Kristmas Wish Fulfilled for: tjs_whatnot
From: train_tracks

Title: Moon Shine or Dark
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Rosmerta (James/Rosmerta, Sirius/Rosmerta, James/Lily, Sirius/James UST)
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Included: gotta-have-it-now sex, cunnilingus
Other Warnings/Content: werewolfishness during sex
Word Count: ~5,300
Summary/Description: She looked him up and down.  She tucked her rag into her apron and set her hands on her hips.  "You're not like the others.  Are you."
Author's Notes: Major thanks to my wonderful beta, __!  Recipient, I hope this fits the bill!  I tried to work in some epistolary goodness for you!  Happy Christmas/Solstice/Etc!





She was the newest barmaid at the Three Broomsticks, and Remus knew without a doubt that he was not her type.

She brought their drinks, flashed eyes at Sirius (which figured), shoved James, and then lowered her eyes completely when she set Remus' butterbeer down in front of him.

She left hastily, and Sirius leaned way out from the table to watch her arse switch to and fro, giving an offensive wolf whistle after her.

"Shut it," Remus growled at him, blushing in embarrassment at his uncouthness.

"Relax, Moony," said Sirius, pulling at the bottle.  "It's not like you couldn't have her, too."

Remus blinked.  He'd only thought-- Well, he'd assumed--

"You've already...shagged her?" Remus asked, aghast.  She'd only been barmaid for a few months, and Remus had been biding his time, unwilling to ask her out only to be rejected because he wasn't as handsome as his two best friends and not nearly so charismatic.  He'd planned on getting her alone during one of her breaks so that he could show her that he could be a gentleman and listen to a lady -- that maybe he was just a little bit smart, too, because maybe she liked smart.

But now...

"Had her 'round back of the pub last Friday night," Sirius declared.

Remus was relieved when James looked at him with wide eyes too.  Until he said, "Bloody hell, Padfoot.  I had her Friday night, too!"

"What time?" Sirius asked him.

"Nine-thirty."

Sirius shrugged.  "Got my sloppy seconds, then, didn't ya, mate?"

James looked unfazed.  "Where'd you put it?"

"My favorite place, that's where."

"Well, so did I."

"Then I guess we're square," Sirius laughed, shoving James in the shoulder.

Remus' cheek burned hot with anger.  "She's a lady, and you're both being completely manky."

"She's a woman, she's not a lady, and you're next," Sirius insisted.  Then he stood.  "I've got this round."  He sauntered over to the bar where Rosmerta polished the top with a ratty rag.

Remus decided he couldn't watch.  In fact, he decided Sirius could drink his share; he was going back to the common room to study.

He got up, grabbed his patched-up jumper, said a hasty goodnight to James, and walked out.

~

Dear Rosmerta,

Remus stuck the end of his quill in his mouth, brow furrowed.  As beginnings of letters went, this one held little promise of being anything other than forgettable.

He sighed, looked around the library, and then went back to his parchment.

I was hopp hoping I could buy you a drink sometime and we could talk about Astronomy.  I heard you always had Outstandings in Astronomy when you attended school here.  Not that you'd need me to buy you a drink, whatwith where you work.  And maybe you'd rather get out of there and have tea instead?

Whatever the case, I'd like to get together and discuss Casse Cassiopeia with you sometime.  If you'd like.  And you're not too busy.

Sincerey
Yours Truly,

Remus Lupin


p.s.  Don't mind the owl.  He may look shabby, but he's not diseased or anything.


It was dreadful.  Dreadful.  But Remus folded it and ran with it up to the Owlery anyway so that he wouldn't have as much opportunity to back out.  He sent his barn owl off and watched Benedict become a dusty smudge on the horizon.

"Bloody hell," Remus said to the sleeping owls.  "What have I done?"

~

A week went by.

Then two.

Then a month and a half.

Remus would have liked to say that he'd forgotten he'd sent that barmy letter.  But he hadn't.

Through Potions pop quizzes, History of Magic 'Trolls', and a full moon, Remus hadn't forgotten.

So when the next Hogsmeade trip came up, he almost didn't go.

But then James and Sirius got detention for that hex they pulled on Snape and were going to be writing lines for three hours on Hogsmeade day, and though he felt a smattering of guilt over it, that was precisely what made Remus decide that he would go after all.

He pulled on his best green jumper, "borrowed" a pair of denims from James' trunk and Sirius' brown leather jacket (he'd never be forgiven for pinching the black one), dodged Wormtail's attempts to find him in the foyer, and made off for the Three Broomsticks alone.

They were frightfully busy when he arrived, so he took a seat at a broken table near the back and watched for her.  It didn't take long.  She was wearing her hair back in a ponytail, though wisps of honey-colored strands still stuck to her face and neck where she was perspiring.  She moved quickly, laughing at this joke while she poured this other bloke his ale and held up a finger to the lady at the end of the bar.

Her unchoreographed improvisations behind the bar were mesmerizing.  She was more beautiful, Remus thought, than any of the girls in his year, ten years younger.

Remus waited through the lunch crowd.  He waited for hours.

When the tables emptied and the bar thinned out, she finally lifted her gaze at one point and spotted him.  Remus went red to the ears and studied the fire in the hearth as though his poetic soul could not bear to be without its inspirational light.

He felt her near before he saw her drying her hands in her apron out of the corner of his eye.  He smelled her: bourbon, cigarettes...  Rose oil behind her ears.

"There you are," she said as though he'd been missing.

"Hello," he said, clearing his throat and looking up at her.

"I'm afraid I don't remember much about my Astronomy classes," she said.  "Frankly, I was surprised you asked me.  Most students don't want someone whose wand's been snapped to tutor them."

"What?"

She started to clean off his already-clean table.  "I mean, it was probably a prank anyway, right?  With who your friends are an' all."

"I'm sorry..."  Remus frowned and watched her hand swish over the scarred table top.  "I'm not following.  Sirius and James...snapped your wand??"

"What?  No!" she laughed.  "Did you want a pint?  Butterbeer?  Something to eat?"  When her eyes finally met his after her fevered table-wiping, he saw that her cheeks were pink and her pupils dark.  She had hazel eyes with a hint of ocean blue.

"I'm fine," he said.

"Just came for the ambiance, then?"  She winked.

"Why did they snap your wand?"

She took a deep slow breath.  Her smile, when she remembered it again, was fake.  "Are you sure you wouldn't like some fish and chips?  It's quite fresh today."

This was his moment.  "No, thank you.  Unless you'd like to join me."  He gulped.

She frowned through her smile.  "Are you serious?"

Remus gulped again.  He didn't know what to do with his hands.  "Or we could go get that tea."

She looked him up and down.  She tucked her rag into her apron and set her hands on her hips.  "You're not like the others.  Are you."  Her voice held a breathy quality that belied her stance.  Then she blinked and before he could answer (and he had no idea how to answer anyway), she went on, "I have to work now," she said.  She looked back at the bar.  The door opened, and four wizards walked in.  Rosmerta looked back at him.  "I get a day off in two weeks."

Remus' eyes widened.  "Not...the twenty-first?"

"Exactly the twenty-first," she said.  "If you can get out of that school of yours."

"Er..."  Why?!  Whywhywhy did it have to be then?!  "I'm not sure.  I'm...sort of failing History of Magic right now," he trailed off.

She looked affronted suddenly.  Her jaw went hard.  "So you do want a tutor then."

"What?  No!  No, I never wanted a tutor."  Oh Merlin, he was going to lose her if he didn't...  "Okay!" he said.  "Friday, the twenty-first.  I'll...I'll be here."

"Oi!" one of the wizards called from the bar.

"I have to go," she said.  "Owl me again, why don't you?"  She smiled.  "I like your scruffy-looking bird."

Remus could only nod and watch her back away and finally turn toward her new customers.

He could only pray for something like a miracle between now and the next full moon.


~

Remus had figured he'd send one or two owls between the day he'd spent staring at Rosmerta in the Three Broomsticks and their date.  But when he sent the first -- an awkward and brief hullo, how are you and got a reply in two hours' time, it bolstered his confidence, and he found himself composing owls to her under his desk during Arithmancy, at Quidditch matches when he was supposed to be cheering James on, during dinner, just before bed.

His owls began as superficial platitudes, but as Rosmerta's answers came back swift and forthright, Remus became braver.  Innocuous questions about her preferences turned to admissions:

I like to watch you pour wine.


You have a graceful neck.


Would you mind if I kissed you?


After a week, he was receiving owls back from her that made him blush:


I like to watch you drink.


You have strong hands.


You may kiss me as long as your hand is up my skirt at the same time.


Remus hid all of the letters.  He couldn't bear to let James or Sirius see.  They'd ride him horribly.  Or they'd write her their own owls and go much, much further and maybe steal her attentions completely.

All the time they'd been owling, Remus remained jealous of his friends.  Not that he wanted to shag her once behind a building with her back to the wall and be done with it, but they'd been with her and he hadn't, and Remus felt sure the owls were the thing that could distinguish him in her eyes.  Maybe he could make her fall in love with him before they ever did the deed, so that if it was unimpressive, he might still have some kind of a chance with her based on his wit and good-humor alone.

Late one night, when James and Sirius had passed out (again) in James' bed after one too many shots of stolen firewhiskey, when Peter was snoring so loud no one would hear the scratch of Remus' quill, he ducked under his covers, Lumosed his wand, and asked the questions he'd been dying to since they'd first talked:

   
Dear Rosmerta,

Please forgive my intrusion, but won't you tell me what happened to you at Hogwarts?  Why did Dumbledore snap your wand?  Was it Dumbledore?  What year were you?  Do you hate him?  Is that why I never see you use magic at the pub?

Do you ever think about...wanting more?


Most Humbly Yours,

Remus Lupin
 

It was days before he heard back from her -- so long he began to feel certain he'd ruined everything.  In fact, he heard nothing right up to the day he was supposed to slip out and meet her.

He'd taken his potions that morning to take the edge off.  He planned to attend History of Magic, because he's probably fail if he didn't, but after that he was going to go back to the dorm and meditate.  When he couldn't make it to the Shrieking Shack, he found meditation to be a bit of a balm.  He'd sit on his bed, eyes closed and panting, only taking breaks to take more potions and drink water.

If it got really bad, he would take off into the Forbidden Forest.  But that tended to be a last resort.  And it certainly wouldn't do this day.

Unless she really is done with me, Remus thought morosely.

But the owl came at lunch, dropped straight into his pudding.  Remus pretended it was from his Great Aunt Hester and waited to open it until he was back in the dorm room alone.

Once there, he ripped into it and read voraciously.


Dear Remus,


I'm not ready to share my secrets with you yet.

I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate me sharing yours.


Sincerely,


Rosmerta


p.s.  Meet me at the Hog's Head at ten-thirty.  And don't you dare not show.


Remus let out his breath and wiped the sweat that had collected on his brow.  He realized that a part of him had almost been relieved to think he'd bungled it.

Now he didn't know what to think or feel.

I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate me sharing yours.

Did she mean what he thought she meant?

How could she know?  She couldn't.  It had to be a general observation -- that Remus wouldn't appreciate her talking about his secrets were he to have any.

That had to be what she'd meant.

And she still wanted him to come.

Remus shoved the letter under his mattress and took some extra potions.

There was no going back now.

No matter what.

~


He checked the skies one last time from his dormitory window at ten o'clock.  There was a lot of cloud cover, and Remus was grateful, because he could feel the moon in his blood, and he didn't think he'd make it if it decided to shine on him, too.

He could do this.

He could do this.

They'd stay indoors.  He'd bring extra potions.  They've have tea, he'd keep himself under control, and then they'd part, making plans for a second date not anywhere around a full moon -- he'd make sure of it.

He could do this.

Surely whatever goddess or sorcerer controlling fate wouldn't let him be this way and be loveless, too.

Remus breathed slowly and deeply through his nose.  In and out.  He checked his pockets for his phials and his scant Sickles.  He cast a temporary Muffliato on an already sleeping Wormtail.  Then he did a horrible thing: He borrowed James' invisibility cloak.

He passed them in the common room -- James and Sirius wrestling on the coach ("You're a plonker!"  "No, you're a plonker!") -- and then snuck through the portrait when Daisy Hookum came through it.

Before long, he was on the road, parting the fog and trying not to breathe too hard.

He only removed the cloak when he was just outside the Hog's Head.  Inside, it was warm and dark.  Remus looked around and found Rosmerta sitting in a booth in a smoky corner.  He sent up a little prayer of thanks that it was nowhere near a window, willed his heart to slow, and walked over.

"Good evening," he said to her.  He hoped his voice wasn't shaking too much -- both from nerves and, well, the other.

"Remus," she said warmly.  "I took the liberty of ordering you a firewhiskey."

He sat across from her.  "But I'm...  I'm not..."  Old enough, was not something he felt like saying aloud.

"I know," she said.  "We're already ignoring several rules, though, aren't we?"  She sipped her own drink, and Remus swallowed before doing the same.

He let his eyes drop to the blouse that hugged her ample bosom.  Her skin showed through the gap at the neck.  She had freckles between her breasts.  He gulped.

"You're here," she said once he'd licked his lips.

He frowned a little.  "Did you think I wouldn't come?"

"I wondered," she said.  It was then that Remus noticed there was an entire bottle of firewhiskey on the table.  Rosmerta poured herself another.  "Your friends never risked so much as you."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Rosmerta began.  She slipped her hand across the table and touched his.  "Perhaps I've met my match."

Her words made little sense to him, but her touch was electric, and Remus found himself snatching his hand away in order to maintain some kind of control.  The beast within was not sleeping now, after all.  At her touch, he'd felt himself slipping.  Remus drained his drink and poured himself another larger one, spilling a little of the amber liquid on the table.

"You, uh, you look very pretty," he said, hoping she didn't hear the change in his voice, the deepening.

"You look hungry," she replied.  Her gaze held both kindness and fascination.

He laughed a little, uncomfortably.  "I ate before I came," he informed her.  He left out the part about it being a completely raw steak purloined from the kitchen by his friends.

She sipped her whiskey slowly, her eyes never leaving him.

Remus inhaled, and then suddenly he was overcome.  He could...Merlin, he could smell her.  She was wet and musky and he had to clutch at his own leg under the table to keep from snarling with want to get his face between her thighs.

He'd never experienced anything like this.  He'd never let himself.  All his experience with girls at school was nothing -- snogging and his hand nearing her breast over her jumper.  He'd done nothing with Rosmerta, but he was unprepared for what she, just sitting there looking at him, was making him want to do.

He inhaled the sharp tang of her cream and gripped the edges of the table.

"I can't--" he gasped out.  He jumped out of the booth.  It was too much.  Too much.  He looked around the bar wildly.

Her hand shot out and closed around his wrist.

He whirled on her.  "You DON'T KNOW," he said through his teeth.

She nodded and stood so that they were close.  So very close.  Her thumb made soothing circles over his pulse.  "I know," she said.  "Why do you think I picked this date, Remus?"

He gaped at her.  "You what?"

She stepped even closer.  Her breasts brushed against his body, and Remus had to shut his eyes.  "There's a room," she said, "upstairs.  Let's take the bottle.  Let's go, Remus."

He pulled free of her hand.  He looked around again.  "I have to get out," he said.  It was coming up in him -- the heat, the unbearable force.

Rosmerta palmed his stubbled cheek.  "Let me help you," she said.  And the look in her eyes stopped the growing panic in him.  It slowed his panting to soft, shallow puffs.  "I can handle you," she said.

She smiled at him, and he blinked.  Her thumb stroked across his lips.  Then she grabbed the bottle, took his arm, and Remus let himself be led to the rickety old stairs leading up, leading to the absolute unknown -- to the unexplored depths of this thing inside him.

~

The door shut, and Rosmerta said, "Get out your wand."

"Rosmerta, I--"

She took a swig from the bottle and set it down.  "I know.  Get out your wand, Remus."

"You don't know!" he pleaded with her.  "I don't know!  I've never--"  He shut his mouth and leaned against the door.  His skin was crawling, his heart rapid-firing.

She walked to him, unbuttoning her blouse as she came, and Remus growled low in his throat.

"You're a sweet," one button, "kind," two buttons, "smart," three buttons, "charming young man."

He made a sound of protest as she neared, but then she opened her blouse and said, "You're a werewolf, Remus Lupin.  And you're a virgin.  You're everything I want."  The blouse dropped to the floor, and Remus could see her nipples poking at the satin of her bra.  "Everything I've always wanted."

"I am?" Remus whispered.

Rosmerta nodded.  She slid her hands up his chest and whispered back, "Get out your wand and put up your best privacy charms.  You do know some privacy charms, don't you?"

He gulped and then cast the one he'd been taught in class and the two Sirius and James had taught him, too.

Her hands began unbuckling his belt.  "Now Quasso," she told him.  "To stop the walls from shaking," she whispered.

Remus cast it and felt the room insulated further.  Her hands brushed his erection, and Remus let out a growl that frightened even him.

He shoved Rosmerta away from him.  But she just smiled a crooked smile and stripped off her bra, bearing her breasts to him.  He stayed glued to the back of the door, his teeth grit against this feeling, this compulsion.

"No," he said.  Although, there was nothing 'no' about this need.  Everything was yes.  She just didn't know what she was asking for, and Remus didn't know how much he'd be able to hold back.

Then she picked up the bottle of firewhiskey.  She drank again, and then she tipped the bottle over her breasts, letting the alcohol bathe her breasts until it dripped off her big round nipples.

Remus snarled and launched himself away from the door.  They landed on the buffered floor, and he licked over her tits, one and then the other, hard and greedy, making wolfish whines in the back of his throat the whole while as her flesh bounced against his lips and tongue.

Rosmerta tossed her head back, crying out.  She spread her legs for him, and Remus could smell her sex between the skirt's folds, like jasmine opening at night.

He grunted and suckled her breast, hips finding the opening she made and rutting fully clothed into the crook of her legs.  He had enough human about him still to know he was sucking too hard, that a lady deserved to be touched with love and patience, the latter of which he had none.

"Remus," she moaned, though.  "Oh, fuck, Remus."  And her tit pushed into his face as her back arched off the ground.  Her pelvis was moving against his, too.  He grunted and left her nipple with a wet pop, only to bite at and suckle and lap at the other one until all taste of firewhiskey was gone and only her warm blood moving through her body, her sweat, her arousal remained.

Suddenly, she gasped hard.  "I'm coming," she breathed.  She quivered against him for a moment, and then she broke into loud, continuous moaning as her hips worked hard against him and she clutched his face to her breasts.

"Oh God," she breathed.  "Bloody fuck, that was fast."  She laughed then, throaty and satisfied.  She stroked his face as he kept sucking at her.  "Do you want to lick my cunt, love?" she asked.

Remus lifted up before he knew what he was doing, and he hiked her skirt to her hips.  He ripped her knickers off and pressed her legs up and out so that she was open for him and he could see every bit of her.  He dipped down and inhaled deeply, his nose in her bush.  She shuddered, and her arms rose up over her head to grasp at the nearest armchair's thick leg.

Remus inhaled her in short, sharp bursts, and then he couldn't stand it.  His saliva dripped from his lips and chin.  He buried his face in her wet, open cunt and licked as far up inside her as he could.

Rosmerta cried out, her whole body shaking.  Remus licked hard, turning his head this way and that.  The thing in him intensified.  He was close to turning.  So close.  It seemed, in that moment, that his tongue did get longer -- that he reached inside her so far he could feel her slick muscles dancing against it.  He growled, because she tasted so perfect.  Her musky sweetness went right to his cock, hard and leaking.  Remus continued to eat her out as he dropped a hand to fumble with his trousers, working them down his thighs and freeing his prick.

It was longer than it had ever been and leaking so badly, there was but a long string of pre-come hanging from its tip.

The strong scent of her pleasured cunt, the clench of her anus just below, made him need to fuck so bad he didn't think he could wait another moment.

Rosmerta began to come again under his mouth.  Her legs tried to close around his head, but he grunted and pried them open, holding them there so he could feast on the slick that flowed from her.  He grunted and ate and it got all over his face, and his cock lengthened still more -- reaching for its own taste of her.

"Pleeeease," she groaned.

He rose up and flipped her over roughly until she was on her knees and elbows, her arse lifted high.

His heart spoke softly under the persistent gnawing of this thing and whispered that he would have liked to make love to her.  He would have liked to be a better man.  But he was not a man.  He was sixteen years old, and he was a wolf, and he was a failure and a thing to be pitied and feared.

He felt fear even as the lust overtook him.  He felt fear for her life and her safety even as he positioned himself and mounted her.  Even as his long-fingered hands gripped her fleshy hips, and he sank all the way into her cunt with one growling thrust.

Remus threw his head back, her wet channel accepting him utterly, and he howled.

~

He fucked her until her arse was red from his pelvis slamming into her.  Until she was begging him.

Yet she wasn't begging him to stop.  And thank God, because he knew he couldn't.

He bloody couldn't.

He fucked until his legs threatened to seize up, until his lungs burned.  And then he held his breath, stilled inside her deep, and his cock began to pulse.

He whined like a pup and spilled his semen into her -- so much that it leaked out past his cock as he started to move in her again.  He watched it run out as he stroked through her shiny bush, in and out of her red slit.

When he was done, he pulled out and fell to the floor panting.  He turned his head to see her slowly slump to her side, shivering.  He crawled to her and brushed her hair away from her face.

"Are...are you...all right?"  His voice was rough, his throat damaged.  "I'm sorry, Rosmerta.  I'm sorry."  The beast bled from him a little more with each word from his lips.

But she smiled up at him tiredly, her face flushed and beautiful.  "Don't you ever be sorry, lad," she told him.

Then she pulled him down for a slow, hard kiss.

~

It was the middle of the night and he was wrapped up in her when she whispered, "I want to tell you now.  Before you have to go."

She kissed the words onto his chest:  "I fell in love with him sixth year.  Same year you are now."  Her lips glanced over his nipple, and he inhaled.  He'd taken his potions after the first time, and they were still keeping the wolf at bay.

Rosmerta continued, "I saw him in secret, because he wasn't a student, and he'd just come too far out of the forest one day.  We'd meet in the forest.  I brought him things."  She kissed down his stomach, and Remus willed his rising cock not to bump her on the chin.  His breath had gone short.

"I gave myself to him.  Night after night.  I had no shame about it.  If boys can do it, why not girls is what I thought."  She looked him in the eye.  "Is what I still think."

She came to lay beside him, and he turned to face her.  She drew the sheet up over their bodies.

"There was an accident.  He and I had been found out, and I was in detention.  It happened at the forest's edge.  There was a scuffle.  A student...a seventh year boy...died.  They said it was Alastair's doing, but I knew that it wasn't him.  That he'd been trying to protect the boy."  She sighed, her gaze dropping.  "But there were scratch marks.  And bites."  Her eyes met his again.  "If I'd been there..."  She swallowed, and Remus touched his knuckles to her cheek.  She smiled sadly.  "I was expelled for knowingly consorting with a werewolf.  Dumbledore was against the snapping of my wand -- he fought for me -- but the Ministry insisted."  She shook her head.  "I didn't care about that part.  I was never a very powerful witch."  One tear slid down into her hair.  "I only cared about him."

"I'm sorry," Remus told her, even as uneasiness soured his stomach.

"He fled," she told him before he could ask.  "I've never seen him again.  I don't even know if he's alive."

"Oh," Remus said stupidly.  His heart seemed to be beating quite fast.   "Do I...remind...?"

She laid a kiss against the butt of his hand.  "Only that what was wild in him is wild in you.  Everything else is different."  She shrugged.  "You are you."

"But aren't you afraid I'll--"  Remus cut himself off.  It was a fear he himself skirted and had yet to fully face.

She said what he couldn't.  "Kill someone?  Die?"

Hearing the words, in her voice, like that, almost made them bearable.  Remus nodded.

"We will all die," she said.  She moved in close, draping a leg over his hip.  "Are you afraid you'll kill someone?"

"Of course," he told her.

She leaned in and pressed a long gentle kiss on his dry lips.  "That is precisely why I'm not afraid."

Then she rolled on top of him, and his cock reared up between her legs, and Remus was very late getting back to the castle.

~

Three Months Later


"Oi!" Sirius shouted at James and threw a green apple at his head.  "I said, anyone for the Three Broomsticks this evening?  Anyone includes you, you horse's arse."  And then he muttered, "If you can quit ogling her long enough."

James rubbed his head where the apple had clocked him even as Lily shoved him in the shoulder once more.  "I heard you.  And just you try and stop me from going, Black."

Remus felt Sirius kick James under the table, felt James kick him back, felt both settle, ankles locked one around the other to finish their food.

"Will you be coming, Remus?" Lily had the presence of mind to ask him.  Despite the recently changed group dynamics as James and she got serious, Remus couldn't say Lily Evans was anything but absolutely lovely even when the three of them -- Sirius, Remus, and James -- were nothing but vile together.  She even tolerated Peter, and that was saying something.

He took a bite of roast chicken and shrugged.  "Might," he said.

"It wouldn't be the same without you," Lily told him while even as she spoke, her boyfriend and Sirius were back to kicking one another again and weren't listening to either of them, rather disproving her point.

Remus knew it didn't matter.  There were mates and then there were mates, and he knew the three of them would have to figure all that out betwixt and between them.  Remus had already figured things out for himself.

He touched his pocket and felt the parchment within.  He'd memorized the words, and he let them fill his mind now:

You're mine, you hear me, wolf?  And I'm yours for the taking.  Sod everything else.  You're beautiful.  Come to me moon shine or dark.


I'll be waiting.


Yours,


Rosmerta


Remus lifted his tea to his lips, hiding his small smile behind the steam.


END