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Love's An Anarchist, parts I-II
Because once I get going on anything, it ends up being long. This third (and probably final) part of the George/Remus trilogy comes in at 34 pages, times new roman 12 point. Anyway, it was too much for LJ, so here are the first two sections. The remaining three will be posted momentarily.
I’d crawl to you baby and I’d fall at your feet.
George stretched out his arms and legs, basking in the warm Mediterranean sun. It was a glorious mid-afternoon, the sharp clarity of the sky smudged lightly by white wisps of cloud.
“Isn’t this is the life?” Ron asked.
George sat up to look into the pool. Ron was floating on an inflated chair, slowly paddling with his feet and taking an occasional drag off of his cigarette. A can of beer floated in the air near him within easy reach. George shielded his eyes with his hand. “Brilliant,” George agreed, then collapsed onto his back, sinking into his chaise. “Nice of Hermione to invite Remus and me to join you both. I could get used to this.”
“Too right. Pity I’ve got to go back this evening.”
George lowered his left arm to the ground, feeling around for his glass.
“You two don’t mind keeping Hermione company tonight, do you?” Ron asked, beer to his lips.
“’Course not,” George said, taking a sip of his drink. “But I’m not playing any more of those stupid word games she’s forced us into this week. I’ve got shite vocabulary and she knows it.”
“Ugh.” Ron pulled a face as he took his wand out of the cupholder and waved the beer to the side of the pool. “French beer is for crap.”
“Good thing we got plenty of wine, then!” Remus’s voice carried from the top of the dozen palm-flanked stairs leading from the house down to the pool. He hoisted a bottle in each hand in a salute, then returned back to the shade of the chalet.
“Fuck! They’re back!” Ron hissed under his breath, his languid paddling turning to violent thrashing. He traversed the small pool, crushed out his cigarette, frantically brushed at the ashes and tossed the offending item into the nearby plants.
George snickered. “Why bother, Ron? Surely you know that she knows you’re out here smoking.”
Ron scowled as he made his way back across the pool, kicking frog-legged. “Yeah. She said since I was on holiday she didn’t mind if I had a few. But she gave me a bloody quota.”
George laughed so much he spilled some of his drink on his chest. “Pardon my French, but she’s got you by the balls.”
“Not funny, arsehole!” Ron tried to be indignant, but a hint of a smile twitched in his mouth. “She puts up with you, and Perce, and Mum loves her.”
“Course she does,” George replied, looking over his left shoulder for the bottle of cognac that had been his poolside companion.
“And her tongue’s great for more than talking. She might have me by the balls, but she does some amazing things-”
“Too much information!” George said, pouring a splash of liquor in his glass. “Don’t need to know. Don’t want to know.” He shook his head. “You are my brother, after all. If I thought too much about what you two do I would probably have nightmares.”
“Ron!” Hermione waved from up the hill. “Just going to have a lie-down.” She blew him a kiss from under her voluminous wide-brimmed hat.
He saluted in return, focused on her until she vanished into the house. “What’ve you got there?” He cocked an eyebrow at George.
“Cognac.”
“Got any to spare?”
“I reckon. As long as you’re not going to make me spew by telling me anything else about your love life.”
“Deal.”
They succumbed to the lazy heat of the afternoon. George fell asleep on his lounge, Ron on the inflated pallet.
***
“Ronald Bilius Weasley, I told you to cast that blocking spell, now look at you!”
Ron and George were both impossibly covered with freckles, their skin bright red underneath. Sunburned.
“I forgot!” he moaned, rolling his shoulders forward and wincing. “It’s George. Bad influence. Always was.”
“You liar!” George growled. “Don’t blame me for this.”
“I’ve got to go back to bloody Glasgow looking like a bloody idiot. Ow!” He swatted at Hermione, who was trying to apply some lotion to his shoulders.
“Ow!” George echoed as Remus attempted to rub some salve into his neck.
“Look. You two are the cleverest people we know. Surely there’s some spell to fix this,” Ron reasoned.
“No. But I could do something for the pain,” Hermione offered.
“Please, my clever, sweet, lovely…”
“Stop while you’re ahead,” she said, cutting him off, but planting a chaste kiss on his collarbone.
“If you two are going to do anything, warn me so I close my eyes,” Ron said, looking pointedly at George and Remus.
“Close your eyes, then,” Remus said, taking out his wand.
Ron shuddered, squinching his eyes together.
“How can you be so naive?” George laughed. “As though we’d do anything in front of you.”
Remus breathed a spell into George’s ear, then nibbled on his earlobe while wriggling his hips provocatively behind George. Ron had opened one eye during the exchange and appeared to regret it.
“Right. I’m off now. Now!” Ron exclaimed, striding from the room to pack his belongings.
“There’s a wicked streak to you, Remus,” Hermione said, looking thoughtfully at him.
“Why do you think Dumbledore had me teach about the Dark Arts?” Remus asked, stepping back and scratching across his exposed hairy chest with his wand.
“I’ll ask you about that later,” she promised. “And no word games,” she said pointedly, looking at George. “I know you’re here as some sort of babysitter. Though I don’t need it. I’m perfectly capable…”
While she had been speaking, Ron had made his way into the living room and pulled Hermione to him, dipped her slightly, and kissed her thoroughly on the lips, silencing her indignant sentence. After righting her, he walked over to George and spoke into his ear.
“Take care of her, alright?”
“Right as rain,” George agreed. “I’m sure not interested.”
Ron nodded. “That’s what I reckoned.” He walked over to his portkey, a rabbit’s foot keychain. Muggle. Or had been.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the game, Ron.”
Ron grinned at Hermione. “Watch out for these two.”
Then he was gone.
***
The trio made a delicious dinner of fresh fish and crusty bread and ate it on the terrace, the lush blaze of sunset providing a perfect background to the evening, their last night on holiday. Then they got smashed. That hadn’t been the intention, really, and Remus with his infamous metabolism was by far the most articulate after a while, but they were all feeling astoundingly good, and Hermione and Remus had bought an astonishing amount of really tasty, and really cheap, local wine.
They lounged outside, Remus and George sitting across from Hermione, enjoying the mild climate. The conversation topics ranged wildly through the evening, eventually settling on Lupin’s legs.
“Too skinny,” Remus said, shrugging. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into buying a pair of shorts,” he went on, pointing an accusatory finger at Hermione. “Now an appalling number of the population in Monaco have been exposed to my white, knobby-kneed legs.”
“I love them,” George said, reaching over to run his hand meaningfully up over Remus’s knee and down under the hem of the shorts, which were actually rather long. Remus made a pleased rumbly sound, then he looked over at Hermione. “Oh. Sorry,” George muttered, withdrawing his hand.
The greater Weasley family, including those who had joined by marriage or nearly so, had accepted that George and Remus were a couple. The pair were very restrained, however, in expressing physical affection in front of anyone. By nature, George had never been one to be particularly demonstrative, but at the moment, he had a lovely warm buzz flowing through him. And sod it, he really liked Remus’s legs. They weren’t that white anymore anyway, as he’d spent a lot of time at the pool, and he didn’t freckle like George did.
“Oh George, it’s fine. I don’t mind, really!” Hermione’s tanned face was lit by a nearby torch, and George recognised the playful look on it. “You know,” she said, leaning in, her voice breathy, “I’ve never seen two men kiss. You could do that in front of me. You’re both frightfully careful, it seems,” she went on, taking a sip of wine. “Like we’d find it disgusting or something.”
“Aw, Hermione, it’s not like we’re performing monkeys at the zoo, you perv!” George exclaimed, even as Remus took back his hand and placed it where it had been on his thigh.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, flustered, brushing a stray curl off of her forehead.
“Hermione Granger. A voyeur,” Lupin said, amused and, George could tell, intrigued.
Even in the relatively dim light, George could tell she was blushing. What the hell. They’d all had a lot of wine, and he’d missed being able to give Lupin even familiar kisses since they were almost never alone.
“I just thought if you wanted to,” she said. “You could pretend I’m not here.”
George thought this was one of the most bizarre evenings he’d had in ages. Just then Remus ran his hand up George’s thigh and leaned over to breathe in his ear, “I don’t mind. Do you?”
George answered by putting his wine glass on the ground, getting up a bit unsteadily from his chaise, and straddled Lupin, facing him. He held Remus’s face in his hands, stroking the prominent cheekbones, admiring the golden eyes, then leaned in to kiss him. His mouth was warm, his tongue familiar, but it still sent shocks of pleasure straight to George’s groin. Remus made contented sounds as George sucked on his lower lip, then continued to kiss him savagely, feeling Remus’s enthusiasm in return. He rocked a little into the other man’s hips, running his hands to the front of Remus’s shirt.
There was a distinctly feminine gasp behind him. Bollocks, but he really had forgotten about Hermione. George drew back, breathing heavily, feeling Remus’s fingers begin to unbutton his shirt. “Whoops. Sorry. Got carried away,” he apologised, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“No. Keep going. It’s… it’s…” Hermione’s eyes were shining, and she licked her lips, “quite a turn-on,” she admitted. “Did I really just say that?” she giggled, drawing up a leg underneath her.
“My, my, my,” Remus said, his voice husky. He had undone George’s shirt and his fingers clasped onto George’s nipples, making the younger man moan. George held onto the armrests of the chair, grinding slowly into the erection he could feel through Remus’s shorts. The skilled fingers left George’s chest, went into Remus’s mouth, then two wet thumbs caressed George’s taut and sensitive nubs.
“So you like to watch, Hermione?” Remus asked before raising up his head to take one of George’s nipples in his mouth, teeth grazing, then his tongue circling around it.
“Sunshine, oh god. You’re incredible,” George babbled, his cock positively aching. He drew Remus up from his chest to kiss him; deep, ferocious, and needy. “Want you. Buried in me. Oh Merlin.”
“Um, I think I need to be alone now,” Hermione said, breathing heavily and levering out of her chair. She ran into the torch which wobbled precipitously, then she steadied it. “G’night. See you in the morning.” She took one last look at them, George moving slowly but steadily against Remus, the older man flicking a finger over George’s chest. “Goodness,” she whispered. Coming to herself a bit, she said, “You know, you don’t look anything like Ron.”
“That’s reassuring,” George replied.
“Sweet dreams,” Remus said before pushing George’s shirt off of his shoulders and helping him out of it. Hermione gazed at them, open-mouthed, as Remus unbuttoned the top of George’s jeans, then she turned and practically ran up the steps to the chateau.
“Where was I?” Remus asked, pulling down the zip on George’s pants.
“There. Right there,” George moaned, clutching to Remus’s shoulders. “Oh. There,” he went on as his lover’s fingers pulled his cock out through the fly of his boxers.
“You’ve become quite the hedonist here in this climate,” Remus chuckled, stroking George’s shaft.
“I always want you. Climate doesn’t matter.”
“Stand up for a minute so I can get out from under you,” Remus commanded, his voice heated. “Then I want you to lie down on your back and put your hands together.”
“You going to tie me up?” George asked, using the armrests to push himself up and out of the way.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Remus replied, rising up from the chair. He stood next to George and pulled his head to him, cradling the back of George’s neck to kiss him hungrily, resuming his fisting of George’s cock.
George made a suffocated, pleased sound into Remus’s mouth. Remus pulled back, rubbed his own arousal through his shorts and pointed to the chair, breathing shallowly. George squatted behind the chair, changed the back setting so that it lay mostly horizontal, then lay back down. Remus had turned and was looking around his chair and through a cluster of empty bottles.
“What are you doing?” George asked.
“Looking for my wand. I must have left it inside. Where’s yours?”
George thought for a moment. While his body seemed unaffected by the wine, thinking about something as specific as the location of his wand proved a sluggish challenge. “Think it’s inside too.” He raised his hips to tug at his jeans and boxers, wrenching them down his thighs.
“Holidays have made us soft,” Remus said, returning to help George out of his pants which he then dropped on the ground. “Well, not really,” he continued, looking possessively at George’s cock which was now very exposed.
George was in heaven. Remus had him in his mouth, his talented tongue knowing exactly what to do to make him writhe in pleasure. He felt his lover’s finger move toward his entrance, then withdraw. “No, don’t stop, please, don’t,” he gibbered as Remus sat up.
“I’ve just realized something else we’re missing,” Remus said, wrinkling his forehead.
“Just accio it from our room. The window’s open,” George said, feeling helpful, wanting to do anything to get Remus back to him.
“No wands, remember?”
“Bloody hell,” George sighed. “What kind of wizards are we?”
“Horny ones. With no sense.”
A flash of brilliance struck George. “Wait- you had a bottle of olive oil down here while cooking the fish. ‘S’it still around?”
“George, George,” Remus’s voice rumbled as he shed his already-unbuttoned shirt. “How the innocent have fallen.” He walked over to the small grill to retrieve the oil.
“Who’s innocent?” George asked as he drank in the sight of Remus’s lithe form padding back over to him, the grey chest hairs catching the light of the torch, his erection straining against his Bermuda shorts. The waning moon seemed impossibly distant in the sky; miniscule and unthreatening. As he basked in Remus’s devouring gaze, George dimly recognised that there was a time before Remus, time when he had been unaware of the moon’s phases. Time when he had fumbled, confused and unfeeling after Fred had been killed; time briefly coupled, then alone. “You’ve taught me all I know,” he said, grateful.
“Or close enough,” Remus corrected, not unkindly. “Now turn that astonishingly freckled body of yours over so I can have my sordid way with you.”
George hastily and enthusiastically complied. He was soon on hands and knees, fingers grasping around the sides of the chair. Remus’s oiled fingers pressed steadily into him, stretching him in a maddeningly intimate gesture, fueling George’s desire. “Now,” he breathed, thrusting backward. “Ready for you.”
Remus growled, a lusty, primal noise George loved. George lowered his head for a moment while mourning his momentary emptiness, hearing Remus divest himself of his remaining clothes. Then there was an almost indecently erotic slithering noise as Remus coated himself with the oil.
“Merlin. Sunshine,” George incanted, feeling his lover breach him, overcoming the initial discomfort that was always there, still amazed at how two men’s bodies could fit just so. It defied imagination. Remus didn’t reply with words, instead using remarkable restraint to languidly sheathe himself while insinuating his fingers between George’s sacs and grasping the base of his cock. George bucked with pleasure as Remus began fisting him, moving behind him in a way that sent sparks shooting from far within himself as his prostate was nudged.
“Liquid velvet. Oh. So deep. Love feeling you around me.” Remus, who was fairly talkative when they were intimate, at last began a deep-throated litany of phrases of how George felt, how he loved fucking him. George rocked back into him with enthusiasm, raising up a bit on the balls of his feet to make the angles less awkward for Remus, who was also kneeling on the chair. He was so enthralled in his lover’s frenzied ministrations and the unmistakable imminent release barbing through him that he felt, more than heard, the unmistakable sound of something capsizing.
“Remus, yes, Remus,” he moaned as the intense orgasm flowed out of him and he came over his lover’s hand. Milliseconds later, the front of the chair collapsed, sending the pair crashing against the tiled flooring. “Oh, fuck!” George yelled as Remus came with a shout, releasing George and grabbing the armrests of the chair. “Annnngggguhhhh!” George bellowed in agonized rapture, seeing red sparks of painpleasure, blissful aftershocks mingled with severe discomfort.
“Owowowowbloody hell. My knees,” George whimpered, writhing under Remus’s weight, suddenly very grateful that his hands hadn’t been any further up the chair or he probably would have suffered several broken fingers. “Not so fast!” he yelped at Remus, who was jerking out of him.
“Are you okay?” Remus asked, his voice heavy with concern. He pulled himself slowly from George’s body, both hands grasping the armrests.
“Think so,” he said, wincing as he hand-walked himself upright. “Bruised my knees up, for sure,” George went on as Remus began looking for a cloth.
“What happen… Oh!” Hermione squeaked from the top landing, dressed in a nightshift. She covered her eyes with her hands. “Are you two alright?” she asked.
George threw his hands down to cover himself.
“Um. We might have broken one of your parent’s chairs,” George called up the stairs, trying to sound nonchalant while looking frantically at Remus for assistance.
“I’ll repair it momentarily,” Remus said and Hermione nodded, her face still covered.
“I’ll just go back to bed then,” she said, turning and walking back into the house.
“D’you think she’s been watching the whole time?” George asked, rubbing his knees before leaning back into Remus’s chest as he was pulled into a tight embrace.
“Well,” Remus said, after placing several kisses on George’s earlobe and neck, “if she did, I suspect she got more than she bargained for.”
“So did I,” George grumbled, but he clasped Remus’s hands in his.
“Let’s get you inside so I can look at your knees,” Remus murmured into his ear. “I’m sorry about the chair. But I must say that what we had before that was incredible.”
George rested his shoulders against Remus’s furry upper chest. “Yeah. Glad you’re not tired of my freckled fanny yet.”
“Never.”
II.
Things which cast no shadow.
The flush on George’s skin from their holiday in France had long faded. It was hard to believe they were almost at mid-term already. Dumbledore had not, to George’s surprise, sacked him after his first attempt at teaching an elective course on the magical qualities of laughter and the many counterspells and counter-hexes which incorporated levity and mirth in their effectiveness. In fact, his two courses had proven to be so popular that he had been asked to teach them again, as well as an additional lower level study hall for students who found themselves especially unskilled at Transfigurations.
George had tried to explain both to Dumbledore and McGonagall that it would be too much to add the study hall on top of the other classes, all while making sure that the shop was doing as well as it could, but McGonagall simply would not back down.
“It will make up for the fact that you never took your N.E.W.T. in Transfigurations, Mr. Weasley,” she said firmly.
“We all know and appreciate the price your family paid during the War,” Dumbledore said sympathetically, “and how much has happened from your school days to now. But Minerva has told me repeatedly of your superior abilities in this field. As you well know, while Voldemort has been defeated, some of those who fought on his side are still around, and still causing trouble. Our current students need to be prepared.”
“It would make more sense for me to teach an economics elective,” George said, shaking his head. “If it weren’t for Fred’s head with numbers, and his patience, I don’t think I would ever have learned how to keep the shop’s books balanced.” He turned to look at his former Head of House. “But all right. Poor sods will be wishing they were in Malfoy’s Potions Club after a fortnight with me, I can guarantee it. Or even the Wizarding Chess Club.”
Dumbledore laughed and offered him a pistachio pastille, which George declined with a shudder. As he stood to leave, McGonagall got up from her chair and took his hand. “Thank you, George,” she said, her hair ghostly white under her hat due to curses she had sustained during the fighting.
“I always meant to do right by you,” he offered. “It was just with Umbridge around, and then we’d gotten rights to the shop…” his voice trailed off. “To be honest, we were done with Hogwarts. And I wouldn’t trade those few months with Fred for anything. Full marks in any of my courses are meaningless compared with that.”
“I’ve always understood,” she said in her lilting voice, and squeezed his hand.
“Wizarding economics,” George heard Dumbledore say as he left the office. “Very interesting.”
***
“George? George!”
“Yes? What is it?” George came tripping into his living room with the grace of a drunken hippogriff, still pulling his pants up his thighs as he did.
“Oh. So sorry.” Remus’s face was in the fireplace of The Cleansweep, the affectionate name for George’s flat and his connection to the Floo network, but from the bit of background George could see, Remus was obviously still in his office at Hogwarts.
“S’okay,” George replied, giving Remus a provocative look as he took his time to leisurely button up the front of his corduroys. “You on your way over?” he asked as he knelt down so he was more eye to eye with the other man.
They had another of their trips planned, part of their ongoing Solaris spell adventuring. This time they were off to Drombeg, a stone circle in southern Ireland, known even by Muggles as the ‘Druid’s Altar.’ The two had found the sun-spell-enchanted stones all over the U.K., but now they were in search of other old magic beyond the one spell that Remus had initially tapped into at Kilmartin. Research still was not of great interest to George, but he did enjoy the ancient rocks and the thought of the ancestral magic that was imbued in them, and the trees and ground nearby. What he had noticed after spending a lot of time around Remus was that his own magic wasn’t nearly as strong, a fact that didn’t bother him all the time, but it was yet another inequality to their relationship. Remus didn’t seem to mind, insisting that George’s magic was probably much more focused. George was highly skeptical.
“Yes, but not immediately. I’m still speaking with Larkspur. Why don’t you go on ahead, and I’ll meet you there in an hour, tops.”
The redhead tried not to be jealous. “Brilliant. I’ll just go ahead and find all of the good ones and let you write them all down this time. And if you’re over an hour late, you’re buying me a Guinness. Or two, depending on how cold it is.”
Remus smiled. “Thanks for understanding. See you in a little while.”
George got up, his knees cracking.
“Oh- and George?”
“Yes?” George squatted back down in front of the fireplace.
“I checked with Ministry weather; you’ll probably want to wear an anorak, unless you’ve brushed up on your repello spells.”
“You mean we’re going to the southern coast of Ireland in October and they haven’t predicted blue skies with a light wind?” George leaned back to pull his well-worn, drab, water-repellant-spelled parka off of the couch and draped it over his knees. “Covered. Thanks for the confirmation, though.”
“You’re amazing,” Remus said, the slightest hint of an appreciative growl slipping through.
“You’re just saying that because you’re hoping I’ll shag-“
Remus coughed loudly.
“Oh. Shite. Student in the office. Um, gotta go. Meet you at Drombeg.”
“Ta.”
Then the fireplace was empty.
George walked the few steps back to his bedroom to finish packing.
“Have you given Zap a title?” Fred asked from the portrait above George’s chest of drawers.
“What do you mean, a title?” George replied, confused.
“Well, you do keep leaving him in charge of the shop. You seem to be gone a lot.” Fred’s voice belied his obvious displeasure in George’s non-Weasley’s Wizarding Wheeze’s pursuits. “Assistant Manager, maybe.”
“Oh. That kind of title.” George ran his fingers through his close-trimmed goatee. “Good idea.” He looked at his twin. “We’re still doing really well, you know.”
Fred gave him a hard look. “We’d be doing better if I were there.”
George sighed. “Of course we would. Look, I’m off. Got another ring of rocks to prod.”
“Lupin meeting you? I heard him in the next room.”
“Yeah, but he’s going to be late.” George sat heavily on the bed next to his trunk.
“Larkspur?”
“Yes.” George rolled his eyes. “I know I shouldn’t be ungrateful, but-"
“But he spends heaps of time with her. I know. You’ve got to admit, though, he must feel like he’s really helping someone else.”
Larkspur Beauchamp was a werewolf, a second year who had transferred from Beauxbatons at her mother’s insistence. Remus had been beside himself when he found out that he could help someone else like him; that he could help her avoid all of the agonies he had suffered as a young student when he had tried to keep his condition a secret. Thanks to the wolfsbane, which was being further modified by Malfoy, current Potions Professor at Hogwarts after Snape was killed in the War, the repercussions of being a werewolf weren’t nearly as dire as they had been. It was still incredibly isolating, however, or so Remus had said. He did spend a lot of time with her, and they shared a common understanding that George never would. Not that he was jealous.
“He does. I’ve gotta go.” George shrank his trunk, shoved it in his corduroys pocket, and nodded briskly at Fred.
“When’re you back?” Fred queried, reaching to a point beyond the frame and retrieving a book.
“Dunno. Reckon this’ll be a short trip. As always, the weather’s atrocious.” He snorted. “I wish I were back on holiday. I quite liked lounging poolside, even with Ron as company. Much better than freezing my arse off. Especially by myself.”
Fred put his book down and mimed playing a violin. “Oh, such a sad, sad tale of George the intrepid traveller.”
“Tosser.”
“I beg to differ! You’re the bloody poof.”
“Right. See you.”
Fred grinned and returned to his book, propping his feet up on the frame and leaning back in his chair. George went into the living room, shrugged on his anorak, willing the magical coordinates of Drombeg into his mind before Apparating.
***
The rain-drenched wind smacked his face as brutally as though it had fingers. George reeled backward, running painfully into an obdurate monolith.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed, rubbing his shoulder. He took a moment to absorb his surroundings. It was a pretty small circle of stones, actually; around thirteen that were sizeable and a few others scattered nearby. He pulled up his hood against the whipping wet and got out his wand.
As he stepped between two of the sandstone pillars into the circle he felt a sudden wave of nausea. He leaned over for a second, breathing heavily, then as quickly as it had come over him, it vanished. He stood back up, vaguely rubbed his stomach, and shook his head. Just dismal weather, and thirteen stones to test. Must’ve imagined it, he decided, shrugging it off. He and Remus had been to dozens of sites and they’d all had their own aura to them; this one must just be different. He shivered for a second and zipped up the top of his parka, hoping that Remus wouldn’t be too late. Then again, Remus shouting a couple of rounds of Guinness wouldn’t be such a bad thing either. He retrieved a charmed scroll and drew a quick sketch of the stones, then walked to the closest one. "Sumain súil," he invoked, his hand on the slick surface of the monolith.
Nothing. In fact, it almost seemed to take heat from his hand and deflect his wand.
I’m barking, he thought, disgusted. There’s enough wind to practically take the wand out of my hand. It’s not the bloody stone. He wrote a few comments, then went to the next.
Nothing. And the next. Nothing.
He made it halfway around the circle before stopping for a moment, taking a handkerchief from an inner pocket to wipe the water from his face. Perhaps this circle hadn’t been near a Wizarding community, though that would be highly uncommon. The reliable references that Remus had been able to find about the stone circles indicated that while Muggles had used them, and in all likelihood built them, there was almost always a Magical infusion in the area.
Remus wouldn’t have had us come here if he didn’t think it had something, George reckoned, turning to face the bitter wind blowing up from the ocean. Between the slick of pelting rain and a ferocious blast, George’s quill was snatched from his hand.
“Bloody hell,” he swore, following his writing instrument with his eyes. It flew across the ground of the circle with George in fast pursuit, until it was plastered against the bottom of one of the broken pillars, trapped by the wind. His left hand was scrabbling across the surface, clutching desperately at it when he noticed the top of a smooth disc mostly buried in the ground. He pocketed the errant quill, squatting down to brush at the lichen on the dark stone. As soon as he touched it, George felt searing pain wrack his body, as a malevolent magical force coursed through him, worse than any hexes he had sustained from the Death Eaters after Hogwarts, more primal than the curses he had taken during the War. He yelled in agony, then passed out.
***
George came to, raising his left arm to cover his face which was getting pelted by rain. Memories of how he came to be lying on very uncomfortable, graveled ground rose slowly through the fog in his mind like bubbles in a particularly viscous potion. He was at Drombeg. None of the stones had any of the Solaris infused in them. He’d touched something, felt a wave of bitter pain, and now he felt fine, but he was absolutely soaked through. And still alone. He turned his arm and pushed back a sleeve to look at his watch. He’d only been unconscious for a little while, a quarter of an hour at the most.
Gingerly he sat up, expecting some kind of lingering soreness or evidence of what had happened to him, but aside from the unpleasantness of being dressed in now-soggy trousers, he seemed to be none the worse for wear. He got to his feet, pulled out his wand and cast a drying spell on the lower half of his body. Much more carefully this time, he returned to the stone where he’d retrieved his quill to look at the disruptive rock at its base. After pulling his wet fringe out of his eyes, he stared at it, and at the jagged crack which now split it open.
“George! Merlin’s beard! Get out of there!”
Remus’s voice barely carried over the wind, but it was startling after the relative silence. George stood up and turned, seeing Remus outside of the circle, beckoning him with exaggerated arm gestures. George made a pacifying shrug of his shoulders, and walked across the gravel to the other side.
“What is it?” George asked a bit peevishly. He had no intention of telling Remus what had happened, as though he weren’t twenty-four years old and perfectly capable of taking care of himself.
“Are you okay? How do you feel?” Remus pulled George to him in a crushing embrace, then stood back and got out his wand. “Let me do a quick auralic, if you don’t mind.”
George stood, his hands jammed into his pockets. “Are you a medi-wizard too?” Truth be told, he felt heaps better outside of the standing stones, and was a bit worried about what had afflicted him. But he didn’t appreciate being babied, especially by his lover.
Remus completed his hasty scan of George’s magic, which left a residual sparkling hum in his body for a few seconds. Seeming satisfied, Remus pocketed his wand and put his hands on George’s shoulders. “You don’t ever need to put yourself in that kind of danger for our research,” he said, his expression a mixture of relief and worry.
“Danger?”
Remus looked shocked. “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t scan the area at all?”
Fuck. No, he hadn’t. He’d run smack into the monolith and had gone straight into the circle without checking for evidence of other wizards first. “No. Fine. So I’m a bloody idiot,” George said, angry at himself. He shrugged Remus’s hands off of his shoulders. “Go ahead- tell me. I deserve it.”
“No, it’s not that,” Remus said, pulling George back to him and placing his narrow fingers at the base of George’s back. The wind shifted so the rain now hit them sideways. “Well, no, that wasn’t bright, but even without checking, given how much residual dark magic is in there, you must have felt something was wrong.”
George thought about how to answer while wiping some water out of his eyes.
“George,” Remus said softly, his concerned voice barely audible above the elements. “I should let you know that I’m able to tell if you’re not honest.”
“What, does being a werewolf make you a mind reader as well?” George had never lied to Remus, but this ability was rather disconcerting, no matter how much he cared for the other man.
“No. It’s a heightened sense of smell. It was nightmarish when I was younger, but I figured out ways to tune it down, as it were.”
“Remus?” George suddenly felt drained and somehow faded, as he had for several months after Fred had been killed. “Can we talk about this over a pint, maybe? I’m sick of being in the rain.”
“Of course.” Remus paused. “Selkie’s Swim?”
“Sounds brilliant.” George eked out a tentative smile.
With nearly simultaneous crack!ing sounds, they Apparated.
***
Once manifested in the alleyway behind the pub, George shook out his waterlogged coat. Remus took his chilled hands and placed them against George’s cheekbones, his thumbs cradling the younger man’s jaw, and kissed him soundly. They stood for a few moments as George allowed himself to enjoy the quiet intimacy of Remus’s lips on his, the gesture unexpected. George loved the way Remus kissed, the multitude of ways he was affected depending on what Remus did with lips, teeth and tongue; from a casual brushing of lips conveying greeting, to languorous explorations in heated mouths that seemed to turn his blood to fire and settle achingly in his cock. This particular kiss was one of satisfying completion, of being home. It was warming, but George still yearned to be inside and sheltered.
They drew apart.
“Thank you,” George said as they walked around to the front of the building and went into the pub. “Y’know,” he hesitated in the doorway, leaning back slightly into Remus’s chest and speaking so that only Remus could hear, “you’re a brilliant kisser.”
The sound of Remus’s contented rumbling behind him made George grin.
***
“I am very, very fond of you, you know,” Remus said a while later as they sat in their favourite booth in the back of the pub. It was the place where George had first dared to show Remus that he was attracted to the older man.
George took a pull on his pint. “Must say I’d hate not having you around as well,” he said, smiling, rubbing his hand briefly over Remus’s. “Now. About this smelling skill you have. What exactly are you on about?”
“It started in my adolescence. Puberty.” Remus winced. “I don’t want to bore you with all that, but it became apparent that I was much more sensitive to other students’ moods, and feelings. Different emotions smelled differently. Albus helped me to manage it, especially when I realised how invasive it was.”
George looked confused. “Invasive? You couldn’t ruddy help it, sounds like.”
“At first. But once it was manageable, I could choose whether or not to smell how someone was feeling.”
“Like knowing Legilimency,” George said, impressed.
“No, not nearly so sophisticated as that. The point is that I could choose to sniff around you and I would have a pretty clear idea of your emotional state, and you wouldn’t know. And you wouldn’t have given me permission to do so.”
George took another deep swig of ale, then placed the glass on the table. “So you’re saying that if I had come out of that standing circle and told you I’d never felt better, you could’ve turned on this sensing ability and known that I was lying through my teeth.”
“Something like that,” Remus said, then polished off his pint.
“Have you done that to me before?” George’s mind was whirling.
“Yes,” Remus admitted, his expression chagrined. “And I’m sorry I hadn’t told you until now. We’d been together over a year, though that doesn’t make it right.”
“It was that last day of term, wasn’t it?” George pieced together the heaviness of that particular afternoon when Remus had been helping him pack up his classroom. “When Malfoy-”
“Precisely.” Remus cut him off. “I couldn’t help myself; the mixture of sexual pleasure and guilt were radiating from you, but I forced myself to act as though I didn’t know. Which was why I was so grateful when you were honest.”
“I’ve never lied to you,” George said, plainly. “I’m a jokester, but bald-faced lying has never been my strong point. Well, unless I’m talking to Mum. But Fred was always more convincing.” He quirked his mouth. “All right. Try this.” He finished his pint as Remus raised an eyebrow. “I want us to go back to the Cleansweep and for you to shag me til I’m sore. True or false?”
Remus choked, then coughed a few times. Imposing a pseudo-serious look, he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.
“Well?” George demanded. He did, of course, want that to happen, and then to sleep for at least a day. And maybe take a hot bath. Hopefully with Remus there as well.
“I sense that you’re very tired, but there is a bit of desire mixed in,” Remus said, as a look of gratitude crossed his face. “Most of all, you want to be with me,” he continued, his voice warm with emotion. From across the table, Remus took George’s hand and caressed his fingers. “I know you’ve been through your share of tragedy, but you’re still young yet. And don’t argue with me until I’m finished, please,” he went on as George choked back the contradiction that had already leapt to his lips. “You can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be me, to be one of my kind, and be found desirable.” Remus spoke carefully to George’s chewed fingernails, focused on them as though they somehow held mysterious profundity in their brittle, teeth-bitten edges. “That it happened once defied imagination. Twice is, dare I say it, miraculous.”
George began to feel uncomfortably close to tears. “Well!” he said, enthusiastically, attempting to cover his deeper feelings. “Let’s go and get naked, shall we?”
“Let’s.”
no subject
you do a lovely job of exploring their relationship.
now, on to the rest
[*rushes off to read the next part eagerly*]
I'm so glad you like it!
Thanks for reading, my friend!!