***

Keeping only to deserted corridors, Sirius made his way as quickly as possible back to Gryffindor tower, Marauders Map in hand to help him get there undetected. Keeping one eye on the map and his ears on high alert for sounds of the ghosts, his behavior suggested he was out after curfew, though it was only mid-afternoon on a Wednesday.

Two hallways from the portrait hole, Sirius ran into trouble. There were far too many students moving in and out of the common room for his taste. Shoving the map into his bag, he pulled his hood over his head and hunched over, making a mad dash for the portrait of the Fat Lady, nearly bowling over two first year girls in his rush to get upstairs into the safety of his dorm room.

"Sirius!" one of the girls yelled at his retreating form when he crossed the common room. "Sirius!"

"Why are you talking to him, bitch?" another girl shouted.

Sirius didn't stick around to witness the eminent fight, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached his dorm, where he then slammed the door shut and put as many different locking charms on it as he could remember. Sirius had a special gift for locking charms, and he was still muttering them while waving his wand when he heard light laughter from behind him. He spun around with what Moony called his 'deer-in-the-headlights' look, though Sirius never did understand that particular Muggle phrase, and nearly had a heart attack until he realized the only person in the room was Remus.

"Oi!" Sirius heaved a sigh of relief and fell against the door, where he panted to catch his breath, glared at his friend, and slid bonelessly to the floor.

"Everything alright there, Pads?" Remus asked lightly, amusement shining in his bright blue eyes.

"They're going to kill me!" Sirius moaned from the floor. "That's thirteen fights so far this week, not to mention the two from this morning and the one I'm sure is going on in the common room right now. That makes," Sirius paused to catch his breath and count. "EIGHTEEN!"

"Actually it's only sixteen," the other boy replied with a grin. "Though I don't doubt it'll reach eighteen by supper."

"Why is this happening to me?" he moaned from the floor. "I don't want the whole school fighting over me!"

"It might be that infatuation potion you and James managed to destroy in potions," Remus replied with a straight face. "And then somehow managed to dump all over yourself."

"It wasn't my fault!" the whining continued. "Stupid Snivellus kept going on about how my mum was right for disowning me and all that."

"So you decided the fastest way to get to him was to go over your botched infatuation potion," Remus recited, the smile back on his face. "I've heard the story Pads."

"But how do I get rid of it?" he asked, looking at Remus with wide, pleading, Padfoot eyes. "Will you help me, Moony?"

"Well, actually," Remus pretended to contemplate the request. "I've already been researching."

"Really?" Sirius asked from the floor. "Have you found anything?"

"Here, come look," Remus beckoned him towards the bed where he was set up with seven different potions books of varying lengths.

Sirius dropped his things on his bed and grabbed for the box of chocolates on his pillow before moving to Remus' side.

"I wouldn't eat those," Remus informed him, his attention back on the books. "One of the fifth year girls dropped them off earlier."

Sirius dropped the box like it had burned him, and he looked at Remus incredulously. "And you left it on my pillow?!" he all but shrieked, kicking the box towards Peter's bed, where it slid underneath and disappeared.

"Don't worry, it was just a love potion with an aphrodisiac additive," Remus rolled his eyes. "I checked it before I left it for you, but you had to get it today, or else I'd be getting cursed."

"Pansy," Sirius rolled his eyes and pushed his friend to scoot over so he could sit down.

"Prat," Remus replied affectionately. "Now, you have two options to fix this."

"Alright," Sirius agreed, "What do I have to do?"

"Well, your first option is to just wait it out," he suggested. "However, the pair of you really botched that potion, so no one really knows how strong it was. The effects could potentially last up to a month, or longer, depending what exactly went wrong in the brewing process."

"No," Sirius replied immediately. "What's the other option?"

"You're not going to like this one much," Remus admitted, lifting his gaze from the books to turn to his friend. "You're really not going to like this one."

"What is it, then?" Sirius demanded. He needed to know if his life was over before it even got started, or if there was a small chance he could retreat with his tail between his legs in shame.

"Um," Remus hesitated. "All the books say that if the subject of the potion is already in, or becomes involved in, a serious, committed relationship, then the effects of the potion are cancelled out."

"No," Sirius replied. "No, no, no. I'm not giving up my reputation because of this bloody potion. I don't do relationships, you know that!"

"I know that, and you know that," Remus agreed, "but does your right hand know that?"

"Mooooony!" Sirius whined, thumping him upside the head. "I'm being serious right now!"

"But you're always Sirius," Remus giggled at his own joke, falling sideways off the bed, "except, of course, when you're Padfoot."

"Don't be a fucking twat," Sirius sighed, leaning back against the pillows until his head rested on the wall, and then he began to hit his head over and over against the stone, thankful for the mild pain to distract him from the news at hand.

"Ok," Remus agreed, wiping the amusement from his face. "You really don't have much of a choice here."

"Can't I just be Padfoot forever?" Sirius wailed, his head bouncing off the wall to punctuate every word.

"Can you imagine how insane it would be if Padfoot was anywhere near the castle giving off your magical signature? It would easily be a hundred times worse, because Padfoot is actually cute!"

"Hey!" Sirius stopped beating his head against the wall in order to look offended. "I happen to be very cute."

"Is it my fault your looks aide you more in puppy form than in human form?" Remus asked cheekily.

"You'll pay for that," Sirius announced, lunging for Remus and knocking him to the floor, where they proceeded to wrestle.

After a few minutes of struggling, Remus managed to pin the larger man, as he always did. The effects of being a werewolf were good in certain cases, such as rough-housing with friends, because he usually came out on top when by all means he should have lost miserably.

"So who's it gonna be?" he asked with a smug grin. "Chelsie?"

"No," Sirius growled, taking a breath and managing to roll them so he pinned Remus to the floor with his hands and knees.

The werewolf struggled for a few seconds before a dark glint flashed in his eyes and lifted his head to lick Sirius' neck.

"Awww, Moony!" Sirius released him and moved away, rubbing furiously at his neck while a red flush spread across his nose and cheeks. "Not fair!"

"All's fair in love and war," Moony replied, sliding away from Sirius to lean against one of the beds. "Speaking of love, is it going to be Johanna?"

"No, stop asking," Sirius threw a pillow at Remus and missed by a mile.

"April? Jillian? Contessa? Constance? Morgan?" Remus continued his game, naming every female he could think of in their year.

Sirius repeated a firm "no" after every name, until the list of females was exhausted and Remus switched to males.

"Severus?" he offered, the mischievous light shining in his eyes again.

"NO!" Sirius shouted, gagging on his own tongue at the thought.

Remus chuckled until he stopped gagging, then asked seriously, "There's no one at this school you can imagine being with?"

"There's no one worth spending my time with here, other than you guys," Sirius replied with a sigh. "Too bad none of you is a bird."

"Shame, that," Remus teased. "Too bad James finally has Lily. I'm sure he'd have gone gay for you."

"Gay…" Sirius played with the word. "Gay. Hey! You're gay!"

"I know that, what's your point?" Remus asked, unclear as to why it suddenly seemed to be such an important fact.

"Because we could pretend to be together!" Sirius exclaimed suddenly, his eyes bright with the excitement of finding an alternative. "And then when the potion wears off, we'll pretend to break up and everything will go back to normal."

"You seem to be forgetting one small fact," Remus informed him. "I'm dating Phillip Rosencranz."

"But you've been saying you're going to break up with him for days, Moony," Sirius begged. "Just do it already, so we can be pretend-together."

"Now, what good can come out of pretending to be in a relationship with you?" Remus asked. "Especially because the books say it has to be a serious, committed relationship. Not two friends trying to pull off a ridiculously fake relationship."

"Moony," Sirius changed his tactics, returning to his tried and true puppy-pout. "I'm already seriously committed to you. I became an animagus for you. It won't be that hard to convince people we're more than friends. Hell, most of them think we are already, including that tosser you're about to dump."

Remus sighed and rubbed his temples, leaning forward until his forehead rested on his knobby knees. "Yeah, fine," he replied eventually. "If this is what you really want."

"Thanks, Moony," the whisper came from directly behind him. Remus shifted, not having realized that Sirius had moved, and tried to move away from the warm breath that ghosted over his neck. A firm hand on his shoulder kept him in place so hot, wet lips could drop a kiss on the bony juncture where Remus' neck met his spine.

Sirius' fingers moved gently over the tense muscles, forcing Remus to relax. "It'll be great, and totally easy," Sirius blabbered on for a few minutes, until he realized his friend was falling asleep.

"No you don't, not yet," Sirius announced, removing his hands and pushing him towards the door. "You have a bloke to go break up with."

"You realize this is a bad idea, right?" Remus asked, an unreadable expression in his eyes. "We're not going to get away with just holding hands and walking to classes together if we want to convince everyone that we're a real couple."

"What are you suggesting," Sirius replied with amusement as he followed his friend to the door. "Snogging?" He leaned in close and placed a light, lingering kiss to Remus' mouth. The smaller boy tasted like vanilla and something Sirius couldn't identify, but he looked forward to trying to figure it out in the following days.

"That's a," Remus was left breathless by the intimacy of the kiss when their lips lingered together, "That's a good start."

"Good," Sirius agreed. "Now get going. You've only got an hour until supper."

***

TBC…