Gift for scarlet_malfoy: Resentment and Cherishing (Remus/Sirius)
Title: Resentment and Cherishing
Author: mariamme
Recipient: scarlet_malfoy
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~4,200
Summary: There were lots of things James didn’t know. (Remus/Sirius)
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to my wonderful beta M., who offered brilliant advice, Brit-picking and lovely encouragement. All remaining mistakes are of course, mine and mine alone.



Remus was never angry. It wasn’t about that. It had never been about that.

Instead, it had been about disbelief. For minutes, for hours, even for days. He’d forget and he’d smile and then it would hit him, deep and hard and fast. And he’d remember again. After the disbelief had faded and he hadn’t had to think to remember, it had been pain. Deep and strong and always present. It pushed against his skin every second, looking for an outlet. Looking for a way to purge itself.

He’d looked for anger, having heard that it would cauterise the pain.

He tried to provoke it, plunging his mind back into the memories, always believing that this time he’d have the anger instead of the ache. This time he’d have rage. He’d have fury. It would sweep through him, fast and hot, and burn him. It would find him and purge the pain. Make him hollow. Take the feelings away and leave him cleansed.

He kept waiting for it.

He wanted it.

But it never came.

After five months, he was convinced it wouldn’t. If the anger could save him, heal him, purify him, it would’ve done it already. Of that, he was certain.

So he let it go, for his own sake more than anyone’s. It wasn’t something a lot of his peers understood. But Remus had grown up a werewolf, bitten as a child. He’d also grown up as his father’s son, and he’d seen the kind of poison anger and resentment could force on a soul. How it could break a man, body and spirit, as easy as breathing. How it could turn him from a jovial father to a bitter shell.

Remus wanted no part of it.

So he spoke to Sirius after the Christmas holidays. They stood out on the lake for hours. By the time they came back in, it was as though there had never been a break in their friendship. Everyone noticed it, from the First Years to the Professors. It was obvious that something had changed for the better between Lupin and Black; it had been months since Sirius and Remus had walked the corridors of the castle without James or Peter to act as a buffer.

No one was told what had been said. Even James and Peter were given cursory answers to their inquiries. It was the first time Sirius hadn’t shared an important confidence with James. But it wouldn’t be the last.

There were lots of things James didn’t know.

He didn’t know about the time Sirius had cried, gasping his fright into Remus’ shoulder and shaking with relief when he’d found that Remus hadn’t wanted revenge.

(“I wouldn’t blame you,” he said, leaning against Remus’ side. “I told your secret,” Sirius reminded him quietly, eyes as dark and pained as Remus had ever seen them.

They were fully clothed in pyjamas and sitting side by side on Sirius’ bed with the curtains drawn. Everyone else was asleep. It was strange but familiar, contorting their older bodies to fit in the spaces of memory left by their younger selves. They’d done this before, back when Sirius and James had hated each other on sight for no reason other than their names were Potter and Black, and Remus hadn’t known anyone. They’d both been scared of the future, and Remus felt his lips twist in a pale imitation of a smile. He was glad their First Year selves hadn’t known that their fears wouldn’t fade. Instead, they had simply been replaced.

“I would never,” Remus assured him fiercely, sliding a hand to touch Sirius’ shoulder, wanting to still the shaking.

It was the first time he’d purposefully touched Sirius in more than half a year.

“Makes you a better person than I am, for certain,” Sirius whispered as he turned his head into Remus’ shoulder, voice breaking. “But you can. ’S only fair, really Moony. Do it tomorrow.”

Remus stared, amazed. “Sirius, no,” he sighed softly, moving his hand up and smoothing Sirius’ hair back. “It wouldn’t make it fair. All it would be is revenge. And hate.”)

The way Sirius crawled into bed with Remus one night at the start of Spring Term and never really crawled out again.

(“Please, Moony, I just, I remember…I can’t put it out of my mind. I tried,” Sirius insisted. “I know I’m lucky you’re even speaking to me again, I do. But maybe…just the once?”

So Remus had turned and kissed him, opening his mouth to find that Sirius kissed exactly the same as he had before. It had only been once, but Remus hadn’t been able to forget it.

He looked the same too, Remus saw. Just from the first tentative kiss, Sirius’ lips were red and swollen and wet. Remus smiled as he worked a hand from under the blankets and traced Sirius’ mouth, enjoying the sound of quiet laugher and relieved breaths.

“Maybe more than once,” Remus had offered quietly. “If you’d like.”)

The time James learned part of the truth but still made a mistake.

(Sirius was still afraid, but he didn’t worry as much anymore.

It had been nearly a year. He’d grown into the person he was, and even though the idea of James finding out his secret still made him sick, he didn’t hate that part of himself anymore. And he even joked, sometimes, winding his fingers through Remus’ worn jumpers, that really, his parents had already disowned him. It didn’t get much worse than that.

It was an impressive lie and a brave fiction. Remus let him keep it.

When Remus found him throwing up in the loos on the night of their graduation, pale and frightened and scared, he’d known what had happened immediately. He hadn’t known how or why. He and Sirius were planning to share a flat in London, but that had been set for ages. Besides, if James hadn’t been in such a hurry to shack up with Evans and Peter hadn’t needed to stay in Hogsmeade to start his apprenticeship they all would’ve just gotten a bigger flat as they’d originally planned. There wasn’t anything suspicious there, certainly. And they hadn’t been seen; Remus was convinced of that. They acted as they always had. There had been nothing to give them away.

But there was no doubt that James knew. The way he glared at Remus as he stormed into the toilet, furious and indignant, had been enough to confirm that. He threw Remus out with a negligent wave of his wand and locked the door behind him with one of the Potter wards, much stronger and more personalised than Alohomora could contend with.. Remus had no hope of getting past.

So he sat on his bed and worried. Remus remained relatively calm only because he was quite certain James wouldn’t actually harm Sirius, no matter what his actual feelings were on the matter of his adopted brother fancying men in general and Remus in particular. James was still quick with his wand but no longer reckless, and Remus was sure that Sirius was bodily safe. Emotionally was perhaps another concept entirely, and Remus couldn’t help but hurry anxiously towards the toilets as he felt James’ wards come down.

James was still livid, that much was obvious. He didn’t even take two steps into the room before starting in on Remus.

“And you,” he raged, plainly continuing a thought he’d started in the loo, “you’re no better. I’ll admit that he,” James jerked a furious hand backwards, plainly gesturing to Sirius, “is a right fucking tosser and a complete moron besides, but I’d thought you were brighter than that.”

Remus felt himself flush in anger, but before he could retort James opened his mouth again. “So fucking scared of telling me he had to send a letter by goddamned owl post?” James yelled. “As if I’d react to anything the same way his fucking worthless biological donators have done!”

“And you never bothered to try and convince him otherwise,” James continued, pointing a finger directly at Remus. “As if you’ve got no personal experience telling you I’m not likely judge my friends for parts of themselves.”

James stormed out of their dorm, magnificent in his formal graduation robes and the medal that marked him as Head Boy, only to reel around and hurry right back in again.

“I don’t want to see either one of you for the next ten minutes,” he said angrily. “Seeing as how I figure that’s about the time it’ll take me to get over the fact that you two thought I was a fucking arsehole and would throw away seven years of friendship over something so small.”

“But after that,” he continued more calmly, “I want the two of you idiots downstairs and for Merlin’s sake, done with hiding in toilets like First Year birds on our graduation night.”

Remus looked to Sirius after James whirled out for the second time, shocked at what his friend had done. Sirius was a Gryffindor through and through, but Remus hadn’t realised he’d mustered the bravery to tell James the truth. He was still white and pale and obviously shocked, but his eyes were shining.

“I told you so,” Remus said grumpily, unable to stop himself from smiling as he strode over and pressed a happy kiss to Sirius’ mouth.)

They didn’t have nearly as much sex at Hogwarts as James teased them about after graduation.

(In seven years at Hogwarts, most of the blokes and a fair percentage of the girls spent a great deal of their leisure time trying to discover the answer to an age-old question: how any witch or wizard who was so inclined could manage to have sex in the castle. Or more specifically, how one could have sex in an actual bed. If the couple wasn’t particularly fussy about location or amenities there were always options: down by the lake in the tall, reedy grasses, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest in the shadows of the trees, in alcoves or often-vacant rooms throughout the castle. But these obviously had many disadvantages, not the least of which was the heightened chance of discovery. It was a rare pair that could withstand the scandal and the rumours—each more outlandish than the last—that followed any couple interrupted in an intimate moment.

But most couples didn’t have any other options. After all, witches were locked out of the blokes’ dorms, and vice-versa. Evading a teacher was one thing, but there hadn’t been a student yet who’d managed to fool the Hogwarts wards. James fared better than most, with the help of the Marauder’s Map and the Room of Requirement, and Peter occasionally took advantage of his own specialised knowledge of the castle, but the bird he was seeing was a bit more reticent than Evans. A good deal more proper, too. Remus and Sirius had the advantage. Not only were they allowed to be in the same dorm, but it was actually expected of them. And James never missed a chance to taunt them about all the great sex they must’ve been having while he’d been cockblocked by a building that was practically sentient.

The truth was they didn’t take advantage of it often. Or, well, more than once, actually. James never believed them and Sirius didn’t like to admit it, but it was the truth. It was always a worry that James or Peter would come back—for textbooks, a bit of parchment, or once, in James’ case, his lucky boxers—and notice the silencing charms and shields. And back then neither one of them was willing to risk their mates finding out at all, much less in such a way. So they contented themselves with kisses and petting and occasionally, on special occasions, a mutual wank in the shower when James and Peter had already left to start their mornings.

It wasn’t as torturous as Sirius later claimed it was. But it was close. Which explained the one time they slipped up, really quite literally. Sirius always maintained it was Remus’ fault, claiming that it had been the way he was “fiddling with his quill in that way,” that had simply pushed Sirius over the edge. Remus always drolly pointed out that he had been touching a literal quill, not his metaphorical one. As such, he felt that Sirius’ argument held no validity.

It didn’t particularly matter who started it, really, since they both finished it. Sirius jumped on Remus—quite literally—and had him pinned to the mattress in seconds.

“Can’t be sensible all the time, Moony,” he’d said, teasing as he lowered his mouth to press his lips to Remus’. Who had been quite certain he’d had an objection, but then Sirius’ tongue had darted in his mouth and began licking about in a really very distracting way. And Sirius, who had always been stockier, was pressing Remus into the bed in a way neither one of them had experienced before. Really, Remus thought he could be forgiven for not being able to do anything but thrust his hips up and moan insensibly loudly.

“Shh,” Sirius had hushed him frantically, quickly deciding that the fastest way to ensure silence was to keep his mouth on Remus’.

“Merlin, Padfoot,” Remus panted, thrusting his hips up as he tugged Sirius down on top of him. “’S good, gods, more.”

“Yeah,” Sirius gasped back, burying his hands in the bed coverings and using them to shift his weight, rubbing their cocks together through what felt like acres of clothing.

He’d tried to shift his hand down, hoping to actually get his hands through their clothes, but Remus hadn’t been able to hold off any longer. Sirius was actually right there, on top of him, thrusting, and Remus could feel their cocks brushing past each other on every pass. He arched his back and came, digging his fingers into Sirius’ back and struggling to breathe.

Sirius hadn’t been much further behind; he came as soon as he realised what had happened, aroused beyond belief by the idea that he had done that to Remus without even meaning to.

They had lain there for several long moments before a crash in the Gryffindor Common Room reminded them that their dorm mates could arrive at any moment. They jumped apart and sent a Scouring Charm at the linens and judiciously used personal cleaning charms. By the time James and Peter had hurtled upstairs they had rearranged themselves: Remus on the bed and Sirius on the floor, resting his back against the side.

James and Peter didn’t notice a thing.

But Sirius and Remus came closer to giving the game away on that day than any other, with all the secret smiles and furtive blushes they exchanged for hours.

Just how awful their first time had been. Sirius always insisted that his first time had gone much better than James’ had, as he was obviously more skilled in the art of bedding his partners. While Remus wasn’t exactly aware just how badly James’ first forays had gone, he was willing to bet his Sunday brunch that they had gone better than theirs. Not that he’d ever be the one to tell James the truth.

(Both of them had heard the horror stories from both Peter and James about just how awful first times could be. They learned of the consequences, too: Evens laughed a lot and claimed that James would have to get better seeing as how he couldn’t get much worse; Edgewater sulked for days and was only persuaded to see reason after Evans told her that all blokes were rubbish at first and really, she shouldn’t hold it against Peter. So all in all, Remus and Sirius figured that they must have one thing up on James and Peter, seeing as how they didn’t have to deal with women. Men were easy, as plainly evidenced by the bit of frottage they’d done while still at Hogwarts. Really, it would be much simpler.

It was an assurance they both hung onto right up to the moment they were actually faced with it.

“Are you sure about this?”

“How many fucking times are you going to ask?” Sirius bit out, obviously impatient and probably feeling exposed on his stomach with his ass up in the air. “’M not some bloody girl. Get on with it.”

Remus, trying desperately to remember all the steps the book had lined out for them, grabbed for the lube and coated his fingers with an obscene amount.

“Okay,” he mumbled, sliding a cautious finger down to Sirius’ arsehole. They’d done this much before at least, and it was easy and familiar to slide his finger in slowly and evenly, listening for the quiet hitch and gasp of Sirius’ breath.

When Sirius was breathing heavily and rocking back on that one finger, Remus added the second, smiling at Sirius’ impatient whine.

“’M getting there,” Remus said breathlessly as Sirius started begging for three. But he slid the third in anyway—sooner than he ought—but he was addicted to the hitching moan Sirius gave whenever Remus stretched him that much and he couldn’t help it.

Sirius didn’t seem to mind, rocking back and forth on Remus’ fingers and tossing his head back on the pillow, unable to stay still.

“Ready?” Remus asked shortly, helping Sirius turn over when he nodded. That was one argument Remus had won. Or rather, just refused to lose. Sirius had wanted to try it face to face, but Remus was adamant about using the easier position for their first time. He’d read enough to know it wasn’t likely to be easy in any case, and wanted to cause Sirius the minimum amount of pain possible.

Remus bit his lip, more nervous than he thought he’d be as he lined up and pushed in, slowly and evenly. He tensed as he heard another noise from Sirius, almost that same hitching moan but indefinably different.

“Okay?” he asked, gritting his teeth to keep from thrusting. He’d never imagined it would feel like this, so tight and hot and warm. Every biological imperative he had was telling him to thrust now, but he froze instead.

“Yeah,” Sirius choked, pressing himself back into Remus’ chest. “Just…slow. Please.”

Remus nodded, resting his forehead against Sirius’ back, and moved again. And again. And again. Merlin, it felt good. He heard himself moaning, amazed that they had waited so long to do this. He was certain they’d only been able to because they hadn’t known what it would be like.

He came far too soon, of course, but he couldn’t quite feel embarrassed. He’d almost expected that. But when he reached for Sirius’ cock, Sirius batted his hand away impatiently before Remus could touch him, lowering himself to the bed carefully.

Remus lay down quietly next to Sirius’ side, recognising the tension in his friend for what it was. “I hurt you?” he asked softly.

“Knew it would,” Sirius reminded him, rolling gingerly over to bury his face in Remus’ shoulder. “You know that.”

“I didn’t know how much,” Remus admitted, worried that they’d made a huge mistake.

“’S okay Moony,” Sirius said quietly, sliding his hand across Remus’ stomach. “’M still glad.”

Before Remus could come up with a response Sirius peered up at him and grinned. “Look at it this way. It’ll have to get better, because it couldn’t get much worse,” he said gleefully, ducking his head and muffling his laughter against Remus’ chest when Remus smacked him with the pillow.

“Never,” Remus said severely, hiding a smile in Sirius’ hair, “quote anything Evans has ever said—particularly about sex—when we are naked. Ever.”)

That Remus and Sirius were both hugely pervy bastards, even before they managed to discover how to have satisfying anal sex. Which was probably something James suspected, but they weren’t about to confirm it. Or at least, Remus wasn’t. Given some of the speculative looks he’d begun receiving from both Potters, he suspected Sirius was much less discreet. He also suspected James couldn’t keep anything from Lily if his life depended on it.

(“Fucking Merlin, Sirius, more,” Remus moaned, tightening his hands in the mussed bed linens, struggling to keep himself from thrusting backwards. Because really, that might throw Sirius off his rhythm and that was the last thing Remus wanted to do.

Because Sirius’ tongue was in his arse. Licking and kissing and generally making itself known in very pleasant and arousing and distracting ways.

Remus smothered another embarrassing noise into his pillow, shuddering as Sirius’ tongue actually went in his arsehole on the next pass and stayed there, moving and pushing and thrusting and oh, Merlin, it was good. Brilliant, even. Remus was sorry he’d ever doubted the wisdom of such an act.

He shoved his hips back, moaning again. They hadn’t done this that many times, but it seemed as if Sirius had been inspired from the first. Or maybe this wasn’t something that could be done badly. Remus thought this was unlikely, as he’d felt mostly awkward when he’d tried it and Sirius didn’t seem to enjoy it quite as much as Remus did. Whenever Sirius did this, Remus tried to focus and remember exactly what Sirius had done so he could discover if it was really a difference of technique, or just preference. It didn’t usually work and this time was no exception.

When Sirius slipped a finger in to join his tongue and crooked it just so, pressing directly on Remus prostate Remus shuddered, losing all thoughts in his head. Which was the main reason Remus could never remember; he never could retain anything but the knowledge of how hopelessly aroused he was by that point. And when Sirius thrust his tongue in deeper at the same time as he dragged his finger over Remus’ prostate, he couldn’t do anything but tighten his grip on the pillows and come helplessly, hips working against the mattress.

Sirius came against Remus’ leg and back after two or three quick strokes of his cock. From nothing other than seeing Remus hump the bed and shake and groan because of the skill of Sirius’ mouth.

They really were complete pervy bastards. Remus certainly had no objection. Especially not since it usually resulted in him coming his brains out through his cock. On quite a regular basis.)

The last thing James doesn’t know because Remus never got a chance to tell him. He thinks he’s glad of it. It would’ve broken James.

(After Remus heard what’d happened, he destroyed their flat. Deliberately. He shattered the old Black silver and the stupid plates they’d picked up at the Muggle thrift shop on the cheap. The posters they’d hung on the wall and the hideously uncomfortable sofa that they’d managed to charm into a decent looking piece of furniture but had never managed to make habitable. Everything he saw, he destroyed. It would’ve been easier to say his magic had spun out of his control. It happened to a lot of people, when they got that kind of news. But truthfully, he was as controlled in his anger as he always had been. And he tore the flat apart. With intent, and steady hands, and an even voice. He destroyed everything they were.

Except their bedroom. He certainly hadn’t intended to leave it. He’d wanted the memories gone. But it was the room in the flat that was most obviously theirs. Pictures of the Marauders, Sirius’ old broom tilted up in the corner, their clothes in the closet mixed with no particular order because they’d stopped caring about who wore what sometime in the first month after they moved in together. Photos of Sirius holding Harry, of Lily giving them the V sign as they took pictures of her in labour, of James and Sirius relaxing on that hideous couch. There were pictures of them together too, just Remus and Sirius, in every mood and every place and every time conceivable.

He slept there that night, on sheets that still smelled like Sirius. In the bed where they’d had sex two nights ago, desperately trying to cling to any normality they could. He laughed brokenly as he remembered how long it had taken them to get the sex part right and how fantastic it had been when they did. How Sirius hated sleeping alone and always reached out for Remus, even if he’d only gotten up for a cup of water. How many times they’d stayed in bed and ignored the world, lost in each other.)

Out of all of Sirius and Remus’ secrets, the one about their wrecked flat was the one he was most grateful he’d never told James. Because even after all that, all the mess and the destruction and the calm annihilation of nearly everything they had been both together and apart, Remus left the room that contained the most of them. Because even knowing the truth, even understanding it all, even loving James and Lils and baby Harry as he had, he couldn’t help but cling to the bits he had left of the man who had been his everything.


“Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.”

Hindu Prince Siddhartha Guatama, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

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