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I’m A Stud Muffin!


Regulus Black lay beneath the covers of his bed, the duvet pulled tight over his head, keeping in the wandlight so it would not disturb the other third year Slytherin boys as he read a book he had gotten in the library. “Siphoning charm,” he whispered, reading the page. He aimed his wand, “Tergeo.” A frown covered his face and he turned back to the book, “No good…” He turned the page and looked over the information there and sighed. Nothing was helping.

Over the past two months - ever since the Dark Mark had mysteriously appeared on his wrist in ways he could not explain (he could not recall even leaving the grounds of Hogwarts at any time to have received it) - he had been trying to find a way to explain it, or else, to remove it. He’d studied memory charms and read articles with titles like So You Think Your Memory’s Been Modified, and Pensive about Pensieves? and Finding Out What You Can’t Remember: A Forgetful Wizard's Guide to Memory Modification And Retrieval and tried everything from siphoning charms to erasing charms to even a spell that he’d found in an advanced healing text on graphing skin particles that he’d tried that had left a terrible welt that had scarred into a funny pale oblong bubble in his skin just below the mark - but not actually affected the mark itself.

It had burned like hell, too.

Regulus closed the book and shoved it out from under the covers and heard it fall with a thump to the floor. “Nox,” he whispered, extinguishing the light, not wanting to even look at the mark anymore. He wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes one of two things would appear in the dreams he had - either the mark, going from it’s normal black to the brilliant bright red that it would turn when Voldemort called his death eaters to him, with an intense burning heat that seared his veins like boiling water - or else Maryrose, kissing James Potter.

Both were torture.

He stared into the dark, eyes wide open, clutching to the medallion that Maryrose had given him at Christmas, his fingers tight around it. She’d returned it to him when she had come back from Number 12 Grimmauld Place with James Potter. He hated himself for letting James be the one to go with her, for not going along and saving her himself. He wished so very much that he had been the one. If it had, it would be him, Regulus, kissing Maryrose in the Great Hall instead of James Potter.

Of course, she would have broken up with him anyway when she found the mark.

He pulled his arm closer to his chest.

“Father no…” Barty Crouch Jr. was whimpering in his sleep again. He’d taken to doing this ever since coming back from holiday. Regulus didn’t know what happened while they were gone, but whatever it was haunted Barty in the night in his dreams. The boy writhed in his bed, his breathing painted and raspy as he whimpered pitifully, “Please,” he murmured.

Regulus pulled his sleeve tighter over his arm.




Remus was sitting on the floor by the fireplace, studying for the O.W.L.s when Sirius came down the stairs from the dormitory. “Hey you,” Sirius said, sliding into the space behind Remus and pulling him backwards into his chest. Sirius’s mouth pressed to the nape of Remus’s neck, right on the spot where neck met spine… and Remus felt his tongue slide over his skin…

“No, not right now, Padfoot, I’m busy, I have to study thing,” Remus said, pleading.

“I’ll help you study. Like a reward system. Every right answer you get, I’ll kiss you again and if you get them all right, you’ll get a special prize.”

“Chocolate?” Remus guessed.

“Better,” whispered Sirius and he kissed Remus’s shoulder.

“You’re only supposed to kiss me if I get it right,” Remus reminded him.

“That was for being adorable and thinking I’m talking about ruddy chocolate when I’m sitting here pressing into your back like a spear.”

Remus’s heart echoed off his chest cavity as Sirius turned him about and laid him down on the carpet before the fire, the textbook forgotten as Sirius leaned over him, sitting upon his abdomen as Remus stared up at him.

“Ready for your quiz?”

“Yes,” Remus breathed.

“Okay. Question one. How do you identify a werewolf.”

“Look in a mirror.”

“Correct.” Sirius bent forward and ran his fingers along Remus’s neck, forcing his head back and up and kissed his throat, Sirius’s hair - which was long as it had been before Evan Rosier had agrafoed it off - trailed across Remus’s chest, which was somehow bare.

Bloody hell, Remus thought, Since when do I study half naked?

Sirius ran his hands over Remus’s pecs. “Question two,” he said, “How do you identify an animagus?”

“Look at you.”

“Correct.” Sirius bent forward again and kissed the flat plane directly over Remus Lupin’s heart.

Remus swallowed.

“Question three,” Sirius breathed huskily, “What is the spell that makes things… hard?”

Remus breathed, “Any spell you say in that tone of voice.”

“Correct again…” Sirius shimmied backward so that he was sitting on Remus’s knees and bent down and kissed his abdomen.

Remus squirmed.

“Last question,” Sirius whispered. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Remus gasped.

Sirius smirked, “Why are the trees in the courtyard by Ravenclaw Tower?”

“What?” Remus looked up in surprise.

“Why are the trees in the courtyard by Ravenclaw Tower?”

“I dunno. I haven’t found out yet.”

“Because you’re too busy dreaming about having sex with me to spend time trying to answer important questions that your friend’s been asking you, aren’t you?” Sirius scolded him, his voice suddenly harsh. “You lose the game, you fail the O.W.Ls on principle! Poor James saved my life and you can’t even help him find out why there are trees in a ruddy courtyard? You really are a terribly selfish person!”

“But Sirius, I was trying to read and you’re the one that’s interrupted me with putting your mouth all over me.”

“You’re the one sitting by the fire in the spot where we first got together - wearing that jumper, looking like a stud muffin!”


“I can’t help it if I’m a stud muffin!” Remus shouted, sitting up.

Three heads turned to look at him.

Sirius snickered from across the room. “Alright, Rey?”

It was early morning and the other three were in various stages of getting dressed for breakfast. James was going to wake Remus up right after he finished putting on his tie, but Remus had saved him the step. His eyebrows were raised.

“Doing a fair bit of moaning over there, Remus, what’re you dreaming about?” teased Peter, smirking.

“Probably Ned Veigler’s beard,” said Sirius in a mocking tone.

Remus’s face turned bright red. “I’m not dreaming about Professor Veigler,” he said.

James said, “Really though that beard is rather magnificent. Nearly as nice as Dumbledore’s. Reckon he’s going for the classic headmaster look with that thing?”

“I bet he braids it,” Sirius said, “When nobody’s looking. Probably strings little beads in it too like a little girl.”

“Little girls don’t have beards,” said Peter, as though this was the obvious thing to say.

Remus got up.

“Whoa Moony, do you often sleep with your wand in your pocket or are you lying about the sort of dream you’ve been having?” Sirius grinned.

“Shut. Up.” Remus turned away and yanked open his trunk, grabbing his clothes and keeping his back to them, praying for his problem to go away. He hated Sirius at that moment - why in bloody hell did he have to exist? Damn James and his time turner, he thought bitterly.

Not really though, he thought quickly. Just in case one of the gods happened to be listening in.

James chuckled quietly and dug about his trunk like he did every morning, hoping his favorite jumper would have turned up magically overnight. He sighed and shrugged on his other one. “Oi, none of you lads have seen my Gryffindor jumper have you?”

“The one you’re putting on?” Peter asked warily.

“No my other one, the one with the too-long sleeves and the third button down’s missing? Has patches on the arms?”

“Haven’t seen it mate,” answered Peter.

James looked at Sirius, “You didn’t borrow it, did you?”

“James. Please. I don’t even wear my own fucking Gryffindor sweater,” Sirius snorted. “Literally last night was the first time I’ve actually bothered with my uniform since third year. Why in hell would I take your nasty old cardigan?”

“But you know which one I mean, yeah?”

“Of course, you wear that thing about every single day.”

“Well it’s been missing for two months so.”

Peter suggested, “Maybe one of the house elves took it.”

Sirius snorted, “Imagine a house elf running about in a Gryffindor jumper that’s too big even on Prongs who’s about seventy three times the size of a ruddy house elf!” He rolled his eyes. “Besides, house elves don’t wear clothes. They wear those sacks with the Hogwarts crest upon them.”

Remus was buttoning his own jumper and tugging it low to cover himself up. “When was the last time you saw it, James?”

James hesitated. The last time he’d seen it had been the full moon night after Remus’s birthday when they’d set up the telly set in the Shrieking Shack and watched films with Lily Evans while Remus tended to Bradley in Newt Scamander’s case. It had been the night they’d gone and Sirius had set off the fireworks over the ledge and everything had changed between him and Evans. She’d finally started seeing him like a human being rather than a toerag. But all that hadn’t happened in this timeline. He had no idea when he’d lost it in this one. Or if it had been lost at all in this timeline, for that matter. But it wasn’t here, so it must’ve been, but how? When? Where was it?

“Dunno,” James replied.

Remus could see it in James’s eyes though that it had something to do with the timelines and he felt guilty all over again for having not done the research yet. Sirius - well, dream Sirius - had been right. Remus really was a selfish person for not having started yet. Poor James asked so little of Remus, and the one time he needed him to be a Remcyclopedia, he’d failed him. Remus vowed to go to the library that afternoon and find anything and everything he possibly could about the subject, even if it meant having to skip dinner.

“Alright let’s go,” Sirius said, “Breakfast awaits and I’m bloody famished.” He waved them through like he was some sort of line monitor as they went out the door, ducking into the corridor. As Remus went by, Sirius muttered, “Go on Stud Muffin, don’t want to go getting too skinny and looking like a giant chicken bone for poor Ned Veigler, do you?”

Remus’s cheeks burned and he hurried along.