They had reached the top of the first flight of stairs before he'd taken hold of her face. They stood there now, his eyes hooded but focused on her. He was speaking. "Narcissa Black. Does it truly calm you down, when I touch you? That's what you said, after the Bowtruckle, in the forest." His hands repositioned themselves on her face, pushing her hair back, cradling her cheeks, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones.
                          
Her eyelids fluttered and her mouth slipped open, her breath catching, not calming down in the least. "What are you on about?" she managed to say. She meant to sound sharp, annoyed at this drunken candor. But her voice was small and too full of breath.
                          
His face was close, his expression sweet and silly, a little sad. His hands on her face were clumsy but tender, and the light stroking of his fingers against her skin was running ahead of them, revealing what neither of them had ever said to each other.
                          
Still holding his torso, she cleared her throat and shook her head out of his hands. "Now's not the time to talk about any of that," she said, walking him across the corridor to the moving staircase leading to Gryffindor tower.
                          
"Your heartbeat," he was saying as he scuffed over the floor, his attention still fixated solely on her. "Since that day in the forest, I've been able to hear it when you're close, like now. Soft, below everything else."
                          
Her pulse surged as he said it, and maybe it was just a coincidence that as it did, Remus's chest rumbled with laughter. But her answer was a scoff. "That's ridiculous," she said. "Think about it, Lupin. It's not like you're hearing it right now."
                          
His arm crossed in front of himself, his hand finding her shoulder, long fingers pointing down her back, and the heel of his hand over a pulse, high on her chest, almost at her heart itself. He lowered his mouth toward the crown of her head and sang it's rhythm to her.
                          
"Da dum da dum da dum..."
                          
And in her ears, below Remus's voice, she heard the sound of his heart, low and lazy with drunkenness.
                          
"How are you doing that?" she said. "I'd expect it from Moony but - "
                          
His head snapped up. "I am Moony. Remus and Moony. Lupin, like you call me. Both. I am always both of them, when there's you."
                          
It was rambling madness, not at all a confession. But it felt like one all the same. Narcissa stood under Remus's arm, his hand on her shoulder, her face turned up to his, shocked, confused.
                          
He himself was distracted, deliberately stubbing the toe of his shoe against the step where they stood waiting. "Why aren't the stairs moving?"
                          
She shook herself. "Oh, that must be me. Maybe they don't let Slytherins up after curfew."
                          
Remus fumbled in his cloak for his wand.
                          
"Lupin, no. No wands when you're - "
                          
But he was already waving it at the stairs. "Let the girl up-io," he called.
                          
She laughed, but to her surprise, it worked. The stone was shifting, grating its way toward the tower entrance. Stupid Gryffindor spells.
                          
At the sound of her laughter, Remus watched her, struck by her real, not smug, not sly smile in the torchlight. The low nighttime lights lit her usually white skin with a golden glow, her eyes made dark and sparkling. Her hands were on him, the contours of her body pressed into his side, tucked under his arm, warm and soft, as if she was loveable, even for him.
                          
But it wasn't true - not true enough. It was a cruel thought, and it changed everything - his posture, his expression, his voice as he groaned, as if suffering, and closed both his arms around her, turning her from being at his side to his front, standing face to face. He reeked of expensive liquor but she was turning her face up to his all the same.