The air in the abandoned third-floor corridor was thick with dust and the scent of old stone, a silence so profound it felt weighted. Deep within the castle's labyrinthine hallways, far from the hustle of classrooms and the scrutiny of professors, Remus Lupin was pinned against the cold stone wall, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. Sirius Black, all sharp angles and dangerous intensity, was leaning into him, one hand braced beside Remus's head, the other tucked beneath his robes, tracing the line of his spine beneath his shirt. Their lips were locked in a desperate, bruising kiss, a sudden, urgent explosion of weeks of carefully contained tension. Remus's shirt was rumpled, the thin fabric a poor barrier against the heat of Sirius's palm.
Sirius broke the kiss, his eyes—dark and dilated—burning into Remus's. His smile was a cocky, breathless challenge. He pushed his hand up, his fingers brushing the sensitive skin under Remus's ribs.
Remus gasped, a sudden, sharp intake of air, and pushed against Sirius's chest. "Sirius, wait. We shouldn't. Not here."
Sirius lowered his head, trailing a searing line of kisses down Remus's neck. "Relax, Moony. No one ever comes here. Not even the ghosts." His hand tightened on Remus's waist, pulling him flush against his body. "Besides, I'll be quick. Just a taste now, and the rest when we get back to the dorm tonight."
Remus swallowed hard, the sound loud in the quiet hallway. He looked around the dusty, forgotten space, his eyes wide and uncertain. "Are you sure, Sirius? Absolutely sure no one will come?"
Sirius pulled back just enough to look Remus in the eyes, his voice a low, reassuring rumble. "Of course, I'm sure. Now, where were we?" He leaned in, but before their lips could meet, a bizarre, loud sound ripped through the silence.
It was a strange, muffled, high-pitched WAAAAAAAAH! noise, like someone screaming while simultaneously sliding down a metal chute. Remus and Sirius instantly broke apart, eyes snapping to the source of the noise. They looked up and down the empty corridor until a plain, non-living portrait of a dour-looking medieval knight suddenly swung inward like a door, revealing a smooth, dark hole in the stone wall behind it.
WHOOMPH!
With a sound like a wet sack hitting the floor, a figure tumbled out of the hole, landing in a tangled heap on the stone. It was Echo, dizzy and disoriented, trailed by a chaotic plume of his pets.
Sniffles the Niffler, his blue fur ruffled, landed on Echo's head. Shimmer the Demiguise, looking extremely annoyed, sprang off Echo's shoulder and landed in a defensive crouch a few feet away. Nugget the Cockatrice, his two heads shaking in irritation, landed squarely on Remus's foot.
Echo pushed himself up onto his elbows, shaking his head and blinking his violet eyes. "Ugh. That is the last time I take a shortcut offered by Peeves." He pushed himself up to a sitting position, dusting off his robes, before his eyes finally registered the scene in front of him.
Sirius was still braced against the wall, half-draped over Remus. Remus was pressed against the stone, his robes open, his chest heaving, his face bright red. The two boys were frozen, caught utterly and completely in the act.
All three boys—Remus, Sirius, and Echo—stared at one another, their eyes wide and locked. The silence in the abandoned hallway was so deep that they could all practically hear the low, deliberate bass notes of the jeopardy countdown theme music playing in the background of their minds.
Finally, Remus broke the tension, his voice high and entirely unconvincing. "Echo! Hi! This… this isn't what it looks like."
Sirius straightened instantly, stepping away from Remus and throwing his hands up in a gesture of desperate defense. "You didn't see anything, Echo. You were dizzy. You hit your head. You don't remember this. You don't tell anyone what you think you saw."
Echo, meanwhile, had fully recovered. He stood up, elegantly shaking the dust from his own dark robes. He took a long, hard look at the rumpled, panting pair, then glanced down at the Niffler, who was currently examining a loose stone in the wall.
He merely gave a casual shrug, scooped up Sniffles, and tucked the creature into his pocket. He whistled for Shimmer, who reluctantly melted into invisibility and onto his shoulder, and gave a sharp shoo to Nugget, who hopped off Remus's foot with a resentful cluck-hiss.
Echo started to walk past them, heading for the next corner. Remus and Sirius stared at his retreating back, utterly stunned.
As Echo disappeared around the corner, Remus turned to Sirius, his eyes wide with renewed panic. "Oh, God, he's going to tell everyone!"
Sirius's face, which had been pale with shock, twisted into a mask of sudden, furious realization. "He is! That bastard is absolutely going to tell everyone! Come on!"
The two boys broke into a dead sprint, tearing down the hallway after Echo. They rounded the corner and saw him running at full speed down the next passage. Echo glanced back at them, his eyes wide, before putting on an extra burst of speed.
"ECHO, GET BACK HERE!" Sirius roared, his voice echoing in the stone halls.
"ECHO, PLEASE, DON'T TELL ANYONE!" Remus begged, already winded.
Echo looked back one more time, his face a mix of maniacal glee and desperate exertion. "I'M SNITCHING, BOYS! I'M TOTALLY SNITCHING!" he yelled back.
The chase, a furious, three-way sprint of panic and betrayal, led them straight toward the Great Hall. It was the middle of dinner, and the massive doors were wide open. Echo burst through the entrance, staggering to a halt just inside the threshold, half-exhausted.
The collective sound of hundreds of conversations and the clatter of silverware instantly died. Every single person in the Great Hall—students, professors, and house-elves—snapped their attention to the boy standing alone in the doorway. Echo took a massive, gasping breath, preparing to deliver the most scandalous pronouncement in Hogwarts history.
Before he could utter a single syllable, Sirius launched himself into the Hall. He tackled Echo from behind, knocking the boy to the ground with a loud WHOOMPH! Sirius instantly clamped both hands over Echo's mouth, pinning him to the floor. Echo struggled, trying to speak, but only managed a muffled, frantic Mmmph! Mmmph!
Remus, sliding to a stop beside them, managed to keep his composure just enough to cover for the chaos. He gave the staring hall a strained, wide smile.
"Yes, Echo! That's how you make an entrance!" Remus said, his voice carrying clearly. "But next time, let's try it without an active audience, yeah?"
Sirius immediately grabbed a handful of Echo's robes and dragged the struggling, muffled boy off the floor, keeping his hand firmly over his mouth. "Come on, mate, let's go show them the exit!"
The two boys—Sirius dragging a gagged, flailing Echo, and Remus walking stiffly beside them—ran out of the Great Hall and down a nearby corridor, only stopping when they slammed the door shut on an empty Transfiguration classroom. Sirius finally let go, shoving Echo hard against a desk.
Sirius was the first to speak, panting for breath, his eyes narrowed with fury. "What the hell is wrong with you, Echo? I thought we were cool!"
Echo straightened his robes, rubbing his bruised mouth. "I'm cool with Remus," he shot back, his eyes glinting. "Cool between you and the other two is highly subjective, and usually depends on my current mood."
Remus, leaning against the door to catch his breath, finally regained his voice. "Echo, why would you do that? Why would you try to expose us like that?"
Echo looked from Remus's earnest, worried face to Sirius's furious one. He gave them a completely unrepentant shrug. "Because," Echo said, his voice dropping to a loud, conspiratorial whisper, "I have eighty gallons riding on you two."
Sirius and Remus paused, looking at each other, then back at Echo.
"What?" Sirius finally managed, his voice incredulous.
Echo waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, eighty gallons, riding on you two being a 'thing' by the end of the semester. I was so excited that I just had to shout it to the heavens! I probably would've done it more calmly and gone to the people I'd bet with to collect my winnings if you two hadn't chased me and made me even more excited! You two know how I get when my blood starts going, and the adrenaline starts flowing. I lose my common sense and cognitive functions."
Remus threw his hands up in sheer, unadulterated exasperation. "Eighty galleons? Echo, that is horrible! You've made a betting pool on our private lives?"
Echo, leaning back against the desk, gave another casual shrug, entirely unfazed by Remus's moral outrage. "Is it, though? No, not really. It's just good, clean, social observation, Moony. I have bets with tons of people about who ends up with whom. Right now, I have five galleons riding on the possibility that Filch and Professor Bloom are hooking up."
Remus and Sirius stared at one another, their recent panic forgotten, replaced by a deep, shared sense of bewildered horror. They turned back to Echo in unison.
"Wait, Filch and Professor Bloom?" Sirius whispered, his voice incredulous.
"The Herbology professor?" Remus added, his eyes wide.
Echo nodded sagely. "She keeps leaving him these small, aggressively cheerful bouquets of bluster blooms when she thinks no one is looking. It's subtle, but I've noticed. Anyway," Echo continued, waving off the Filch-Bloom subplot, "that's nothing. My biggest betting pool is at 100 galleons to see if Lily ends up with Sev or James. My bet is on Sev."
Remus just shook his head, running a trembling hand through his hair. "I have no words for this. None."
Sirius, however, found his voice. "I do. Why do you even care, Echo? All the money the Headmaster gives you as an allowance, or that you somehow come upon, goes straight to Sniffles and his ever-growing horde of shiny things. You've been wearing the same robes up until Christmas. You don't need the money."
"That's true," Echo conceded, adjusting the collar of his robe. "But it's not about the money, Padfoot. It's about the spirit of the bet and the sweet, sweet satisfaction of being right. And I still aim to collect."
Sirius stared at him, the last vestiges of his fury dissolving into a weary resignation. "Now I have no words to say."
Echo gave him a pointed look. "Well, now I do. Why do you two even care?"
"What do you mean? Why do we care?" Sirius demanded.
"Why do you two care about who knows you're an item?" Echo clarified, his voice suddenly sharp and serious, all traces of mischief gone. "You two have way bigger things to worry about."
Echo pointed at Sirius. "You're an outcast in your own pureblood family, and that's a whole barrel of stress." He then pointed to Remus, his gaze softening. "And you're a—" Echo stopped, looking quickly around the classroom, checking the walls and under the desks several times before leaning in close and whispering, "—a you know what."
He leaned back, his eyes fixed on their relieved but mortified faces. "The fact of you two being 'boy kissers' should be the last thing to stress about. Last I checked, the wizarding world doesn't care who you bump nasties with, unless you're a pureblood, but that's an entirely different basket of rotten eggs. It's all about the magic, not the mattress."
Remus shifted uncomfortably, leaning off the door. "Echo, you're one to talk. No one stops talking about your relationship."
Echo scoffed, a genuine, loud, theatrical sound. "Yeah, but that's because I'm dating a mermaid. And not only that, a princess, which means I'm marrying into royalty and will become a prince myself. That's the only reason, Moony. You two wouldn't even be a blip on the radar."
"Echo has a point, Moony," Sirius admitted, a slow smile spreading across his face. "We are a blip. An utterly forgettable, scandal-free blip." He walked over to Echo and clapped him on the shoulder. "Alright, you win, you little bookie. We'll stop caring who knows." He then fixed Echo with a pointed look. "But you are still not announcing it to anyone—collect your money and be off with it—unless we say it's okay. Clear?"
Echo smiled, his full, manipulative, chaotic smile. "Perfectly clear, Padfoot. Your secret is safe with me… until the day you give me permission, in which case I'll tell James, who will tell everyone because I need to tell James. Because he's going to owe me part of that 80 galleons."
Remus groaned, burying his face in his hands. "He's never going to let us live this down."
"Oh, I know," Echo said cheerfully. "That's why it's so important."