<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>there is a boy who never goes out</TITLE> <BODY text=#003366 bgColor=#ccccff> <P><BR> <CENTER> <TABLE width="50%"> <TBODY> <TR> <TD><FONT face="arial, helvetica" size=4>There Is A Boy Who Never Goes Out</FONT> <FONT face="arial, helvetica" size=2> <P align=justify><STRONG>Author:</STRONG> Minervacat <BR><STRONG>Fandom:</STRONG> Harry Potter <BR><STRONG>Pairing:</STRONG> Remus/Sirius <br><strong>Spoilers:</strong> set in Marauders' Era. <br><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Warner Brothers own the rights to these characters; I'm just messing about. <BR><STRONG>Rating:</STRONG> PG <BR><STRONG>Summary:</STRONG> <em>i've woken up on one too many floors - but my favorite is yours</em> <P align=justify></P> <HR> <P align=justify>Sirius was the quintessential eternal houseguest. When they finished at Hogwarts, James and Lily sank every penny of James's inheritance into the house in Godric's Hollow, James starting Auror training and Lily writing charms; Peter moved back home with his mum and started working at the Ministry; and Remus found himself a shabby flat on the wrong end of Diagon Alley and a job at a Muggle bookseller because no one in the wizarding world would hire a known werewolf. <P align=justify>Sirius packed up the three trunks he had been keeping in the Potters' spare bedroom and moved onto James and Lily's couch. <P align=justify>It started like every holiday from school had ever started; Sirius, turning up with an armful of trousers and jumpers, and promising to fix breakfast and tea every day, wash up after every meal, and be absolutely no trouble at all, just for a couple of days. He would sleep on the sofa, curled up like Padfoot, and he would be terribly quiet, honestly. <P align=justify>It always ended the same way, as well - with plates full of toast crusts and cups full of cold tea on every surface, and Sirius making everyone laugh amidst the rubble of his visit. Sirius was chaos contained in the body of a wizard, the body of a big black dog; he couldn't make a cup of tea or toast half a loaf of bread without lighting the kitchen on fire, but he laughed while he did it and generally no one noticed that he wasn't just a guest, but rather a more permanent sort of roommate until after he'd charmed them into loving him instead. <P align=justify>James's parents, for example, had offered Sirius their spare room, "just until he got settled", after he'd been thrown out of 12 Grimmauld Place without a cent or a ceremony, and they had been saddled with him for two years instead. The Potters never minded, though, not even when James and Sirius drunkenly caused the table in the kitchen to burst into flames after a night of revelry during their seventh year Christmas hols. <P align=justify>Even after that, the Potters still called Sirius "that nice young man", and never mind all the times he'd dragged their only son into the middle of a mess of trouble. <P align=justify>Remus knew Sirius's habits better than anyone else, though, and he knew that when Sirius said <em>only for a week or so</em>, he really meant <em>only until you throw me out into the street</em>. Sirius hadn't had a home since Grimmauld Place ceased to be one, and by Remus's calculations, he wouldn't have one again as long as Sirius could help it - you could never get thrown out of your own home if you didn't have one. <P align=justify>Sirius was out when Remus dropped by Godric's Hollow, the first Saturday in September after they'd finished school. "On a date," Lily had called from the kitchen, where she was no doubt washing a week's worth of Sirius's empty tea cups, rescued from James's desk and Lily's own bookshelves. "Would you like a cup of tea, Remus?" <P align=justify>"Please," Remus said. <P align=justify>"Though whether it's with a bloke or a bird, I couldn't say," James said, slouched on the sofa next to Remus. "Equal measure of each, these days, and never more than twice with any of them." Before James could continue, Sirius crashed out of the fireplace in the living room, spreading ash everywhere and practically ending up in Remus's lap. "Or not even once, with this one," James said to Remus, fanning ash out of his face. <P align=justify>"Well, <em>that</em> was a disaster," Sirius said from his sprawl on the floor. His hair was in his face, his robes were entirely askew, and he was smearing grime into Lily's carpet, which Remus knew that Sirius would hear about later. <P align=justify>"A disaster of your own making?" Remus asked, and Sirius glared at him from underneath his fringe. <P align=justify>"Moony, I do not make disasters," Sirius told him seriously. "I simply happen to be present at the occurrence of more than a usual number." <P align=justify>"Tell us the details, then," Lily said, setting Remus's tea down on the end table. "And when you're finished, clean this mess up." <P align=justify>"Tell us you're going to find someone else's couch to sleep on, soon," James said. "So you'll quit making messes all over our home." <P align=justify>Sirius pulled off a shoe and threw it in the direction of James's head; he missed and shattered a lamp instead. James convulsed with laughter, Lily rolled her eyes and retreated to the kitchen, and Remus just shook his head and looked down at Sirius, languid and lazy and grinning on the floor. Sirius winked at him, shook the hair out of his eyes, and levered himself off the floor. <P align=justify>"Well," Sirius said, sinking into the armchair nearest James. "You see, it all started because I thought I was meant to meet her at half past twelve, and she thought I was meant to meet her at twelve exactly." <P align=justify>"So it was a she," James said. <P align=justify>"Yes, it was a she. Although, you see, with how short she's cut her hair, I couldn't really tell, and I sat at the bar in the Leaky Cauldron for positively ages before this bird I thought was a bloke comes up to me and taps me on the shoulder and says, 'Sirius Black?' And I, of course, being the polite and charming wizard that I was raised to be, say, 'Yes, that's me, but I'm sorry, I'm waiting for someone.'" <P align=justify>"Wait," James laughed, clutching at his stomach with one hand and clutching at Sirius's robes with the other. "Wait, you hadn't met this bird before?" <P align=justify>"No, no, Peter set us up, apparently she works in his department or something," Sirius said. "Anyway, I tell this bird that, and she says, 'Yes, <em>I'm</em> your date' and of course, I've been waiting 40 minutes, so I've had about six Firewhiskeys, and so I say, 'But you're a -' and luckily I stop before she punches me in the nose." <P align=justify>"Oh, God, Pads," James panted, and Remus was fighting to keep from grinning himself. Lily was leaning on the doorway, dishes clicking together under a washing-up spell in the kitchen. "You didn't call this poor girl a bloke." <P align=justify>"I didn't!" Sirius said fiercely. "I stopped! So we sit at my nice private table, you know, Moony, the one that Tom keeps for me." <P align=justify>"Yes," Remus said, trying for deadpan and knowing that he had only found hilariously amused. "Although I've never been important enough to sit there." <P align=justify>"And we order Shepherd's Pie, and we're getting on swimmingly, and she asks me what I do for a living," Sirius continued, ignoring Remus pointedly. "And I, of course, tell her that I'm a disowned bastard and basically a man of leisure, and she says, 'Oh, God,' and I say, 'What is it? I have plenty of Galleons, don't worry' and she says, 'You're from <em>that</em> Black family.'" <P align=justify>"I hope you disabused her of that notion," Lily said. "Considering that they threw you out." <P align=justify>"I did," Sirius said. "I said, 'Don't worry, I've been disowned', and the next thing I know, I'm wearing her food and mine both, and she's stomping out the door and I haven't the faintest idea what I've done!" <P align=justify>"Some people," Remus said as seriously as he could manage. "Some people don't take kindly to even the disowned and thoroughly troublesome but certainly not evil eldest sons of notorious dark wizards." Sirius glared at him, and it was just too funny - Sirius was on a string of dates, currently standing at 47 first dates with no second dates, that had ended in complete fiasco, and every time, Sirius retreated to James's living room to honestly wonder why - Remus collapsed across James's back in hysterics. Sirius stood up regally, sniffed in their direction, and stomped off towards the kitchen. <P align=justify>After five minutes of laughter and ten minutes of holding his breath to rid himself of the hiccups, Remus patted James - still laughing - on the shoulder and called goodbyes in the direction of the crashes and bangs coming from the kitchen. "Come on, Lils," Sirius was pleading faintly from that direction. "I'm starved, I didn't get any food at all before she overturned my pie into my lap, just one slice, please." <P align=justify>He was almost at the door, preparing to Apparate to the alley by the bookshop where he worked as soon as he stepped outside, when Sirius appeared in the doorway, toast clamped between his teeth and blackened crumbs falling to the floor. "Mpomh," Sirius said, and pulled the toast out of his mouth. "Moony," he said again. <P align=justify>"Yes, Padfoot?" <P align=justify>"Can I stay with you, just for a couple of days?" <P align=justify>Remus stopped, hand on the door, and blinked. Sirius crammed the toast back into his mouth. Remus couldn't keep his mouth from quirking up at one corner, said, "Gods, no, Padfoot, you're a <em>terrible</em> houseguest," and shut the door behind him. <P align=justify>The next morning, though he hadn't heard a knock on his door or answered a single Floo, Remus woke up and stumbled toward the kitchen for a cup of tea and the <em>Daily Prophet</em>, when his progress between bedroom and kitchen (three steps at most, because the sitting room was hardly bigger than a closet) was impeded when he tripped over a body sprawled on the floor in the doorway to the kitchen. <P align=justify>"Bollocks, Moony, that <em>hurt</em>," Sirius said, sitting up and shaking his head like he was still in Padfoot's body. "Don't you watch where you're treading on your mates?" <P align=justify>"James and Peter never sleep on my floor, Sirius," Remus said, running a hand through his hair. "And they never expect anything of me before I've had a cup of tea." <P align=justify>"I'll make you one," Sirius said, popping up off the floor as though he hadn't been rubbing his ribs indignantly a moment before. <P align=justify>"No," Remus said, grabbing Sirius by the back of the jersey and pulling him back from the kitchen. "I will make tea, you will sit quietly and not disturb a single thing in my kitchen, and then we will talk about your sleeping on my floor." <P align=justify>They never talked about Sirius sleeping on the floor of Remus's sitting room, or even how he'd gotten there (Sirius had never met a ward he didn't want to break); instead, Sirius dropped a tea cup onto the floor, Remus stepped on a splinter trying to clean it up, and Sirius spent the rest of the day as Padfoot, sulking, curled into the only chair in the entire flat, a battered, ancient, paisley armchair Remus had inherited from a distant cousin. Remus tried to evict him - "Come on, Padfoot, that's my <em>only</em> chair, be a good dog and sleep on the floor" - but Sirius had always been stubborn, in whichever form he was wearing. <P align=justify>So Remus sat on the floor, with Padfoot's furry black chin resting on his shoulder, and read the Sunday <em>Prophet</em>, where the society news - Lucius Malfoy's glittering marriage to Sirius's cousin Narcissa, and when Remus leaned back to show the moving photographs to Sirius, all he got for his trouble was a wet dog nose pressed against the back of his neck - still took up more pages than the rising threat of Muggle-killings and You-Know-Who's growing power. <P align=justify>Sirius stayed Padfoot all day, eating toast crusts off Remus's plate where it rested on the ottoman and snoring dainty doggie snores all evening, but when Remus woke on Monday morning for work, he was Sirius again, all arms and legs and elbows sprawled asleep, twisted uncomfortably, in the armchair. Remus tucked a blanket around him and slipped out the door silently. <P align=justify>There were six tea cups scattered around the flat when he came back at dinner time. and an apologetic, amused Sirius still in the armchair, finger bookmarking a spot in Remus's battered paperback of <em>The Idylls of the King</em>. "Muggle literature's not so bad," he said to Remus. "What's for supper, mate?" <P align=justify>The third day that Sirius spent in Remus's flat, a Tuesday, Remus came home exhausted from organizing a book signing at the shop and found all his fresh vegetables turned to something black and mushy in a saucepan on the stove. The flat smelled like rotting tomatoes and burnt flesh for days, because not only had Sirius scorched his attempts at dinner into inedibility, but he had also grabbed the saucepan with both hands, scorching his palms into blisters and peeling skin. <P align=justify>"Hold <em>still</em>," Remus said, grabbing at Sirius's wrist. "I can't heal these if you keep wriggling." He pressed his hand down onto Sirius's pulse point, blood thumping against the pad of his thumb, and Sirius relaxed entirely, going suddenly boneless at Remus's touch. <P align=justify>"You're no fun, Moony," Sirius said, but at least he held still and let Remus heal the skin on his hands from peeling skin into tender, pink flesh. <P align=justify>"Yes," Remus deadpanned. "It's part of why I'm still alive. There, you're done." He let go of Sirius's wrist, and Sirius turned his hand over, palm down, and covered Remus's, before he could pull it away. <P align=justify>"You're too good to me, Moony," Sirius said, and he sounded, well, serious. <P align=justify>"Otherwise you'd be dead," Remus said. "I don't need a corpse in my kitchen added to my problems." <P align=justify>Sirius shoved his chair back and laughed, standing up, and he grabbed Remus's hand again and tugged him to his feet. "Let's go get a curry," Sirius said. "My treat." <P align=justify>On Friday, the sixth day Sirius spent sleeping in Remus's armchair, Remus came home from work and couldn't open the door to his flat further than four inches. Something was blocking the way - Remus pressed his mouth to the four inch gap and bellowed, "Sirius, the door's stuck!" <P align=justify>There was a tremendous crash, several muffled curses and another crash, before something was shoved across the floor and Sirius yanked the door open. "Oh, Moony, sorry, I lost track of time," and then he was backing away from the door, revealing Remus's flat, absolutely <em>covered</em> in ... Remus's books. <P align=justify>"Christ, Padfoot," Remus said, leaning against the doorframe, suddenly too tired to walk another step. <P align=justify>"I was dusting!" Sirius protested. "So I took the books off the shelves, and then there was one that looked interesting, and so I got distracted from the dusting and forgot to put them back." <P align=justify>"Or finish dusting?" Remus asked, leaning out and running a finger across the nearest shelf. It came away black; he should be more conscientious about cleaning spells. <P align=justify>"Or finish dusting," Sirius admitted. "But it was an excellent book! Really, see - " and he held out Remus's battered paperback copy of <em>The Lady's Not For Burning</em>. "They've got magic all wrong, Moony, but the language is just brilliant." <P align=justify>Remus shook his head in amusement. "Pads, I don't know what I'm going to do with you." <P align=justify>"Put the books back yourself," Sirius suggested with a grin. "So I can finish this tremendous book without interruption." <P align=justify>Remus rolled his eyes, but in the end, he put the books back on the shelf himself, sending great chunks of them up at a time with his wand, while Sirius read him the best bits of the play out loud. Remus went to bed exhausted, but oddly relaxed, and he dreamt about running through the Forbidden Forest with Padfoot. Not with Prongs or Wormtail, just Padfoot, all night, miles and miles, and he woke up smiling. <P align=justify>There was a pot of pasta sauce - from a jar, not even homemade - which left a scorched black ring on Remus's kitchen ceiling; there was a sink that backed up and flooded the entire loo for two days before Remus could make it stop running; there was a steadily increasing pile of rubbish in the corner that was never taken out. <P align=justify>But there was also someone to talk to when Remus got home from the shop, exhausted and out of sorts, and he hadn't realized how much he appreciated even ten minutes of friendly conversation with someone he actually liked, after a day of being polite to unfriendly Muggles. <P align=justify>And he laughed a lot more with Sirius in his flat, which was something he'd already forgotten about living in the dormitory at Hogwarts - and something he'd missed, without knowing he'd missed it. <P align=justify>Two weeks of takeaway curries and Sirius's culinary disasters later, Remus woke on a Saturday morning to Padfoot's nose on his elbow and a cup of tea, exactly the way he liked it, on the table beside his bed. <P align=justify>"Gods, Padfoot, please tell me you made this while you were Sirius," Remus groaned. Padfoot licked his elbow, and then Remus's face. Remus groped for the cup and braced himself for whatever ridiculous catastrophe Sirius had managed - too sweet, or tainted with curdled milk, or gone cold already because Sirius had made it and forgotten that it was meant for Remus for well over an hour. <P align=justify>It turned out to be a perfect cup of tea. <P align=justify>Before Remus could say anything, Padfoot shimmered and turned back into Sirius. "Good, eh?" <P align=justify>"Who taught you to make a cup of tea?" Remus accused. <P align=justify>"Lily," Sirius said, and cackled wildly. "You should see the kitchen at Godric's, it will be a mess for absolutely weeks." <P align=justify>"James is going to kill you," Remus said. <P align=justify>"Moony, your bed is absolutely palatial," Sirius said, rolling onto his back and stretching. He wriggled happily, jostling Remus's arm and threatening to slop tea onto Remus's pyjamas. "I've been sleeping in that awful chair for two weeks, and here you have this glorious bed, and you've been keeping it all to yourself." <P align=justify>"You don't actually live here," Remus pointed out. <P align=justify>Sirius waved an expansive hand and turned over, punching at the pillow before settling down again. "That's a technicality. And I don't know why you don't offer your bed to <em>all</em> of your guests." <P align=justify>"Thank you for the tea, Sirius," Remus said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a shower and go to work. Feel free to make yourself at home in my bed, apparently." <P align=justify>Sirius grunted and smashed his face into the pillow. "You're the best, Moony." <P align=justify>He was snoring when Remus closed the door to his flat behind him. <P align=justify>On Sunday morning, Remus was dreaming about chasing Peter through the corridors and dungeons at Hogwarts and he couldn't understand why he was so angry, and when he woke up, sweating and terrified, and rolled over, his knees knocked into someone else's. Sirius grunted and burrowed further into the covers. "Moony," he complained, showing nothing but a tuft of hair underneath the blankets. "Your feet are cold." <P align=justify>"Sirius," Remus said. "You are <em>in</em> my <em>bed</em>." <P align=justify>"'S better than the chair," Sirius said, and rolled over onto his stomach and went back to sleep. Remus climbed out of bed and made himself a cup of tea and read the Sunday <em>Prophet</em>. The Dark Mark had been seen over two houses the night before. Something about the dream he was having and the news in the <em>Prophet</em> left Remus tired and terrified, and his tea was cold when Sirius strolled into the kitchen an hour later, stretching. <P align=justify>Sirius headed straight for the kettle and said, over his shoulder as though Remus wasn't sitting at the table, frozen by the idea that the world was about to shift underneath them in a completely unpleasant way, "I dreamt that I was Padfoot, and someone was scratching behind my ears for practically hours." <P align=justify>"Mmmm," Remus said, and when Sirius sat down at the table, he put another cup of tea in front of Remus. Remus slid the newspaper, folded back to the story about the Dark Mark, in front of him. <P align=justify>"Cheer up, Moony," Sirius said, and yelped as he scalded his tongue on the tea. "If the Death Eaters visited you, at least you wouldn't have to put up with me sleeping in your bed anymore." <P align=justify>Remus managed a weak smile, and Sirius disappeared behind the front page of the Prophet with a toast crust crammed in his mouth. <em>The world is crumbling all around us</em>, he thought morbidly. <em>Am I the only one who cares?</em> <P align=justify>Remus had lunch with Peter on Monday at the Leaky Cauldron, and Peter chattered happily about his mum's petunias and his job somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry; he offered to let Sirius come and stay with him, in his mum's spare room, and Remus surprised himself by saying, "No, no, Sirius is fine, we're fine, no need to inflict all that destruction on your poor mum." <P align=justify>Remus was restless and unsettled for the rest of the day, and when he woke on Tuesday with Sirius's cold toes pressed against his shins, something warm and unfamiliar landed in the pit of his stomach and the restlessness receded. Before he slogged off to work, he patted Sirius on the head and said, "Take the rubbish down to the bins, Sirius, would you?" <P align=justify>Sirius grunted and flapped a hand at Remus; Remus knew the gesture all too well from seven years of sleeping the next bed over from Sirius - it meant, <em>yes, yes, I promise, I will be awake in time for McGonagall to yell at me for doing something I wasn't supposed to, just one more minute</em>, and Remus resigned himself to emptying the trash into the bins when he got home that evening. <P align=justify>Remus lived alone because after seven years of James snoring, Peter walking in his sleep, and Sirius getting them all in trouble whether they were actually present for the trouble or not, he was ready for a little peace and quiet. But it wasn't until Sirius had invaded Remus's flat, with his noise and his dirty plates and his distractions from the rest of the awful world, that Remus realized he'd actually missed it. Order and the ability to always find his shoes were nice, but there was something about having Sirius's restrained disasters pressed right into Remus's personal space that made him feel somehow more alive. <P align=justify>When he Apparated to his front door on Tuesday evening, the entire hallway smelled like roast beef and potatoes; he thought that maybe he could drag Sirius out for supper at the Cauldron, instead of another Chinese takeaway. When he stepped through the door, his brain caught up with his nose, and Sirius popped his head out of the kitchen and said, "Just a couple more minutes, Moony, I swear, it's almost done" before disappearing again. <P align=justify>"Sirius," Remus said. "Are you <em>cooking</em>?" <P align=justify>"Yes," an annoyed voice from the kitchen said. <P align=justify>"Sirius," Remus said. "Is there a smoking crater where my kitchen used to be?" <P align=justify>"No," Sirius said. "If you continue to make fun of me, Remus Lupin, you will not get any of this truly excellent rare roast beef, and won't <em>that</em> be a tragedy? You might starve to death for want of it." <P align=justify>Remus crept cautiously into the kitchen; it all looked all right, but that didn't guarantee that Sirius hadn't managed to create some sort of <em>internal</em> tragedy in an otherwise flawless roast beef dinner. "Lily again?" Remus asked, sliding into a chair. Sirius slapped a plate of piping hot roast reef and roast potatoes, drowning in gravy just the way Remus liked it, in front of him. <P align=justify>"Of course," Sirius said, and poured Remus a glass of wine. <P align=justify>"Doesn't she have a job?" Remus said, and hoisted his glass in a toast before taking a sip. <P align=justify>"Mostly she works from home," Sirius said. "And I think she's bored, because if she thought James howled when he saw their kitchen after the tea-making lesson, he's going to go absolutely bonkers when he sees the kitchen today. Oh, and I took the rubbish down to the bins. I do listen sometimes." <P align=justify>The roast beef was perfectly rare and perfectly sliced; the gravy tasted a little burnt but not so much that Remus noticed after he'd smashed little bits of potato into it. He'd cleared half his plate and had a heaping forkful of beef and potatoes, all dripping with gravy, partway to his mouth when something in his brain clicked into place, all pieces falling into place like the tumblers on a vault at Gringotts. He paused, looked up at Sirius consuming roast beef rather like a Hoover across the table from him, and said, "Sirius Black, are you trying to <em>seduce</em> me?" <P align=justify>Sirius's head snapped up from his plate and he stared at Remus with slightly wild eyes. "Um," Sirius said. <P align=justify>Remus laughed, and a potato chunk fell off his fork and hit his plate with a splatter of gravy. "Padfoot, why didn't you just <em>say</em> something?" <P align=justify>"Well," Sirius said, putting his best I'm-completely-innocent face on. "Did you think I was living in this tiny flat and sleeping in a chair for two weeks because I missed the dormitory so much?" <P align=justify>"<em>Yes</em>," Remus said. <P align=justify>"Moony," Sirius said, and finally put his fork down onto the plate. "You are the stupidest smart person I have ever met in my life." He got up from the table and circled around to where Remus was still sitting, frozen with shock and yet completely unsurprised all at once, and pulled Remus to his feet. "Either we get a bigger flat, or you get a better chair." <P align=justify>"You could get a <em>job</em>," Remus suggested, feeling vaguely ill and absolutely certain that the only reason he hadn't fallen to the floor was because of Sirius's hands on his shoulders, holding him up. <P align=justify>Sirius said, "Then who would cook for you?" like it was the most reasonable thing in the world, and then he kissed Remus, and Remus found out that cups of tea, plates of roast beef, jokes about the end of the world as they know it, were nothing compared to the taste of Sirius's mouth on his. <P align=justify><center>*</center> <P align=justify><strong>author's notes:</strong> k. did fantastic beta duty; all remaining mistakes are mine. the lucksmiths provided the title and summary, from "there is a boy who never goes out". </P> <P></P></FONT></TD></TD> <TR> <TD> <P> <P><FONT face="arial, helvetica" size=2><A href="mailto:minervacat@livejournal.com?subject=there is a boy">feedback always welcome</A>.</FONT> <P></P></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <CENTER><FONT face="arial, helvetica" size=2> <P> <P><A href="http://minervacat.stormwerks.net/otherfic/hp/hp.html">harry potter stories</A></CENTER></P></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></CENTER></BODY></HTML>