Title: Alters

Author: Merry Contrary

Pairing: RL/PW

Rating:NC-17

Feedback: [email protected]

Summary: Challenge #33. Ritualistic Sex. Preferably on an altar.

Disclaimer: They are not mine. I gained nothing material in the borrowing of them.

Archive: Howling at the Moon: the Remus J. Lupin Fuh-Q-Fest and probably my Live Journal. Just let me know if you'd like to archive it elsewhere.

Spoilers: Definite spoilers for PoA and OotP, possibly small spoilers for the others.

Authors Notes: Part of the Howling at the Moon: Remus J. Lupin Fuh-Q-Fest. My first attempt to write fan fiction. My first attempt to write smut. Consider yourselves warned.
Many thanks to my brave beta bksncleverness, for her endless patience and enthusiasm. And thanks to Jeff for helping her help me.
"Ardantes" is a merrycontrary-made word taken from "ardent" which means passionate and burning.

Hundreds of heads swiveled as Remus Lupin stepped into the clearing, causing him to falter for a moment. He'd known this day's proceedings would be open to the public, he just hadn't expected quite such an audience. Tugging at the robes Hermione had dressed him in that morning, he gathered his courage and proceeded through the parting crowd, to the knoll at the center of the clearing.

With effort Remus blocked out the hushed murmurs and familiar faces that swam around him. The impending ritual would be awkward enough without knowing precisely who was watching. Instead, he focused both eyes and attention on the altar at the knoll's apex. As he drew closer, he began to see the runic symbols carved into the pure white stone, but it had been too long since his school days and he could no longer make sense of the "harpy scratchings". His heart felt the familiar clench of sadness as thoughts of his school days led to thoughts of fallen friends.

"Merlin. James, Sirius, I wish you were here," he thought, "This would be so much easier if it was one of you I was about to....meet."

Heart in his throat, he finally came to rest, turning to face the opposite side of the clearing. A moment later, the weight of his robe settled heavily against his neck and shoulders as its train was arranged on the ground behind him by his Attendant. She then stepped up to his right shoulder.

"Tell me again why I'm doing this," he muttered out of the side of his mouth, fairly certain that the knoll's rise would provide them some privacy.

"Oh, honestly, Remus." Hermione huffed quietly, "We've been over this."

"I know, I know. It's not like I'm going to back out now. Just, please, humor me."

"It's symbolic," she began, settling into her lecturer's voice, "Voldemort's gone, but Wizarding society's been torn apart. The new Ministry is taking advantage of an old custom to show the people its commitment to embracing tradition as well as progress. We are trying to forge a new world in which pureblood and muggleborn, wizard and magical creature, ministry and Order can unite, blend, and emerge stronger."

"And why is it you are not the one symbolizing with Mr. Weasley?"

"Well, I'm not a magical creature, am I?"

Remus nodded in resignation, knowing that pointing out the fact that having only one muggle parent meant he was not technically a muggleborn would not win him this debate.

"Besides," Hermione forged on, perhaps to hide her own discomfort within the familiar territory of academia, "you'd be surprised by the history the wizarding world has of using male-male copulation to finalize negotiations between tribes. I suppose this could be seen as perpetuating a sexist insistence on excluding witches from political situations, but-"

"Thank you, Professor Granger, I think I'm good, now." His smiling eyes risked a quick glance to the side, catching hers briefly and winning a self-conscious smile and an attractive blush.

Then all attention was drawn to the trees opposite his own point of approach. Two men had stepped out of their shelter and were passing through the crowd, heads held high, shimmering red and white gold in the midday sun. Remus swallowed his anxiety and raised his own chin, determined to meet the situation with as much dignity as his former student.

"I know what I gain from this," Remus mused. Hermione and he had joined together in the crusade to elevate the rights of magical creatures, be they house-elf or werewolf, "but what brings someone like Percy Weasley here? What does he gain? Can participation in a sanctioned screwing really advance a political career? More so than simply being the Minister's son? Or perhaps Arthur's taken a stand against nepotism."

Remus winced at the bitterness reflected in his thoughts and reminded himself that he no longer knew the boy, if he ever had. The least Weasley of all Weasleys had made a number of bad choices fresh out of school, admittedly, placing his pride above his family. Still, he had redeemed himself in the eyes of many, reuniting with his family and providing an essential link in the Order's dealings with the Ministry once war had broken out. Remus, having no real first hand knowledge, should be giving him the benefit of the doubt. But a life of fighting self-serving bureaucrats had left their mark as surely as the wolf he'd met at so young an age.

The boy, now a man, stepped up to the altar, coming between Remus and the midday sun. His thick red hair caught its light, exploding like the halo on an avenging angel. But Remus was not drawn in by the effect. He'd spent enough time with Weasleys to have seen it before, frequently, and in far more noble circumstances.

No, what caught the werewolf's attention was that moment when their eyes had met, before Percy shifted his gaze back to the tree tops. In that moment, Remus had seen eyes that flamed more brightly than any Weasley halo. Eyes that burned with fanatic life.

"So, it's more than just politics, then," Remus thought as he turned with the gentle nudge from Hermione to face the final duo approaching the altar.

A hush ran across the crowd as the two most influential men in Wizarding society approached the altar, each carrying a chalice. Remus, for one, was glad to see the familiar twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes and risked a glance in Arthur Weasley's direction, only to find himself shocked once again. There was no answering laughter in the new Minister's eyes, nor any of their customary gentleness. Instead they bore resolutely down on his middle son. A son whose own eyes burned with a fire that Remus now recognized as a desperate kind of hope.

As Remus tried to process this new information, the Elder delegation lifted their chalices and began to chant. Hermione stepped in front of Remus and met his eyes briefly before looking down to where her trembling fingers were unclasping his robe. Goose pimples pebbled his skin as the robe slipped to the ground and the crisp air encircled him. The soft whisper of the crowd shifted behind him, and he fought the urge to cover himself.

"Please let that be discomfort and not the first sign of a randy audience."

To distract himself, Remus stole a glimpse at the figure next to him. Percy looked surprisingly fragile, eyes still almost pleading with the elder Weasley, though he stood rigid with his shoulders back. Out of the corner of his eye, the former professor watched as Draco Malfoy carefully removed the glasses from Percy's face, leaving him blinking and vulnerable. Perhaps it would be enough to break the disconcerting energy that was passing between father and son.

The chanting paused for a beat and began again with a new movement, now filling the clearing with the voices of the entire congregation. Hermione's extensive preparation kicked in and Remus approached the altar, Percy by his side. Steps appeared in front of both men. They climbed in unwitting synchronization, and knelt upon the altar before their respective Elder.

Chalices were passed from Elder to Attendant and then lifted to the lips of the two Ardantes. Remus drank deeply and almost immediately could feel the potion course through his body spreading warmth and igniting nerve endings. As the heat settled in his groin, he began to suspect that the ritual's potions element was nothing more than a jumped-up aphrodisiac and fought back the giggle bubbling in his chest, all his worries melting into the sensations.

"At least there's no chance of either of us being incapable of participating," he thought as his penis began to swell. It was suddenly difficult to get enough air, and his mouth dropped open to pant. Eyelids lowered as his other senses swamped him. He could sense those around him, smell them, feel the body heat rising off them. He tasted them on the humid air sucked in through his mouth, and drowned in the undulation of their voices. Hermione, Draco, Arthur, Dumbledore, the masses behind him...and Percy, oh Merlin, Percy, whose own panting and arousal was intoxicating.

Remus whined softly as he struggled to remain still, reminding himself that the temptation would end soon. A few more repetitions of the chorus, and at last, Remus heard his cue.

Still kneeling, Remus and Percy turned toward one another. Remus reached out a hand to trace his fingers across the other man's hip. The other hand followed, but even as the flesh moved forward into his grasp, the eyes lingered in the Elder's direction.

Finally releasing the growl from his chest, Remus clutched Percy's hips and yanked the younger man to straddle him, as he himself sat back on his heels. Percy's eyes flew to Remus' in surprise.

The ceremony required no words be uttered beyond the incantation, so Remus focused all his energy into his eyes and willed the redhead to understand him.

"Stay with me," he thought, "stay in this, focus on me."

Swallowing, Percy nodded. His gazed now locked onto the hazel eyes before him, willing at last to lose himself in the ceremony.

Strong hands drifted up sleek, freckled flanks, crossed a narrow back and slowly trailed down the spine hesitating as they reached the softly rounded cheeks. A worry about lack of lubrication trickled across Remus' mind before the strangled exhalation of Percy's breath, warm against his face, and the scent of the slender body poised above his lap pressed him to leave the niceties behind. His fingers pulled apart the cheeks, angling his hips up in preparation for penetration, only to have his tip meet a startlingly slick and stretched opening.

Unconsciously his eyes flicked to Percy's Attendant, to find Draco gazing back. Without faltering in his chanting, Draco's lips curved up in a smirk, one eyebrow quirking upward. An image of Percy bent over while Draco's pale, elegant fingers pulsed in and out of his ass flashed through the werewolf's mind, finally decimating the last of Remus' control.

Locking eyes with Percy again, he thrust up violently as he pulled the younger man down onto his cock in one quick movement. Percy's gasp was almost a scream, and his hands finally moved, grasping at Remus' shoulders. Sensations drowned the minds of both men, leaving them clinging to each other, panting and whimpering.

After a moment, Remus ran a hand down Percy's crack, gathering some of the cool lubrication to bring around to the burning cock bobbing between their bodies. He pumped the swollen flesh twice, eliciting a moan from the lips before him. Leaning in to place a reassuring kiss on those trembling lips, he eased one of Percy's hands from his shoulder and placed it around the youth's shaft. He then moved his own hands back down to settle under the spot where ass and thigh meet.

And then he began to move.

Tilting his pelvis back to pull out, he lifted his partner slightly, urging him to move up the shaft, only stopping just before his tip exited the sweet ring of muscle before thrusting in again. Hips rocked forward, thighs lifted. Percy was pulled back down and the movement was begun again and again and again, now pulsing in rhythm with the voices surrounding them.

The rhythm sped up as both men came closer to release. Percy' hips swung back and forth, torn between the pleasures of Remus' cock and his own hand. Remus relentlessly drove in and out, moaning into a warm, freckled neck.

The incantation reached its fevered pitch, and pulled the two men to their climax. Percy cried and threw his head back as he shot hot semen up between their bodies. Remus closed his mouth around the proffered adam's apple and growled his release.

As the euphoria eased out of his body and mind, Remus realized that Percy was now clinging to him, quivering. A dry sob shook through the young man's body, and Remus wrapped him in hug that had very little to do with anything erotic. Around them, the voices began to fall away, one by one, until once again the sole voices were those of the Elders. When those voices also quieted, the Ardantes released one another and moved apart.

Their eyes met in sympathy one last time. Gratitude and farewell. And then they turned back to the Elders. Remus saw father and son look on each other with warmth and forgiveness and love and acceptance and everything he'd always believed was innate in all Weasleys' relationships with one another. He then moved his gaze to Dumbledore, who had also seen the reunion. The old man's eyes held a note of sadness, but he nodded briefly and gave Remus a small smile.

And then Hermione was there wrapping the cloak around his shoulders, squeezing them lightly. She guided him off the altar and Remus became aware again of the sea of faces turned up at them. He blushed furiously, and raised his eyes to the trees. Hermione nudged him forward, and he began his return journey on legs somewhat less stable than those on which he'd approached.