Amy on Instagram asked for Sirius reading to Remus by the fire after a full moon
Remus blinked, slightly dazed, before realising he was no longer focusing on the words on the page but instead staring into the common room fire. It was a Sunday, the final Hogsmeade day before Halloween, and Gryffindor tower was practically deserted.
A few first and second years had shown their faces but mostly they kept to their rooms, and so Remus felt no qualm about taking up the whole sofa, his duvet from his bed across his legs and his jumper sleeves around his hands.
Everyone had left for Hogsmeade by the time he had returned from the hospital wing, and he had debated heavily with James, Peter, and Sirius earlier that morning, insisting they didn’t miss out on Hogsmeade because of him. It was a conversation they’d had regularly over the years.
Remus tried to turn his focus back to what he was reading, but his eyelids kept drooping with the effort of absorbing the words. He was exhausted, and seriously contemplating napping on the sofa, when the portrait hole opened and snapped him back into alert.
He had expected to see a first year who would simply scurry past him and up to their dormitory. But instead, Sirius Black was stood, smiling softly at him, holding a flagon and a brown paper bag.
“What are you doing?” Remus asked. “I told you to go to Hogsmeade, we need all that stuff for the Halloween prank.”
Sirius tutted and made his way over, “I did go to Hogsmeade, where do you think I got you chocolate and the butterbeer from?” He kissed Remus’ forehead but Remus just blinked at him, perplexed.
“You... you went all the way to Hogsmeade and then all the way back to get me this?”
Sirius shrugged. “James and Pete are with the girls, I assumed they’d be fine without me. Plus, it’s bloody freezing out there. Being in warm Gryffindor tower with you sounded way more fun.”
“Because nothing screams fun like sitting indoors on a weekend with a tired werewolf.”
Sirius rolled his eyes, “Why the tone of sarcasm? Now, let me sit.”
“Fine, but you have to let me lie on you. No protesting either, I’m recovering.”
“The werewolf card is so old, get a new reason for sympathy.”
Remus stuck his tongue out but sat up enough for Sirius to join him on the sofa. He immediately let his head fall onto Sirius’ lap and Sirius instinctively placed a hand on his head, brushing his hair away from his eyes.
“You mean before you rudely interrupted me?” Remus asked, smirking.
“Merlin forbid I bring my boyfriend nice things and try to spend time with him.”
Remus snuggled up to him a little bit more, “I’m joking. Thank you.” Sirius hummed and leant down to kiss him, briefly, as the angle was awkward. “And you weren’t interrupting. I was trying to read but my eyes are tired.”
“Want me to read to you?”
“Is that a genuine offer or are you just being nice?”
Sirius paused, thinking, “Genuine offer. And I’m always nice. He picked up the book and studied the cover. “Romeo and Juliet? You’re so pretentious.”
“Just because I can understand Shakespeare...” Remus knew the challenge would work because Sirius immediately flicked open the book and mumbled something about being able to understand it too.
“What?” Sirius muttered to himself. “Why are there names everywhere?”
“It’s a play, Padfoot. Shakespeare wrote plays.”
“I... okay?” He still sounded terribly confused. “Where were you, in the play?” Remus just shrugged and told him to start from anywhere.
“ You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them above a common bound,” he read. “Do I have to say the characters names before every line?” Remus shrugged and closed his eyes.
“Err... okay, then Romeo says, I am too enpierced with his shaft... I didn’t know Romeo was gay.”
Remus swatted him. “He’s in love with Juliet, that is literally the plot and the title.”
Sirius just laughed, “He’s the one banging on about being enpiereced with other men’s shafts!”
“It’s metaphoric, he’s referring to Cupid’s bow, telling Mecrutio that he’s already been wounded by the arrow of love.”
“What a pretentious dickhead,” Sirius muttered. He continued to read, however, and mostly he continued to make Remus laugh. A combination of his complete inability to understand iambic pentameter, his commentary on the characters, and the voices he had started doing. Remus waited twenty minutes to tell him that Macbeth was the one set in Scotland, not Romeo and Juliet, and that he could stop making Juliet sound like McGonagall.
“I think I get it, you know,” Sirius said at one point, when the sun had started to set and darkness was falling, despite it only being late afternoon. He’d become gradually more comfortable with reading Shakespeare and Remus had actually started to drift off.
“Get what?” Remus asked, eyes still closed.
“Well, Romeo can’t love Juliet because she’s a Crapulet--”
“Capulet, Sirius, she’s a Capulet,” Remus chuckled.
“Whatever. And it’s difficult for him, loving someone his family don’t think he is supposed to. But, you know, he can’t help it. He loves Juliet.”
Remus smiled, “Yes, well, she loves him too.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Hopefully minus the bit where they both tragically die at the end.”
“That’s how it ends?” Sirius exclaimed. He flicked through the pages. “So they go through all that to be together and then... they don’t even get a happy ending?”
“Well, it is a tragedy play.”
“Okay, then I take it back. We can be like them but with a happier ending.”
Remus closed his eyes again and hummed. He liked that idea.
