Is It Over Now?

I'm an alligator 

I'm a mama - papa comin' for you

I'm the space invader

The music floated through the air as Remus sorted through the notes on different variations of levitation charms piled messily on his bed, attempting - futility it seemed - to put them in some sense of order before meeting with the others. Truly they should have just gotten some blank notebooks and given each of the books a topic to stick with, but doing so now would be detrimental as they were in the stages of writing through the small problems, the bigger ones that this level of organization would have helped greatly with was already dealt with.

I'll be a rock 'n' rollin' bitch for you

Keep your mouth shut

You're squawking like a pink monkey bird

And I'm bustin' up my brains for the words

The door to the boy's dorm opens with a huff and Remus stops singing along to see who the newcomer was. Today was another Hogsmead weekend, so everyone else should be out in the village, yet the countenance of Sirius Black was staring the other lion back in the face, gray eyes solemn in a way that Remus often found that Regulus's were. Today was Halloween, and later the Marauders were throwing a party with enough alcohol smuggled in from the Hog's Head to make even the Slytherins jealous, Remus knew that the Gryffindor had no business looking such a way.

Sirius walked in despondently and layed down on his bed without so much as an uttered word. A small, pathetic sigh escaped the other boy's lips. 

"I can turn it off if you want," Remus offered, hand already reaching for the dial.

"No," the other lion said quickly. "Leave it."

"Okay," the wolf said with a voice much softer than he had used with the other teen in a long time, the awkwardness of the situation and the other boy's mood dulling his usually short tone.

Remus drew his hand away and went back to sorting through his papers, making a stack of what he would take with him and what he was fairly certain could be left behind, as an uncomfortable silence hung in the air between the pair, filled only by the ever present music.

Keep your 'lectric eye on me, babe

Put your ray gun to my head

Press your space face close to mine, love

Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!

After not hearing the other boy move or make any noise at all for a long moment, Remus glanced up at the other bed and found Sirius's eyes already on him. The gray just a slightly wrong color for what the Gryffindor wanted to see. The dark hair lacking the curls that Remus sometimes thought of as he fell asleep.

"I ended things with Mary," Sirius said suddenly, and Remis couldn't truly find it in himself to be that surprised. A relationship could only last so long when one half of it was having to ask James to remind him of his own dates, and then both of the boys got so wrapped up in a new scheme that they each forgot anyways.

"Oh," Remus says dumbly as he stands, unsure of what to do and finding himself desperately wishing for James to come barging into their room with that perfect Potter timing that he always seems to have when it comes to Sirius. 

He doesn't.

Don't fake it baby, lay the real thing on me

The church of man, love

Is such a holy place to be

Make me baby, make me know you really care

Make me jump into the air

Sirius stands as well and begins to draw closer to the other Gryffindor, something wild in the shorter boy's eyes that has Remus taking an instinctive step back now, when he knew deep down that he would have been moving as close as he could this time last year. The realization doesn't hurt as much as used to.

Keep your 'lectric eye on me, babe

Put your ray gun to my head

Press your space face close to mine, love

Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!

The darker haired boy opens his mouth to say something, something utterly damning most likely if Remus were to venture a guess, but is stopped as a silver wisps floods into the room in a buoyant stream, morphing into the slim figure of a cat as the wolf smiles. Sirius stares dumbly as the full bodied patronus runs around the other boy, Remus so taken with it that he seemed to have forgotten that the eldest Black brother was there at all as sleek animal settles at Remus's feet, curling up there before it disappeared as if it hadn't existed at all. 

Keep your 'lectric eye on me, babe

Put your ray gun to my head

Press your space face close to mine, love

Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!

Remus's smile is brighter than Sirius had ever seen it before, and it hurts the elder Black to have not been the one to put such a look there.

The wolf snaps out of his quickly as excitement thrums in the boy's chest. Every clandestine meeting always did feel like flying without the inevitable fall. Though Remus was sure that it would one day come.

It always did.

"I have to go," Remus said uselessly as he began to gather his things, shoving them hazardously into his bag, the soft smile never leaving the boy's lips, not even with Sirius's sour gaze staying stubbornly on him. "I'm meeting a friend."

Keep your 'lectric eye on me, babe

Put your ray gun to my head

Press your space face close to mine, love

Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!

"Of course," the older Black says brightly, forcing himself out of whatever strange swell of emotion had momentarily taken over him as the other boy slides on the combat boots that Sirius had secretly loved since Remus came stomping onto the train in them in their fourth year.

"I'll see you at the feast," Remus assures, his voice still stubbornly softer than it had been before, some part of him still trying to be a good friend to the boy that had been his before the disastrous end to their previous year.

"Of course," Sirius says once more, and if Remus notices how much duller it sounded than the previous, then he didn't say anything.

Freak out, far out, in out

The door closed excitedly as Remus left in a hurry, and Sirius couldn't decide then if the other boy hating him, or acting as he just did - as if Sirius was nothing special - was worse.

—-

Remus found the owner of the familiar patronus a few halls away from Gryffindor tower. The younger teen was sitting on the floor in a way that would surely make his mother scream about the inappropriateness for someone of his station if she were to ever see the younger Black brother sitting cross legged as he was with a book perched in his hand and back curved beautifully. Remus sat down next to the other boy and rested his arm on the teen's thigh as if it was something normal to do. 

For them it was. 

Regulus leaned back and placed some of his weight on the older boy's side without a word passed between them, and fire danced across the lion's skin at every point of contact.

Remus couldn't pinpoint when souch casual touches between him and Regulus became something normal, something that he found himself craving when the other wasn't near and seeking out when he was, and always returning when the other gave it first. Regulus hummed as he became more comfortable against the Gryffindor and Remus knew that he didn't want to live to the day that this was something that he lost to the truth of the older boy's condition.

"No Dora?" Remus asked, his voice quiet enough that the other boy could pretend that he hadn't heard it at all if he so wished to, he never did. Not when it was Remus asking.

"She had to go into the village for some books that the Hogwarts library doesn't have," Regulus said just as quietly, closing his book to give the other boy his full attention, but left his finger between the pages.

Remus hummed, something small and content as he shifted into a more comfortable position against the other boy and the wall. "You didn't want to go with her?" He asks, but they can both hear the true question lying just beneath it:

You chose to be with me instead?

Regulus shrugged as he turned his head up to look at the other teen fully, and Remus found that the gaze felt right as the shade of gray that the other possessed was finally looking back at him, those eyes that got lighter as they went towards the pupil, hues of blue sneaking in. It was Remus's new favorite color.

"She didn't really need my help."

Of course I chose you.

Neither of them were used to being another's first choice. Neither of them ever had been before. 

Now they were.

"What are you reading?" Remus asked as he stooped to look at the back cover of the thin book that had an unmistakably muggle look to it. Hands gently cascaded over his shoulders as he moved and Remus found himself leaning into the soft touch, aching for it as he had to pull away once more and it was lost.

"It's one of the muggle books that you told me to read a few weeks ago," Regulus said calmly, truing the book in question over in his hands so that the other could see. Lightning danced across the code as a shadowed figure stood proudly within the forest.

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

"Thought that you would read the first work of science fiction on Halloween?" Remus asked, running his scarred fingers along the pages. The scars were still on prominent display, even two months after the party. Remus still couldn't Stanford to look at them in the mirror, but he didn't want to hide them behind weak beauty spells either.

There was a strange freedom in his damnation.

Regulus runs his fingers over one of the longer scars on Remus's hand and the older teen bites back a sigh. "The story isn't as interesting as I thought that it would be," the Slytherin admits sullenly.

"Hoping for a take of mad doctors and fights to the death?" The older boy jests because that had been exactly what had drawn him into the story and had left him so dissatisfied with the ending of it.

Regulus gets this prim look on his face and for a moment Remus thinks that he won't answer at all, but then his visage shifts once more into genuine disappointment. "Yes," the other boy admits as if it was somehow shameful to have wanted something out of the book that he held. To want something for himself.

Remus knew then that he wasn't the only Ken holding them back from their eventual conclusion.

"I only finished it because it was one of the modern classics," Remus admits. "Truthfully I had wanted more action."

"Then why did you tell me to read it?" The snake asks, turning to look at the lion, the annoyance almost tangible in the other's voice as he spoke. Remus found that he loved every genuine emotion that he could draw out of the younger teen and into the open. He loved even more that he was one of the few that ever got to hear it.

"I thought that you might like the parallels between Frankensten and Prometheus, given your love for myths, and the similar parallels between the doctor's creation and Egyptian gollums," the Gryffindor replied honestly, heat blooming in his chest at the honest look of warmth in the other boy's eyes.

"I did," he admits, the younger boy's voice was so soft that if any other noise were to have occurred at the same time, anyone with normal hearing wouldn't have been able to perceive it at all.

"I'm glad."

The pair stayed there on the ground and talked about the differences between the imagined science and the magic that they each knew to be real, from gollums to inferni, until legs grew numb and their backs began to ache from doing so. Remus was just relieved that he had remembered to grab the map the night before.

—-

Hours later Remus's senses were assaulted with the loud music of Gryffindor tower as the party came into full swing. Streamers and floating Jack - o - lanterns decorated the common room as the Gryffindors milled about, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs slipping in too in a steady stream. 

Bodies flitted through the room, the intoxicating scent of magic coming with each and every one of them, and sometimes Remus felt as if he could reach out and grasp it all for himself. Sometimes he could just imagine how it would sing on skin if he were to do so. He thought that it would feel a lot like flying without the curse of falling, like the high of fighting.

But the magic stayed trapped under everyone's skin as they all took the chance to get wasted.

It was the same scene that he had been in countless times before, and yet Remus wasn't able to settle within it. He felt trapped in his skin like in the days leading up to a full moon, but the once for October had already passed and November wasn't due for a good while. His body felt ready for a fight; to feel the magic pour from him and the skin on his knuckles tear.

But this was Gryffindor - not Slytherin and not the home either where fighting while drinking was practically a given- so Remus settled for moving into the crowd of bodies and danced to the songs that had the other Marauders sending him strange looks because this sort of music wasn't supposed to be his genre, and dancing wasn't something that Remus truly did.

I'm dirty, mean, I'm mighty unclean

I'm a wanted man

Public enemy number one

Understand?

The wolf missed the violence and Remus found himself agreeing.

Dancing and drinking soon wore thin, it always did when it meant nothing, and Remus drew away from it all to one of the couches by the fireplace, sitting down in it with a glass of something strong enough to actually make his blood buzz. If he closed his eyes, Remus could almost pretend that the music was something similar to the wizarding kind that would be playing in the Slytherin common room right now, and the couch was a posh black.

"Well, there's Mr. Life of the Party."

"Yeah, when did you get to be so fun, Moony?"

Remus opened his eyes to see the other three Marauders drawing close, each of the boy's skin appropriately flushed for the amount of alcohol that the common room now reeked of. 

"I've always been fun," the sitting teen protested weakly as the other three took seats of their own around him, "you sorry lot normally just steal the spotlight enough that you don't see it."

It was a half lie, not that the other three would know. Remus spent so much of his time at Hogwarts these past six years attempting to be the perfect student and get all the best marks, so that he could have even a sliver of a chance of being something after school - of being more than a werewolf who will never be able to hold down a job - that he pushed down anything that didn't fit with that image. He's always repressed a part of himself, nights like these just reminded Remus of how much.

"Oh, is that how it is, Moony?" James asked, his voice light as he smiled mischievously as always.

"Yeah, it is, Prongs," Remus replied just the same, finally beginning to feel a little more at ease within the party as the familiar banter rolled off of his tongue. 

"Well," the other boy smirked as the other two Marauders watched the pair go back and forth fondly, "show us something else that we don't already know then."

"Alright."

Remus pushed himself to his feet, the spirits warming his blood enough that he could almost ignore the way that his body instantly resisted the sudden movement. There was a deck of muggle playing cards that he had swiped from Barty stashed behind one of the paintings in the common room just for an occasion like this.

Taking one side of the table, Remus motioned for the other three to take the remaining sides of the low table as he shuffled the cards, a sly smirk on the lion's face as the other Marauders's eyes went wide with an impressed gleam at some of the fancy shuffling tricks that he had learned from the youngest Crouch.

"Now," Remus started as he began to deal the cards, "have any of you gits ever played Poker before?"

As the party began to wind down for the night and the boys went to bed, Remus's smirk didn't fade as he climbed the stairs to the sixth year boy's dorm, three drunk - and considerably poorer - Marauders trailing at the tallest boy's heels.

"I am never playing muggle card games with you again," Peter grumbled as the four walked a little hazardously into the room, Remus's pockets jingling lightly with each movement. 

"But that was only one of the games that I know," Remus protested coely as he kicked off his shoes. "We still have at least three more to try."

James groaned as he fell face first onto his bed, his feet still hanging off of it as his face just missed the pillow.

"Where did you learn how to play that damnable game?" Sirius asked, a brow raised primly in a manner that reminded the wolf too much of another boy for the amount of alcohol in his body.

"A friend," Remus said with a hard undertone that should have let the other boy know not to push any further. If Sirius heard it, he didn't listen.

"The same one that sent for you with that cat patronus earlier?"

James's head popped off of the bed with a suddenness that made the teen drunkenly groan from the movement, but his eyes were alight nonetheless. "Cat patronus?" He asked. "Like a full bodied patronus?"

Sirius nodded at the other boy before both sets of eyes turned to the only one of them that was still standing, as Peter was already groggily snoring from his own bed, day clothes still firmly on. 

"Yeah," Remus said with more than he felt, "I know a bloke that can cast one, but he's not in our year." The wolf held up his hand as Sirius opened his mouth to speak, already knowing the question that the other was bound to ask. "And no, he's not the one that taught me cards either."

"Didn't know you were so popular," James giggled blearily, but an effect that he might have attempted to have was runnier by the way that he drunkenly wiggled his brows.

"I'm not popular," Remus protested, absolutely detesting the idea of being so for anything other than what he already was. "I just meet a good deal of people through the study groups that I host every now and again, you lot would too if anyone in this room bothered to study, or not wait until the absolute last minute to do so."

The words had their intended effect as both of the other boys groaned and huffed at the badgering, spent with the conversation as they both conjured the energy to change into night clothes, Remus doing much the same in the bathroom.

Sometimes Remus wondered just who he was turning into. With the money that he owed Regulus hidden comfortably away in his bag, the lion found that he didn't much care.

—-

The November moon comes and goes like all of the others since the Marauders became animagi, the woods unfolding like a home that he never had the right to keep. Sometimes Remus thinks that the Forbidden Forest feels different to the wolf than it does to the others, like the magic of the woods was trying to reach out to him, but the wolf was too stubborn at the moment to take it. Remus figured that it must be different for the others, because he knew that they would each leap at the chance to tempt the fates in such a way.

The four were eating dinner with an irate Lily Evans close enough to talk to - and to ignore a relentless James Potter - but far enough away that Mary didn't have to be close to her ex as the girls were all together, something that Remus didn't really understand since both Mary and Sirius had been dating new people since that Halloween night.

"Evening everyone," Pandora said politely as she drew near, a soft look on her face that she reserved for the public and paled in comparison to any genuine expression that she would normally divulge when their group was alone. 

Remus grinned at the younger girl as she stopped in front of him and the other lions, something held delicately within her hands. "Evening, Dora. What'cha got there?"

The Ravenclaw smiled like a simple girl - something that she so clearly was not - as she held out a folded piece of paper that was spelled a familiar shade of blue. "What do you think?" Dora asked as Remus grabbed it to examine the piece, the others at the table staring at the interjection as if the pair were animals at the zoo. The friends didn't mind and pretended that the other lions weren't there at all.

"A bat," Remus observed, his fingers ghosting over the creation as if it was something to chairished. That was all Pandora needed to know how the other felt about what she had made. "How fitting."

"I thought so," the younger witch agreed.

"Where did you learn to make it?" A new voice asked and both of the friends turned to see Lily leaning forwards on the table, interest bringing her green eyes to light.

"There's actually a book on it in the library," the blonde said excitedly, leaning against the table at Remus's side so that she could talk with the red head, which, for whatever reason, caused Sirius to scoff into his goblet. Remus and James both sent the other boy a pointed look, silently telling the other Gryffindor to behave. "There's a section on it in a book on different types of animations for paper," the Ravenclaw explained, her soft voice becoming more animated by the moment. "A bunch of low level animation charms that do similar things to the moving portraits, but with much more limited capabilities."

"Fascinating," Lily said enthusiastically. "Did you spell this one?"

Dora nodded before turning back to the wolf. "Just tap the right wing."

Remus did as asked and smiled proudly as the bat's wings began to move and the paper creature flew from his hands and made a lazy circle around the boy before landing back in them and going still once more.

"Beautiful magic," Marlene complimented, joining the conversation as well. "Maybe you could show us how you did it later, and bring that Meadows girl with you. She was here and gone last time and none of us got to properly meet Remus's new friend."

Dora smiled in a knowing way as she nodded and walked away, leaving almost everyone else confused.

Sirius was in a poor mood for the rest of dinner, but Remus didn't the boy much attention as he fiddled with the paper creature that was no bigger than the Gryffindor's hand, eyes flickering to a certain snake across the Great Hall and found him looking back just as much. 

—-

Remus waited until the other boys had begun to settle down to unfold the paper creature, knowing that - no matter how nice the girl was - Dora would never voluntarily subject herself to the Gryffindors just to show him something that could have waited until the next time that they saw one another.

Remus grinned as he saw the familiar scrawl at the heart of the no longer folded paper and quickly slipped out of the bed, sliding on his non - spelled shoes on the way out of the room.

The night air was chilled as Remus snuck out into it, but the wolf naturally ran warm and Remus found himself relaxing into it instead. Everything looked so small from the top of the Astronomy tower and everything paled in comparison to the boy waiting at its railing.

Remus sat down next to the other boy without a word needing to be passed between the pair, fitting himself at the younger boy's side and letting the other take in the warmth that he could give. He let the silence stand until the other boy knew what he needed to say, a soft patience that few had ever given either of them before.

"Do you know the story of Orion?" The other boy asked softly, his fingers raised as if to try and trace it, though Remus noted that they never grazed the Bellatrix star. He quietly shook his head, but he knew that it was probably one of the first ones that the Black brothers learned with their father being named after it. "Well it all started after the first titan war…"

Remus listened intently to the story of the Hunter constellation. How the giant had been born to fight Artemis but had joined her hunt instead. How he had fallen for the maiden goddess and her twin, Apollo, had slain him for it, not wanting the goddess to risk breaking her vows. Orion had been made a part of the stars after his death.

Next was Perseus and the head of Medusa, and the myth that came with the gorgan. The tale of a priestess turned into a monster by the very same goddess that she had worshiped. The younger teen told all three versions of the myth that he knew and Remus found that he liked the one where the snakes were a gift given by Athena to her priestess so that she may never be harmed by man again the best.  It sat the easiest against this scarred skin.

"Lupus, the wolf constellation," Regulus says just as softly, pointing to it in the sky, but Remus has gone so incredibly still that one would think that he was a statue himself. "There's no myth behind it, not like the others."

And then those gray eyes are on the older boy, looking at him completely for the first time all night. Looking at him as if the younger boy could see everything that the lion had ever tried so desperately to hide. And Remus can hear his heart hammering in his chest. He wonders if Regulus can too.

"I know." The words are soft, but they hit the older boy like a bullet, draining him of all of his life.

And Remus is running before he even remembers how to breathe, ducking into one of the secret tunnels that had found all those years ago. He curses himself for thinking that he might have had more time.

—-

Remus doesn't leave the dorm at all that Saturday, pushing away the offers of food that the other three give and blatantly ignoring what the other boys bring anyways, leaving it on his nightstand as if it didn't exist at all. The Marauders share worried looks between one another when no amount of poking, prodding, or planning can get the sullen boy to move. Even more so when offers to go and find the Lestrange girl are met with a firm shake of the fourth boy's head and the curtains being promptly closed.

It looked like it was going to be the same story Sunday as well when nothing that any of them did could even get the boy to leave the bed while they were still in the room, that is until there is a guest at the tower.

Regulus glares at the portrait of the Fat Lady, arms crossed as the singer glares back and stubbornly attempts to break the glass in her hand. 

She can't.

The Slytherin is saved from another agonizing minute of it screeching when the door is opened by a familiar face.

"Evans," the younger prefect says quickly as the girl blanches, not having expected to find someone so close to the door, let alone a Slytherin. 

"Sirius?" Evans asks, knowing that the younger teen was there to speak to someone, and that this person was obviously not her.

"Remus," and the way that the younger boy says the name, as if it was little more than a desperate prayer on his lips, has the girl immediately knowing all that she needed to. 

"Come on then."

The pair walk into the common room, steadfastly ignoring the looks that the younger boy was attracting simply by being in there. Regulus was desperate enough that they didn't matter and Lily knew that she could always hex them later.

The climb up the stairs was a quiet affair that felt like a slow death to the snake as they drew closer and closer still to the door. Evans knocks on it and immediately scowls when Potter is the one to answer.

"I knew you couldn't resist me forever, Ev-" the boy starts upon seeing the familiar red hair, but stops as he spots the boy that Lily had brought with her.

Lily takes advantage of the eldest boy's temporary silence and slips away, squeezing Regulus's shoulder as she goes in a way that could almost be seen as sisterly, or simply as good luck.

"Who's at the… door?" 

The Black brothers look at one another properly for the first time since that day on the train as Sirius freezes at the sight of the younger boy much like how James had only a moment before.

"I'm not here for either of you," the youngest boy says coldly, slipping inside of the room before either could stop him.

There were four beds in the warmly lit room, but Regulus ignored all of the ones on the left side of the room in favor of the one on the farthest right with the curtains drawn closed. The Gryffindors watched in stark confusion as the Slytherin moved towards it and pulled back the thick curtains all of the way without having to think about it at all.

Remus immediately pulled himself up, a curse on his lips until he saw the boy before him and froze once more.

"You look like shit," Regulus said bluntly, looking down at the older boy.

"You don't look much better."

And he didn't, now that the others were looking. The youngest boy's hair was messy and bordering on the side of unkempt, the bags under his eyes more prominent than they should be. 

"Can we talk?" Regulus's voice was softer than Sirius had heard it in years, his gaze more vulnerable than both of the brothers knew that their mother would ever permit. " Please ."

Remus's eyes fitted to the two interlopers and knew that neither of them were going to leave the pair alone where James and Sirius couldn't see them to make sure that neither killed the other, as if either would.

The wolf pulled his legs in closer and shifted on the bed so that the other could sit next to him on it and the other two Marauders were surprised to see the Slytherin climb into it easily and settle next to the older boy, their sides pressed flush against one another, as if they had done this countless times before. As if touch wasn't something that neither boy held onto greedily, never giving it out freely.

Remus raised his wand and casted a silencing spell around the bed so that the other two boys could see and not hear what was said.

"You never let me finish what I had to say the other night," Regulus started, going straight to the point of the matter.

"Does it matter?"

Regulus looks at him and Remus sighs. They both knew that the younger boy wouldn't have come to Gryffindor Tower if it didn't matter. 

The younger boy's fingers trace lightly over the Gryffindor's in a way that makes Remus shiver and the interlopers raise a brow. "How did it happen?"

Remus sighed. "My father was pushing for more regulations on…"

"Werewolves," Regulus supplied and Remus nodded.

"He made the wrong one mad, a man that goes by Fenir Greyback," the older boy explained and the other nodded but showed no signs of recognizing the name. Remus pushed on anyways. "Greyback came on a full moon night when I was five. He has a penchant for children and I was an easy enough target. My father offended himself with a gun after the first transformation and then my mother gave me to St Edmund's. Matron's husband was a wizard, so she was the best equipped to handle me."

If Remus closed his eyes he could just remember the light leaving the room as a beast tore through the window, the scream that tore through his throat and the all consuming pain that was worse thing that he had felt at the time until a month later, when the full moon became his least favorite thing.

He could still remember the sound of the gun too.

Remus kept his eyes open.

James and Sirius watched as Regulus leaned further into the other boy in a show so intimate that it felt wrong to see it. They hadn't known that the boys were so close.

"You're still one of us," Regulus said quietly, so much so that Remus might not have heard it had he not had his condition.

Remus leaned more into the other's touch, the closest to a thank you that he could manage with there being a break in his voice.

Regulus smiled, something small but gentle and honest as he pushed himself off of the bed, the silencing spell breaking as he left it.

"Later, Moony ."

And then the younger boy was gone and Remus was smiling so brightly that the sun would pale in comparison if it were to see.