The following characters are not my creation or property; they are used without permission, intent of infringement or expectation of profit. This story was written as part of Fan The Vote. Thanks are greatly due to my betas, Tehomet and Bonibaru. Feedback can be sent to yahtzee55555@yahoo.com

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EARLY HOURS

By Yahtzee

**

Shining gears turned and hummed as the great pendulum swung back and forth. Sirius looked through the wavy glass of the clock's face at the muddy earth below; raindrops speckled his vision while the wind howled. For the first time, he was grateful for all the homework he had. Lily and Peter had agreed to practice Quidditch with James, despite the weather. But with scrolls of parchment due for Vector, Sirius had an excuse to stay behind.

With Remus.

A few feet away, Remus sat in a battered old leather chair they'd levitated up from the third floor. They'd brought up their cups of tea, which - constantly heated by a Thermoculous spell -- gave off fragrant wisps of steam. Sirius couldn't name what it was he liked best about all of this, but there was something powerful in it: solitude with Remus, sharing their work, making their comforts. It was nice. Better than nice.

"Are we meant to factor in the influence of Nemesis or not?" Remus tapped his quill on the arm of the chair, as though he could shake the words from it. "I can never remember."

"Best do it. Anytime it looks like you've done more work than necessary, Vector laps it up."

"Very true. What happens to the brain when a person becomes a professor? Do they stop being a person?"

"Altogether," Sirius said, thumping one of the low beams for emphasis as he strolled closer. Remus grinned at him, and he grinned back. They were perfectly at ease; Sirius began to wonder how much time they could take away from their work to be together. Here, alone, in the clock tower - he began awakening to the possibilities.

But perhaps the yearning in his body eclipsed his judgment, or the etchings of lunar phases on his Astronomy scroll made it all seem very prosaic, or he'd simply finally lived up to James' darkest predictions and gone insane. For whatever reason, Sirius found himself asking something he'd always wondered about but never spoken aloud: "What's the worst thing about being a werewolf?"

The silence that followed reminded Sirius just why he'd never asked that question before.

"Remus. I'm sorry."

"No, don't be." Remus' voice could sound so light, so casual, when it was anything but. "But it's hard to say."

Sirius ducked his head, ashamed of himself. Anytime before this fall, he would not have felt so guilty for asking - their friendship was sturdy, of long standing, and among the four of them they spared few feelings. But Remus was his lover now - still such a sweet and strange word, lover, something that belonged to adults, to others, and felt stolen to Sirius - and a lover deserved more. "Forget I said anything."

Remus hesitated, then said, "No - ask. I want you to." Sirius raised an eyebrow, and Remus sighed. "I want you to feel that you can ask me anything. That's - that's what it's about, isn't it?"

Their hands brushed against each other, not quite a caress. "Suppose so," Sirius said. But Remus still looked awkward, and he thought it might be best to guess. To help things along, perhaps. "The hurting - that's the worst of it?"

"No."

"You say it hurts you something terrible. And Remus - the way you howl, sometimes -"

"Pay no mind to the howling. The howling's just part of it. One of the better parts, actually." His grin was too broad, and over too quickly. "Nothing like a good howl. You ought to know!"

"You're trying to change the subject."

A heavy sigh followed his words. "You're not letting me change it, are you?"

Should he? It would be easy to drop it, let it go; if he knelt by the leather chair and took Remus' face in his hands, the subject would be changed for a good hour or so. But if they were to continue this - if it was more than snogging in the corners, if it was going to last - then perhaps it shouldn't always be easy.

Sirius wondered when he'd become mature, and if there was any chance it was just a phase that would pass. With his luck, probably not.

"You can talk to me about this, you know," Sirius said. "Have I ever turned away from you, because you were a werewolf?"

"No, never."

"And I won't start now." Remus smiled up at him, but the tension was still in his face, making his shoulders stiff. "So, tell me, Remus. What's the worst of it?"

Then it hit him - like a clumsy, overstrong Expelliarmus, wrenching the very breath from his lungs. Sirius had thought, all this time, that Remus was uncomfortable with the subject because of his own feelings. He had never realized that Remus had in fact been trying to spare him.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I'm being stupid." Sirius grabbed his cup of tea, ignoring the singe of heat across his fingers as he gulped some down. "Forget I said anything."

Remus set his Astronomy papers aside. "Now I'm curious. What have you decided is the worst part of it?"

"Being afraid. That - that you'll hurt someone." Someone, perhaps, like Severus Snape. "I made that worse for you. I know that."

Remus only raised an eyebrow. "You did. But you wouldn't do it again."

"No. No, never."

"I know that, Sirius." Their hands met again, and this time Remus' fingers wrapped around his. Remus had such broad hands, scarred and calloused from his nights at the full moon. Sirius had memorized every ridge, every scar. "I know that."

When Remus tugged his hand, Sirius leaned down, lowering his face to Remus'. As much kissing as they'd done the past few months, the experience was still thrillingly new - lips on lips, tongue against tongue, Remus' hands against his chest, on his shoulders, in his hair. Sirius knew himself forgiven for what he'd done, forgiven in a way he perhaps didn't deserve, and the fullness of it made him kiss Remus even harder.

At last they parted. Sirius straightened so that he again stood over Remus, murmuring, "I wish I could make that better for you."

"What? That?" Remus gave him a wicked grin. "You make that absolutely great for me."

"Not that - get your mind out of the gutter."

"But where else is it likely to find you?"

Sirius chucked Remus on the shoulder, hard, and for a moment they were just Padfoot and Moony again. But it only lasted for a swing of the pendulum. "I meant the other. Being afraid of hurting someone, when you're a werewolf."

"You can never change that. Nobody can. But -"

"But what?"

"That's not the worst part of it."

"Then what is?"

"Can't you guess?" Despite Remus' exasperation, Sirius knew that he didn't actually expect Sirius to understand. Instead, he was resisting saying it aloud. The words hurt him that much.

But Remus would have to say it out loud, Sirius decided. "No, I can't guess."

Remus sighed heavily. "Never would've thought I'd have to accuse you of a lack of imagination."

"I'll demonstrate my imagination later," Sirius said, leaving no doubt what he really meant. He ducked down for just one more kiss, but the second their lips touched, he couldn't remember what they were talking about, or why they would do anything so stupid as talk when they could be doing this instead.

Remus slid his arms around Sirius' waist, pulling him into the armchair, practically on Remus' lap. But that wasn't comfortable, not for long; when Sirius slid down to the floor, he towed Remus along with him. The clock hands made their slow circle, the minute and second hands casting changing shadows over them as they kissed, splayed out on the hardwood floor.

Just when Sirius was wondering how quickly he could pull off Remus' jumper, Remus sat up, hair mussed, breathing hard. "I'm sorry," he said. "I oughtn't to have done that."

To Sirius it seemed precisely the sort of thing Remus should do all the time. But as Remus leaned against the leather chair, his shoulders against the seat, he realized: Remus had begun kissing him to distract him. "If you don't want to tell me, don't. It's your business."

"It's not that I don't want to. It's - ah, Sirius, you wouldn't understand."

"Don't say that." Any reason Remus could ever have for shutting Sirius out would be better than that one - than a belief that it would be useless. That, Sirius did not intend to accept. "I want to understand you, Remus. Let me try."

Remus' eyes met his. The clock hands kept turning behind them. Finally, Remus breathed out heavily. "Sometimes, when the change comes on me - it's not like being an Animagus, you know."

"I know." Sirius was grateful for the solid ground. "We can choose the time and the place."

"It's more than that. I've heard you all talking about it often enough to know. Your personalities change when you're animals - your thoughts are less distinct - but you're still yourselves. You have some vestigial sense of who you are, and who you care about. Your minds are different, but I think your hearts are the same."

"Yes. I guess that's so." Not that he'd ever put it in those words. But Sirius was unsurprised to discover that Remus could describe the experience better, despite never having lived it himself. Remus had a way with such things. "But - it's not like that for you."

"No. When you become a werewolf, your heart is no longer your own. You don't care about anyone or anything." Remus' face was hard now, his expression distant; he was focused on a horizon Sirius could not see. "In those first moments - I want to stop time, stop everything fast, to hold on to myself. But then, an instant later, there's only hunger and hatred, and every human being's face is flat and meaningless. I can't tell you and James and Peter apart. Lily - I can tell female from male, but it doesn't matter to me."

These facts hurt Remus; Sirius could tell that. But as much as it troubled him to see Remus in pain, he had to admit that what Remus was describing didn't sound all that horrible. Not compared to the pain, and the howling, and the bloody wreck Remus was the morning after every full moon. "The change -- confuses you, then."

"If it were only that, I shouldn't care so much about it. But it's more. Sirius, I don't know you as a werewolf." Remus raised his eyes to Sirius, and spoke the last words slowly, quietly: "I don't love you."

"Remus -"

"And if I don't know who I know, or love who I love - then I'm not who I am. When I become a werewolf, I lose myself by losing you. And that's the worst of it."

Remus closed his eyes and rested his head on the seat of the armchair, as though merely having the conversation had exhausted him beyond his endurance. But when Sirius took his hand again, Remus didn't resist. His thumb brushed over Sirius' knuckles, over and over again, as though he were the one who should be giving comfort.

Should he let it go at this? Sirius wanted to - wanted it so powerfully that he knew it for cowardice. The fact that Remus shared the feeling didn't make it any less cowardly; Remus had more reason to be afraid of what people thought of his werewolf self. That meant it was up to Sirius to be the brave one, when Remus needed it. Remus shouldn't have to be the brave one all the time.

"You're wrong," Sirius said.

"Excuse me?"

"You're wrong. When you become a werewolf -- you don't lose yourself."

"Yes, of course." Remus' hand slipped away from Sirius'. His voice was cool once more as he said, "How silly of me, to think that I might understand being a werewolf better than you do."

"Don't be that way. Listen to me, will you?"

"This should be good." But Remus smiled again, just a little, as he lifted his head.

"When you become a werewolf, you're still you. The man you are - your true heart - it's still there, still inside you."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I've seen you, been with you. You may not know that you love me when you're a werewolf, but when I see you - I know that I still love you. If your heart changes for a few hours, mine doesn't." Sirius took Remus' hand and held it to his own chest, palm open. "This heart is where you truly live."

Remus breathed in sharply. "God. Sirius -"

"This heart is where you truly live," Sirius repeated. He couldn't say anything else; there was nothing else in the world that had ever been worth saying. "Remember that."

For a few moments, they could only stare at each other. Sirius' thoughts leapt back and forth between not being able to believe he'd said such a thing to not being able to believe he hadn't said it long ago.

At last, Remus said, "I'll remember. I'll - I'll try."

"I'll remind you."

Remus slipped his arms around Sirius once more. "Tell me every month, when the moon becomes full," Remus whispered into Sirius' shoulder.

"Every day and every night, and always."

**

THE END


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