Chapter Text
"Aw, Reggie, don't go!" Sirius calls as I stalk away. My dark mood is genuine, entirely entrenched in my disappointment with myself for my lack of self-control. "Come on, you barely talked to Remus- you two are like, I don't know- you're both nerds, you have so much in common. James will stop!" I pause and look over my shoulder at my brother. His long, dark hair is shining in the sun. His pale face is flushed, and a bit sunburnt.
He looks happy.
I've spent precious little time with my brother, happy.
Our moments of camaraderie always seemed to be borne of pain. Not joy. Our childhood wasn't sun-kissed or laughing. We spent more time together in tears. I slowly turn, and place my book on one of the many low tables. All is silent, save the slow, methodical slosh of the water against the tile walls. I crouch beside the pool.
"Is that true, Potter?" I like being above him like this. I want to see him on his knees. His long, ink-black eyelashes kiss his eyebrows when he looks up. "Are you going to behave yourself?"
His voice comes out very small.
"Yes." I can't help myself. I lean toward him, almost imperceptibly. The rise and fall of his chest ceases.
"Are you sure you're capable of it? Behaving yourself, I mean? You haven't demonstrated much of an aptitude for it. You play the fool exceptionally well, like you're a little circus clown without his makeup on, rambling around trying to do little tricks for attention.” He is still, and silent. “I'm not laughing. Control yourself. I have no interest in irritating, obnoxious men. If you want my attention, truly, take my advice: Shut your mouth." All of the gold in his eyes is gone, despite the bright sunlight. All that's left of it is a little ring around his pupils. "Do we understand one another?"
He nods weakly, and doesn't move.
"See, you're already learning." I smile, slowly. Probably ominously. That's how Pandora always described my smile. She would cover the bottom half of my face, screeching: scary! cut it out!
I dismiss him without fanfare, redirecting my attention like he doesn't exist. Sirius looks vaguely horrified.
"I'll stay, unless he drives me away," I say, and gesture to James, who still seems to be malfunctioning. "I think that's reasonable."
"Come in the water again." Sirius beams, and I can feel my heart swelling at the sight of it. Despite our differences, and my resentment toward him, it's hard not to feel a twinge of warmth when I see him happy. When his happiness is directed at me. It's like a gift. A plaster to cover up the wound of him inside of my mind. "I won't drag you under again."
"How do you expect me to believe that?" I pull off my shirt again anyways, and toss it over the nearest chair. I try to ignore the angry, crimson constellations of scars I'll carry with me through the rest of my life. I try to ignore Remus and Lily, who haven't seen them. I can't. I glance at them covertly, side by side at the poolside. It's hard not to be insecure about having this body, this ruined thing. I feel like a bathroom stall covered in graffiti. A canvas for pain. I slip into the water, quicker than I had earlier in the day, anxious to hide my body under the water.
It's blissfully cool. I let myself float.
"You didn't like the water when we were kids," Sirius muses, swimming in his familiar, slow circles. "What changed?"
"It's peaceful, no?" I glide my hand over the surface of the water, leaving a trail of ripples in my wake. "Cool, quiet. When you're under the surface, it swallows sound. Water has no memory, and it moves with the moon, so it's always in communication with the sky. Sometimes I think floating in water is the closest feeling that can compare to how birds must feel when they fly, or glide. You become weightless, yet cradled. Water of the womb, and all." Everyone is perfectly silent. I roll my eyes, and adopt a bitter, mocking edge to my voice. "Water is sooo fun to splash around in!"
"I think you think too much, Reg." Sirius pats my shoulder, like he's consoling me for some great loss I've endured. "It's turned you into a freak."
"I'd rather be a freak than brainless. To walk through life without contemplating anything... that sounds like a nightmare. Contemplating things is the best part of being alive. What do you do when you read a book, or listen to a good song, or see a particularly spectacular sunset? You don't linger with it? You don't think about what it means, or why it makes you feel? That's my definition of a hollow life." I look at James, who seems to be hanging on to every word like he's studying for a lecture— like I'll test him later. "Do you contemplate what it means to be an arrogant prat, Potter?"
"Lay off him, Reg." Sirius sounds so very resigned. "He said he'd leave you be, so you leave him be too."
" I hate him ," I say, in French. " I hope he drowns ."
"That's not very nice," Sirius replies, in English.
"Oh no," I say, sarcastically. "I've failed my dearest and most sacred ambition: to be nice to Potter! You might as well push me under again and hold me there, Sirius. I'm not long for this world. Everyone, back away, I'll turn my wand on myself and-"
" Not funny, Regulus."
"Maybe not to you." I glance at Remus and Lily. "Are your other friends joining us, or are they here for a show? Should we start our synchronized routine?"
"I didn't bring any trunks." Remus is, inexplicably, bright pink. Lily isn't.
"Go in your underwear, you big baby," she says, entirely unabashed, already taking off her shirt. I avert my eyes until I hear a loud splash. Her red hair is darker when it's wet, more like blood than fire. Her eyes glow, as vivid as the leaves on the trees. She's beautiful.
"What, are you shy?" I ask Lupin, smirking. "You have nothing to worry about, I'll cover my eyes."
"I'm not shy." His face is completely crimson. "I'd rather not swim without trunks, is all."
"Boo!" Sirius cups his mouth with his hands and shouts. "Lame." He theatrically raises his hands: thumbs down.
"Peer pressure is quite malicious, Sirius," I say in a small, grave voice. "Why don't you get him a pair of your shorts, if you want him to swim with you so desperately?"
"Mine?" Sirius shakes his head. "He's much too tall, they wouldn't fit. Mine fit you fine, but-"
"Boo," I mock him, my voice droll. "I thought you wanted me to get to know your friend... I guess I was sorely mistaken."
"You're a snake." My brother glares at me petulantly. "If I come back and James is floating face down in the pool, we're playing Cain and Abel, and I'm holding the rock."
"You really think out of the two of us, you'd be Cain?" I snort.
"I'm sorry, which one of us was the favourite?"
"You," I say stiffly. "You're still the heir, you always have been. They struck you from the tree, but you're still inheriting Grimmauld. Did you know that?" Sirius goes completely white. "You think you lack a mother's love, and the favour of god, but you don't. Isn't that interesting?" He stares at me, uncomprehending and stupid.
"What?"
"Just get Remus his shorts, Sirius." I lay back in the water's embrace.
"How can you casually just say shit like that?" His voice is thick, I roll my eyes.
"I thought if our upbringing taught us anything it must be emotional fortitude, but apparently Potter's indulgent parents are helping you unlearn all your hard-won lessons." Sirius scoffs.
"Whatever, Regulus." I can hear him get out of the water, and stalk inside. The door slams.
—
"Was that necessary?" James asks, I glance at him. With less malice, now that Sirius isn't looking.
"He's not your brother." His golden eyes are soft, and curious. "You don't understand."
"I want to understand, though."
"Do you, really?" I swim, slowly, and lean against the side of the pool. My elbows are baking in the hot sun, along with the tip of my nose. James is watching me like someone might watch a venomous snake they're wary will bite to kill. "Understand this: Sirius was the favourite. They thought I was weak willed, and a coward, because I was. They liked that he fought back. They respected him. They didn't respect me. When Sirius did something wrong, they punished me in his place half the time, because if they punished him he wouldn't change. But me, I was like the spare tire, the extra piece on the board no one needed to play, so they weren't worried about breaking me. He'd only stop whatever he was doing wrong if they punished me. Not him. It was out of some sort of sick, stupid sense nobility, and it led exactly where you'd expect it to lead. Then, he left. My brother and I aren't friends, James. We hardly know one another. We were pitted against each other for our entire lives. This is the first time we've ever been on even footing. He seems to be under some illusion that we can act like normal brothers would, but we can't. We've never been able to. Everything I do is necessary."
"Is it so bad for him to want things to be normal between you?"
"I refuse to live in an illusion of normalcy." I don't know when he got so close to me. He's barely a foot away. "How can I, after everything?" I idly trace over some of the many, many vivid scars on my chest. "What's normal about me?" James studies me intently. One of his curls is in his eyes again, dark as ink.
"It's not an illusion, Regulus. It's true now. You said it yourself, you're on even footing with him. Why don't you act like it, instead of trying to get under his skin?"
"You think you can see right through me, don't you?" I smile, and the tips of James' ears turn red. "This isn't an act, James, what I'm saying to you here and now," He stiffens, and I almost worry about Remus, Lily, but there's no way they'd piece anything together. I feel like I'm hiding in plain sight. " You don't know me . I'm a stranger to you, and I'm as opaque as stone. You aren't going to see anything in me that isn't just a reflection of you, and what you want to see."
"You don't think I know you?"
"What makes you think you do? A conversation?" I laugh. He shakes his head.
"I can see you. Maybe I can't see through you, but I can see you, Regulus." Something about those words makes my blood run cold. "I'm not going to look away."
"Didn't you promise my brother you would leave me alone?"
"Yeah, I did." He doesn't move, his eyes fixed on mine.
"You are truly, deeply stupid." My heartbeat feels like it's in my throat.
"I know." There's weight to the words. "Trust me." It feels like we're the only two people on the face of the earth. The tension between us is palpable, almost visible, it's so intense. He's like a positive magnet to my negative, pulling closer and closer.
"Maybe you should learn how to keep your promises, James." My voice is weak, and small. I breathe in sharply, and sink under the water before he can say anything else.
The salt water stings my eyes, but I keep them open anyway, swimming down, down, down, then across the pool. I can see James' legs, and Lily's. I avoid both of them. I hide in the corner of the pool, furthest from both of them, at the very bottom. It's peaceful here. I'm alone. Unobserved. The distorted sunlight makes hypnotic patterns in the stone at the bottom of the pool. I stay there until my lungs burn, trying to put out the fire he set inside of me.
James is dangerous.
He doesn't care enough about hiding. I know my brother well enough to know revealing any of what we've done together to him, now , would ruin their friendship. Maybe forever.
When I can't hold my breath any longer I swim up, and blink into the blazing sunlight with burning eyes. I take a deep breath. The air tastes like heat and flowers.
"I thought theatricality was a Sirius thing, I guess it's just a Black family thing," Remus says. He's sitting close by, his trousers rolled up, his legs in the water. They're nearly as scarred as his face is.
"What do you mean?" My breath is quick, and deep, like I just sprinted a mile.
Remus smiles wryly.
"You're lucky Sirius is stupid enough to believe you don't want him." I feel my face contort with anger, real.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"James." Remus looks amused.
"You're nearly as bad as he is," I say, disgusted. "I genuinely think he's repulsive , he's spoiled rotten, and arrogant besides-"
"Regulus." His lips are curled up at the corner, and his eyebrow is arched on the same side. Lopsided, but somehow still good looking. Rakish. "I don't know you, so feel free to tell me to fuck off-"
"Fuck off."
"You like him too."
"Are you trying to make an enemy of me, Lupin?" He sighs.
"Tell yourself whatever lies you want, but I could feel the tension between the two of you from over here, and I barely know you."
"You barely know me, so what do you think you know how I feel? You're as bad as he is. You know what he said to me when I first got here?" Remus grimaces, like he already knows it's bad. "I was talking about why I left, and called myself a coward. You know what he asked me?" I imitate his casual, easy manner of speaking. The way someone speaks when they aren't slapped for mumbling or running their words together. " So you think Sirius was a coward for leaving? " I raise my eyebrows.
"I'm sure he just wasn't thinking."
"Oh, I'm sure he wasn't thinking. I'm sure he's never thought about anything in his life," I say venomously.
"Okay, so you don't like him." Remus doesn't seem convinced.
"I hate him. Maybe that's the tension you're feeling." I study his scars, unabashed. "I guess this is the first time you haven't felt like the freak."
"What?" Remus stares at me blankly, uncomprehending.
"I have more scars than you do, Lupin." I smile at him, impishly. His confusion turns into something else, something unreadable. "I don't care that you're a werewolf, by the way." His expression changes again, this time to something that looks like horror.
"I'm not-"
"Aw, come on Moony," I say, sotto voce, smiling up at him ominously. "We're all friends here."
"What is this? Some kind of power play?" His face is crimson. Angry.
"Just trying to give you some peace of mind. I know, and I don't care. Isn't that a weight lifted?"
"How do you know?"
"Severus, obviously." He doesn't like that. I can tell. "We were acquaintances in school. He wasn't as close to me as Barty, Pandora, Evan, Dorcas... but we went to the same parties. He was very concerned about you. It was a little pathetic, in my opinion. He wanted to make sure we were all made aware of the person we were going to school with. Of course, he didn't use the word person ."
"And you believed him?"
"Most people didn't. But I decided to do my own research, observation, I guess you could say. You were all very tired at the same time every month, cyclical. If you were paying attention, it wasn't difficult to see it. But I don't care, really. My parents called me a monster, and what did I do? Kissed the wrong person? Had the wrong memories in my head? It's all relative. The monstrous, the good. Everyone seems to have their own definition." His expression is dark. Good. Let him dwell on that instead of James. And people say Ravenclaws are the smart ones.
"I got these for you, Moony!" Sirius shouts, as soon as he's through the ornate glass doors, waving the swimming trunks like a flag. "I don't know if they'll fit or-" Remus is still staring at me, his expression very blank. He doesn't even look at Sirius. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Remus says stiffly, and stands up. "Thanks, Sirius." He takes the shorts without looking at him, and goes inside to change.
"Regulus," Sirius says in a very small and very dangerous voice.
"What?" I blink up at him, innocently.
"What did you say to Remus?"
"Why don't you ask him?" His expression instantly darkens.
"What's wrong with you? Why can't you just be a normal, nice person for ten minutes?"
"I am a normal, nice person. I didn't say anything bad, or insulting." I roll my eyes. "We were just having a conversation."
"About what?" He doesn't relax. James and Lily are both silent. I smile, small and ugly.
"Nothing really," I say, floating backwards in the water, my eyes fixed on my brother's face, which looks angrier and angrier with every word I say. "Scars. The phases of the moon. I don't know why he's in such a strop about it."
"You're an asshole," Sirius says, hands curled in fists at his sides. "I don't know why I want to have anything to do with you. Maybe it would've been better if you didn't show up here after all. Then, if you were gone, at least I could've assumed you were a decent person."
Ouch. I can't keep the hurt out of my voice. Sirius disarms me. He makes me feel like a kid, a kid whose older brother doesn't love him anymore. I feel like I'm eleven years old again.
"Why don't you ask him what I was actually saying before you call me names, and tell me you wish I was dead?" I glare. "Instead of assuming the worst of me."
"Hard to assume anything else of you, isn't it?"
"Fuck this." I pull myself out of the water, and stalk past him. "Fuck you. And your friends." I glare at James, who looks concerned and confused. I grab a towel, and wipe the water off of my body violently. "I don't know why I waste my time. You don't care about me at all. You're hungry to assume I'm evil, and that I want to hurt your friends, because I guess that justifies leaving me behind, doesn't it? If I'm a monster, maybe it's not so bad that you left. But I'm not a monster. I didn't say anything bad to him-"
"Like I'm going to believe that for a second." I stare at my brother, and I feel my face twist, rage and hurt.
"I hate you," I say. His expression twists. It's a familiar look on him, sadness. I think I recognize him more like this. This is my brother. His true face. "I hope you think about that, when you talk to Lupin, and he tells you what I actually said to him."
"Regulus, I'm not-"
"Not what?" I spit. His voice makes me want to claw my own eyes out. He's silent. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Fuck you." I grab my book and leave. I'm storming, raging, my mind caught up in a blizzard of anger and sadness. I don't notice Lupin until I crash right into him.
"Woah, wait. Are you alright?" We're both on the floor. His trousers were over his arm but now they're underneath us, along with my book. I sit up instantly. Stiffly.
"Sorry." My voice wavers. To my horror, I begin to cry. "I'll just..." I grab for my book, sniffling, and Remus grabs my arm. I stare at him, my lip trembling. "Lupin?"
"What happened?" He doesn't move to get up. "Are you okay?"
"Nothing happened, just Sirius, I'm alright, really. I don't know why I'm crying." The tears keep coming, unbidden, as unpreventable as rain. "It's undignified, I'm terribly sorry." It just seems to get worse. Self hatred lights a wick inside me, alongside the open wound of my brother, which is always festering. "If you let me go I can remove myself from your presence and you can continue with your day unimpeded, I'm terribly sorry to have been such a burden," I say, through my ever worsening tears, through loud sniffling and choked breath. "I'm terribly sorry." I keep apologizing. I can't stop myself.
"What did Sirius say?"
"Oh, just that he'd rather I'd be dead," I say, with a helpless, minimizing smile. "Because then he could at least assume I was a good person."
"God, what the fuck?" Remus looks horrified. "Do you need, I don't know, a hug or something?"
"Absolutely not," I say. "I've taken up enough of your time, please let me-"
"Where are you going? Your room, the library?"
"Why?"
"I'll go with you. You shouldn't be alone when you're sad, and I don't want to be around Sirius right now-"
"In my honour? What a saint you are, Lupin." I wrench my arm out of his grip and grab my book. "I'm alright alone. Thank you for your concern."
"Why did he say all that stuff to you?"
"You seemed upset, so he connected the dots." I furiously wipe my eyes. The tears run down my cheeks. Hot water from a faucet inside of me I can't find the handle for, I can't turn off. "I didn't think it was all that bad, I was trying to be nice, and tell you I didn't care, because I hate my scars. I think they're hideous. I knew you'd be changing, and you were wearing all those sweaters in the sun, and I thought-" The words are coming up like vomit now too. Uncontrollable. I feel sick. "I thought you might feel better if you knew I didn't care. I'm not good at that kind of thing. I don't know, I don't know." I wipe my eyes. Lupin's expression is very tender.
"He's an idiot. He didn't mean what he said, Regulus."
"I think he did. I think he didn't mean the other stuff, about wanting to get to know me, and being happy I came here. I think he hates me, and he's looking for a reason to justify it because he can't live with the guilt anymore."
"Let's go somewhere more private and we can talk about it, alright?" I shake my head, and Remus reaches out again. I flinch, violently. I see her hands. Her silver rings. I cry even harder, and walk away from him without another word.
He follows me.
—
We're in my room, across from each other on the rug. The silence between us isn't uncomfortable. Remus hands me a face cloth from the bathroom, ignoring the toothbrush in the sink, the vomit in the bathtub, and I use it to wipe the tears from my eyes.
"He's going to be more upset if you don't go back," I say, still sniffling piteously. "He thinks... I don't know what he thinks. It's my fault. I goaded him on purpose."
"Why?" Remus studies me intently, with his mossy brown eyes. He's handsome in a rough, devil-may-care sort of way. His sandy brown hair always seems to fall in his face. Even his painful looking scars, claw marks across his face, his neck, like he tried to claw his way out of his own skin, fit his features like puzzle pieces falling into place. Why does my brother only have beautiful friends?
"I don't know," I say, softly. "I think I hate him."
"But you're not sure?"
"Sometimes I think I want him to hate me." I don't know why I trust Remus, but I do. I lay back against the carpet. "You can put your trousers back on, if you'd like. I want to change out of these too." I pick at my wet shorts. I'm still shirtless. I trace a scar, the one on my hip. I pull down the elastic of my borrowed swim shorts. "See this?" I trace the shape of the constellation.
"Stars?"
"Canis Major. Orion's Dog." I say, smiling sickly, an ugly, sharp smile. I point to one star, where I know it will be for the rest of my life. "That's Sirius. The brightest star in the sky."
"Regulus..." I can hear the pity in his voice. "Who-?"
"Who do you think?" I look at him. His tanned face looks bloodless, almost greenish. "This is what my mother's love looks like. Maybe that's why I want him to hate me." I curl in on myself, and all of the pain of the past few days pounds over me in waves. All I can do is lay there and endure. I'm in a C shape, the fetal position, crying weakly into my hands. I feel a hand on my shoulder, and flinch. "No more, please."
"How can I help?" Remus sounds completely helpless. "Regulus-"
"If I say-" I choke on my own voice. The tears feel like a hand closing around my throat.
"Do you need space-?" I grab his wrist, and hold it. Maybe too tightly.
"Please don't..." I stop myself. How can I say something like Please don't go to a boy I hardly know? "I don't need space."
"I'm not going anywhere, Regulus." He doesn't move. He doesn't touch me. "Let me get you something more comfortable to wear, alright?" I let go of his wrist. The pain is relentless, like the feeling you get when you're near the summit of a mountain, and your blood starts to rebel against you, and your mind starts to feel foggy.
The air is too thin up here. I'm going down.
"Come on, up." He sits me upright, and pulls a long sleeved muggle shirt onto me like I'm a child. "Can you change your shorts?"
"Close your eyes," I say thickly. He does. I change clumsily, my vision blurry with tears. What does he stand to gain by helping me? Why is he doing this? I throw my wet clothes in the hamper, and fall into my bed. "You're alright, Remus."
"Do you feel any better?" I like the long sleeves. How did he know that would help? I feel less exposed. Like my pain is on the inside, not the outside.
"Yeah," I say, weakly. Remus runs a hand through his hair.
"Good. Right, um, I suppose you don't want to talk to Sirius?"
"I'd rather chew on broken glass."
"Very reasonable of you, honestly." He sits on the edge of the bed beside me and hesitantly reaches out. He touches my wet hair. His hand is cold, like mine. "How can I help you? Do you want to talk about what's on your mind?"
"I don't know how to do that," I say, very quietly. I want James. I can't tell him that, though. Or can I? "Are you good at keeping secrets?"
"Secrets from who?"
"My brother."
"What kind of secret are you keeping from Sirius?"
"Can you tell a convincing lie?" Remus looks mystified.
"Not really. Not to him."
"Never mind." I lay back into my pillows. I grab one and hug it to my chest, wishing it was him instead. James. I don't know why I want him. All we've done together, all of our intimacy, has just been sex. It's not like he's seen my heart, or held me while I cried. He's just a boy.
"Why would I have to lie to help you keep this... secret? Whatever it is."
"Because, if Sirius knew the truth it would upset him. It's alright, though. I won't tell you. Forget I mentioned it." I can feel his confusion, and his worry.
"Is it something really bad? Did someone do something to you-" Laughter bubbles up inside me.
"I guess you could say that." He looks greenish again. I shake my head. "It's nothing bad, Remus. But someone is... doing something to me..." I laugh again.
"My god, is it someone I know? Do you need help, Regulus? That's not a joke-"
"I'm not being molested, Jesus." I bite back more laughter. "Sirius would probably think of it that way. Merlin." Suddenly, horribly, my laughter turns into tears. "He doesn't respect me. He still thinks of me like I'm a kid. I haven't ever felt like a kid. I've always been— I've always just been this. This horrible, cynical, miserable creature. I hate it. I hate everything about myself. I hate that this is all my fault. I hate him." I want to break something. "I hate being alive. I want to drown myself."
"Don't do that," Remus says, quietly. "I like you, you know that?"
"What reason do you have to like me?" His face is blurry through my tears.
"Well, for one thing, you shoved James in the pool when he was being a prat."
"He deserved it," I say thickly. "Just like I deserve this." My hand hovers, tracing an outline of the shape of my face, tears and snot, spit around my mouth. "You really don't have to do this, you know. Help me, I mean. I'll be fine. I'm always fine."
"I know I don't have to." Remus sits beside me with his back against my bed frame, his brown hair lit from behind like a sandy, golden brown halo. "I want to be here. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about, or we can just sit here together for a while. Either way, I'd rather be in here than out there with him. I'm angry with him now, on your behalf."
"Don't do that," I say into my knees. This is bad enough already without Sirius and his friends and their stupid senseless nobility, the kindheartedness that consumes them so completely.
"Don't do what?" Remus furrows his eyebrows.
"Throw yourself in the middle of this, between me and him. It won't end well. It never does, between me and him. I don't want anyone else to get involved... Do you have any siblings?"
"Me? No." Remus fiddles idly with his wand. He spins it between his fingers like a pencil, or a knife. "I'm an only child."
"Then you don't get it, and you never will. I appreciate that you care... but don't try to take sides. You should be Switzerland. It'll never be all good between me and Sirius." I press my lips to my knee, a little kiss to muffle my voice. "It'll never be all bad either."
"What usually helps when you're sad?" What an interesting question. What helps when I'm sad? Nothing , whispers something in the back of my mind, in a voice that sounds like my mother's.
"I usually just ignore it. I distract myself, I guess." My tears have settled. I crawl to the edge of the bed. I stand, straighten my spine, and get the measure of my anger, the measure of my sadness, trying to figure out if it's as tall as I am, or shorter somehow, small enough for me to squeeze into a shape that will fit inside of me instead of shrugging out of my skin like clothes that don't fit. "We could do something to distract ourselves, if you'd like." I glance at him, and squeeze this ugly feeling until it fits in my heart, like a hand curling into a fist. "I don't know what there is in this manor—"
"Oh, I know." Remus smiles like a sliver of a crescent moon. "We can listen to music in the ballroom."
"What kind of music do you like?"
"That seems like a question that can be answered there, doesn't it?" I nod, reluctantly. He looks at me like I'm fragile, like he's worried an unpleasant expression will shatter me. It's the way James looked at me before we spent any time alone together, before he realized I am not fragile like glass, I am fragile like my brother's premonition. Like a bomb. I will break everything around me when I shatter.
"I suppose it does, doesn't it?"
—
I let him lead me to the ballroom. It's empty and dustless. Remus wanders ahead of me, looking taller somehow in this room with its high ceiling and all of its negative space. My feet are bare, always bare now, on the cool floor.
"Is there anything you hate?" Remus calls over his shoulder. I arch an eyebrow, although he can't see it.
"You'll have to be a little more specific, Lupin."
"Music! Is there anything you hate with regard to music —"
"Not really. I don't know. I haven't listened to a very wide variety of music, to be honest. My mother didn't like having music in the house that was muggle unless it was classical, she made an exception for that because she happened to enjoy it, anything else was unacceptable to her." I trail my attention over the angels painted on the ceiling, the view of the rolling hills, the flowers in the garden outside of the window.
"Well, tell me if you hate this and we can put on something else." Something loud and raucous starts to play, and I abruptly recall that this quiet seeming, bookish boy with a smile like a whisper was just as much of a force of chaos at Hogwarts as my brother.
It's a lot of guitar, and drums. I turn to stare at him, moving his head to the beat of the drums, and his shoulders to the rhythm of the guitar, and his feet to the words crooning among the instruments instead of over them.
He is all long limbs and denim, a little awkward, too lanky, like tall boys are when they're on the cusp of manhood. His limbs seem to surprise him, but still he dances.
I've never been much of a dancer, but something about him, him with his eyes closed, moving to this song I do not know, something about it gets under my skin. A warm feeling. I move my feet, then my head, then the tips of my fingers, punching the air like I'm playing an invisible piano on either side. The pattern of the song, in my bones. The music creeps into me, and before long I'm truly dancing. Really dancing. Not like I have at stiff formal parties with my parents, rehearsed steps, perfect posture, measured smiles. I'm dancing with abandon, with my eyes closed, with my arms outstretched, spinning across the empty room. The music is loud, and it beats into me with every unintelligible lyric, every abrasive drumbeat. I want to live in this feeling. I never want to leave.
Remus and I spin into each other. There's a moment of stiff confusion ( what should he do, what should I do? ), then he hesitantly takes my hands in his, and spins me across the room, and suddenly we are dancing together, and laughing, and I am smiling until my face hurts. We both put our hands over our heads, we touch our palms like a chaste kiss, momentary, we touch shoulders, he spins into me and I catch him, the bulk of him, and he grins, all teeth, and we don't talk, but somehow all of my sadness recedes like the tide pulling back from the shore into the sea.
I never expected to do anything like this.
I feel not an ounce of the awkwardness I expected to come with dancing. I move around the room on deft feet, my arms move with my shoulders, reaching in every direction, spinning so slowly. The music stops. I walk to the record player, sweating, with a bubble of happiness taking up all the room in my chest. We don't speak. I pick the next record. The same one I asked Sirius to play. I dance with Remus, Françoise Hardy's voice filling the room along with the familiar guitar, the drums, Remus takes my hand and we spin together around the room with our arms out, like children do, practically sprinting instead of dancing, spinning in circles across the floor until we fall to the floor laughing, laughing, laughing, until my sides feel like they're bruised. When the music stops I sit up, and Remus stands to change the record.
When I see who's leaning in the doorframe, casual as anything, my smile dies.
"Potter." I can feel my face turning red. Embarrassment beats through me like a second pulse.
"Your brother is looking for you." There's something unfamiliar and stony in his expression that catches me off guard.
"I don't particularly care what he's looking for." I straighten stiffly. James watches me impassively, unsmiling for once. What is this feeling he's wearing? I can't identify it. It isn't anger, not really, or sadness. There's something else there. I narrow my eyes.
"He's also looking for you, Remus." He doesn't look at Remus when he addresses him. His attention is fixed on me. "Maybe you should go find him. He's upset."
"What right does he have to be upset? He's the one who made this mess." Remus puts a record on and turns down the music. "You expect me to just take off and go find him because he's throwing a fit?"
"That's what you usually do." James still won't look at him. I want to poke him in the eye. What is he doing?
"Are you trying to get me to leave you alone with him so you can hound him some more?" I force myself to look away from him and walk toward Remus. I tug my shirtsleeves over my hands. This shirt is too big on me. Did it belong to my brother, or James? Was it brand new? Why didn't anyone tell me anything? "You already made him uncomfortable enough already today, don't you think?"
"It's okay, Remus. I told you not to take sides. Go talk to my brother, it's fine."
"I can take James with me if you—" I stare into Remus' eyes and he stops talking, his face reddens by modicums the longer I look, and say nothing. "I can take him with me, if you want," he finishes lamely. Why do I unsettle these people so much? I study him for a moment, then shake my head.
"It's fine, I can handle him. Go deal with my stupid brother." Remus is still red-faced. He touches my shoulder and his hand lingers there, over the bone, warm and broad and flecked with scars. I allow it. His mossy brown eyes are intent and focused, something warm illuminated in his expression.
"If you don't want to be alone, you know where to find me."
"With my brother." I roll my eyes. He takes his hand back and smiles his quiet little smile. He tucks his hand in his pocket.
"And Lily, I assume. See you around..." he hesitates, then says, "Regulus." Ah, first name basis. I don't hesitate.
"Likewise, Remus." I smile, small and sharp. He inexplicably turns red again. Does he..? I smile with my teeth, and he smiles back so quickly it has to be pure instinct. What an interesting development. He lingers again. I roll my eyes again. "Go on, Sirius is waiting."
"See you around," he repeats, still smiling. He backs away, looking at me longer. I might have oversold my detachment to James if Remus has some kind of crush. I shouldn't encourage it. I look at his shoes instead of his eyes, watching them walk right out of the ballroom.
James and I are alone. I don't look at him. I put on a record, something classical I recognize, Camille Saint-Saëns. I hear the door close before the music starts. I hear what sounds like a lock turning, that unmistakable click.
James is leaning with his back against the door with something dark in his expression I've never seen before. I tilt my head. What is this, James? I don't say anything. The music plays behind me, and he doesn't move.
I walk toward him, slow. He's watching me. His eyes are like sunlight through amber, so warm and lovely. I've never found anyone as beautiful as I find him now, with this desire he instilled in me like a sickness in my blood.
His dark eyebrows furrow.
"Why is this really a secret, Regulus?"
I still instantly. James Potter is jealous? Of Remus Lupin ? Some feelings are too delicious to put into words. James Potter is jealous about me? He feels enough ownership over me that he thinks he has the right to be jealous?
"Because you're my brother's best friend." I raise an eyebrow. "As we've established, he would kill you." James looks away from me. His chin to the side, near his shoulder. There's something sad inside him. I know he's human, but sometimes it's hard for me to actually believe it, since he's perpetually so sunny... so happy it radiates from him. Not so, now. This is a human boy. An insecure human boy. A boy I don't know well enough to understand the complicated look in his eye. "Why do you think I asked you to keep it a secret?"
"You danced with him." James finally moves away from the door. The music is moody, just like him.
"Do you want to dance with me?" James looks up from his thoughts. His expression is so lovely, so vulnerable and sweet. His lips are soft. I want to touch them again.
"Yes," he says quietly, in hardly more than a whisper. "I don't want to be a secret. I don't want you to be... I don't want anyone else to..."
"This doesn’t have to be a secret forever, James." I want to touch his face so I do. He leans into my light fingertips, like a cat. Danse Macabre begins. I recognize it instantly, the familiar cadence of the strings, the upturn in it. I smile a little. "It's just us," I whisper. "You're being shy."
"What do you mean?" Sweet innocent thing. I trail my hand over his cheek and into his hair, and the darkness in his expression begins to fade. I gently guide him closer, a little lower to close the little gap of height between us. James lets himself be guided, though he knows exactly where he's going if the way his eyes flit to my mouth is any indication.
"It's just us," I say again, looking at him so closely, his eyes are soft already, and wide. "Kiss me."
"I wanted to talk —"
"What is there to talk about? Just kiss me. I've wanted you all day. It's torturous seeing you everywhere without being able to touch you. You, shirtless by the pool... I wanted to eat you." James is looking at me, so close, so warm and beautiful with his long, dark eyelashes and his soft unworried mouth. His eyes are hazy. Does he want me as much as I want him? He was watching me, by the water. He was watching me, shirtless, watching me loom over him and boss him around. "I wanted to lick all of the water and sweat off of your skin, here..." I touch his chest, and he looks at me. He looks at me. That alone is enough to justify all of the lies, the deceit, every moment of pain that lead me to this room, alone with him. An angel, looking at me . "All the way down," my hand trails over his body, "to here." A light, playful touch between his legs makes his mouth open, his eyes widen. His hand flies down to grasp my wrist, and I stare at him, defiant. You're mine . "You're beautiful."
"Is that really all you like about me?" This insecurity again. I didn't expect he would be capable of this feeling after a lifetime of effortless beauty, effortless, unquestionable perfection. But here it is. That question in his eyes like a projection on a white wall, so clear, so terribly endearing. "You said that earlier, that the only good quality I have is my face—"
"I think you need to remember that we're playing a game when we're out there. Everything that's real is right here." I gesture between us with a careful hand. "Everything that's real can be measured in this distance, when it's just us...alone. That's all you need to concern yourself with."
"I don't like keeping secrets. I never have."
"I feel honoured," I whisper. I feel like a siren, or a devil of some variety, luring an angel from the holiness innate to his being and down to the depths of some purgatory with me, somewhere dark and flightless, where his wings will be trampled and his body battered and his sunlit beauty transformed into something other, something more like mine, something that belongs to the night and the dark. Incorruptible James, corrupted by me with a few glances, with whispered words. "You don't find the idea of a secret romantic? We're a bit like..." I don't want to invoke a tragedy. I do it all the same. "Romeo and Juliet, maybe. You and I. Lovers in the night."
"You find it romantic?" I touch his cheek, sun warm and golden. "Do you want me to be romantic?" He touches my hand.
"What do you think I want?"
"I thought you just wanted... I don't know. I thought you wanted something casual."
"Really, James." The vulnerability in his expression is tempting, like the sight of a flower underfoot. I want to tread on it. I want to watch his petals wilt. "We should be casual about this. We both know you're a bad idea." His breath is uneven, I’m so close I can feel it. “A terrible, awful idea. This won’t end well for either of us.”
"Yet you're asking me to kiss you." My mouth feels dry. My head feels like it's been stuffed with ribbon for a magic trick: like silks up my sleeve, stuffed between my ears instead. I feel an urge to cough. I'm sick. James leans toward me. He tries to tilt up my chin with a fingertip and I don't let him. We stare at each other for a long moment. The music keeps getting faster and faster.
"Do you know this song?" He looks at me and says nothing. "It's a dance of death."
"Regulus..." James looks at me and I get that feeling again, like he's looking through me. "What is this to you, is it just sex?"
"I've only known you for two days and you want me to define what our relationship is to each other? What makes you think I know what this is to me? What is it to you ?" He looks at me like I couldn't have given him a worse answer.
"I like you. I don't want this to just be sex. I've only really known you for two days, but I know that."
"Well, I don't know. Does that bother you?" James looks at me, and narrows his eyes.
"You just want sex?" My face feels hot.
"I don't know you, okay? You don't know me. Whatever this is, why do we have to figure it out now?"
"You're willing to have sex with someone you don't know?"
"Yes." I stare up at him and bite my lip. He doesn't look at my mouth. There's nothing warm in his expression now. "Isn't it enough for us to have fun together? Why do you need me to have an answer for you now? It's just... a summer fling. That's all. If we want more, we can have more later."
"A summer fling?"
"You're a bad idea. So am I." He looks down at the floor, his eyelashes hide all the colour in his eyes. He looks contemplative. "We can make this whatever we want to make it, James, but I'm not going to promise you anything when I might not be able to keep that promise. Okay?"
"Sorry, I'm just... I've never done anything like this before." He reaches for me and stops himself, hand still in the air. I take it in mine. He meets my eyes again with his, his shoulders slumping like he's been defeated. I run my fingertips over his knuckles. I want to suck on them. I want to have his fingers in my mouth again. "Casual, I mean."
"It doesn’t have to be casual. Just… temporary." He tilts his head. "I'm not promising you I'll be with you forever or something, but I want you. Even if it's only for one summer, I'll be yours. You can be mine."
"What does that mean to you?" His eyebrows furrow, and I hold his hand and pull him toward me. He's surprised. I grab at his hips instead. His face is alive with warmth, his eyes are dark and curious.
"It means shut up and kiss me, we can talk about this when I know you better. That's what it means. Let me know you, in the old fashioned sense. I'll know you, and you'll know me." He's looking at me, chewing his lip, thinking. I'm sick of thinking. I'm sick of talking. "Where do you want me, James? On my knees, against the wall?"
"Christ, Regulus."
"I told you to shut up." I grab his shirt and pull him into a kiss. He presses into me instantly, all of him fitting into all of me like we were made for each other. His hands are on my hips, then my stomach, under my shirt that doesn't fit me, climbing upward like he's trying to get to second base with a girl. I can feel his glasses on my cheek, for some reason that makes me want him more. These glasses I've watched him push up the bridge of his nose all day, cold and sticking to my skin. His tongue sweeps over my bottom lip like he's asking for an invitation, the smallest, shyest little touch, as if his hands aren't busy mapping every inch of my body (every inch he can reach, anyway). I let him in. Of course I do.
He walks me backwards until my back hits the wall and I make a noise into his mouth halfway between a gasp and an exclamation, he catches it, and swallows it with my spit. He touches me through my trousers like he's wanted to do it all day. I want to get him out of all of his clothes. I want to linger and make good on all of my fantasies by the poolside of his skin and my tongue and my teeth, but we need to be quick, because Remus knows James was with me the last time he saw us together and now the door is locked.
James palms the front of my pants again and I feel all of my blood turn into pure electricity. I grab a handful of his hair and pull, prying him off of my mouth. His eyes are dark, barely opened. His lips are shiny with spit and parted like he's going to kiss me again without interruption the second I let him go. I can feel him pulling on his own hair with my grip on it, like he's drawn toward me with the uncontrollability of two magnets with opposite charges. I know the feeling.
"Want to suck me off?" His lax expression disappears in an instant. His eyes are wide, still so dark. He doesn't say anything. He wets his lips with his tongue. "Are you nervous?" I touch his lip with the hand that isn't in his hair. "You can say no."
"I've never done it before," James tells me, like I don't already know.
"Sounds like you need practice." He smiles, disbelieving, and shakes his head.
"You're really something, you know that? You're a piece of work, Regulus."
"I know." I loosen my grip on his hair. "Do you want me to suck you off?" He makes a strangled sort of noise and closes his eyes. I reach between his legs to feel how hard he is just from kissing me, just from talking. "I bet I could make you finish in less than a minute, with my mouth."
"You know, normally I'd try to defend myself from an accusation like that but I'm so turned on right now I don't think you're wrong. You haven't even touched me, and I feel like..." He closes his eyes. "I didn't know I was gay."
"So we've established," I say, my voice droll. He looks at me— looks down at me would be a better way of putting it. His eyes are so golden yet his pupils make them seem so dark. His face is so close I feel strangely breathless, like the air we're sharing isn't enough for two, his shoulders are so broad. I can feel how strong he is. He crowds me against the wall. I like it. I like that he's bigger and broader than I am.
"I want to try."
"Try what?" I ask. He smiles, like the sun.
"Do you want me on my knees?" My knees suddenly feel very weak.
"Wait, you actually want to—"
"Will you finish in my mouth?" I touch a hand to my forehead because I'm worried I might faint. James smiles again, and I know he can see it. His voice is diabolically slow, soft. "Are you going to teach me, Regulus? Will you teach me how to suck cock?"
"Stop talking." I pull him by his shirt again, into another kiss. Frantic. I claw at his clothes, his hair, I shove a hand past the waistband of his trousers, into his underwear to touch the velvet-soft warmth between his legs and his entire body twitches toward me. I touch him slowly, calculated little movements, measured and very soft. His kiss is all teeth. I take my hand out of his pants, and he bites my lip. "On your knees, please."
He falls to his knees in an instant and fumbles with my trousers. I take his glasses off of his face and toss them aside. I can mend them if they break. I run a hand through his hair, soft, tangled curls catching on my fingers. He looks up at me and his eyelashes kiss his eyebrows the way they did at the poolside. I touch his cheek.
"Has anyone ever given you head?" I ask him. He bites his lip and nods. "Good, so you don't need me to tell you anything. Just do whatever that girl did to you, I'll tell you if there's anything you do that I don't like."
"I've never done this before," he says again. I guess it's the last time he can say it. I touch his cheek.
"You look very pretty on your knees." I can feel his cheek get hot in my hand. He unzips my trousers. His hands are shaking with nerves and what must be desire. He's not looking at my face anymore. Instead, he's looking between my legs with a curiosity and wonder that is hard not to find endearing. "You can stop whenever you want, okay? We don't have to do this. If you don't like it you can just jerk me off."
"I've never wanted anyone as much as I want you," he says, when he tugs my trousers down and they're pooled around my ankles and I'm in nothing but my underwear and a shirt that's a bit too big on me. He touches my dick through my underwear like he's never seen one before, with so much curiosity it almost doesn't feel sexual. "I feel like I'm losing my mind."
"That's exactly how I feel about you." He presses a kiss between my legs, through my underwear, and then opens his mouth, tongue against fabric while he looks at me. I feel my blood turn into electricity again. I feel my entire face burn, my chest burn, my whole body set aflame. The music stops. He stops too, the wet heat of his mouth is almost on my skin, but not quite. "You were made to torture me."
"This is torture?" He pulls down my underwear and I watch him look at me. I resist the impulse to squirm away from him, to hide. His hand is on my thigh. It's so warm. He's all warm. "You're beautiful." His hand is suddenly between my legs instead of slipping over my thigh. When he touches me he touches me like I am something holy, so much reverence in every movement, every touch. He presses a kiss to me, the end of me, then the beginning, then I can feel his tongue on my skin the way I've wanted to have my tongue on his skin for the entire day. Flat, dragging, then his lips, like the water moving against the tile around the pool, like the clouds drifting past outside. Every part of him and every part of me are completely in sync. Sunlight passing through a cloud. James, with his mouth open, with his eyes shining, with his hair in my hand and his hands, both of his hands, grabbing fistfuls of me to hold me in place while I take something from him he can never get back. While I turn him from one thing to another thing. While I am first, and he is second.
I finish in his mouth. He looks betrayed, like he didn't ask for it. His lips are slick with spit, and swollen, like he's been kissed too much. I'm going to die. James is going to kill me on his knees. I watch his hand press between his legs, and his lips part.
"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," I say faintly. "Ever." I grab his face, the edge of his jaw. "Stop touching yourself." His hand stills instantly. His eyes are wide, his lips slack. Why does sex always bring along with it a glossiness, a glazed quality that adds to its unreality? His lips are shining, his eyes are shining. He's a painting with fresh varnish. Lovely, gleaming. I like telling him what to do. He seems to like listening. "Take off your shirt."
"I thought we had to be fast." He does it anyway. He listens to me when I tell him what to do. How beautiful is that? I grab his hair again. His voice is rough, and I wonder if it's because of me. Did James lose his voice sucking cock? He shudders, he twitches toward me. I feel powerful.
"Don't think about that." I bend, so we're face to face. "Just think about me." His eyes are wide and beautiful, so close. Everything about him is beautiful. It's distracting. "Can you do that?" James nods, his lips slack and his expression so alive. "You don't have to worry, I'll take care of you."
"What do you—" I press a finger to his lips.
"Shh," I whisper. "I told you not to worry." I press my lips to his forehead, gentle, sweet. Then his cheekbone. His jaw. I look at him. We are so close a hand wouldn't fit between us. My cheek finds his, cheek to cheek, then I touch his hair again, my fingertips on his neck, then his shoulders, then his hair again, the shape of his ear, gentle on his earlobes, his lips on my lips, then his hands all over me again. I kiss and lick my way down his torso, the salt of his skin, the sweetness, the smell of his sweat and the taste of it in my mouth, my mouth on his hip bone, then my mouth full, and his hands in my hair, and his voice—wrecked, not his voice—repeating my name in little breathless, helpless gasps. I make him mine with my touch. I burn myself into him. I take from him, and he takes from me. He tries to pull out of my mouth and I don't let him, and I taste him when he finishes, all over my mouth, some of it on my lips. I swallow it all. I lick him clean. I'm starving, and he is just as ravenous. We could spend the entire day locked together like this on the floor, if it was up to me, we would.
My chest is flushed angry red, and my cheeks are ablaze with heat. He touches the places I’m the most flushed, a hand on my collarbone, then my cheek. He’s so warm and soft, clumsy and sated. He pulls me into him and kisses me, a hand closing on the inside of my thigh. He traces the shape of one of the stars carved into my skin with a blunt fingertip, and I bite him.
“I’ve never wanted someone as much as I want you,” he says into my mouth, his lips on my cheek, my jaw, his teeth on my collarbone. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know how you expect me not to fall in love with you.” His eyes are hidden by his eyelashes, he’s too close to hide anything else from me. He traces one of my scars, a line of stars on the back of my arm. His nails are bitten short.
“Did I ever say that I don’t want you to love me?” His eyes flash to mine, and the force of his stare is startling. It’s like he’s made of fire. Whatever I was going to say fizzles to nothing on the end of my tongue.
“You’re going to ruin my life,” he whispers. He cradles my jaw in his hands like I’m a flightless bird.
“Maybe.” I can feel the words taking shape inside of me before they float in the scant space between us. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”