A/N: Thanks for the reviews and whatnot, and sorry for not uploading this sooner. I'm so busy these days it's bonkers, but now I'm on a vacation and I actually have some time to write! Yay! party bitchess

Hope you like this, but who knows. xo

Beta: No.

Warnings: Er, still with the dub-con? I don't know, though. Better safe than sorry!

"That's way too much bath salt," mumbled Remus exhaustedly, standing in the middle of the rather cold bathroom of their dormitory room. While he watched Sirius prepare his bath, the boy attempted to hug himself to keep his skin warm, but evidently he failed miserably at this since his shivering didn't halt one bit. It only seemed to get worse. "I'm telling you, it's going to overflow."

Sirius ignored the feeble complaining coming from behind him as he stood straight, leaving the bath salt container alone. He turned to the shaking boy and said, "Now, take off your clothes." As Remus did nothing of the sort and merely stared hazily back at him, he added, "Quickly now, come on."

Trying his hardest to make his teeth not clang in his mouth, Remus swallowed hard and managed a drowsy, "...Why?"

Sirius sniggered and stepped in front of him, leaving the tub fill with water by itself. "Thank Merlin you're still dozy! Communicating with you would be difficult without that." He gestured at Remus with one finger. "The clothes. You need to get rid of those before you lunge yourself in the tub."

"I don't feel so good," groaned Remus and turned to leave the room and most likely to return to his bed. "I want to sleep."

So, without an explanation and as if it was the only thing to do in a situation like that, Sirius grabbed Remus from his shoulders, turned him over and pressed a quick, chaste kiss on his lips. After that he nailed his eyes on Remus' which were slightly red and blinking slowly back at him. "No sleeping."

"What," Remus started. "Did you just –"

"You get in the tub," Sirius said sternly, not letting Remus finish his sentence. "Or you'll get brain damage, because as we speak, the fever is boiling your melon, making you all kinds of silly."

Remus shook his head unconvincingly. "That's stupid."

"No," replied Sirius instantly, still holding the werewolf by his shoulders. "You'll be stupid if you just keep sleeping all the time while in a fever. Get in the tub and the water will... make you feel better."

Not saying anything to that, Remus only stood there, his arms wrapped around his torso and toes wiggling against the cold stone floor. Sirius sighed at the pathetic, shivering sight and finally let go of Lupin.

"Oh well," he said curtly, closing the tap and turning to Remus with a defeated nod. "I guess you can go to bed. I mean, at the moment you are already unable to function like a normal person, so it's rather easy to imagine how you'll be for the rest of your life." Sirius shook his head. "Remus John Lupin, an actual idiot who lost his wits because he just wouldn't take a bath. It's kind of deplorable and I absolutely have to tell everyone."

With that, Remus finally started to unbutton his pyjama shirt, extremely slowly one might add, leaving Sirius nod contentedly at him and start to search the bathroom for a towel.

While he removed his clothing, however, Remus protested quietly. "I'm going to freeze my brain and it's going to be your fault." He tossed his shirt in Sirius' direction and wobbled on his legs. "I hope you're happy," he added irritably when Sirius failed to notice the attempted assassination. "You're a bully."

"All right, true," said Sirius while he turned around, and stepping over Remus' shirt on the floor he walked up to him with a red towel he had found from a cupboard. "You might be cold for a second, Brain Freeze, but then you'll be in the warm water, which is in the tub, where you are going." As he gesticulated towards the tub with the towel, Remus merely pouted at him. "Take your bottoms off." Remus didn't even blink. "Come on, no half-arsing now. Take them off."

Scoffing and grunting under his breath, Remus started to drowsily open the strap on his trousers. "That's what it will be, half-arsing, no? I'm going to freeze my arse off, too." He swayed on his legs again and Sirius almost had to fly to him to hold him up from the shoulders. To Sirius' (considerably) concerned face he muttered, "I'll only have a half of my arse left," and let out a sniggering laughter. "Or the right?"

Sirius blinked at him. "Just try to concentrate on removing your clothes. Can you stay on your legs?"

"You can stay on your legs," answered Remus petulantly and slapped Sirius' hands away. "I can do this alone."

Even though Sirius said "You're going to fall," he still let go of the boy's shoulders. He crossed his arms on his chest in the same manner Remus always did when he was trying to communicate with Sirius.

"I'm not going to fall," Remus objected blearily as he tried to snake his bottoms off from his legs. Of course he swayed on his feet again and almost fell nose first on the floor. He had to steady himself against the sink.

Sirius snorted. "See? You're about to fall right now."

"...I'm not."

"You know what, Moony," Sirius said loudly, annoyance filling his tired voice. "This mulishness is doing nothing for your benefit. It'll only make you more sick and I'll just be more upon your person if you dare to do something like that."

"You're a mule."

"Get in the fucking tub, Lupin!"

"...Why."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, because you're already naked, you arse!" Sirius shouted. "You might as well do it! I promise you, you'll feel much better afterwards."

But as Remus simply sulked at him, without saying or doing anything, Sirius groaned a few profanities under his breath and entered the bathtub himself, unpleasantly pulling the boy with him by his arm. As Sirius sat down in the warm water and started to tug Remus down between his legs, Remus muttered, "But you –"

"Be quiet or I will fucking drown you," said Sirius irascibly.

"No, uh." Remus indeed sat in the water, strangely enough not resisting that much and his back facing Sirius' chest. He crossed his legs from the shins and brought his arms around his knees, sort of curling himself to a ball, which looked nothing like a ball, but a boy. "You forbid me to bathe with my clothes on and you're still wearing yours."

Sirius took a quick look at himself as he snatched a sponge from a holder right next to Remus. "Don't worry about it."

"Double standard," Remus mumbled and a few seconds later when Sirius dipped the sponge in the immediate water between his own legs, he continued with a quiet, "Aren't you going to take them off?"

"You want me to take them off?" asked Sirius as he soaped the sponge. "You know me. I can get naked."

Remus feebly shook his head. "The whole of Hogwarts knows that after last year's Halloween feast."

"So...? What do you want me to do?"

A twitch of shoulders. "Dry them off afterwards?"

"It's a deal," said Sirius and started to wash Remus' back. He soothingly but briskly enough moved the sponge from the boy's shoulders to his upper arms and aback from there, every now and then sinking it in the water behind Remus. Be it that the boy was not completely in the water and most likely still in fever, the shivering had stopped. Sirius sort of smiled to himself.

"I could have done this by myself," Remus said intractably, sounding a lot like his usual pertinacious self but still slightly woozy, as though his words were heavily drunk on Firewhiskey. "I'm an adult, I can bathe."

"I promised Poppy," said Sirius shortly and took Remus' right arm, soaping it thoroughly from the shoulder all the way to the fingers.

"Since when has she made people's friends look after them, anyway?" asked the werewolf, sounding funny to Sirius since his words contradicted his commencing relaxed tone. "It's not your job to scrub my back when I have the flu."

"The flu?" Sirius sniggered lightly, lifting Remus' left arm and soaping it in the similar manner he had done to the right one. "Right. Well, if you have to know, this does beat sitting in the library. Potter and Pete are trying to write their Astronomy essays, so what a grand fun Saturday this would be without you." Immediately after that he lunged the sponge in the water and brought it, still heavy with the liquid, above Remus' shoulders where he would empty it, letting the warm water drape across the boy's back like a cape. "I'm actually glad to be an assistance here."

Remus in fact sighed at that and asked over his shoulder, "Have you done yours?"

"Last night," admitted Sirius proudly. "Couldn't sleep and hadn't anything better to do." He shrugged slightly. "Barely arsed it through, though. Sinistra's probably going to have problems reading it since I was in my bed and I only had Lumos and I tried not to spill all my ink on the mattress. It was such a tribulation that she should give an O."

Remus chuckled lightly at him. "If it makes you feel any better, I do appreciate you being here rather than James or Peter."

Squinting at the boy's vertebrae, Sirius asked a very nonchalant, "Why? They're your... mates, too, aren't they?"

"Yes, but," started Remus and watched sideways as Sirius placed the sponge in the holder. "Think about it. Peter tries so hard with everything but even then that merely results him being incapable of concentrating on trivial tasks, such as tying his shoes. He has so much on his mind and he cannot focus properly. He would most likely drown me, but unlike you, he would not tell me that in advance for it would happen by accident."

"True, true," Sirius agreed, again splashing water all over Remus' back and watering himself in the process, too.

"And James..." Remus continued as Sirius took the sponge again, handing it to him. Remus took it and lunged it in the water, only to bring it to his chest since Sirius had only handled his back. "Although he is more efficient in directing his energy on one thing at a time, as we see in the Quidditch field, he would just end up comparing our muscle density," noted Remus, nodding to himself. "And, even though I'm used to it by now, it's still rather embarrassing at times. On my scale, his biceps are enormous."

"Not that big, though," mumbled Sirius to himself as he strived to soak Remus' unruly hair.

"You, on the other hand, you can focus if you put your mind to it and with your noodles, you're not the heftiest of men."

Sirius snorted, "Oi! Fever or not –"

"And you are the one who always brings me clothes after... you know," Remus went on heartily. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Sirius flexing his pathetic noodles at Remus under his wet shirt. "What are you doing?"

"Noodles?" asked Sirius robustly, poking a finger at his bicep. "How can you call these guns noodles!"

"Because you're the Noodle King of Hogwarts," answered Remus simply and turned his eyes away. "My point here is that you've seen me unclothed a thousand times in the Shrieking Shack. I'm positive you already knew what a scrawny twig I am."

"But you're not covered in gashes and clotted blood right now, are you?"

Remus chuckled nervously in reply, but said nothing. He took the soap and rubbed it against the sponge.

As the Noodle King got no proper answer to his question, he leant his back against the porcelain and brought a hand to sweep his damp hair backwards from the top. "What else?"

"What else?" repeated Remus over his shoulder, a bit baffled. "Er... lanky? I'm still growing into my feet."

"No," Sirius said, playing with his fingers in the water. He was kind of watching the way Remus' backbone was protruding from under his skin, and as he moved, the scars shifted slightly against the vertebrae. The boy was so skinny it would have been worrisome if Sirius had not seen Remus eating. He was as skilled at eating as Peter was and that was saying a whole lot. "Is there any other reason why you want me to do this?"

Remus shrugged flippantly. "I find it awkward bathing in front of Madame Pomfrey. I mean, you don't have to do this if you have other things to do, I'm perfectly capable of doing this myself." He didn't continue from that and just kept slothfully soaping his legs.

Moving forwards form his position, Sirius took a small bathe ladle from the same holder the sponge had been in and he scooped some water in it. "Close your eyes," he said to Remus and emptied the thing on the boy's head.

"Still..." Remus continued with a thoughtful tone, sounding as though he tried his hardest not to swallow too much bath water. "Even if it's you, I feel rather foolish, sitting here like this."

"With me?" Sirius tried not to frown at the multiple scars Remus had on his shoulder blades. He had seen it a few times; Remus always started to tear his skin of from there, pealing it off like a shirt from his back. Peter named the occurrence as 'Remus the Banana' and Sirius wanted to hit himself for even just remembering it. "What's wrong with me?"

The werewolf shook his head. "I mean between your legs, naked. Don't you think it's, er... rather a strange situation?" He snickered under his breath. "I'm sure girls don't bathe together."

"First of all, I'm not bathing. Secondly, if birds don't bathe together, they definitely should," concurred Sirius while snatching a shampoo bottle from the side of the tub. "That'd be so hot." He leant a bit closer to Remus. "Hey, maybe we should make a suggestion to Dumbledore, yeah?" Sirius nodded at himself as Remus chuckled at him. "Yes, good. Next time I see him, I'm going to bring this up in a light, casual conversation which will hopefully make him forget about my probably upcoming detention."

"Or he'll double it," Remus laughed.

Sirius eyed one especially nasty scar showing in Remus' neck, right below his curly hair, and without thinking, he pressed his lips on the soapy skin, after which he skilfully wiped his mouth on his own shoulder.

Suddenly, and for a very good reason, Remus was awfully rigid in front of him. He said to Sirius, "You kissed me earlier, too."

"Did I?" asked Sirius, feigning nonchalance and pouring a bit of shampoo on his palm. He was an idiot enough to fail to see Remus' red ears.

"Why do you do that?"

"It's experimental," lied Sirius told the shampoo bottle. "Don't worry about it." Remus said nothing to this and stayed very still as Sirius started to lather the liquid in his hair. "You know, I didn't know I might enjoy it that much, actually, but I do." He grinned at Remus' neck. "I'm surprising myself here."

"You have kissed me before," said Remus sluggishly, leaning his head backwards as Sirius worked his fingers through his scalp. "Aren't they a part of your hugs."

"Yes," Sirius drawled, shaping Remus' hair into spikes. "But kissing you this frequently without hugging is nice, too. Imagine that. And it's not like you're complaining yourself."

"But me saying nothing doesn't justify it, either," Remus muttered half-heartedly. "Just because you're doing something you want, it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. I can't believe I still have to say this after last year. I strongly believe that the reason I wasn't given the Head Boy badge was because you refused to listen to me."

Sirius leant closer and whispered to his ear, "I have a will of my own, Moony. I'm no lamb."

This time the redness in the ears was not lost at Sirius. "Which is why you're kissing the neck of a wolf?"

"No, that's because of the grandwolf mating," Sirius told the boy offhandedly, still lathering his hair. "Obviously."

"...I'm sorry?"

Sirius kissed his neck again, careful not to swallow any more soap from there. But of course he did, because he was talented like that. "Bleh. You know, instead of waiting, I'm going to write a letter to Dumbledore, addressing all the problems in this school. While you're at it, change the frigging soap, too, man! Disgusting."

Yet again stiff as if someone had shoved a pole up in one of his sensitive places, Remus was frowning as he said, "I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about."

Sighing a bit, Sirius presented the soap to him from the holder. "Have a go. I could use your wording, anyway. Is ignominious a proper word to describe a soap?"

"No," said Remus and turned around a bit. He watched silently while Sirius put the soap away and continued to foam his hair, never mind the fact that Remus was now him in the eye. "How do you know about that? Grandwolves."

Sirius beamed at him. "Contrary to the general belief, I really can read." He shrugged and wiped some of the falling foam from Remus' temple. "I told you. The olfaction business? Also, if a book has anything eroticism in it, I'm all over that shit."

"Yes, I understand that, but..." Remus bit his lip as he thought of his next words. "Why would you think the grandwolves' mating ritual has anything to do with me? ...Or let alone with you?"

The hands stopped moving on his head and Sirius stared at him. "Are you kidding me?"

Remus said nothing and just waited an answer.

Which was, "Moony, you are mating like mad."

After letting the information sink in, Remus blinked very slowly and uttered a feeble, "Oh." He thought about it while watching the buttons on Sirius' dress shirt, and then lifted his eyes on Sirius' face. "...Really? That doesn't sound like me."

"It does, when you are constantly whispering my name from the depths of your feverish wolf-dreamland."

Remus squinted slightly as if processing the news. "Er, no... I do think I need a bit more than that. What on Earth are you talking about?"

Sirius sighed and left the guy's head alone, for he needed his hands to explain. "Grandwolves. As you obviously know, they mate and they mate hardcore, and when they chicken out or things get awry, they get a heinous fever and they moan incessantly I believe, and you, my man, have the said fever hence you are constantly moaning. So... there," Sirius ended, softly poking Remus in the chest. "I'm trying to make you not moan that much, I think."

And Remus seemed to think about this again. "Are you sure?" he asked slowly.

"I'm at least 64% sure about this, but as you know, I don't half-arse anything, so let's say 100%, absolutely." Sirius nodded in a manner he always did when he was trying to convince others as well as himself to believe something utterly maniac. This time, though, things were different for he was indeed 64% sure about what he was saying.

"I'm mating?"

"Indubitably you are."

"With whom?" asked Remus. "With you?" Sirius nodded grimly and Remus said, "Got you." As Sirius nodded again at him, Remus puckered his lips in deep thought, tilted his head slightly towards the boy and continued with, "But there is a great chance that you might have heard me wrong. You have said that I sometimes talk funny."

"That might be it, yes," Sirius agreed shortly. "But it doesn't excuse the way you've been fucking my bed. My bed. Not your own, mine." Sirius pointed his thumbs at himself. "This guy. Moi."

Looking like a frown had rooted itself on Remus' face, the werewolf stared at him. "What?"

"Also," continued Sirius, while resuming with the foaming. He was still sitting, his arse against the porcelain, and Remus was sitting on his legs in between his legs. The sponge was strategically situated. "You were trying to fuck my thigh last night. And taking in the fact that my thigh is a more prominent part of me than my bed, I'd say that it somewhat constitutes as a more substantial evidence that the grandwolf business is afoot. You fucking my bed? Not that big a deal, I do it all the time. You fucking my leg?" Sirius raised his brows at the baffled expression in front of him. "Now that's a big deal and we have to address it."

Remus tilted his head slightly, which was all he was able to tilt it since Sirius' hands were touching him. "Uh. I apologise? I hear I'm usually quite delirious while feverish."

Letting out a small chuckle, Sirius finally let go of him. "Well, don't worry about it. I'm starting to be okay with it, sort of speak. Being a mate."

"You mean my mate?" concluded Remus slowly.

"Your mate."

"Uh-uh," Remus blinked. "This is interesting."

Sirius snorted. "You make it sound like this is the first time you've ever thought or heard about this." He took the bath ladle again and said, "Close your eyes."

After rinsing the shampoo from Remus' hair, Lupin wiped his face and mumbled, "I thought I smelled something." He opened his eyes, water trickling down on his cheeks and his fingers playing with the sponge and the foam on the water. Sirius was kind of staring at him. "While I was unconscious, I think. Do you know what it was?"

"That was my scent, particularly from my robe, I think," Sirius offered as he leant his back against the porcelain again, watching Remus finger the sponge, all foamed up and befuddled. "Which is kind of odd, if I may say so. It doesn't smell that much of me. Not now at least..." He lifted his chin in an extremely manly way. "Like I said, your sense of smell is weakened, Moony, but for some weird-arse reason, you can smell me just fine. From my clothes? Enough to saunter about in your sleep? Why is that?"

Remus shrugged as he watched the sponge. "Perhaps you reek."

"You are terrible liar."

"Well, then, maybe it's a familiar odour?" Remus offered as he brought his own hands to his hair, wiping a strand behind his ear. He glanced at Sirius and seemed to be awfully perplexed. "If you think about it, I've spent most of my time with you this year when you were wearing that robe, so maybe that's why I picked it up so easily. I really don't know."

Sirius tilted his head backwards and lifted one of his knees. His foot touched Remus' thigh a bit. "But you've spent a lot of time with Potter and Pete, too, and you can't say that they don't smell, because they fucking stink. James' socks after Quidditch practise? Horror story material." Sirius stared at Remus and the guy was not moving. "And Pete, in general? The sod probably has something growing in his pits. Now, I'm not the freshest smelling bloke there is, either, but for some reason your snout doesn't seem to mind that. Tell me the reason."

The white foam in the tub around Remus made his slight blush seem a lot grander than it really was, and Sirius was sort of thinking about a Christmas.

"Remus?"

"Why..." started Remus quietly. He didn't look Sirius in the eye. "Why are you teasing me."

"I'm not teasing you," said Sirius in all honesty.

Remus huffed. "Yes you are." He glanced at Sirius and looked very upset. "You are bringing up these things like they matter. You don't even make sense. Any of this, it's not funny."

"I'm not laughing."

"You're making it sound like I'm..." Remus started confidently but more he tried to act as if he wasn't troubled at all, more he seemed like he wanted to drown himself in the toilet. "Like I'm, uh..."

"Yes?" Sirius helped. "Spit it out."

Remus' face was contorted into a tight smile. "Spit out what? I'm sorry for... doing all that, with your bed, but that's no reason to make fun of me. I'm not well. I promise to stay in my own bed from now on, so don't worry about it anymore. Just stop... mocking me."

"Look." Sirius crawled towards him, and awkwardly cupped the boy's red cheeks. Gravely he watched Remus in the eye and said, "Please, Remus, don't keep it in. I know what this is about, but you have to say it, because if you don't, you will swell up and die, and really, you can't die..." Suddenly Sirius seemed anxious. "Please, don't die. I'm begging you. Don't leave me with Potter and Pete. They're nice lads, but honestly I'm going to murder them both if you leave." He was still trying to move in closer, which was rather difficult since, well, not enough space and sorts. "If I end up slaughtering them, you'll be an accomplice!"

"What are you talking about? I'm not going to die." Remus attempted to push him away. He muttered, "Let go, I'm... naked."

"Yes you are, and you are going to die naked!" pushed Sirius. "Remus, just tell me, please, and you will feel better. Say the words! I'm okay with it!"

"Tell you what?" tried Remus, cheeks burning red. "I don't understand!"

"Tell me you love me, you twit, and you'll get better!"

Remus managed to disentangle himself from Sirius' grip. Foam flew around him as he stumbled backwards in the tub, some of it landing even on his beetroot cheeks. He was definitely breathing heavily. "I told you to stop saying stupid things already."

"Why are you deliberately hurting yourself?" Sirius asked loudly. He was on his knees in the water, but it had splashed all over him. His hair was dripping. "Let me help. I want to help! I want to keep you alive! Is that not enough?"

"I am alive!"

Closing his eyes and shouting as though he was a five-year-old, Sirius slammed his fists against his thighs, "Not for long! You'll get more sick and then you're going to die in a fucking cave!"

"Please, just go," pleaded Remus, trying to back down a bit more, but the tub was not infinitely large. He wasn't watching his friend anymore. "Leave me alone."

"Moony –"

As Sirius moved closer to Remus, the werewolf shouted, emphatic with fever, "Don't touch me!"

During the many years of his life, Sirius had spent quite some time storming off from various situations. Be it that he had been at home or in Hogwarts, rather usually (meaning each time) the main reason had been his utter refusal to do something someone had wanted him to do. Professor Flitwick had once wanted him not to sleep during a test and Sirius had seen this as a perfect opportunity to shout "I've been wronged again!" at his Charms professor and charge out from the classroom, only to receive detention later. This aforementioned occasion just one of the many examples of his tendency to rebel, and bringing all of them to the general knowledge would be enough information to construct an entire series of profanity-filled young adult novels, so no one was going to do that, ever.

This time, though, Sirius was not storming off from the dormitory room because he wanted to rebel, but because he actually wanted to do something Remus asked him to do. Which was to piss off.

Naturally, Sirius dashed into the library wing.

And more naturally, Madame Pince, the hawkeyed mistress of mouldy tomes, rushed at him instantly even before he was yet stepped inside the borders of the library.

"Black!" the woman said very sternly with a voice that suggested that she had had a few spoonfuls too many of cough medicine. "You are not allowed to –"

Sirius turned his eyes on her.

"Black, you're –" the librarian began again, watching the young man from below, and she stopped instantaneously once she had taken a better look at his face.

On top of the fact that his clothes were still dripping with water and foam, Sirius seemed desperately devastated, heartbroken even, and the red mark on his cheekbone did not help the cause one bit. With uncharacteristically teary eyes and thick voice, he said, "I need a book."

"Mr Black –"

"Please," Sirius begged as manly as he was able to. "Madame, I don't have any dungbombs with me and if I did, they'd be soaked at the moment, thus rendering them entirely useless. I just want a frigging book, okay? Please? One book."

Madame Pince sighed, and moved from his path. "Remember to register the book with me before you leave."

Sirius thanked her with a brief, shaky nod. Once in the darkened place, he didn't have to search his friends for too long, for he found them in the most secluded corner of the whole library, at their usual place where no one had ever saw them before.

Obviously recognising the slouching sound of his best friend walking, James slothfully looked up from his essay. "Oh hey, what –" His eyes widened considerably behind his glasses. "What the bloody hell happened to you?!"

Sirius stood there in front of the round table, his arms tight on his sides, hands in tight fists. His hair was draping his face like a disappointed octopus, and he was forming a puddle on the floor beneath him. Sirius, not the octopus. "He hit me," Sirius managed without his voice.

His friends should have gasped, but they didn't. James asked, "Moony did?"

Being in such state of evident shock, Sirius wasn't even able to come up with a snarky comment to that one. He just took a few drooping steps forwards, sat on the edge of a chair across the table from James and Peter (who were both buried behind piles of large books) and sighed dolefully.

"Mate, you look like you've been swimming in a ditch," Peter noted helpfully, and James kicked him in the shin under the table. Peter flinched as James gestured him to shut up. "He does," added Peter silently while rubbing his leg.

Sirius just trembled there in his seat. "...He hit me."

"What happened?" James asked softly, most likely thinking that maybe it was necessary for him to try and sound comforting for once in his life. He was doing a pretty bad job at it, but to others he told this story differently.

"He..." Sirius breathed, lifting his glazed eyes on them. "Hit me."

"Yeah, we got that much," Peter said, and received a glare from James.

After which James returned to watch his pathetic friend and to scratch his own head. "We are trying to ask why are you wet. That's what's baffling us at the moment, because usually when you see someone in the library, they're reading, not pretending to be a boat."

"We were bathing when he..." Sirius began, but his voice died in mid-sentence.

Peter helped, "Hit you?"

At that Sirius' chin started to tremble pitifully as he nodded weakly as a response. James stared at him like he had never seen him before. "Wow, Lupin actually broke him. Points to him." But as Sirius still said nothing back and just sat the in front of him, sniffling and shaking heartbreakingly, James sighed, sat up from his seat and moved in front of Sirius. And, of course, without explaining, he slapped the boy's other, less red cheek.

Sirius stared at him, tears now gushing from his eyes. "Why the tits did you do that?"

"Be a man."

"I am a man! A terribly mangled man!" Sirius screamed at him with newly acquired heartiness. "Why is everyone hitting me today? I've done nothing! I just am and people are punching me! Newsflash, you morons, existing is not an excuse to hit someone, no matter what my mum says on the subject!"

"That's way better," James said and whacked him on the shoulder. He moved behind the desk again before Sirius could retaliate with his eager fists.

Suddenly Sirius seethed. "Why the hell did he hit me? It doesn't make any sense! I was just trying to be nice for once and stop him from dying, for fuck's sake!"

With that, James took a careful eyeful of Peter, who watched him tentatively back. The mutual gesture was not as subtle as they in all probability wanted it to be, but it was no use crying about it. One of them was already crying and the scene was wretched enough.

Sirius saw that. "Why are you two twits ogling at each other?"

"Well –" James started.

"Spit it out!"

"All right, but first you need to calm down," Peter told the fuming imbecile. "We, too, don't want anyone dead, especially if it's us. No one wants to die in the library, so let's keep the space casualties-free, okay?" He lifted his hands up in his sides, as if surrendering. "Comprende, mi amigo?"

"We should have told him this when he was still unable to move," James whispered to Peter from the corner of his mouth, his eyes tightly bolted on Sirius' face. "We're so goddamn slow sometimes, Pete..."

"Tell me what?" Sirius asked tersely. "What are you hiding from me?"

Standing behind the barricade of books, James crossed his arms and shrugged way too casually. "Nothing major, I mean, well, while telling you about the whole grandwolf business and Moony mating, Pete and I, in concert, we decided to tell you the basic version only, without the extra hassle." He smiled. "See, we've learnt over the course of seven years that the easiest way for us is to keep things relatively simple while talking to you. Hence, we sort of dropped out a bit of info we thought hadn't any measurable significance. We really thought it wouldn't matter if you only knew the most important parts."

"But, in the light of recent events and certain truths, it turns out that it matters a lot," Peter noted plainly from James' side. "Honestly? Apparently it matters a whole lot. Actually we were kind of expecting you to burst in here... in tears."

"In tears?" Sirius asked, infuriated. "What are you saying? I don't cry!"

"You're crying right now."

Huffing, Sirius wiped his eyes and his nose with his hardel. "Shut up, and tell me what you decided not to... tell me." He frowned at himself. "Please?"

"Are you calm?"

"I am calm," muttered Sirius, in a very non-calm manner.

"Are you going to stay calm?"

"That depends on you and how long it's going to take for you to fucking tell me!"

"Fine," said James. "As I said, when we found the book and the legend about the grandwolves, initially we merely scanned through the text and dropped you the basic facts, genuinely thinking that rest of the text was bollocks and thus unimportant. But," James stopped and took a look at Peter, who kept his eyes tightly on Sirius. "After learning that Moony wants to mate with you, well, obviously we studied the whole thing more thoughtfully, and since then, we've been sort of sitting here, hoping that he wouldn't be as... as, er –" James stopped and turned to Peter. "What's the word?"

"Grey," said Peter immediately.

"No, not that one."

"Melancholic," continued Peter. "Monotonic? Dreary. Weary. Oh, oh! Anal-retentive! A quill-hoarder with a severe case of donttouchmystuffolitis? Picky? Nosy? Actually super mean?" James kept shaking his head through all this, and lastly Peter tried, "...Superstitious?"

James nodded. "Superstitious as the book might suggest, but... in fact, seemingly, he is just that. Lupin is very, awfully superstitious, judging by the state of your face at the moment. That, or... he has some serious anger management issues, but I'm willing to bet all my money on the former."

Blinking tardily, Sirius stared at him. "He's a you-know-what who goes to Hogwarts, and you two idiots are surprised he's superstitious? Ding-ding, the grand prize for these morons!"

"Oh, now he's just being cruel," Peter said flatly, crossing his arms on his chest. "Maybe we shouldn't tell him after all."

"No but you promised!" shrieked Sirius pathetically.

"Well sometimes a bloke just wants to watch the world burn," Peter told him in return.

"I think he deserves to know," James said back without averting his eyes from Sirius' face. "Look at him. He looks utterly destroyed already, and he's been through quite a lot during the past few days. I don't think we would do that much damage."

"Yeah, can you see the runny nose? Must be a part of the newer Black Magic," said Peter, smirking and thoughtfully scrutinising Sirius' face. "The birds must love it as much as they loathe the old one."

"Shut it!" Sirius yelled and wiped under his nose again. He closed his eyes and forced himself to lower the volume. "I mean... please, tell me? I beg of you. I want to know what it is that I did wrong with him. I want to know what can I do to make him not hate me before he dies until he's completely dead."

With that, James fumbled with the books until he found the same one he had carried around the day before. He opened the spread from where he had a bookmark and lifted his eyes on Sirius. "Ready?"

"You had that there with a bookmark?"

"Obviously." James turned his eyes to the text. "Uh... here. 'It is said, that when a grandwolf finds its mate and gives into the power of their proposed companionship, the said wolf is obligated to fulfil the promise it has given to itself.'" James looked up from the book and at Sirius. "Still with me?"

Sirius shook his head. "You lost me at it is said, but do keep going."

"All right. 'If the wolf, instead of getting the horrendous fever, expresses the wish for its mate, the mate must be mentally, physically and emotionally ready to spend the rest of its life with the wolf – this lifelong partnership continues until either of them dies; the remaining, bereaved one is only to wait for its own death, and hope that it shall one day be reunited with its partner in inevitable demise.'" James slammed the book close with a dust cloud, and looked at Sirius, who seemed very exhausted all of a sudden.

"Well, that escalated quickly," Sirius said lazily.

"Therefore," Peter began, lifting his feet on the table. "It's understandable that he didn't want to confess to you. If that's what happened – but I assume it did, because... he hit you."

Crossing his hands on top of the book, James tilted his head while keeping his peepers on Sirius. "You were pushing on him, weren't you? You always do that, and you always get smacked in the face. Tsk, tsk." James shook his head. "You should know better than go pressing on a bloke who has the whole Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde thing going on. You need patience with these sort of things. I've been patient for 7 years and I feel like I'm on a verge of success." James turned his eyes on Peter. "She's only slapped me once this week!"

"Congratulations," said Peter with a smile. "When's the wedding?"

"School first, surely," James said leisurely.

"What –" Sirius frowned and nailed his eyes on Peter. "What do you mean it's understandable?"

Peter pointed a finger at James, who sighed and said, "Moony must have realised himself that if he admits to his feelings, and especially if he admits them to you, he will, sort of, be your prisoner for the rest of his life." He tilted his head at Peter's direction. "Or that's how the superstition in him works at least. One can never know what he's thinking."

"He is enigmatic, yes," Peter agreed shortly, rocking in his chair. "Very vague. I once asked him if he wanted seconds with beans and guess what his answer was?" James shook his head at him. "Maybe. Maybe! As if with his appetite and such a breakfast there'd be options to a question like that."

"What do you mean it's understandable?" Sirius asked again, rage filling his voice in a way the whole castle knew he was not interested in beans.

Peter nodded at James, who returned it, and then the tubby boy turned to look at Sirius. Peter said, "Summarily, if he tells you he has feelings for you, loves you even, and you take it as a joke like you normally do with everything, he'll be distraught and broken-hearted until the day he dies. That's not preferable. After all, he's only just begun to enjoy his life on this planet, in a way." Peter shook his head. "I cannot fathom how on Earth he could be happy, but nevertheless, he's only 17. Don't do that to a bloke."

Sirius asked, "What?"

James assisted, "If he voices his feelings for you and you reject him, even if jestingly, what can he do then? He's never been the type to push his views onto others – you must know that." Potter shrugged lopsidedly as he glanced at Peter, who was nodding fervently next to him. "That might be the very reason he's pushing you away instead of telling you anything. He knows what you are like and that you are not capable of accepting other people's feelings and wishes; he knows that you basically are just an self-absorbed bag of dicks, and with this knowledge, he chooses to keep the information with himself rather than let it out in the real world for you to stomp on. It's not that hard to understand, really, and it makes perfect sense. I love you, mate, but I would probably do the same."

"Yeah." Peter brought his arms behind his head. "I would consider writing a letter, but yes – no matter how one does approach this, it's a very dangerous mission."

While keeping his eyes on Sirius, James continued with, "Just the way he does, we, Pete and I, we didn't want you to be his mate either. A girl would have been a better option since... well, I cannot say they're nicer, but if you think what sort of a girl Moony would like, then, yeah. A better option than you."

"So..." Sirius started, staring at them and definitely grinding his teeth. "He's doubting me?"

James smirked and tapped the side of his ridiculously long nose.

"Why is he doubting me!" shouted Sirius. "When have I ever given him one sodding reason to doubt me!"

"Well..." started James in a way that he positively had a list of said things somewhere.

"Never mind that," interrupted Peter and asked Sirius, "When's the last time you fancied the same person over a fortnight?"

Sirius' jaw clenched as he thought the answer. "I'm – well, you know how it is. There's so many girls here and it's not like they're all blossoming the same fucking time!"

Snorting, Peter pulled a face. "My point exactly. Never."

"It doesn't mean I'd do that to him! That thing... with the stomping!"

"Actually, yes it does," informed James importantly. He brought a hand to caress his own chin as if he had a wise man's beard there. "He's not going to risk it, he's not an idiot – instead, he wants to keep the fact that he might have feelings for you in, and suffer in peace for the rest of his life, which, as we know, is not that long, considering the fact that he's going to die any minute."

Absolutely shaking in his seat, Sirius hissed, "So what, he'll rather die immediately than take that fucking risk with me? Does he really think me that low?"

"I don't think you have to question that," Peter laughed.

"No!" Sirius yelled as he stood up. "That's not acceptable. No! I'm going to show him that he can trust me and he can tell me anything without the fear of me stomping on him!" Sirius watched his friends for a few seconds, grunted something animalistic and then started pacing in front of them, snapping his fingers in a frantic manner. "Fucking shit, I'm going to show him so hard, he's going flip shit on his... fur!"

"What are you doing now?" inquired James, lifting his spectacles a bit.

"Brainstorming! Quickly. Join in. I need all the half-wits I can have."

Peter asked, "What are we brainstorming?"

"How can I make him understand that I'm not playing here? He needs to understand that I would never... ever, never ever, that I'm completely serious!" Sirius eyed his friends. "Please help me."

"Tell him," James said flatly. "It's simple, yet effective. There is no other way to get through a man. Men are dense."

"But that doesn't work in this scenario, though," Peter said to James as he lowered his chair with a thud. "Lupin will never believe this guy." He gestured towards Sirius. "Look at him, he's a clown! Bruised, dripping water, seemingly horny and pushing his emotions to the maximum. He's like a wet wildebeest on crack, trying his hardest to sink his buckteeth into a rear-end of a lion."

"Seriously, what kind of comic books do you read?" James asked Peter, but got no answer and it was probably better that way.

"Then what else?" Sirius asked them as he stopped striding. He flailed his hands towards his friends who were just staring at him. "Quickly! Don't just sit there, looking dumb, you two! I need help!"

"What's the rush?"

Sirius stared at James like he had escaped from a mental institution. "He'll die, you boor! You forgotten about that?"

"Oh, right," mumbled Potter. "Er..."

"Act on it?" Peter suggested frivolously.

"I tried, and he hit me!" Sirius all but yelled. "Why would I want to repeat that! I'm a fragile soul, Pete, I can't take smacking from my friends! What do you think my Christmas dinners were like at home?" Sirius pointed at his cheekbone. "My handsome cannot take this abuse!" And as if he hadn't said it before, he ended with, "He hit me!"

"Yes, he did that, didn't he," Peter agreed. "Not hard enough, though. You're still speaking."

"Good one," said James and gave Peter an approving nod. Peter tilted his head as a thank you.

Suddenly, as he watched his friends make fun of him, something dawned on Sirius. His eyes widened, and he tapped his lips with a finger. "Holy poop on a biscuit! An apology!"

"An apology?"

"I apologise to him," Sirius said slowly, taking a few steps towards the table. "You two know that I never do that! I always blame everyone else, but if I do that to him now, I'm sure he'll take me seriously." His face indicated that something was happening inside his skull. "...Yes. This is it. I'm being a genius again. This will work. I have faith in me!"

"You're a tad out of your depth there, even with your faith," James noted when Sirius turned away from them, ready to return the dormitory room. "Apologising," continued James, shouting after Sirius. "You're ready to drown? Figuratively this time?"

"I have to be if I want to save him!" Sirius shouted over his shoulder and made his way towards the front entrance of the library.

Sirius opened the door to the dormitory room as expectantly as he had the first time he came to Hogwarts. Seven years earlier the room had been lit with warm, soothing light, it had smelled fresh and Peter's dirty pants had not been the first thing greeting him on the floor by the door.

Now the room was dark except a pathetic trace of light that escaped the curtains on an arch window between his bed and Remus'. Sirius inhaled sharply yet deadly quietly, hugged the random book he had managed to lend from Pince (he had brought up Remus' name somewhere in the sweet-talk), and walked determinedly towards his own bed, where he knew Remus was most likely residing.

He slowly peeked behind the curtain, and his heart twisted in his chest when he saw that his bed was empty. Then, just as he had started to imagine all kinds of nasty scenes in his head where he would never see his friend again (just because he was not in Sirius' bed, this made sense), Sirius heard a sniffle from the bed next to his. He turned around, taking in the sight of Remus' closed curtains, and asked quietly, "Remus?" The book was pressing against his cold chest. "You awake?"

"...Yeah."

Sirius closed in a few steps towards the boy's bed, peeked in between the curtains and once he saw Remus, he sat on the edge without asking a permission to do so. Remus looked like a bat-turtle; he was foetal under a robe, only his head popping out from the neckline, and his back facing Sirius. He was gripping the black fabric tightly, making sure that if someone was to jerk it away, he would have a capital advantage.

"Are you all right?" Sirius whispered to his back, but got no reply. "Did you finish your bath properly? Are you feverish? If you want, I can take you to Poppy to get more medicine. You might actually get better with her aid."

Remus huffed into the pillow. "I hit you in the face, and you're asking me if I'm all right?"

Hearing the discomfort from his friend's voice, Sirius bit his lip and handed the boy the book. "Here, I brought you this."

The bat-turtle glanced at him but didn't move otherwise.

"It's a book," said Sirius as though Remus didn't know. After that he read the title for the first time. "1000 and 1 Ways to Avoid Accidents with Furry Pants." Sirius frowned. "What?" He tossed the book on the bed, shaking his head. "Books, man, I swear to Merlin. I thought I grabbed a good one, but as usual, I fucked up."

Remus returned to his pillow. "You should hate me right now," he muttered, his cheek mushed against the fabric. "I don't understand you."

"No, you don't," Sirius agreed. "If you did, then you wouldn't fancy me." The silence that followed those words seemed confirm everything. "Not the smartest thing you've done, surely. Actually, this is probably the dumbest thing you've ever done." Sirius poked his lower back with a finger. "Remus, you're turning into a daft."

"Well the joke's on you; you're the one making me a daft."

There is was. A confession. Swallowing hard and keeping his eyes on the boy even though he wanted to escape, Sirius said, "I'm going to add that to my list of sins, since I already came to apologise."

"You don't do that," said Remus quietly.

Sirius nodded even though he knew the boy couldn't see it. "I know, I don't, but... as Minnie's encouraged me a few times, I should. Especially now that I –" He shrugged. He looked like he didn't even know what he was saying. "She has nothing to do with this, but Remus, I'm sorry."

Remus mumbled blearily, "For what?"

"Everything?" Sirius said as he had thought on his way there. He lifted his legs on the bed. His trousers were still wet and smelling of that awful-tasting soap. "I think that's a good way to proceed since there's a lot of stupid things I should apologise for." Remus said nothing to him, so Sirius continued, "If I would apologise for everything I've done one by one, we'd be here till Evans actually agrees to marry that one idiot, and that's going to take forever, it'd be kind of selfish of me to keep you here for that long, don't you think?"

Still, Remus kept quiet.

"I was pushing you there, earlier," Sirius informed, tugging the end of the robe around Remus' legs. "And I'm sorry for doing that. But that's what I do. That's how I am. I am a fool, and you should know that by now, because you've seen me before, haven't you?"

Remus said nothing.

Getting kind of anxious because Remus was not talking to him, Sirius kept his eyes steady on the werewolf's back and decided to try another approach. "Moony, have you ever read a romantic novel?"

"...What?"

"Don't ask, but I have," said Sirius. His toe was itching. "I read one once, I don't remember the name. Anyway, in it the hero bloke... guy, he was sort of simple, gormless. And the heroine, she tried everything to make him understand that she was in love with him, but in the end the only way he understood exactly what she was doing, was... because she said the words to him." Sirius blinked at Remus' unmoving form and bit his lower lip. "Uh, she also happened to be a werewolf and she didn't die because she told the bloke she was in love with him and then they lived happily ever after, because Remus, she didn't die." Of course he added a concerned and very quiet, "Please don't die."

Not looking at him but keeping himself buried in the pillow, Remus said, "That's not actually a book, is it?"

"No." Sirius sighed. "Look, I promise you that at some point you'll doubt the arse out of me," Sirius continued as he sat on his legs, and crawled closer to Remus' back. "But I won't make you do that deliberately. Please, Remus, believe me. I don't want you to feel bad for falling for me, I will make it better, just let me, okay? I can't do anything to help if you won't let me. Please."

Startling Sirius a bit, Remus turned around. He looked stumped, but in a very tired and feverish way. "I haven't even said that I fancy you. Where do you get that idea?"

"You said it right now," noted Sirius simply.

Battling with his illness, Remus closed his eyes for a few seconds. Sirius watched him and his oddly puffy lids without saying a word, and soon enough Remus exhaled with care and gazed back at the boy. "Why do you keep insisting on it, if I haven't said anything?" Remus watched him, pulling the robe more firmly around himself. "You barely understand words, how could you pick up on anything hidden between the lines?"

"Because it's obvious?" Sirius told him and dared to move a bit closer. His fingers still on the fabric of the robe, he gripped a corner of it tightly. "I'm sorry to say this, but in addition to being very bad at lying, you're kind of also incredibly bad at trying to be subtle about something that matters to you." He blinked. "Remember the parsley?"

"Don't –" Remus started, closing his eyes embarrassedly. "Don't remind me about the parsley."

Sirius cocked his head, fingering the robe. "And, I mean... Isn't this mine? It's my robe you're living under now. That says a lot since you do have your own... somewhere. Or have you finally lost your mind and given it to the house-elves?"

Remus shook his head. "There is no way you could know I fancy you if I haven't said it."

"Hah, that's the second time you said that! You fancy me."

"It doesn't count!" said Remus hastily.

"Then why not say it for real?" Sirius asked, moving another inch closer, and making his knees bump into Remus' side. "Although, you don't have to say it, because even though you haven't said it, I know. I'm not like that gormless bloke, I'm brilliant. I just want you to say it because it'll make things better for you."

Remus eyed him exhaustedly. "Just a while ago you were a fool, and now you're brilliant? How does that work?"

Watching the sickly thing, Sirius nodded with a small smile on his lips. "I am a brilliant fool, don't you know?"

Remus shook his head. "Then even you should know that I have to say the words to make it count. I haven't said that I fancy you," he concluded, making it sound as though he was a broken record. Sirius lifted three fingers up at Remus' face. "No, I haven't... said... I fancy you."

"You what?" asked Sirius as though he didn't hear him.

"I fancy..." Remus' cheeks were very red again. Being so inclined to constantly get closer to Remus, Sirius was almost on top of him now and in all likelihood he planned on being so, since he moved to straddle Remus' legs; Remus, on his part, pressed a hand on Sirius' cold chest as if he was preparing to push him away. As expected, he did nothing of the sort. "I..."

"Remus."

"No, but can you imagine how I feel after realising one day that of all people, you are the one I... um." Remus smiled at him, as if apologising. "I know I shouldn't. I keep reminding myself that I'm not a girl and you're not a girl, but then you smile at me and suddenly I'm just so... bloody daft again."

Sirius grinned at him from above. "You are pretty daft, aren't you? Fancying a bloke? Who does that?"

Remus whispered, "Please don't tell anyone."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because –" Remus breathed again, but Sirius interrupted him by taking Remus' hand away from his chest, and pressed it and his own cold one together on Remus' heart instead.

He smiled at the werewolf. "Look, I know nothing about love, but somehow I can assume it feels kind of like this," he muttered and made their hands concentrate on Remus' heartbeat. He fixed his eyes on Remus'. "Now, you know I'm awfully selfish, so why would I go about, telling people how this feels like? This thumping in your chest?"

Remus swallowed.

"I don't want anyone else to know about that," Sirius said to him. "It's my thumping."

The boy below him tried to shake his head, but for what, neither of them knew.

"And," Sirius continued vigorously, "The same thumping tells me things you are not saying out loud. Because you're one of the densest bloody people I've ever met, and you cannot just admit it. Properly. Like you ought to."

"But you're not a gormless simpleton," Remus noted, an embarrassed smile on his lips.

Sirius kept his eyes confidently on the boy's face. "Okay, yeah, but... Ah, wow!" His sudden grin widened. "Do you feel that? How it turned more frantic?" He smiled at Remus. "And you're telling me you don't feel anything. Come on, Moony."

"It didn't," Remus mumbled whilst trying shy away his gaze. He was tugging Sirius' shirt hem very lightly and only ended up damping his hands while he was at it.

"No, but it's wild now," Sirius said to him, watching Remus lift his eyes. "I can hear the bounding in my fucking ears. Deafening."

Remus suggested quietly, "Maybe it's yours."

Sirius frowned. "What?"

With a growing smile, Remus repeated, "It's yours?"

Seeing a proper smile for the first time in two days on those lips, Sirius felt a sudden urge to kiss the boy; not even questioning himself, he carefully leant closer, but before he could reach Remus' lips, he sneezed over his shoulder and into his pillow.

"Are you feeling any better?"

It was the next day, Sunday that would be, and Sirius was shaking in an infirmary bed, under a thick duvet and a few extra blankets, with the whole of his pyjama on for a change. Remus was resting in the neighbouring bed, still suffering from a slight fever and comforting Sirius from time to time with badly timed jokes and reading out loud for the classes he had missed on Friday.

"No," Sirius mumbled blurrily into his pillow. "I want to die."

"If you would just take the medicine she suggested," said Remus. "With that, you could get some sleep and –"

"And what?" asked Sirius, opening one eye to glare at the boy. "They would haul us both to St Mungo's while I'm counting the lambs? Cheers, but no. I must be vigilant."

"You're not making any sense," Remus told him, turning his eyes to seek the matron. "Should I call for her?"

"No, don't, please god, no." Sirius shook his head and dove deeper into his pillow at the same time he was waving a lethargic hand at Remus. "No... She smells like that one liniment Kreacher once gave me, before I hurled on him. And –" He sneezed straight in the pillow. "And oh fuck, rotten dragons," he slurred into a tissue he snatched from the bedside table. "You better stay sick, Lupin. You need to keep an eye on me because you gave this to me. You arsehole."

"No, you did this to yourself," said Remus affably from the other bed.

Sirius huffed while he blew his nose. "Yoo af hoffible. Absolutely horrible."

"Really? You're blaming me? Your clothes were drenched with bathwater and you ran off in a stone castle?" Remus asked, shaking his head carefully. "Without your shoes, without drying your clothes as you said you would, and after you kissed me. You must be an idiot, if you thought you would dodge the bullet with a stunt like that."

Sirius blew his nose again and turned his watery eyes on the boy in the next bed. "I can't be. Haven't you heard the saying idiots don't catch colds? Here I am. Cold. Dying even, I'm sure. I hope you're happy."

Closing the Potions book he had in his hands and putting it on the nightstand, Remus crossed his fingers on his lap and smiled annoyingly in Sirius' direction. "I have heard that, but I must tell you a secret. I'm still superstitious."

"You're not..." Sirius blinked at him. "Superst...? What? Not even a little-stitious?"

"Not in the least, no," said Remus. "I'm sorry."

"But the... grandwolf mating..." Sirius huffed, trying to keep a sneeze away. He stared at Remus in the eye. "Thought... the book said – death... demise, forever alone wolf."

"Sirius, we spent the whole night talking about this; I am not a grandwolf," Remus told him, stifling a laughter that was building up in his throat. "Also, the book you lot read is from the 11th century, so I, personally, wouldn't take it as a modern outlook on a werewolf's life in 1978. Things change. Maybe the goblins were intoxicated while writing that, who knows."

"But you..." Sirius closed his eyes, and wiped them with the tissue. Soon enough he was peering at Remus again. "You shagged my bed, and... and my leg!"

"I did that, didn't I?" admitted Remus in a contemplating manner. He dove deeper into his pillow, all the while keeping his eyes on Sirius' pathetic, contorted face. "But as I already told you, either had nothing to do with wolves. Neither did my fever going down had anything to do with you kissing me."

Sirius sighed as it took all his efforts not to lose consciousness. "But you didn't want to confess, so I thought... it was because the thing... it was... wolf said, bad, bad wolf –" He sniffled. "Wolf didn't so it... fever and died. Bad things. Cave."

"Honestly. I didn't want to tell you because I thought you might laugh." Remus wasn't watching Sirius but something else. Most likely his own toes that wiggled happily under the blanket. "Then there's the sex thing – you're still not a girl. Things are complicated. I didn't hesitate because the wolf inside of me had its heart set on you and couldn't have had anyone else. That's ridiculous." He carefully peeked at Sirius. "Really, you thought that?"

"No but wolves, Moony?"

"You lot make everything worse than it is by imagining the worst case scenario." Remus sniggered a bit. "Always. Like that I'm a vampire?"

Striving to shake his head at Remus, Sirius mumbled, "Poppy said that your flu isn't, uh. Normal."

"Well, to me she told that my readings were of the roof because of my physiology," Lupin told the boy. "Meaning that my resistance for illnesses is weaker than other people. Also it was the full moon a mere week ago, so I'm still a bit woozy because of that. It's just a normal cold, I just happen to be a weakling."

"No, what, then why would you..." Sirius closed his eyes. "Moony... me, a dog, you fancy – why."

Starting to feel slightly better, Remus watched Sirius fall silent. "You know, I question myself that every day, but it's not really for me to decide, now is it?"

A/N2: I know, lame, but look at me while I DON'T CAREEEEE