RL with Remus

[why_so_me]

They day after the virus, Sirius was in the Gryffindor dormitory, curtains to his bed drawn. Inside, he was supposedly working on an essay that was due for Prof. Flitwick about Summoning Magic, and he did indeed have his books open and a quill scrawling across parchment. However, his handwriting had devolved into illegible blots of ink and long scratches that nearly tore through the page. Sirius barely seemed to notice.

He hadn't talked to Remus or James or Peter or really anyone since waking up that morning. It was plain he was in a terrible mood, but he refused to let anyone in on what had happened. Even alone in his room, he glared at the paper.

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Sirius shrugged. "Even if they don't like it, I'll get out anyway. 'S not like I wouldn't manage to get into any trouble if I was home all day anyway, at least this way I'm out of their hair," he said, his tone as casual as if Moony had asked for the weather. Getting into trouble with his parents wasn't exactly something he was unaccustomed to. "Don't worry about, Moony."

[lycanthropy-101.livejournal.com]

"Sirius..." Remus started again. He wasn't very good at keeping himself from thinking about bad things, especially not where his friends were concerned. He was beginning to think that he'd never stop worrying about them, ever. "You... I know your parents aren't the nicest people to you, and. And you don't exactly get along very well at all, but. They're...they're still alright to you, aren't they? I mean...you." God, this was difficult to ask, especially to ask a friend. "You aren't getting abused by them, are you? They're not violent about any of this, right...?"

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"What?" Sirius' eyebrows shot up, genuinely surprised by the question. "No, no, God no. I mean, Mum's smacked my hand a couple of times, but nothing like that. They're nasty as hell at my house, but it's nothing as bad as all that."

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Remus breathed a sigh of relief, not realizing how worried he was that his friend was being abused physically as well as emotionally until Sirius had reassured him that he wasn't. He clenched Sirius's shoulder in his arm, rubbing it reassuringly. "Okay, good. That's good. Because..." He swallowed. Why was he saying this? He didn't want to. He supposed he just needed to get it said, and there probably wasn't going to be another opportunity to say it.

"You know, if that ever starts, you should get out of there. Like, really get out of there. You could come to mine, or, well, I'm sure James would be all for you staying at his as well, and the Potters wouldn't mind. You. You know that we're here for you, yeah?" God, Remus was blushing a bit now.

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"Remus, don't...don't worry about that, okay?" Sirius said, a little bit alarmed that the question had been raised to start with. He knew things at his house were shitty, but he didn't think they were that bad, that his mum or dad would ever beat him for anything. "My parents are rotten, but it's not like that at my house, okay?"

With a small smile (especially since he could see Remus blushing), he said, "Thanks, though. For the offer."

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Remus nodded, still blushing slightly. "Don't mention it. I mean, I'm sure if our situations were reversed, you'd do the same for me. Merlin knows, you'd probably have done it a long time ago, too, it wouldn't have taken you this long and you'd probably have done it in an entirely less awkward way, but. I'm not you, so. Here it is. Here...here we are."

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"Stop putting yourself down when you're being nice," Sirius said, arching an eyebrow at him, smiling a tiny little bit at the sight of Remus continuing to blush. "And I don't care if it's awkward or anything, I really do appreciate it. So...thanks."

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Remus couldn't help but smile back a little bit at Sirius, grateful, so, so grateful to have the other boy as his friend. He knew that he was being a bit ridiculous, though, so he looked away. "Yes, well... I'm..." He caught sight of Sirius's Summoning Magic essay again, and his lips quirked. "I'm sure that you'd also probably appreciate a good proofread on what you've done of this essay so far as well." Remus knew for a fact not even having to look at it that Sirius's mind probably wasn't in the task when he'd written it so far, as it were.

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Sirius chuckled. "Oh, Moony, your focus is never far from homework," he teased, knowing full well his essay was probably a completely illegible mess. "Well, if you want to try and figure out what in Merlin's name I managed to write on my essay, you're welcome to."

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Remus slowly took his arm away from Sirius's shoulder, shifting a bit further away to grab the essay and trying not to be awkward about it. Or, well. More awkward about it than he already had been, no more awkward than usual. Remus looked at it briefly. "It's not so much that I want to, but more like I should help you salvage from this mess what you can so that you don't have to start over completely from scratch and be completely miserable about it later on. You've been miserable enough for one day--if I let you go on for much longer, you'll be stealing my fire, there."

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"So, in the future, when I want you to help me do my essays, I should just act as miserable as possible?" Sirius teased, slightly disappointed that Remus' arm had left his shoulder. "I'll have to remember that and use it to my full advantage."

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Remus sent Sirius a look. "You'd better not. If I start noticing you're just acting to get things out of me, you're going to have to start handing things that look like this in," he said, brandishing the essay in question, "and then where would your grades be?" Okay, so Sirius's grades wouldn't drop that much without him. But he still felt that he was making something of a difference, enough that Sirius should still feel like he needed him around. Because...Remus wanted to feel needed, and like he was worth all the trouble he knew being friends with him was.

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"Noooo, if you noticed I was acting and tried to stop, I would bat my eyelashes and would do my Padfoot best to win you over with my wit and charm," he teased, scooting closer to him. "And if that didn't work, I would cry crocodile tears because my dear, darling Moony abandoned me."

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Remus raised an eyebrow at Sirius, not noticing the scooting closer, unconsciously actually enjoying the space between them being closed off again. "I should think that those tears wouldn't be crocodile tears for long once you realize how much your grades are going to suffer if you try to wrong me like that..."

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"My tears would only flow harder and more plentifully once I realized that being forgotten by my dear Remus would mean my demise," Sirius answered. "I'd still be crying months later, after I'd been kicked out of Hogwarts and was begging for Knuts outside the Leaky Cauldron with an empty mug in hand."

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Remus snorted, amused at the image of Sirius ever falling that far for anything. Sure, they were only joking around right now, but. James was Sirius's best friend after all, even if Sirius was Remus's. Remus not talking to Sirius wouldn't get him too torn up about everything, right? "Okay, Pads, let's not go too far on this analogy here. I'm not that important to your life or anything..."

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Sirius glanced over at Remus before poking him lightly in the arm. "You sell yourself short Moony," Sirius said, still joking but inwardly a little concerned by how much Remus put himself down when they joked around. "You're already more important than every single one of my family members."

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Remus raised an eyebrow, wondering if it would be in poor taste to ask how much that was actually saying of how important he was to Sirius, considering Sirius seemed to hate all of his family members, but...he thought better of it. He did put himself down a lot, he was a pessimist by nature, though really, it was hard to be a werewolf and not be a little down on yourself. He wasn't going to go admitting that to his friends anytime soon--that would be best left to situations where they actually brought it up themselves. For now, though...

"'Already'?" Remus asked. "Does that mean that I have further to travel? Is it possible to climb higher in your good books than the place in which I am now comfortably sitting?"

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"Well, you know, I haven't gotten to the point where I kneel to your image and burn sacrifices to you on an altar," Sirius teased, laughing a little, though he suspected Remus was having a moment of low self-esteem. "So, I'd say you could probably climb higher."

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Sirius suspected right in Remus having a moment of low self-esteem, although Remus's whole life was a series of moments of low self-esteem, so. That wasn't saying much. "Oh really?" Remus asked. "And what sorts of things would I have to do in order to get myself up to that level, then, Pads? What to add on to the already impressive list I've got going for me?"

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"Hmmm, let's see," Sirius said, dramatically pretending to give this heady, in-depth consideration. "Well, you could rescue me from a burning building, or from being run over by a train. Or pelt my mother with Stinkbombs and spraypaint my family tree."

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Remus gave Sirius a look at the last two, a look that said 'you're more the type to do things like that than I am and you know it, Sirius', then gave it his own mock consideration. "I'll just use my werewolf superpowers to stop the train in its tracks, then, shall I?" he asked, looking all the world like he could seriously do something like that. Which he couldn't, by the way. He was a lot stronger than normal people, because of the whole werewolf thing, but he didn't really like to broadcast that, because well, it made him stand out as different. He wasn't even sure if his friends really knew about it, actually, come to think of it. He was fairly good at keeping secrets, after all. He'd been doing it for most of his life.

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"Yes, yes you will," Sirius said, letting his imagination run wild at this point. "You could even wear a cape and a mask and be Werewolf Man. And I will somehow have no idea that it's you, even your voice and chin will still be exactly rge same. I will also get into danger about once a week and need rescuing."

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Remus shook his head. "Getting into danger once a week is a little excessive, Pads. I don't think that even the Werewolf Man could do that much rescuing of you. You'll have to tone down the getting into trouble if you want our plan to succeed, here," Remus said, with a grin.

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"But Moony, how can I be a proper damsel in distress if I'm not constantly in danger?" Sirius asked, batting his eyelashes as though he were seriously some coy comic book heroine. "Besides, it's not my fault I'm constantly being endangered by the forces of evil."