacher.” Sirius rants. After mentioning Remus’ name, the room next door goes very quiet with the screech on the other end of the phone from Walburga. Remus couldn’t make out any of the words but could tell by the look on Sirius’ face they must have hurt. “Bye Mother.”

 

Sirius exhales shakily as Remus debates whether to throw himself and the hot chocolate out the window.

He was absolute ass at comforting people.

“Remus, sorry about the hot chocolate but my Mothe- Mum wants me back home, to check if I’m ok and stuff. Sorry mate, we’ll do this another time though! I’ll just let myself out, if that’s ok?” Sirius rambles. His voice had suddenly gone very high pitched and tense like the top string on a violin being tightened enough so it could snap any second.

“Ok!” Remus tries to reply from the kitchen. “Do you need a lift home or-”

“No, the bus should come in about two minutes from that stop outside, sorry.”

“Safe travels!”

 

The clanking of the key in the lock echoes around the now empty room as Remus stands with two swirling cups of hot chocolate in his hands. He places them onto his coffee table, also from Facebook marketplace, and collapses onto the sofa exactly where Sirius had just sat. The ghost of where he had been is indented on the sofa, his heat still present. Remus tries to cling onto every last bit of it.

Chapter 17: Chapter Seventeen - Besties 4 Eva

Summary:

Remus calls his Mum to tell her about the fire.

Remus hadn't felt the sting of his ankle nor the pound in his head since being caught up in a burning building. The adrenaline had overtaken him.

When the doctor had taken Remus to dress his wounds separately to Sirius, he also told Remus that he mustn’t sleep for twenty-four hours to make sure the concussion should have passed. The only way he would have been able to sleep was if he had another person in his household and he didn’t want to move from his spot on the sofa to make his way to his parents house and Sirius couldn’t stay the night with him as he had planned on the bus (his thoughts of death had subsided as others crept in).

His parents. He should probably ring them and tell them that the school almost burnt down and that he had risked his life for a female tortoise called Liam whom he had rescued from one of the cutest looking teacher’s rooms (before we go any further with this, no, Remus does not have a crush on Mr Lockheart he is just a very attractive guy, Sirius is always the one for him.). He knew his Mother would be worried off her head and would be persistent he stayed round for the night. Neither of his parents could drive to force him to pick him up as his Mother never learnt and her anxiety of crashing and killing everyone in the car had prevented her and his Father hadn’t driven since his accident.

He clicks onto the contact list and his Mum picks up within the first ring.

“Hello, Remus? Are you ok?” she asks, her voice high with concern. “It’s not the day you usually call, are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes, Mum, I’m perfectly alright.” Remus lies. The static on the other end of the phone made his brain fizz even more. His Mum’s landline was at least a century old as she had broken her ipad (she refused to use a phone as the letters were ‘too small’ and ‘creatures of the devil’) after she had dropped it in her bird bath. “I had to go to the hospital today though but before you worry-”

 

“HONEY!” His Mother screams from the other end of the phone, the sudden loudness making Remus cower back. “REMUS, OUR BOY REMUS, IS DYING!”

“Mum, I’m ok-”

 

“My boy!” His Dad says as he rushes to the phone and rips it from his Mother’s hands. “Come to ours straight away! I’ll go and get your old bedroom ready-”

 

“No, Dad, I’m fine. I have a bit of a burn on my leg and a mild concussion but apart from that I’m totally fine.” Remus sighs. The other end of the phone falls silent. He knew this was how they would react.

“A burn? On your leg? Oh, Remmy, please don’t say you made the bath too hot again-”

 

“No, there was a TINY fire at school.”

The phone falls quiet.

“Maybe tiny was a bit of a lie, it was quite big, but I had to go and save Liam!”

“Liam?” His Mum questions. “You’ve never mentioned a LIAM before!”

 

“Mum, no, I don’t have a new friend, she’s a tortoise.”

His Mum always had a weird thing whenever he made a new friend as it hardly ever happened. She knew about two of his friends from uni, his only two friends from uni, who she had tried to invite round for a Sunday roast during the Christmas break that Remus has tried to talk her out of. With James, he hadn’t been so lucky.

After mentioning James once on the phone (he had explained the coffee machine incident accidentally as it was how the orange juice incident started) she had gone berserk and managed to stalk down his Facebook profile to invite him round for dinner personally that he gladly accepted, despite Remus’ protests. James had eaten all of her potatoes and gladly went in for seconds and they had arranged another date where he would come round for a roast again.

“Why did you risk your life for a tortoise? Oh, Remus, please quit that job it isn’t safe with all the-”

“MUM! Nobody got injured aside from me and Sirius who also went back for Liam. You should see the state of him! All covered in bandages and burns; I got off lightly.” Remus explains. Hopefully explaining somebody else’s injuries would make him seem less relevant, hopefully decreasing the situation and making his Mum more at ease. “And when Sirius was hurt I had to go and help him but then it all kind of blew up in my face and sent me flying back, hence the concussion and the burn.”

“And would you consider this Sirius a… friend?”

“Yes, he came round after as I wanted to make sure he was… ok.”

Remus had actually plotted a whole novel based around the events he had predicted would take place in this very apartment this very afternoon that plotted out the rest of their lives together. Friends.

“And his surname is?”

“Black. Sirius Black.”

“And how do you spell that?”

Remus puts down the phone.

Chapter 18: Chapter Eighteen - A Girly Pop Sleepover

Summary:

Remus calls James for some help.

Notes:

swear half of this fic is what I write in the back of class instead of doing work.

He needed to sleep. He knew that he had one of the worst days on his timetable tomorrow where he was teaching for the whole day and had to do break duty in one of the more over-crowded areas of the school (there were also always fights here that he had to try and wander away from as to not get involved). Remus would be half-dead by period three where he had his most hated year nine class who always had it out for him and that was without any of the questions or rumours that had been made up since yesterday. He didn’t remember if anybody had seen him enter the ambulance but he could only stare up at the foggy sky with a blurred screen over his eyes as he got carted away.

Instead, Remus calls James. He picks up after the seventh tone.

“Remus! You’re alive!” James rejoices from the other end of the phone. “Right, you lot, out!”

“IS THAT MR LUPIN?!” A faint voice shouts as the clatter of students leaves the classroom, the door slamming behind them.

“Sadly.” Remus replies. “I can’t sleep until twenty four hours passes so I’m stuck here sad, gay and alone for the next few hours.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Oh thank the Lord James had intuition.

“So how’s it going at school?” Remus asks. He had a brief thought about it afterwards as to what had happened since the fire.

“They’re all mental and won’t stop asking if my boyfriend is ok, you being the pne they think is my boyfriend. Your year eight class is mental, Remus, I don’t see how you’re still alive after putting up with those shitheads every day.”

“You covered my classes for me?” Remus asks. He hadn’t known who could have managed his year eight class (the worse one out of the two) and wasn’t sure how James had survived it. Every lesson Remus had to threaten them with a phone call home to shut up and had to separate the desks with a metre gap in between before every lesson. At the beginning of the year they were an ok class with the occasional eruption of noise but throughout the year it had just gotten worse and worse. However, since knowing them for the majority of the year he knew who didn’t like who and created the worst seating plan known to mankind.

“Quite right. I also had to take one of Sirius' science classes mixed in with my English but Marlene came to my rescue, thank the Lord. I probably wouldn’t be here on the phone with you if she hadn’t shown up.” James explains.

“Why did you get stuck with a science class?”

“Because out of all of the other teachers who weren’t science teachers I had the highest GCSE in biology.”

“Do any of them know why I went back? Does anyone know? Dumbledore will KILL me!”

“Well then just say you went back for Liam. I won’t tell a soul… aside from the group chat who I have definitely already informed.”

“Thank you.”

“Ok, Remus, I’ll pop home to grab my jimjams and then I’ll be with you. We’re going to have a midnight feast and gossip about Sirius the whole night and watch Grease. I’ll bring my DVD player.” James says. The noise on the other end of the phone is deafening as James has probably left the classroom and was out in the staff car park.

Despite being told several times not to hang around in the staff car park, most of the kids still did as they threw rocks at teachers' cars and etched rude words onto their hoods. They didn’t use rocks any more but instead packets of ketchup from the school canteen and soap as they could talk their way out of that one a lot easier than rocks. There were also usually a lot of kids riding their bikes and scooters in and out of the cars meaning it was a menace to get out of their without hitting something or someone.

“Wait, Remus, you do still live in that shabby flat, right?”

“Yup.” Remus replies. “See you in a sec, James. Usual McDonald’s order?”

“You got it.”

In all honesty, Remus would have much preferred Sirius to sleep over (this was definitely not the other scenario he had been planning out for the whole bus journey) although he would probably have had to sleep on his crusting sofa, maybe the most unromantic thing in the world. He could have used the ‘oh no! This is the only hotel room left and there’s only a room with a double bed! Let’s take it anyway and sleep in the same bed while discovering our homoerotic feelings for one another and hook up’ trope but Remus had a single bed (also from Facebook marketplace) that he could hardly fit into, let alone him and a whole other human being.

James had slept on the sofa round Remus’ before after one of their ‘Let’s go and get pissed up in all the gay bars in Brighton for a bit and get off our nut on reduced donuts from the W.H Smith!’ weekends. He was also no bother to feed as it seemed that the only things James ever consumed was McDonalds (or any other fast food aside from KFC - he HATED KFC with a passion) and blueberry yoghurt. This was going to be… fun?

Chapter 19: Chapter Nineteen - Spill The Tea

Summary:

James comes round Remus' for a sleepover.

Notes:

Bit of a longer chapter today aahhh

TW: internalized homophobia/homophobia at the end of the chap :)

“Wasgood.” the voice says as Remus walks towards the front door. He sees James’ fingers poke through his letterbox that was hardly used and probably had spiders lurking inside. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece, Lupin.”

“Harldy.” Remus replies as he sits back down on his sofa. James had packed a full duffel bag full of stuff in the time he had to whizz around his apartment which was slung around one shoulder, his usual work satchel in the other which looked to be full of papers. Remus eyes the bag.

“Don’t, I can’t even read half of them.”

“Is that because of the handwriting or are you just thick?”

“Bit of both.” James begins to unload the papers as he sits on the sofa beside Remus. “You feel up for marking thirty assignments on ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with me? We can split it.”

“Alright.”

James shifts over thirteen of the books as Remus begins to read. The first paragraph is legible but as he scans over the text he sees that it progressively turns into hieroglyphics.

‘In Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ he uses fairies and explores the first ideas of Fantasy. This is so significant because…’

He loses his place several times while reading, causing him to have to go back to the start and begin all over again. He wrote a comment at the end in a purple pen and graded it a seven.

“When’s the Maccies getting here?” James asks. He had skimmed over each of the books and was already on his seventh.

“It’s called McDonald’s, not Maccies or whatever you call it, and it’s on its way as I ordered it when you called.” Remus rubs his temple as the book drifts from his lap and topples onto the floor. James takes the remaining twelve books and adds them to his pile. “Thanks.”

“No problem. So…. how’d things go with Sirius at the hospital?”

 

How did things go with Sirius at the hospital? Well, Remus had no more insight into whether he was gay or bi or pan or whatever else inbetween if that’s what James meant. Did he want to know about the part where Sirius suggested that he thought Remus had a boyfriend? Or was that unnecessary? Did he want to know about the part where Remus left after being on the phone to his Mother? What did ‘things’ mean?

“Right, Remu, stop thinking so hard about it. Just tell me anything and everything that happened, whether you think it important or not.” James shifts another book onto his completed pile.

“Remu? Where did that come-”

“Don’t question it, get on with the storytelling.”

“But you’re marking books!”

“I know but I want to get this done and out of my hair before we have a whole night of gossiping and eating Maccies watching Grease while I hear all about your ginormous, gargantuan and rather unholy crush on Sirius black.”

“Ugh fine.”

And so Remus recounted all of the silly details from the moment he left the football field, all through the events at the hospital until they got onto the bus. At this point James had finished marking books and was laying on the floor with his feet swinging in the air behind him while Remus sprawled himself out across the sofa.

“And then he cam back here and was life, do you live with a girlfriend? Or boyfriend?”

 

“Shut up!”

“Yeah, he did! And I was making hot chocolate or whatever so I said no and before I could ask him the question back his Mother rings and is all yapper yapper and then he just leaves. Ugh, I hate Walburga so much; she’s such an interferring bitch.”

Walburga didn’t know that Remus was practically bursting at the seams with joy the moment Sirius stepped into his household but all the same she should have had some universal feeling not to disturb his son.

“Wait, Walburga? As in the scary woman with the bun who drags kids by the ear for vaping?” James gasps.

“Yes, that Walburga.”

“And say if you and Sirius do get married or get together and you have to meet the parents or whatever…. Your Mother in law will be Walburga ....”

Remus hadn’t thought about Walburga when it came to his and Sirius’ future.

Walburga was a tricky woman to read but showed some clear hate to members of the LGBT+ community from the assembly they had at the beginning of the year. Remus had piled into the jam-packed hall along with the other year seven forms and had tried to brush off the assembly as easily as he could. Walburga stood at the entrance to the hall and scoffed when she saw the first slide, whispering to one of the other SLT members as they sniggered under their breath.

“Due to some recent bullying in our school, we have came up here today to talk about the LGBTQIA+ community…” It was the girl from his year-eight Maths class that stood at the front of the hall behind the podium, reading from a piece of paper in front of her.

How could she be so young and so brave as to do that in front of all her peers when Remus could hardly come to terms with himself?

He sat on edge the whole time, playing with his hands in his lap and examining the hall around him. They probably all knew about the thoughts he was having and the feelings that surged in his stomach late at night when he was all alone. It felt as if his head was an open window into an exhibition of his private thoughts.

He had gotten better at accepting it since then. He had grown to know that some people in the world would respect him for who he is while others will try and pretend he doesn’t exist. Some would suppress him or place him into a category while others would march alongside him in comradeship. It was the way the world worked and how it always would for Remus in his box shaped mind.

Chapter 20: Chapter Twenty - Why Am I Like This?

Summary:

Remus thinks back to the assembly and the aftermath of meeting Sirius.

Notes:

Guys this is kinda emo so don't read if you're on a low :( I swear it'll get back to being happier soon!

TW: Remus has a bit of internalized homophobia but it's just him coming to terms with himself kinda idk

ALSO VALID GRANT CHAPMAN FROM THE HOLY ATYD FIC MENTIONED

It was a few weeks now after he had met Sirius. Ever since that day something had opened in his stomach, eating up everything inside of him that he had already known and leaving a void; a shell.

Remus felt odd whenever he was around the man and he always felt as if he had to be the loudest or make the most jokes and make him laugh whenever he was close. Sure, these opportunities had opened up to him on several occasions since they had began their regular rota of eating lunch together in the staff room and, on the odd day, Sirius’ room.

He had grown used to this routine and loved every moment of it.

The only thing that made him question whether this was something else was his unhealable need to touch him. Not touch in a sexual way, but he always felt as if he would die if Sirius’ leg even moved an inch closer to his and they touched during the staff brief (the brief was on knife crime in the area, maybe not the best time for these feelings to be surging at an all time high). He took any chance he got to shake his hand or pat him on the back in a friendly hello.

And when Sirius wasn’t looking, chewing on the end of his pen while observing the board, Remus stared down at his hands. The one on the desk was clicking incessantly with a silver watch slung around his wrist. If only Remus could reach out and touch it…

He had thought about it. It seemed to be everything he ever thought about. He knew the word for it but it seemed too real.

Remus had a few flings with a guy called Grant in college but it had never evolved into anything more than a bit of drunken kissing. That was what college was for, kissing, and he was far away enough from his parents that he couldn’t be seen going into the local gay club every other weekend with the man. Sometimes he and Grant would split off from one another as they flirted (sometime an Grant would end up spending the night somewhere else and other times Remus saw him kissing a boy on the dance floor but it never evolved into anything else) but Remus had never kissed anyone else aside from Grant. He had a few flirting attempts (attempts because he always forgot what he was saying or would get too nervous) and even once some handsome guy had tried to lean in for a kids, but Remus had fallen off of the bar stool instead. They laughed it over until Grant tugged him by the arm begging to leave.

That was the other reason he didn’t want one of his two friends at uni to meet his Mum. He didn’t want to slip.

And as every gay famously does, one day when he was sitting alone in his classroom (Sirius was on break duty), it all got too much.

He sits in his room and powers on the computer, going incognito mode and signing out of his school account.

‘Am I Gay Test.’

At least a million results pop up over the screen; rainbows and other flags and men kissing with giant labels above them saying ‘ FIND OUT MORE BY CLICKING HERE! ‘. It made his stomach flip.

He takes the test, regularly checking to see if the blinds had mysteriously arisen themselves and would reveal a crowd of jeering students as they all chant at him.

He got a 74% homosexual on the test.

He cried.

And now a few weeks later with this still swirling in his stomach, he lines up for assembly with his Ravenclaw year seven form. They were all good kids in comparison to some of the other forms who looked as if they should all be restrained and put on leads.

The door opens to the assembly hall as they file in. Remus’ heart drops.

‘LGBTQIA+ Community’

And standing in front of the board is one of his year eight students along with three others.

What the fuck?

His leg starts to twitch, the way it usually does when he gets particularly nervous. It was always as if something was going to click and snap in his knee and he'd never be able to walk again without a limp.

Still, oblivious to the war happening in his headspace, the rest of the year sevens perch on the seats looking bored out of their minds, except for one. This girl’s name was Harriet, one of the kids in his form who talked less than most of the other kids. Her brows are raised as she sits on the edge of her seat biting at her nails.

Over the past few weeks Remus was glad to see that Harriet had made some friends. Remus understood that. Harriet had been growing extremely close with one of the other girls, Kelly, who he both taught for maths. They would sit at the back while Harriet would gaze at Kelly the whole lesson with Remus having to often prompt her to get back on task.

She was probably thinking all of this too, ten years younger than Remus.

How? How was he this old and questioning so much and being so anxious about this when there was an eleven year old going through the exact same?

And as for the year eight girl at the front of the room who was speaking now, talking about rights and bullying, she had figured it out. She stood there in front of everyone, everyone who could bully her and ridicule her until the cows came home, but she was still doing it. And the three others too, people who the girl often gravitates around at break and lunchtimes. They were brave and had done it too.

And Remus sat and watched, filed out of the hall afterwards with his face red with an emotion he couldn’t quite place. Guilt? Betrayal? Fear? Confusion?

He didn’t feel like this around James nor any other teacher, not even Grant.

But everytime he stared at Sirus’ hands or snuck a glance over at him while he ate his ham sandwich, all he could do was sit and wonder; why the hell am I like this?

Chapter 21: Chapter Twenty One - Sirius The Circle

Summary:

Remus is questioned by his students about what happened yesterday.

Notes:

Kingsley is so me I HATE triangles and any shapes tbf

“What happened in the building?”

“Why did you go back?”

“What’s that bandage on your leg?”

“Was it something to do with Mr Black and that’s why you went back?”

The last one catches him off guard as he stares at the year eight girl blankly. A smirk comes across on her face. As Remus raises an eyebrow and goes back to answering questions.

He had decided that with each of his classes he would say they had a chance to ask any questions they had and after that they could all move on and forget about the fire. Although, it was pretty hard to forget about the fire when it had changed so much of the school.

Half of the upstairs Science rooms had to be cordoned off meaning the space in classrooms was very limited. Remus had another year eight class of some other teacher’s sat at the back of his room who were all asking questions too, besides the teacher strictly telling them to let Remus’ class be. Remus decided to answer all questions before moving onto circles.

“What happened in the building was that I went back for Liam the turtle, answering your question Lucy. That bandage on my leg is because I got burnt after it all kinda blew up and I have a concussion so please no shouting, muchas gracias.” Remus brushes off the last question and claps his hands before beginning the slideshow.

His head was pounding when he stood and even after rambling about how to find the radius of a circle from knowing the area, it didn’t even make him feel much better. Circles usually made him feel better as they sounded remotely like Sirius. Sirius the circle. Hah. He was a funny guy.

And maybe the concussion had gotten worse.

“Sir, is Mr Black ok? I saw him go into an ambulance too.” one of the boys, surprisingly not the girl, asks. Remus gives him a blank stare as he tries to compute words into meaning.

“Mr Black? Oh yeah, he’s good. Few bandages here and there. We got teh bus back to mine after, actually-”

“Did Mr Potter help you with your bandages and all that? Bet he was real manly and sweet with helping you…” another one of the boys pipes up as the class silence, including the science one. Everybody, including the other teacher, turns to face Remus.

“Siriu- I MEAN CIRCLES!” Remus corrects, clapping his hands. The class groan as he marks the work.

The lesson draws to a close as Remus stands at the door and welcomes his next class, the feral year sevens. It was nice to see Harriet finally talking to Kelly again after Harriet had asked to move seats which was a good sign. Even if Remus couldn’t pull the huzz, at least one of his favourite students could have a shot at getting hers.

However, his heart flips as he sees somebody round the corner. His shoulder length hair is in a tousled mess behind him as he pushes past the incessant wave of school kids.

Sirius Black.

“Hi, Remus!” Sirius cheers as he stands in the doorway. “Is it ok if I use your room? I think it was on the schedule and you should have had an email, y’know, after all the fire stuff…”

“Yeah, yeah! No worries!” Remus replies, trying to let the heat not rise to his face. He stands aside as Sirius rests his bag down on the floor at the back of the room and steals a seat next to Harriet as she eyes him, disgusted.

“Sir, is it ok if Kelly comes and sits back next to me? I’ve talked it over with her and she agrees.” Harriet says as she picks up her chair and walks towards Remus.

“Sure! Tell that big lump of nothing to give the chair back; he can sit on the floor.” Remus gestures towards Sirius as he says this as she giggles. “Glad to know you two have made up.”

Remus watches as Harriet pulls up a chair for Kelly as they begin to gossip.

A few of Sirius’ year eleven class pile in as they sit on the floor in a squished circle with Sirius at one end. Seeing as most of his year seven class had settled and were cracking on with the work, Remus decides to try and talk with Sirius.

He had been worried most of the night from not knowing the reason why Sirius had left so abruptly. Was it because of his parents or the pain? He had heard Walburga on the phone with him and maybe she disapproved of Remus. Maybe she knew about the feelings he had for her son. Maybe-

But it seems like Sirius has had the same idea as he approaches Remus’ desk first, leaning against the wall. His suit jacket rolls up enough just to see the first patches of gauze over bubbling skin. Good to know he didn’t just imagine the whole thing like some crazy AO3 fic that he had been writing in his head; an Alternate Universe where he and his crush were teachers and got caught up in a burning building. That would just be weird.

“Hey, Remus! How’s the burns and head thing-y?”

“Concussion, but it feels alright, thanks. How about you? You looked as if you were falling to pieces yesterday!”
Sirius laughs a little at that. Good to know he had his spirits up again.

“Yeah, burns hurt a bit but not too much. Not as bad as that bullet to the leg…”

“Bullet to the what?!”

 

“Joking! But yeah, it's nothing like I haven’t had before but it does really sting, in this shirt and whatnot.”

“And also, why did you leave-”

“SIR, KINGSLEY IS CRYING OVER TRIANGLES!” Someone shouts from the back of the room as Sirius and Remus both turn to face the voice. It was true, Kingsley had hid under the table and on his book were several drawings of the triangles on the board, several scribbled out and the rest blurred with tears stains.

“Guess I better…”

“Yeah.” Sirius sits back down with his year eleven group.

“And while you’re over here, Sir, what happened yesterday in the building?”

And that’s when Remus realized he’ll never live down being the teacher who rampaged into a burning building for however many years he stayed at this school.

Chapter 22: Chapter Twenty-Two - Peter Pettigrew

Summary:

James has a new trainee teacher who he brings along to check up on Remus.

Notes:

Ok kind of dumping three chapters of this story today was NOT on my bucket list but hey ho, you lucky guys get three chapters!!

By the time lunch had come about, Remus had been asked the same series of five questions (What happened yesterday? Are you fire resistant? Did you drink a fire resistance potion from Minecraft? Is Liam ok? What is that cool ass bandage on your leg that makes you look like your from one of those epic apocalypse books?) at least a thousand times and had came up with a programmed response for each one (went into a burning building, I don’t know to be fair, I don’t know what the freak that is, Liam is ok from what I last saw, it’s an epic burn and yes, I would much prefer to be in a zombie apocalypse and get my headshot in rather than have this concussion). Remus had tried to make conversation with Sirius the whole lesson but it seemed they both set their groups on and off of tasks at different times, giving them no time to talk about why Sirius had to go so early. Remus must have worried his head off about it for a whole more two periods before lunch came about.

There was a knock on his classroom door as he slammed his head on the desk. All of the blinds were closed and the lights turned off as he imagined what it was like to be a zygote in his Mother’s uterus when he was a child and dream of being peaceful in there without having to dread teaching sin cos and tan to another clueless year nine class. The knocking on the door doesn’t stop as Remus lifts his head up from the desk. James stands at the door. Remus slams his head back onto the table as James lets himself in.

“One of them saw us come into school together so now they undoubtedly have evidence we are in a semi-romantic relationship.” James says as he perches on one of the desks. “You alright?”

“I want to be shot in the head.” Remus mumbles.

“You’ll be fine.” James says as he takes a bite of his lukewarm macaroni cheese from the canteen. The bottom of the tray is swimming with loose bits of cheese. “So are we taking the vampire vibes in this room too as well as your flat?”

“If you’re not going to give me sympathy or some pain killers to knock out a horse then fuck off.”

“No, I’ve came to tell you information and ask you something.”

“Fuck off, then.”

“Can I come in now?” a voice says from outside.

Remus’ head pops up from the desk leaving a pen stuck to his sweaty forehead. It clamours to the ground.

He had never heard that voice before. It had a slight Scottish twang to it, but not the same twang as Minerva’s. This was deeper but sounded as if it could still be a woman.

“Who the fuckity fuck is that?”

“Ugh, don’t get me started. Walburga paired me with a trainee for god knows what reason and now he has no friends and has to follow me around. Try to be nice please, Remu.” James asks.

“Where the hell has this nickname- Y’know what, I can’t even be bothered.” Remus slams his head back down onto the desk.

From the side of the doorframe waddles a boy who looked no older than some of his year eights. His hair is scarce and his blue shirt seems to be bursting at the seams. He has a briefcase in one hand and is wearing a yellow tie as he gives Remus a shaky smile.

“Come in, Peter.” James says as he pats the seat next to him.

“Thanks. Hi Remus Lupin, I’m Peter Pettigrew. Or do I have to call you Mr Lupin? Sorry, I’m not that great at this stuff.” Peter stumbles as he sits next to James and opens his bag to reveal an assortment of rainbow glittery gel pens.

“He’s been in a bit of a kerfuffle since the fire yesterday; he’ll be over it in a few days.” James sighs.

“Fire?! What fire?! Oh my GOD Remus- or Mr Lupin, sorry, are you ok?!” The look on Peter’s face was almost enough to stifle a laugh out of Remus.

“Perfectly ok. Just Sirius blowing up shit in his classroom again.” Remus snorts.

“Everybody has been asking if my boyfriend is ok and making subtle references to you throughout all of my lessons. God, I thought it was only your lot who did that sort of stuff but it seems mine have caught onto the trend.” James says to Remus as he sits up from his desk and tries to not fall out of the chair.

“Wait, you two are dating?” Peter says, a little shocked.

“No!” The two other men reply back.

“Remus just has some MASSIVE obsession with this guy called Sirius Black-”

“James! I told you that in confidence!”

“Yeah, but he’s ok to know, aren’t you, Pettigrew? We need as many people as we can get to create an emotional support network for Remus Lupin’s Gay Depressive Episodes Over Sirius Black Organization.” James explains.

“Aww, a support network seems like a great idea for Remus!” Peter coos.

“No, dumbo, for me, Reggie, Marlene and Dorcas who have to listen to him. The amount of stuff that Remus piles onto us is enough to sink the titanic again.”

Remus gives up on trying to stare around and places his head back onto the table.The shapes and colours spin like a map in his head as they dance across his vision. Circle Sirius Black. Would he still look cute if he was a circle?

“Remus, are you sure you’re ok?” James’ voice calls. “Like, I know we didn’t get overly much sleep last night-”

 

“Because you forced me to watch Grease with you until two AM.”

Remus would always deny the fact he hated watching Grease with James but in fact he secretly loved it. His neighbours had left a note telling him to stop killing cats at one AM due to James’ and his singing.

“Yeah, exactly, but if you need I can cover some of your lessons and I’m sure Peter here can cover mine, can’t you Pete?”

“But that’s technically not-”

“So it’s settled!”

Chapter 23: Chapter Twenty-Three - Sin Cos and Tanning On A Beach In Ibeza

Summary:

James takes Remus' year nine Math class.

Notes:

GUYS LILLIAN IS NOT LILY EVANS BTW!!! Just needed a character filler name and this is kinda just a fill chapter while I continue to introduce more characters arghh

Remus sat in the corner of his classroom for the next two lessons as James taught. It was rather funny to see James try and teach, considering he was like a deer with two brain cells who would run out in front of a car in the dead of night. And it was especially funny to see James teach Sin Cos and Tan to a group of year nines who had no clue how to tell their left and rights.

Into the room piles Kingsley, Schubert and Harry, all bustling and running as they fight and squabble. However, at the sight of seeing Mr Potter, the three boys stop in their tracks.

“James!” Harry cheers as he walks over to the man and pats him on the back. “Nice to see you, mate!”

“Nice to see you too, Harry.” James replies as he begins to hand out book and putting them in all the wrong places.

Remus, who was sat at the back of the room in the corner where it was the darkest, stares up from where he had been having his maik character vampire moment and raises an eyebrow at James. He winks back.

“And I see you’re covering your boyfriend's lessons?” Schubert chimes in as he waves at Remus. Remus raises his palm in greeting back and feels a wave of nausea pour over him.

“Of course.” James smiles.

“HE DIDN’T DENY IT!” Kingsley shouts as he puts Schubert into a headlock.

“Oh, Mr Potter!” one of the girls says as she stands in the doorway. Her name was Lillian and she immediately softens at the sight of James as Remus raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t realise we had you… today….” Lillian begine to fiddle with her tie and loosens it slightly, readjusting her skirt so it was a little higher.

“I didn’t know me and MR LUPIN who is at the back of the room right now would be teaching you either!” James replies. He sits in Remus’ chair and begins to spin in it.

“Oh… Remus…. Did you two have fun last night? Saw you both in the same car coming in this morning…” Lillian continues. At least she had stopped the flirting.

“Yes we watched Grease until one AM and got Mr Lupin a noise complaint.”

“Not the only reason you two got a noise complaint…”

That got a slight smirk out of Remus. Despite being a little flirty with every male teacher she came across (she tried this with Remus at the beginning of the year until he brought up Grant casually when she stopped) Lillian could be a great laugh at cheering him up in the depressing depths of a Monday morning Maths lesson.

Once everybody had piled in and were causing an extreme level of noise that was not helping Remus’ pounding headache, James flicked on the computer and brought up for top set year seven questions (he has a bottom set year nine so it meant the difficulty was equivalent) and stares at the bored with his jaw on the floor.

They were basic with a separating ratio question, two times tables and a find the missing angle in the square and James still took a good five minutes to figure it out.

“Now, time for Sin Cos and Tan! What do those things mean?” James asks. “Yes Lillian!”

“Tan is something you get when you go to Ibeza and get in one of those tiny white bikinis-” Lillian replies.

“I wouldn't know as I have never been to Ibeza nor do I own a tiny white bikini.” James says as the class laugh. Even Remus stifled a giggle at that and made a mental note to himself to bring it up with James later that day when he dropped Remus home.

The rest of the lesson was spent with James fumbling over numbers and words and trying to keep the class under control which he was surprisingly good at. This may be because he was way too lenient with half of the stuff that happened in the class so the students were like ‘wtf usually Mr Lupin would start crying if we pulled this shit with him’ or simply just because they liked James more than him, Remus didn’t know which, but he sat in awe of James’ teaching style. Maybe not the actual teaching itself.

“Now… cos… cos…”

“Cosplay?” Lillian pipes up. The class echoes with a litter of giggles.

“No, Lillian, that is a whole other field of weird stuff we will not be getting into today. Now, questions one to ten on the worksheet and if you don’t get it don’t ask me because I don’t get it either, ok?” James claps his hands as the class crack on with the ‘work’. James walks towards Remus who had perked up slightly since the lesson had began and had been giggling at some of the comments made by James. “How do you think Peter’s getting on?” he asks as he crouches down beside Remus.

“Pretty shit. You said you got paired with that guy yesterday and you’re already expecting him to take a class? Please tell me it’s not year eleven or something.” Remus sighs, suddenly scared for Peter and if he would still be alive by the end of it.

“Year eleven? Oh, those guys are nothing! They just sit and start geeking out about some guy called Inspector Goole played by David Thewlis or something so I can basically sit and do fuckall the whole lesson.”

“Then who did you leave him with?”

“Year sevens.”

The look on James’ face as he just realises what he has done darts across it quicker than lightning.

The thing about year sevens is that they are usually all timid and shy at the start of the year from starting a new school, the odd few who would be overconfident and try cracking a joke or taking advantage who would be scolded to set an example. However, as they progressed and became more comfortable and the teachers more tiered, they became an utter pain in the ass.

There’s a clatter against the window outside. Everybody jumps, some kids screeching at the disruption as they all stare at the window. The blind was still drawn so nobody knew what had hit it.

“Oh my God sir, maybe it’s a seagull! You killed a seagull with your window, sir!” Harry shrieks.

“THEY’RE ATTACKING ME!” somebody from outside screams as more pounding sounds on the window. James shuffles towards the blind and pulls them up to reveal Peter Pettigrew with his face squished against the window with a crowd of year sevens taunting and jeering around him.

Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty-Four - The Gay Washing Machine Assemble (PT 3)

Summary:

The Gay Washing Machine assemble to discuss the events of the hospital and Walburga.

Notes:

TW: bit of a sad chapter with homophobia referenced very heavily and the f slur (used in a jokey way not offensive) near the end-ish of this chapter) pls be careful!!

That was the first time Remus ever heard James scream and it was absolutely terrifying. The whole of the year nine class watched from the window as James went out and screeched at the kids leaving them all on the verge of tears, including Peter who had already been crying before the shouting. On the way back across the playground towards the English block, James turns around and gives Remus a thumbs up through the window.

“Awh, Sir, I miss Mr Potter.” Lillian sighs.

“Me too.” Remus sighs.

“Sir, what are we actually meant to be doing for the rest of this lesson because I did not understand any of that.” Schubert pipes up.

“I don’t even know to be fair. Just try and act like you’re doing something but don’t close your books in case Dumbledore walks in. I’m just going to lay here like this and if Mrs Black or anyone of a higher authority than me comes near that door scream the safe word.” Remus says as he settles his head onto the desk ready to try and have a sleep.

“What’s the safe word?”

“Uh.” He stares around until his eyes fixate on a photo that had appeared on his computer. It turns out James had in fact been googling photos of wolves to try and look busy while the kids tried to do work. “Moony. Shout moony if anyone’s coming.”

“Ok.”

“MOONY!”

“Shut up, Harry.”

Remus managed to put on a documentary about the history of numbers for his year ten class which gave them a break from revision that they had been doing for the past few weeks, telling them the safeword too. He realised it was a pretty smart idea to have a safe word in case any of the kids notice something he hadn’t so Remus decided he would inform the other classes of his newest addition to ‘Random Stuff Mr Lupin Allows In His Classroom That Would Give Mrs Black A Heart Attack’. Other things on this list are the pink sunglasses he had on his desk, a container that had a paper fish floating around in it that he had been given at the start of term (he had tried to throw it away but both of his year eight classes protested heavily) and the crochet frog on his desk as it resembled an inkling of happiness (something Mrs black was known to hate).

But as Remus tried to leave his room that day, Marlene cornered him in the corridor. It was quarter past four.

“Remus.” She says as she stares him down, despite being a few inches smaller than him.
“Marlene.” Remus replies. From behind her, Dorcas appears, something that was fairly usual considering they got in the same car to go home as they were married.

“Remus.” Dorcas echoes.

“Ok, now you two are freaking me out.” Remus says. He was just imagining things.

From further up the corridor, fucking Regulus appears. “Remus.”

“Ok, so we’re doing this now?”

“Remus!” James cheers as he hurts down the corridor towards him. Just behind James follows a Peter who still looks as if he had just been mugged by magical wizards.

“Hi, Mr Lupin!” Peter gives him a shaky smile.

“Guys, I’m ill, let me go home.” Remus tries pushing past them but it’s no use.

“No, no we need to get this sorted. I’ve tried explaining to them a lot of the events that happened at the hospital and they have theories.”

“Theories on what? There’s just facts, James, I ran into a burning building to try and find him and then it blew up and then we had to go to the hospital together and he came round my flat afterwards, what’s the big deal?”

“The reason he left the flat.” Dorcas nods.

Remus stands there, dumbfounded, as the entirety of The Gay Washing Machine assemble in his classroom.

“Now, let the meeting commence. All, I welcome Peter Pettigrew to Remus Lupin’s Sad and Gay Delusions Society, Remus Lupin’s Sad and Gay Delusions Society, I welcome you to Peter Pettigrew.” James says as he whips out a notepad. Remus closes the door behind him and sits back into his chair as the rest of The Gay Washing Machine sit on tables and tiny kiddy chairs.

“I believe that he faked the phone call with his Mum because he hadn’t cleaned his ass in a few days.” Regulus says as he picks at his nails.

“Reggie! That’s a disgusting thing to think about your BROTHER!” Marlene snorts.

“Girl, I live in the same house as that thing and despite having three bathrooms it seems he never uses the shower in any of them.” Regulus replies.

“Well I think it’s something to do with Mrs W. She’s always been… avoidant of me and Dorcas the whole time since we’ve been married and the way she acted in those pride assemblies at the beginning of term? I don’t see how she’s still got her teaching license.” Marlene sighs.

Remus shivers at the thought of the assembly. He was glad he wasn’t the only one to notice.

“And we all know Remus isn’t so… subtle with his preferences.” Regulus chimes in as he eyes Remus up and down. He was in his pink shirt with his pink floral tie and his weird loafer shoes with matching pink socks.

“What? On Wednesdays we wear pink!” Remus replies.

“Do you even know where that comes from?” Regulus questions.

“No…?”

“A disgrace to the faggots of this world.”

“But I think Marlene is right, Walburga has always seemed weird around our kind of people. I can’t think of what she'd do if she found out her own son had even slightly non hetero thoughts.” James says.

The room falls into a silence. They all knew what it felt like to be one of the outsiders. Well, maybe aside from Peter as for the whole time he had been sat at the very back of the room rearranging his gel pens in his briefcase.

“Walburga was nowhere nice about it when she found that boy in my bed.” Regulus says. A slight tear wells in the corner of his eye and plops onto his black shirt.

“What boy?” James asks.

“Oh, one of the ones from uni; there were quite a few. I bought him back for the weekend where she was supposed to be out on one of her cult-wine-trips-to-France with her flock of homophobic sad beige Mums and Dad was in Germany on a case. Sirius didn’t really give a shit who I bought home and had just shut himself up in his room most of the weekend. Walburga came back early. We weren’t doing anything bad; just laying beside each other topless while we watched the new season of Stranger Things on the telly because he’d never seen it before. He was half asleep when she opened the door and I almost had a heart attack. She’s never looked me in the eye since that day.”

Chapter 25: Chapter Twenty-Five: Never Allow Remus Lupin To Think

Summary:

Remus Lupin has thoughts.

Notes:

absoloutly ass chapter as I have no motivation to write so I hope you Ao3 gooners out there like this as it has used up the last of my energy 3

TW: talk about Walburga's homophobia and just walburga being a BITCH so yeah, be aware of that

Remus done a lot of thinking in the car on his way home that night and me as the author of this fic and you both know things don’t go entirely well when Remus thinks them through, usually because he always overanalyzed (eg. most of the times he has an interaction with Sirius and thinks it guarantees their marriage) or underthinks (like the time he ran into a burning building after Sirius who had only gone inside to save a female turtle called Liam from the teacher’s classroom who he had put furry smut in the bin). It was in times like this Remus thought he was one of the amazing Greek philosophers of depressed gayness.

First of all, one of the things playing on Remus’ mind was what Regulus had said.

Regulus wasn’t the most hidey-hidey-closeted people in the world as he was very outgoing about his sexuality and (not to be rude) one of the more ‘stereotypical’ gays. Even Walburga, who had pushed away the idea of Marlene and Dorcas being together even after being given an invite to their wedding and seeing the photos afterwards, must have some idea over her son’s sexuality. And the whole walking in on him with a random boy from uni saga? That was horrible.

Remus had never discussed the matter of what would happen if he came out to her. He assumed she would be chilled out about the idea as it didn’t affect his health or wouldn’t kill him for being in love with a boy. For anything, she’d probably be more concerned about whether the kids would bully him about it (they wouldn’t as he would just park them or something; he liked parking kids into other classrooms as it was something he hardly ever did). His Father…. He didn't know. And that was what he was most scared of.

He couldn’t be kicked out for a start as he had his own house but the fear of never being in contact with his parents again was dreadful.

And say in a hypothetical world that he and Sirius got together, what situation would that put Sirius in? Having to hide himself and a whole other human being (keep in mind they all work in the same building for six plus hours a day) from his Mother?

And even worse, what if Remus was Sirius’ magical gay awakening? Having to go through all the shit, the assemblies and the gay tests and the is-it-normal-to-be-staring-at-another-dude’s-hands-like-this phase on top of the fear of being disowned and kicked out by his Mother?

Other thoughts whizzing around his tiny head were also about Mr Sirius Black (obvi, he never really left his head ever, even in circle form he was still bouncing about in there). The way he came round the apartment the other day and assumed he had a boyfriend. The idea made him feel woozy in the head, although Sirius could just be woke and trying to be inclusive (“BUT WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE WOKE!” Remus screamed as Sandy began to sing Hopelessly Devoted To You bringing Remus back to the car ride and starting another wave of tears as James comforted him, helplessly) and Remus had been made quite clear by Regulus he didn’t look or behave ‘straight’. Maybe Sirius was just trying to be a good friend.

Or shit. Maybe he had accidentally brought something up about Grant sometime?

Every conversation they ever had flashed through Remus’ mind, most of which he recapped every night before he slept as if it was cold and it rained so he felt like an actor. He was sure he pushed Grant out of mind and out of sight whenever he went near the man, so the possibility was out of the question.

Unless he mentioned something accidentally when they were both fuck high on laughing gas in the ambulance and even so, would Sirius even remember that if Remus couldn’t remember either?

Or maybe it was because Sirius had a fat crush on his back and was trying to suss out Remus swung that way. The thought gave him goosebumps.

The songs on the radio were droned out as Remus was on a roll now.

And say if that all worked out with Walburga and the coming out and his parents and Sirius liking him back after working out his is-it-normal-to-be-staring-at-another-dude’s-hands-like-this phase, where the hell would they even go on a first date?

There was a spot Remus had thought about often in his sleep. Most nights when they wree younger before his Father’s accident and when they could scrape just enough money together for a bus fare, his parents took Remus down to the seaside on mile-long walks. There was a certain spot he particularly liked that was kind of like a tunnel overlooking the sea with murals and graffiti on the wall behind. The sea there was a magnificent shade of blinding blue as the sun bounced off of the translucency and shot right back up, giving it a slight twinkling effect. The stretch of beach along there was mostly sand with the odd rock with a thin wall separating the tunnel from the sand so you could sit on it with your feet dangling over the edge.

And he had always said to himself secretly ‘that’s where I’m going to have my first kiss.’

It wasn’t entirely true as his first kiss had been with Grant one day in the toilets of a Costa Coffee, but that didn’t count as they were hardly in love. This would be his proper first kiss with Sirius and it was going to be magical.

Chapter 26: Chapter Twenty-Six - Garret Bennet

Summary:

Remus encounters Garret Bennet at a staff meeting while James and Sirius talk.

Notes:

This is such a lazy chapter as I have had SO much Sparx Maths to do ugh.

Side note: Garret Bennet is a character I entirely made up for this fic. He is mentioned at one of the first Gay Washing Machine meetings as 'Graham' as Marlene had gotten his name wrong.

Hope you enjoy, I promise it's going to get more quick-burn-y soon :) !!

The first time Remus met Garret Bennet was when he came charging into the teacher meeting fifteen minutes late.

“SORRY I’M… LATE!” the man says as he heaves in breath. All of the eyes in the hall had turned to face him, even Remus’ who had once again been staring at Sirius’ hands. They were just so…. Elegant.

“That’s ok, Mr Bennet. Please, take a seat.” Dumbledore instructs.

From beside him, James elbows Remus in the ribs. “That’s the guy Reggie hooked up with at that Christmas party!”

“Yer what?” Remus says, suddenly being torn away from the majestic hands.

“Yeah, got the full story and all. Turns out to be a right player with everyone he meets, always dating others and up for anything…. Literally anything. I’ve heard stories from Regulus saying that the Christmas party wasn’t the only time and it got a LOT-”

“I would like to thank Miss Mullings for her donation to the kids cancer trust and I encourage all of you to help her in her bake sale this week on Thursday!” Dumbledore booms as James stops mid-sentence. Maybe not the best idea to be talking about Garret’s weird kinks with Regulus while discussing kid’s cancer.

“You doing that bake sale thing?” A voice whispers in his ear beside him. Sirius.

His skin immediately prickles at the closeness of the man as their knees brush. He was smushed between James and Sirius for the whole of the meeting, much to Remus’ dislike as James would keep making rude hand gestures making Remus want to laugh. James always seemed to do it when Dumbledore was talking about a serious topic like Mr Kingsley’s daughter dying of leukemia as to why he’s been off for weeks or how he’s trying to make an even bigger push to stop knife crime.

“I was… uh, yeah, gonna make a lemon drizzle cake or something.” Remus replies.

That would make him seem like a good person; going out of his way to raise money for dying kids. Maybe that would make Sirius like him.

“Me three!” James pipes up as he sticks his head out from behind Remus. “I’m going into the food tech rooms on, like, Thursday to do some cooking after everybody’s left. Anyone up for joining me?”

“Yes! That’s an amazing idea!” Sirius smiles, properly smiling, back at James. Remus wanted to punch James in the face.

“Ok then, I’ll buy a bunch of ingredients and we’ll do it… let's say at seven so we know everybody else has left.”

“Great.” Remus sighs as he pats James’ leg. Once Sirius had turned away to focus back onto the meeting, Remus scowled at the other man. James makes another rude hand gesture, immediately lightening the mood.

And it was settled.

On the way out of the hall, Remus ran into Garret again. Well, Remus wasn’t the one sprinting out the door at full pelt and hadn’t seen the six foot tall man in front of him, but either way he was forced into awkward conversation with the man.

“I’m so sorry I am in such a pickle this morning!” Garret sighs. Remus lets out an awkward chuckle. From behind him, James gives Remus a friendly pat on the shoulder before departing with Sirius by his side as they yap to one another happily. It made Remus’ skin crawl. He knew that James could have friends and could talk to anyone he wanted, but seeing him talk to Sirius while he was stuck with this dork was enough to make him want to punch him in the face again. Even another hand gesture couldn’t save him this time.

“It’s fine. Happens to the best of us.” Remus replies.

Garret smiles at him as Remus takes it as cue to leave. Garret follows behind him, clearly not done with the conversation.

“I don’t think I’ve talked to you before. I’m Garret Bennet, room twenty seven Geography.” Garret says as he offers his hand out to Remus.

“I’m Remus Lupin, room six Maths.” Remus takes his hand and realises that Garret has a very strong grip and upon looking at his arms could see he worked out… a lot. The other man readjusts his glasses with his hand and runs a quick check over his shaven down black hair.

“I have a year eleven form and the state of them! All over the shop due to these stupid GCSEs… Well, maybe not stupid as without them neither you or me would have a job but y’know what I mean.” Garret continues. “They always need extra pens or extra paper and they don’t even talk to me anymore! Just keep their heads down in form in dead silence doing revision.”

“I have year seven Ravenclaw. Your year elevens sound like heaven. All mine ever do is yap and yap and show me random stuff in their blazer’s that is probably stolen and illegal.” Remus replies.

They were now walking across the playground as James comes into view, STILL talking with Sirius. What were they even talking about for that long? Had Sirius fallen in love with James? HAD JAMES FALLEN IN LOVE WITH SIRIUS? Fomo raged in Remus’ blood as he just wished and wished that Garret would fuck off and go and make out with Regulus or something.

“Well, I better be off. See you around, Lupin.” as if on wish, Garret wanders towards the door to the main building and gets out of Remus’ hair.

At fault of his last wish coming true, Sirius had now stopped talking with James and had taken off in the same direction as Garret. Remus done a little awkward run to meet up with James before walking in line with him towards his classroom.

“What was that about, then?” Remus asks.

“None of your business.” James smirks back.

“Was it about… me?”

“Potentially…”

“Was it about… work?”

“Potentially.”

“James! What did you two talk about!”

 

“You really want to know, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

James smirks before walking up the stairs to his room and firmly closing the door behind him. Remus tries to open it before realising that James has locked it from the other side. He pounds at the wood with his hand.

“James! James Potter, open this door right now!”

James was cackling with laughter from the inside and soon Remus was too as they wrestled with the door between them.

“Excuse me, where is the head of examination’s room? I believe she’s a… Miss M. MacDonald?” A female voice echoes behind him. Remus stops playing with the door as Remus spins.

“What? Remus, why have you stopped?” James opens the door and his jaw drops to the floor.

Chapter 27: Chapter Twenty-Seven - Evans and Black

Summary:

James and Remus are introduced to the two GCSE exam invigilators, Lily Evans and Bellatrix Black.

Notes:

TW: GCSEs mentioned a lot

“Hello…?” The woman says as she stares at the other two men, very very confused. “I’m Lily Evans, exam invigilator prepping to do the year ten mocks?”

 

Lily Evans… why did Remus recognise that name? And if so, where from? Maybe in another universe they knew each other. He’d never met a Lily Evans before, and not one with such vibrant red hair and wearing such an immaculate suit. Her heels must make her a good few inches taller as she holds a stack of exam papers in her arms as they almost topple over.

“Let me take those for you.” Remus says as he takes the papers from the woman’s hand. She gratefully accepts his help and sighs at the weight of the papers being halved. “And the exams office? I’ll take you there now.”

Lily begins down the stairs as James stands in the doorway, his gaze drifting in whichever wat Lily was going. After going down a few steps and seeing that James was not following, Remus turns and stares at him from halfway down the staircase.

“James? You coming, mate?”

“Yeah… uh, just a sec!” James shouts back as the sound of a door slamming echoes through the building. A few seconds later, James appears as he pelts down the stairs at full force chewing something minty in his mouth. Remus raises an eyebrow.

“Give us a piece, then!” Remus says. He holds out his spare hand as James drops a piece of blueberry gum into his palm. “Why did you need to go back and get that? And why were you acting like an actual dufus back there?”

James puts a finger to his lips before widening his eyes. Lily Evans was now far in front of them as they exit the english block and meet her halfway across the playground.

“James Potter.” James says as he offers a hand to the woman. SHe stares at him slightly and notices the gum poking out from between his teeth.

“Lily… Evans?” Lily says not taking his hand as she spins to face Remus. “Which way now?”

“Here.” Remus takes up the front of the group as he leads them into the canteen where there were a few teachers milling around gossiping. James sticks behind, trying to match Lily’s pace and make basic conversation.

“So what exams are you invisibilating today?” James asks, a smirk playing on his lips as he saunters along, hands in pockets.

“Invigilating. I have Maths, Biology and Chem today, probably the worst ones to be doing as half of them end up crying midway and having to be removed if they sob once.” Lily replies, not once turning to face James.

“Oh niiiiceee… Biology is really boring anyway.” James says. “But the good things about it is that kids really get to learn about the plants and how the stems and how the absorb all the oxygen… really worthy of teaching!”

 

“Plants don’t absorb oxygen they create it by filtering the carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.” Lily smiles. “You got that wrong. Maybe you should go and take that biology exam.”

“PFFT yeah, that photo stuff is probably, like, year eleven top set smarty pants kids work. I’d for sure beat them in everything else.”

“That’s year eight foundation biology.”

“This is it.” Remus says. He plops the test papers down on the empty desk inside as Lily offloads the rest of her stuff.

“Thank you so much… Sorry, I don't think I caught your name!” Lily says. She offers a hand to Remus as he accepts it, James giving him a sour look from the corner of his eye.

“Remus Lupin, Maths.” Remus says, shaking the woman’s hand.

“Well, Remus Lupin Maths, I’ll warn you that all of the GCSE papers this year are very high! Teach your students well as I’m sure you already do.” Lily smiles as she plops herself down at her desk. “I’m here until June to see through the year eleven’s GCSEs so if you have any questions about exam material and marking, please do come and see me.”

“I sure will!” James smiles from the corner as he gives her an overly-enthusiastic thumbs up.

“I don’t do English exams although I think Bellatrix Black is coming in later today and she does English and Drama, Art and that kind of stuff…. Not that she’s very artistic or creative and makes most of the students cry, but oh well! You can speak to her and she should be in to lead your next English subject meeting.” Lily explains. At that point, a very slender woman bustles past into the doorway in a black dress, her hair manic in untamed curls with a neatly packed briefcase in her hand. She rests it down on the desk beside Lily’s and opens it to reveal four stacks of neatly organised test papers.

James waltzes up to Bella and offers her his hand. “James Po-”

 

“James Potter, I know. My cousin has told me all about you.” Bella snarls as James plays off the handshake as fixing his hair.

“Wait, Black? You’re not related to Regulus Black or Walburga Black, are you?” Remus asks, slightly shocked. “And Sirius Black.” He wanted to say, but stopped himself.

“Unfortunately I am related to Reg… that boy and Walburga is an amazing mentor and taught me all I know about teaching the adolescents into hard labour.”

“Sounds like Walburga alright!” James jokes as Bellatrix shoots him a look.

“We’ll see you around, then!” Remus says as he waves goodbye to Lily and Bellatrix. Bellatrix stares daggers at him before arranging her desk even more with one singular withering house plant. Lily smiles at Remus and completely avoids eye contact with James.

Remus closes the door to the office and begins down the corridor, James still bleary eyes and seeming slightly delirious.

“I now see how you feel over Sirius.” James sighs.

“What, with Bellatrix? As she’s a Black-”

“Lily… Lily Evans… has a ring to it, y’know.”

And for the whole way back to James’ classroom up until the bell went, Remus had not gone a second without the mentioning of ‘Lily Evans’.

Chapter 28: Chapter Twenty-Eight - Who The Hell Is Regina George

Summary:

Remus confirms to his classes that he and Mr Potter are not dating.

The bell rang and Remus went to his own classroom, James still bleary eyed and delusional with love (yes, for the ten or so minutes James had been ussecessfully trying to flirt with Lily Evans, he had name the feeling inside him ‘love’). It had also came to Remus’ attention that the previous head of examinations, Miss M. MacDonald had transferred to teaching art, as to why Lily and Bellatrix had been hired.

Bellatrix Black. How could someone so horrible be related to Regulus, let alone Sirius? I mean, with Walburga as an Aunt some of the Black family were bound to turn out a little less humourous. However, to Remus’ pleasure, Bellatrix’s arrival was something to discuss with Sirius and maybe they could have a conversation over it where Remus wasn’t so awkward.

In a gap between talking about Lily, James had also reminded Remus that he needed to go and conjure up some ingredients from the local Tescos for his, Sirius’ and James’ Great British Bake Off later in the food tech rooms. James couldn’t as he had lunch break duty standing guard of the boy’s toilets (every time a boy went into the toilets they coughed the word ‘pedo’ under their breath. Toilet guards had been placed to make sure kids weren’t all bundling into one cubicle and blasting Spice Girls after the exact event had occured a few weeks ago). Remus didn’t want to ask Sirius to go and get them as a) he would fuck it up and start yapping about the sky instead or something and b) wanted to make himself seem like a considerate and helpful person in the eyes of Sirius Black.

He had two periods of teaching before lunch where he had one of his year eight classes (the better behaved one) and his year tens. The year tens were pretty chill and needed help with the odd thing and he had them third so there was plenty of time to pop to Tesco. However, he had his year eights first and could already sense the random questions he was going to be asked. Form time was easy as he just had to read off classroom changes and what was the food in the canteen that day without having to use too much brainpower. All of his energy had been taken up by the thoughts of cooking later that night and James’ yapping about Lily Evans and Dumbledore’s droning of knife crime and how there was a case in Bristol a few weeks ago where somebody was stabbed with a screwdriver in the back of the leg (it was very unclar to Remus why they still taught the kids how to make screwdrivers in DT after this matter, but hey ho, a kids gotta have a custom made murder weapon on them at all times!) so that he didn’t feel like using his brain to work our numbers.

“Hello, sir.” somebody grunts as they enter the classroom. There’s a few groans of a good morning before the girl aproaches his desk.

“Sir, right hear me out, out of you, Mr Bennet and Mr Black, which of you would be Regina George?” the girl says.

Remus stares at her for a hot second and tries to process how the hell she had just picked out the same two people he had spoken to this morning and who the heck Regina George is. “Who the hell is that?”

“Mean Girls?” The girl says as if it was blatantly obvious.

Remus continues to stare.

“Right, you are severely undereducated in the department of movies. I thought you would know as every Wednesday you wear pink, a solid Mean Girls reference.”

“So that’s where the reference came from!” Remus thinks before replying with. “Probably Mr Black then; he loves that film.” before turning back to his computer with flushed red cheeks.

“Sir, why did I see you coming out of Mr Potter’s room this morning? I was taking my brother to his form room and saw you two in there together…” one of the students says as they approach his desk.

A few faces, who had previously been getting on with the starter task, stare up at him after overhearing the conversation, hopeful.

“Mr Potter has a crush on one of the new exam invigilators and was telling me about it.” Remus replies. It was better they knew the truth.

“WAIT SO YOU TWO AREN’T DATING?!” somebody pipes up.

“Nope. Never have and never will.”

“Wait, which exam invigilator? The one who is Mr Black’s cousin or the ginger lady?” The girl asks him. Remus turns to stare at her again and is fully convinced that she must be some weird all-knower-of-all-knowledge to know about that too.

“No, not Mr Black’s cousin. The other one, Miss Evans, but don’t tell him I told you.”

The class all giggle and chatter at the new information as Remus walks towards his desk and begins to hand out the books. As he reaches the girl, he asks, “How did you know about Miss Black being Mr Black’s cousin?”

“He told my class one day. I don’t see why they keep hiring from that family; having too many Mr and Mrs and Miss Blacks is going to get confusing and soon everybody will think they’re just all one massive incest family.”

“Quite right.” Remus says as he moves on.

So Sirius was now telling his classes information about himself that Remus didn’t even know, telling information to his class of thirteen year olds rather to one of his friends? Sure, Remus bought up random insights of knowledge every now and again to his past but something so large as a cousin joining the school could have bee bought up easily in any conversation; any conversation on the bus or the hospital or Remus’ apartment or even at school, but no, Sirius decides to tell the class of thirteen year olds.

“So, Sir, are you sad that you can’t have a crush on Mr Potter anymore because he likes Miss Evans?” a boy asks him.

Here we go again.

Chapter 29: Chapter Twenty-Nine - Sexy and He Knows It

Summary:

Sirius has forgotten to use his burn cream from the doctor.

Notes:

bit of an odd chapter but yeah, sorry I've realised these all basically sound like they're on crack half of the time (because they are) but hope you enjoy

TW: crystal meth cake toppings mentioned

“Great British fucking Bake Off time, baby.” Sirius Black screeches as he bursts into the food tech room. Remus had previously been sitting at Miss Kapwol’s desk, spinning on the chair aimlessly while daydreaming about David Bowie before Sirius had entered. The ingredients he had spent his lunch time buying where splayed out on the desk in front of him. To be fair Remus had just plonked random bits from the limited cake baking section into the shopping basket and hoped for the best.

Remus scrambles from the chair and stands awkwardly as if he had just spawned into a new Minecraft world as he stares across at Sirius. “Hello!” He squeaks.

James hadn’t shown up yet and was probably trying to locate Lily.

“Got the ingredients then?” Sirius gestures towards the ingredients on the table in front of Remus, rubbing his hands and examining each topping carefully. “Yellow flowers, pearls… is that crystal meth?” Sirius points to a small tube of crystals that did look awfully like crystal meth.

“God I hope not. Could you imagine that?” Remus tries to crack a joke.

“What, over a thousand kids off their nut on crystal meth at our doing? That would end in armageddon!” Sirius laughs. That warm feeling opened up in Remus’ chest at the sweet sound. “I could do with some meth right now, though. Blimey, Chemistry is not for the weak.”

“Don’t even! I done A-Level chemistry and could hardly grasp anything.” Remus sighs as he perches back onto the chair before processing the first part of Sirius’ sentence. “WAIT you do crystal-”

“This was year seven shit and I couldn't even get it!” Sirius says. He sits on one of the kitchen counters as his back brushes against one of the kettles. He winces.

“You alright, mate?” Remus asks. He decided to try and look Sirius in the eye as he said this but failed and began to miserably fiddle around with pots and pans behind him.

“Yeah, burns still hurt to fuck.” Sirius says.

“Well, have you been using the stuff the hospital gave you?”

Sirius is the one to break a gaze with Remus. “No.”

“Why?”

“Nobody can do it for me.”

“I could… do it for you, only if you like and you feel totally comfortable with it because if you don’t I really won’t take offence-” Remus begins to ramble as Sirius breaks him off.
“Would you mind? I have the stuff in my bag as it helps with the ones on my legs a ton.” Sirius scrambles in his bag and brandishes a large pot filled with white cream, the majority of which had just been scooped out.

“Ok… right here?” Remus asks. Sirius nods as he sits cross legged on the counter and begins to loosen his tie.

Remus’ heart must have been beating at thirteen million miles per hour in his chest as he realised just what was happening. His crush was taking his shirt off in front of him. Sure, it was in a kid’s food tech room and stunk of tuna and wasn’t the most romantic places on earth but the point and the situation was still there. Remus tried to avert his gaze and began to fumble with the ‘crystal meth’. If it was crystal meth surely it would help the situation?

And without thinking Remus downed a whole bottle of what could be crystal meth, choking on the fragments that hit the back of his throat. He coughed before regurgitating a bunch into his mouth.

“You wanna get high that bad?” Sirius says. He undoes the final button on his shirt and tosses it to one side and now Remus can’t avert his eyes because Sirius has his tits out and had an actual six pack, not the kind you saw in the movies either. This was better. Like, ten million times better than what Remus had seen in any movie in the history of evers. “Wouldn’t expect me to work out then?”

“N-no… I… sorry.” Remus stumbles as he stares down at his granny loafer shoes.

“Don’t apologize. I’m glad somebody appreciates it.”

Remus almost died at that moment.

Sirius picks up the tub of cream and hands it over to Remus who puts a large clump into the palm of his hand. Sirius turned on the table so now his back was facing Remus and saw the most majestic shoulder blades he had ever seen. Icarus would be jealous.

It was odd to Remus how he’d never noticed the gentle muscle in Sirius’ arms nor the power he had in his back considering all he ever did was stare at the man and fantasize about them riding unicorns together. This just made him love Sirius even more.

But his back was covered in the nastiest of burns reaching from his shoulder blades right down to where his trousers were, a tiny peek of Calvin Klein boxers peeking out from underneath. Remus’ face flushes red at the sight and prays that there’s no secret cameras that catch the way his eyes widen as he begins to hyperventilate.

As an attempt to calm himself he instead begins to paddle in the cream that, oh god forbid, reminds him of several other things as he begins to hyperventilate even more.

“Remus, you alright? I know I'm in a state but I didn’t think you’d have a panic attack over it.” Sirius says as his head turns towards the man, black hair tossing to one side. Remus gulps.

“Yes! Just had a difficult time getting the lid off.” Remus squeaks. Sirius grunts before turning around again as he begins to drum his fingers across the countertop.

Mustering up some courage, Remus manages to place his creamed-up hand (sorry as an author I just realised how odd this sounds) and smears it across the man’s back. Sirius whimpers slightly as the coldness touches his skin.

“Sorry.” Remus says a thousand times over as his fingers trace along the scarred and inflamed pieces of skin.

“S’alright.” Sirius replies, barely above a whisper.

“LET’S DO SOME COOK-” The door flies open to reveal James Potter as he drops several bags of Lidl Bakery items to the floor.

Chapter 30: Chapter Thirty - The Great Marauders Bake Off

Summary:

James, Remus and Sirius make cakes.

Notes:

this is lowk so chaotic omds but we're FINALLY getting somewhere woo

“Well damn.” Is all James can say. Remus drops the pot of burn cream to the floor as it surprisingly lands the right way up without an ounce being spilled. Sirius’ head flicks around.

“Hi James!” Sirius smiles. “Remus was just helping me put my burn cream onto my back. It doesn’t look too bad, does it?”

“No… uh, not at all.” James stumbles as Sirius turns back around. He widens his eyes at Remus. Remus sticks his tongue out back before smearing a little more across Sirius’ back before declaring Sirius a fit case.

“Thanks, Remus. You’re such a good mate.” Sirius smiles. He pulls back on his shirt and begins doing up the buttons, leaving the top two undone exposing a peek at his chest hair.

“Remus, bud, I have some more bags in the car if you wouldn’t mind helping me with them. I wouldn’t want our little patient of nurse Remus Nightingale to get sick by carrying shopping.” James smiles at Sirius before widening his eyes again at Remus. Remus takes this as a que that JAmes didn’t have more bags of shopping and wanted to know what in the freak he and Sirius had been doing before he rocked up.

“Be a sec.” Remus smiles at Sirius before exiting after James. They stand in the corridor that connects the Maths corridor to the food tech rooms, just out of sight from the glass pane in the door.

“So just to check that was burn cream.” James snickers.

“OH MY GOD YES JAMES IT WAS VERY MUCH INDEEDLY BURN CREAM.” Remus sighs. “Don’t ask how the hell I came about doing that.” Remus sighs. He leans against one of the lockers and slowly drags himself so he’s sitting on the floor. “He works out.”

“WHAT?!”

“He fucking works out. He had abs and actual shoulder muscles, oh my god I’m going to die.”

“Ok now that is actually hot what, I wanna see these muscles of The One and All SO Holy Sirius Black.” James sits on the floor beside Remus.

“Oh piss off, he was mine first!” Remus says as he gives James a little shove.

“Depends on who can bag him first. Speaking of bag, how the fuck can I bag Lily Evans?”

“Asking the wrong kind of person mate.” Remus says. “Maybe Sirius would have some advice.”

“Yeah, like the all-so-I’m-In-Love-With-Remus-Lupin-In-My-Imagination fellah would have any women advice.”

“Might be worth an ask.”

James hoists himself from the floor and strides back into the food tech room without any bags in hand. “I forgot there weren’t any bags left, that’s all.” James remarks as he begins to regather the items he had dropped on the floor.

“God, James I thought we were cooking not buying out Lidl bakery!” Sirius remarks. He had now hopped down from the table and was making a great show of tying up one of the patchwork aprons. The one he was wearing had a large gloop of chocolate cake batter that had been crusting for centuries down the front. Remus pulls on one with mysterious green sauce down the front and ties it in a bow at the back.

“Yeah, we always gotta have a stock of Lidl baker though.” James says. “And if it does all go tits up at least we have some back up.”

“Ah, don’t worry, Remus has meth. Oh wait, he downed all of the meth a while ago.” Sirius says. He finally ties up the back of his apron and begins to roll up the sleeves of his shirt.

“Meth? Come on, Remu, you could’ve saved a bit for me!” James whines as he examines the empty meth container.

“Remu? For god’s sake where-” Remus begins.

“REMU!” Sirius cackles. “I love that! Hey Remu.”

“God, not you too.” Remus sighs, his cheeks flushing pink. Why was it now somehow cute when Sirius says it?

“Right, get a wiggle on, we have CAKE to make!” Remus says, clapping his hands and trying to change the situation as quickly as possible.

The three men gather random ingredients and James his selection of Lidl bakery items as they arrange them across work tops. Each of them had a kitchen each and Sirius was going off his nut about how it was like the Great British Bake Off.

It was nice to see something Sirius was so passionate about as he yapped about the judges and how they arranged the show. Remus himself had never seen an episode of the TV show but it would be the first thing he was to google when he went home after cooking. Maybe sometime Sirius would want to watch it with him like how James always watched Grease with Remus.

“Right bakers, ready, set, bake!” Sirius says, clapping his hands as he begins to measure out each of the ingredients strategically.
Remus had whisked up the first recipe that looked remotely edible on his phone and was trying to follow it. He’d never been much good at cooking and thrived off of Tesco Meal Deals (his other favourite was Boots meal deals that for the extra pound would get you the most delicious millionaires shortbread known to mankind). The flour flew into his face as he tipped it into the bowl as the milk swooshed up the lip of the bowl and onto the countertop.

James had taken to munching on all of his bakery goods instead of actual cooking as he kept smirking at Remus and telling him how he was doing it all wrong. Sirius actually seemed to be doing a fantastic job and was whisking cake batter as it splashed up onto his apron. His jet-black hair also had speckles of flower in it from where he had obviously tried readjusting it while baking.

Remus fumbled until he made a batter that looked almost edible and dished it into twelve cupcake cases and placed them into the oven five minutes after Sirius. He set a timer on his phone as the other two men joined James on the countertop. Remus stole his chelsea bun and began to much on it, feet swinging.

“So Sirius, Remus said you might be able to give me some advice on some… person I fancy.” James says through a mouthful of pan au chocolat.

“Oh did he?” Sirius raises an eyebrow at Remus. Remus scoffs his face full of chelsea bun to stop him from blushing or, even worse, replying. “Who’s the girl?”

“The new exam invigilator.” James says, dreamily.

“What, Bella?” Sirius almost shouts.

“No, Lily, the ginger one.”

“Oh thank the lord. Bella’s my cousin and a right bitchy one at that.”

“Oh so now he tells you!” Remus thinks.

“Well, I’ve always found with girls that you have to always express interest in what you like. You see, what I done to get my girlfriend was watch all of the Harry Potter movies with her and a few mates and we kinda just… clicked. You’ll get a feel for it when you know.” Sirius explains.

Remus’ heart shatters.

“Oh, cakes are done! You better check yours too REMU!” Sirius says. He hadn’t even changed in the slightest.

A large blob of smushed pan au chocolat drops from James’ mouth and onto the floor.

Chapter 31: Chapter Thirty-One - He Likes A Girl

Summary:

Remus has a mental breakdown.

"I need to piss." is what Remus can think to say. He walks out the room and almost slams the door behind him. Sirius stares but Remus couldn't care as he just continued down the corridor and kept walking and walking and walking until he found himself walking across the playground and towards the fields, through the long grass and the steps leading onto the football pitches as the squawks from seagulls overhead shatter his brain, tearing the gentle tissue in two. How could he have been so stupid? Of course he had a girlfriend!

All this time Remus had just been following Sirius around like a dog and bone, trailing after wherever he went and abiding to his rules and taking every little word as an incentive that he felt the same. He didn’t feel the same.

Everything that Sirius had ever said could have changed. Did Walburga really call that day in his apartment or did he just feel uncomfortable around Remus? Was Sirius just being friendly all this time? Why did Remus risk his life going into a burning building after the man if he had a girlfriend?

And they had probably kissed, Sirius and his girlfriend, and lived together and had a dog and she’d visit her parents on the weekend while Sirius had to go to Walburga’s. He had lied about living with his parents the whole time. The whole time he had been projecting a snow covered landscape onto a Sahara desert and told him it was the rainforest. All of this time spent running, lusting and loving was just a fake. It was all fake.

Remus didn’t need to piss either. That was a lie too.

Had he been lying to himself the whole time too? Trying to grasp onto something, anything, that would keep him afloat during his discovery, even if it meant holding onto Sirius? Had he even been in love with Sirius at all?

The feelings topple over him as he stands in the centre of the field, his leg shaking relentlessly, no matter how hard he tried to regain control over it. His eyes blur as he stares out at the stars in the sky appearing above him as the sun could just about be seen peeking over the horizon. He could already see Sirius in the constellation of Orion, the brightest star in the sky. The dog star.

Maybe in another universe he and Sirius could be like a dog and a wolf and go adventuring in the woods. James would be a deer, tall and majestic and maybe even that little trainee guy James had followed around after him would be some kind of rat amongst it all, not quite fitting in but tying the whole group together. And he and Sirius would fall in love and James would get Lily, who would be a dazzling orange fox, and Peter would scamper off and become the bravest rat of the times. That would be the dream.

Remus gives up as leg caves from beneath him, sending him toppling into a crumpled heap on the soft grass.

This was the field he had been in for the fire drill, the exact spot over there with the trees casting shadows overhead. He had stood there and waited, waited, waited until Sirius had made no return with his eyes blurring and his leg quaking just as it was doing at that moment. That was when he was filled with love, or whatever that emotion that made your heart race and brain fizz was, and that was when he had believed he would do anything for that feeling. Even risk his life.

Why was he even surprised Sirius had a girlfriend at all? Sirius was a good looking fellow, one you could only find in a few hundred with his unique style and charming personality and some of the secrets he held were so fascinating that you would’ve wanted to write them into a novel. That man had everybody after him; girls, gays, non-binarys and whatever inbetween, so why did Remus expect for him to be the one that Sirius fell in love with?

It was an illusion. A scandal. A fantasy world where they could’ve been happy but broke in Remus’ mind; shattered like glass on a concrete pavement as it drowns into the bottom of a lake.

Was it the fact that Remus wanted somebody to look towards? Was that feeling in his stomach admiration? Had he just wanted another gay person like him, anybody, who could make him feel as if he wasn’t alone?

He had Regulus but that wasn’t enough. He wanted a friend who was like him.

And that feeling to hold Sirius’ hand every time they were close?

Remus couldn’t explain that one.

As the coldness of the night air seeps into his bones, the floodlights flicker on. At first, Remus thought he was being greeted by God and was being taken into Heaven. He sits up and stares around to try and see whether they turned on automatically or if somebody had controlled them.

“Remus Lupin?” a voice says, one all too familiar. Garret Bennet. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” Remus replies. He gives the man a shaky thumbs up and can now make out his outline against the blinding white standing at the top of the stairs to the football field.

“I saw you run down here and I wanted to see if you were ok. Why are you down here laying on the grass?” Garret asks. He begins down the stairs and approaches Remus, seating himself beside him before Remus replies.

“In all honesty, I just found out the person I had… well I don’t know what it was, but they have a girlfriend. I honestly feel shit about it.” Remus says, it all spilling out of him. “I just think I was so stupid to think that they could ever like me! I mean, they’ve been round my house and stuff before and I went into a burning building to save them, for god’s sake, but I just thought that I needed someone to look out for during all this… working it out stuff. I know that there are others like me around the school like Marlene and Dorcas and even fucking Regulus Black, but none matched him. I don’t know, it’s stupid, I’ll go. Sorry for making you worried.”

“Was it Sirius Black?”

Remus was stumped with silence. “Yes.”

“I’ve seen the way you look at him.” Garret replies. “I would die to have what you feel about him with but I guess I’ve never been… that kind of person.”

 

“Yeah, Regulus was telling me.”

That stumped Garret out for a second. The feel in the air around him seemed a lot less confident.

And as Garret placed a friendly hand around Remus’ shoulder, his leg stopped twitching. The sun had fully set now and the field was cast into darkness. Nobody from the school, not even Remus or James, could see them even from the top of the stairs looking out onto the field.

Remus leans into Garret’s shoulder. Garret kisses the top of his head.

Chapter 32: Chapter Thirty-Two - The Gay Trinity

Summary:

Switching up between James, Remus and Sirius' reactions to Sirius saying he has a girlfriend.

Notes:

Ok so this chapter starts from Remus' POV then switches to focus on James then Sirius! Pretty long today too as I have motivation to write whoopeee :D

TW: internalized homophobia towards the end-ish :P

Garret is nice. Garret cares. At least someone does.

And Remus shuffles in closer to Garret, letting him know the kiss was ok. He reaches up and kisses Garret’s jawline.

“Just as a pre warning, I don’t really do… relationships.” Garret warns.

“I don’t either.” And Remus kissed him fully, like he had Grant those so many moons ago in college, and it felt good. And Garret kissed back. Somebody who wanted him back and wasn't just a fluke and sure, it was probably only going to be physical but Remus didn't care. Somebody wanted him for who he was, for what he was, and that was enough.

 

…

“Remus’s been a while.” Sirius mumbles as he trials one of his cakes. A blob of chocolate icing drips down onto his chin.

It was sure that Sirius’ cakes had turned out a hundred times better than Remus’ as his were squishy in the inside and were fully cooked while Remus’ had burnt around the edges and a few of the raisins inside had dropped out or shriveled and burnt. James had finished the last of his bakery items and had no clue why Remus had run off in such a huff. Secretly in one ear he had been listening to Sabrina Carpenter because he couldn't be bothered to put up with any of Remus’ whining about Sirius or how the cake wouldn't be quite the right texture. He had tried to drown everything out of his head and much on a croissant.

“He’s probably left and thought that if the kitchen does blow up, he doesn’t want to be at the crime scene. Let’s get this lot cleaned up.” James sighs. He gathers a few of Remus’ bowls and other baking equipment and plonks them into the washing up bowl, squeezing an adequate plop of soap into the sloshing liquid as he begins to scrub, Machild blasting in his ears as he hums along.

“So about Lily Evans, I’d say have a good ol’ Facebook stalk of her tonight.” Sirius directs. He is stood at one of the other sinks washing. “And see if she has a partner or anything then maybe slide into her DMs or ask her on a date.”

“And how’d you know all this stuff? Asked anyone else out before?” James queries.

“Yeah, I have a girlfriend.”

Oh shit. Had James missed something and that could have been the reason he ran off? Or was Remus just taking a really long piss? And in both scenarios, is he still alive?

All of this time Remus had spent lusting and loving for Sirius had been wasted and thrown into the gutter just for Sirius to have a girlfriend. Remus’ heart was probably shattered as he was driving home without any of his ingredients as he screamed-sang his little heart out to Traitor by Olivia Rodrigo, being able to do nothing but think of Sirius the whole way home. It must be horrible. All James could do was wish that he was with him and could talk it all out.

From their little sleepover Remus had explained exactly what he saw in Sirius and it wasn’t his hair or abs or smile or eyes but his hands. It was all in the hands, from what Remus had said, as the hands could break any human object or something man made but hands could never break somebody’s love. That was emotional and mental.

“Oh, a girlfriend!” James can just about stumble. “How cool. What’s her name?”

“Katie.” Sirius replies,”She’s wonderful.”

It was all in Sirius’ entitlement to have a girlfriend; the man could do whatever he wanted with his life and be friends with whoever he wanted too, so why did James have the irresistible urge to slap the guy in the face and scream while shaking his shoulders: ‘Leave her for Remus Lupin you fat dog-looking idiot!’.

“I’m sure she is.” James sighs. He quickly dries all of the bowls and baking tray before loading the rest of Remus’ ingredients into one of his many empty Lidl bags and piles the cupcakes into another, leaving the bags swinging from Remus’ door handle as he passes by his room on the way out, leaving Sirius alone in the food room, still partway through washing up.

…

Sirius didn’t have a girlfriend. He just didn’t want people knowing.

Ever since he had figured it out all of those moons ago in year five, it still hit like a dagger when a man’s eyes would trail across the room to meet him before glancing down at his arse and lips. They both knew what each other were but were too scared to do anything about it.

So to avoid the fear and frustration, Sirius had Katie, a nickname for Kyle. Sure, Kyle lived in his mind and everybody else’s to which he was close with as it seemed the only way he could be deemed ‘normal’ by society. Kyle had been created the year after his year-five discovery and had first been brought up in a game of families in the corner of the playground. Sirius had pretended to be the older cousin and has said he had brought home his new boyfriend called Kyle, obviously imaginary. The other girl who was roleplaying as his mother tutted, ‘but Kyle is a boy’s name and boys can’t have boyfriends! How about a nice girlfriend called Katie and your wedding can be in… two weeks!’.

And so be it, Katie was created and they had been married all these years. The whole way through secondary he had stumbled around in the dark telling people he was seeing a girl from the surrounding schools called Katie to avoid being caught out, the whole way through college it was always ‘I need to see Katie for the weekend!’ when he would just go and disappear to the gay bars in Brighton for a bit, and even now he would tell the kids in his form and Science classes that he had a girlfriend called Katie but it was all a lie. His life was a lie. His whole bloody existence on the earth had been based on one stupid lie.

But it was in those days in Brighton where he would mope about in gay bars where he’d meet the eye of a guy dressed in round sunglasses hiding his eyes with a white vest top and jeans on, usually with a floral shirt over the top. He’d sit in the corner with a friend who’s glasses would be steamed up from the cigarette he was smoking and his hair would cover the majority of his forehead. The two would sit in one of the fancy armchairs in the corner of the bar as they smoked and occasionally sipped at their white wine, away from all of the kissing and humidity of the dance floor. They’d come at odd times, sometimes the guy in the round glasses would bugger off and the man in the floral top would come with another guy. Sometimes the other guy and floral top man would kiss in the armchair, the other guy on his lap as they made out as Sirius felt drawn to the two. He wanted to have that. He wanted to be so undoubtedly unashamed of who he was that he could happily sit on another man’s lap and kiss him until the cows came home, but no, he had to be stuck like this with Katie.

In fact, he hadn’t even kissed anyone before aside from the pale air at his wedding all those years ago as he said his fake vows to fake Katie.

Chapter 33: The Gay Washing Machine Assemble (PT 4)

Summary:

Marlene and Dorcas tell Remus there is a trip to France.

Notes:

HEY GUYs I have so many ideas for this now omds

And i should be updating more as I have NO MORE MATHS HOMEWORK for the rest of this year at least woop woop (math teacher if you read this, you are an absoloute G)

Anyways, enjoy guys :)

But the next day everything was back as it was.

Remus didn’t feel hollow or empty as he laid in his single bed that night staring at the ceiling. He felt hopeful. To know that the passion of man still existed in him and others and that he wasn’t all a hopeless case. Bennet would be a one time thing, he knew that and didn’t expect for it to go any further, but it still felt good to be loved or feel loved for a minute or two. Garret had a really squishable ass, so that helped matters a ton.

They hadn’t done it right there in the field as it seemed Garret had some respect but they had done a lot more than what he and Grant had all those moons ago, and Garret knew what he was doing the who like time: the right way to kiss Remus and when to pull away for breath, how to reach down and untuck Remus’ shirt and reach down the back if his trousers and most of all, how to give the most perfect hickeys known on God’s green earth.

Remus was about as entertained as a thirteen year old boy would be about hickeys as he had never had one before. It seemed like a way to show ‘hoes, look who got pulled and got to make out with someone lol’ to someone’s face without directly showing them. He had eyed jealousy when students in his older classes came in with them, visible only slightly from the large layer of concealer and colour corrector on them.

He spent a good five minutes in the bathroom when he got home admiring the thing and the best part about it all was that it was just beneath his shirt collar, meaning that if he turned his head the top part was just about visible but not visible enough to be seen if you weren’t looking for it. Remus hoped that Garret would be looking for it today.

The whole way to school in his car he felt nothing and didn’t even try to point out Sirius’ car in the car park as he had usually done for the past few months. Sirius had a girlfriend now and they had probably made out in the back of that car plenty of times. Good for him.

He shouldered on his backpack, absolutely full of himself, and swaggered into school where a few kids milled around the playground. From out of the blue, a hand grasps his shoulder, tight.

“REMUS!” James hollers as Remus squeaks and turns to face the man below him. “Where the fuck did you go last night? I thought you’d died or something!”

“Went for… a walk.” Remus half smiles. He would tell James and he wouldn’t care and would probably congratulate him.

“A walk? But you never came back and I saw your car in the car park when I left. Remus… what’ve you done?”

“Let's go to your room, I have things to tell you.”

“Should I call the washing machine?” James says, phone already poised in hand.

“Oh yes, they need to hear this,”

And once Remus had told the story a total of four times, James, Marlene, Dorcas and Regulus were all staring at him, dumbstruck.

“He does have a nice arse though, you have to admit. “Regulus sighs as he shrugs off the matter, “And what do you mean Sirius has a girlfriend?”

“He told me!” James squeaks.

“Part of the reason I ran off in the first place. Garret followed me down to the field.” Remus snorted a laugh, partly because he felt uncomfortable around talking about Sirius’ girlfriend and partly because he was now recounting how odd the situation with Garret had sounded.

“He told you?!” James asks.

“Yup.”

“Sorry, I was listening to Sabrina Carpenter in one ear while you two were baking.”

“Please, please pleaseeee don’t put me through your sad gay shenanigans Remus!” Dorcas tries to sing the first part in tune of ‘Please Please Please’ by Sabrina Carpenter but babbled the rest out in an attempt to sing.

“So what does this mean? Do you still like Sirius or are you planning to get serious with Garret?” Marlene says, half bored.

“No, no - Garret doesn’t want anything serious or anything. As for Sirius… I don’t think I have a chance. Might go and get pissed up at a gay bar in Brighton on Friday night if any of you want to come.” Remus suggests.

“OMG yes I have been needing some fundamental gayness for a while and gay bars is the best place to find hot dudes.” Regulus squeals.

Remus already had his usual outfit planned; the one he usually wore whenever he went to the gay bar with his round sunglasses and a floral shirt over a white vest top. It made him stand out, from what Grant had told him one day in their dorm while choosing outfits.

“I’m out as I’m going to have to try and comprehend how the hell I’m meant to be taking more than a hundred kids to France for three nights.” Marlene sighs, head in hands.

“Same.” Dorcas chimes in as she wraps an arm around her wife.

“Wait, wait, wait, what?” Remus asks, “You’re kidnapping kids now?”

“No, it’s the yearly French trip that they take some of the year eight kids on and they’re having a meeting for it Friday night. They usually do it as a day-thing but since that government funding came in handy we have a bunch leftover so thought we might as well do a few nights to make it less hectic.” Marlene says. “Just got to get them all on the ruddy coach the way there without any of them throwing up.”

“And nobody thought to ask ME to come? I am part French, for god’s sake.” Regulus sighs.

“Sirius already put his name down so we thought having three French-speaking adults would be enough, but I think Sybil has dropped out and so has Severus, so there might be a few spare spaces. James, you’re going, right?” Dorcas asks.

“You betcha.” James points finger guns at her as he continues to stare out the window at Lily who was in conversation with a petrified year eleven about to go into their French speaking exam.

Remus knew that he had no chance of getting with Sirius if he had a girlfriend, but a trip to France would still be delightful. He had never been to France before.

“I’m free on Saturday night to go to the gay bar, though! I want to sign up, too.” Regulus chimes in.

Remus nods enthusiastically.

“James, you better come with us as our token bisexual as we need to get you away from thinking about Lily.” Remus says. He realises that James isn’t looking and waves a hand in front of his eyes, still transfixed on Lily. “If I ever get like this over a man please shoot me.”

Chapter 34: Chapter Thirty-Four - Ziggy Stardust Ate My Homework

Summary:

James adopts a cat to try and impress Lily.

Notes:

guys one of my teachers actually recognised my fanfic-writing notepad today and I had to leave out that I write fanfic in it when he asked me what I write am I cooked if this thing goes missing D:

Anyways idrk what the freak this chapter is but yay we finally have some more ideas!!

Lunchtime passed and Remus was anxious for the meeting later.

After recognising that Sirius would be on the trip, something else had reignited inside of him. Hope would be a bit too strong but something along the lines of… lust. Katie was Sirius’ girlfriend, from what James had told Remus during their Gay Washing Machine meeting that morning, and wouldn’t be going on the trip due to safeguarding rules and whatever, leaving he and Sirius together in the city of Paris. Sure, he would still have to put up with Regulus but he’d go off and find some French geezer for a few days and James would still be swooning over Lily. Marlene and Dorcas would go and bugger off and it would all be perfect.

And as for the children they were meant to be taking care of in the first place, well they could take care of themselves.

His year eight class waltz into the room as Remus begins to hand out books.

At the door, one of his students called Chinequa kisses their boyfriend before entering the room, a wide grin on their face.

“Relationships.” the girl sighs as she enters behind Chinequa. Remus stifles a laugh. He knew exactly how that felt from all of those times with Grant at the gay bar; left out, gay and lonely.

“Hi sir!” one of the kids choruses out to him.

“Hello, Chinequa.” Remus replies. Chinequa takes a seat beside the girl, the same girl who asked him all of the questions about Sirius, who’s name is Maxxie. Maxxie was already sitting at the chair with her head on the desk as it left a massive sweat mark on her book.

Eventually, they get on with the task at hand while a conversation begins around Remus.

“Sir, do you want to have kids when you’re older?” one of the boys, Felix, asks him.

“Yeah, I kind of would.” Remus half shrugs.

“Wait, o-m-g, you know that guy, the English teacher?” Felix asks.

“You mean Mr Potter?” Maxxie pipes up, joining in the conversation. The least Remus needed in a conversation about relationships and children was Maxxie trying to prod at the Sirius situation.

“Yeah, Mr Potter, sir, would you date Mr Potter?” another boy, Jake, encourages.

“Uh… maybe.” Remus replies.

“But doesn’t Mr Potter have a girlfriend?” Maxxie pipes up. Remus snorts a laugh.

“Nah, we get trained to have no opinion on these kinds of things.”

“Would you date… Miss McKinnon?” Felix asks.

“Maybe.” Remus wouldn’t because Marlene was already married, obviously.

“Mr Snape?” Jake asks.

“Wait, no I wouldn’t for that one as he actually really annoys me.” Remus half-laughs. He can recognise the twitch on Maxxie’s lips as she begins to speak, but a voice towards the back of the classroom cuts her off.

“SIR MAISY IS CRYING OVER FREQUENCY TABLES!”

The rest of the day passes as Remus stares at the bag of cakes that he had brought into his room that morning from the night previous. They were soggy on the bottom as the container they were in had condensation around the outside from the heat, but Remus didn’t mind as they still tasted edible enough. He jumps out of his skin when the door flies open.

“If anyone asks, I bought you a new cat because your past one died.” James says as he sits on the table, brow furrowed and face red.

“James- sorry but WHAT?!” Remus says, mouth still half-filled with cake.

“Just say if anyone asks that we share a cat.” James replies.

“Any context? James…”

“Please, Remus.”

“James!”

“OK FINE!” James huffs as he stands from the table. “I adopted a cat because I thought it would impress Lily by getting one from a rescue centre but it turns out that she’s allergic to cats and my landlord doesn’t allow them so now I’ve signed both of us as the guardians when adopting it in case this would happen, ok?”

Remus was too stunned to speak. “So you adopted a cat… to impress Lily Evans?”

“Ok, now you make it sound stupid!”

“Because it is really fucking stupid, James!” Remus half-shouts. “What the hell are you going to do with it? Where is it?”

“Well, Remu, I was wondering if you could-”

 

“I am not adopting your failed rizz attempt.”

“But Remus, it’s so cute, look!”

And as if by magic, a black and white tuxedo cat comes prancing into the room, a collar with a bell on it strung around it’s neck. Remus’ mouth drops to the floor.

“How in the name of all that’s holy did you get it through Dumbledore and into the fucking school?!” Remus asks as James strokes the cat on the head as it purrs.

“In my backpack.”

“You put a cat in your backpack?!?!?”

“Yes! What else was I supposed to do with it?”

“Well what are you going to do with it now?”

 

“Remus… to take this poor cat in I’ll pay you a fiver.”

“No way.”

“Ten?!”

“Nope.”

“Twenty - c’mon Remu you’re stretching it now.”

“James!”

 

“Ok, then fifty, fifty fucking quid to take the cat!” James says as he lifts the cat in the air. The cat’s feet go outwards as it tries to squirm from James’ grip, meowing fiercely.

Remus ponders it for a second. Surely a new companion wouldn’t hurt, right? And fortify pounds too - it was bound to be worth it.

“Fine, give it here.” Remus sighs. James grins wildly at him as he hands the wiggling cat over to Remus. “Does it have a name?”

“Nope, but it’s a girl.” James confirms as he hands over a folder filled with paperwork onto Remus’ desk.

“I’ll call it Ziggy. Ziggy Stardust.”

“God, you and Marlene and Dorcas are gonna have all of David Bowie’s albums as pets soon!” James remarks.

Remus strokes Ziggy on her head as she purrs and nuzzles against him. He rests her on the ground as she curls up under his desk.

“Ok, goodbye Ziggy for about ten minutes while I go to a meeting and I’ll be right back. Feel free to eat any paperwork you see on this desk along with the unmarked tests!” Remus rejoices as he gives the cat a final pat. Ziggy meows enthusiastically.

“How would you explain sixty missing cat-eaten test papers to your classes, let alone Dumbledore?” James asks as Remus locks the door to his classroom behind him. Ziggy stares at him through the window.

“The cat ate my homework.”

Chapter 35: Chapter Thirty-Five - The Great Brighton Gay Bar Part One

Summary:

James invites Peter to their day out in Brighton's gay bar.

Notes:

heyy just thought I should say that the beginning bit is a part that foreshadows the end of the day out aarh I'm so excited for this hope you enjoy :))

Remus leans into the toilet on the train, Sirius sitting beside him rubbing his back.

“I am so fucking drunk right now.”

…

At the meeting, Dumbledore had arranged for four teachers to sleep across two rooms in sets of bunk beds: Marlene, Dorcas, a teacher called Mary Macdonald and Regulus to sleep in one (Dumbeldore knew that Regulus wouldn’t try and get freaky with any of them by… well, look at the guy) with Sirius, James, Remus and James’ little trainee Peter Pettigrew in the other room. At first, Remus had been unsure why Peter was coming but it turns out Peter spoke perfect French along with both of the Black brothers and Dorcas, meaning they could at least do all of the basic things around France with over a hundred kids.

Remus had also thought that to bring a hundred kids to France for three days you’d need more than eight teachers, and legally yes you were required to but nobody else had signed up. Sevarus had dropped out after realizing his arch-nemesis in year seven was going along and Sybil didn’t realise she booked for her pet gerbil to get a haircut on that day (‘Gerbils need haircuts?’ Remus had thought the second Marlene explained the reasoning to him).

Remus was half dreading the trip and half looking forward to it.

Upon the gay bar, the three men attending decided to stay around Remus’ house as it was the closest to the train station. They all share Remus’ car on the way back as Regulus’ house was in walking distance from Remus’ (this had never occurred to Remus how close Regulus and Sirius both lived as they still both lived at home) and James would spend the Sunday over anyway as Remus’ mother was visiting and was bringing some more of her holy roast potatoes. James was convinced they’d taste even better with a fat hangover.

The only part Remus hadn’t considered was that Regulus was also a raging theatre kid and that Remus hadn’t been bothered to change the radio channel since the last time he and James had shared a car. As soon as he turned on the ignition and the radio chattered on, Regulus almost burst out of his seat, dropping Ziggy who he had been trusted to hold the whole way back in case she got travel sick (“WHY DO YOU HAVE A WHOLE ASS CAT IN YOUR CLASSROOM?!” - Regulus Black. “James Potter.” - Remus Lupin)

“I KNOW THIS SONG!” he screeches as he kicks the back of Remus’ seat. Ziggy jumps from his lap and clambers onto the seat beside Regulus.

“Wait, you know Hamilton?!” James shouts back from the passenger seat beside Remus.

“Hell yeah!” Regulus replies as the two men sing the whole way to Remus’ flat and even afterwards as they wander towards the tower block. The drunk man was asleep and waved a quick hello to Remus, a cigarette pressed between his lips. Remus said hello back and realised the same expression on Regulus’ face as Sirius had.

“Your brother reacted in the exact same way.” Remus remarks as they were now in the safety of the stairwell leading up to his flat. He tries not to look out of the long windows carved into either side of the walls and instead focuses on the smell of beer and urine, stroking Ziggy’s soft head beneath his left arm as she purred sleepily.

“ I forgot that he came round here, please inform me of what sofa you guys fucked on so I can stay well clear of it.” Regulus says as James snorts a laugh from beside him.

“What sofa in your house haven’t you fucked someone on?” Remus retaliates.

“R-R-ROASTED!” James cheers from beside them on the staircase. Remus opens the door to his flat and begins to make a bed for James on the floor (he had insisted that he liked the smell of Remus’ Facebook Marketplace rug and wouldn’t mind sharing his Thomas the Tank Engine blanket and pillow). They all agreed an action plan for tomorrow of how they would get the train into Brighton, do some shopping and maybe even go to the beach and then make for the bars in the evening.

“Oh guys, by the way I invited that Peter guy.” James says as the three lounge about on the sofa. Remus had Ziggy on his lap and was already taking a liking to having somebody else around. Ziggy had a nice temperament as well as a super awesome name and seemed to always want to be in Remus’ company. Regulus flicks the television remote onto Grease and almost drops it at the sound of Peter’s name.

“What?!” Regulus snaps.

“He was lonely, ok! He asked if I had any plans this weekend and I couldn’t lie.” James replies.

“Yeah, but you could lie about adopting a whole cat and keeping it in your bag the whole day!” Remus barks. Ziggy stares up at James and hisses.

“You kept a freaking cat in the bag for the whole day?! C’mon, James, that’s cruel.” Regulus tuts. “We ought to call the RSPCA on you.”

James snatches the remote from Regulus’ grip. “Peter will only stay for the whole beach part and will probably bugger off before we can get to the bars; he’ll cramp our amazing style. Now shush, the film’s starting!”

The three of them stay up until the early hours of the morning before Regulus and James both fall asleep, James’ head slightly resting on Regulus’ shoulder with their arms entwined.

And that’s when it hit Remus almost like a truck.

James and Regulus would be such a cute couple.

Chapter 36: Chapter Thirty-Six - The Great Brighton Gay Bar Part Two

Summary:

The four men make their way to the train station. Remus tries to get information out of James as to whether he likes Regulus.

 

DISCLAIMER: I have googled and cats should NOT eat birthday cake flavoured cookies as it can be highly dangerous so please do not try this at home

“Remus!” James calls from the kitchen a few hours later. Remus’ head pounds as he lifts himself out of his bed and throws on a pair of jeans.

“What?” Remus shouts back.

“Where’s your tea bags?” James asks.

“Up your arse.”

“Haha, very funny.”

Remus makes his way out into the front room to see Ziggy patiently waiting in front of his door for him. Remus gives her a little pat on the head before plucking the box of tea bags from his kitchen cupboard.

“What do you feed cats, Remus?” Regulus asks from the sofa where he was sat with his feet curled up. On the television he was watching something with three girls dressed in pink singing.

Oh shit. He hadn’t thought about feeding Ziggy.

“Cat food but I have none of that… or literally any cat stuff as somebody only gave her to me yesterday with no warning!” Remus replies as he shoots daggers at James. James gives him a cheeky smile back before handing him a cup of tea in his David Bowie mug.

“You love me really.”

Remus begins to rifle through the cupboards before he finds a packet of birthday cake flavoured cookies. Surely these would be safe for cats?

He crunches some of them up before mixing them with some water, laying them in one of his lesser-chipped bowls down as Ziggy prances over to it before giving it a tentative sniff. She tucks right in.

“Here you are, Reg.” James says as he sits a little too close to Regulus on the sofa and hands him his Electric Light Orchestra mug. “Wait, Remus, have you seen Mean Girls?”

He had for sure heard of it before from a mix of Maxxie, Sirius and Regulus.

“I’ve heard of it but never watched it.” Remus says as he examines Ziggy scoffing all of the wet cookies. She looked fine in herself but Remus was still uncertain.

“Oh my GOD, Remus you need to come and watch this.” Regulus says as he pats the small spot on the sofa besides him. Remus sighs before perching as far away from Regulus and James as possible because a) he wanted to give them space and hopefully make James fall in love with him and b) Regulus and James was making him extremely jealous of any love that Remus could not have.

And by the time they had finished watching Mean Girls, Remus was in awe of the film and how it was created. The sheer perfection of the art of film had perfectly been achieved through the film and left Remus utterly speechless.

“Good, huh?” Regulus asks. Remus nods and wipes a tear from his eye. “Now, if you don’t mind me I’m going to walk back to mine and have a shower, shave and get ready for our big night out. Meet at the station for twelve?”

“You got it.” James says. Regulus turns and gives James a smile before leaving the flat.

“God, what is up with you two?” Remus asks as he hears the heavy footing of Regulus far down the corridor. James lounges back onto the sofa.

“What do you mean ‘what’s wrong with you two’?” James replies.

“Y’know all being huddled on the sofa last night and this morning and that smiley-business a second ago.” Remus says. He takes James’ mug from the side table (also found off of Facebook Marketplace) and begins to wash it in his sink.

“I don’t know what you are suggesting, Remu, but there is nothing going on between me and regulus Black, now let me have a sift through your wardrobe! Do you still have those jeans I left round here a few nights ago when you had your concussion I said that I needed to keep round here in case a situation very much like this one ever happens?” James asks. Remus knew the exact pair he meant and yes, James had also predicted that this would happen in the near future as if he had a sixth sense for locating the date and time they would go to gay bars.

“Under my bed and please don’t steal either of my vest tops or flannels.” Remus says.

James makes for the door to remus’ bedroom and the sound of hangers clattering to the ground can be heard. “Pbhh, I wouldn’t wear any of that junk if I was trying to pull, no offence or anything.”

“I’m charmed!” Remus replies. He finishes washing up and leaves the mugs on the drying rack as he follows James into his room.

“How about this?” James asks. He pulls out one of Remus’ red adidas vintage tops, red stripes down either shoulder. It was from when he was around fourteen and hadn’t been bothered to clean so it would fit James perfectly.

“Yeah, that’s cute. You can keep the top too, if you want.” Remus says as he, too, begins to sift through his limited wardrobe.

“I was planning to either way.” James winks as he takes the clothes and jeans into the bathroom. Remus changes into his tank top and flower-patterned shirt before throwing on his round sunglasses. Zipping his wallet into his pocket along with his phone and airpods, he deems himself fit to head for the train station.

As he enters his front room, James is doing the choreography to Greased Lightning. “Took you long enough.”

“Let’s get walking and save the witty comments for later then, eh?” Remus replies as he gestures towards his front door. “After you, your highness.”

“Ooh, Remus Lupin, finally developing manners! Maybe he’ll even be able to get over Sirius Black for two minutes and find some cute hook up, oooh, fun!” James says. Remus bats him around the back of the head before locking his front door behind him.

They wander the streets towards the train station where Regulus is standing outside, back against one of the brick walls on his phone. Remus wasn’t sure how he had done it in such a short amount of time but it was as if he was a new person with his hair neatly tucked between either of his ears and his black shirt, with about three buttons undone at the front, with matching black trousers. The Black only had the best well-tailored shirts and trousers so it was pinched in at all of the right areas and the smell of expensive cologne was wisped through the air. Any man in any gay mind would say that Regulus Black looked really hot.

“Oh, hey.” Regulus says as if it were any other day. “Let’s go and get tickets then, huh?”

“WAIT FOR ME!” A voice screams. The three heads whip around to see Peter Pettigrew, James’ trainee, running out from the doors of one of the buses.

As if Regulus and Peter could be any more different, Peter was in a large frog-patterned bucket hat with cream shorts on and a buttoned purple shirt. He was also wearing socks and sandals too.

Regulus shoots James a look as James continues to stare at Regulus, jaw on the floor.

“Who the hell invited him.”

Chapter 37: Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Great Brighton Gay Bar Part Three

Summary:

Remus and the others go to see a drag show where Marty Crouch JR and The Girls from The Wrong End of Town is performing.

TW: drug and alcohol use and mention

Notes:

Guess who's off school today so gets to write a lot more :D

The train ride was… interesting, to say the least. Remus had explained how they were planning to go to the beach for a while (they had planned this so that they could go to the beach for around ten minutes while Peter did whatever and say they were leaving soon after) and then to the bars to what Peter was fairly happy with. The train was packed with people meaning Remus had to sit at a four-person table with Peter beside him, a screaming baby in a man’s arms opposite him sat beside a woman eating the stinkiest tuna salad known on god’s green earth while Regulus and James were happily nattering behind them. Every time Remus had turned around to try and engage in conversation, they would somehow manage to create just the two in their own bubble again. Remus had no clue how.

Eventually, the train pulls into platform six of Brighton train station with the large dome-like covers stretching above them. Something about the train station always fascinated Remus with it’s spider-like support system overhead and the way it all seemed to be so open.

“I AM SO EXCITED FOR THE SEA!” Peter squeals as he hops off of the train.

“Me… too… but Peter, just as a forewarning we aren’t going to be spending too much time here.” Remus warns. He checks behind him to see James and Regulus hop off of the train, both still immersed in their bubble while Remus was stuck with this kid.

“Oh, that’s no worries! I have a few of my friends from Uni here who want to catch up and after that we are planning to go to Comic Con.” Peter smiles widely.

“There’s a Comic Con on?” Remus says, trying not to let the smile get to his face at bagging off Peter so early on.

“Yeah, it’s so cool!” Peter says. They begin down the side of the road towards the shops and the sea. The smell of tobacco and weed can be smelt from inside several shops on the way down at which Remus grimaces. Regulus pops into one of them to buy a packet if cigarettes and James joins him, whether to just try and show he’s ‘cool’ by smoking or if he actually needed a pack - Remus didn’t know which.

“Didn’t know you smoked, Potter.” Regulus says. He takes a cigarette and lights it between his teeth.

“I didn’t either!” Remus says as he spins around and walks backwards, sticking both of his thumbs up in the air. “Friend! New smoking friend!”

“Shut up, you twunt.” James smiles back. He tucks the cigarette box in his jean pockets and continues to walk beside Regulus.

Eventually, the sea comes into view at the end of a long walk and Peter practically jumps out of his skin. A group of alternative-looking kids stand by the edge of the railing separating the foot path from the beach. A few are in full goth and emo while others in cosplay. Peter runs up to them and hugs them all, complimenting their outfits and catching up. Remus stands on the outside, stuck between Regulus and James and the group.

He stands there like that for what must be ten or fifteen minutes before James gives him a pat on the shoulder. “I think our beach trip is done.”

Remus nods, the gentle breeze coming off of the sea ruffling his hair so that it flies over his eyes. “Where are we going first then?”

“The Queen’s Arms?” Regulus suggests, “Hear they have some drag act on tonight by the name of ‘Marty Crouch JR and The Girls from The Wrong End of Town'.”

“Fancy!” James agrees, and without further ado, Regulus takes off in the direction of the bar with James following behind like a puppy dog.

The whole way there Remus lagged behind. He was hoping tonight would be fun and Regulus would bugger off with one bloke and leave he and James to their usual routine of getting pissed off of their nut and singing Grease the whole way home on the train. Remus didn’t want Regulus ‘bloke’ to be James and for Remus to be drinking alone. Drinking a lot with two people made it fun but being alone made you a crippling alcoholic.

Suddenly, the feeling of when he was in college hits him from all of those years ago. Usually he and Grant didn’t come in this specific bar and instead lingered in a few of the lesser-known ones, but from the few times they had been in The Queen’s Arms so much had happened; so much that made Remus happy. And sure, the other night with Garret was great fun but it was nothing compared to what he and Grant had. Grant was great. He could always go to Grant and get good advice on boys or if he fancied a quick make-out session. Garret wouldn’t have that - not when they worked in a school full of teenagers as that was a recipe for trouble. Maybe at the staff Christmas party.

Regulus waltzes up to the bar as if it were any other day and orders a glass of white wine for himself, and a white for James (“Since when do you drink wine?” Remus asks. Usually James liked the strawberry tequila shots and a bit of beer and had no interest in wine. “Since I became an upperclassman.” James retorts.). Remus orders a shandy and sits at one of the stools by the bar, anxiously playing around with the rings on his fingers as he glances over towards the dance floor.

Regulus and James were standing in the middle, Regulus holding his glass and James his while Regulus lit a cigarette between James’ lips. James took one puff and almost dropped the glass from spluttering so much.

An empty matchbox sits on the stool beside him with a rolled up splint of something inside. Might be worth a shot.

He sits lazily at his beer as he tries to distinguish what is in the rolled up paper, whether it be tobacco or something worse. Once the glass is drained he takes the paper and nabs a lighter out of the back of somebody’s pocket and makes for the door.

The cool beach air hits him and erases any fear or guilt or anxiety he had in the first place, washing him clear of his doubts. He lights the joint and sucks on it. Definitely weed.

“Didn’t know you smoked, Remu.” a voice says from beside him, a voice he knew a little too well but wasn’t James’.

“Sirius?”

Chapter 38: Chapter Thirty-Eight - The Great Brighton Gay Bar Part Four

Summary:

Sirius agrees to come into the bar with Remus.

Remus’ brain freezes up as several thoughts cross his mind at the speed of lightning; whether it be from the drugs, alcohol or just at the sheer shock at thinking ‘what the fuck is Sirius Black doing here, at a gay bar, in Brighton, on a Saturday evening while his brother and your best friend are inside probably eating eachothers faces off, or at least heavily flirting?’. And Sirius had a girlfriend, too. Where is his girlfriend?

“I didn’t… hello!” Remus squeaks. He couldn’t think of much else to say as his mind had now been wiped clear. “I didn’t expect to see… you here!”

“Nah, I didn’t expect to see you either.” Sirius says. His voice falters slightly as he seems a little bit more shy. “I was just walking by, on the way to meet some friends. Saw you here and thought ‘gosh, Remus has became a drug addict!’” Sirius slaps Remus on the back in that masculine way as he laughs, but not his usual sweet laugh. This one was a little deeper and more strained. Remus laughs slightly too.

“God, this stuff is strong…” Remus trails off. “And by the way, your brothers in there watching the show.”

 

“My… you came to a gay bar with Regulus? Sorry, Remus, I didn’t know you two were…”

“OH NONO!” Remus shouts, a little too loudly. An elderly couple walking on the street opposite scowl at his loudness, despite the club inside blaring music which they seemed to take no notice of. “In actual fact, I recon he has a thing for James Potter.”

“James… wait, James swings that…” Sirius says, his face half shielded by the shadows. He tenses slightly as he leans against the wall beside Remus.

“Yeah, he’s bi.” Remus replies.

“And you’re…”

“Gay.”

A silence hangs in the air between them. Remus hadn’t had to explicitly tell anyone before as they never asked- most considered it rude- but not Sirius Black. Maybe if he wasn’t smoking a mystery splint he would’ve come up with a believable lie.

It wasn’t like Remus cared about people knowing as most had already caught on, but having to state it and use the actual terminology that was shoved onto him still gave him shivers. And having to use the terminology after being asked by the guy who caused him to have these feelings in the first place? It made his whole body shake.

“Alright everybody!” A voice says from inside. Remus examines the street light opposite as it seems to be glowing rainbow colours now, Ziggy’s face reflecting in the shadow on the pavement below. Sirius turns and sticks his head into the doorway. “Now, I welcome to the stage our act for tonight, Marty Crouch JR and The Girls from The Wrong End of Town!”

There’s a scattered applause as the theme tune blares.

“Wanna go and watch the show?” Remus smiles, taking his focus away from the cat shadow on the pavement and turning to look Sirius in the eye, his cheeks glowing a faint crimson.

“Sure, my friends can…”

And Remus takes drags him inside by his deep green coloured cuffed wrist and into the glimmering room.

On the stage is a drag queen dressed in pinks and sparkles with the most magnificent blonde updo, her makeup with large electric pink eyeliner and highly contoured cheeks. The most amazing part was her lipstick which was a dazzling deep emerald, much like the colour of Sirius’ shirt.

“I’ll get us some drinks.” Sirius says.

Remus stares around and tries to locate Regulus and James and eventually does as they both sit in one of the booths, twelve shot glasses and a bottle of strawberry tequila on the table. James had obviously discarded the wine, or drank it, and had convinced Regulus to have some of his favourite.

“Alright, Remu?” James slurs as Remus approaches. He drops the splint on the table and shuffles into the seats opposite James. Regulus sits beside James with his back facing the corner, gazing longingly at the end of his cigarette as it glows a faint amber.

“Sirius is here.” Remus replies. “Why the fuck is Sirius at a gay bar?”

“God knows, that boy is everywhere.” Regulus says, exhaling the smoke without a single splutter. “Prongs, pour us another shot of that stuff.”

“Of course.” James says as he begins to pour out two more shots into the empty glasses. “Remus?”

“Yeah, gowan then.” Remus replies. “But I thought Sirius had a girlfriend and… the cat was outside, too.”

“Ah yes, the cat.” Regulus sighs. “The cat that beholds all of the wisdom of love like a cupid. The cat that appears in your dreams as in your dreams is the only place you can be truly free from this wretched prison called hell.”

“You're a philosophical drunk, y’know that, Reg?” Sirius says as he shuffles onto the seats beside Remus, setting a tray of bottles and glasses onto the table.

“Sirius… what the fuck are you doing at a drag show?” James half-laughs as Regulus soon joins in laughing with him until they are both laughing their heads off. Remus cracks a small smile and stares at Sirius to see his solemn face.

The music in the background has now dimmed down a bit as Marty Crouch JR and The Girls from The Wrong End of Town are cracking jokes that seem to have a great effect on the crowd as they jeer and laugh. They’re too far away from the stage so the booth is lit by a dingy set of LED lights on the ceiling above and aside from them there is nobody else about.

“Just… stumbled past and saw Remus outside and thought I’d say hi.” Sirius says. Regulus and James try to compose themselves as regulus cracks and sets them off laughing again. James’ head thonks onto the table as Regulus runs a hand through the man’s hair.

“It’s ok, Prongs, have another shot.” Regulus says. Despite James not having drunk the last one, he pours out another.

“I’ll say cheers to that.” Remus replies, stealing the bottle and pouring out another. “Sirius?”

“Yeah, gowan then.”

Chapter 39: Chapter Thirty-Nine - The Great Brighton Gay Bar Part Five

Summary:

Sirius and Remus have a close encounter on the way back to the train station.

Notes:

I'm cackling so hard why can I just imagine Regulus and James singing Summer Nights from Grease I beg if you have never listened to the song it is a VIBE it's so funny arhh

Progressing through the night they managed to work themselves through all of the alcohol they had ordered along with a few more pints of beer and three more glasses of wine for Regulus before they were all drunk off of their nelly.

The other thing that had progressed through the evening was the subtlety of Regulus and James’ flirting. As before it had just been them talking and blushing and trying to make one another laugh, by the end of the night Regulus was still sitting in his corner with James’ head resting on his chest as he blabbered about all sorts. Regulus watched him, having gone through ten cigarettes, as he lit another and placed it between James’ lips.

Marty Crouch JR and The Girls from The Wrong End of Town soon left as people from the bar seemed to disperse, along with the four men. Tipsily, Sirius manages to pull up Apple maps and searches for the train station.

“Bro, where the fuck is Apple Maps?” Sirius grumbles as he slaps his phone. “Mi no likey.”

“There, you big walnut.” Remus says as he jabs the phone with his finger. His brain swims as he stumbles over a loose paving tile, making him begin to giggle.

Up ahead, James and Regulus were practically a human being as they walked so close with their arms around each other singing ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease. It went a little like this.

“He got friendly holding my hand!” James scream-sings. Regulus glares at him, his face a little too close, before he begins to sing.

“He got friendly, down in the saaaand.” Regulus sings, very croakily.

James deters from him and stands in the light of a lamppost, the back of his rumpled hair the only thing able to be seen. “He was sweet, just turned twenty-four!”

Regulus laughs. “Well he was good, you know what I mean!”

Regulus pulls him by the arm as they hold hands and begin to skip up the road.

“Summer heat, boy and boy meet but oh oh the summer nights!” They both sing together, James bumping into Regulus as Regulus gives him a shove back.

“Don’t know how you put up with them.” Sirius says as he chuckles, slightly.

“I don’t.” Remus says. A memory sparks in his brain as he stares down to Sirius’ hands that look oh so majestic in the light of the moon and flickering lamp posts. “They even forced me to watch Mean Girls this morning.”

“MEAN GIRLS?!” Sirius says. He stops dead in his tracks and so does Remus as he turns to face tha man, looking down slightly on his messy flop of black hair. Sirius stares up at him and grabs his shoulders and Remus can already feel the heat rising to his cheeks and, god forbid, he didn’t know what he was doing and nor did Sirius as they were both drunk and out of their minds but despite this Remus could still feel those oh so perfect hands of Sirius Black slowly work their way up his neck and unto his cheeks as he stares down at them, convinced that he is in some weird dream due to his concussion lasting longer than it should’ve and he’d have to go to work when he wakes up and stare at Sirius and wonder if he knew about the dream he had the night before where they were pissed out of their minds and met at a gay bar in Brighton where his brother and Remus’ best friend were almost undoubtedly crushing on each other. But then again, Sirius wouldn’t know that. Sirius had a girlfriend. “I love… Mean girls.” Sirius says.

The silver of Sirius’ eyes reflects in one of the lamps above them, glinting like the stars in the sky above them. Remus stares into his too and closes the gap between their feet so that they were only a few centimetres apart. Remus wishes they could’ve stayed like that for eternity.

“REMU!” A voice calls from up ahead. The two snap out of whatever daydream they were in and spring apart and turn to face James. He and Regulus have stopped outside of a Tescos. “Considering we have now missed the next train and have half an hour, can I get a meal deal?”

“Fuck you asking me for, your like twenty-five.” Remus shouts back. James nods before hurriedly rushing into the Tescos. He and Sirius walk the gap so that they are too standing outside of the doors beside Regulus who is surprisingly not stood with a cigarette in his mouth but is instead chewing gum.

“Walburga will kill me if she finds I’ve been smoking… again.” Regulus mumbles.

“Who’s Walburga?” Sirius asks.

“Our Mother, fuckface. God, I didn’t think a few units would make you this drunk.” Regulus sighs. James rushes out of the Tescos, shoving a selection of items into his pockets that looked much more than a meal deal.

“James what have you got in your pockets…?” Remus asks.

“Only a Meal deal. Got you a mars bar.” James says as he throws Remus the chocolate bar in black and red wrapping. He hadn’t noticed how peckish he had been previously.

“Here’s the money for that.” Regulus says as he hands over a two pound coin to James. James pushed it away and grabs a Australian Lemonade Monster from his pocket.

“On me.” James smiles. Regulus smiles back, a little dazed as the two seem to drift into their own world.

“And for me?” Sirius coughs sarcastically.

“Oh here.” James says. He reaches into his pocket before pulling out his middle finger and wiggling it in Sirius’ face. “You’re the only one who’s got a happy relationship out of all of us so you can live off of that.”

“I don’t…” Sirius begins, but Regulus and James are skipping the short distance to the train station singing the opening to Grease again, leaving Remus and Sirius to try and ignore the close encounter they had just had.

Chapter 40: Chapter Fourty - The Great Brighton Gay Bar Part Six

Summary:

Sirius and Regulus argue.

Notes:

TW: homophobia, internalized homophobia, throwing up and a lot more cussing

Decided this is gonna be more of a Jegulus fic now along with Wolfstar yayya

Eventually, they reach the train station a whopping ten minutes earlier while James scours around in W.H Smith for more food, even after his cheese sandwich and the half a mars bar he had stolen from Remus. Sirius went with him, leaving just Remus and Regulus sitting on a bench, half-tipsy.

“God, that was fun.” Regulus sighs, a genuine smile creeping across his face.

“Even with Sirius there?” Remus asks, curious. If he had an older brother around while he was trying to flirt he knew that it would have gone wrong, or even if Remus tried to flirt in the first place. He couldn’t quite remember most things he said to Sirius but was almost certain he had made no attempt to try and be charismatic, however much he might’ve wanted to. He just spent the whole time downing more alcohol and glaring at Sirius’ hands as he poured out another glass.

“Yeah, he’s alright, y’know. Don’t think he’s against it and not sure he’s entirely straight either.” Regulus replies.

“Wait, what?” Remus backtracks, “Doesn’t Sirius have a girlfriend, though? Called Katie? I’m pretty sure I remember Sirius having a girlfriend called Katie.”

“Still, he can have a girlfriend and swing the other way. I reckon he’s probably pan or something like that. You can never be certain with Sirius, all over the place doing who knows what where knows what. One time we found him at Graves End after he got bored and decided to take random trains and buses until he got bored and had no fares left. I guess he just likes trying new things. Gets bored easily, too, so I’m not sure he could never stick with a girlfriend. That's why I don’t believe he has one.”

The information hits Remus as much as that bus hit Regina George (a/n I can FINALLY make this reference as Remus has now watched mean girls woop woop). Whether it be because his senses were dramatically heightened in some areas and low in others, he had the urge to punch Regulus in the face and go and buy a croissant.

“Food time.” James sings as he sits onto the bench beside Regulus, again a little too close, but Regulus didn’t seem to mind. Sirius perches beside Remus, a little further away as he notices Regulus and James’ closeness. He taps Remus on the shoulder and cups his hands over his ear, making Remus blush tremendously under the soft glow of lighting.

“They’re definitely gay for each other.” Sirius mumbles. Remus stifles a giggle and so does Sirius before they are completely cackling their heads off.

“What? What’s so funny?” James asks, clearly wanting to be in on the joke as he eats his pan au chocolat.

“Nothing!” Sirius says, still trying to regain himself.

“They’re being drunk idiots.” Regulus sighs, “Never trust Sirius with alcohol after the wedding scene.”

Sirius’ face turns to seriousness all within a matter of seconds. Remus stares between the two brothers and tries to distinguish what was said.

“That wedding was great, thank you.” Sirius sneers.

“Oh, you were so drunk you can hardly remember anything about that night, can you?” Regulus smiles. “No worries. Let’s just let little Sirius Black who has ‘never even had his first kiss’ move on. Train’s pulling in.”

James, completely oblivious to the conversation, starts after Regulus and Sirius who were already bickering. Something drops from James’ pocket, but James doesn’t seem to realise.

Remus’ eyes widen.

“James why the fuck did a packet of condoms just drop out of your pocket?!” Remus half-whispers. A few eyes stare at the box on the floor as James turns from Remus then to the box.

“Oh yeah.” James says. He waddles towards it and shoves it back into his pocket as if it were the most usual thing in the world. “Nicked them from Tesco.”

“But why? You haven’t even been on a date with Lily yet.” Remus says. James begins towards platform six and tries to put his half a pan au chocolat into the ticket machine before realising Remus has his ticket. Remus puts it into the machine and James moves through the barrier, Remus following shortly behind.

“Can never be too prepared.” James winks as he catches up with Regulus. Remus does one of those awkward-jog things to catch up with the group.

“You know I didn’t! Why would I do something like that - that’s disgusting!” Sirius shouts. Regulus stops dead in his tracks. The train stops before him as people pile out of the carriage, but Regulus nor Sirius bother to move. “Regulus I didn’t-”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Sirius.” James butts in. He throws the remainder of his pan au chocolat at Sirius’ head before taking Regulus by the hand and leading him onto the carriage. Regulus’ face shows no emotion but his eyes follow Sirius the whole way down the carriage until he is no longer in sight.

“Fuck.” Sirius mumbles.

“I’m going to throw up.” Remus says. The look on Sirius’ face shows it all as the two men run up to the other end of the train, glancing in each empty carriage to find the one with the toilet in. Once finding it they hammer on the button as the door slowly opens, the bile rushing into Remus’ throat as he heaves. Sirius stands in the doorway, unsure what to do. He closes the door behind him.

Remus leans into the toilet on the train, Sirius sitting beside him rubbing his back.
“I am so fucking drunk right now.”

Once Remus had cleaned himself up and felt well enough to stand, he felt as fresh as a drunk daisy. Sirius hadn’t spoken once since they had gotten on the train.

The two sit on an empty four seater opposite each other, the entire carriage empty.

“Are you ok?” Remus asks, breaking the silence.

The train rattles into motion as the announcements listing off the stops play from overhead.

Sirius doesn’t reply.

“I’ll go and check on Regulus and James.” Remus says. He folds his sunglasses and leaves them on the table along with his flanneled shirt; the train was baking hot, as he moves into the next carriage and the next one before the sounds of muffled voices can be heard.

“He didn’t mean it, you know he didn’t, he just said it in the moment.” a voice mumbles from the back of the train. Remus stops as the doors open, not wanting to be seen.

“I know but it still fucking hurts. He knows what Walburga is like and knows that I already have to try and live a fucking miserable life without even my own parents loving me and the second I bring up the one flaw that the oh so great Sirius Black has, even just one tiny blip of experimentation, he goes all defensive and says shit. It’s not disgusting as he's kissed another man before, and I saw it happen, but he can’t admit that because he’s just a sad twat.” Regulus sobs.

“I know baby, I know.” James mumbles.

The doors close as Remus is standing between the two carriages, separated from Sirius and standing between James and Regulus. There’s a tap on his shoulder from behind him, as if the day couldn’t get any worse.

“Excuse me, can I just….”

Fucking Grant Chapman.

Chapter 41: Chapter Twenty-Four - Sleeping on Trains

Summary:

James informs Remus more on the argument between Regulus and Sirius.

Notes:

lol boring chapter for you guys :)

Remus couldn’t be bothered by Grant right now and kept his back to him, covering his face as he pretended to sneeze and walking away into the empty carriage. Grant goes past James and Regulus before moving into the next carriage along.

So, on the eight carriage train four of them contained sad gay men going about their sad gay lives, and whatever Sirius is.

But as Remus sits in the carriage alone, the urge to find Grant pulls at his body. Just to see him, have a word with him or catch up, would be satisfactory. Then again, he probably still stank of sick and his headache would kick in soon and he’d be a wreck in the morning; the morning where his parents were staying over.

He had forgotten about his parents.

The carriage doors screech open as James marches along the corridor, stopping only when he sees Remus.

“What happened?” Remus asks.

James stares at him, oddly. He’d never been this serious before, even when the whole Peter-being-pushed-into-the-window-of-his-Math-classroom situation happened.

“Fucking Sirius Black saying shit to Reg.” James says, slamming his head on the table. “I’m too drunk to handle emotions right now.”

“Nah, I get it.” Remus replies. The train jitters to a stop at one station that is completely deserted as the doors slide close and carry on, the cool air from the outside hitting Remus just as it had outside The Queen’s Arms.

“Regulus is lovely and I just hate to see him like this.” James replies. “I always thought he was fit, y’know.”

“What about Lily Evans?” Remus suggests.

“Nah, fuck her.” James mumbles into the table. “Reg is better.”

“I always thought you two would be a good couple since I saw you two on my sofa the other night.” Remus says. James’ head perks up from the table.

“So that’s why you asked if anything was up!”

“Exactly. And you’ll never guess who else I saw on the train a second ago… Grant Chapman.”

“No way!” James marvels. He had been told the Grant stories many times over.

“I can't be bothered to speak to him, but I feel like I should…” Remus sighs, “But I guess there’s already been enough gay drama for one night.”

 

“I guess.” James shakily laughs, “I’m going to go back and check on Reg.”

James picks himself up off of the seat with a grunt and stumbles slightly, swaying all over the place as he enters the next carriage along where Regulus was sitting, the faint sounds of his sobbing heard through the glass. Remus sits for what feels like hours on the four person table alone, nobody getting on or off of his coach as it was just himself. I mean, who would be getting a train at one AM in the morning unless they, too, had been clubbing?

But Sirius had said something, something that Remus considered to be ‘homophobic’ by what Regulus was sobbing over. What were these signals? One minute Sirius is fine with Regulus and James flirting and actually shipped them together in front of Remus but after something Regulus said, he gets all defensive? His brain tries to wrack the conversation they had and if he overhead anything else, any other insight into what could have caused this big of an argument, but nothing came. His head was full to the brim with wine and beer and strawberry shots so much so that it felt like he was going to fall over onto the table in front of him and fall fast asleep.

Instead, something catches his eye in the window. With head swimming, he stares into the reflection and sees Sirius. Well, not entirely Sirius as half of his face was distorted and he was wearing massive rainbow eyelashes.

“Do the right thing, Remus.” the not-so reflection of Sirius beckons, “Come closer…”

Remus moves closer to the reflection as it changes into Ziggy’s face.

“MEOW!” the once Sirius but now Ziggy reflection violently meows as Remus jumps back in his seat. The lights over his head flicker and falter before going out completely. The train jitters to a stop.

Remus lifts his head out into the pathway between seats to see that Sirius’ carriage lights are on and so are Regulus’ and James’, both of whom were making out from what Remus could see of the back of James’ head. He sits back and slams his head on the table as the train moves on from the station, the lights dimming out as he is plunged into total darkness.

This was all a trick. Some hope had flickered in Remus that night, hope of Sirius being somewhat gay and that he had actually come to find Remus in the bar. Nobody really stumbles across the Queen’s Arms and who would be meeting their friends that late at night and could ditch them like that? The coincidence seemed far too unlikely a bit then again, he could just be imagining things.

And now he had to go on a trip with Sirius too after all of this. With Regulus and James, too. And a hundred year eight students. All around Paris.

The only reason he had signed up to go was because of Sirius and now what? He would just be left with Peter? He was almost convinced that Regulus and James would go off together, considering everything that had happened that night, Sirius would never talk to him again, Marlene and Dorcas will go and do couple-y things and hopefully Mary would try and keep some order with the kids, leaving Remus with nobody aside from comic-con obsessed Peter Pettigrew.

“This line terminates here. Please collect all of your bags and items before exiting the train, thank you.” The announcement echoes as Remus picks himself up from the chair and makes for the open train doors out onto the platform.

A figure, to what he assumed was Sirius, darts from the train and into the station, disappearing onto a bus before Remus could even wish him goodnight. No James or Regulus, no Grant either. He walks alone to the station and back to his lousy apartment, stumbling up the stairs and unlocking the door hastily. Ziggy waits at his feet, patiently, probably wanting more birthday cake flavoured cookies.

“You’ll still love me, won’t you?” Remus asks the cat as he sits on the sofa. Ziggy perches next to him and rests her head on his lap, purring. “Let’s watch some Fight Club.”

Chapter 42: Chapter Forty-Two - Bad Idea?

Summary:

Remus recounts the night's memories as James shows up at his doorstep.

Notes:

guys I really cba to write this heat is gonna kill me ugh I promise good chapters soon this is so bad arghhhh

At the end of the film, there’s a knock on Remus’ door. He hadn’t fallen asleep like he thought he would but was instead sitting wide awake.

“REMUS.” James almost screeches. He plonks down onto the sofa and sprawls himself our across it.

“Oh. Hi.” Remus says, “I didn’t see you get off of the train.”

“I did. I went back to mine.” James confirms as he nestles deeper into the cushions as if he was going to fall asleep. Remus waits for more but James doesn’t continue and fallsvery, very still.

“Anymore?” Remus says, hands on hips. James jumps awake.

“Here’s condoms.” James says. He chucks the opened box at Remus as they scatter across his floor.

“James what? Wait…” Remus examines the box and gathers them back in before shoving them into James’ chest. “I don’t even wanna know.”

“Good, now let me sleep because your Mother is coming over tomorrow and I NEED her roast potatoes.” James says, and within a quarter of a second he has fallen back asleep and is snoring like a devilish angel. Remus lays on the other end of the sofa James is not preoccupied and sighs. Even Ziggy was asleep now as she lay beneath his coffee table.

What the hell does he do? The urge to write an email saying that he cannot go on the French trip pulls at his insides. His computer is only on top of the coffee table…

But then who else would go on the trip? Dumbledore had already booked the rooms and perhaps the only reason Dumbledore hasn’t fired him yet is because of his place on the trip.

Ever since the fire Dumbledore had been very straight forward with Remus, making very little small talk and never making eye contact. Remus had hoped he had been let off with the whole fire thing as perhaps some of the rumours about Liam had reached him…

But this could be the final straw, for his whole career and life. Who knows what reasons Dumbledore could magic up to get Remus chucked out? Maybe he’d say that Remus is part werewolf or something and is in danger to the kids in case the full moon magically appears in the day and sends his furry little problem into action. Or maybe Dumbledore didn’t need a reason at all.

Maybe he could just try and switch rooms with Regulus and hang out with the girls the whole time. But Regulus’ and Sirius’ argument. That wouldn’t work.

There was no solution but to just sit and wait it out, do the trip and try and not kill himself or any of the children. That should be great fun.

And Katie?

An idea sparks at his head. Instagram. Katie might be on Sirius’ Instagram.

Quickly, he opens his phone and with trembling fingers clicks onto his friends and followers list. Sirius’ is the seventy seventh one down as he clicks onto the profile photo.

The photo of him at the wedding with two kids hanging onto his arms. Regulus had mentioned something about a wedding, but what was it? Were those Sirius’ kids?

Remus scrolls through his very limited selection of posts. Football match with the lads. Commemorating one of his dead friends who died in a motorbike crash. Taylor Swift concert with Bellatrix (Bella looked as if she would rather be dead). And the wedding post, the one that his profile photo was from where somebody called Andromeda Black and Teddy were getting married. Must be some kind of cousin or something but the ceremony had been held in a gigantic church with Andromeda in a flowing white gown and Teddy in a black suit, just as you would imagine a very stereotypical Christian wedding.

And in most photos Sirius looked highly uncomfortable and was standing very closely to a man in a pink suit, the only one to stand out from the sea of ‘normality’, but in every photo he is facing the back or away from the camera. Weird.

Remus clicks the phone off and stares at the wall.

No photos of Katie. Surely you would post photos of your girlfriend if you had one? If Remus had a girlfriend or a boyfriend who was happy with being shared online if they were out, even on a private account he would post photos.

Either way, Sirius probably made some kind of homophobic comment towards Regulus and James being drunk and was probably a good person underneath. Hopefully underneath.

Everybody does stupid things when they are drunk and says things they don’t mean and everybody’s states are heightened.

But did Sirius mean that thing when they were standing near the Tescos on the way to the train station? With Remus’ face in his hands it felt so, so much more than just sharing a passion for a movie. It felt like something more was meant to happen, like they both wanted to lean in and kiss one another right there but stupid James interrupted.

Maybe this was all James’ fault for interrupting their moment. Maybe it was Sirius’ fault for ‘accidentally’ stumbling across Remus in front of a gay bar on a Saturday night while trying to look for his friends. Maybe the four of them were oh so incredibly drunk they couldn’t think straight (a/n hahaha straight none of them are straight they’re all gay).

And as the clock ticked forward another hour and as James fell even deeper into his pit of sleep (Remus had noticed now that he also had no socks on his feet beneath his shoes and that his flies were undone and his hair even messier than usual) (a/n GUYS THE SOCKS WERE OFF) and Remus wished just for a second he could be James. James was attractive in the modern standards of man. Remus was not. James could pull whoever he wanted within two days from what he has demonstrated here, so what magical rizz powers did James behold that Remus didn’t?

Chapter 43: Chapter Forty-Three - Mr and Mrs Lupin

Summary:

Remus' parents come round to visit.

Notes:

sorry about the uh... well, the little regulus mention in here pls don't kill me :D

 

ALSO Remus breaking down over AO3 being taken down for maintenance is so real.... defs haven't done that before!!!

At ten AM the same morning, Remus awoke to a new email in his inbox. Sleepily, he reaches across onto the bedside cabinet to scramble for his phone. The light is blaring in the sea of darkness he had placed him in the night prior, turning off every light in the apartment and closing every curtain, as if they were not closed most of the time anyway. It’s in his school email.

 

FRENCH TRIP FEB 15th 2025

February fifteenth?! But that was only next Friday?

So not only would Remus have to ditch his after school weekend plans (as if he had any), but would have to sacrifice his whole weekend to go gallivanting around the place with a bunch of hyperactive year eights.

And the worst part is, most of his math classes would probably be going on it.

Since starting at the school he had managed to keep his head pretty under the radar, even after the whole fire incident. Nobody knew the name of that one Ravenclaw form tutor that went into the building after Sirius Black, who was on the totally other end of the scale to Remus and was adored by the majority of the student population, and even then he didn’t get recognised for it. That was good. That meant that most of the year eights on the trip wouldn’t know him overly well and would leave him in peace but no, of course he had to be dumped with two year eights classes, most of whom took French, who would be going on the trip.

There’s a bang at the door. He had forgotten his parents were coming.

“Ah, hello… James!” A voice calls as the sound of jangling keys halts.

“Hello, Mrs Lupin.” James’ sweet voice sings back, “Mr Lupin. I hope you have both been keeping well.”

“Not with her witty comments all of the time.” Mr Lupin snorts back. There’s a clatter from the front room as Remus races to put on a t-shirt and opens the door to greet his parents.

“Ah, Remus dear! Haven’t seen you since the whole fire, I was praying you’d be ok!” Mrs Lupin, his Mother, says as she wraps Remus into one of her warm hugs.

Mrs Lupin was a woman of medium height, reaching to Remus’ shoulder on his freakishly tall build, with little rectangular glasses that lay on the end of her nose. Her hair was greying and fell in a claw clip at the back of her hair.

Mr Lupin walked on two crutches on each arm with a few strands of wispy long hair and remnants of a beard, with a pair of large owly like glasses. He, too, was freakishly tall, probably where Remus got the gene from.

His Father wraps him in a hug too and gives James a firm handshake. Mrs Lupin places a tray wrapped with tinfoil over the top into the oven before taking to the sofa, her husband perching beside her.

“So did you stay round the night, James? Glad Remus is finally getting over his fear of sleepovers - he was always so terrified when he was younger! Once he even-” Mrs Lupin begins.

“No, Mum, I’m sure James doesn’t want to hear any sleepover stories today.” Remus butts in, starting to make four cups of tea for all of them.

“OH I sure do, Mrs Lupin, tell me more!”

And after Mrs Lupin ran through four sleepover stories, eight different Facebook memes she had seen that day, at least a hundred baby photos of Remus and a story of how she saw her Spanish teacher in Sainsbury’s, she moved the subject onto Remus.

“And Remus, dear, I’m so sorry I fear I got carried away there. How are your injuries, I was worried sick!” Mrs Lupin asks. All eyes turn to Remus as he shrugs, his half-empty mug covering his eyeline.

“Alright. Still hurt a bit.” Remus shrugs off.

There’s an odd silence.

“The only thing we want to know is why you did it, son. We thought we raised you to be smarter than to run into a burning building, but who knows since your uni grade was so…” Mr Lupin trails off, knowing of what happened last time Remus’ uni grade was brought up, or anything about uni at all. Remus ponders for a second, debating whether to tell the truth or make up a lie or use one of the preexisting rumours that had been magicked up by his students. None sounded too appealing.

“POTATOES!” James shouts, a little awkward whether it be from the drunk effect from last night, “Mrs Lupin, I beg can I please have some of your roast potatoes as the only reason I stayed round last night was to try and get first helpings.”

“Of course, James!” Mrs Lupin cheers as she stands and begins to dish out James some potatoes. From behind her back, Remus mumbles a little thank you, as he tries not to make eye contact with his Father.

Soon enough, the four were sat on Remus’ sofa watching The Chase and eating the mere hundred potatoes that Remus’ Mother had whipped up, on their ninth rounds of tea.

“And then, every day that year, Remus would come home and tell me about all of the birds that old Mr Frank spotted and the names of everyone. When we went to his parents' evening later that year we found this massive Scottish bloke, much like that old McGonnigal at your school at the moment, and all of the kids were petrified of him! But not our little Remus. He just walked right up, gave the man a handshake and began to talk to him about the birds! Seems that Remus is always interested in the wiser of men, trying to find someone to match his intellect…. Until he met you, young James, Remus talked about you all of the time when you first met!” Mrs Lupin rambles as she sips at her tea.

“IT’S THE FOURTH ONE, OPTION B! THE FAMOUS ART-HEIST BURGLAR DIED BY DROWNING AND HIS NAME WAS REGULUS!” Mr Lupin screams at the television, awaiting an answer. Mrs Lupin swats his arm before continuing with her story.

Catching a pause in the conversation where Remus’ Mum had popped to the toilet and his Dad was still invested in The Chase, Remus sent James a quick message. He picked up his phone instantly.

 

REMUS:
Right two things, number one, the french trip is NEXT FRIDAY and number two, we need to talk about what happened between you and Regulus last night as I am dying to find out

 

(Remus really wasn't as he just needed some proper gay tea to inform him on as the platform AO3 which he would usually use for his Daily Dose of Gay had been taken down for maintenance when he tried to go on it. That was how Remus fell asleep. He cried himself to sleep over AO3.)

 

JAMES:
What happened between me and Regulus? I know I was pissed off of my nut but I just thought we pulled one of our usual and I bunked round here and Reg got off a few stops back to go to Tesco and get some of that shitty Carmex lip balm. Also, I’m stealing your Mum she’s so NICE!!! ;)

Chapter 44: Chapter Forty-Four - The Gay Washing Machine Assemble (PT 5)

Summary:

Remus realises that all of his year eight classes are going on the French trip while Dorcas has heard about Saturday Night's affairs from Regulus.

Notes:

Guys I've read 70k words of fanfiction in the past three hours and completely forgot about today's update so this is so bad arhh

The whole class put their hands up.

For fuck’s sake.

How can all thirty of them be going on the trip?

“Wait, Sir, are YOU going on the trip? Are you only going because of Mr Potter-” Felix begins but Remus breaks him off.

“Yes, I am going on the trip and not because of Mr Potter.” Remus sighs. “Now time to do PI-”

 

“Sir, are you going to be sharing a room with Mr Potter?” Chinequa asks.

“...yes…”

“REMEMBER TO STAY SAFE!” Alfie pipes up. Remus bangs his head onto the keyboard, the keys leaving letter marks in his forehead.

“Guys, let me just get one thing straight.” Remus says, standing now. “I have… a girlfriend.”

The whole room freeze. Somebody drops a calculator as all of the kids stare back at Remus.

Why in the fuckity fucking god’s name did he say that?

“You…. have a girlfriend?” Maisy mumbles.

“Yep. Proper girlfriend too so no, me and Mr Potter aren’t dating nor do I have a raging crush . It's kind of complicated now but I do NOT have any romantic feelings to anyone else who works at this school.” Remus sighs. “Now. Pi.”

…

“WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO I TOLD THEM I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND AND NOW THEY ALL BELIEVE ME.”

An emergency Gay Washing Machine meeting had been called that lunchtime, this time to be held in Remus’ classroom. All had attended but Regulus who was ‘off sick’ for that day. Remus had to cover one of Regulus' French classes and just whacked on an episode of French Peppa Pig. The year elevens were thrilled to the core.

The night prior James had left along with his parents, leaving no time to discuss what had happened between he and Regulus the night before and Remus had been caught in traffic for most of the way to work that morning so there was no time to catch up there, either.

“OK why in hell did you do that.” Marlene says over a short pause. “Because there is no way on this planet that you are not gay.”

“I mean, what would make people think that?” Remus huffs as he stares down at his greying cardigan and thick-soled shoes. “Ok, I'll take that back.”

“And if Sirius does have any ‘gay intentions’ then this is just going to fizzle them out! Y’know that Sirius has two year eight classes, both of which are top set and probably have most of the kids from your Math classes in, right?” Dorcas confirms. “And when the kids get bored they ramble about all sorts of drama, including teacher drama.”

Remus thinks back to the time he heard about Bellatrix being Sirius’ cousin before Sirius had told Remus himself. The thought didn’t bother him as much as it should, it was more the male person in that situation that bothered him more. He didn’t want Sirius to come into this but it always seemed that he did.

“Please, my lot haven’t stopped talking about Lily since I mentioned one thing to them on Wednesday.” James half sighs.

“Bitch, I heard you reciting sonnet eighteen at the top of your voice through the wall.” Dorcass huffs as she continues staring back at Remus. “Reg told me about what happened between him and Sirius too and how you were there. He also told me an awful lot about you too, James.”

Dorcas eyes James suspiciously. James gives her an odd smile back, his glasses slipping down his nose as he hastily shoves them back up.

“And my take on the piece is that Sirius probably has internalized homophobia. He’s seen the way his Mother has treated Regulus and knows that if he ends up that way too, being the one who has already gone out of his way to piss her off, will probably end up being the one to be kicked out.” A little voice perks up from the corner as the four heads whip round. Peter was sat at the back of the room, doodling in a notepad.

“Ok, and where in the hell have you just summoned that up from?” Remus retorts.

“I read a lot.” Peter replies. He goes back to being silent as the conversation lowers into hushes.

“I think he has a point, y’know. Since that stuff Regulus told us we know Walburga isn’t the most… accepting.” Dorcas approves.

“Guys, can we just… leave Sirius out of this for now. I’m not sure what I feel towards the guy anymore after the whole Regulus situation but I think it’s better if we just avoid each other for now.” Remus says cooly.

Marlene nods in agreement. “But do make sure to ask for his end of the story at some point. Sometimes people need to talk to work through these things and maybe he isn’t entirely guilty either.”

“Maybe you should just leave him on read for two days… after getting off a train with him on a Saturday night so much so that you can’t bear to see his face and don’t come into work.” Dorcas says. She eyes James as she says this but James is gazing out the window at Lily Evans who is convincing a whole group of year elevens, now, how to do Pythagoras’ theorem.

“Damn, she really can do anything.” James sighs as the hearts practically jump out of his eyes.

“Remus, a word.” Dorcas sighs. She grabs Remus by the arm and out of the door of his room into the corridor. It was deserted with all of the kids out on lunch break.

“What’s up?” Remus asks.

“It’s about James and Regulus. Do you remember anything about the other night? Reg has told me the basics but I haven’t got it all down as that bitch is so secretive sometimes.”

“Well, I remember Sirius and Regulus having an argument at the train station but not what it was about. Regulus was crying a lot and James was trying to comfort him and I spoke to James. Then James disappeared and I walked to my flat alone and then he just spawned on my doorstep at two AM. Sorry, I don’t remember much at the bar other than Sirius showing up.”

“It’s ok. Just try and get a bit more information out of James if he has any to tell, I know they probably got up to… some stuff, but I want to know if anything else happens. Turns out Regulus has tried to message, to thank him for that night, but James has completely ghosted even after leaving your house on Sunday. I know he’s desperately in love with that Lily girl but these things effect Reg a lot and I don’t want to hurt him even more than he already has. Tell James to make up his mind and let Reg down slowly, ok?”

The bell rings from overhead as the kids almost burst through the main doors and up the staircase to the rooms upstairs. The Science rooms had been fixed now and all teachers had returned to their normal rooms. Marlene followed through the door and gave Remus an affirming nod before James came out and stopped him.

“What was that about then?” James asks, eyeing the pathway Dorcas took to her own classroom.

“I’ll message you this period. They have a test so I’ll have free time.” Remus replies. James gives him a smile before departing.

“Hi Sir!” one of his year nines sing as they approach him. He looks into the classroom to see the tests laid out on their desks that Remus had prepared.

“Suprise!”

Chapter 45: Chapter Forty-Five - Gay Discoverings

Summary:

James remembers some things about the night in Brighton that he had entirely forgotten about.

For the rest of the week, every teacher had stayed pretty clear of whoever they were trying to ignore. Regulus didn’t come back into work until Wednesday and appeared to have nothing wrong with him, aside from looking paler than usual. All of the Black family had a ghost-like complexion and, in all fairness, Remus would be convinced if they did haunt every crevice into why they tried to creep. For example, Walburga instilled fear into anybody she even was in a mile radius of, Bellatrix had thrown a canvas out of the window (Remus had witnessed this in awe as it majestically floated down form the top floor of the ICT/Art block and got caught in a tree on the way down), Sirius haunted his brother and Remus and Regulus just seemed to be haunting himself.

All other thoughts had disappeared with these actions and sure, Remus still had the odd thought at night of Sirius laying beside him or having a make-out session in the back of his classroom in the cupboard, but they were far less frequent and seemed far more intense. It was all part of the grieving process, if you could even call it that, and Remus didn’t want to think into the logistics of the situation in Brighton again any more than he had to.

James had his usual drop ins to Remus’ classroom and so did Remus to his, but every time they met they discussed work-related topics or watched clips of Grease or discussed the trip at the weekend and how the hell they were going to survive.

“Ok, so first of all we are getting a coach down there.” James mumbles through gritted teeth, his portion of overly-soggy pasta sitting in the half soaked cardboard takeaway container in his lap. Remus could already see the wet stain forming on his trousers underneath, so much so one might say he had wet himself. “Why the hell a coach? Why not the train as a) the train is quicker and b) there is a bloody toilet on the train where I can go and lock myself into to cry.”

“There’ll be a toilet on the coach, but I’d have already preoccupied that.” Remus says. He had not fancied the pasta and was instead eating a cheese sandwich.

“We can sit and cry together and leave the kids and the puke up to Marlene and Dorcas and that trainee little Peter.” James sighs. “And we have to share a room with Peter.” And Sirius, Remus thought.

“That’ll be fine.”

“At least we aren’t sharing with Regulus. He’s left Remus’ Sad and Gay Delusions and has not even smiled at me during the staff meetings this week.” James sighs. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. Did he seem off in Brighton?”

Remus had been waiting for the chance to discuss Regulus with James after what Dorcas had warned him. He knew something was missing in his brain, a memory that would solve all of this puzzle, but he couldn’t quite retrace it, but it seemed like Regulus god remembered it well. Regulus didn’t seem in a fit state to be asked about this at this point, either, so detective Remus and James would have to try and piece together the meek amount of evidence they had.

“James, I think something happened between Regulus and Sirius in Brighton, a fight or something. Haven’t you noticed Sirius getting to school abnormally early recently and how he’s seemed to be walking? I think he’s left his parent’s house to try and get away from Regulus.” Remus suggests as if he had not, definitely not, been watching Sirius on his way to school most days since Brighton. “And I think something happened between Regulus and you, maybe not an argument, but I remember you two being extremely touch-y flirt-y on the way down there.”

James’ face shifts uncontrollably. Remus tries to make sense of it. “Holy shit.”

“James-”

“HOLY SHIT, REMUS!”

“JAMES YOUR SCARING ME!”

 

“HOLY SHIT I HAD SEX WITH REGULUS AND ENTIRELY FORGOT ABOUT IT.”

The words hang in the air around them and suddenly, the outside window seems very very interesting as it displays the scene of two year sevens pouring strawberry milk over one another as Remus tries to look anywhere but James’ face.

“That’s why he messaged me all of that.I just thought he was drunk.” James panics now, and pulls out his phone, shoving it in Remus’ direction. “Remus looks for me, does it seem deep? I haven’t even read most of them and just skimmed past them but Remus, oh my god, what have I done?”

“Right, James, do you have feelings for Regulus or not before I read these.” Remus asks, the messages glaring up at him and, holy shit, they are deep.

“I DON’T KNOW!” James retorts, “I must have had a bit of something in me to lose my gay V-card to him, but then there’s Lily and oh god, LILY EVANS!”

“Ok, James, one step at a time here but holy shit, these messages are deep. Why did you walk out on him that night to come and find me?” Remus asks.

Remus realised that he and Regulus might have a bit more in common than he last thought. While both having to go through different stories of background, they both loved somebody who didn’t have decided feelings on them and gave them mixed signals. At least Sirius hadn’t given him too much, like it seemed James had with Regulus.

“I don’t know, I was half drunk and my ass hurt.” James sighs, slamming his head on the desk.

“Oh ok, I do not need to know any more about that.” Remus quickly says, locking James’ phone and sliding it across the desk. “But I do think you need to talk with Regulus about this and considering we are going on a three day long trip with him tomorrow with a hundred thirteen year olds, I think you better do it quickly.”

“And what about you? With Sirius? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you not talking about him almost at all this week, aside from your weird stalking your doing of him about his transport methods which is nothing out of the blue for you. Did something happen with you two in Brighton?” James asks.

“No, but something happened between him and Regulus, something homophobic towards you and Regulus I think. I don’t remember much. And Sirius is straight, anyway, I’ve had to try and get over it one way or another so there’s nothing much to talk about. I don’t want to be in love with someone who will never love me back,let alone never accept me for who I am even as a friend. I guess I just have to live with that.” Remus says, the realization hitting him harder as the words came out of his own mouth.

The fantasies in the cupboard were merely for his physical enjoyment and he never wanted to imagine any of the emotionally-things that came along with a relationship. No late night talks with Sirius. No heart-to-heart late night messages. God, why does it always happen so late at night? Until he found someone else he was physically attracted too, or another fit actor to obsess over, his fantasies had to occur with Sirius and that was final, just for the time being.

“That’s if we live until Monday, god bless our souls.” James says, making the holy cross sign with his shoulders just as the bell rings. “See you bright and early tomorrow morning, comrade!”

“Unless I shoot myself at dawn.” Remus replies, picking up his bag and exiting James' room.

Chapter 46: Chapter Forty-Six - Coach Remus' Crisis

Summary:

Remus, Sirius and James get put on their own coach to France.

Notes:

pls get the chapter reference i have no clue where it came from but YAY sorry if this is also a bit rushed from the last major plot point of the story, I really had no other filler chapters I could have added and apologies if this does not all entirely conjoin together with other chapters because I have no plan at all for this help

The alarm goes off and Remus almost considers deporting himself from the country to avoid this trip. And the only reason he had planned to go in the first place was because of love, love that had disintegrated as quickly as it had in the first place where he had to put up with a very confused James, a homophobic Sirius, a weird comic-con anime manga obsessed Peter and a still hauntingly pale Regulus, and the three other girls who were all delightful and would probably get him through this trip.

And the stalking eyes of a hundred year eights who all used to ship him and his best friend together and believed that Remus was straight. And had a girlfriend. In hindsight at two AM, Remus realises just how much of a stupid idea it had been to lie about being straight

This all passes his head in the car as at three AM, he is driving to get to school to be greeted by one hundred, overtired, hormonal and utterly scary thirteen year olds. And James, of course, who is a bag of sunshine at three AM.

“Morning, Remus.” James sings as he loads another duffel bag form the hands of a grumpy thirteen year old onto the coach. “By some luck of the draw, we have managed to keep everybody happy and with their teacher friend while splitting up Regulus and Sirius so we have no more arguing! And so I don’t have to encounter Regulus for a whole thirteen hour or something trip! Yay! So on this magnificent beauty there’s going to be you, me, Sirius and the fifty kids!”

Remus stares at James, utterly dumbfounded at how this was any better than something Dumbledore could have magicked up.

“So you're saying that the three of us have to put up with all of that puke? And I have to be on a coach with SIRIUS BLACK for those god awful thirteen hours instead?!”

“Ah shit, didn’t think of it that way.”

Remus almost punches James in the face but is instead handed a black suitcase that he loads onto the coach.

“The one thing you had to do James. Why didn’t you put us with, like, Dorcas and Marlene or something? Get the Gay Washing Machine all in one coach so we can secretly drink without any of the kids seeing on the way down there?” Remus suggests and this seems a much more logical solution.

“Yeah, but then that means Sirius and Regulus would have to go together and I know you have some weird relationship with Sirius but that’s not as bad as sleeping with him and not knowing where you stand.” James replies.

“So you haven’t talked to him? James, I thought you were going to talk to him before going on a three day long trip to Paris with A HUNDRED THIRTEEN YEAR OLDS!”

“YEA I WAS BUT THEN I GOT DISTRACTED!”

“WITH WHAT?!”

 

“Doesn’t matter, but let’s just say I made an effort and considering the relationships we have with both of the Blacks, I made up that my circumstances are far worse and resulted to making the logical conclusion of splitting me and Regulus up, happy?”

“It’s too fucking early for this.”

Remus leans against the coach, fingers at his temple as he tries to fathom how he is up before the sun and on the way to France. Love makes you do crazy things, but nothing so bound to kill him as this.

And when Sirius can be seen entering the school car park from over the hill, looking even worse than Remus and any of the kids combined, something sparks inside of Remus. Hatred. He hated the way that Sirius Black looked as if he had just tumbled out of bed, dressed in a blue hoodie and jeans that had stainds down them and a battered case in one hand as he slowly approached the coach.

“Alright?” Sirius grunts as he shovels his bags into the one remaining gap left, “Mary messaged to say I was stuck with you two.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.” James apologises.

“S’alright. Let’s just get this started and hopefully it’s not as bad as it seems.”

But the second the door closes behind the two of them, it is already absolute horror.

It seemed that half of the kids had woken up within ten minutes of piling on the coach, and the other half were moody little shits, so whenever one of the more awake of the kids did something it would piss off the other half, creating a Hunger Games like atmosphere.

“MOONBEAM ICE CREAM, TAKING OFF HER BLUE JEANS-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“Sirrr why do you look like an old granny in your cardigaaaaaan?”

“Why do you look like my nan's fanny flaps.”

“SIR AMELIA’S BEEN SICK!”

“I want to get off this fucking coach already.” Remus mumbles under his breath, still slightly taken aback by the random voice that had been critical of his cardigan.

“Are you guys ready to get going?” The driver asks from the front seat, a middle aged woman with shaved hair who already had a vape between her lips despite the several signs on the coach saying not to do that exact thing.

“Ok, just one quick thing.” James says. He coughs before raising his voice so it is above the whole noise of the bus. “RIGHT YOU LITTLE SHITS.” The kids shut up. “There are not SLT members on this trip so that’s right, it means I get to swear at you lot as much as I fucking want. First of all, on this trip I want NO music blasting out of your phones, phones that you are not even allowed to have but I have already seen and can’t be bothered to confiscate. I want NO fighting, puking, pissing or complaining. If you do any of those things or feel the need, please tell Mr Lupin and he shall gladly assist you. And third of all, I would say enjoy the trip but I surely won’t so I wish you an adequate time.”

There’s a brief moment of silence.

“So if the rules don’t apply, can I call you James?” somebody shouts from further up the bus, setting off a wave of giggles.

“Oh you sure can.” Remus interjects, shooting a smirk over at James who already regrets saying there’s no rules because of SLT.

“HEY JAMES POTTER! HEY SIRIUS BLACK! HEY REMUS LUPIN!”

“Right guys, first names aren’t something new to you all so just crack on with it.” Sirius grumbles, taking one of the two seats left at the front.

“OI JAMES COME AND HAVE THE KING OF THE BUS SEAT BACK HERE!” One of the boys, Felix to be exact, hollers from the back. James, glad to be considered fit enough to sit at the back, gladly obliges, leaving the only seat beside Sirius.

Even worse, with Maxxie and Chinequa sitting beside, Maxxie who believed that Remus was not in fact straight and was probably writing fanfiction of the two in an AU where they are dead gay wizards.

Fucking fantastic.

Chapter 47: Chapter Forty-Seven - Vegan Sausage Rolls

Summary:

Sirius apologises to Remus about that night in Brighton.

“All off, time for a Greggs and a fucking pint of Vodka.” Sirius grunts as he opens the doors to the coach letting the sweet, sweet air not tainted by body odor or that smell that teenagers have to them out of the bus. The kis flood out as Remus and Sirius both count heads. “AND DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TOWARDS THAT GUY IN THE WHITE VAN PLEASE!”

The whole journey to Portsmouth docks the two men had kept to themselves on their phones or staring out of the window or going to tend to the latest child who has thrown up or is having a panic attack. Being Remus, Remus was the one to deal with all of this as even the thought of being near Sirius for too long was making him itch. The thought of being in such a confined space with somebody you're trying to forget about was making him itch. The thought of being even remotely close in contact, even a brush of the knee or an elbow as Remus unfastened his seatbelt was making him itch.

Like the bus all of those moons ago, on the way back from the hospital, Remus had again tried the tactic of blocking it all out of your brain and focussing on the dark, depressing state of the world or on predicting the next kid who was going to throw up, but it didn’t work and again, like last time, his brain kept replaying the intimate fantasies of he and Sirius. Still only physical, of course, none of that emotional deep stuff was needed any more. It was always the physical aspects of things that kept Remus hanging on.

At the end of the line comes James, looking utterly thrilled with himself.

“Guys, I have been shown how to get a bunch of free items on Temu for like three quid and that’s just for shipping! These kids are well smart, y’know.” James natters on. “And they were showing me all of this Tik Tok stuff and sure, I’ve used Tik Tok before but I’ve never really understood all of the trends. They also showed me the Skibidi toilet. I’m traumatised.”

From round the other side of the service car park pulls in the opposite coach. Sirius looks in it’s direction before starting towards a few of the kids already heading into the service station. “C’mon, we better go with them before they get kidnapped.”

“In all honesty, would it even be so bad if we lost a few? I need to try and santise the smell of puke out of my nose for the next few months.” Remus huffs, directing the joke at James but it was Sirius who replies with his sweet, sweet laugh. Remus’ head goes giddy, but definitely from the exposure to fresh air. Definitely. “Guys please don’t spend all of the money your parents have given you in here as we do have… three more days to survive, and don’t get kidnapped or killed or anything and don’t leave the service station, you get that?”

Nobody hears Remus as the fifty kids have already dispersed into every corner of the service station, all flunking their money on useless junk. Remus approaches Greggs which has a relatively short line for it being the early hours of the morning, and buys two vegan sausage rolls and a hot chocolate before progressing into the W.H Smith and buying a Mars bar. The taste reminds him of Brighton, for some reason. Maybe he got one when he was completely drunk and couldn’t remember a thing about it.
Sirius was also scouring the aisles of W.H Smith and doesn’t notice when he bumps into Remus.

“Sorry, Sirius, I didn’t quite see-”

“Remus, it’s ok, don’t worry.” And the look on Sirius's face as he said those words was… guilty? SIrius Black never felt guilty in his life. “Can we, like, go and talk?”

“ok.” Remus replies. He shoves the burning hot sausage rolls into his pocket along with the mars bar and tentatively sips on his hot chocolate. Sirius begins towards the opposite doorway to where another set of fifty kids were entering along with Peter, Regulus, Mary, Dorcas and Marlene. The five looked bedraggled. “Are you sure James is going to be ok on his own?”

Sirius turns to face James who was busy making tik toks with a group of the year eights.

“I think he’ll be fine.”

The two make their way out to the front of the service station and sit at a bench. There were very few cars in the car park and the only source of light was from inside and the sparse amount of street lamps.

The silence is awkward as Remus doesn’t know what he’s meant to say or if he’s meant to start the conversation. Sirius asked, so it should be Sirius, right? But Remus had never been asked to formally ‘have a conversation’ without knowing what he’d done wrong, and especially not by somebody who he had accidentally stumbled across at a gay bar a few nights before.

Sirius looks almost the same as he had done on that Saturday night, illuminated by the flickering street lamp so that the silver in his eyes shone like the moon. But the moon wasn’t there tonight and was instead replaced by millions of stars.

“Remus, there’s been some things I want to come clean since Brighton. First of all, I was completely drunk out of my head and everything I said to Regulus was utterly horrid and I promise I’m not homophobic he just… brought up a sensitive topic for me. I really don’t have anything against Regulus and James, or you for that matter… sorry it’s taken me so long to say.” Sirius sighs, but before Remus can reply he starts speaking again. “And I wasn’t meeting friends that night. I’d gone to the Queen’s Arm’s on a… date. But she never showed up.”

“I thought you had a girlfriend, though?” Remus asks.

“Well… she was kind of made up, but we did date and I just wanted to keep the lie on a bit longer. We only broke up, like, a week before but I got over it pretty quickly.” Sirius half-laughs. Remus lets out a shaky one in reply.

“But why’d you choose a gay bar to have a date at? Sure, the drag act was superior but there was probably some closer to home and a gay bar… isn’t that supposed to be a little… like not hating on you or your date who happens to be a female, but you, as a male-representing man and a woman on a date ....”

“Well, the date never showed up and that’s why I started wandering. Sorry, Remus, for lying. I know it was horrid of me to do. I just hope that we can stop being so… weird.” Sirius says.

Remus nods, slowly, “Well, it wasn;t the only reason I was being weird to you. Y’know James and Regulus had a little…”

“Oh.” Sirius mumbles. “Oh!”

“I know.”

 

“Me and Reg aren’t really…. On speaking terms at the moment. After the whole Brighton thing he hasn’t been as easily to forgive me and I get him for that, but we’ve said not to bring up that matter again and Remus I swear I’m not-”

“I don’t remember any of it anyway. Me and James were both trying to piece together why you had a massive falling out. In fact, it was only yesterday when James realised that he and Regulus had actually…”

“Ok. I’m going to go and get a sausage roll.” Sirius says. “See you on the coach, coach buddy?”

“Yeah. See ya.”

And Sirius disappears back inside the service station while Remus eats his vegan sausage roll and Mars bar, alone. The door beside him swings open and somebody replaces Sirius.

Chapter 48: Chapter Forty-Eight - He Kissed A Boy

Summary:

The events to Brighton come back to Remus.

Notes:

short aa chapter and remus teacher attatchment issues are fr in full swing here ( I love projecting my trauma onto my characters)

“You alright, Maxxie?” Remus asks. She stands awkwardly in the space between the two before Remus pats the space on the seat beside her.

“Yeah.” she mumbles. “I just don’t really know if I want to do this. I hate being away from home.” Maxxie sniffs and for a second Remus thinks she’s going to cry.

“I get that. Sometimes we do need a bit of a change in our lives, though. You have Chinequa though, right?” Remus replies.

“She’s off making out with Hugo in the toilets, but don’t tell her I told you that.” Maxxie nods.

Damn, the students are getting more than Remus now?

“Oh… right.” Remus nods with her. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m slightly scared for this.”

“Scared of missing your ‘girlfriend’?” Maxxie laughs.

“Between you and me, we both know that I don’t have a girlfriend and I only done that to get the rest of them to shut up about me and Mr Potter.” Remus pats the side of his temple as he says this. Maxxie’s face flashes with joy before something a bit less enthusiastic.

“Oh I get it. I saw you talking to Mr Black out here a second ago. Did you tell him you're worried?” Maxxie asks, maybe getting a little too invested in finding out that Remus’ girlfriend is imaginary.

“This is about you here, not me. And you know what Mr Potter said about the phone thing, your not meant to have them but we’ll get in a hell of a lot more trouble if we lose them rather than you, so you can ring or message your parents, or whoever looks after you at home any time you want.” Remus smiles. Maxxie pulls out her phone and quickly checks her messages while Remus continues to eat his Mars bar. “And I’m always here any time, too.”

“Thanks, Sir. This is why your one of my favourite teachers. I think my Grandad has called, me, I’m going to call him back. Thank you, again, Remus.”

“Your welcome.” Remus smiles back as Maxxie dashes back inside the services.

Desbite half of the nob heads and twats the world had brought up, at least there were a few good ones like Maxxie still left out there.

Again, as if it were a game of musical chairs, somebody else takes the seat Maxxie had just sat in. Remus was very popular, all of a sudden, with people wanting to talk to him while he tried to eat his Mars bar in peace. However this time it was somebody he much wanted to talk to.

“Hello, Regulus. Are you ok?” Remus asks.

“So, so. Yourself?” Regulus replies, his eyes slightly glazed over still.

“Not too bad.” Remus shrugs. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

 

“So have I.” Regulus sighs. “About Brighton. I saw you talking with Sirius out here a moment ago. Is he ok?”

“Yeah, he’s alright. He said he’s sorry for all of that stuff that happened at the train station and you have a right to be pissed. I don’t overly remember what happened but he said you touched a nerve with something that happened in the past.”

“About that… Sirius isn’t gay. I don’t know why I said that stuff at the station, about the wedding and about Garret but I didn’t mean too, it just slipped out. We were all way pissed beyond our brains anyway. I just have a good memory once getting drunk, probably even better than the one I have when sober. We better get counting kids. I’ll leave you in peace.”

“Ok. By the way, there’s two in the toilets probably making out but don’t have a go and try and keep the peace as I can’t deal with any more relationship drama.” Remus quickly spurts out. Regulus raises an eyebrow before going back inside.

Garret. The wedding.

It came flooding back like an avalanche.

All of those photos at the wedding. Remus had recognised that pink suit, the one Garret Bennet always wore to the staff meetings on Wednesdays. A Mean Girls joke, now that Remus realised it.

And in every single photo from the one wedding that Sirius had posted about, he was standing beside Garret looking extremely uncomfortable.

And Sirius kissed a boy at that wedding.

Chapter 49: Chapter Forty-Nine - Added Visitor

Summary:

A year seven girl has appeared on the school trip!

Notes:

this is lowk based off a story that happened to me on a school trip once and it was hilarious.

“Fifty one, fifty two, fifty three….” Remus counts the heads of the kids as they file onto the coach. “Ninety nine, one hundred, one hundred and… one?”

Oh shit. He must have miscounted. Time to go all the way back through everybody on the coach and recount.

“One hundred and one.” James says from inside the coach where he had been counting. “Oh Remus, baby, please say you got one hundred?”

“One, please never call me baby again and no, I got a hundred and one.” Remus admits.

Shit. They had an extra kid on the bus. And they were already late for the ferry across to France.

“What’s taking you guys so long?” Sirius asks as he jogs over from the service station where he had bought a bottle of tequila. He had waited until all of the kids couldn’t see what he was buying and potentially rat him out to Dumbledore.

“One hundred and one kids.” Remus sighs.

“Oh shit.” Sirius says. “Have you double counted them?”

“Yep. Me and James. And I’m a Math teacher.”

“RIGHT!” James says, his voice going into that very scary tone he had when the year sevens pushed Peter’s face into the glass that even rattled Remus. Remus looks to Sirius to see a similar expression in his face, too. “WHO IN THE FUCK IS ON THIS COACH WHO ISN’T MEANT TO BE? BECAUSE I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH ANYBODY WHO HAS SNUCK ONTO THIS TRIP! I HAVE WOKEN UP AT LIKE TWO AM TO TAKE YOU LITTLE SHITS TO FRANCE TO SPIT IT OUT! WHICH IF YOU IS IT?!”

The whole of the coach stare at James, slightly gobsmacked. Nobody else had heard James shout other than the year seven that day.

“NOBODY?!”

“Sir, I think i got on the wrong bus.” somebody says as they stand up from the middle-ish. It was a girl with pink braids, looking much younger than she should to be on the trip, standing from her seat. “This isn’t the bus to Yorkshire, is it?”

Remus stares from Sirius to James and then back to the girl. Who in god’s name’s geography skills are that bad?

“No, it is not, this is a school coach to Paris on a trip, and considering I’ve never seen you around before, I assume that you don’t attend Hogwarts?” James sighs, finger pinched to his temple.

“Oh I do, there was just a year seven trip to The Globe but I think I got on the wrong coach… must be why I don’t know anyone here…. Or any of you three.” The girl says, staring around the coach. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, no, silly mistake. Now, who’s your form tutor and your parents?” James sighs. The girl comes to the front of the bus and stands beside James.

“My form tutor is Mr R. Black and my Mum’s name is Lucy.” The girl replies, “I’m LIlly, by the way.”

“Oh shit, Regulus!” James shouts, a little too loudly so that all of the rest of the ears on the coach perk up. James stares at the kids, wide eyed, before lowering his voice again. “He’s on the other coach, but I’m sure we can-”

 

“RIGHT, MY LOT, ON WE GET!” Marlene shouts as Regulus, Peter, Dorcas Mary and herself begin to pile onto the coach without a clue of the kid who had just snuck onto theirs.

“Y’know what, James, I’ll take the kid back to the school and meet you lot in France.” Sirius sighs. He leans out of one of the open windows on the coach, “PETE COME OVER HERE, WOULD YOU? WE HAVE AN EXTRA KID AND I NEED TO TAKE IT BACK TO SCHOOL!”

 

Peter turns around and sticks his head out of the other coach’s window, “Okey dokey!”

 

“OK… ok, Lilly, I’m the other Mr Black, your form tutors brother, and we’re going to get you back to school after we ring your Mum, ok?” Sirius says.

“Ok.”
“There we are.” Sirius pats the girl on the shoulder. “And you two, don’t fuck this up.”

Sirius begins down the steps with Lilly in front of him, ready to get off the coach. Remus follows him.

“Oh Sirius! Are you sure you don’t want me to go?” Remus asks. He didn’t really want to go on the train or whatever mode of transport Sirius was planning to take to get the little year seven back to school, but something willed him to ask.

He wasn’t sure of his opinions towards Sirius. Sure, Garret usually threw himself into things, physical things, and asked explicitly but only after somebody cued him to and was sure they’d display romantic attraction in the same way towards them, let alone their gender. Had Sirius been flirting with Garret?

Either way, Sirius had apologised for the incident at the train station and what he said to Regulus, deeming him an ally to the gays and whatever else in between.

And SIrius was single. Another thing he had lied about, probably a bigger red flag than Remus considered it to be.

But Sirius had kissed a boy, a boy who Remus had also kissed and knew the appeal of Garret.

“It’s ok, Remus honestly. I’ll message when I’m on the train.” Sirius smiles, turning to face Remus who was still standing on the entranceway to the coach.

“But I don’t have your number?”

“I’ll message. On Instagram.” Sirius tapped his phone before he was off across the service station and poking at his phone to try and get an Uber to the nearest train station.

After Peter had hopped onto their coach and the kids had reshuffled their seats, Peter had bagged two seats on his own beside the window. It turns out that Peter was even less popular with the kids than he was with teachers, because with one seat to spare nobody wanted to sit next to Peter, meaning that Maxxie took the only ‘available’ seat next to Remus.

“Did you ring your Grandad?” Remus asks. The coach kicks into life as the driver begins to puff on her new blueberry bubble gum flavoured cigarette. James was at the back, king of the bus seat again, and had finally found it acceptable for him to play music at max volume on his phone.

“Yeah, he’s ok. Just wanted to check how I was doing.” Maxxie smiles.

Around a quarter of the way into the journey just as they were reaching the ferry port, Remus received a message and that familiar photo of Sirius at the wedding had popped up, only this time Remus observed it with a little more happiness. Sirius had kissed a boy, that must mean something, right?

Sirius Black:

Hope you are ok. On the train now. See you in France oui oui x

Chapter 50: Chapter Fifty - Oui Oui Paris

Summary:

Remus and James arrive in Paris while some very odd things have happened on the other coach.

The journey to Paris, other than the added year seven, had gone quite ok. There was only one lost passport at the ferry port and two missing phones which were later located under seat cushions on the bus. Maxxie was chill and spent most of the journey typing onto a word document onto her phone. Remus had caught a quick glance over and saw that it was a story, but Maxxie must have seen this because she started to scroll on Tik Tok after that.

There had only been one more kid throwing up, too, which Peter volunteered to clean up (James had messages Remus about this from his seat at the back of the bus and Remus suspected it was because Peter wanted to make a good impression).

And for the majority of the journey, Remus had been planning his reply to Sirius’ message.

A kiss? Did that mean he had to send a kiss back? Straight men don’t send kisses, do they? Was that message even meant for Remus?

And he also knew, due to the time difference of a whopping four hours from when he read it until when he would actually reply, he’d have to create a fake excuse about what he was doing. Sick? Wasp on the coach? Breakdown?

“You ok, Sir?” Maxxie asks. Remus had violently been chewing on a nail the whole time and had finally torn it, making his finger bleed.

“Yeah, I just don’t know what to message someone.” Remus replies, truthfully.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s my Mum, she’s looking after my cat while I’m on this trip.” Remus replies, also not a whole lie either as Ziggy was probably being pampered by his Mother that very moment. They had to put Ziggy in a cake container to get her out of the flat with the lid off as, in the very short time she had grown to know Remus, she had developed attachment anxiety.

“You have a cat? What’s their name?”

“Ziggy.”

“Like Ziggy Stardust?”

“Yeah! James bought it trying to impress this girl he likes and it kind of backfired so I got dumped with it.”

“Oh… that sounds… nice?”

“Oh yeah, she’s really sweet and everything it was just when your work BFF summons a magical cat into your classroom on a Friday evening before a meeting, you do get a little worked up.”

Maxxie nods before turning away. Remus sucks some of the blood from the wound, the irony taste disgusting on his tongue.

Remus:

Sorry I haven’t replied for a while, one word: sick. In France now and driving to Paris. Hope your ok where you are x

And the message was sent. Within a few seconds, Sirius had also seen it and was typing a reply.

Sirius:

Oh no! Get that old trainee with the worm tail to do it for you; put him to some use! Dropped the year seven back off at school now, getting the train to London and the Eurostar from there x

Remus:

He offered to clean it up. He does seem a bit like he has a tail though, and his hair does look like it has worms, admittedly. James is still acting the age of a thirteen year old. Heard any news from the other coach? We didn’t see them get on our ferry x

Sirius:

Mary messaged and said the coach got into a traffic jam and that a world record of fifteen kids have thrown up. The driver also apparently had a heart attack and they have had to call an ambulance x

“Oh shit!” Remus mumbles, unbuckling his seat belt and walking shakily to the back of the bus, heads following as he goes, until he reaches James who is screaming song lyrics at the top of his lungs.

“TRALALERO TRALALA SHARK WITH BLUE SHOES- hey, you ok, Remu?”

“James, the other bus had a bunch of kids who had thrown up and apparently the bus driver had a heart attack, and have gotten stuck in traffic so that’s why they didn’t get on the last ferry. Can you try ringing Marlene?”

“You got it.”

James and Remus both tried to call the teachers on the other coach, but each time it went through to voicemail. Maybe the coach had exploded on top of all of it, too.

A few hours later, the towering buildings of Paris came into view as Remus got asked at least twenty times ‘How long until we’re there?’ to which Remus would reply ‘Fuck off you literally have google maps on your phone, calculate it yourself.’

Remus tries to call Dorcas one more time, the tone ringing a few times before it finally goes through.

“Hello? Dorcas?” Remus asks.

“Hi, Remus, how are you?” Dorcas sighs, her voice dry and hoarse.

“It’s good here, we’re almost there. Sirius told me what happened, are you ok?”

“Yeah, just about. Marlene is driving the bus now as apparently she was a bus driver before this and if we get pulled over, we all just have to pretend to speak Portuguese. Ambulance came to take the heart attack guy, and didn't tell any of the kids but he kind of might be dead, and we can’t have that reaching Dumbledore or their parents. Just keep it as a rumor if anybody asks. We’ve assigned Reg and me to sick duty and I think I’ve grown accustomed to the smell. Mary’s phone has gone missing, probably still at the service station when she tried to pay for her Greggs. So yeah, pretty good.”

“Dorcas I’m so so-” The phone hangs up as the coach ducks into an ominous tunnel and when they come out the other end, they’re in the centre of Paris.

It was beautiful with all of the architecture and the blue sky overhead, the streets clean and the people all happy to be in the city of romance. Maybe he and Sirius could be happy on the streets too, maybe one of the couples holding hands as they walked along the pavement under the strips of golden sunlight. The trees every few metres on the side of the road were plentiful in leaves, despite the time of year, and it seemed as if every aspect of Winter had faded in France.

“Sir, I need a wee.” Somebody shouts from the back.

“We are literally five minutes away now, if you piss yourself when we’ve got this far I’m skinning you alive.”

Chapter 51: Chapter Fifty-One - Bunk Beds Scare The Fuck Out Of Remus Lupin

Summary:

Bunk Beds Scare The Fuck Out Of Remus Lupin.

Notes:

not really in the writing zone today but your bestie has gotta serve your daily dead gay wizard fanficiton, so forgive if ts is really bad 3

James unloads all of the cases along with Peter, who isn’t much help but is able to direct the correct case to the correct kid while Remus waits in the lobby of the hotel.

It was a pretty fancy hotel with eleven floors and a plush interior, the walls decked with paintings and the carpet a rich claret. If it weren’t from the now fifty thirteen year olds nattering and chasing each other around inside and throwing water at each other, it could be considered the ideal holiday spot.

Remus counts the heads of the kids as they come in from the coach and, thankfully, there are still fifty. Once James and Peter come in and stand in the doorway, Remus grabs the bag of keys from the counter. “Right you lot, we have four kids in a room, same gender as we don’t want any pregnancies. Beddy byes is eleven o’clock as we know any time before you will all just stay awake past that, and we know you will still stay up till one AM but if you even make a noise past that time me and Mr Potter will personally slaughter your throats. If any of you have any alcohol, either offer us some or keep it behind your back as you are not meant to have it but if we do confiscate it, we know that we’d just end up getting drunk and Regulus and James are… a little questionable when drunk.”

James flips off Remus as he says this and Peter stares between the two, confused.

“Now, groups of four take the lift, not all at once please, up to floor six and we have the corridor to ourselves. Lord help us.” Remus mumbles as the kids set to getting themselves into groups of four and twenty five of them pile into the tiny lift, somebody’s arm getting caught in the door before they all fit in.

“That was SO unnecessary!” James says as he punches Remus on the arm, “Why did you have to bring up me and Regulus?!”

“What happened between you and Regulus?” Peter asks, confused.

“Shut up, wormtail!” Remus snides back, “Now Peter, if you would please maybe go and supervise the twenty five thirteen year olds who have just gone up in that lift?”

“Aye aye, captain!” Peter replies, clearly not having heard the first part of that sentence as he bounds up the staircase.

The lift comes back down again, empty, as the rest of the kids pile in.

“I can’t believe I have to share a room with that dork.” James sighs, “Oh and Sirius and Peter, too.”

“Shut up.” Remus replies, laughing.

“Who’s a dork?” somebody asks from the doorway as Sirius stands, looking as fresh as a daisy. “Glad I didn’t have to deal with any puke on an air-conditioned, mostly empty train.”

“Sirius!” Remus smiles, “The other coach is really… really not doing well.”

“I know, me and Mary have been texting the whole time. She was put in charge of making sure all of the kids didn’t start the Hunger Games out of boredom so put Madagascar on the screen at the top of the bus and most of them fell asleep.” Sirius explains. “Where are the kids?”

“Upstairs.” James says as a large bang sounds.

The man at the front desk looks up at the ceiling then across to the teachers congregating in the middle of the room and decides to shun the sound to the side.

“We better go up there.” Remus sighs as another loud bang sounds, this time followd by a shout along the lines of ‘DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BOYFRIEND YOU FUCKING PRICK’. The drama had already started.

By the time they reached the corridor leading to all of the drama, they found Peter crouching down in a corner in one of the boy’s rooms as they all hit him with pillows.

“Help, Remus! Sirius! James! They’re all monsters!” Peter wails as Kingsley hits him around the head with another pillow.

“I didn’t choose for you to be a teacher, mate, and we all had to go through the training phase.” Sirius tuts before exiting the room and leaving Peter to his inevitable death.

James drags two of the suitcases and Remus the third as they make their way to the room at the far end of the corridor with a bit of paper reading ‘The Room for Ball-Sucking Teachers’ sellotaped onto the door. James laughs before unlocking it with a fob around his neck and dumping the cases on two of the bottom bunk beds.

The room was small with two sets of metal bunk beds on either side, a tiny window running down the gap between the two frames with a bedside table below it. By each foot of each bed was a sink and a toiletries cupboard and a fraying rectangular rug in the middle of it all.

“I call dibs on top bunk!” Sirius calls as he clambers up the rickety ladder and hoists his suitcase up with one of his muscly arms. Remus stares at him in awe, so much so his own suitcase had dropped from his hand and fell onto his foot.

“Shit!” Remus grumbles. “I’ll take the other top bunk. I am not being stuck with staring at Peter for half of the night.”

The real reason Remus wanted to be on the top bunk was so he could stare at Sirius without him knowing and James couldn’t make him a fool because of this. The second he stepped onto the ladder, his brain froze up as he stared at the little height below him before taking another step up the ladder. He hated heights. Why did he admit to this?

But it was fear getting in the way of his longing staring sessions at Sirius and besides, if he was on one of the bottom bunks it would mean a lot less privacy and Remus needed some space to think about what had happened with Sirius. They had messaged. A lot. On Instagram. Did that mean they message now? Or was it only when each of them needed something?

Eventually, Peter trundles into the room with his Hatsune Miku patterned suitcase, looking emotionally and physically worn. “They’re demons.”

“They’re fine if they like you.” Remus calls, trying to relax onto his new bed for the next two two nights but failing miserably and feeling as if he was going to topple off of the edge.

“And they have to hate one out of the four of us.” Sirius says, “So thanks for filling that position!”

“You’re…. Welcome?” Peter says as he flops down onto the bunkbed below Sirius.

A foot prods through the mattress below Remus as Remus pokes his head over the edge to see who it was, before immediately retreating with his heart pounding in his head. “James! I swear to god if you’re going to do that the whole time I’m changing rooms.”

“Oh no your not! If you change with Reg I will be getting back onto the Eurostar and leaving. Or if Reg even comes near this room I’m leaving. End of.” Sirius scoffs.

“I thought you said you wanted to apologise to him? I mean, you apologised to me-”

“Yeah, but Reg is different. He brought up the… you know.” Sirius huffs, “I’m going to the vending machine, see you.”

“Bye. Try not to get slaughtered by pillows or thirteen year olds breaking up on the way.” James says.

Remus’ phone vibrates in his pocket.

James:

SPILL THE TEA, WHAT HAPPENED WITH SIRIUS?!

Chapter 52: Chapter Fifty-Two - French McDonalds

Summary:

Remus meets the other coach while taking 100 hungry teenagers into a French McDonalds.

Notes:

RAAAAH couldnt post this yesterday because of the maintenance work on ao3 but heres a longer chapter for you guys today to make up for it

So, while Peter sat on the bed below James peacefully reading his Anime Manga book, James and Remus discussed everything that had happened at the service station, filling in James on what had happened in Brighton to jog his memory, to the messages exchanged on the coach.

And by the end of it, Remus had only realised just how long Sirius had spent down at the vending machine, a whopping half an hour to choose one of the very limited assortment of snacks.

James climbs the ladder up to Remus’ bed, making the structure wobble as Remus tried not to pass out from fear of it collapsing, as James sits beside him.

“Should you message him?” James suggests.

“Alright.” Remus replies.

He stares at the blank message screen below him, the bar intimidatingly flashing as if it were calling him a coward.

“Calm down, Remu, it’s not like your proposing to him.” James sighs, ripping the phone from his hands as he typed furiously.

“James what are you-”

“Done.”

And before time could even process, Sirius had already sent a message back.

Sirius:

Got the kids ready to get McDonalds. Come downstairs and we can meet the other coach there as all of their kids are getting hangry x

“A KISS?!” James shouts, “You didn’t tell me you two were on kissing terms.”

“WHO’S ON KISSING TERMS?!” Peter shouts, throwing his book to the foot of his bed. “YOu two have been acting all hush, hush but I know who this is about.”

“Yes, it is very obvious, y'know, Remus.” James nods, thoughtfully.

“Let’s go and get chicken nuggets before I shove you into the airfryer myself.” Remus huffs as he opens the door out into the deserted corridor. The three silently take the lift down to the lobby where all of the fifty kids were lined up peacefully as if there hadn’t been havoc in the rooms for the past hour as they chatted and sat on their little boxy screens.

“Alright?” Sirius asks as he stands leaning against the doorframe on his phone.

“Since when did we decide to feed them Mcdonalds?” James asks, “And why the hell did you spend half an hour at the vending machine? Just get a boring old mars bar like Remus does.”

“MOONY!” Somebody shouts from behind Remus as half of the kids stand on edge, military stance as they stare towards the doorway. So does Remus, just to see a pigeon wandering into the lobby with a packet of crisps hanging out its mouth. “Haha, made you look, Remus.”

Sirius begins out the door after doing a quick head count as the three of them march along the pavement, Peter keeping up the rear of the straggling kids at the back.

“Ok what was that?” Sirius asks, smiling at Remus so that his whole stomach seemed to gut out of him and flip over and get restitched into his body.

“What was what?” Remus replies.

“That whole ‘MOONY!’ thing and then you and half of the kids, who I all know that you teach from that one cover science lesson I had in your room, all stand on edge as if WW3 was about to begin?”

“Oh, that.” Remus nods, “Just a codeword in case somebody important comes in and I’m watching Mean Girls on my computer or something.”

“MEAN GIRLS?!” Sirius squeals. “I love Mean Girls! Since when have you actually watched it?”

Remus had watched it the morning before going to Brighton while Regulus and James had been playing all love-bird-y, but had a faint memory of telling Sirius he had seen the film from sometime. Maybe he told him that night in Brighton, but it all seemed a million moons away to him now.

“Yeah, me James and… well, me and James watched it together before we went to Brighton.” Remus says. Sirius nods, knowingly before leading the kids across a zebra crossing. While looking to his left, James smacks Remus around the right side of his face. “What was that for?!”

“Shh! Stop bringing up the fling I had with you crush’s brother around little kids! It’s weird!” James whis[per-shouts back.

“Say something?” Sirius asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Nah.” Remus replies, smirking across at James, “Nothing at all.”

“MOONBEAM ICE CREAM-” Somebody’s phone blasts from the back.

“Joe, please turn off that mobile cellular device and stop playing that song before I lob it down a fucking drain.” James threatens. Joe turns off the music as they stand outside the McDonalds that was pulsing with hundreds of people inside. “Run free, little kiddies, and try not to get kidnapped please and don’t leave the McDonalds.” Five of the girls split off from the group and headed into the makeup shop opposite the restaurant. “Ok, we can lose those five.”

The kids disperse into the crowds of people as Remus and the other three ‘adults’ wander upstairs to find a seat where the other coach full of kids were already sat. AT the end of a large row of tables was Marlene, Mary, Regulus and Dorcas, all looking as if they were half dead. The kids were all fighting one another, verbally and physically, as two of the kids from Remus’ maths class were trying to shove each other's heads into the bin while a third smacked them on the buttocks with a tray.

“How was it-” James is broken off.

“Don’t.” Dorcas sighs. “Don’t ever make me get on a coach like that every again.”

“We have to get back somehow.” Mary says, slamming her head onto the table. “Five of you lot, go and see if the food is ready.”

At least half of the kids scurry off, a few pinching food from nearby tables as they went,all ravenous for anything they could get their hands on.

“Hi, Sirius.” Regulus mumbles.

“Hey.” Sirius replies. He shuffles onto the bench that Remus was sat on as their elbows graze past each other. Red flushes Remus’ face as he tries to disguise it.

“GOD IT IS HOT IN HERE!”

“Uh, Remus, it’s literally February.” James replies.

“Close enough.”

Dorcas went downstairs to check on the kids to see that they were rampaging all of the checkouts and each of the air fryers in the back to try and get anything they could. She stared at the chaos and the lousy security guard trying to restrain them before walking right back up the stairs. “They’re not our responsibility anymore, I am declaring it.”

“Were they ever in the first place?” Sirius sighs, leaning back onto the bench and moving slightly further away from Remus.

“Yes, Sirius, they were because we are legal adults and legal teachers. Just.” Marlene replies as Sirius stifles a laugh. Even Regulus cracks a smile.

“You ok, Reg? You look a bit less glum now than you did on the coach.” Mary says as she leans into the man’s face.

“Yeah, glad to not be haunted by the smell of bile anymore and to see those lifeless eyes-”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE COACH DRIVER IS TOTALLY STILL ALIVE!” Dorcas declares as she slams her fist onto the table and shoots daggers across at Regulus.

Remus’ phone vibrates in his pocket as he pulls it out to see a new Instagram DM.

Sirius Black:

I talked things out with Regulus - that’s why I was gone so long. Didn’t want to tell James as he always gets a bit funny when we talk about him :) x

Remus Lupin:

Yay!!! Glad you two sorted things out :) x

“Who’re you messaging?” James asks as he peers across the table and tries to snatch Remus’ phone away from him. Remus draws it back just in time.

“My new Tinder date.”

“Oooh Remus, scoring some fitties, eh?” Marlene whistles.

“And it looks like your fit Tinder date is here in the room, coming up those stairs!” Dorcas applauds as the security guard marches up the stairs screaming with the ruff of Joe’s collar in one hand and the other belonging to Alfie.

“Sorry Sir.” Joe mumbles.

And that’s how the hundred kids and eight ‘almost’ teachers got kicked out of a French McDonalds.

Chapter 53: Chapter Fifty-Three - Have You Ever Kissed Anyone, Remus?

Summary:

Sirius discusses his sexuality with Remus.

TW: homophobia implied

Notes:

THE FAMOUS LINE THE FAMOUS LINE THE FAMOUS LINE but with a different twist...

Also not stealing this, MsKingBean89 you are my absolute saviour I just find this funny pls do not curse the ao3 gods onto me.

“I mean, we did feed all of them without spending too much money like Dumbledore asked.” Sirius sighs as he enters the dorm room and climbs up into his bed, his legs swinging over the edge. Remus envied his confidence not to fall as his beautiful hands gripped the metal part of the bed below him

“Probably because they stole half of it.” James grumbles. He had been the one who had to knock out the security guard so they could all leg it back to the hotel.

“I need a drink.” Sirius says. From behind his pillow, he brandishes a bottle of beer, then another, then another. “Sorry, Wormy, I forgot you were coming on this trip.” there’s silence as Peter doesn't reply. “Peter?”

“He’s in his bed!” James confirms from below Remus. “And sleeping like an ickle little angel.”

“Aww.” Sirius coes. James jumps to take two bottles from Sirius before passing one to Remus. Maybe some alcohol would calm his nerves of falling off of the bunk bed or the bed below him snapping or how he has to sleep in a room with The Sirius Black. Why couldn’t he and James share a room and Peter and Sirius have the other one? Something begged Remus to have him and Sirius share a room but knew that it would all go one way (they kiss and freak and whatever) or the other (Sirius never speaks to him and accidentally walks in on Remus while he’s getting changed and it’s really awkward and embarrassing). Remus did not hope for the latter.

Remus cracks open the bottle and tosses the cap onto the floor, downing half of the bottle and immediately feeling a weight lift off of his heart. “Should we go and check on the kids before we get drunk or whatever?”

“I’ll go check.” James says, giving Remus a dazy thumbs up. “Or Remus can go if he wants to go and meet back up with his super hot Tinder macho man security guard.”

“Don’t! He was so scary I almost shit myself, no joke.” Remus sighs.

“Yeah right, he would have been your type.” James says as he steps out into the corridor. “RIGHT OUR HOSTAGES, GO TO SLEEP OTHERWISE YOU’LL BE SHOT AT DAWN, PUBLIC EXECUTION!”

The door glides shut behind James leaving Sirius and Remus sat opposite one another on each of their respective bunkbeds with Peter’s gentle breath rippling below them. Remus would have thought the man would have snored like a hound, but he really did look somewhat angel-like when sleeping.

The silence was cool settles in the gap between them. Remus didn’t feel like he was going to fall anymore, even when he repositioned himself to get a better look at Sirius and sent the bottle almost toppling over the edge.

Sirius was sat with the bottle in his left hand swirling the contents inside like a whirlpool. His hair is tousled and messy from the dash back to the hotel and his cheeks still rosy from the French coldness. A tiny slip of moon peers through the meek curtains drawn across the small window in the room, casting Sirius eyes back into that cool silver tone, almost the same colour as the light itself but somehow with more elegance; more elegance than the moon or the stars or the whole universe itself

Sirius still stares into the bottle, not taking his eyes away from the liquid. “Have you ever kissed anyone, Remus?” he asks, still to the bottle, still not meeting Remus’ eyes. The words fill the room with something more.

“Yes.” Remus replies.

“Was this before you realised…”

“No.”

“Right.” Sirius says. He takes a large glug from the bottle before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. For not one second could Remus take his eyes from him.

“Why’d you ask?” Remus asks.

Sirius pauses. “Because I’ve been having some… doubts. About my sexuality.”

Pause. The sounds of a whirring engine could he heard from outside along with the distant chatter of the kids in a room near them, but in that moment it felt as if Remus and Sirius were in their own little bubble away from McDonalds theft, dead coach drivers and all of the puke and puke that they had to deal with. They weren’t even in France anymore. Remus wanted to go wherever Sirius would willingly take him.

“Oh.” was the only thing Remus could think of to say.

“Yeah. Big ‘oh’.” Sirius sighs, “It all started a while ago at a wedding with that guy, y’know him - Garret Bennet, at a wedding. We were both drunk and y’know what Garret is like (in plain words he is a bit of a whore but don’t tell him I told you that) he flirts with everyone he comes across and he was, for some reason, at my cousin Andromeda’s wedding. Walburga wasn’t there as she was on some trip with all of her posh lady friends, so I thought I was safe. I went to the bathroom and Garret was in there and it all just kind of came over me in a massive rush and I asked if it was ok to kiss him and he agreed and even for a second, Remus I swear it was only for one split second, it happened that in that moment Regulus walked in. I know he wouldn’t be angry or anything because, well you’ve seen the guy, but it still felt… odd. I mean, you wouldn’t want your parents to walk in on you kissing someone else or even James for that matter, as he’s kind of like a sibling to you. Anyways, Garret dashed off and Regulus and I never talked about it. He brings it up when he gets drunk and he knows how much it used to bother me. I think that’s why we got into that fight in Brighton. I know that’s why we got into that fight, my brain was wired wrong because of the alcohol and it just got into my system. That was the first time we’d bought it up in a year. I don’t know what Regulus believes about me know but I honestly don’t give a flying fuck. But I’ve been thinking about it though, not kissing Garret in particular of course, but just… the idea of kissing other boys. It was something Walburga always shoved down and never talked about, and my Father was never any good with it either as he was always locked away in one case or another so I never really knew. I didn’t think there was any other way out.”

The gaping hole of silence returns. This time Remus is the one to look away from Sirius while Sirius does all of the staring back, awaiting a reply or some comfort or anything.

“I kissed Garret, too.” Remus says.

“You have?” Sirius half-laughs. Remus giggles slightly back.

“Yeah, he gave me a raging hickey. But it went nothing further than that, as we all know, Garret is a whore but is so good at kissing!”

Sirius laughs at that again as he drains the rest of his beer before pulling out another can. The sound of heavy footsteps sounds up the corridor.

“Moony!” Sirius mumbles. “Hey… Moony… that’s actually a good nickname.”

“God, not you coming up with nicknames for me too, now.” Remus sighs, smiling to himself as he tries to not let the red reach his cheeks. “But yes, Moony, James is coming back. Y’know what, I fancy a Mars bar. I’m going to go down to the vending machine.”

“I’ll come with you. They don’t sell Mars bars in the vending machine, though. I checked earlier. Want to go on a walk to try and find one, Moony?”

“Sure.”

Chapter 54: Chapter Fifty-Four - Range Ta Petite Saucisse, Connard!

Summary:

Sirius and Remus go on a little walk to find chocolate.

Notes:

don't ask about the title, I think it's funny.

I can't write for my life help.

The night air hits cold against Remus’ skin, despite how much he had tried to stay warm in his cream coloured jacket and thick grey cardigan underneath. It was quite a look he had thrown together with mismatched socks and brown converse but it was all in a quick attempt to sneak out without any of the kids noticing. James had done a good job of threatening them with murder until they all shut up. When they had walked down the corridor to the stairwell James had been in one of the boys’ rooms telling them that they shall be lobbed from the Eiffel Tower if they even make a squeak while James was trying to get his beauty sleep in the morning.

“God, it’s cold.” Sirius grumbles as he rubs his hands together. “Now, we can’t go that way towards McDonalds as we are wanted criminals so how about-”

“We could just wander around for a bit. Unless you’re too cold.” Remus suggests.

“Sounds good to me. I always like a good wander. One time I just took random buses and trains until I got to Graves End and had to ring Walburga. They were all pissed at me and confiscated my Xbox.” Sirius explains as they start down the street. It was deserted with the meek light of the lamp posts shining down onto them, much like that night in Brighton all of those days ago. Remus thought it felt like years, a distant memory from a past life, but it was as if it was all happening again.

“You have an Xbox?” Remus laughs, “God, I thought only thirteen year old boys had those. Please tell me you play something good like ‘Halo’ or something.”

“Nah, Minecraft for me.” Sirius replies. “I like the blocks.

Remus pauses before bursting out laughing again, “You like… the blocks?”

“Yeah! I like the simplicity of it. Aside from those stupid creepers that always creep up on me in caves. And the warden. And the ender dragon. And basically anything else about it. One of my year seven classes introduced me to it so I bought it and loved it straight away, that was the lesson where the whole fire incident kind of… happened. Here, I think this place might have some.” Sirius says as he points towards a shop a few metres down the street and steps inside.

Sirius was correct as there was a large stand displaying a variety of chocolate bars. Remus reaches for a Mars bar. “Want anything?”

 

“Double decker for me, please. I’ll pay for mine.” Sirius fumbles in his pocket.

“Don’t be silly, I’ll buy it.” Remus smiles before walking to the self checkouts. He tries to scan one of the chocolate bars but then it says that he hadn’t in fact put the item in the bagging area when he very much had, as the mars bar was sat right there on the scales. He tried to scan the double decker but that, too, wouldn’t scan or be weighed on the machine. There was nobody else working in the shop or around the self checkouts to notice when Sirius slipped the two chocolate bars into his pockets and strode out of the door.

“Guess neither of us had to pay then.” Sirius shrugs, doing a little skip as they progressed further up the pavement. “Wanna go this way? I don’t want to see any of those idiots until all of them are definitely asleep and won’t come waking me up because they miss their Mummy.”

“Yeah, sure.” Remus nods. He fumbles with the wrapper on his mars bar as the tips of his fingers had gone numb. Sirius magics another bottle of beer from under his coat and pops it open with his thumbnail, taking half a bottles worth of liquid into his mouth. “Where the hell did you get that from?” Remus asks.

“Stole it. Remus, you know I am the master of disguise and theft by now, but I shall bask in the glory as you tell me how sneaky I am.” Sirius laughs. “Let’s go through here, it looks pretty.”

Sirius gestures towards the open gate to a narrow park, the tall pine trees blocking out the remainder of the moon so only glints of stars could be seen. The trees encased a stoned pathway that led deeper into the park as a flaming orange fox darted from one tree to the other.

“Sure.” Remus replies. “Might it be a bit dark though? I can’t see any lamposts.”

“Nah, I used to come here a bit on trips to France with my secondary school. In actual fact, I got caught peeing behind that bush over there and my french teacher started shouting ‘range ta petite saucisse, connard!’ at me.” Sirius says the French part of the sentence with such elegance Remus almost lost his footing.

“You speak French?” Remus asks, utterly bewildered at how Sirius could grow even more sexy.

“Uh, yeah. That and Spanish and German and a bit of Latin.”

“God, I thought you would’ve taught languages instead, then.”

“Nah, Science is better because I get to put on videos the whole time. Have you heard that one about the different types of radiation? It’s a vibe.”

“Nope. Would you sing it for me?”

“Have to get me drunk-er for that to work, Remus. Although, I’m not too great at Science since the whole fire incident. Surprised I didn’t get fired.” Sirius nods. They pass under a tunnel of trees as Remus almost loses his footing from being submerged into total darkness.

“How are your burns now? I know they were pretty bad that night when we did the baking.” Remus asks. He had forgotten entirely about the scabs peeling from Sirius’ back and had almost forgotten the whole fire thing in the first place.

“Ok-ish I guess. I still look like I’ve been clawed by a werewolf on some parts of my back but other than that it’s ok. My ankle still goes a bit funny from time to time as I think I might’ve tripped into the fire when it all went kaboom. I don’t remember much of it, do you?”

“Yeah, I remember a bit.” Remus says, not wanting to give too much of his motifs away.

“D’you mind if I sit down for a bit, ankles going dodgy? There should be a bench somewhere by the lake.” Sirius says, “Ah, here.”

The tunnel opens up onto a wide glimmering lake, the lampposts surrounding the waters glimmering golden light amongst the waves so that they danced under the twinkling night sky. The bench itself sat on a hill overlooking the sight below with no light other than the moon illuminating its rotting wooden panels and the brass plaque with the name long scratched away. Sirius sits on the bench, his black hair rippling in the breese. Remus sits next to him, around a foot apart, with his heart hammering in his chest and encroaching into the top of his throat. He didn’t want to sit with Sirius as at least while walking there was always something to make conversation about or to keep your eyes focussed on and it didn’t matter if you made one bad choice of body language as hopefully the other person wouldn’t see. With sitting down, there was nothing else to focus your mind on other than the view around you or how well your hands are sitting and how the hell you had ended up in this situation. Remus didn’t want to sit with Sirius and had just wanted a mars bar from the vending machine.

“View is nice.” Remus nods as he pats his thigh, immediately regretting the movement.

“How do you do it?” Sirius's voice sounds in the silence, a little more than a whisper.

“Do what?” Remus replies.

“Live with such passion for who you are and what you love? I’ve tried to accept it, I really have, but it just won’t come. My heart has just been eating away at me inside to talk to someone about this and I just wanted it to be you, Remus. Every time I see you something in me just opens up and all I want to do is talk with you, like this. I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

“It’s not, really, I get that feeling too.” Remus smiles. “I get that feeling a lot.”

“Sometimes I just get scared of that… I’m in love with you, but I know that would be impossible.”

Remus turns to face Sirius to see he’s staring out at the lake, avoiding his eye, his fingers drumming on the metal armrest of the chair.

“I get that…. Too.” Remus sighs, contemplating his decisions.

“You do?” Sirius turns to stare at him with that god forsaken sliver of moonbeam in his eye.

“Yeah.” Remus whispers, “I always have and I’m pretty sure I always will.”

Chapter 55: Chapter Fifty-Five - Strawberry Tequila

Summary:

Sirius leaves unexpectedly.

Notes:

I really need to write more of this before my irl inspirations for this fic leave arghhh wish me luck

Remus awoke to the feeling of Sirius’ cold hand on his flushed cheeks, just the way it had been the night prior. He wanted to relive it all again, the soft hand on Remus’ face as Remus leaned in, pushing Sirius’ hair behind his ear as he examined every crease and tone of his face, making a mental note of just how gorgeous he really is. The softness of his carmex-flavoured lips on Remus’. It was a short kiss, but it felt like Sirius was still kissing Remus five hours later as he wiped his thumb across his chin and bottom lip. The cracked and chapped texture met his touch as he realised that it wouldn’t happen again, not in a million years.

…

“Remus.” Sirius whispers into the tiny gap of air between them, their noses almost still touching. Sirius’ hand still rests on his cheekbone, warm meeting cold. “Remus. I-I have to go.”

“What?” Remus asks. Sirius’ hand moves away from his face but Remus’ still stands on the back of Sirius’ neck. “Where? Sirius-”

 

Sirius stares down at the open screen of his phone that had been resting on his thigh, a new chat screen with what looked to be a hundred unopened messages glaring up at him. Sirius picks up the phone and tucks it into his coat.

“Sirius, what’s going on?” Remus asks but Sirius was already making his way into the trees by now, halfway round the bend so that only the backs of blurry legs could be seen. “Sirius Black!” Remus tries to follow Sirius, as fast as he could go until he was at full running pace, but by the time he reached the gates to the park and stared around, left and right, no sign of any life could be seen on any of the surrounding roads or pavements. Sirius was gone.

Under the faint glow of the lamplight above him, Remus stared down at his hands, hands that had previously been wrapped around Sirius’ neck moments before. He could still feel the gentle touch of his skin like a ghost beneath his fingertips, one that he could never quite reach again.

He had no clue where Sirius might’ve gone. Back to the hotel? To the train station? To fucking mars with Garret Bennet? To Graves End and back again?

Remus pulls out his phone from his pocket and opens Instagram.

 

Remus Lupin:

Sirius? Are you ok? Why did you run off like that? I’m not angry, I promise, I just need to know that you are ok.

 

He tucks the phone back into his pocket and stares up at the lamp above him. His toes felt numb under the thin woolen socks that they were encased in, his black combat boots tipped with frost. A faint glisten of a drop of snow floated down n the lamplight and sat on the end of his scuffed boots as it melted just as quikly as it had came into existance.

Remus walked back down the road the way to the hotel, walked straight past the sleeping receptionist with his head layed flat on the counter, scanned his keycard in the lift, ignored all of the laughing and snickering coming from the dorms to his left and right before a figure at the end of the corridor caught his eye.

Regulus Black lay with his back to his dorm’s door, staring intently at one of the lights in the ceiling as if it helf all of the mysteries to life.

“Don’t get so worked up about it.” Regulus said, barely above a whisper, as Remus made his way closer to the man, “Sirius had always been like that. He gets scared and runs when he feels a sense of vulnerability. He’e even worse when he’s drunk.”

Remus stared down on the man to see the half empty tequila bottle in his left hand and a half smoked cigarette in his right.

“I don’t care that he ran away from me. I just need to know if he’s ok.” Remus said, a tint of anger in his voice.

Remus did really care about how Sirius had walked away, had he been cross with Remus for kissing him? Did he regret his actions? Had he faked all of those angry messages on the screen that kept flashing up?

“Forget it. Sirius will never have a relationship. He’s too… flirty and doesn’t like to stick to things. He’s a free spirit, that one, an unruly hairball of fluff.” Regulus says. He takes a long draw on his cigarette and with every millisecond that passes, Remus feels his mind tense up and his fists turn into balls.

“Why are you even out here being a depressed little fuck?” Remus asks as he toes the tequila bottle with the end of his boot, “Strawberry tequila? Like the stuff James got in Brighton?”

“Finally the flesh reflects the madness within…” Regulus sighs, “Yes, I did buy it in commemoration of that night and no, I am not ashamed of it, taunt me all you will. I am not in denial about being in love with James Potter, nor am I ashamed that he is another man and I myself am one too. My brother, in other fact, probably wouldn’t mind being in love with you if it didn’t mean he had to be in love with a boy. You… the other way round.”

Remus’ brain whirred. How could Regulus have caught onto that? Had Sirius told Regulus where he was going? Was Regulus the one sending those messages?

“I don’t… I’m not- he’s not in love with me, why would you say that, freak?” Remus asks, his voice retreating back to a whisper as a door at the other end of the corridor had grown slightly ajar from the moments before where he had raised his voice.

“You smell like Sirius. He always wears that god awful granny perfume and the one pound deodorant from Savers and the mix is so you can identify him from a mile away. You also have a bit of Carmex on your lip. And I saw you two go out together and he hasn’t come back so I found that something must have happened, adding up all of the evidence.” Regulus said it with such calmness it made Remus’ blood boil even more.

“Alright Sherlock Holmes.” Remus sighs, “You win.” he bites back his tongue as Regulus blows a plume of smoke out of his mouth and takes another glug of the bottle. Remus slips back into the dorm room where Peter was still angelically asleep and James looked to be in the same manner, aside from he looked as if he were sleeping in the deepest pits of hell with his snores rumbling the whole universe.

He kicked off his boots and coat and cardigan and changed into a pair of shorts and clambered into his bed, topless, pulling the duvet right up to his chin. He opened his eyes to see the opposite bunk bed empty, the remainder of the beer bottle spilt across the sheets in a sticky mess. Remus would have to clean it up in the morning.

Chapter 56: Chapter Fifty-Six - Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Summary:

Remus and the remaining six teachers are left with a hundred kids in France, stranded in the snow, with no clue where Sirius has gone.

Notes:

I wish it was winter :(

Also James is SUCH a hello kitty pajamas girl icl

As Remus sat up in his bed, he found that Peter was still blissfully asleep and that James was prodding the underneath of Remus’ mattress with his toes again, his back propped up at a weird angle so that his short body could reach.

“Morning Remu!” James sang, “Or should I say, Moony?”

“James.” Remus croaks hoarsely. The prodding stops from beneath his mattress as the room is filled with silence. A few seconds later, the creak of James’ mattress could be heard as his cold feet padded on the floorboard. His flop of messy brown hair could be seen ascending his small ladder. Remus shuffled up further up the bed, making room for James to sit down. As he did, James stared out across the bed opposite to see the exact same sight as Remus.

“Oh.” James says. He sits cross legged on the mattress.

“We went out last night and then he left. I scared him.” Remus says fighting back tears, “I fucking scared him. I’m like a fucking werewolf. People always just run away from me and run and run because they can’t stand to be near me.”

“Remus that’s not-”

“I thought he was here right next to me a second ago, before I realised he’s left me. I don’t know where he is, James, and I’m fucking petrified.” Remus shakily exhaled. “And the worst part about it all is that I don’t know where we are now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see him again.”

“Look, I don’t think you’ll have to see him for a little while longer than you were meant to as wherever he’s gone, it’s probably back to England, and if he got there before all of the trains are cancelled-” James rambles.

“James, what are you talking about?” Remus asks.

“Look out of the window.”

With a trembling palm, Remus tried to not look down at the drop as he shimmied past James and opened one of the curtains to the outside world, the blinding white light blasting into the room.

The window was covered in a layer of icy frost, the sight of snowy white streets a blurry painting set out in front of him.

“Oh shit.” Remus mumbles before realising the extreme of this situation, “OH SHIT!”

“Very oh shit.” James mumbles.

The sound of mumbling could be heard from Peter’s bed as he sat up from his sleep and yawned. “Morning you guys.” Peter’s head raises to stare up at the two on the bed above him and then across to the window. “Oh. It snowed.”

“Yes, we are stuck with a hundred savage kids in France with snow all around us and seven teachers. This is going to go swimmingly.” James exhales. “We better talk to the others about it and try to tell the kids this in the most calm way possible.”

“Why, what’s so bad with a bit of snow?” Peter yawns as he swings his legs around so they hang over the side of his bed.

James and Remus stare at each other, clearly both remembering the situation that had happened in early December, at the start of third period where the kids had to sit through a whole two more periods until they could go out in the snow.

“OH MY GOD, IT’S SNOWING!” somebody shouts at the top of their lungs from further down the corridor.

“Oh great.” James mumbled. “Peter, we’re trusting you to go out on snowman duty in about… twenty minutes.”

“Oh yay! I love snowmen!” Peter claps his hands excitedly as he heaves himself from his bed and begins to open his suitcase from under his bed.

There’s a bang on their bedroom door as Dorcas’ face appears, looking half bedraggled. “I’m getting flashbacks from the third of December.”

“Me too.” James and Remus both said in unison.

“Seven teachers versus a hundred of them with snow on their side.” James sighs. Dorcas raises an eyebrow. “Sirius is gone.”

Remus’ stomach churned at the mention of Sirius. He could be anywhere right now, stranded in the snow or on a train with no way of getting to England or back to the hotel. Remus had bigger issues to worry about, though, as he knew what happened on December third would be a whole lot worse knowing that he had to spend the full day with the kids this time.

“Oh. Right.” Dorcas sighs, “I’ll try to message him, don’t know if we’ll get a reply though, you know what he’s like. We’re sacrificing Marlene to go on snowman duty from our district, who’s contending for yours?”

“I will not volunteer as tribute as Peter’s name got drawn out of the bowl.” James sighs.

“I like the snow!” Peter cheers as he pulls on his third pair of bottoms. “I used to always go out in it on Christmas day as it always snowed in Scotland-”

“OH MY GOD, MISS MEADOWES IT’S SNOWING!” a girl screams as her head pokes out from the door diagonally across from there.

“NO SHIT SHERLOCK!” James shouts back, having clearly taken much delight in being able to swear at the kids.

“Can we go out in it!?” A boy’s voice says from further down the corridor.

“Yeah, Mr Pettigrew and Miss McKinnon are going to come out with you in ten minutes so get your coat and boots on.” Dorcas shouts back as even more kids have woken up, each remarking the same thing about there being frozen rain outside.

“Morning.” Regulus says as he stands beside Dorcas in the door frame without a single hair out of place. James shuffles on his mattress and readjusts a few strands of his hair and his glasses before glancing down at his Hello Kitty pink pajama bottoms and matching top. Regulus had been staring at it too, in his satin black pajamas and both Remus and Dorcas felt as if they were interrupting something.

“Y’know what, Petes.” Regulus says. “I’ll join you out in the snow too.”

“And me!” James pipes up as he hurries down the ladder and makes for his suitcase.

“See you in ten?” Regulus asks as James enthusiastically nods.

“God bless your souls.” Dorcas says. “I’ll get Mary to ring Dumbledore as that snow is not going to melt for a good few days.”

“Righty ho.” Remus says. Dorcas gives him a quick smile before closing the door behind her.

“WAIT FOR MEEE!” Peter shouts as he shoves on the other one of his wellies in his silly little bobble hat, and makes down the corridor after Dorcas.

Remus sits on his bunk bed as the sensation of him falling over the side washed over him once more. Shakily, he climbs down the ladder and sits on James’ bed beside his suitcase, examining the other man’s face closely. “I can’t tell if I’m imagining things or are you and Regulus going to go and kiss in the snow and make pretty snow angels together. Just by the way you suddenl;y decided that you’d be willing to be killed by a hundred teenagers in the snow in an incident worse than December third just because you and Regulus have some secret telepathic code that I don’t understand.”

“Maybe.” James replies, winking. “Come out Remus, it’ll be fun!”

James had managed to put on all of his warm clothes over his pink hello kitty pajamas and looked very cozied up. Remus knew that he couldn’t just sit in the room by himself all day and it might be fun to try and forget about Sirius for a while in the snow.

“Ok. I’ll be out in a sec.” Remus says. James gives him a very enthusiastic thumbs up before dashing out the door.

WIth a shaking palm, Remus reaches for his phone on the windowsill, a few drops of condensation on the screen.

Remus Lupin:

Sirius, I know you haven’t seen my last message but are you ok? The snow is cold and harsh and I hope if you’ve planned to take a train or bus somewhere it hasn’t been cancelled. Please just tell me where you are and I’ll walk to you.

 

Remus Lupin:

I love you.

MESSAGES HAVE FAILED TO SEND. PLEASE RESEND MESSAGES OR WAIT UNTIL THE RECEIVER HAS A BETTER NETWORK CONNECTION.

Chapter 57: Chapter Fifty-Seven - Peter Is A Snowball

Summary:

The kids in the snow VS Remus being in an absolute wreak about not knowing the whereabouts of Sirius.

However, when Remus did finally get his boots and coat on, dressing up in over a hundred layers as he was very prone to the cold, of course James and Regulus had fucked off somewhere playing happy couples, Marlene was in a very vicious snowball fight with five of the kids and there was a recognisable Peter-shaped-snowman beside the doorway to the hotel. All of the cars were snowed in meaning there was no traffic and nobody else apart from the savage hundred kids had dared to go out in the snow so they had the whole street to themselves in the six AM morning frost. Remus’ boots squelched underfoot as he pulled his blue bobble hat further down over his ears and rubbed his hands together.

“SIR! CATCH!” Felix shouts as a snowball lands right smack bang in the middle of Remus’ face. “Uh, I didn’t mean for it to go there you were kinda meant to catch it.”

Remus pondered his decisions, a) shout at the kid and make him feel awful, b) move on and do nothing. Remus scrapped both of these ideas and gathered a massive amount of snow in his gloved palms, compacted it before lobbing it back at Felix’s head, leaving Remus with a sense of pride.

“Alright down there lobbing snowballs at thirteen year olds, Remus?” Dorcas shouts from above where she had opened one of the windows, the top of her black hair poking through the window

“Stop viewing and get your arse down here to help me!” Remus shouts back up, throwing another snowball at the winter so a few fragments of ice went into the room.

“Can’t - got a hundred angry parents to ring.” Dorcas sighs as the blaring ringtone of Justin Beiber’s ‘Baby’ blasts from Dorcas’ phone. She sighs before closing the window and the faint sound of her answering a phone call could be heard.

After what felt like an hour, it began to snow a little lightly again as Remus sat and watched from a windowsill a little further down from the hotel where he had decided to sit, just on the verge of where he had declared the border for the kids to stay in. Peter has till not broken free from his snowman and Marlene was helping a few of the girls build an igloo while a massive snowball fight had occurred between a mixture of the kids, all ducking behind cars and building snow blockades to try and prevent from being hit. Remus smiled out at all of them. They didn’t have a care in the world.

He pulls his phone from his pocket to see one new message from his Mum attached with a photo.

Mum:

Hiya Love,
The cat in the snow! Don’t see why you gave it such a weird name but a cat is a cat! Hope James is well and let him know I will be making some roast potatoes for when he gets back! Fingers crossed the snow clears a bit quickly so we can get you back in rainy England. Love, Mum Xxx

And below the message was an attached picture of Ziggy looking half petrified of the snow outside with a little knitted jumper his Dad must have made for her as a pull echoed in Remus’ chest. He would do anything to go home from the trip and just see Ziggy again, knowing that everything was normal and he didn’t have a hundred and one stupid kids to look after, and one extra boy who was the stupidest of the lot.

The hours passed and a few of the kids went inside for breakfast and came right back out again. A group of the girls had gone inside, claiming to be too cold and knew that they had teh whole of the corridor to themselves to film Tik Toks in with a busy Mary and Dorcas who will not be supervising them. Peter was at the bottom of the road in a giant compacted ice ball that the kids had added onto the bottom of the snowman as he went rolling like a bowling ball while they all pushed. Remus got it on video and sent it to Sirius.

Remus Lupin:

Look at Wormtail! Hope this cheers you up x

MESSAGES HAVE FAILED TO SEND. PLEASE RESEND MESSAGES OR WAIT UNTIL THE RECEIVER HAS A BETTER NETWORK CONNECTION.

Remus tucks his phone away as a snowball narrowly misses his face.

“That’s it for me for today, guys. I’ll ask Dorcas and Mary to come out wiht you later but give us a shout of James and Regulus come back.” Remus says as he raises his hands in surrender.

“But Sir, you haven’t even got into one fight yet! And you haven’t make a snowman, or made snow angels, or even had a go at pushing big old rat guy over there in the giant ice ball!” Maisy protests as she flops down face first into the snow. Maxxie appears and gives her an appreciative pat on the head.

“I also saw Mr Black and Mr Potter go back into the hotel roughly… an hour ago, if you were wondering.” Maxxie adds as she grabs one of Maisy’s ankles, a look of terror washing over the other girl’s face.

“Uh oh.” Maisy whispers as Maxxie slings one of her legs over her shoulder and drags her around into the snow as Maisy tries and rolls away from her. The two break into another heated snowball fight.

Remus laughs to himself before crunching his way back up to the hotel and eventually settling into the warm heat of the lobby. He removes his hat and ties the two string ends that were the earflaps together around his neck before removing his gloves, his fingers still numb from the cold.

The receptionist at the front desk has finally woken up, still looking half dazed.

“Excuse me, are you Mr Lupin?” The receptionist asks, “because I have a call for you on voicemail as they claim that they didn’t have your personal number and felt it informal to contact you through social media for this very particular matter…?”

Remus felt his heart skip a step. It was Sirius. Sirius had finally called - perhaps he lost his phone or something or it ran out? - and was alive and well and just wanted to ring Remus to let him know that he is OK. Sirius was fine. Sirius was all fine.

“O-ok.” Remus stammers before reaching for the phone in the man’s hand.

“I’ll give you some privacy.” The receptionist makes his way into the back room leaving just Remus in the fancy reception.

“YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE.” The answer phone beeps as there is a crackle from the other end.

“H-hi, Remus I just wanted to let you know that I- uh, well, if you’re not back in time for lessons on Monday I don’t mind teaching your Math classes, I mean- uh, I’m not that good but I’ll give it a whirl!” fucking Garret Bennet. “Sorry, I didn’t know if it was right to add you on Instagram or whatever - you came up on my recommended friends list, I swear I’m not a stalker - but I just wanted to let you know that the offer is there. I hope the ice clears up soon and- uh, you have a good rest of your trip.”

“YOU HAVE ZERO NEW MESSAGES.”

The phone clatters to the floor.

Chapter 58: Chapter Fifty-Eight - Snowed In

Summary:

A summary of the three days in France.

The whole day passed and James ordered the kids KFC. Three Deliveroo drivers rocked up to the hotel each with a massive bag of food followed by twelve more, all staring at the one man taking it all in (Remus) and questioning why he wasn’t severely overweight and whether he would have a heart attack from eating a hundred KFCs. Remus went out instead to buy a meal deal why everybody else was eating as chicken kinda went against the whole concept of being vegetarian. He approaches the same shop he and Sirius had visited the other night, still no employees or shopkeeper. The familiar lights and squeak of the floor as he exited the cold sent shivers up his spine and for a brief moment, as he reached for a cheese sandwich from the fridge, caught a glimpse of Sirius’ reflection in the glass. He snatches a Mars bar before walking out the door and back to the hotel.

The next day came about. Regulus had come to sleep in James’ and Remus' room for the next after cleaning up Sirius’ bed, but he had no need to as he spent most of the time in James’ bed.

 

Remus Lupin:

Right, since when did you two start doing all this again?!

 

James raises an eyebrow sas Regulus nestles deeper into the crook of his shoulder and, once knowing that Regulus wasn’t looking, sticks his middle finger up at Remus. Remus stuck one right back at him.

The snow hadn’t melted so again, the kids all played the whole day in the frosty ice, a few more of the girls stayed back and from what Remus could hear, were having a full on rave in their hotel room. He had gone in and joined them with the Macarena and then got kicked out when WAP came on. The day after followed up pretty the same with a fresh load of snow overnight.

By Tuesday the snow had settled down a little bit more with the roads being able to be shoveled and a few daring drivers set off down the road. With most of the snow gone, the kids grew bored.

Nobody had gotten hold of Sirius. Regulus had called their Mother and she hadn’t seen him either. Remus came to the conclusion that he was dead somewhere and would show up in a few weeks on the news, but he didn’t cry about it. He actually felt nothing around the subject as hour after hour he expected himself to just break down.

They had spoken to the kids one night of deliveroo McDonalds, whizzing from door to door, explaining how they were planning to try and head back on Wednesday and if the ferry did get cancelled or it started to snow again, there was a hotel close to the port where they already had booked the rooms for. Dumbledore had advised against it, but surprisingly Walburga had convinced him in one word to book the rooms which Remus was thankful for. He didn’t want to spend a night on the street with a hundred kids, all wondering who knows where and eating random things they found on the road. They packed their stuff up on Tuesday and the rest of the teachers aside from James and Remus went down to the Eiffel Tower on three open topped buses. Regulus sent James a photo of Peter being taped down to one of the seats within the first hour.

James and Remus had been tasked with looking under all of the beds and in any nooks and crannies for bits that the kids might have forgotten to avoid any need to go back to the hotel. They had finished six of the boy’s rooms and had found some very disgusting items (several socks that looked to be molding, molding KFC buckets and McDonalds packets, rude drawings, somebody’s cell phone that had a lock screen of an anime girl, a condom (Remus panicked and just threw it out the window, not wanting to confront the boy who it belonged to so rightly disposed of the evidence then panicked that he might have unsafe sex and fell into a pit of questioning his own life experiences) and a few other bits that I probably can’t say on here without calling it Dead Dove.

“Oh shit.” James mumbles as he pulls something out from under the bed.

“What?” Remus asks.

“OH SHIT poor Maxxie.” James says again as he brandishes a piece of paper.

“Oh shit, what’s happened to her?” Remus asks, a little anxious at what one of his favourite students had got herself into.

“No, this is a love note she wrote, or something of the sort. She got rejected.” James says. He passes the note to Remus who reads it, a little shocked at how cute the getsure was and the little scribble in the corner saying that the other girl wasn’t interested.

“Awh, I feel bad for her. I remotely like Maxxie, she’s nice.” Remus sighs as he tucks the letter into his pocket. Maybe he’d copy it out someday and send it to Sirius.

They moved through the rest of the rooms and found countless pieces of junk immersed in every corner (how? They had only been there a little less than five days and it looked as if they had lived in this place their whole lives) before the kids came back in from the trip with all of their lost belongings returned to them.

James and Remus lay in their room alone as the five teachers that went on the trip had gone out for a pint in the pub. Remus had pieced information together to gather it was not a very good day from the teachers as all of the kids were off their nut, most with blue tongues and slush puppy cups, probably the reason they were so off the wall on extra food colourings and sugar.

“Heard anything from Sirius?” James asks as he zips up his suitcase and leaves it at the end of his bed. James knew that Remus hadn’t, but still felt it polite to ask anyway. Remus shook his head, “He’ll be ok, you know. Reg says that he has to pull a stunt like this once in a while otherwise he feels too trapped and gets all agitated.”

 

“I know. Sirius told me about the time when he went to Gravesend on a whim.” Remus says, staring up at the blank ceiling, “I’m just scared of what I done that night and I’m afraid I have scared him.”

“What did you do? There’s nothing scary about you, Remus.”

“I kissed him.”

Chapter 59: Chapter Fifty-Nine: Voyage Back To Shitty Weather England!

Summary:

Regulus seems to carry a bad omen with whatever coach he gets onto while the kids develop theories as to Sirius' whereabouts.

Notes:

ok guys long chapter coming but I have several excuses as to why this chapter has came out so late (THE AO3 CURSE HAS HIT I FEAR BUT IT HASN'T HIT ME?!)

Well, basically the tow teachers who I base Remus and Sirius on for this fic (don't ask, I'm a massive nerd) have both managed to leave my school. Great. Hazaar! This means I have had nothing to base this fic off of for the past three-ish weeks and I have nothing else to base it off of from now on!

I have also got a lifesized Remus Lupin cardboard cutout in my room that i spent 6+ hours making so yippee

I may upload this more, I may not, we shall see....

Wednesday morning James went along the corridor and banged on every single one of the kid’s doors. “WAKE UP KIDDY WINKS, HOLIDAY HAS RAN OVERTIME AND WE HAVE A FERRY TO CATCH!”

“FUCK OFF!” several of them shouted, and when they did do this James would give the door an even harder bang.

“Do you really have to be doing all of that? I have a hangover.” Regulus mumbles as he rubs his temples.

“Yes, you always have a hangover, Reg.” James shouts as he continues to bang on the rest of the doors.

Remus had gotten up an hour earlier than he had been for the past few days to make sure he had gathered everything and packed it into his suitcase. Upon checking underneath the bed, Remus found the Mars bar wrapper that he and Sirius had bought on their first night in France. He shoves it into his pocket, a keepsake, trying to not let the water spill from his eyes as he zipped up a pair of shorts into his suitcase (Remus had checked the weather forecast beforehand and it said that France was meant to be sunny and not snow). He drags his suitcase along with James’ down the corridor and into the lift, Peter filing down behind him.

“Hey, Remus!” Peter grins as he pokes at all of the buttons on the lift.

“Hi, Pete. Had a good trip?” Remus asks, trying to make small talk.

“Only the best. I’m surprised Dumbledore let me come, he must really see some potential in me!” Peter smiles as the lift begins to descend, making Remus’ stomach drop and he had the very idea to faint in that very moment, his legs catching him before he could collapse on the floor.

Two coaches, one with a new bus driver, had pulled up outside the hotel with the doors open, the driver to the first coach sat rubbing his hands together over a hot flask of tea.

“HEY REMU!” somebody shouts from above as a squeaking window opens. Remus looks up to see James dangling out of the window. “Decided to have a little switcheroo, my old friend, so me , Reg and Petesy will take one coach and you can take the other! Ran it all past Dumbledore and he says it’s good.”

“But I-” Remus tries to shout back before the window closes and James is gone. Remus loads the suitcases into the coach before pulling the coat tighter around him. Kids start pouring out of the lobby to the hotel, each handing Remus their bags as he loads them in, Pete standing beside him doing no help but jabbering in his ear.

“Heard anything from Sirius yet?” Peter says after a long rant about goodness knows what, Remus wasn’t listening.

“No.” Remus sighs as he heaves another case into the coach.

“Well, I think he personally has run away to Ibeza or something. Or maybe the year sevens got him. Gosh, those year sevens are so scary I would actually dash away if they came near me. I mean, the year eights aren’t that much better but those year sevens that day outside your classroom, did you hear them? They said words I’ve only heard my Father say that time with the shoe!” Peter rants as he leans on the side of the bus, pulling his bobble hat further down over his ears and blowing hot air into his hands. Remus’ own gloved ones were losing feeling in the tips.

“Cool.” Remus replies.

After a while, Remus managed to load up two coaches with the help of Marlene and Dorcas who had both caught sight of his suffering while Marlene distracted Peter and Dorcas took half of the luggage onto the other coach. Peter was thrilled to have someone new to talk about his fresh off the press Sirius conspiracy theories Every time Peter mentioned hypothermia, or a killer pigeon, or a killer person, Remus involuntarily flinched until he could just play it off as his body shivering from the cold.

The kids had gathered back in the reception area of the building as all of the snow had turned to a thick brown sludge and the streets had been scooped of their only source of joy meaning that they all had to go back to the hell-hole of the school they had come from. Most of them seemed to have enjoyed the trip and they, too, had also been generating their own theories on Sirius’ departure, some of which were much more whacky than even Peter’s.

“I reckon he’s actually found out he’s the king of Spain and next week we’ll see him in a crown.”

“Or maybe he’e been kidnapped! But then, who would want to kidnap Mr Black anyway? Unless it’s some weird kinky thing his girlfrie-”

“Or maybe he turned into a massive black dog and starts, like accompanying his wolf-friend on nights out! And they have another friend who’s a deer and another who’s a rat and it all goes so well until there’s this one teacher who they hate and they lure him under a tree but, like, the tree is really violent and it hits the teacher and it’s all arghh! And there’s blood and everyone dies.”

“What the helly, that’s like, such a bad theory. Well anyways, maybe he joined the Russian mafia-”

The theories were drummed into Remus’ brain the whole way back; even once he got off the coach to hand over the fifty passports, accompanied by Marlene, he could hear all of it coming through an open window. The stories made him feel sick.
The ferry didn’t help this either as Remus now had the joys of sitting by a window seat, meaning he had to overlook the sheer drop from the edge of the coach (that was parked right next to the edge of the ferry) into the choppy waters below, a good fifty feet.

“MISS MCKINNON, IMAGINE IF MR BLACK, NOT THE DISAPPEARING ONE THE OTHER FELLAH, FELL INTO THOSE WATERS!” somebody shouts from the back, a wave of giggles erupting from elsewhere on the coach.

The ferry hits a wave as the whole ferry bobs up and down, the kids chorussing various ‘ARGHSH’ between themselves as this happens.

Marlene ponders for their shouting to dial down before turning around from her seat beside Dorcas, shouting back, “Well, I’m sure that won’t happen.” before turning to Dorcas, “But Reg hasn’t had swimming lessons, so it is a very high possibility. Considering our luck on this coach this time around, I think Reg is the bad omen. Hopefully James will keep him in check.”

Mary’s mobile phone rings, the default Iphone tone, as she answers it. The sound coming from inside the box is so loud she has to hold it away from her ear, place it on the lowest volume and turn it on speaker phone.

“HEY MARY!” James’ voice shouts. The rest of their coach falls silent, obviously wanting to listen to this phone call, “WELL I- DO NOT THROW ANOTHER FUCKING GREGGS SAUSAGE ROLL AT MY HEAD OTHERWISE IM LOBBING YOU INTO THE ENGLISH CHANNEL! Well, anyways, Mary, uh we kind of lost somebody's phone and Reg is unresponsive listening to My Chemical Romance and Peter has had an asthma attack and I’m really stuck. Please come an-”

 

The phone cuts out at the three long tones signalling the end of a phone call reverberate around the coach.

“Well, he’s cooked.”

Chapter 60: Chapter Sixty - The Days Remaining

Summary:

Walburga has not shown up to work along with Sirius.

Notes:

sneaky little chapter update as I didn't feel like writing my other fic :P

For the remainder of the week, Sirius wasn’t at work.

Remus had caught up on his sleep the minute he got back to his flat and slept right through his alarm until the next day where, still half delirious, he got up from the bed and dressed himself messily before putting on his rucksack and hopping into his car. The car journey was chaotic in the slightest as he almost hit an old lady crossing the road as his eyes had drifted shut and swerved in the last second before he hit a badger.

He got into work with a few minutes to spare until the bell rang and his year seven form all poured into the room, happy to have their form tutor back.

“We thought you’d died!” Lola sighs as she sits at her chair.

Remus grumbles, his head slammed onto his keyboard, “I feel like I have.”

“Well, the good thing is that the witch is dead.” Hudson rejoices.

“Mrs Black is dead?” Lola asks, mouth falling open, “Get in!”

 

“Wait, what?” Remus’ head shoots up from the table as his eyes swim a million colours from the rush of blood.

“Yeah, since, like, the day it started snowing Mrs Black has not come into school. Everybody’s going to have a party about it soon!” Hudson says as the form erupts into gossip and chatter. The second bell rings from outside, declaring anyone who now entered was considered ‘late’ but Remus would always mark them as on time anyway to make his form look the best in the whole of Ravenclaw.

However the person to burst through the door wasn’t a member of his form. It was James.

“Am I late?” James shouts as he stands in the doorway of the room, looking as if he had ran half a marathon. He stares around in shock, “Oh. Hey, guys.”

“Hi.” Lola nods from her desk as James walks towards Remus. “A word.”

“Ok, uh, guys just watch Newsround or something, Niamh will get it up on the board for you and just don’t kill each other.” Remus says as he stands from his chair and follows James out into the corridor, “What’s going on with your form? I thought you had Gryffindor year seven?”

“Yeah, Petey boy has them covered, but I think we have bigger issues. Walburga is gone and so is Sirius and Regulus was spotted coming in this morning but nobody has seen him since. Rumour is that he locked himself into the broom cupboard.” James explains.

“I thought you should know where Regulus is. I mean, he is your boyfriend.” Remus sighs, trying to distract himself from the main matter of where Sirius had ended up. And Walburga, too?

“Stop, no, we are not dating, Remus! And you’re trying to distract yourself from the matter.” James had caught on well, then, “Nobody knows where Sirius is since that night you… well, I don’t know what happened but when you two went on your walk his whereabouts was known and since then nobody has seen him!”

 

“Yeah, I know, I know. Just, maybe we’ll file a police report at the end of the week if he doesn’t show up, ok? Try to message Regulus and see if he has any insider information as he must know where Walburga is and then we can go from there.” Remus says, “You should probably go back to Peter. He is not passing his teaching course.”

 

“Ah. Yes, that is a fair point, I better go.” James grumbles, “See you at lunch?”

James didn’t show up at Remus’ room for lunch and instead, Remus found him on lunch duty behind the English block tending to a bunch of vaping kids.

Friday went the same, if not a bit happier. Being the last week before the February half term, Remus’ year eight class had finished their work for the term so he could teach one of the easiest subjects: Pythagoras’ theorem.

“Right, so triangles.” Remus says as he stares at the board, “Thag is the study of finding the what length of the triangle? Hugo.”

“The hypotenuse.” Hugo replies.

“Correct. Does anybody know the formula as to how we find the hypotenuse? Freya?”

“A squared plus B squared equals C squared.” Freya replies.

“Correct, god I really can’t be bothered to teach you guys this if you already know it, here are the Thag worksheets and just if you get stuck act as if you're doing something in case Dumbledore walks in.” Remus says as he sits down at his desk and begins to search up Youtube.

“Sir, the title looks a bit… weird.” Maxxie says as she points at the board where Remus had written ‘Thag in Action’ as the title for the students to put in their books. Remus raises an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, just… say it out loud.”

“What, tha-” Remus pauses as he slams his hand over his mouth. Maxxie laughs.

“Be thankful Mrs Black isn’t here for that.” Maxxie says, “and when she comes back I’m reporting you to her.”

“What, get me suspended from teaching so you have Mrs Black teaching you instead and give me a few more days at home to sleep off that trip? God, yes please.” Remus grins.

“Sir, where did Mr Black go on the trip?” Alfie pipes up, “He just kind of despawned and nobody ever saw him again.”

The grin falters from his face, “Oh, that’s… nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

…

Remus unlocks the door of his apartment, ready to just tumble into his bed and sleep for the weekend. He sticks his backpack in the gap between the wall and the door, not bothering to put his shoes on the rack before he quickly pours out some food for Ziggy who meows appreciatively.

He was partway through taking off his shirt when the doorbell on his flat rings. People didn’t usually ring the doorbell as there is a large sticker across it reading ‘OUT OF USE’ because whenever the doorbell rings the dogs in the flat a few doors down would start barking their heads off and set the rest of the dogs in the apartment off.

“Hang on a sec!” Remus shouts as he pulls a blue jumper over his head and puts his other sock back on.

Remus sighs, questioning who would be so stupid as to ring the doorbell as Ziggy stares up at the doorhandle, meowing and scratching at the wood. Remus holds her in his arms as he opens the door.

His head must have fallen off as Ziggy jumps down from his arms and the door handle drops from his grip and the feeling of how high he was in the building finally didn’t bother him that much anymore.

“Hi.” Sirius says, “Can I please come in?”

Chapter 61: Chapter Sixty-One

Summary:

The ending!

Notes:

Probably the final chapter (if I don't decide to do an epilogue) of Math is Boring!! Thank you so much for all of the support on this fic as I really appreciate it (1700 reads!!).

I might post a few of the other ideas I had for this in a seperate chapter at the end just because I want to get everything down. New school year may mean a new fic!

I also have so many teachers from this fic on my timetable (I have the equivalent to McGonnigal, Walburga, Snape (though he isn't mentioned that much in this), Trelawney, Garret and probably some more somewhere so wish me INCREDIBLE LUCK I DON'T THINK IMA MAKE IT

Also apologies if this chapter is a bit rushed I just wanted to finish this project so I can cincentrate on some of my other ones. :P
Thanks so much for everything guys and I hope to keep writing more in the future!!

It all flood through his head at once, the fear, the grief, the sadness overwhelming him like a catastrophic bundle of newborn kittens if you had a glass of milk (a/n don’t ask why I chose this simile I couldn’t think of anything else)

And Sirius just stands there, with a bag in each hand, looking as if he may burst into a mountain of tears. Ziggy circles around the man’s feet before retching a hairball up onto his battered black converse, something that Remus had never seen him wear before.

“Sorry about the… cat.” Sirius crab-walks through the door, leaving his stuff outside, “Oh no, you really do want to take your stuff in if you’re staying… long.”

“Is it alright? I don’t want to be a burden or anything, I know it’s a lot.”

“No, no, it’s totally fine. More than fine. Yep.”

Sirius sits on the sofa, the same spot he had sat when they had come back from the hospital, and he looks so normal there Remus’ body almost settles back into some sense of normality.

“I think we should talk.” Sirius sighs, “I’m sorry, Remus.”

“I called and texted about a million times! I thought you’d ever been kidnapped or mugged or… or…”

You’d died.

“You shouldn’t take any of the excuses I have as honestly, I have been entirely shitty to you and everybody else on the trip by just running away like that, but Walburga looked as if she wanted to kill me, and I know that seems extreme but it isn’t the first time she’s pulled a knife on someone outside our family, and plenty of times she has inside.” Sirius’s leg bounces up and down. Remus, who had previously been lingering by the doorway, sits beside Sirius.

“What?”

“Well, she’s never actually done anything with the knife she just kind of… holds it in her hand. Like, knife-crime is big big in the UK so you know, it takes peoples lives all of the time and just the feeling of knowing that she could just… plonk. Dead. Yeah, it wasn’t the greatest, I have to admit.”

“God, are you alright? Why did she even do that?”

“It sounds so, so idiotic and stupid you won’t believe how I could have done it.” Sirius laughs, a small smile forming on his face that can’t stop Remus from smiling too, because it is actually him. It’s actually Sirius. Alive. In his front room. Alive.

“Well, you're Sirius Black so you must have pulled some amazing magic stunt or ran away with the circus, or something, and Walburga just tracked you down.”

“I left my curling tongs on while we were away and burnt down my bedroom.” Remus almost laughs, biting his lip to refrain himself, “And she had just came back from work that night or going out with her weird friends or whatever and just found the whole top room of the house up in flames. It’s fine, you can laugh if you want to.”

“No, it’s really not all that funny when you think about it.” Remus says, his mouth turning into an upside down ‘U’, “And I assume by all of the bags that you’re planning to stay here, at least for a little while?”

 

“Only if it-”

 

“Sirius, it’s more than fine. I mean, James had to get me a bloody cat because he thought I was lonely. Well, not entirely for that reason either but, yeah, well, that’s another story.” Remus laughs shakily.

“And the only reason I didn’t reply to your messages is because a) my phone credit which Walburga paid for had ran out and b) I didn’t know how you would react after the whole, y’know, if you thought I had ran away for another reason.”

Oh.

“Before we go onto that point, Walburga still pays for your phone credit?”

“I still live in her house and I’m twenty-something! Isn’t that more of a concern for you?”

“Nah. The phone is much more big boy business.”

“Oh shut up.”

“It’s fine. We don’t have to discuss anything that happened in France and we can just go on being roommates. Flatmates. Whatever.” Remus smiles, his heart tearing in two.

He doesn’t want to force anything onto Sirius, I mean, if it doesn’t work out between them where will Sirius go? Onto the street? Back to his death-threatening Mother?

“No but I don’t want to be ‘flatmates’ or ‘roommates’ with you, I meant what I said in France and I don’t want to forget about it! Sure, some of the things that happened weren’t that great like me burning my Mother’s house down or the dead coach driver or the two million kids being sick every five minutes, but that’s the bad things that come with the good! From the few days I spent there, I loved every minute of it.”

“You wouldn’t have said that after being snowed-in there for days with James and Regulus now in your room. God, it was awful, I actually considered sleeping in the snow rather than being in there with them and snoring old Peter.” Remus says, trying not to let the increasing rate of his heart make him stutter, “I guess we won’t be doing trips like that, again!”

 

“About that… Well, I’ve decided that I’m moving schools. Just things with Walburga wouldn’t work out right there and they’re already overstaffed in the Science department, anyway.” Sirius explains, “Sorry. That, again, was kind of a massive thing to drop on you.”

“It’s ok, I get it. I mean, after that trip I, too, was thinking about leaving and doing something else.” Remus says, “I just think that teaching is really not for me. I hate Maths.”

“So what would you do?”

“Something business-y. Maybe open up a cleaning business? Bakery? Soap? I haven’t got that far yet.” Remus says, slightly stunned at the words coming out of his mouth.

“New routes for the both of us, then.” Sirius smiles.

“And we get to do it together.”

“Yep. How bloody lucky I am to have you, Moony.”

“Don’t use that nickname otherwise I’m kicking you out.” Remus fake-smiles as Sirius throws a pillow at him, “Don’t throw pillows at me!”

 

“Never!”

“What nickname can I give you, then? Pillow-monster? Paddington Bear? Bigfoot?”

“Padfoot?”

“Padfoot.”

“That was just a suggestion; I didn’t think you would go along with it!”

“Well I have, Padfoot,”

“Alright, Moony.”

“God, we can have a bunch of nicknames for the survivors of the French school trip! We have Moony, Wormtail (for that Peter), Padfoot (me) and that stupid nickname Reg gave to James that I’m sure he’ll hate us calling him: Prongs, are proud to present the Abomination-Of-A-School-Trip.”
“The new bestselling film.”