InsaneJournal

Current mood:	anxious
Current music:	'Frail Sail' - Bon Iver
Entry tags:	fandom: harry potter, pairing: remus/sirius, rating: pg-13

February R/S 500 Fic: Clamourous
Title: Clamourous
Author: arcadian_dream
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG
Warnings: angst, unbeta'd.
Disclaimer: I disclaim!
Summary: Sirius' nose knows, even if his brain isn't ready to admit it.
Author's Notes: written for thesiriusmoon as a part of R/S 500.
Words: 876

James, Peter, Remus and Sirius strolled into the classroom for their afternoon Potions lesson. Amid the general chatter of students taking their seats, Peter sniffed the air.

"Can you smell that?" he asked, nudging James.

"Course I can smell that," James replied, taking a seat beside Peter, "What am I? Hard of smelling?"

Peter, the tip of his slightly upturned nose still twitching, merely rolled his eyes at his friend. Leaning back in his seat, he directed his attention to Remus: "You can smell it, right?"

"Sure I can," Remus said, flattening a fresh sheet of parchment against the desk with his palms as he spoke, "Can I borrow a quill, mate?" he asked Sirius who was seated, uncharacteristically silent, and pensive, next to him.

"Hmm?"

"A quill. Can I borrow one? I've left mine in the common room."

"Oh. Right," Sirius said, distractedly.

As Sirius searched among his things for a spare quill, he could not escape the troubling thoughts that had begun to plague him as soon as he and his friends had entered the classroom. He could smell something, alright – but what it was made his breath hitch in his throat, and his mouth dry.

He could have sworn – if it had not been so utterly absurd – that the scent lingering on the air was, and could only be, Remus.

But it was more than that, he realised as he continued to rummage: it was Remus, certainly, but it was Remus after a shower at the end of a long school day; all clean skin and soft cotton towels and warmth.

Sirius' tongue suddenly felt laboriously thick, and dumb with a sort of … fear.

It was not, though, the fear of getting caught after a prank, or of failure, or of his parents' scorn. Those were fears to which Sirius was accustomed.

This fear, that made him feel awkward and flushed and caused his heart to pound against his ribcage in such a manner as he thought it might shatter the bones and leap out into the daylight, was one which had, until recently, been wholly unfamiliar.

It was a fear that only Remus could ignite.

It was this aching excitement that Sirius felt now: as his fingers closed around the slender, curved barrel of a quill, he screwed up the confusion that ranged through his body.

He held it in his chest, and pushed it down into the bottom of his feet with all the other uncomfortable feelings Remus inadvertently caused; with the way that Sirius had noticed the dimples in the small of Remus' back as he pulled his pyjamas on of an evening; and the way that the scars on Remus' arms caught the light at a certain angle and seemed to shimmer before his eyes.

Sirius grasped for all these secret things within himself and forced them so far down that if he had been upright he would have been walking on them: quashing them; stamping them out.

Or, rather, trying to. He could feel his cheeks redden slightly as he turned to Remus, offering up the quill that lay flat against his palm.

"Thanks, mate," Remus said, plucking it from Sirius' hand.

Noticing his friend's curious demeanour, Remus placed a hand on Sirius' forearm: "You alright, Padfoot?" he asked; beside him, Peter and James continued their increasingly fervent discussion.

"It smells like … " Peter said, biting his bottom lip as he thought.

"Quidditch leather!" James interrupted loudly, "It smells like Quidditch leather – you know, gloves, pads, the quaffle … "

"It bloody does not!"

"Yes, it does mate."

"I don't know what it is that you're smelling Prongs, but I'm not getting even the faintest whiff of leather … 's a bit porridgey though," Peter concluded, "With a great dollop of honey in the middle! That's what it is."

"Yeah right," James said with a dismissive wave of his hand: "Moony," he said turning to face Remus, "What are you getting? What's it smell like?"

"A summer wind after a hot day," Remus replied matter-of-factly, turning his attention from Sirius to James as he spoke, "At least, that's one of the scents I'm getting … and a touch of croissant, if I'm not mistaken."

"Well, I'm sorry to say you are, Moony. Mistaken. Pads?" James asked, leaning across Remus to get Sirius' attention, "Smells like quaffle in here, doesn't it?"

"Hmm?"

"The smell, it's quaffle, isn't it?"

"Um, I don't know mate," Sirius said, "I, ah, think I'm getting a sniff of croissant as well."

Remus' head snapped around to face Sirius'.
"Croissant?" he asked, an eyebrow arched in scepticism.

"Yeah. Why?" Sirius cleared his throat as if to dislodge the false words he had just spoken.

"Well, I don't think that that's how it's supposed to work," Remus explained, leaning toward Sirius, "See that cauldron up there?" He pointed to the front of the classroom; Sirius nodded.

"That's what's causing all these different scents, what you can smell is different for each person. That potion is - "

"Amortentia," Professor Slughorn announced, and, as each syllable cascaded over the room the feelings that Sirius had tried so hard to deny all rushed forward, out of the darkness and into the light, clamouring to be heard.