BALANCE
By Your Cruise Director

Before he reversed the simple locking spell and opened the door, Remus already knew what he would find inside. Sirius had grown careless about silencing charms, while Snape probably wanted Remus to overhear. It would have been more rational to have spoken to them both later -- or better yet, to have talked to Sirius alone, leaving Snape out of it -- but when Remus reached the top of the stairs and heard the noises emanating from Sirius' room, rationality was far from his mind. He was only glad that it was so many days before the full moon.

The sounds Snape was making were incoherent, but Sirius spoke very clearly between grunts. "You fucking chutney ferret. Gagging for it. Always knew you were a poof. Licking the end of my fuck stick like it's a Honeyduke's..."

Both men jerked their heads up to stare as Remus walked through the door. They were bent over Sirius' bed, facing the doorway: Sirius on all fours, wrists tied together, chafing around the tightly pulled cloth, and Snape behind him on his knees, prick buried in Sirius' body and wand aimed at his back, which was covered in mottled bruises. For a long time, it seemed, no one moved, not even to breathe. Then Sirius dove forward, trying to cover himself with a sheet, and spoke the most absurd words Remus had ever heard from him despite years of knowing Sirius and his particular forms of madness:

"This is not what it looks like!"

Turning to leave, Remus was accosted by Snape's sharp voice. "Lupin. He is telling the truth. This is not what it appears to be."

Hearing Severus and Sirius in agreement upon anything at all was so rare that Remus hesitated despite the circumstances, casting a glance behind. Snape had pulled away from Sirius, crawling forward to grab a blanket to wrap around himself, while Sirius sat back with the sheet covering his thighs and hips, babbling. "Moony -- wait! Please. Please listen."

Turning, Remus crossed his arms around himself, looking down at the floor rather than the grotesque spectacle of the two men on the bed...one a man he had loved since they were boys, the other someone he had never expected to find indulging in this particular form of entertainment. Had he discovered Snape with anyone else, it would have given him a kind of satisfaction; Severus had always seemed so terribly alone, and Remus had been too much of a coward to reach out to him even in the most superficial friendship after what had happened when they were both at Hogwarts. But to find Snape with Sirius...

It took all of Remus' will not to pull out his wand and start destroying random objects. Severus had risen to his feet, turning his back for long enough to tug the blanket around his entire body, though his bony shoulders and hips could be seen jutting through the weave. Sirius moved to the center of the bed, pushing the sheet up to his neck. His eyes were wide and miserable, and he cast an imploring look at Snape who reached down and began to untie his wrists as though touching something dirty. "Moony, please," begged Sirius. "You know what it was like in Azkaban. You know what the Dementors do. Any pleasure, any relief -- they take it. I couldn't let myself think about you, in there. And now I can't with you, you know that..."

Remus knew it all too well. They had tried, several times, since Sirius had returned, always with the same results: misery and frustration for them both. They'd almost managed it once when Sirius had been so angry at Remus' suggestion that he talk to a Healer that he'd managed to stay erect as he shoved Remus down on the bed, though once he realized how violent he had become, he became horrified with himself and pulled back despite Remus' protests.

"You can't with me, but you can with him." Remus' fingernails were poking small holes in his cardigan where his fingers dug into it. "All these months you've refused to let me touch you, when you said you didn't want to see if there was a potion, or some kind of spell...but you can with him."

"Don't you understand!" Sirius' interruption sounded very like scolding. "It has to be unpleasant! It has to hurt! This is not an act of love -- I can't do that any more! I goaded Snape into this because he's the only one I..."

With a quick glance at Snape, Sirius fell silent, but the Potions master finished his thought for him. "I'm the only one he loathes sufficiently to find the act repulsive enough."

The fabric around Sirius' wrists finally fell away and he shook them out, rubbing at the swollen red marks. "I can't hurt you, Moony, you know that," he pleaded. "I was going crazy trapped in this house...I suspected that Snape would jump at the chance to hurt me even if I asked him for it, and wouldn't you know it, he did..."

Remus couldn't look at Sirius' wide, pleading eyes. Instead he watched Snape, whose eyes were filled with loathing, but Remus didn't think it was directed at Sirius; it didn't seem to be directed outward. His hands were wrapped around his opposite forearms and Remus had the impression that he was hiding the mark burned into his skin.

"I didn't do it to hurt you," Severus spat at Sirius. "You knew what I was before I started. I cannot risk forging any connections, nor am I willing to put the Order at risk by consorting with strangers." His eyes shifted to Lupin's. "We relieved one another's needs, nothing more. It should be obvious that we are not," his face twisted in revulsion, "lovers."

"I suppose that makes it all right, then? I'm supposed to feel better because you hate each other?" Odd that Snape looked more ashamed than Sirius, whose beseeching eyes did not entirely distract from the defiant tilt of his chin. "Sirius, you've lied to me, you've deceived me..."

"Of course I deceived you! I knew how you'd judge this -- look at you! You can't know what it's like for me, you can't know how trapped..."

"Oh, of course not," interrupted Remus. "I wouldn't know anything about being confined, or restrained, or making myself hurt..."

"Silence," Severus raised his voice over the two of them. "This humiliating display serves no useful purpose." Walking past Remus, he gathered his clothes and turned toward the bathroom.

"Snivellus." There was a rare, ugly note of fear in Sirius' voice. "You won't try any of your usual nastiness like denying Remus his Wolfsbane..."

"I am not the one who has ever missed a month," Snape hissed furiously. "And now, Black, I am leaving," With surprising dignity he strode out of the room, still wrapped in Sirius' blanket.

"Remus," said Sirius; then, when Remus shut his eyes and shook his head at the rare formal use of his name, "Moony. You understand -- you have to. It has nothing to do with you, or with us."

"Then why did you let me find out this way, Sirius? No silencing charm, no proper lock on the door...even though you said you knew how I'd judge you."

"I was afraid!" Sirius' fingers knotted in the sheet he held around his body. "I didn't know how to tell you! I was guilty and I needed you to know the truth, but I was afraid you'd hate me! Moony, please!"

Suddenly Remus felt numb, as if an icy wind had blown away his anger and most other feeling. "I don't hate you, Padfoot," he said in a calm, quiet voice. "You befriended a werewolf and protected him for many years. I'm in no position to judge you. I forgive you."

The momentary relief on Sirius' face faded slowly as Remus continued to speak. "But nothing will ever be the same again, will it."

Picking up Sirius' clothes, Remus tossed them onto the bed, along with his wand. "I think we both know that nothing was the same already," he answered and walked out of the room.

When Snape encountered Lupin later in the library, the Slytherin nearly turned and walked out again. "Severus, wait," Remus called after him. Slowly the other man looked at him. "I'd like to talk to you."

"Spare me your condemnations, Lupin," Severus snarled, but he approached the sofa where Remus sat, scowling, as if he owed him that much.

"Condemnations serve no purpose," repeated Remus as stoically as he could. "I'm worried about you."

"Of course," retorted Snape. "Your concern is appreciated but I am not the one who seeks out ways to mutilate himself."

Remus forced himself not to flinch. "I don't believe you," he said. "If that was true, I wouldn't have found you with Sirius like that."

"I had an offer from a willing partner to make himself available for my use. What makes you think that the arrangement is not entirely suitable to me?"

"Because you're uncomfortable and unhappy. You stopped the moment I walked into the room -- you didn't complain at being interrupted, you didn't stick around and wait for me to leave. You're sorry about it, Severus -- you're not smug at having put one over on your old adversary."

Severus opened his mouth to protest, but whatever he had been going to say died on his lips. Stiffly, he sat on sofa, as far from Lupin as was possible. "I am not unhappy about what you witnessed," he announced somewhat defiantly.

"Because you wanted me to know. I understand that. But not so that you could gloat...were you looking for a reason to end it with him, Severus? If this is really what the two of you want, I'm not going to make trouble, so don't count on me to put a stop to it."

"It isn't a question of want," Severus replied. Remus waited, but he said no more.

"Why do you let him do this to you?" he asked finally. "I understand him -- all right, perhaps I shouldn't say that, but I know what Azkaban can do to a man. But you, Severus..." Words failed him, and he swallowed before asking again, "Why?"

Snape looked at him for a long, haunted moment. "I was a Death Eater, Lupin," he said in a scornful tone that did not quite disguise the misery in his voice. "I'm a murderer and a traitor. Striking out at the tormentor of my childhood is nothing to me."

"You truly don't have any feelings for Sirius?"

"Beyond loathing?" Snape looked at him again, mouth twisted into a sneer. "Oh, please, you aren't imagining that I have some sentimental attachment to Black, are you? I assure you, I have no tender feelings whatsoever where he is concerned."

"No, but I don't believe that you do this because you hate him. It requires too much control. It's entirely on his terms. Sirius is selfish -- I know it better than anyone."

"Nonetheless, he offered. The mutual benefits are..."

"...not as mutual as you pretend. It isn't as if he's your only option, not even within the Order, no matter what you said back there. I refuse to believe you hate yourself so much that you'd go to him only to torment yourself. There must be another reason you'd want him of all people -- my lover -- knowing that when I found out..."

Flinching, Snape looked away, and Remus felt a flare of triumph before he realized what it meant. "You did want to take him away from me," he accused. "Did it give you a thrill, knowing that you'd been there in my place? Is hurting the werewolf so important to you -- it wasn't enough to rob me of my post at Hogwarts?"

"I was a Death Eater," reiterated Snape as if he thought Lupin too stupid to recall it. "Do you truly believe that I would fear a werewolf now? Especially such a meek one as yourself? Black tried to use you to be rid of me, and you forgave him -- your lover, as you say..."

Things were slowly becoming clearer to Remus. "Wait," he interrupted. "It's not that I was a werewolf, or what I almost did to you, but that I loved Sirius." His stomach suddenly felt heavy. "I knew you had been curious. I thought you wanted to get me into trouble."

"Well, of course I wanted to get you into trouble."

"Were you jealous, Severus?" Silence answered him, but it also answered the question.

"I didn't know," said Remus finally, twisting his hands together. "I never considered it. At Hogwarts you treated me with such contempt, even though he'd gone to prison."

"You still loved him," Snape cut in, spitting the words as if they tasted foul. "You flinched every time anyone said his name. It made perfect sense that you were helping him get inside the castle. You never really believed that he was guilty, did you."

"Do you think I would have left him to rot in Azkaban if there had been any doubt whatsoever?" demanded Remus, his voice rising. "Even you wouldn't have done that!" Then he stopped, aghast. "Did you? As you keep reminding me, you were a Death Eater. Did you know the name of the spy...did you let Peter roam free and let Sirius go to prison for a crime of which you knew he was innocent, just to be rid of him?"

"Of course I didn't!" Snape's mouth was still twisted in a sneer. "For so long as I believed that he was guilty, I could never believe that you were innocent, could I? You would forgive Black for anything, wouldn't you -- I would have been a small sacrifice, even Potter would have been a small sacrifice. It's always been all about Sirius Black, hasn't it."

"That's not true." Remus was shaking. "You know I wouldn't have -- not James, and not you -- how can you say such things of me! How could you think such things!"

But Severus had seen Sirius at his worst, and Severus thought that was the Sirius whom Remus knew. Not the man who had befriended a lonely werewolf, but the one who had singled out a scrawny Slytherin to ridicule. How was Snape to know the Sirius whom Remus had known when the one he was with now reminded him of his own worst expectations?

Taking a deep breath, Remus tried to level his voice. "Listen," he began. "I want you to stop letting him hurt you."

"You have it backwards, Lupin. He doesn't hurt me -- I hurt him."

"Of course he hurts you. I don't mean in his bedroom. Whatever he asks you to do to him, I assume you have it under control. But you pay for it, don't you? At Order meetings, when you bring me Wolfsbane, any time the two of you happen to be in the same room. I know I don't speak, but I do see. He takes every opportunity to hurt you he can find."

"And now you want to protect me?" Snape's eyes were even narrower than usual in his pinched face and his voice was filled with scorn. "What a fool you must think me. Just as he does. Look at you. You're not shouting at him about being unfaithful, are you? No, you're putting the responsibility on me, because Black can't possibly be held responsible, can he? Black can be forgiven for anything, whereas I have always been guilty -- of what, Lupin, of having been sorted into Slytherin and becoming a better Potions student than either of you? Did that justify Black's behavior enough for a Prefect to have turned away? Or did you simply despise me as much as he did?"

"I never despised you." Remus swallowed, shaking his head. Apart from needing to be certain that Severus would never feel alienated from the Order, he needed Severus to witness his own muddled feelings. "You intrigued me. You were smart and you didn't seem to care what anyone else thought of you. I knew how awful they were to you but they were my friends. I have no excuses. But it wasn't that I disliked you, ever."

"You," hissed Severus contemptuously. "You let him hurt me when it was your responsibility to stop him. Now you want him to stop hurting me because you want him all to yourself again."

"It's got nothing to do with him. I'm obviously not what he needs."

"You wish you were." Snape's taunting sneer curled away. "I doubt you can imagine what it's been like. Sometimes I think it was easier to be a Death Eater and torture people I didn't know. But I've done it, and you should thank me -- it kept him sane and it spared you."

"Listen to me, Severus." Rising, Remus walked over to the other end of the sofa. Snape refused to look up, so he dropped to his knees, putting a hand on a black-clad thigh. Despite Snape's rigid control, Remus could feel him tremble. "You don't deserve this. Maybe I can't help him, maybe I can't spare him, but I don't want you to do this, for me or for anyone."

"I don't want your pity, Lupin!" The muscle under Remus' hand had gone rigid. "I chose this."

"But you don't want him. And he doesn't want you -- he uses you. Knowing him, he hates you all the more because you let him."

"What are you suggesting? That I turn down his offer because it isn't wholesome?"

Remus took another deep breath, mustering his courage. "Have me instead."

"I won't be your revenge, werewolf!"

"I don't want you to be!" Remus took a deep breath, forcing himself to lower his voice -- that insult had been in self-protection. "Severus -- if what's been keeping us apart is Sirius, don't you see how this changes things?" He stopped for a breath. "I've done everything I can to be what he needs, and I can't be. Now I want something different."

Severus only looked at him, straight into his eyes, not bothering to disguise his attempt to search out the lie in Lupin's mind. It was a victory, thought Remus, that Snape did not even make a token effort to claim that Remus was not what he wanted. "Why?" he asked finally.

"I thought you hated what I am. Or maybe it was easier to believe that than to think you hated me for what I'd done to you, with Sirius and James. I can't take that back, but if you don't hate me...if there's a chance for us to be something to each other more than what we are, I want it."

"Then this is all just an attempt to redress the past, as you believe I am doing with Black."

"Not the past. It's the future I want to be different."

"And why should I believe you won't hurt me?"

Remus felt his breath catch. This was the most vulnerable he had ever seen Snape -- far more than he had looked, naked and miserable, in Sirius' bedroom. "Maybe you can't," he said slowly. "Maybe the only thing that can prove that is time. And...maybe we won't be able to help hurting each other at first. But I'd take that chance. I'm tired of trying to live in the past." Snape closed his eyes, and Remus whispered, "I want to be with you.

"And Black? You're just going to abandon him?"

"Of course not, and neither are you." Severus' expression grew wary again. "I think we can help him better together than apart. The Order needs him, and I owe that to him. But, Severus, that is not why I want to do this. This is about you and me and the things we can fix between us."

The tense thigh muscle beneath his hand had relaxed, though it twitched occasionally as if Severus was trying to keep his guard up. Remus squeezed gently, rubbing his hand up and down. He could sense Snape's arousal and also his uncertainty. "I'm not a vicious monster," he promised. "I always tried to live as the opposite."

"A quiet man with gentle hands."

As soon as Severus spoke, he appeared as shocked by his words as Remus was to hear them. "Yes," he agreed, stroking Snape's leg again. "Sirius is right -- I can't touch him the way he needs. But I think you need something else. And I can...and I want to. Will you let me try?"

So much pain crossed Snape's face that for a moment Remus was certain he would say no, but the dark-haired wizard's hand fell over his own, sliding his fingers around the knuckles to grip his palm hard. "Try," he repeated. It might have been an expression of doubt, an order or a plea.

Remus' joints were getting stiff, crouched in front of Severus. Holding his hand for support, he pulled himself up, leaning in to brush a kiss over his forehead. He felt Severus' face turn up sharply and took the invitation, bending his head to bring his mouth to the other man's.

"He's never done that," said Severus, who then reached up to put his arms around Remus' neck. "Black. He never kissed me."

Drawing Remus closer, he kissed him long and searchingly. Returning both the kiss and the embrace, Remus let his weight bring him down to the sofa at Severus' side. "Everything's going to be different now," he promised. "For you, and for me."

They did not move for a long time. They were hardly in a place to explore one another, on the couch in Grimmauld Place where other members of the Order might have entered at any moment, yet despite that, Severus seemed as reluctant to separate as was Remus. When eventually they heard Molly enter and announce her presence, which set Mrs. Black's portrait into a lengthy, screeching tirade about blood traitors, Remus winced and squeezed Snape's shoulder before letting go.

"I have to talk to him," he said. "You know that. I can't just leave him up there thinking he's alone."

Severus' expression tightened but he nodded, not meeting his eyes. "And I must return to Hogwarts."

"Stay for supper."

"You know that I never..."

"Stay for supper. I'll tell Molly -- you know she'll be happy to have you. I'm asking you, as a favor, to me. Will you stay?"

The narrow lips tightened, but after a moment Snape nodded, and Lupin bent to kiss him again as he stood. "Thank you," he whispered. "We'll talk more in the evening, when the others have retired. Right now I'm going to get Sirius."

As tempted as he had been to leave it for another day, to let his own feelings sort themselves out and avoid any possible confrontation, he knew he had no choice but to return to the dark, unhappy room past the screaming painting. This time he knocked on the door before pushing it open, but the room was empty, and he knew where Sirius must have gone.

The door to Mrs. Black's room was shut but not locked. In a corner, absently petting the head of the hippogriff who was nudging and pawing at the floor near him, Sirius sat in his prison clothing, looking nearly as gaunt and shattered as that evening in the Shrieking Shack, the first time Remus had seen his long-ago lover since Sirius had entered Azkaban.

"Why didn't you burn those?" he asked, horrified.

"Don't know." Without looking at him, Sirius continued to move his hand hypnotically over Buckbeak's feathered head. "I never really believed that I was free -- I always knew they could catch me and put me back. Seemed better to keep something familiar."

"Then why are you wearing them now?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Sirius barked a short laugh. "I'm still there, Moony. I don't need the Dementors around me. They're inside me. I'm just going to die in this prison instead of that one." Bowing to Buckbeak as he approached, Remus circled around until he could sit beside Sirius. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't even mean to hurt Snivellus, even though he deserves it. But that's all I have left."

"Shut up, Padfoot," said Remus vehemently; he knew a gentle, loving tone would only increase Sirius' despair. "You always fought for things. You fought all the stupid rules at school. You fought your parents. You fought Voldemort, and when you were wrongfully imprisoned you fought until you broke out of a prison no one's ever escaped before. When you found out what I was and what it did to me, you even fought that -- you went and found a way to make me able to stand it. When did you stop fighting?"

"Maybe I'm tired." And Sirius sounded it -- weak, diminished, as if he couldn't bear to struggle any more. "I know what you're going to say -- that you'd fight with me -- but it's too late. I'm just trying to hang on because of Harry."

"At least we agree on that." Leaning his head back, Remus shut his eyes. He was suddenly very tired, too -- he understood why Sirius found it exhilarating to fight with Snape, to fuck Snape, even if it hurt them both in either case. "Listen to me. I will help you any way I can. I'd fight for you if I could, but I can't. So you have to keep fighting. You can't quit on me now."

Sirius let out an odd croaking laugh. "You can't actually want to share this prison. Loyalty doesn't run that deep. I'm sorry I hurt you, but I couldn't help it and I'll probably do it again. You should get out."

"And go where? No, I have no money, I have no job -- I'm afraid you're stuck with me." The haunted eyes looked over at him as Remus smiled, until, finally, the ghost of a smile crossed Sirius' face. "You're just going to have to share the house. And your screaming mother. And even Snape."

"You want to share Snape?" Disgust crowded out the misery on Sirius' face, changing slowly to astonishment, then a kind of blazing jealousy. This did not distress Remus, oddly enough; it gave him a kind of hope. "Snivellus? And you? Moony, you can't be that desperate!"

"As desperate as you, you mean?" There was a kind of revolted fascination on Sirius' face, hardly a warm expression, but vastly preferable to the bludgeoned misery of a few minutes before. Clambering to his feet, Remus glanced down at him. "Severus doesn't look so bad these days. And look at you in your Azkaban finest. You are going to change for supper, aren't you?"

"I don't want any..." Sirius started to say, but Remus cut him off.

"He's staying."

"What?" Now Sirius simply looked horrified. "Snape never stays for meals!"

"He's staying for this one. I invited him. I suggest you come downstairs in the next ten minutes or we'll have started without you."

"It sounds like you already started without me," growled Sirius as Remus reached out a hand to help him stand. His expression was angry, bitter, but at least it wasn't resigned. "Snivellus. I'm not pretending that I don't deserve it, but you aren't doing this just to punish me? Or yourself? Or even him?"

"I'm doing it," Remus stopped, swallowed. "To save us. All of us." Yanking on Sirius' arm, Remus tugged him to his feet, bringing them very close to one another, and he put his arms impulsively around his oldest friend. "We have to get through this," he said hoarsely. "All of us. Too much is...we have to."

Sirius' back had knotted under his hands, but slowly his hands rose to clutch at Remus' clothing. "I know, Moony," he said nearly inaudibly.

When they stepped out of the room, Snape was striding up the corridor with a pinched expression on his face. "There you are," he said coldly. "The Weasleys asked me to tell you that supper is on the table. I see that you've dressed for the occasion, Black."

"I wore it in your honor, Snape," Sirius snapped irritably. "Seeing as those buttoned-up things are the only clothes you own."

"At least they're clean." Snape wrinkled his nose, setting off down the hallway. Sirius followed, opening his mouth to strike back, just as they might have done a hundred times before. And maybe, thought Remus, there was some hope after all.