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Sirius was talking to Remus. Had been talking to Remus all night in fact.
James tore his gaze away.
Leave it alone, he told himself forcefully.
James didn’t consider himself a jealous person, generally speaking, but something about his best friend seemed to draw out the typically dormant trait.
It had been that way since the first day of school, when at age 11 James had sent a stinging hex at Mary McDonald for trying to partner with Sirius in potions before James had had the chance. He had been lumped with a solid week of detention for his efforts, but Sirius had been his potions partner for the remainder of the year and all the years following, so James considered the trade off more than fair.
He had gotten considerably better at controlling his reaction to the jealousy since then, but it didn’t stop the feeling from flaring up from time to time.
Throwing down his half-finished transfiguration essay onto the coffee table and ignoring the questioning look from Peter, James pushed himself off the armchair. He was too distracted to finish the transfiguration essay he was working on anyway. Without consciously deciding to, found himself walking over to where Remus and Sirius were chatting.
“Hey boys,” James said, throwing a casual arm around Sirius’s shoulders. This was fine, he told himself, he was just being friendly.
Remus rolled his eyes at him, which James ignored in favor of Sirius broad smile.
“Hello Prongs.”
“What are you two whispering about?”
“The full moon, Moony is getting cold feet again,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes.
“It’s incredibly reckless,” Remus said, his expression becoming serious. “No one has ever done it before…”
“We’ve done all the research,” James countered. “It’s a well-known fact, werewolves don’t attack animals, only humans.”
“And even if,” Sirius continued, “for some reason you did bite one of us. Animals don’t become werewolves.”
“But you’re not animals,” Remus reminded them. “Not really. And you’ve only managed to transform a handful of times. What if something goes wrong and you accidently transform back?”
James and Sirius exchanged a look.
“We’ve thought all of this through, Remus. We know there are still some risks, but we want to be there for you,” James said.
“You’ve gone through it alone for so long. Let us do this for you,” Sirius added.
“I –” Remus chewed his bottom lip. “I’d never forgive myself if I did something to one of you.”
“We know, and that’s why we will make sure that never happens,” James said.
“Alright?” Sirius said with finality, clapping a hand on Remus’s bony shoulder.
Remus sighed. “I guess it will give me piece of mind to have someone around to stop me if anyone not in Animagus form manages to get close enough to get harmed.”
“That’s the spirit!” James said with a grin. “Now who’s up for a game of exploding snap?”
+++
“Couldn’t have picked a better night for it,” Sirius quipped between his chattering teeth. The wind howled and whistled sweeping through the cracks in the run-down walls of the shack.
“Mm hm,” James hummed, incapable of managing actual words, his entire face numb.
The rain thundered on the roof. James glanced up at the leaking ceiling hoping it would hold. Remus followed his line of sight from where he was lying exhausted on the dirty threadbare sofa.
“The house is sturdier than it looks,” he said in answer to James’s stare.
James glanced to the corner where Peter was sitting on a rickety chair. Even in the dull candlelight James could see Peter quivering, but he knew it was not entirely related to the cold. Peter was the most cautious of the Marauders and as the hour of the full moon rising drew closer Peter had become quieter and quieter.
“You alright there, Pete?” James asked, trying for encouraging despite his own misgivings.
Peter nodded, before resuming studying his shoes.
“Not long now,” Remus announced tiredly.
James met Sirius’s eyes across the room.
“Should we transform?”
Sirius’s face split into a grin that looked far more confident than James felt at this moment.
“Let’s do it.”
+++
The night went surprisingly well all things considered. The wolf was at first cautious and hostile, but quickly adapted to his new pack as Sirius and James made a show of their submission. Peter’s small quivering form was even lured out from under the broken piano for a spell.
And sure, James’s antlers got trapped in the dusty chandelier and Sirius had to balance precariously on the stag’s back trying to dislodge them by swatting at the chandelier with his giant paws; and Peter’s brief excursion into the open was cut short when the wolf attempted to eat him; and Sirius’s ambitious attempt to start a game with the wolf almost finished with him getting his jugular torn out.
But all in all, James thought, as he tucked blankets around the now human Remus sleeping on the threadbare sofa, it could have been a lot worse.
In the weak morning sunlight, the three boys trudged tiredly up to the castle. The last of James’s energy abandoned him the moment they reached the common room. He tugged Sirius with him as he collapsed onto one of the overstuffed lounges.
“Sleepy,” James said into Sirius’s hair by way of explanation.
Sirius hummed in agreement, sprawled half on top of him. Sirius shifted to a more comfortable position, his breath evening out.
In the floating space halfway between the wakefulness and sleep, James’s eyes fluttered open. Sirius’s shirt material had pulled and bunched with his shifting, exposing the fine bones of his collar bone where it met his neck. James thought of how if he had been one moment slower, the wolf would have sunk his teeth directly into that spot. A strange instinctive fear slithered down James’s spine, followed by an even stranger urge.
Without questioning it, James ran the tip of his tongue along the delicate line of Sirius’s collarbone. Sirius’s skin was smooth and slightly salty with sweat. Something in James roared in approval at the action.
Sirius twitched, but otherwise didn’t wake.
Emboldened, James ran the flat of his tongue up the column of Sirius’s neck from where it joined with his shoulder to the top of his jaw. The regrowing stubble on his neck was rough under James’s soft tongue, he shivered with pleasure.
“James,” Sirius mumbled in complaint.
James froze. Suddenly he was wide awake and horrified by his actions.
Luckily, Sirius appeared to fall immediately back to sleep.
The next day, James waited on tenterhooks, but Sirius never mentioned his strange behaviour from the night before. It seemed that luckily Sirius had been asleep enough not to remember it.
He must have been delirious with tiredness, James justified. It’s really the only explanation. Who in their right mind licks their best friend?
+++
Sirius threw his head back in laughter, his dark hair falling back to expose the side of his neck just below his ear. James’s stomach lurched. He felt the wood dig into his hands as he gripped the edge of the table in an effort not to bound forward.
It was excruciating ignoring the urge to get to him, to lick that spot. Far from his hope that it was something fleeting brought on by too little sleep and too much adrenalin on the night of the full moon, the urge was becoming more and more frequent – not even the burning embarrassment he felt when he remembered the night of the full moon seemed to have any dampening effect on it.
“Potter…”
James jumped at the noise. He had become more sensitive to them recently. He immediately felt his face heat, even though Lily had no way of knowing the odd thoughts that had been running through his head only moment before.
Lily regarded him with an exasperated look that indicated that was hardly the first time she had called his name.
“Have you finished cutting the lacewing flies?”
James had not. He gave Lily a sheepish look and resumed his slicing.
“Do you think McClaggan is attractive?” James blurted out a moment later.
Lily blinked at him, her annoyed expression morphing into confusion.
“Erm, McClaggan?”
“Yeah,” James confirmed, his eyes returning to the pair in the front row.
Lily tilted her head assessing.
“I guess so,” she said at length. “He has nice shoulders… and hair.”
“Right,” James said with a particularly aggressive slice.
“Why do you ask?”
James shrugged but couldn’t help his eyes from darting back to Sirius.
Lily’s expression slid from curiosity to amusement. “Because Sirius is partnered with him?”
“I’m just looking out for him,” James said quickly releasing his mistake. “Him and Sirius just seem to be getting along pretty well is all and I just wanted to make sure it was all above board…”
“Whatever you say, Potter,” Lily said amusement dancing in her eyes.
+++
It was the celebration party following the Gryffindor Quidditch Teams victory over Ravenclaw. As James stumbled over his own feet, he had to admit that maybe he’d had one too many of the little plastic cups of spiked punch.
“Padfoot,” James hailed, coat-hangering Sirius with arm.
“Prongs,” Sirius said, staggering sideways under James’s sudden weight. “Our fearless leader.”
Someone to the left of them coughed.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Marlene said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t know why you were playing so conservatively.”
“You know I love it when you critique my technique, Marls,” Sirius said, his lips quirking in an easy smirk. Something dark and ugly slid down James’s spine at the appearance of that very familiar look directed at someone else. “Go on then, what would you have done better?”
“For one, I wouldn’t have focused all my attention on the keeper when the seeker is right there.”
“Marlene, we won, let it go,” James said cutting over Sirius’s response.
“Yeah, you won this time, through dumb luck. What about next time or the time after? You can’t rely on luck forever. At some point you need actual strategies.”
“Are you captain of the Gryffindor team?” James said, stepping forward and using their considerable height difference to look down on Marlene. Marlene gazed up at him nonplussed.
Sirius grabbed James’s shoulder pulling him back.
“She’s only playing around, Prongs,” Sirius said, pinning James with a questioning look.
“I wasn’t,” Marlene said stubbornly. “If you’d only learn who to target on the field you might actually turn out to be an alright beater.”
“You flatter me,” Sirius said, his hand tightening on James’s shoulder anticipating his urge to step forward again. “But why don’t we discuss this further when I’ve not had a two glasses of Remus’s famous punch?”
“Whatever,” Marlene said with a roll her eyes.
“Prongs, calm down,” Sirius said, spinning him around as soon as Marlene had walked away. Hands placed on his shoulders as he gazed concerned into James’s eyes. “You know she’s only trying to wind us up, right? There’s no need to get so worked up.”
Intellectually James knew exactly that.
But even without Marlene’s presence, the red hot rage that burnt within him hadn’t released it strangle hold. James’s mind cycled through Sirius’s amused smirk, his warm laugh, his easygoing flirting, all directed at someone who wasn’t James.
Consumed with burning jealousy, James responded in the way his instincts were screaming at him to do. His thoughts urged him on – It’s the only way to prove to every single person in the room who Sirius really belongs to, they sung.
Darting forward, James drew a firm line up Sirius’s neck with his tongue. Sirius jerked under his touch and James’s instincts roared approval. When James gripped Sirius’s arm pulling him closer while bending forward to repeat the action, Sirius pushed him back hands firm on his shoulders. James released an animalistic growl in response.
“Prongs? James?” Sirius’s scandalized hiss finally broke through James’s haze. “What are you doing?!”
All of a sudden, the urge disappeared and he was flooded once more with dread. He didn’t dare look around them to see if any of their housemates had noticed, it was bad enough seeing the absolute incredulity on Sirius’s face.
“I –” James started, before his words failed him. How did he even start to reason out something which he had no explanation for? “I don’t know.”
“Alright,” Sirius said, clearly struggling to recompose himself.
“I think just had one too many cups of punch,” James justified weakly.
Sirius nodded as if that explained anything.
“Can we just pretend it never happened?” James asked a little desperately, his face on fire.
“…sure,” Sirius said after a pause.
And for the first time ever, Sirius and James spent a Gryffindor party on opposite sides of the room.
+++
James woke the next morning with a pounding hangover and a crushing sense of embarrassment. However, true to his word, Sirius acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, apart from the odd concerned look whenever he thought James wasn’t looking. It seemed they had been incredibly lucky and hadn’t been seen by any of the fellow party goers. Or perhaps the other Gryffindors were just too used to Sirius and James’s odd behavior to question it, even if they had seen something. Either way no one approached James about his strange actions at the party.
Unfortunately, none of this gave James much comfort in the face of the whole thing becoming utterly unbearable.
The week that followed ticked by torturously slowly, each day a stretching James’s self-control to its snapping point, until he felt as if he was slowly losing his mind.
It was late Thursday night and they were huddled on Sirius’s bed working on adding the secret room of the fourth floor corridor to the map. Remus and Peter had gone to bed hours ago and were snoring in their beds. James had had hoped that now he had Sirius alone the feeling with disappear, but the urge was still there, a constant itch just under James’s skin. Sirius was so close, his head bent over his parchment as he wrote out the room label in his familiar decorative cursive.
James bit his tongue, the only thing he could think of to stop it from darting out. He shuffled away to put some distance between them. Sirius glanced up at the movement in confusion.
“I think somethings wrong with me,” James blurted out, unable to take it a moment longer.
“What happened?” Sirius said as his confusion rapidly morphed into alarm. “Was it the curse Snivellus grazed you with the other day? I knew we should have got that checked out.”
James swallowed. “Erm, no, I don’t think… It’s been going on a bit longer than that…”
The worried crease between Sirius’s eyebrows deepened. “And you didn’t think to mention it until now?”
“I thought it would just go away,” James muttered, looking back down at his hand pressed against the map.
“So…” Sirius prompted, when James remained silent. “Do I get any further details? Or do I just have to puzzle it out from ‘somethings wrong with me’?”
James traced his index figured over the wall of the room they had just added, contemplating how to turn his worries into words.
“Do you remember… after the Hufflepuff game?”
Sirius nodded, still looking confused.
“When I, erm, you know, licked your neck in front of Marlene,” James muttered his face beginning to burn.
Sirius shifted next to him, but James couldn’t bring himself to meet his friend’s eyes.
“Well, it’s been more of that,” James confessed.
Peter snoring permeated the silence between them.
Sirius cleared his throat.
“You’ve been, ah, licking other people?” Sirius asked delicately.
“Not actually licking, just wanting to.” Embarrassed enough already, James decided not to mention that the only person he had been itching to lick was Sirius.
Sirius hummed, his lips pursed in thought.
“Merlin, this is ridiculous,” James said, throwing his head back against the headboard with a low thunk and transferring his gaze to the canopy. “Just forget I said anything.”
“No, no.” There was a rustle of parchment as Sirius shifted the map aside. “It’s clearly bothering you and obviously if anyone can work this out, we can.”
A smile ghosts flittered across James’s face at Sirius’s confidence despite his dismal mood.
“When did it start?” Sirius asked. “If we can trace it back to something that happened, maybe we can figure a way to reverse it.”
James pursed his lips as he tried to pinpoint the first moment the strange desire had crossed his mind.
“A couple of weeks ago,” James concluded eventually. “I think the first time it was really, erm, strong was the morning after the full moon.”
Sirius tapped absentmindedly at the map with his wand, the walls of the owlery appeared and disappeared with the motion.
“Wait a moment,” Sirius said suddenly. “You said the morning after the full moon?”
“Yeah?”
“And what major magic did we accomplish that week for the first time…?” Sirius prompted.
“Our transformations…” James said, Sirius nodded enthusiastically. “You think it has something to do with becoming Animagus?”
“It’s got to be, right? The timing matches too perfectly for it to be a coincidence.”
“Do you think I messed up the spell?” James asked. Quite honestly he was rather put out by implication, especially as posited by Sirius who usually had the upmost faith in James’s abilities.
“Not necessary,” Sirius said. “More… maybe it’s an unintentional side effect. I’ve noticed my hearing has improved since we first transformed, and Pete seems even more twitchy than normal. Maybe that’s part of it, like how our Animagus forms have suggestions of our physical characteristics, we take on aspects of our animal form.”
The theory made sense. The more James thought about it, the more the timing matched up. And hadn’t the feeling been oddly instinctive?
“But do deer lick things?” James questioned, both Sirius and Peter’s changes made sense from what James knew of dogs and rats, but…
Sirius shrugged. “Don’t know a lot about stags to be honest.”
“Me neither,” James said in frustration.
“What we need is more research,” Sirius said, tapping the map one last time to put the owlery back in its rightful place before folding it up. “Tomorrow morning before breakfast we hit the library.”
James nodded, relieved to finally be making strides to sort out the issue.
+++
James slammed the book shut, heat crawling up his neck. He did a quick check around him, but thankfully the library was practically empty at this time of morning and Sirius was still in the next aisle over.
Taking a breath, James opened the book again. It was clearly muggle books (one of the few at Hogwarts). Underneath an odd stationary picture of an antlered stag was the accusatory text in a plain font:
…The male red deer becomes possessive and jealous of their mate in the company of other males. The male establishes their claim on their mate through behaviors such as licking and nuzzling their mate’s neck…
After reading the paragraph several more times, his eyes caught on the word mate.
His Animagus form thought Sirius was his mate? And clearly not in the platonic way. How did that even happen?
It didn’t make any sense.
Except it did.
As much as James didn’t want to admit it - it all made a disturbing amount of sense.
James was remarkably good at deceiving himself. He had been forcefully ignoring any non-platonic feelings for his best friend for so long it had become almost reflex, but even James Potter’s ability to self-delude obviously had its limits…
“Did you find anything?”
James slammed the book shut for a second time.
“Erm, yes,” James said shortly. Sirius beamed at him and waited.
“And… what did it say?” Sirius prompted once James didn’t elaborate.
“That it’s just something weird stags do,” James said stuffing the book firmly back in the shelf. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Oh ok,” Sirius said. “Did it have anything in there that could help you stop the urge? Or at least control it?”
“Nope,” James said taking a deliberate step towards Sirius herding him in the direction of the exit.
“Maybe it was on the next page or something,” Sirius said ignoring James’s efforts to steer him out of the library and reaching for the book James had hastily returned.
Sirius smile faulted as James stood in front of the shelf bodily blocking it from view.
“Why are you being so cagey about this?”
“I’m not!” James protested perhaps a smidge too loudly. Sirius narrowed his eyes.
“You are,” Sirius said.
Sirius moved suddenly. He feigned to the left before swooping in from the right and somehow outmaneuvering James to retrieve the book.
“Ha,” he said triumphantly.
James blamed his unusually slow reflexes on the fact his inner voice had continued to chant mate mate mate at him.
“Ok, red deers,” Sirius narrated cheerfully as he held the book high and flicked through the index using his height advantage to prevent James from being able to snatch it back.
James’s cheeks flamed even before Sirius reached the page he had been on. He looked away as Sirius read the damning text.
“Oh,” Sirius said after a very long pause.
Sirius had lowered the book just enough to allow James to yank it from his grasp. He stuffed it back into the bookcase, but the damage was already done.
Sirius cleared his throat.
“So how many people did you get the urge to… you know… stake your claim on?”
James flinched.
He could lie. Probably should lie in fact. And in spite of the fact that Sirius could easily tell when he was lying, maybe his beetroot red face would encourage Sirius to let the lie pass without comment just this one time. But he didn’t… the problem with this particular lie was that it wouldn’t stand up against a moment of scrutiny – the encyclopedia said mate not potential mates.
“Just the one,” James muttered, eyes directed at the worn stone floor.
“But you said…” Sirius said after a moment.
“I know what I said. I lied. It was always just… you,” James said stumbling over the last word.
Sirius made a strange, choked noise, and James wished he could melt into the cracks in the stone floor never to be seen or heard from again.
“Not even Lily?” Sirius continued.
And why couldn’t it have been Lily? James thought bitterly. It would have made his life so much simpler.
“What do you want me to say?” James said hopelessly.
He braved a glance at his best friend. Sirius looked nothing less than shell shocked - his jaw slack, his eyes wide. The effect was startling given Sirius’s typical countenance was aloof and haughty or wicked and amused. James would have found it hilarious – if it hadn’t been for the potentially friendship ruining information which had caused it.
“I did try to keep it from you… If you’d just left well enough alone.” James’s shoulders fell in defeat. “But it doesn’t matter now…”
By now Sirius’s continued silence had started to sting. Couldn’t he just let James down gently and at least pretend their friendship would survive this? It’s what James would have done if he had found out someone he only had felt friendship for liked him romantically.
Anger permeated through his haze of sadness.
“Look, I am sorry you have to deal with my inconvenient feelings. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like them any more than you do and if I could change them I would.”
James’s annoyance seemed to finally cut through Sirius’s paralysis.
“James, that not what I…” Sirius started. But it was much too late, James was already stalking down the aisle and out of the library.
+++
James took four secret passageways and eventually ended up out of the castle. The weather was miserable, cold with a constant drizzle which settled on his skin and dripped moisture down his back.
He headed to the broom shed in the hopes that breathing in the polish fumes and scent of cut cedar would help him forget he had probably just ruined the best friendship he had ever or would ever have.
It shouldn’t have surprised him when fifteen minutes later the broom shed door swung open once more – annoyingly Sirius knew all his favorite sulking spots.
“Hey.” Sirius entered, his movements uncharacteristically hesitant as he shuffled into the shed.
“Hey,” James replied dully, half-heartedly returned to polishing the broom handle of an ancient Cleansweep 2.
Sirius cleared his throat. “I came to say –“
“You don’t have to say anything,” James said firmly.
Sirius took a step forward, the smell of his cologne catching upon the frigid air. James gulped. The urge was back, James’s muscles burned with the strain of keeping stationary, forcing his eyes to remain focused on the broom handle in his hands.
He would not give in to this not even for a moment. Not when they both knew what it meant.
“I –“ Sirius started.
“I’d rather we just forget all about it,” James interrupted through clenched teeth, “if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s not actually,” Sirius said, for the first time sounding irritated.
“Look,” James said his own annoyance trickling into his tone. He was giving Sirius an easy out, it was James who had to deal with having his heart broken… what right did Sirius have to be irritated? “I know its inconvenient but give me time and I’m sure I’ll get over it.” James wasn’t entirely convinced of that fact, but he was sure that with time he would be able to hide it once more.
“Can you shut up for half a second?” Sirius said.
Incensed James raised his gaze to glare at Sirius.
“I –” was all his managed of his rant before his was cut off by Sirius’s grabbing him forcefully by the shoulders and planting his lips on James’s.
It took James a moment to register that this was a kiss. He was being kissed – by Sirius.
And it took another moment for his mind to catch up with what that meant. Maybe his quickly drawn conclusion in the library had been entirely wrong. Maybe Sirius wasn’t horrified by the thought of James’s Animagus considering them mates… in fact if the way he was running his tongue along James’s bottom lip as he gripped at James’s hips drawing him in closer was anything to go by Sirius very much approved of James’s Animagus’s assessment of their relationship.
James yelped as Sirius impatiently nipped (none too gently) at James’s bottom lip.
Grinning against Sirius’s demanding lips, James rushed to respond keen to for his actions to catch up with his heart which was singing with approval.
James brought his hands up to tangle in the soft locks of Sirius’s hair. Sirius gave an approving hum, before pulling him closer and deepening the kiss. James gasped into his mouth.
Sirius pulled back, a superior smirk on his face.
“Still want to forget all about it?”
“Shut up,” James said and pulled Sirius roughly back toward him.