The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Whipped Like An Ass At A Horse Show

Remus woke and found himself in a jumbled pie of limbs with Sirius Black, both of them turned back from their canine forms at some point. Sirius lay draped over Remus, his torso flat atop Remus's back, arms wrapped about his til their fingers wove together at the end.

Sirius's chin was tucked over Remus's shoulder and his earlobe was in Sirius's mouth.

"Sirius?"

"Hmm?" Sirius hummed, and bit onto Remus's earlobe slightly.

"Sirius. Why are you biting my ear?"

"Huh?"

"My ear. Why are you biting it?"

Sirius let go. He blinked, waking up a bit. "Sorry. Didn't know I was."

There was a loud sound of a clearing throat behind them and both of them shifted to look.

James and Peter stood at the door of the Howling House, James pointing with his thumb at a large bit of parchment, which Peter was pointing out as though he were a game show hostess displaying a grand prize.

HOWLING HOUSE RULES, the parchment read.

1. No sex in the Howling House.

Remus flushed.

"Well how else is it going to be a howling house the other 350-odd nights a year?" Sirius demanded.

Lily was asleep in front of the hearth, curled up on the floor. She was surrounded by her books, though only a partial sentence had been copied over, and the letters she'd written were jagged and uneven compared to the other pages she had copied so far... and to think they'd taken thrice the effort.

She had spent the entire night trying to get further along in her work, but however hard she tried, she had felt such excruciating pain that she had to stop, to rouse herself from the attempt. She'd felt torn apart, and she remembered having read about a witch who had been executed by being tied to four separate horses and each sent galloping in a different direction... It had felt like all the sinew and muscle had been stretched and the bones only just holding their joint.

She woke now, stirring, hearing the boys voices carrying from the basement. They were talking loudly, laughing; a good sign. She jumped up and gathered the books quickly, slamming closed the covers and hurrying to the stairs. Roger followed her and she ran up to the bedroom and put the books down on the table by the bed.

"Evans! We're back!" James's voice carried through the house.

"Coming!" Lily said, and she threw on clothes, casting her nightgown over the back of the desk chair, and hurrying downstairs.

Remus was already seated, leaning back in the chair closest to the fire. Sirius had caught up the blanket from the floor and flung it about Remus's lap. James was adding wood to the fire, poking at it, and crouched before the hearth.

"Where's Peter?"

"Getting breaky," James answered.

Lily stood staring at Remus. He looked so exhausted. She'd seen of course when he came back, heard the others describe his change - even heard Remus describe it - but she had felt it. Or at least a taste of it. She wasn't so silly as to think she felt the whole of it. Certainly that unbearable pain she couldn't even keep her mind through five minutes of was only the tip of the iceberg compared to the hours of suffering Remus went through every month. For his entire life, too, from such a young age.