Chapter eight

Remus wakes to the foreign feeling of a weight on his chest, warm and slowly rising and falling, heartbeats crashing into one another as if they were meant to always be this close. The lion looked at the sight before him, the boy with the dark curls and slightly bruised lips, the tan had long faded into only the whisper of a warm glow, and the spray of freckles that one could only see from this close. If he'd had a camera he would have taken a picture.

Gray eyes soon opened to meet his one as the younger boy stirred, and Remus couldn't help but wonder if the other would slip away and pretend that nothing happened at all now that the sun was shining once more. If the younger teen would only come to him at nights like some sort of secret that he couldn't bear to have others know, or not come at all and regret everything with the clarity of day. 

But then there's a soft smile on the other's lips, something a little mischievous as if the Gryffindor common room was wearing off on the younger more than any snake would want it to - though Remus supposed that it could easily just as well be Barty and Evan's doing a well. There's a soft press of lips against his own, and a warm hand on the older boy's hip, pressing him down and thumb passing over the bite mark there as the shirt rode up from sleep, as if to give it a new meaning. Remus almost thought that it worked.

The touch was there and gone before the Gryffindor could even do anything to return it, just the brush of something - a promise that this wasn't going away just because the stars were no longer painting pictures upon the sky like stolen gems. 

Regulus pushes himself off of the couch and onto the floor, looking down at the older boy expectantly in a way that makes the lion want to pull the other close so that they might go back to only a few moments before when each were pleasantly asleep and moving despite the ache deep within his bones wasn't something that he had to do.

"Come on," Regulus says, his voice barely above a whisper because there was no need to be loud, to demand more of one another in such a way, when others weren't around and all else was quiet anyways. 

The younger boy holds out his hand to the Gryffindor and Remus takes it, cool hands meeting warm ones as water and fire danced around one another in a way that could only prove fatal if things continued on exactly as they were. Remus took the hand and let himself be pulled to his feet by the younger. He didn't let go even as they left the common room, guiding the younger boy along as the moon pulls at the sea.

He wasn't going to allow them to become a catastrophe.

—-

The pair walk down to breakfast together, the younger dressed in the nice clothes like armor as the older dressed in the muggle ones that he wore just the same, their sides pressed so tightly to one another that if the layers of fabric weren't there one couldn't tell where the elder boy ended and the younger began.

The boys sat down a little ways from two Ravenclaws that had few too many differences in their features with one another to quite be siblings or anything of the like and neither of them needed the faint reddening of the girl's from the studying glances to know what they were to each other. 

As the meal went on though, the two pairs found themselves talking to one another, each of them savoring the idea of speaking with another that didn't know the exact same things of the past day as they did.

The conversations were interesting enough, as the Ravenclaws were both seventh years, staying at the castle under the guise of studying for their NEWTs. Debates and theories came quickly 

Regulus's knee bumps into Remus's as they all speak and the lion savors the warmth of the star with the heart of one, that the other stays long after most would have pulled away from an accidental touch.

It wasn't an accident at all.

"We were going to go skating if you lot want to come," the Ravenclaw boy offers, sounding only slightly reluctant in doing so as he glances at the younger Black brother.

The other two boys glance at one another, a silent question in each of their eyes that matched the other's. Regulus shrugged one shoulder with all of the elegance attached to his name, and Remus gestured down to his feet, the point he made was clear.

"We can transfigure you a pair of skates," the younger whispers softly.

"So you can laugh when I fall?" The elder asks with a teasing glint to his voice.

"Of course."

Less than half an hour later, all four of the students were out at the lake, looking at the ice that had frozen over it as they laced up their skates and took tentative steps out upon it. 

Remus's legs were wobbly on the new surface, but Regulus held onto his arms in the way that friends were allowed to do when one was reaching the other how to skate, but both boys found the heat to it to be more than that. Neither shied away from that fact, only pushing more closely together until the lines between them began to blur once more in their heavy winter clothes.

When the Gryffindor finally found his balance on the ice, he pulled away reluctantly and moved around on his own, stealing glances at the snake as they parted.

The sight took the breadth straight from his lungs, the air curling in a white cloud that danced around the lion.

Because Regulus is beautiful in a way that is so heartbreaking it hurts Remus to look at the other as the boy spins so fluidly that one would think that the younger was only made to move in such a way and no other. And the Gryffindor knows that his own actions are sloppy, but the embarrassment of it is dulled by the heart wrenching way that Regulus smiles in the way that the older boy had found was only reserved for him, the pain in the lion's chest growing more in a way that it was almost impossible to look at the other and know that he could not touch him with the other two around. 

He welcomed the pain still.

—-

The pair found themselves laid out on the couch once more, the fire burning brightly beside them as the teen curled into one another, lips bruised one more from kissing one another, skin stained a light purple on each of their necks from the very same. 

Regulus traced the scars on Remus's neck, the silver lines that the beast inside of the other boy had marked him with forever. The lines, that while beautiful, only grew each month, even if they only did so slowly this past year. He didn't want them to have to grow at all, but knew that there was no cure for the other teen's affliction. Not that anyone could even get close enough to attempt one while the full moon is out, as the wolf would attack any man with a heartbeat.

"Do werewolves attack animals during the moon?" The younger of the two asks as the sun begins to dip outside of the window, the room slowly darkening but neither bothers to cast any spells to change that.

"No, only humans. It's something about the scent, I think," Remus answers and he can already see where the conversation is going and knows that it must be a Black thing for both to come to the same conclusion.

"What about animagus?" The younger asks almost innocently, as if it were only pure curiosity and nothing more.

"Animagus are seen as animals when in their form," the elder teen answers with a surety that the other doesn't want to question in case of finding out something that he shouldn't.

"And if I wanted to do some research on becoming one?"

"Then I know where you can find some already done for you."

The pair smile at one another in a knowing way as they move from the couch and up the stairs to the sixth year boy's dorm, neither boy having to look anymore to know where they are going.

Over the next hour or two, the pair divide among the room, looking beneath beds and the bottom of drawers for the notes, as Remus knew that neither Sirius or James would risk bringing them home and it becoming clear to Mr. and Mrs. Potter just how many laws they were currently breaking. 

And if they found what they needed for the process and then Regulus pushed and followed the older teen onto the Gryffindor's bed and the world burned as they touched, lips crashing into one another with the adrenaline of what was to come rushing through their veins, then no one else needed to know.

—-

The closest that Remus had ever had to a proper Christmas were the ones that he had spent hidden away at the Potter's house, but with those he always felt more like a guest than anything else as he couldn't bring himself to be as open or as soft as everyone else was. He spent most of the time envious of things that he could never have and hating himself for it because he could never bring himself to be as happy as the others.

But this year was different.

There were gifts beneath the tree in the Gryffindor common room as Remus walked down the dormitory stairs to the main room alone, Regulus having spent the night in his own common room so that he could receive his own presents from the tree there. The wolf had never seen so many presents under the tree before meant just for him.

There was a black sweater made of a nice material that the Gryffindor knew before he even slide it on that it would be kind on his scars unlike some of his other one that dragged at them and irradiated the boy to the point that he would thrown them away if he had any clothes to truly spare. Remus didn't have to read the tag to know that it was from Regulus, and he smiled at the thought of wearing it down to breakfast as seeing the other look at him in it. 

Next was a small fox stuffed animal from Barty and a golden slinky from Evan that had the older teen smiling at the memory of it all. The chaos that the three of them had caused that day and the way that the patronus had run around the room, free in a way that only youth could ever hope to obtain. He knew that he would put each of the items on his nightstand and wait to see if the others said anything at all of it.

The last one was from Dora, and it was the strangest of them all, with there being black nail polish and eyeliner in the little golden bag. 

When Regulus came up to the tower with Remus after breakfast, the older boy allowed himself to become pliant under the younger's touch as the other teen took the two items with a practiced ease and applied them to the elder. Neither of them said anything about the way that Regulus sat in his lap to do the eyeliner when he clearly didn't need to, holding the lion's face still when the other hadn't moved at all. 

Neither said anything about how they both liked the intimacy of it and wished for it back when the snake moved away to do the nail polish after. Regulus would scowl a few days later once he saw that the polish that he had so carefully applied was already chipped by the older boy, but neither would miss the way that the younger's ears turned a delicate shade of red from how it went with the look that the lion had cultivated over the past few months.

—-

Remus has always known that the castle was filled with secret passageways and knocks and crannies that students could go their entire seven years in the castle with ever even finding one, but he never expected to be walking the seventh floor with Regulus and finding a room that came and went like the tide, changing depending on what one was thinking before the door appeared before them.

The boys looked at one another before walking onside, their breadths catching as if another had stolen them as a familiar sight sprawled out before them. 

The room had taken on the shape of an old, abandoned park. Some of the equipment was falling apart and quite a few of the ionic tables looked like they had seen better days as weeds grew up the sides of them. The grass was tall everywhere and the air was warm with the heat of summer and the boys knew that the room looked exactly like the place that they had found during the summer holidays near St. Edmund's. 

And Remus knew that he wouldn't be adding this to the Marauder's Map.

The pair moved farther into the park, casting spells to repair the swings before sitting upon them like the school children that neither of them had ever gotten to be before, and for the last few days of the holidays, they fell back into the habits of their summer selves only the touches were no longer stolen or chaste as Remus laid his head in the other boy's lap as they sat in the grass.