
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/79232.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_Rowling
  Relationship:
      Sirius_Black/Remus_Lupin
  Character:
      Sirius_Black, Remus_Lupin, James_Potter, Peter_Pettigrew, Lily_Evans
  Additional Tags:
      Christmas, First_Time
  Series:
      Part 2 of The_Potions_Series
  Stats:
      Published: 2005-12-16 Words: 4015
****** Stripping Solution ******
by Ineffabilitea
Summary
     In which James pulls off a Christmas prank, Remus writes a note,
     Sirius reads it, and Peter indulges in schadenfreude.
Two days after the kiss he had shared with Sirius, Remus was once again in the
Gryffindor common room studying Herbology. But he was finding it supremely hard
to focus, as his mind kept wandering back to that very kiss. He was just about
to give up and move (reluctantly) to the library, so he could actually
concentrate on his work, when James clomped down the stairs.
"Moony! How's the studying going?"
"Not so well," Remus admitted.
"Y'know, you haven't been yourself for the past few days. You and Sirius both.
Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey. You look like a Pepper-up Potion would
do you a world of good."
What would do me a world of good, thought Remus, is kissing Sirius again. To
James, he merely replied, "Oh, I'm sure it'll pass on its own. What are you up
to this fine evening?"
"Just putting the finishing touches on my prank for Sirius. It starts tomorrow
at breakfast."
"Oh? What have you come up with to rival the Snogging Nog?"
"It was pretty hard finding something to match it, that's for sure. I had to
scrap my original idea entirely. But I finally came up with just the right
thing." James paused and glanced suspiciously from side to side, as if he
expected Sirius to be lurking in a corner. "I'm going to slip some Stripping
Solution in his pumpkin juice at breakfast."
"I thought the point was that you weren't pranking each other?"
"I take it you've never heard of Stripping Solution, eh?"
"No, but it sounds foul."
"What makes you say that?"
Remus realized that he was thinking of Muggle paint stripper, a connection his
pureblood friend was unlikely to have made. "Never mind. You're right, I've
never heard of Stripping Solution. What does it do?"
"Such a sheltered life you lead, Moony. Here, just look at the bottle." James
reached into his bag and pulled out a small glass bottle. The label proclaimed
it to contain "Sexy Sindi's Stripping Solution." It also prominently featured a
blonde, doe-eyed witch, presumably Sindi herself, performing a provocative
striptease.
"Oh, that kind of stripping," replied Remus, hoping against hope that he wasn't
blushing. "Since you claim this isn't a prank on Sirius, I take it that it
doesn't make the one who imbibes it do the stripping." Which was really too
bad, in a way. He forced himself to focus on James' explanation of the
Stripping Solution, shoving aside visions of Sirius slowly, teasingly,
loosening his tie, licking his lips ever so tantalizingly as he unbuttoned
first one button, then another and another…
Ahem. Shoving those visions aside.
"No, indeed. Just one spoonful of this in his morning beverage and Sirius will
be seeing other people naked all day long. And they'll never know. The potion
just lets the person who drinks it see through their clothes, it doesn't make
them actually take them off."
"Prongs, I'm not sure how that's any better. I mean, a day spent seeing people
like Snape and McGonagall and Filch and Dumbledore naked doesn't sound like
much of a present to me."
"Read the back label. They put certain restrictions on the potion. So the only
people Sirius'll see naked are those he's attracted to. That hopefully rules
out all those you mentioned, though I have my doubts about McGonagall."
Remus had to admit that this did indeed sound like the perfect prank for
Sirius, and he told James as much. But then another thought occurred to him.
"Prongs, why're you giving this stuff to Sirius? I'd think you'd want to use it
yourself, for Lily."
James gave him a sly look. "What makes you think I haven't?"
===============================================================================
Remus was safely ensconced in the library and in the midst of his
Transfiguration homework when the full implications of James' gift to Sirius
hit him. If this Stripping Solution made Sirius see people he was attracted to
naked, then if, if Sirius was attracted to him, Sirius would see him naked!
For a moment, Remus wasn't sure whether he should thank Prongs or kill him.
This was his chance to find out how Sirius felt about the kiss; all he had to
do was wait for Sirius' reaction to him after he drank the Stripping Solution.
But on the other hand, if Sirius could see him naked, it could make for a
rather awkward day. Not that Remus was entirely opposed to the idea - far from
it. But he had always assumed that he'd have some control over the
circumstances when and if he and Sirius did anything that involved seeing each
other naked. That was another thing - the 'each other' part. It wasn't fair
that Sirius would get to see him, but not vice-versa! He could ask James for
some Stripping Solution of his own, but he'd want an explanation, and Remus
wasn't ready to give him one.
Merlin, he hadn't thought about James and Peter! Since Remus would be sitting
right across the table from Sirius at breakfast, he'd likely be the first
person Sirius saw under the effects of the potion. And if he said anything
about Remus' sudden and mysterious lack of clothing, James and Peter would know
right away what it meant. Remus wasn't entirely sure how they'd react to that.
Even though two boys who had cheerfully accepted his lycanthropy were unlikely
to have an absolutely negative reaction to the idea of Sirius (and Remus) being
interested in boys as well as girls, it would come as quite a shock all the
same, especially revealed in such a way. And even if that didn't bother them,
they were bound to be weird about the fact that they were all friends, and
Remus hardly could blame them for that. He sometimes worried about that himself
- would he really want to have Sirius at the expense of the friendship he had
with all the Marauders? And finally, even if they were okay with all that, they
would still be bound to tease him and Sirius mercilessly, just as he and Sirius
and Peter (well, sometimes Peter) teased James about Lily.
So, how to go about finding out if Sirius was attracted to him (thanks to the
Stripping Solution) without tipping James and Peter off if he was? Remus
squandered an entire half-hour that could have been better spent on
Transfiguration before coming up with what he felt was a workable plan. All it
required was a ball-point pen - for this purpose, a quill just wouldn't do.
===============================================================================
The next morning, Remus came down for breakfast a little late, but apparently
he hadn't missed anything. As he sat down, he saw James slip him a wink and
pour the Stripping Solution into Sirius' pumpkin juice while Peter kept him
distracted with questions about the best way to transfigure a tomato into a
Quaffle for a quiz that day. Remus tried to remain calm as Sirius finished
explaining, turned and drained his pumpkin juice in one gulp.
Sure enough, Sirius immediately narrowed his eyes and gave Remus a most
peculiar look. "Moony," he began, but then stopped and stared at Remus' chest.
Oh good, his plan was working. Sirius seemed to come to himself and realize
that his sentence needed finishing, as he transferred his gaze from Remus'
chest to his face, then continued, "er, how you doing, mate? Lovely day, isn't
it?"
"Yes, quite," Remus replied, as calm as could be. If he had to walk around all
day with the knowledge that Sirius could see him naked, he at least wanted to
make Sirius squirm a little, too. And at the moment, with the table hiding most
of him from Sirius' view, it was pretty easy to act nonchalant.
Lily Evans chose that moment to approach the Marauders' spot at the table - a
most unusual occurrence. James looked up hopefully, and Sirius - Sirius winked
at Remus while James was distracted and then turned his attention to Lily. Oho,
Remus thought, if that's the game he wants to play, it's on his head.
"Don't look so pathetically expectant, Potter, I still haven't forgiven you for
the snogging incident."
"I told you, Evans - that was Sirius."
"Well, if he was involved, you were too. Might as well be Siamese twins, the
way you work in tandem. Don't think I don't know that."
"Well, Lily," interjected Sirius, fixing her with a penetrating leer and
managing to add whole new levels of suggestiveness to the two syllables of her
name as he said it. He was so convincing Remus began to wonder if he really
could see Lily naked, thanks to the Stripping Solution. "If you didn't come by
to give in and put James out of his misery, what brings you to our end of the
table?" He quirked one perfect eyebrow in that maddeningly sexy way he had.
Lily stared back at him coolly. "What's with you today, Black? Anyway, I
couldn't help but overhear Peter asking about the Transfiguration quiz, and the
wand movement you were demonstrating wasn't quite correct. I came by to offer
to help him, if he'd like."
"That's very nice of you to offer, Lily. Not now, I don't think, but maybe we
could meet outside the room before class and practice then?" Peter always had
the best nose for when trouble was about to break, and he clearly didn't want
to miss the Stripping Solution fallout.
"Sure. I'll see you then, Peter. See you, Potter, Black, Remus."
Sirius continued to watch her as she made her way out of the Great Hall, quite
obviously staring at her arse. When she was out of view, he turned deliberately
to James, who had been watching him watch Lily and turning vaguely purple, and
said, "Stripping Solution in the pumpkin juice, Prongs? Well, thanks for the
present. It's already provided me with an amazing view." But as James sputtered
incoherently and tried manfully to restrain himself from attacking him, while
Peter watched them both gleefully from over his toast, Sirius turned to Remus
and winked again. Oh god, he thought, does he mean me?
"Come along, Moony. Prongs looks like he needs time to recover himself, but
we'll be late to Charms if we don't get going." Before Remus had really thought
about it, he had stood up to follow Sirius. He flushed and suppressed a strong
urge to sit back down. Sirius will be able to see you naked all day long, he
told himself, you can't avoid it forever. The best course was definitely to
brazen it out, since he didn't want James and Peter to think anything out-of-
the-ordinary was going on between him and Sirius. He started to accompany
Sirius out of the Great Hall, trying to put all thoughts of nudity out of his
head. He hoped it would get easier as the day went on.
They were halfway down the table when Sirius turned to him and, looking him up
and down with a sideways glance, said, "Oops! I think I forgot my quill back at
the table. Go on ahead without me - you wouldn't want to be late for class.
I'll catch up."
Remus couldn't remember Sirius having a quill out at the table, but if he
wanted to go look, fine. If Remus walked to Charms by himself, he wouldn't have
to spend the whole time thinking about how Sirius could see his bits, and
resisting the urge to walk everywhere with his books strategically placed. He
was just starting to relax at that realization, when another suddenly hit him,
and he didn't have to turn around to know that Sirius was now staring at his
arse just as avidly as he had Lily's.
===============================================================================
The rest of the day passed far more quickly than Remus would have anticipated,
although it had its moments. He was devoutly thankful that he sat behind Sirius
in most of their classes. Sirius did keep turning around to glance at him, but
that would've happened anyway, what with all the whispering and note-passing
Sirius usually did in class. And at first he had tried touching him a lot more
than usual - just pokes and slaps on the back, nothing too out of the ordinary
- but feeling Remus' robes when he could see only skin must have been
disorienting, because he stopped after awhile.
In general, Remus thought Sirius had done a much better job than he would have
at behaving normally on a day when he could see everyone he was attracted to
naked. Granted, he disappeared briefly after every single class, causing much
snickering from James and Peter, but you could hardly blame him for needing to
relieve the tension, as it were. And to Remus, who had special reason to pay
attention, he wasn't making it particularly obvious whom he could see naked. He
supposed that Sirius didn't want to get caught in the midst of a prank that
could get him in a great deal of trouble, so was trying to be subtle, but Remus
couldn't help but fancy that some of the discretion was for his sake, that
Sirius didn't want to make him jealous. He continued to leer at Lily all
morning, taking delight in the obvious frustration it caused James, which burst
out as a furious, but whispered (lest Lily or anyone else hear about the prank)
row at lunch. After that, Sirius pointedly ignored Lily, and James was much
calmer. In Transfiguration, Remus noticed that Sirius kept his eyes everywhere
but on McGonagall, and recalled James' suspicions.
After classes had finished, James and Peter talked Sirius into accompanying
them down to the Quidditch pitch to watch Ravenclaw practice. There were some
very fit girls on the Ravenclaw team, and James and Peter no doubt thought
Sirius would enjoy seeing some of them flying about naked. Remus retreated to
the library, where the afternoon and early evening passed in a blur of
distracted studying and anticipation. He had expected to find spending a whole
day around Sirius knowing that he could see him naked embarrassing; he hadn't
realized that it would also be so arousing, once he got used to the idea. Every
time Sirius looked at him, he had flushed, remembering that not only did he
want Sirius, Sirius wanted him back, and the proof was in the Stripping
Solution.
After dinner, Remus moved his studying to the common room, where he was joined
by James and Peter, though Sirius was nowhere to be seen. Peter was still
fretting over the Transfiguration quiz, so Remus went over the theory behind
plant transformations yet again. Eventually James, who had been yawning more
and more over his Potions essay, went to bed.
Peter was clearly frustrated by his lack of progress. Soon after James left, he
too started packing his parchment and quill away. "Gosh, it's late. Are you
coming up, Moony?" he asked as he got up from the table they were studying at.
"Nah," Remus replied, "I'd like to get this Runes essay finished." Briefly, he
wondered where Sirius was.
He didn't have to wonder for long; as soon as Peter was up the stairs and out
of sight, Sirius pulled off James' Invisibility Cloak and revealed himself to
be sitting in one of the couches by the fire.
"Hey there, Moony!"
Remus nearly jumped out of his seat. "When'd you get here? Were you under
James' cloak the whole time? Does James know you have the cloak?"
"He loaned it to me willingly once I apologised about Lily. I told him the
Stripping Solution had inspired me, so he probably thinks I'm in the Astronomy
Tower with some girl. But don't act so surprised to see me, Moony. After all,
you're the one who invited me." He patted the seat beside him, and Remus came
and joined him on the couch. "Pretty clever idea, that, writing a note to me on
your chest. Must've been hard to do with a quill."
"That's why I didn't use a quill, I used a Muggle pen. Still took quite a
while, though." He had had to spend an extra fifteen minutes in the bathroom
that morning, painstakingly inking -
     'Pads- If you can see this, don't say anything. Stripping Solution in
     the pumpkin juice. –Moony
     P.S. Meet me in the common room after Prongs and Wormtail leave.'
It was hard to write on his own chest, and looking in the mirror only made it
harder. "I figured that if, well, you were…interested, you wouldn't want James
and Peter to figure it out, at least not that way, so I thought a note where
only you could see it, and then only if the Stripping Solution worked, would be
best."
"If the Stripping Solution worked? So you weren't sure it would?"
"Of course I wasn't sure," Remus snapped. "You kissed me once and then ran
away, and you've been acting funny around me since then. That could mean any
number of things."
Sirius looked suitably chastened. "I'm sorry, Moony, it was just…it's scary,
isn't it? I mean, you're my friend, and you're a bloke, and I didn't quite
understand why I was feeling the way I did about you, and then I kissed you and
- I was wrong, Moony."
"Wrong about what?"
"About kissing. I thought I'd had good kisses with other people, girls I didn't
particularly care about, but that kiss with you - they were nothing like that."
Sirius leaned in close, and Remus could feel his breath on his ear. "I'd never
had a good kiss until I kissed you."
What response could Remus give to that but to kiss him again? When their lips
finally parted once more, he pressed his forehead against Sirius' and said,
softly, "You're right."
"Right about what?"
"It is scary. I mean, less scary now that I know you feel the same way, but I'm
worried, too, about staying friends with you if we try this and it doesn't
work, and about how James and Peter will take it, if we even tell them. And…"
"And what, Moony?"
"And, well," Remus took a deep breath and said the rest of what he had to say
very quickly, before he could chicken out. "I've never really done more than
kissing and I think I want to do more with you but I'm not entirely sure how
and I don't think I'll be any good at it."
That made Sirius chuckle. He kissed Remus on his forehead, and then on the tip
of his nose, and said, "Well, I'm hardly an expert on these matters myself, at
least between two blokes. But we can figure it out, just like we'll figure out
how to do this and be friends, too, and how to tell James and Peter when we're
ready. We can take it nice and slow. Except…"
"Except what?"
"Except I've been able to see you naked all day and you're still naked right
now and if we don't do something I think I might die. Just this once, please,
Moony? Then we'll go back to slow."
Remus remembered how it had felt to have Sirius' eyes on him all day, knowing
what Sirius could see, and found he too was definitely interested in 'doing
something'. "Well," he said, licking his lips nervously, "I hate to admit it,
but I never did get you a Christmas present, so perhaps I do owe you something.
What did you have in mind?"
"Could I just touch you? And maybe you could touch me, too? I reckon that's a
good place to start."
"Okay." Remus nodded. "Okay."
They kissed some more, but it gradually turned awkward; Remus could tell Sirius
was as nervous about what they were going to do as he was, and that made him
feel a bit better. He moved his hand from where it had been resting on Sirius'
thigh to press it against the bulge at his crotch. Encouraged by the soft moan
Sirius uttered into his mouth, he rubbed his hand up and down the length of it.
There was no need to be nervous, really, he thought; it would be just like
doing it to himself.
Then Sirius moved his hand to press against him, and he realized this was
nothing like doing it to himself - it was exponentially better than that. He
moaned and thrust instinctively into the touch just as Sirius groaned and
pulled away from the kiss.
"Fuck, Moony, I just - I can see you, but I can't feel you, and it's driving me
mad."
Of course. Remus briefly considered reaching for the Invisibility Cloak, but
settled for crossing his fingers and hoping no one came down into the common
room in the next few minutes. Judging from how he was feeling, this probably
wouldn't take that long. "Feel free," he said, and undid the fly of Sirius'
trousers, then boldly slipped his hand into Sirius' boxers. The noise Sirius
made when he wrapped his hand around the hard shaft was so arousing - not to
mention the fact that oh my god he was touching Sirius, something he'd wanted
to do for months - he worried that he might come right then before Sirius could
return the favour.
Sirius had soon undone his fly, too, and managed, somewhat awkwardly, to pull
down his pants a little (I should really look into some boxers, Remus thought).
"I've been wanting to do this all day," he panted, as he gripped Remus firmly.
"You're so fucking hard."
"So are you," Remus replied, and then there was no more talking. It felt much
better than doing it to himself, but the principle of the thing was the same,
he found, and just as he had suspected, it wasn't too long before Sirius let
out a sort of strangled yelp as he came. The feel of that wetness all over his
hand was enough to send Remus over the edge, too.
For a minute they just sat there in front of the fire, recovering. Remus was
the first to break the silence. "So, Happy Christmas, Padfoot. Did you like
your present?"
"Best I've ever received. Better than James' Stripping Solution, although it's
a close second. Y'know, I didn't get you a Christmas present either, Moony, so
I guess this could be yours too?"
"It really is the best gift ever. Beats books and chocolate by a mile. And more
than that, I get the feeling it's a gift that keeps on giving."
"I suspect you're right about that, because I know I want to do this every
chance we get."
Remus gave him another kiss, then asked, "Could you really see Lily? With the
Stripping Solution, I mean?"
"Nah, I just wanted to get at Prongs. Plus, I had to make it clear it was
working without bringing you into it."
"What about McGonagall?" Remus inquired, unable to help himself.
Sirius looked shamefaced and muttered something only vaguely comprehensible
about Regulus' nanny and demanding women who wore tweed, and Remus decided not
to pursue the subject further. He snuggled up against Sirius and said, "I want
to spend every Christmas like this."
"With your pants half undone in a room that someone could walk into at any
second?"
"No," Remus replied hastily, but he did do up his fly. "I meant curled up in
front of a fire with you."
Sirius looked amazed but happy to hear that. He kissed Remus once more, sweetly
and gently this time, and then said, "You're right. This is the perfect way to
spend Christmas. In fact, it makes me want to sing, I'm so happy." And with one
final swift kiss to the tip of Remus' nose, he burst out into song as he pulled
Remus up from the couch and led him towards the stairs.
"Werewolf toasty by an open fire, Padfoot nipping at his toes, Yuletide carols
with lyrics that are dire, and bed-curtains charmed with Silencios…"
This time, Remus couldn't help but join in. "Everybody knows, an Animagus and
some mistletoe help to make the season bright…"
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