Remus wakes early on his birthday, though it's been years since he's got more than a few small gifts from his mum, and those usually school things he needs anyway.

So when she hands him the guitar at breakfast, he's speechless.

"I saw you looking at them," she says. He flushes. He'd been coveting the Gibsons and Stratocasters, knowing they couldn't afford any such thing, even if he knew how to play. "Mr Brown offered to give you lessons."

"We can't --"

"You'll mow his lawn every week as payment."

He pulls her into a tight, one-armed hug, the guitar still in his other hand.

It's great, Mum. I love it." And he does, though it's second-hand, and has Grateful Dead decals stuck all over.

He takes it to school with him in September, and feels a small thrill when Sirius asks to learn how to play.

His fingers are calloused from the strings, frozen ropes that bit into his skin in a mixture of pleasure and pain that, when he lets the music overtake him, is more arousing than most anything else. He hides in closets, paying no heed to the irony, plucking old and worn tunes over the mellow wood.

On nights when he can get away, he slips out in the darkness and settles himself, closing his eyes as the music takes control. It comes out of him in waves and trickles, changing tempo, eluding words when he tries to put them to the melody. He sees the wolf behind his eyes, feels the pulse and beat like the pounding of the ground beneath his feet. He hears rhythm as it flies by like trees whipping in the wind. He taps an accompaniment with his foot that is the sound of his heartbeat as he speeds toward something he's been searching for all of his life.

It's exhausting and exhilarating all at once, made even more so the first night he closes his eyes and sees something else, someone else. He sees him with his blue-black hair hanging like a sheen of midnight, his gray eyes dancing with mischief as yet undefined. He sees warm skin and hard muscle and the spray of the shower when he shouldn't be looking. He plays until it hurts then sets the guitar aside and frees his cock, stroking it to the rhythm in his head until he comes, gasping in relief like he's never known.

He keeps it a secret for years, longer than he manages to hide his monthly problem. Perhaps because he doesn't come back bruised and bloody so much as sated and exhausted, ready to slide into his bed and sleep dreamlessly. He craves the feeling, addicted to the music and the need it brings, the release it gives. It's like an addiction building inside him and he tries to resist, but at the Great Hall, Sirius sits too close, leans too far in and brushes gigglefish cake crumbs from his thigh.

He slips out almost as soon as the lights have dimmed, knowing the risk and not caring. The guitar enlarges in his hand as he hurries, slipping down dark corridors he knows by pounding heart. The door shuts and he sits, feeling the hard rock of the wall against his back, the firm wood in his hand, the thick pulse of his arousal in his blood. The music begins and grows, swells and rises to new heights. It's almost visible in the air around him, lightening it until his head is swimming, until he can't breathe, until light bursts in the room like a candle hit by a lumos spell gone wrong.

And Sirius is there.

He's illuminated by the music and his face is awash in awe. Remus can't help but watch him, can't stop him as he walks over and sinks to his knees in from of Remus. His hands move, easing the guitar from Remus's grip and setting it aside with a reverence that Remus has never seen Sirius show before.

Then his hands move again and he's undoing the flies of Remus's pants, easing them over his erection and freeing it to the cool air of the castle. Remus gasps and tries to speak, his voice lost as Sirius bends his head and takes Remus's cock into his mouth, tasting it, savoring it like a fine wine.

It goes to his head like pumpkin juice that's chilled to the point of freezing, slamming into his skull like a cacophony, music come alive and rebelling, fighting the need to tame it into song. Sirius's head moves and his tongue slides against Remus's shaft and music becomes moans that fill the room in keys and chords that the guitar could never reach.

Sirius's hands stroke him and play him, plucking strings of desire that are pulled too tight, tuned right and wrong and in between and suddenly Remus comes, his voice crescendoing with the low lying beat of the guitar, playing accompaniment.

Sirius pulls back and smiles, feral and sweet, like a Doberman looking for approval. Remus leans back then pushes forward, pinning Sirius to the ground, feeling the hardness of Sirius's erection pressed against his thigh. The kiss needs rehearsal, it's wet and sloppy and confused but, like all new students, Sirius is eager to learn and eager to show off what he knows. They kiss until they can't breathe and then Remus sits up, panting as Sirius lies there beside him, looks up at him with glinting eyes and asks Remus to teach him how to play.