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RULED BY THE MOON
Chapter 5

Title: Ruled by the Moon
Author: Me, nellie_darlin
Disclaimer: Not mine. Jo's.
Pairing/Characters: Remus/Sirius (unrequited so far!)
Rating: R
Genre: Everything! Tis Lupin's Life!
A/N: Many millions of thanks to lyras for the beta-ing, and her endless patience with my vacillating and sometimes shocking writing habits. Feedback is adored.
A/N 2: Sorry this is so late...

Summary: Being an account of the life of Remus J Lupin, Esquire, from his first day at Hogwarts to his last on this earth. In many chapters. Also starring Sirius Black, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and the various inhabitants of Hogwarts and the wizarding world.

Teaser: Two particularly strange things happened in Remus’s Fourth Year at Hogwarts.



Chapter 5

Sexuality and Poetry



Two particularly strange things happened in Remus’s Fourth Year at Hogwarts.

The first was a hormonal explosion among the Third and Fourth Years, one that managed to distract even Remus from his studies. After all, it’s incredibly disconcerting when everyone around you starts behaving like headless chickens, or at least, chickens whose brains have moved elsewhere in their anatomy.

To be perfectly truthful, this was not a new development for most of Remus’s classmates. He vividly remembered the morning a year or so ago when James had woken up with a scream, thinking he was dying, when actually it was just a wet dream, and “perfectly normal”, as Sirius tried to explain between fits of laughter. Of course Sirius himself had been getting them for years, and he loved making ostentatious visits to the bathroom, returning ten minutes later looking dishevelled and flushed. At these times, Remus found his cheeks were inexplicably hot, and there was a strange twisting feeling in his stomach. He decided he was just jealous because puberty had seemed to pass him by.

Remus was convinced that he was cursed to remain a child forever. Was it some side-effect of the lycanthropy? he wondered, slightly hysterically. Did getting very hairy once a month mean that he was deficient the rest of the time, because his follicles couldn’t cope? Was the wolf in him stronger than the puberty virus, or whatever the hell it was? While his classmates’ voices started to crack and swoop up and down the scale, his remained a steady, boyish soprano. While Sirius and James proudly compared stubble growth, his chin was as smooth and hairless as a baby’s. And while everyone started fancying everyone else, Remus found himself distinctly lacking any romantic feelings. In fact, he was not alone – poor Peter was just as slow developing as he was – but instead of cheering him up, that only made him more depressed.

And then it happened. His voice broke over Christmas, and after a few weeks of embarrassing squeaking, it settled into a hoarse, level tenor that Remus was secretly quite proud of. His chest was still hairless, but elsewhere the follicles were trying manfully and actually succeeding, to Remus’s surprise. And joy of joys, he was mucking about with Sirius one evening in January, with Sirius rubbing his cheek against Remus’s in that disconcerting way, when he suddenly leapt back, saying, “Ouch! That hurt! You’ve got stubble, Moony!”

In the end, the only part of puberty that seemed to pass him by was the whole fancying girls thing.

It wasn’t that Remus didn’t like girls. He had no problem chatting to them, as long as they liked reading and music and arcane spells and didn’t giggle – like Lily Evans, for example. He just didn’t like them, not in the way all the other boys did. He had no desire to sit sweating in Madam Puddifoot’s, clutching a girl’s hand and wondering when – or if - he would get a kiss. He didn’t watch them, he didn’t chase them - he didn’t really notice them, in fact. They were just there.

Still, he expected that one day he’d meet a girl he liked, someone he wanted to kiss and go on dates with and maybe even have sex with (although that thought made him feel vaguely sick). She didn’t have a name, she certainly didn’t have a face, but he never doubted that she’d arrive someday – even if in the end she didn’t like him back. Puberty had arrived, he reasoned, so why not love?

Except things didn’t quite happen like that.

One evening in May, Remus walked into a deserted aisle in the Charms section of the Library to see Gary Holmes pushing Oliver Lewis up against a bookshelf, his mouth on Lewis’s throat and his hand busy at Lewis’s flies. Remus blushed bright scarlet and fled before he could be seen, completely forgetting about his homework in his agitation. That night, he relived it all again, but instead of fleeing, his dream-self decided to watch. He saw Gary dip his hand into Oliver’s trousers, saw Oliver fling his head back, frowning and biting his lip, saw his hips thrust forward faster and faster and faster and Remus heard gasping and realised it was coming from him and the groan that came from Oliver was his own groan, and then Gary looked up and saw him and grinned a dark, sexy grin, saying, “Well, Lupin. Want to join in?” And then Remus was awake and coming in long, violent, shuddering spasms.

Once the aftershocks had subsided and his legs had stopped shaking, Remus crept from his bed to the bathroom, his pyjama bottoms incriminatingly cold and clammy against his thighs. He stumbled under the shower and made the water as hot as he could stand it, cleansing himself, wishing he could wash his mind as well as his body. For try as he might, he couldn’t forget, couldn’t purge his mind of the taunting, titillating memory.

Another boy would have convinced himself that it was an aberration, that it was the sex that had turned him on, not the fact that it had been two boys. But Remus was never very good at self-deception. Besides, he had seen boys kissing girls hundreds of times, and it had never had this reaction. In fact, it had made him feel slightly ill. Catching Gary Holmes and Oliver Lewis disturbed him precisely because he hadn’t been shocked. He had been horribly embarrassed, of course, and terrified that they’d turn and see him, but a little part of his brain had said, Ah. And everything clicked into place.

It explained Remus’s persistent lack of interest in girls. It explained why Remus could talk coolly and calmly to his female partners in lessons while James sat twitchily next to his, almost exploding in an effort to impress. It explained why he’d felt nothing except curiosity when James proudly exhibited his latest purchase, a magazine of Muggle porn. It also explained something else, something to do with the tug he felt in his stomach whenever he saw Sirius Black naked (which happened disconcertingly often nowadays) or even only semi-dressed, but that was too terrifying and crazy to think about just then. One earth-shattering revelation was enough to be getting on with.

It was the overwhelming sense of rightness about the whole business that kept Remus from succumbing completely to panic. Oliver and Gary had looked right together. There was a seductive symmetry in the line of their shoulders, the curve of their lips, the position of their legs. There had been an aesthetic charge there, as well as a sexual one, a beauty in the soft glow from the lamp at their feet and the lantern on the shelf by Oliver’s head, in the way Oliver’s hand was on Gary’s hip, shapely and oddly delicate against the rough grey flannel, in the tilt of Gary’s head and the dark of his hair against Oliver’s white shirt.

And anyway, this only confirmed what Remus had long suspected in the most private parts of his mind, and however difficult or unpleasant the realisation was, there was also a relief that he could stop lying to himself. As for the problems with being gay in Wizarding Britain in the 1970s, they were nothing compared to the problems with being a werewolf. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, he thought sleepily, as he curled up under the covers again. But maybe I’ll keep it to myself. Just for now.

~*~

Two days later, rumours started to circulate that Gary Holmes and Oliver Lewis had been caught shagging in the Ravenclaw Quidditch changing rooms. By the time the whispers reached the Gryffindor table ten minutes later, bondage equipment had been added, as had the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. The widespread ridicule and scorn they received as a result made Remus feel sick, and incredibly relieved that he hadn’t mentioned his epiphany to anyone.

Nothing he’d seen in those two days had made him change his mind. If anything, he had become more certain than ever. Sitting in the library the day after, Oliver Lewis walked in, and Remus felt a warmth in his chest when he smiled at Remus and asked if he could sit next to him. Blushing, Remus nodded and made room, and Oliver smiled again and thanked him. Remus smiled back, the warmth flaring into a glow. After a minute of smiling at each other, Oliver suddenly ducked his head and opened a textbook. Remus did the same. When Oliver asked to borrow some parchment, the glow became a flame - but it wasn’t in his chest anymore.

Remus began to wish for the old days of eunuch-dom, when his blood didn’t suddenly plunge southwards at a mere smile. It was easier then. He’d still been different, awkward, frequently humiliated, but at least he could stand. He concentrated furiously on his work, trying to ignore the soft scratching of Oliver’s quill on the parchment, the quiet sigh he gave as he stretched his stiff muscles, the sight of said muscles as his shirt rode up…

McGonagall in a swimsuit... he thought, desperately, Peter in a swimsuit, Snape in a swimsuit, Dumbledore in a swimsuit… Erm – pigs! Yes, pigs! And cabbage. And Donizetti. And Wordsworth. And – oh, fuck.

It wasn’t working, and Remus had finished his essay for McGonagall. For the first time, he cursed his obsession with getting homework finished on the night it was set – now he had no more work to do, but he couldn’t get up from the table because of his painfully obvious predicament. Luckily he’d brought The Malefactor’s Guide to Devilry and Hocus-Pocus to sift through for new spells; he’d just have to sit it out and hope that Oliver left soon, or that his blood would return from its holiday in the south.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Remus learnt what it was to be James Potter: twitchy, awkward, and prone to speaking at an inappropriately loud volume. He hated it. He wanted to be calm and collected again. He wanted control over his own body. He wanted to be a normal human being again, for fuck’s sake, not some hormonally-challenged nervous wreck.

Finally Oliver gathered his books together. Standing up, he made to go, but then stopped, and looked at Remus, who was tapping his fingers wildly on the table.

“Lupin, isn’t it?” Oliver said, off-hand. “Remus Lupin?” The boy’s head shot up so fast his neck cracked.

“YES!” Remus shouted, then blushed even more. “Erm – yes, yes, that is, Remus, yes, me.” Fucking buggering fuck!

Oliver looked at him for a moment, a slightly wary expression on his face. “Friends with Sirius Black?” he said, eventually.

“Unfortunately.” It had been a long time since Remus’s mouth said things without consulting his brain. Remus hadn’t been sorry to see it go.

Oliver laughed. There was an awkward pause, then he said, “Well. Thanks for the parchment, Lupin. See you around.”

As he left, Remus slumped over the desk and buried his head in his arms.

~*~

The second strange thing was that Remus started having serious conversations with Sirius. It was far removed from the easy banter of the daytime, or even the secret heart-to-hearts in the dead of night when they didn’t have to look at each other and it was easier to talk frankly. For whatever reason, Sirius was suddenly interested in the things Remus was interested in, and wanted to talk about real things, adult things, in an adult way. Or as adult a way as Sirius could manage.

It was a warm day in May, and James and Sirius were out at Quidditch practice, with Peter watching and cheering from the sidelines. Remus had welcomed the chance to listen to what he wanted on the gramophone – a particularly lavish gift from James’s father – and to catch up on his reading, so was sprawled out on his bed with Ella Fitzgerald on the record player and a large anthology of poetry that his aunt had donated for his birthday open in front of him. Murmuring to himself, chewing the end of a pencil, occasionally singing along with the record, Remus was happy. There was peace and quiet and jazz and Auden, and Remus wanted nothing else.

He certainly didn’t want interruptions, which is why it was silly of Sirius to expect him to like being jumped on and nuzzled fiercely.

“Get off me!” Remus shouted, for once not even slightly amused.

“Well, sor-ry, Mr Huffy,” Sirius said, haughtily picking himself up from the floor. “Most people would kill to get that close to Sirius Black.”

“And the rest would kill Sirius Black if he got that close. I’m one of them.”

Sirius stopped and looked curiously at Remus. “You really are upset, aren’t you?”

“Yes!” Remus was uncertain himself why he was so shaken. “All I wanted was some time to be by myself. To be alone! That means no James, no Peter, and certainly no Sirius!”

“Well then,” Sirius said, sounding rebuffed, “I’ll go and have a shower and leave you to your poetic wankery.”

“Good! And it’s not wankery!”

“Is so!” Sirius shouted from the bathroom.

There was a moment of sweet peace, with only Ella crooning softly in the background, before the hiss of the shower and Sirius’s tuneless singing ruined the mood. Again.

“Aren’t you even going to shut the door?” Remus complained.

“No!” Sirius replied airily. “I like a bit of a draught over my privates, thank you!”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you the concept of too much information, you wanker?”

“Of course not! It would clash horribly with the far superior concept of incest and sharing.”

“You’ve never shared anything in your life.”

“Well, I am the rebel of the family.”

Remus groaned. Why did Sirius have to ruin everything? He’d so looked forward to that blessed hour of peace when they were all at the Quidditch pitch... Speaking of which: “Why are you back so early?”

“Madam Honeyford was unable to control her desire for me, so I had to leg it. It’s one thing in the evenings, I told her, but if it actually affects her professional life, I -”

“The real reason, please?” Remus snapped.

“All right, keep your knickers on. I put that charm on James’s glasses – the one that makes them opaque.”

“That’s really dangerous!”

“But very funny. And we don’t fly that high in practice, anyway, so don’t worry your pretty little head about Ickle Jimmy’s safety. Still, Honey took it the wrong way.”

“The wrong way? Surely there’s only one way to take it?”

“Of course not. There’s the “fucking funny” way, and the “mildly funny and maybe a little dangerous but not really” way, and the “Moony is a boring old man” way, and -”

“That’s it!” Remus shouted, furiously, at the end of his tether. He hated it when Sirius called him boring, because he always suspected it was true. “Just ... just shut up, Black!”

The shower stopped, and a minute later Sirius emerged, dripping wet and naked except for a strategically placed towel. He looked hurt and bemused, and for some reason the sight of him only increased Remus’s anger. “But -” he began, but Remus only glared at him and drew his bed hangings with a snap.

“Lumos,” he muttered, irritably, and went back to Auden.

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm...

“Moony?”

“What?”

Sirius pulled open the hangings and crawled onto Remus’s bed. Fully clothed now, he looked forlorn and utterly, completely delectable, and Remus’s anger faded at the sight of him. He was like a puppy, he thought absently: he could piss in your shoes and you’d forgive him, because who could be angry when he made that face?

“What do you want, Sirius?”

There was a pause while Sirius crawled up Remus’s side and lay down next to him, his head on Remus’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’re boring, Moony,” he said, with an apologetic grin.

Remus smiled wearily at him. He felt drained now that his anger had gone. “Yes, you do, Sirius. Everyone does. Even I do, sometimes.”

“No, honestly,” Sirius said, earnestly. “I don’t think you’re boring. I mean,” he added, honest as ever, “I sometimes do. And I used to, all the time. But I think I got interested. At least, I’m interested now.”

“What are you interested in? Me?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow, and for a millisecond the air was thick with possibility. “Yes,” Sirius drawled, ironically, and the moment broke. “I’m interested in you, you great sexy werewolf.”

“So what are you actually interested in?” Remus prompted, a kick of exasperation just audible in his voice.

“I don’t exactly know. I mean, it’s like... Perhaps... I was wondering – well, why you like poetry.”

“Why – I...” Remus repeated, his words heavy with disbelief.

“Like poetry. Why is it special? Why are some poems good and some poems bad? And what’s the difference between book-words and poetry-words?”

“How long have you got?” Remus asked, laughing.

“As long as you want,” Sirius replied. “I want to know.”

Remus ran his hand through his hair, trying to gather his thoughts. “It’s like ... verbal pictures,” he began hesitantly. “When I read poetry, it’s like a spell. It’s like – I can’t really describe it – it’s like I see and feel things, associations, whatever. I feel sad or happy or hot or cold, or – Merlin, I’m not really describing this well, am I?”

“No, go on,” Sirius said, and Remus was surprised and gratified to see that he did look interested.

He continued. “When I read a poem I like, it’s usually because the rhythm’s good, and the vocabulary is evocative, and it makes me feel or see what the poet is trying to describe. The best poetry will stay in your head for ages.”

“Like when you get a song stuck in your head,” Sirius offered.

“Exactly. Some poets have incredible imagery. They have a way with words that just – it just gets me, you know? Like this, read this bit here.”

He flicked through the book, then pointed out a stanza to Sirius. “The Soul’s retaken moments -” Sirius read, “When, Felon led along, / With shackles on the plumed feet, / And staples, in the Song. Wow,” he said, blinking. “Staples in the song – I like that!”

Remus grinned. “Thought you might. Emily Dickinson’s your kind of poetry, I think. Dark and rich and beautiful.”

“Like me,” Sirius added, grinning wickedly back at him. “Show me another one.”

“OK – one sec… There we go. Number 414.”

“Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch / That nearer, every Day / Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel / Until the Agony / Toyed coolly with the final inch, of your delirious Hem … tum tum ti tum –ooh, a goblin! This is good too: As if your Sentence stood – pronounced -/ And you were frozen led / From Dungeon’s luxury of Doubt / To Gibbets, and the Dead - / And when the Film had stitched your eyes / A Creature gasped ‘Reprieve’! / Which Anguish was the utterest – then - / To perish, or to live?” Sirius gave a delighted shudder. “She’s ghoulish, this one, isn’t she?”

“Definitely ghoulish. But she can be incredibly beautiful, at the same time.”

“I’d like to read more of her,” Sirius said, and Remus felt a thrill of triumph. “But surely this book isn’t just her?”

“No. It’s a general collection. Has lots of poets.”

“Show me another one.”

“OK.” Remus skimmed through the pages. “Here. Try that.”

Sirius took the book from him. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” he read, “Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Remus smiled to hear his friend reading so intently, at the sound of the familiar words on Sirius’s tongue.

“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

“That was good, too,” Sirius breathed when he’d finished, absently stroking the page with an ink-stained finger. “Why does it do that? Make me all shivery and warm at the same time?”

“This poem in particular? I don’t know. It’s probably something to do with the rhythm. It’s a pentameter, which means ten syllables with five stresses. Pentameter is the basic rhythm of spoken English, but stylised, and so it sort of – rings a bell in our ears. As it were. This poem isn’t a regular pentameter, not iambic like Shakespeare – di-dum di-dum di-dum di-dum di-dum, in other words – instead it’s jagged and disrupted. Conveys a sense of emotion. It’s incredibly full of pain and anger: Thomas wrote it when his father was dying. The words he uses are short but so full – “burn”, “rave”, “rage” – and his little phrases are so powerful – “their words have forked no lightning”, “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight”, “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors”…” Remus stopped suddenly, embarrassed. “Listen to me, rambling on,” he mumbled.

“No,” Sirius said, staring in awe at Remus, “It’s interesting.” He looked down at the poem again, mouthing a few words. “You really love it, don’t you?” he said then, gazing at Remus.

Remus nodded. “This is one of my favourites.”

“Mine too,” Sirius decided.

Remus laughed. “You’ve only read three poems.”

“Then show me more.”

~*~

Of course James took the piss. It was only to be expected, after all, since he had the sensitivity and artistic sensibilities of a troll, and it was all very good-natured, but Remus minded a little. If he was honest, he minded a lot. He minded that James had to trample all over the one interest that he shared with Sirius alone, the one thing that only Remus could give Sirius and that had nothing to do with best-friend-James, Marauder-James, better-than-a-brother-James. And he didn’t want to be reminded yet again about what an oddity he was.

But he pushed it away, because he knew he was just being touchy and envious, and that the teasing was not meant to be malicious. He thought he’d covered it up well, but Sirius must have noticed something, because he melted away after Ancient Runes a few days later, leaving Remus with a twitchy, uncomfortable James who eventually blurted out, “You know it’s all a bit of fun, yeah?”

Remus said nothing, but trudged on down the corridor, avoiding James’s gaze, pushing almost violently through the hordes of First Years clustered outside Transfiguration.

“Oi, Remus! Wait!” Running feet, and then James’s thin fingers were clamped round his upper arm. Still Remus looked away, until James grabbed his chin and forced him to look at him. “Merlin, Remus,” James said, looking angry and bewildered and hurt, “why’d you run off like that?”

Remus sighed, swallowing the clamouring resentments that were rising in his throat like bile. “I’m sorry, James,” he said wearily. “I just – well, let’s just say I felt like running off.”

“But why? I was trying to apologise.”

And Remus started to feel a little guilty, because James did mean well, and he had stuck with Remus where others would have fled. So he gave a weak smile, and said, “I’m glad, James, and grateful. I just wanted a bit of privacy. Not an apology shouted out in the middle of the hallway.”

James frowned for a moment, and Remus imagined the cogs ticking round in his brain. Then he relaxed, and grinned. “Fair enough,” he said. “So are we friends again?”

“We were never not friends,” Remus said. “And it really wasn’t a problem, you know, I don’t know what Sirius has been telling you…”

“Sirius nothing!” James said extravagantly. “It was all from my own head. I can be nice sometimes, you know.”

Remus smiled a little wider. “Every so often, yes.”

James grinned back, but then he started to look more serious, frowning and chewing his lip, and Remus was just wondering what James was thinking when he was knocked backwards, wrapped in an effusive, if awkward, bear hug.

It lasted only a few seconds, but Remus might have swallowed a mug of firewhiskey; warmth was spreading through him, and there was an odd stinging in his eyes (although that was almost certainly from his head smacking against the wall, and from the vigorous hair-ruffling James was now giving him). Blushing, and smiling with more sincerity than he had all morning, he gently disentangled his hair from where it had caught in James’s spectacles, then picked up his bag so as to have something to do with his hands.

James cleared his throat and looked at his shoes, his cheeks a little pink. Then, as they set off down the corridor again, he said with wide, pleading eyes, “Erm – don’t tell Sirius I hugged you, yeah?”



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