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—1995—
He’s attempting to light the stove with his wand when the light above him begins to flicker. Off then on and then off again where it stays, shrouding Remus in darkness. “Bloody hell,” he mutters, stepping away from the stove, and using his wand, instead, to cast a quick lumos. He’s making his way across the small kitchen, on his way to toggle the lightswitch or to perhaps aim a few choice spells at the fusebox, when a drawer flies open knocking right into his right hip. He grunts, slamming the drawer close and hobbling away to the safety of the hallway as he hears various cupboards fly open behind him, pots and pans, among other things, clattering onto the floor.
He’s about to turn around, lit wand in hand, to survey the damage, when there’s a knock on his front door. This wakes one of the portraits, a young frail woman in a white, lace dress who begins shrieking at the top of her lungs. Sighing, Remus quickly waves a silencing charm over his shoulder, before making his way down the hall to see who’s there.
There’s a tea stain on the front of his shirt and a hole in the elbow of his cardigan and he’s still in his slippers and his hair is in disarray, curls in all different directions, and it’s entirely not a state in which he would’ve planned to open the door if he had known who’d be on the other side of it. But, well, this was maybe the last person he had expected to find on his doorstep.
“Hello,” the man says. And, in the silence that follows, in which Remus stands there fiddling with the sleeve of his jumper, the other man raises his eyebrows. “Sorry, I was told you’d be expecting me. I’m the curse-breaker,” he says, hand held out between them.
Remus looks down at the offered hand. “Er, right, yes,” he says, reaching forward to shake the other man’s hand. His eyes dart up to the man’s face. “Remus,” he says.
The other man’s lips twitch and there’s something that passes through his eyes. He’s not sure if it’s recognition or something else entirely. “Sirius,” the man replies, dropping his hand. He steps into the doorway, past Remus, and begins walking down the hall.
Remus shuts the door behind him and turns to follow. When Sirius makes it to the kitchen, he stops, surveying the mess; various drawers and cupboards left open, pots and pans scattered on the floor, a bag of flour spread out on the kitchen tile. He turns to look at Remus over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised.
“I was trying to make tea,” Remus says awkwardly.
Sirius' mouth flickers at that. “I’d hate to see you try and make toast,” he says, amused. “Mind if I have a look around?”
“No. Go ahead,” he says. And, so, carefully stepping over a fallen salt shaker, Sirius makes his way further into the flat.
Remus casts a few spells to sort out the kitchen. It’s looking a lot better by the time Sirius comes back, performing a couple counter-curses in the kitchen and then declaring he’ll start in the attic where there seemed to be the largest amount of curses and booby traps and jinxes.
And that’s where he spends the majority of the day while Remus sits curled up in a stiff chair in his sitting room, listening to the sound of Sirius’ footsteps above him.
In the afternoon Remus manages to make some tea without causing a disaster. He yells up to offer Sirius a cup, but he declines. And, so, Remus sips his alone imagining Sirius battling cursed jewellery boxes and armoires and getting into arguments with the various portraits based on the scuffling sounds and the occasional exchange of colourful words he hears from the attic above.
It’s five past noon by the time Sirius pokes his head into the hallway to let Remus know he’ll be on his way now. “Quite a bit of nasty curses you got here. I suspect it will take a few more days to get through the whole place.”
“Right. Er, will that cost more?” Remus asks. He knew when he had signed the lease that the flat was riddled with curses, not to mention incommodious and falling apart, but it was a decent enough price, especially for a werewolf who has barely been able to hold down a job for the past ten years. And he knows his rights— that his landlord is obligated to pay a curse-breaker to come and survey the place and perform at least a day's worth of work, but he wasn’t prepared to pay out of pocket for anything additional.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. Your landlord paid for today, but the agency I work for requires me to do some pro bono work every year so it’s not an issue. See you tomorrow? Same time?”
“Oh. Sure, yes, that’d be alright.”
Sirius bites his lip, he looks like he’s about to say something, but then he doesn’t, and then he’s gone.
—1982—
There’s a party going on. Lots of booze, loud music, sloshed people yelling, sweaty bodies pushed up against each other, people sucking each other’s faces, flashing lights.
He can feel the music vibrating below his feet, can still hear it too, ringing in his ears from before he had escaped. He’s surprised someone from the university hasn’t come to put a stop to it, but maybe the adults don’t care, not now that they're of age, not now that they’re at university and no longer children living with their parents.
From the top of the roof, Remus watches as a couple of students stumble out of the accommodation halls and out onto the grass where they fall over, rolling on to their backs, giggling. He thinks that’s the way he should have escaped. Not that he’s had that much to drink, but he doesn’t trust his ability to apparte in this state. So, now, the only way to get out the front door so that he can make his way to his own accommodations, is to go through the party again.
Remus has never been to a university party before. He only agreed to go this time because his hallmate had invited him and Remus had got the sense that this would be the last time the other boy would ask before giving up on him. And, besides, Remus was tired of lying to his mam, telling her university was going well, that he was making friends.
A couple minutes after walking into the party, though, he had lost his hallmate. As a result, Remus had retreated to the drinks table, pouring himself a heavy glass. Some boy, eyes glazed over from alcohol, had attempted to sell him some ‘gillyweed,’ which was obviously just some leaves pulled from the bushes out in the courtyard. At one point someone's pet pygmy puff had taken an interest in his boot and Remus had struggled to shoo it away without kicking the damn thing. Its owner, a blonde haired girl with braids dressed in all pink, had come eventually, scooping the pygmy up. She had grabbed onto Remus’ forearm, leaning in to whisper apologies into his ear, before she had stumbled away.
And now he’s here, smoking on the roof of a residence hall building. Alone.
Or, he had been. He doesn’t notice the other boy until he’s standing next to him, elbows resting on the cement parapet, black hair falling into his eyes; the ringing in his ears and the students giggling below, masking the sound of the roof door opening.
“Nasty habit, smoking,” the boy says as he fumbles with his own lighter, a fag teeting-tottering from the corner of his mouth. Remus watches him, watches as his thin fingers struggle with the lighter. It takes a few tries before it lights and then the boy places the lighter into his back pocket. Remus notices an ‘SOB’ etched into the silver of it before it’s tucked away out of view.
The other boy breathes in the tobacco once, and then turns to blow smoke into Remus’ face.
The boy smiles. “You’re missing the party,” he says.
“Pity,” Remus replies loftily, turning away. He looks down at the two students still sprawled out on the grass, their feet knocking together.
“I’m Sirius,” the boy says.
Remus taps out the ash of his fag, lets the gray flakes drift down to the walkway below. “I know,” he says. He really hadn’t drank that much, but he feels loose.
Sirius barks out a laugh. “You know,” he repeats.
Remus shrugs. “I suspect you already know who I am as well.”
“Cocky, are we?”
“It’s public record, isn’t it? For student safety, or whatever. Not that it matters, I suspect the scars would have given it away anyways.”
Remus turns to look over at Sirius and finds the other boy is still turned towards him. Sirius blinks. Remus swallows. “Remus,” he offers.
“Remus,” Sirius repeats slowly, like he’s tasting it on his tongue, savouring it. And then Sirius laughs. “I’m quite drunk,” he says.
Sirius turns to face the open sky. He brings his cigarette to his lips, breathes in, breathes out. “How’d you know who I was?” he asks.
“We had Magical Theory together last semester.”
“Did we?” Sirius asks, which Remus takes to be rhetorical. But then Sirius shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I don’t think so. I think I would have remembered you.”
Remus shrugs. “Suppose I’m not all that memorable then.”
—1995—
Remus stares at his reflection in the mirror. A sullen face —prickly and unshaved— with dark under eyes blinks back at him. He hasn’t used his razor in days, but he spreads cream on his face now and wets the blade. Out of practice, he cuts himself on the side of his chin. He winces, sucking in breath, as he uses the back of his hand to blot the blood. When he’s done, he doesn’t look too different, still sullen, still tired, but he supposes he’s always looked a bit sickly, even when he was younger, even in his twenties back at university.
He picks off a flake of dried shaving cream from his cheek. And then, sighing, he eyes his hair, frizzy and anfractuous at the ends. He considers trying to wet it down, but then there’s a knock on his front door and he leaves to answer it.
Sirius looks the same as yesterday. Black hair falling in waves to his shoulders, bright grey eyes, a twist of a smile —or perhaps a frown— stored in the corner of his mouth. Underneath his leather jacket, which he hangs up in the hall closet next to Remus’ moth eaten wool one, he’s wearing a thin blue sweater of which he had rolled up the sleeves. Remus had tracked the movement, staring at the exposed sinewy muscles of the other man’s forearms before forcing his gaze away, down at the scuffed up wood flooring.
Sirius had then left to start his work in the cellar.
Meanwhile, Remus spends his morning alternating between staring out the window at Sirius’ motorbike, which he had seen him leave on the other day and was now parked across the street, and reading his book. All the while doing his best to ignore the grumblings of the paintings around him, complaining that now they had, not one, but two, unwelcomed guests.
When noon comes around, his stomach begins to grumble, which he has a harder time ignoring, and he makes himself a sandwich. And then he makes one for Sirius as well.
The creaky wood steps give him away as he climbs down the cellar stairs. Sirius turns to look up at him and just barely pulls his hand away as the drawer of a chest he had been rummaging through slams itself closed.
“Bloody fucker,” Sirius hisses, kicking the leg of the chest with his boot. Immediately, he looks sheepishly back up at Remus. “Sorry. I don’t know how attached you are to the furniture down here.”
“Not very. I’ve actually only been down here the once, back when I was touring the place. And even then it was a quick tour. I think the landlord was trying to hide how many curses there were. I don’t think he truly realised how desperate I had been.”
Sirius hums. “There are quite a bit of unsavoury cursed objects down here, some that are pretty interesting too. Not too long ago I came across a ring that, if worn consistently, would have given the victim a vague impression that something had gone terribly wrong without a clue of what it may be. They would’ve just had a constant sense of impending doom.”
“Merlin,” Remus says, fingers idly spinning the gold band around his right thumb, “I think I must have one of those.”
Sirius smiles, amused. “Mm,” he says, “and a hat that when worn would cause your ears to shrivel up and a comb that when used causes worms to grow out of the victim’s head.”
“I don’t think I could pull off worms,” Remus muses, meeting Sirius’ eye across the room.
Sirius snorts. “No, I don’t think anyone can pull off worms, Remus. Not even you.”
Remus blinks. “I made you a sandwich.”
Sirius raises his eyebrows. “Cheers,” he says, smiling faintly. Remus thinks he seems a little nervous, or maybe a bit flighty.
Maybe he’s projecting.
Remus sets down the plate on the nearest flat surface. “I’ll just…” he trails, pointing vaguely up the cellar stairs.
“Right, yeah. Okay,” Sirius says and Remus turns to leave.
Right as the clock strikes five, Sirius pokes his head into the sitting room doorway.
“Hello,” he says.
Remus shuts his book, placing it in his lap. “Hello,” he says back.
Sirius’ grin is a little bashful as he pulls out a bottle from behind his back. “Look what I found. It was hidden by a glamour, but it seems like the previous owners were quite the wine collectors. Quite good stuff too, I think,” he says, eyeing the label. “This one says it’s made with dirigible plum and shrieking grapes. Quite peculiar.” He looks back up at Remus. “Maybe this is quite forward, seeing as I’m doing a job for you, but I don’t suppose you’d want to open her up?”
Remus eyes the bottle sceptically. “How do you know it’s not cursed?”
“Well, if it is, you’re among good company,” he says, pointing at himself. “Curse-breaker and all.”
Remus bites his lip, eyes darting from the bottle to Sirius and back.
In the silence that follows, Sirius speaks up. “Sorry,” he says, awkwardly. He places the bottle down on the bookshelf. “This isn’t very professional of me. I don’t know what I— well, anyways, I suppose I’ll be on my way.”
Sirius begins to turn around and Remus finds his voice: “No, hold on. I— let me get us some wine glasses, yes?”
Sirius turns back around, smiling softly. He nods his head and Remus retreats from the room.
—1982—
It’s grey and sombre outside, the way it gets as winter begins to come to a close. The kind of weather where it’s not raining, but mist hangs heavy in the air, the kind of weather where your clothes still end up a bit damp.
Remus pushes through the doors of the front hall and out into the cold. He had just gotten out of Alchemy. Though he had taken it as, what he had thought, would be an easy elective, the course has been proving to be more trouble than it’s worth. It seems every week the professor assigns them two feet or more of writings and Remus isn’t sure how much more he can say —or wants to say— on the transmutation of metals.
The weather outside, cold and drab, makes him want nothing else but to sit in front of a crackling fire with a warm cup of tea, but the weight of his messenger bag, full of his textbooks and assignments, weighs heavily on his shoulder as he makes his away across the cobblestone walkway leading to the library.
It’s as he begins to quicken his pace, weaving between students, when someone falls in to step next to him. “We did have Magical Theory together last semester,” the person says.
Remus looks over and is caught off guard by Sirius walking next to him. It’s been a few weeks since the party. He had seen Sirius a couple times since then —out on the lawn or in the dining hall— but the other boy had never spared him a glance.
“I asked James.” Sirius looks over at Remus. “He was in the class as well.”
“I know, yeah.”
“Ah, well I must say I’m a little disappointed that you have seemed to remember everyone in the class and not just me.”
Remus shrugs. “You were both… distracting is all.”
Sirius grins, big and wide. On anyone else it would look goofy. “Distracting?” he says.
Remus bristles. “Not in a good way. Obnoxious, loud, vexatious, more like.”
“Vexatious,” Sirius repeats, eyes dancing. He laughs. “Christ, you must be fun at parties, or, well, on rooftops,” he says, mouth twitching as he looks over at Remus. “Where are you headed?”
“The library.”
“The library,” Sirius repeats like it’s the biggest disappointment he’s ever heard. He sighs. “What about after that?”
“After?”
“Yeah, say… around ten?”
“Why?”
“Don’t be daft, Remus.”
Remus slows, and turns his head to blink at Sirius. Another student checks Remus' shoulder and he stumbles, but Sirius catches him about the forearm. “Come to my room,” he says. “Do you know where it’s at?”
Remus takes a bit too long to respond and Sirius laughs. “I will say,” he says, “this makes me feel a bit better that you also remembered James.” And then he lets go of Remus’ arm and starts to walk away. “See you at ten,” Sirius calls.
Remus watches as Sirius gets swallowed up by the crowd of students and then he turns and continues to the library.
He finds it rather empty, as one would expect for a Wednesday night. Remus likes it this way though, when it’s nice and quiet and there’s nothing to distract him.
On the fourth floor, in the Herbology section, there’s a table next to a window that Remus likes to sit at. The Herbology books are nice too, they tend to hum folk songs quietly and it’s relaxing. One time, Remus had sat in the Ancient Runes section and those books had hissed and argued with each other. He much preferred the Herbology titles.
By the time Remus has finished his work for the day, it’s dark outside and when he looks at the clock it’s 9:52. He hadn’t been planning on going to Sirius’ rooms, he hadn’t, but when he leaves the library he finds himself walking toward Sirius’ hall of residence instead of his own. He’s not actually sure where which room is Sirius’, but he knows the building. Sirius, being as he is, notorious for throwing parties, even Remus, who doesn’t attend them, has seen the hall name on invitations in passing.
His room isn’t all that hard to find though; it’s the first door on the right and it’s held wide open. There are people gathered inside of Sirius’ room; leaning against the walls, sitting on Sirius’ desk and chair, sprawled out on his rug. And then there’s Sirius, sitting on his bed, back against the wall, a spliff between his fingers, legs laid out before him, crossed at the ankle. Remus hadn’t been expecting such a crowd and he’s about ready to turn around and retreat when Sirius takes notice of him and smiles.
“Remus!” he says. “You came! Come in then.”
The person sitting on Sirius’ desk immediately looks over at Remus through bespectacled eyes. Remus recognizes him as James Potter.
Remus breathes in and then he’s walking forward. He makes his way to Sirius, who scoots over, making room for him. Once he’s sat down next to him, Sirius leans over, handing him the spliff. Remus takes it and brings it to his lips.
“Sorry,” Sirius whispers into his ear, “I didn’t know they were all coming. If they aren’t gone in fifteen, I’ll kick them out.”
Remus breathes out the smoke and then turns to Sirius, handing back the spliff. “It’s alright,” he says.
“Don’t be daft, Remus,” Sirius says, taking back the spliff, their fingers brushing. Sirius turns his head. “James,” he calls, “pour Remus a drink will you?”
“Sure,” James says, grabbing the bottle next to him on the desk and pouring it into a cup. He walks it over and hands it to Remus. And then he and James are talking about Magical Theory and the croissants at the dinning hall and whether or not they think Ernie Prang should get his own chocolate frog card. They’re getting on quite well, only stopping when James gets pulled away into another conversation.
Sirius leans into Remus again. “How was the library?” he asks.
“Good. Productive.”
Sirius snorts. “Productive,” he repeats. “Well, I’m glad it was productive. I’m glad you had a good time.”
Remus nods his head. “I like the library,” he says, lip twitching.
“Of course you do,” Sirius says. He bites down on his cheek. “I think the library disagrees with me,” he says. “Every book I’ve ever checked out has yelled at me, a couple have bit my fingers.”
“Somehow that doesn't surprise me.”
Sirius hums and then he takes another hit of the spliff.
It’s only a few minutes later that everyone begins filing out, heading over to some other party across the way and Sirius gets up to close his dorm room door. He turns around to face Remus, who’s still sitting on his bed.
“I wasn’t planning on coming,” Remus says.
Sirius gives him a funny look, furrowed brows and amused, pursed lips. “Well, I’m glad you changed your mind,” he says.
Sirius walks over and sits down next to Remus, the bed shifting with the weight. “Sorry about the people,” he says.
Remus shakes his head. “I didn’t— I wasn’t sure why you had invited me.”
Sirius stares back at him, grey eyes taking him in. “No?” he says.
Remus shifts uncomfortably. A strand of hair falls into his eyes and Sirius reaches forward to grab the curl pulling it taut and then letting it go so that it curls back up. Remus hasn’t had a haircut since he went home for holidays and his Mam had sat him down, scissors in hand. Now that it’s grown out, the dreary weather has made it even more unmanageable, extra curly and frizzy.
He swats the stray curl away.
“I need a haircut,” he says.
Sirius shakes his head. “I like it.”
Remus swallows. He feels nervous. He doesn’t know what’s happening. “I don’t think I’m as interesting as you think I am.”
“I think you’re plenty interesting,” Sirius says. His hand comes to rest on Remus' knee, and then it moves tentatively to brush across Remus’ cheek. “There’s a lot of things I find interesting about you.”
“I—”
But then Sirius leans forward and then he’s kissing him and Remus is shocked into a rigid state, frozen and unresponsive. And Sirius must have noticed because he begins to pull away, but then Remus synapses catch up and this time he’s leaning in. And they’re kissing and Sirius is grinning, that stupid Sirius Black grin he has on his face all the time, and Remus is kissing it.
Sirius throws a leg over Remus’ waist so he’s straddling him and Remus’ hands move tentatively to Sirius’ shoulders and then down to his waist. He squeezes Sirius’ hip bone and, in response, Sirius grinds down onto him, their groins meeting, hot and wanting. And something comes over Remus and he pushes forward, causing Sirius to fall back on to the bed, Remus hovering over him. Remus’ mouth is open and Sirius tongue is in it and Sirius fingers are reaching up, under his t-shirt, pressing into the skin of his abdomen, brushing against the top of his trousers, and Remus pulls away.
He’s a little out of breath when he says: “I haven’t done this before or, I’ve snogged before, I just— nothing more.”
“We don’t have to do anything more.”
Remus swallows. “Okay.”
“I didn’t invite you over just for this, you know.”
“Well you did invite me to your room at night and I didn’t know what, I wasn’t sure—”
“Well,” Sirius cuts off his rambling. “I certainly wouldn’t be disappointed by the development. But what I suppose I’m trying to say is I’d invite you to my rooms tomorrow too or next week or next month. I’m not in a rush. I think you’re, I don’t know? …Interesting, peculiar?” Sirius laughs. “And I like the way your ears turn red when I talk to you.”
“They do not,” Remus says.
Sirius raises his eyebrows. He tilts his head to look over at the side of Remus’ face, his fingers coming up to squeeze the lobe of Remus’ ear.
Remus knocks Sirius’ hand away and then leans down to kiss him again.
—1995—
Remus has reread this particular sentence of his book roughly forty-five times. Distracted, as he is, by Sirius walking around the room, whispering anti-curses under his breath, bending over to inspect the shelves of books. Sirius had spent an hour this morning sorting out the rest of the cellar before he had popped his head into the sitting room and asked if he could start working there. He had told Remus there was no reason he had to leave, that he could work quietly, that he wouldn’t be distracting, and, so, Remus had stayed and now he had spent the past hour stealing glances at Sirius. It was only a matter of time before he got caught.
“Some of these titles are quite interesting. Quite a few have curses on them,” Sirius says when they catch eyes.
“Yeah,” Remus says and then clears his throat. “There was one on mediaeval poetry that I read one afternoon. I could only speak in rhymes the rest of the day until I went to Mungos to get a counter-curse.”
Sirius laughs. “That’s an interesting one. The nasty books always seem to find me. Somehow I always come across the ones that want to bite at my fingers, leaving little paper cuts everywhere.”
Remus fidgets in his seat. “Best to stay out of libraries then.”
“Yeah,” Sirius says, looking away. He gets back to work.
Remus gets caught looking at Sirius twice more, but both times Sirius doesn’t say anything, just looks away. After the second time, Remus makes it a point to stare at his book and not let his eyes wander. It’s for that reason that he’s caught off guard when a pack of smokes land in his lap.
He looks up to find Sirius standing in front of him. “Smoke break?” he asks, a grin pulling at the side of his mouth. “Or,” Sirius says when Remus doesn’t answer right away, “unless you’ve quit? Or you don’t smoke?”
“No, I could go for a smoke.”
Sirius grins, ushering Remus to lead the way. Remus closes his book, tossing it on the side table, and stands up.
They sit out on the steps in front of Remus’ flat. Sirius’ motorbike is across the street underneath a tree that’s swaying slightly in the gentle wind.
Remus pulls them out two cigarettes which they each place between their lips, and then Sirius roots around in his pockets for his lighter. When he pulls it out it’s silver and a bit rusted and he turns it in his palm and Remus notices the ‘SOB’ carved into the side of it.
“Here,” Sirius says, holding it up in front of Remus, his hand coming up to cup the end of Remus’ cigarette. He tries it a few times, the click, click, click, of it loud in the silence between them.
The flame doesn’t catch. After a few more tries, Remus looks over at Sirius, eyebrows raised.
“Shut up,” Sirius says, voice jocund. “It’s an old lighter, had it since even before university.”
A couple more attempts and Remus is rolling his eyes, hands coming up to grab the lighter from Sirius. He turns away and, with no fewer than three clicks, has his fag lit.
“Show off,” Sirius grumbles as Remus hands him his lighter back. He puts it into his pocket. “You mind?” he asks, nodding his head towards Remus, his cigarette still unlit and hanging from his mouth.
Remus shakes his head, holding up his lit cigarette to the tip of Sirius’.
“Cheers,” Sirius says. He breathes in the tobacco and then blows it out. “Maybe the shotty lighter is a sign I should quit,” he muses.
Remus hums.
“Nasty habit, smoking,” Sirius says, eyeing Remus.
Remus looks over at Sirius and then away, eyes falling on Sirius’ motorbike.
—1982—
Remus is sitting in his usual spot in the library when Sirius sits down at the chair across from him. When Remus looks up from his textbook, he finds Sirius smiling at him.
He’s not sure what they’re doing, but they’ve been doing it for a few weeks now; Remus coming to Sirius’ room in the evenings, meeting up behind school buildings, pushing each other up against the brick walls.
He’s not quite sure what’s going on between them, what they’re doing, what this tightrope they’re walking is.
“I’m studying,” Remus says.
Sirius waves him off. “By all means don’t let me stop you,” he says.
Remus watches sceptically as Sirius roots through his school bag, pulling out parchment and a quill and begins writing.
Remus returns back to his transfiguration text, reading about the various restrictions, both in Law and in Nature, for configuration spells. He only makes it a few pages in when Sirius’ foot begins rubbing against his calf.
Immediately, Remus looks over at Sirius, but he doesn’t give anything away, just continues to write. He’s the picture of innocence, already a couple inches into his essay.
Breathing in heavily, Remus returns to his readings. A couple more pages and Sirius’ foot travels higher, making it to the inside of Remus’ knee, which he pushes away so that the toe of his boot can reach Remus’ inner thigh.
Alarmed, Remus sits up straight and Sirius' foot falls away.
“Sirius,” Remus hisses.
Sirius looks up from his essay, face blank, eyebrows raised. “What?” he says.
“Quit it,” Remus whispers.
Sirius blinks at him, slow and innocent. “What ever are you on about?”
Remus shakes his head. “You’re a terrible influence.”
Sirius’ lips twitch. “Is that so?” he asks. And then he stands, collecting his parchment and quill and unceremoniously stuffing them in his bag. “Follow me,” he says and then stalks off.
Remus watches the retreating form of the other boy before he starts collecting his books and gets up to follow.
Sirius winds around various bookcases until he makes it to the far wall where he opens a door, holding it open for Remus to walk in ahead of him. When Sirius closes the door, Remus looks around taking in the shelves of Winky Crockett’s Elbow Grease and the assortment of Madame Glossy’s cleaning products.
“This is a broom closet,” he says.
“Astute observation, Remus.”
“What are you—” But then Sirius rushes forward, pushing him into the shelving. Both boys drop their bookbags and Remus responds, lips moving against Sirius’. And then he reaches forward, shoving Sirius against the door. He begins kissing down Sirius’ neck and Sirius’ hands reach between them, the heel of his right pushing against the bulge in Remus’ pants. Remus hisses and Sirius grins.
“I didn’t set a silencing charm, so you’ll have to be quiet,” he says.
“That seems more a problem for you than for me. Can’t even sit quietly for ten minutes of studying and—” He’s cut off by Sirius sticking two of his fingers into his mouth. Remus bats his hand away, Sirius fingers coming away wet. Sirius raises his eyebrows at him and, when Remus doesn’t say anything, he puts his fingers back in. Remus bites on them gently and then he starts to suck.
When he’s done Sirius licks the palm of his hand and then he’s reaching under the waistband of Remus’ trousers, fingers encircling Remus’ cock, and Remus grunts.
“Quiet, Remus,” Sirius admonishes.
“Shut up,” Remus mutters and then he’s pushing Sirius away so he can pull down his trousers and his pants. He reaches forward to undo the buttons of Sirius’ jeans, pulling them down along with his boxers.
Remus licks his own hand, Sirius watching him with wide eyes. And then they both reach out for each other.
—1995—
By noon, dark clouds had rolled in, sitting heavy and grey in the sky, casting shadows below. It was no surprise, then, when it had started raining.
It was surprising, however, how forceful it came down. Forceful enough, that the vehement strike of the rain on glass, had caused Remus to flinch and lose his place in his book.
“Is that rain?” Sirius calls from down the hall. Having cleared the washroom this morning, he was now working on sorting through the hall closet.
“Yeah,” Remus shouts back from the sitting room.
“Shit, it’s coming down hard, huh?”
“Yeah,” Remus says, eyes tracking the trails of rain on the windowpane.
Hours later and the rain was still coming down, not as hard as before but still as relentless. Big puddles had formed on the street and everytime a car passed by, Remus could hear the whooshing sound as they drove through the miniature lakes. And, by the time Sirius finishes with the closet and is half way through clearing the kitchen (he had only done a couple counter curses in there the first day), it’s four past noon and the storm doesn’t seem to be on the eve quite yet.
“Maybe I should head out?” Sirius says, sticking his head into the sitting room. “Before it gets any worse out there.”
Remus looks up and out the window, at Sirius’ bike across the street. “You could stay,” he says, turning to Sirius. “If you want, I mean. To wait out the storm till the morning.”
“Oh, that’s not—”
“I have extra linens. I could make up the sofa.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude or be rude. Merlin’s sake, I already invited myself to leech off your wine.”
“It’s really no bother. I wouldn’t have found it without you. And I think we’re equal in that regard, I leeched off your cigarettes. Anyways, I’d feel like a dick sending you out on the streets when they look like that.”
Sirius hesitates, he looks away from Remus. “Alright,” Sirius says. “Yes, thank you. I’m bloody horrible at the impervious charm and my bike is a pain to ride in the rain, given that it flies and all. I appreciate it.”
Remus nods and then he sets his book aside and stands up. “I’ll fetch the linens then.”
Together, they set up the sofa. Afterwards, Remus offers to make them both some soup for supper and Sirius asks what he can do to help. And so they both end up in the kitchen; Remus standing in front of the stove, stirring the broth with a ladle and Sirius cutting up vegetables with his fancy wand work.
When it’s all done, Remus sets the pot down on the counter and Sirius sprinkles some paprika into it. Remus turns to fetch them some bowls, nearly colliding with a cupboard door that had flown up. On instinct he leans back, flinching, but Sirius’ hand had already shot up, stopping the door before it could reach him.
Sirius looks up at him sheepishly. “Clearly I haven’t quite finished up in here,” he says, shutting the cupboard door and letting his hand fall.
Remus swallows and then ducks his head. “No worries,” he says. “Thanks,” he says, as he continues on to get them bowls.
Over dinner, Sirius keeps glancing over at him and then looking away. Remus fidgets in his seat, blows on his soup, and tries to ignore him.
“It’s still raining,” Remus says at the same time Sirius says, “the soup’s good.”
Remus nods his head. “My mam’s recipe.”
Sirius hums.
When their bowls are empty and placed in the sink, Remus leads Sirius down the hall to his bedroom so he can get some spare clothes to sleep in.
“Shirts are in there,” he says pointing to a drawer in his chest, “take whatever you like. I’ll find you some joggers.”
Remus turns bending down to root through the drawer beneath his bed, searching for a pair of pants with a drawstring that might fit Sirius and doesn’t have any holes or stains. Once he pulls one out, he turns and finds Sirius frozen, a piece of parchment in his hand.
“Sorry,” he says, looking over at Remus. “I don’t think I was supposed to find this.”
Remus looks between Sirius and the parchment and then back at Sirius.
“I didn’t think—” Sirius starts. “Why didn’t—” He shakes his head. He places the parchment back in the bottom of the drawer, where he found it. He pulls out a t-shirt and closes the drawer. “I think I should…” he trails and then: “Goodnight, Remus,” he says, without meeting the other man’s eyes. He takes the pair of joggers Remus is still holding out limply between them and then he walks out the room and down the hall.
When Remus wakes the next morning, his shirt, joggers, and spare linens are neatly folded on his sofa and the motorbike across the street is gone.
—1982—
As he pushes open the metal door, the brisk night air is like a slap to his face. It’s almost nice though, in the way that, for a moment, it makes him forget the rest of the pain coursing through his body. But then the door closes behind him and everything comes rushing back, each new tear in his body holding memory.
The full moon hangs heavy in the sky, only a few hours into waning. They never kick him out when it’s still dark out, right after he’s transformed back, but Remus hates the pitying looks of the clerks who stay overnight to lock and unlock the doors and he doesn’t like to spend any longer than he has to in that small room they chain him up in. So he often leaves after the transformation. Usually, though, the moon isn’t this bad.
He manages to make it a few steps before he’s doubling over, hands putting pressure on his lower abdomen. He thinks he feels blood soaking his shirt, staining his fingers, but he doesn’t look. He’s barely moving now, just barely shuffling along the brick path of the lawn. He sees a bench in the distance and he inches towards it but then he trips on something or maybe he trips on nothing but either way he’s on the ground. The wet dew of the grass wets his face. And then someone is there, carefully turning him over so he’s on his back. His first thought is that it’s the clerk, then, for one wild moment, he thinks maybe it’s his mam come all the way from Wales, but the face above him is neither.
“Remus?” Sirius says. He looks scared. Remus closes his eyes.
“Shit,” Sirius says and then he’s pulling out his wand, whispering healing spells under his breath.
“I knew they had accommodations here for you to transform, but I thought they’d have a healer for you too.”
Remus keeps his eyes closed. He’s not sure what Sirius is doing here. The closest accommodation hall is Rosenburch, which isn’t Sirius’. But he could have been coming from a party or from someone else’s rooms. They never said what they were doing was exclusive.
Remus squeezes his eyes, he doesn’t want to think about that. “They do,” he says. “He just doesn’t come till sunrise.”
“They don’t have him waiting for you?”
Remus shrugs.
“And what? No one in there knows any healing spells?” Sirius sounds angry, his voice is sharp and clipped and it hurts Remus’ head, makes the pounding against his skull harder.
Remus opens his eyes. “I’m fine,” he says.
“Like hell, you are,” Sirius says, still angry, still sharp. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll take you to my room.”
Remus shakes his head. “Mines closer. I’m in Waterhill.”
“Okay. Do you think— if you leaned on me, do you think you could stand?”
Remus hesitates and then he nods his head.
Slowly, Sirius helps him up.
Once they make it into Remus’ room, Sirius helps him undress and get into bed. Sirius walks off and comes back with a wet washcloth and begins dabbing at the dried blood on Remus’ skin. He pulls out his wand and whispers a few more healing spells.
Remus reaches out and grabs his wrist. “This is as good as it’s going to get,” he says. “Werewolf marks scar.”
Sirius stills.
He looks up at Remus. He looks so serious. He’s not smiling. It’s a weird look on him.
“Come here,” Remus says, nodding to space on the bed next to him.
Sirius hesitates and then he pulls off his shirt and lays carefully down on to the bed. Eventually, they both fall asleep.
The next morning Remus wakes up with Sirius folded into him, his chin on his chest, watching him.
“Hello,” Remus says.
“Hi.”
Remus closes his eyes. Sirius taps Remus’ chest with his forefinger. “Want me to run to the dinning hall and fetch you some breakfast?”
Remus shakes his head. He opens his eyes.
“Some pepper up potion?”
“No.”
“What do you want then?”
Remus bites his cheek. Sirius watches him, eyes scanning his face. And then Sirius ducks down and kisses his chest. “This okay? Doesn’t hurt?”
“Yeah,” Remus breathes. “Feels good.”
“Feels good,” Sirius repeats, warm breath against Remus’ chest, a smile pressed into his skin.
Sirius rolls on top of him, continuing to kiss down Remus’ body, to his navel. Sirius fingers reach up to the hem of Remus’ pants slowly pulling them down. “Alright?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Remus whispers, voice susurrous.
And then Sirius pulls Remus’ pants to his knees and kisses his cock. And Remus' breath catches and Sirius smiles and licks the underside of his dick and then Remus is reaching forward, grabbing onto Sirius’ hair.
—1995—
After Remus wakes and Sirius is not there, Remus makes himself breakfast and then heads over to his Mam’s as he does every other weekend.
It takes just over two hours of travelling but Remus likes the train, likes watching the greenery pass by the window in a blur, likes watching the people dozing off, reading their books, staring out the window. It’s better than apparition, which has always made him feel sick for at least half an hour afterwards.
When he makes it off the train his Mam is waiting for him at the station. She doesn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug and Remus returns it in full, hands squeezing the wool of her sweater. She smells of apples and lemon cookies and home.
She pulls away, reaching up to pull at his curls. “You need a haircut,” she says.
“Mam,” Remus says, pulling away from her reach. “I just got here.”
When they get home, she feeds him some lemon cookies that she had baked and then she corrals him into sitting at the dinette, hair scissors in hand.
She runs her fingers through his hair, carefully cutting and shaping. “You let it grow out too much,” she says. “This is almost as bad as when you’d go off to university for months and then come back with hair going in all different directions like a head of snakes. You remember?”
“It wasn’t that bad,” he says and she hums in disagreement, but continues clipping in silence.
When she’s done she uses a spell to clean up the fallen hair and then she sits across from him, levelling him with a look. “How’s the new flat?” she says.
“Alright,” he answers. And then: “The curse-breaker who came in to survey the place was actually someone I used to know at university.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh?” she says.
Remus shrugs. She frowns. “Have you made friends with the neighbours yet?”
“No, I think they’re all older, retired. I haven’t seen them much.”
She places the scissors down on the table. “You remember the Davies family? From a few streets down? They had a boy named Carwyn, a little younger than you, also magical.”
Remus shrugs. “Sure, yes.”
“Well the son recently moved to London as well. Maybe the next time I see his mam in town I’ll give her your contact so you two can get in touch. It might be nice to have friends nearby in the city.”
Remus nods. “Alright,” he says.
His mam gets up, walks into the kitchen, and then comes back. She places a newspaper and pen on the table in front of him. “I saved you the crossword,” she says.
“Diolch, Mam,” he says.
She cards her fingers through his newly cut hair. “It’s so good to see you, Cariad.”
—1982—
It’s the third article in only the past few days. Another report of another werewolf attack from the last full moon. The same had happened the moon before that. It’s not a new phenomenon. Once or twice a year there’d be a report of someone who was out in the woods late at night and got attacked by an unregistered werewolf. But now it’s happening more often, there’s more victims, and, according to the articles, they’re all premeditated and they’re all connected, all under Greyback’s pack. War is imminent, the papers say, and the Dark Creatures are on Voldemort's side.
It’s less than two weeks from Summer holiday and Remus is in the dining hall reading the newest report. The author doesn’t shy away from the gory details and by the time he finishes reading he feels sick. He sets the paper aside and stands up. Practically everyone —the students, the faculty, everyone— is staring at him as he walks out. Most have the decency to look away when they’re caught, some of them have more nerve.
Remus makes his way to Headmaster Dumbledore’s office. He had received an owl earlier that morning asking for his presence. He’s not sure what the headmaster wants with him, but he has a few guesses.
Once there, he steps in, closing the door behind him and stands awkwardly in the room.
The old man ushers Remus into a chair and offers him a cookie from a tin on his desk. When Remus declines, Dumbledore sits back in his chair, hands folded on top of his desk, and he smiles sorrily at Remus, like he pities him, like he doesn’t control what articles and what rhetoric makes it onto the tables of the dining hall.
He tells Remus things that he already knows. That there’s been a push in the media, polarising views, mass generalisations. That there’s a war growing and people are more likely to succumb to scare tactics than ever. That old families who make donations to the school may no longer want to send their children somewhere a werewolf also attends. That Remus is welcome to return, but it may be better to take a leave of absence, to pick up his studies in a year or some, when things begin to blow over. That it’s Remus’ choice, but not really.
“That’s not to say I don’t trust you, my boy. I do,” Dumbledore says. “You do well in your studies and I know you take your transformation with uttermost care and I’m sure your morals are well aligned and so that brings me to the next thing I’d like to discuss.”
There’s an Order, Dumbledore says. A secret group of wizards and witches working against Voldemort. And Remus could help them. He could be a spy for them. He could spend the moons with Greyback’s pack and report back to them. See if they can get ahead of the attacks, sus out weak links, see if he can convince part of the pack to join their side instead. And when it’s all done Remus could return back to university and his tuition for his last year would be paid for.
“This is, of course,” Dumbledore says, peering at him through his half moon glasses, “to stay between us. It’s best that very few know about the Order’s business. To betray us now, would retract the offer.”
When he leaves Dumbledore’s office, Sirius is waiting for him.
“What did he want?” Sirius asks once they’re outside, walking towards Sirius’ rooms.
Remus shrugs. “Nothing, just seeing how I was holding up with the new reports.”
Sirius looks over at him, eyes searching his face. If he finds something, he doesn’t say.
Sirius turns his head back forward, his eyes landing on a group of boys sitting on a bench, whispering to each other, staring over at Remus.
“Problem?” Sirius calls out, voice harsh.
Startled, the boys shake their heads and look away.
“You don’t have to do that,” Remus says, once they pass them.
Sirius doesn’t say anything, just reaches out for Remus’ hand.
—1995—
Monday morning, Sirius is at his door.
“Shouldn’t be too long today,” Sirius says.
Remus holds the front door open for him and Sirius nods and then averts his eyes as he walks in.
He finishes working in the kitchen in less than an hour and then he moves on to the bedroom. There’s not much to be done in there, just a few cursed objects in a display case that he begins sorting through.
Meanwhile, Remus sits in his chair with his book and his tea and pretends he’s reading, pretends he’s drinking his tea, wonders what he should say to Sirius when he leaves, if he should say anything.
But his thoughts are interrupted by something in the bedroom clattering to the floor. He hears Sirius cursing and then: “You wouldn’t happen to have some healing salve, would you?”
“What?” Remus shouts back. And then the portrait in the hall starts shrieking and any answer Sirius would have given is drowned out.
Remus gets up, casts a silencing charm at the portrait and walks to the bedroom. Sirius is holding out his arm, there’s a red chain-like pattern criss crossed on his forearm and blood is dripping onto the floor.
At Sirius’ feet is a black locket with a gold chain.
“What happened?” Remus asks.
“Bloody locket got me,” Sirius mutters.
“I have salve,” Remus says. “It’s just, it’s in the washroom.” He turns, walking down the hall, and Sirius follows.
“Here,” Remus says as he puts down the lid of the toilet. Sirius sits down.
Remus roots through his medicine cabinet until he pulls out his tube of star grass salve. He sits down on the rim of the bathtub and takes Sirius' forearm into his lap, carefully applying the salve to his cuts.
“This doesn’t look too bad,” he says, once he’s done. He puts the cap back on the tube and places it to the side, resting it on the bathtub. “Should heal nicely,” he says. “This salve always works for me and I’ve had worse.”
“I know,” Sirius says, looking up and locking eyes with Remus. He pulls his arm away. “Patched you up a few times myself, after all.”
Remus falters, looking over to meet Sirius’ gaze. He doesn’t say anything.
“This is weird. I mean this has been weird, right?” Sirius says. “Because I knew you Remus, I knew you. And just, what exactly have we been doing here?”
Remus shakes his head, he looks away. “I—”
“Why’d you disappear?” Sirius says, his voice accosting.
Remus looks down at his hands clasped in front of him. “You know how it was for me. The papers and the students, all the families with influence paying grants to the school. I didn’t exactly have a choice.”
“You always have a choice, Remus. You could have, fuck, you could have said goodbye at least. You could have—”
“I didn’t want to.”
Sirius scoffs. “You didn’t want to. Fuck you, Remus,” Sirius spits. “I asked everyone. Tracked down your old hallmates, no one knew where you were. I went to Dumbledore and he gave me some bullshit about how he couldn’t divulge personal information about past students. And I wrote to you and you never wrote back and I tried to look you up in the Ministry pages and nothing came up, you were just— you were just gone.”
“I was with Greyback,” Remus says, voice quiet.
Sirius reels. “What?” he says.
“I— for the Order. I was working for the Order. Dumbledore wanted— I was spying for them and afterwards Dumbledore said they’d pay for the rest of my schooling. But I couldn’t tell anyone, he said it was too dangerous, that I couldn’t trust anyone. And once I began I was told to burn any letters that I got because there wasn’t a sure way to verify the sender and return owls could be tracked. And just— other than spending the full with the pack and attending Order meetings, I was living in complete isolation for years.”
Sirius looks away, eyes falling on the gaudy green bathroom tile. “All those meetings with Dumbledore before the summer holiday… you knew then, didn’t you? You knew that when you left for holiday you weren’t coming back, didn’t you?”
Remus shakes his head. His nose feels funny and there’s tears forming in his eyes. “You don’t understand what it was like,” he says. “The other students, their families, they wanted me locked up, they wanted me dead , and I just wanted an education. I just— And Dumbledore, he promised my safety and my education and it just, it seemed like my only option. And he told me I couldn’t tell anyone or the offer would be taken away. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. It seemed like all my choices were being taken away from me, that I was losing everything, and I didn’t want to lose you too. And I didn't feel like I had a choice on that either, but I thought if I just waited a little longer, maybe everything would settle down and everyone would change their minds and I could just go back to school the next year as planned. Because as soon as I told you and I said it out loud, it would be over, we’d be good as done. And I wanted those last couple weeks with you at school, where I could pretend everything was alright, I wanted that so badly, so I waited. But then I waited too long and things only got worse and then it was August and Dumbledore had shown up to my mam’s house and said it was now or never and then I was in the Order and I was being monitored by Dumbledore and I couldn’t contact anyone without the Order finding out.”
Sirius laughs and he’s smiling, and, for the first time, it looks unnatural on his face. “Well that’s sort of a moot point, isn’t it? That you didn’t want to lose me? You didn’t trust me enough to tell me why Dumbledore was meeting with you. And, barring that, you didn’t respect me enough to just fucking break up with me before you went and disappeared. Don’t you think that, by that point, when you had made that decision, that you had already lost me?”
“I know that it was fucked up and I know none if it makes sense, I know that, but I was twenty-two,” Remus says. “I was twenty-two and I was scared and I didn’t know what to do. And you were just, you were magic. I was so fucking miserable at university and then you were there and you were the only good thing I had and everything was being taken away from me and I didn’t know what to do.”
Sirius lets out a ragged breath, his eyes are red, and he isn’t looking at Remus.
They sit there in silence, the leaky bathtub faucet drip, drip, dripping. It feels like forever before Sirius stands up. Remus doesn’t look at him.
“The locket was the last thing I had left to decurse. So I think— I think I should probably go now.”
“Okay,” Remus says. He’s looking at the tube of the star grass salve, the label of it blurring together with the water in his eyes. He blinks and a tear falls. By the time he looks back up, Sirius is gone.
***
Remus spends the entire next morning reading and finishing his book. He spends the afternoon writing his anonymous review for it to be published in the Sunday Prophet. It’s one of the several hodgepodge jobs (along with translating Ancient Runes texts and editing for Challenges in Charming) he’s accumulated over the years that has hired and kept him on despite his lycanthropy.
Even with his university degree and, despite the fact that Remus takes off as little time as possible around the moons and is willing to take on extra shifts to make that time up, he’s found most jobs have used the once a month requested time off as an excuse not to hire him in order to play down their discrimination. For, though the war with Voldemort may be over, it casts a long shadow.
When he’s done writing the review he sends it in by owl and then turns in for an early evening.
***
The next morning there’s roadwork on the street outside of Remus’ flat. The buzzing of the muggle machines echoes throughout the walls and Remus wakes to the sound of the hall portrait shrieking. He stumbles out of bed, aiming a silencing spell at it, but it eventually wears off and he opts for covering it with a sheet, which seems to calm the lady in lace.
He spends the day wandering around the flat. Now that the place has been thoroughly decursed, he’s free to explore the various artefacts and knick knacks without worrying about his ears growing horns or hiccuping fire.
He spends the rest of the day in the sitting room working on crosswords.
He turns in early.
***
He spends the majority of the next day working on translation work.
After lunch, he lays down on his sofa and falls asleep to the soft sound of his neighbours speaking on the other side of the wall.
He wakes up at half past 5 and makes himself something to eat. Then he reads a couple chapters of a book and turns in early.
***
The next day he lugs himself out of the flat.
Book in hand, he makes his way to the park. He keeps getting distracted though by friends laying out together in the grass, laughing and talking, and by couples walking by, hands held between them. By the time he leaves the park, his bookmark —a battered receipt from the grocery— is stuck unimpressively between pages 20 and 21.
He’s making himself a measly supper (beans on toast) when there’s a tapping on his window.
He turns to find a big, brown owl that he doesn’t recognize perched outside, a letter held in its beak, watching him with yellow eyes. He walks over to open his window and it flies in, landing on his dinette where it drops the letter and then looks up at him, head tilting.
Remus picks the letter up, easing open the flap of the envelope with his thumb and unfolding the parchment within.
‘Remus,’ it says. ‘It seems our Mams have decided we are to be the best of friends. Would you fancy meeting up? Maybe grabbing a pint? It would be nice to catch up. Honest, my mam’s influence aside, if i had known you had also ended up in London I would have tried to rekindle earlier. Feel free to use my owl to reply. Careful, she bites. -Your old friend, Carwyn.’
***
Remus’ drink sits in front of him on the bar on top of a chequered cardboard coaster. He takes a sip of it and then wipes off the condensation from his glass, drying his hands on his jeans, afterwards.
He’s about to scan the crowd of the pub again when he hears his name being called.
He turns to find Carwyn walking towards him. He looks about the same as he remembers him —round face, brown hair, freckles— just older now. Carwyn smiles at him as he takes off his coat, hanging it on the chair next to Remus and then sitting down at the bar. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long,” he says.
“No. Not at all.”
Carwyn smiles and nods and then the barkeep is there asking if he can get Carwyn anything.
Carwyn turns to Remus. “What are you drinking?” he asks.
“The lager.”
Carwyn turns to the barkeep, still smiling. “I’ll have the same. Thanks.”
Carwyn turns back to him. “How have you been? How’s London been?”
“I’m alright. London is… it’s a bit big and intimidating. I don’t know too many people in the city yet. The weather’s shit, the chip butties are good. How have you found it?”
The barkeep sets a lager down in front of Carwyn and he takes a sip of it before answering. “About the same. Big and intimidating, wet and grey, good sandwiches.” Carwyn winks at him. “But no, we moved here because Emma got a job at the Ministry, so I don’t know too many people either, mostly just her work friends.”
“Emma?”
“Oh, yes, my fiancée,” Carwyn says. “I’m engaged.”
“Oh,” Remus says, eyebrows raised. “Congratulations.”
“Cheers, thank you. But no, I think I get what you’re saying though. It’s a big city and I’m not really sure how you’re supposed to make friends as an adult. I suppose you’re supposed to take up hobbies. Go to a pottery class, except I think I’d probably find some way to blow something up. Or join a knitting club—”
“I think I’d just run into my neighbours there,” Remus muses. “They’re all little old ladies.”
“Yes. I suppose all the young people are out at clubs,” Carwyn says.
Remus must make a face at that because Carwyn laughs. “Yes, no I agree,” he says. “I think the only way people actually enjoy a club is if they get absolutely sloshed beforehand.”
Remus takes a sip of his lager, smiling. “Even then, I’m afraid I like to be tucked into bed by eleven.”
“Ah, same, with my night cap and a cup of tea. Maybe we would fit in better at the knitting club with your neighbours.”
Remus grins. “Isn’t that just terrible,” he says.
Carwyn hums, taking a sip of his lager. He turns more towards Remus. “Where were you before London?” he asks.
“I was in Aberdeen for a bit.”
“Oh. I did a semester abroad over there. Not to be that person who brings up their study abroad. Merlin knows it was nothing to wax lyrics about. My professor had the heaviest accent and I couldn’t understand a lick of what he was saying. Nearly failed out of the program all because I didn’t understand what the assignments were. And my roommate was a vampire, which is all well and good, except I almost never saw him, he was always coming back at weird times. And I know it’s more a myth than actual practice for them, but one night I got up to get a glass of water and he was just hanging upside down by the cupboards, wide awake and staring at me. Nearly pissed myself. He was an alright lad once we got to know each other, but I think he got a real kick out of messing with me. What about you? Any roommate stories?”
Remus smiles. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “My accommodations were all single rooms.”
“Lucky you. It’s odd growing up an only child in the middle of fuck all Wales and then moving into a shoebox with someone else. How was uni otherwise?”
“It was alright. I had to take a couple years off because of the war, but—”
“Oh, shit, yes, the war. That must have been horrible, I mean it was horrible, but for you especially, I imagine.”
“Yeah,” Remus says. “It was horrible. I enjoyed it though, uni I mean, before all that. I liked going to class and reading the assignments and, Merlin, it all sounds a bit swotty, but I did. Maybe not at first, but once I made a friend. He got me a bit out of my comfort zone, made sure I didn’t just drown in the library, but I fear I was never meant to be in the club. I fear I was destined for knitting and crosswords and bird watching. And maybe it’s a terrible thought, but perhaps I’ve just been slowing growing into my personality.”
Carwyn hums. “Afraid I might be about the same. If your neighbours have any knitting club recommendations, I’d be all ears.”
Remus shakes his head. “I’ll let you know,” he says.
“Listen,” Carwyn says, “Emma and I are having a flat warming party next Friday. It’s mostly just some of her friends she made from work, won’t be too big of a thing, but you should come.”
Remus blinks, surprised. “Oh,” he says. “Alright. I’d like that.”
Carwyn smiles. “Good,” he says. “It’s nice to have a friend nearby, you know?”
Remus nods, the corner of his mouth catching. “Yeah it is.”
***
By the time Friday comes around, Remus has already met Emma, the three of them having gone out for chip butties earlier in the week. And, as he gets ready for their party today, he finds himself looking forward to talking to her and Carwyn again.
He’s pulled a wine from the cellar to give to them for their flat warming and he places it on his dresser as he sorts through his drawers looking for a jumper to put on.
In the mess of his half unfolded drawers, his fingers come across parchment— the same one Sirius had found a couple weeks ago.
It’s the last letter Sirius ever wrote him, it’s the only one he had kept. It starts with, ‘This is the last letter I’ll send, ’ and it ends with, ‘I love you,’ and Remus can’t bare to read it now so he tucks it back into the depths of the drawer and shoves it close.
The wine bottle totters dangerously with how forcefully he closes the drawer and Remus grabs it before it can fall off the edge. He heads out the door, forgoing the jumper, and grabbing his wool coat from the hall closet instead.
The party is small, but it’s nice. When Remus arrives Emma insists they open the wine. The label says it contains fizzling dragon berries and it crackles and pops in their mouth and, when Carwyn starts coughing, pink bubbles come out of his nose and they all have a laugh.
Remus meets some of Emma's coworkers— Mary, Kingston, Frank, along with Frank’s wife, Alice. They’re all rather lovely, even Kingston who, with his stiff handshake and serious eyes, had seemed rather intimidating at first, and Remus finds he is genuinely enjoying himself.
He’s talking with Emma about her alihotsy plant she just potted, when someone else arrives to the party and Emma excuses herself to go welcome the new guests.
Remus leans against the kitchen counter as he finishes off his beer and watches as Emma goes to hug a pretty woman with long, auburn hair. And then the woman is walking further into the room and behind her is a man with glasses and a warm smile and Remus panics because he recognizes that face.
Emma is accepting a plate of cookies from the couple as Remus turns around.
He places his empty beer bottle on the counter and walks out to Carwyn and Emma’s balcony and then he’s climbing the couple feet up to the roof.
He stumbles his way over to the parapet, searching his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter and realises he left them in the pockets of his coat, hung up on Carwyn and Emma’s coat hanger. Sighing, he leans against the parapet instead and begins picking at his cuticles.
His right thumb is bleeding when someone behind him says hi. Remus flinches, surprised, and he turns and Sirius is standing there; jeans and a faded black shirt, argute grey eyes and dark hair blowing slightly in the wind, standing still, staring at him; the eye of a storm.
“James said he thought he might have seen you ducking away up here,” he says.
Remus blinks and doesn’t say anything and Sirius takes a couple steps forward. “I didn’t know you knew Emma. James works with her,” he says.
Remus shakes his head. “I met her last week. I grew up in the same village as Carwyn.”
“Oh,” Sirius says and then he says nothing.
“Maybe I should go,” Remus says at the same time Sirius says, “I wish you would have told me.”
Sirius looks over at him and then away. “About what you talked about with Dumbledore, I mean.”
Remus pauses, he turns away, looking over the rooftop. He breathes in. “I know,” he says.
“I think I knew you weren’t telling me the whole truth at the time, but I didn’t want to push you. Maybe I should have.”
Remus doesn’t say anything and Sirius continues: “But I don’t— I can’t imagine what it was like for you. I know you were twenty-two and scared and that you felt like you were being backed into a corner. And honestly, fuck Dumbledore for doing that to you. And I’m sorry you had to go through that alone. I wish I could have helped you.”
Remus stares out at the streets below, at the cars passing by, their headlights wobbling beams cutting through the dark. He shakes his head weakly.
Next to him, Sirius sighs. “I don’t know where I stand on it now,” he says. “Part of me thinks it’s selfish and cowardly of you to not tell me, to just disappear, to not at least break up with me first, but, honestly, I don’t know what I would have done in your place. I think I probably would have fucked it up too, under all that pressure.”
“I regretted it,” Remus says. He’s still looking away, down at the streets. “Once it was too late and Dumbledore had shown up at my door and I was cut off from communication and I started getting your letters— I regretted it. You didn’t deserve it.”
Remus can hear the faint chatter of the party below, the sound of car wheels on pavement, the low buzz of the city at ten pm —people laughing and yelling, cars honking— and he can hear Sirius next to him, breathing in and out. “Twenty-two,” Sirius says sotto voce.
Remus bites his cheek. “Yeah,” he murmurs back.
Sirius clears his throat. “I uh— I work with several different landlords and agents in the area and I see the signing paperwork before I go to a job so I knew it was your flat that I was going to. Assumed it was unlikely someone else had the name Remus Lupin. And I thought I’d confront you, ask where you had disappeared to, what had happened all those years ago but then you answered the door and it was weird. I had this wild thought of what if you closed the door in my face, what if you left me alone on the doorstep, what if you pushed me away again and I didn’t think I could go through that again. And so, I don’t know, I thought I’d play pretend for a little bit.”
Remus looks over at Sirius standing next to him. He catches Sirius looking over at him as well and then Remus turns away.
“I loved you, back then,” Sirius says. “We never talked about it. But I did, I loved you.”
“I loved you too,” Remus says through the selcouth lump in his throat.
“I don’t know if that ever really goes away, you know? With how things went with us, because it never really ended, did it? It never ended it just… I don’t know… slipped, drifted, waned, crashed… like one of those muggle automobile accidents in those cartoons, a plume of smoke and then a rolling wheel, you know?”
Remus swallows. “Yeah,” he says. He's looking across the way, at a flat that just turned its light on, the yellow glow shining through their curtains.
“Maybe we can just start over,” Sirius says. “I mean, since you’re mates with Carwyn, we’ll probably be running into each other. Probably best if we’re cordial.”
“I can be cordial,” Remus says, his head turning to look over at Sirius.
The corner of Sirius’ mouth flickers. “Sure you can,” he says, voice light.
Remus rolls his eyes and Sirius turns towards him, holding out his hand. “I’m Sirius,” he says.
Remus reaches out to grasp his hand. “I know,” he says.
Sirius gives him a look. Remus laughs. “Sorry,” he says, “I’m Remus.”
They drop their hands. “Nice to meet you, Remus,” Sirius says. Remus nods and then they both turn to look away, at the city below.
“You know,” Remus says, watching a couple walking on the pavement together. He lets his arms rest on the scaffolding. “I think we had Magical Theory together.”
The corner of Sirius’ mouth twitches. “Did we?” he says.
“Mm, and then we disrespected a library broom closet and you found me bleeding on the pavement and stitched me up and, most recently, you came over and de-cursed my entire flat.”
Sirius hums. “I don’t know,” he says, “doesn’t ring a bell.”
Remus smiles. Next to him Sirius leans against the scaffolding, letting his arms rest on top of it. He lets his hand brush against Remus’ and then he leaves his hand there, the sides of their hands pressed together. Remus turns to look over at him, but Sirius is looking straight ahead, he’s looking straight ahead and he’s smiling, that old Sirius Black grin, and it’s like they’re twenty-two again.