Chapter Text
November 1st, 1971
Remus
Remus stared up at the burgundy canopy above his four-poster in a slight daze, small body wracked with growing aches and pains. It was the evening before the third full moon of his young Hogwarts career, and already, he regretted attending the institution something terrible.
Nothing was how he’d imagined it to be. Not the professors, nor the students, and certainly not his monthly transformations.
It wasn’t hard to miss his mum and dad and their quiet home in Tintern—surrounded by warmth and understanding, strained though it might have been at times. Even after a particularly horrible full moon, come the following morning, his mother and father were right there by his side to nurse him back to health with soft blankets, kind smiles, and gentle touches that helped quell the worst of his terror.
Never did it take longer than a day of rest before he was back on his feet, running around the front yard like a wild thing, climbing up trees to see just how high he could reach. All that had changed for him the second he left.
To keep the other children safe from harm, Remus was forced down into the escape tunnels that led to various places throughout Hogsmeade and the surrounding countryside, out into an abandoned shack that smelled woefully of mildew and dust. A thin mattress had been laid out in one of the highest rooms of the three story building, threadbare and stained by the passage of time, and the wolf inside of him was expected to just curl up on it and quietly go to sleep.
It didn’t, and so each morning after the sun fully rose and his change was completed, Madam Pomfrey would come back to find his battered body in a heap on the dirt-encrusted floor—exhausted from the havoc he’d wrought throughout the night—and carry him back to the infirmary to rest up.
Outside of all that, Hogwarts itself was pure misery. It was too large and too cold, the stone walls allowing minimal sunlight to permeate the darkness surrounding him like a cloak.
Remus had never been one to care much for the company of others, but in those long stretches of silence between classes while he walked through the crowds of giggling students with shoulders slumped and head down, what he wanted more than anything was a friendly face to share some of the burden.
It wasn’t difficult to see that he was lonely. Painfully so, and it only grew more unbearable for him by the second.
Of course, he could have rectified that himself at any time. Spoken up during meals or situated a bit closer to one of the more established groups in the school, worming his way into the others’ lives by proxy. The idea of putting himself out there and being shot down was perhaps worse to him than the thought he might spend the entire year alone, so he disregarded it entirely and accepted the title of social outcast of Gryffindor house.
Not that the boys in his dorm weren’t always kind to him in passing, but for the most part, even their gazes skittered over him like he was nothing more than a fixture glued to the bedside, ceasing to exist once seated inside the classroom or down in the Great Hall. If Remus didn’t know any better, he’d think he was infected with a rare invisibility disease instead of lycanthrope, though it might have been their sense of the latter that kept the friendly encounters to a bare minimum. He wouldn’t blame them. Who'd want to befriend a werewolf?
The door opened with a loud bang as it hit the wall behind it, pulling Remus out of his vacant, daydream-like state with a jolt.
Sirius Black flounced into the room shortly thereafter in quick strides, humming quietly to himself under his breath, making a beeline for the trunk at the end of his bed. Rifling through it like a whirlwind tornado, he threw the unnecessary contents onto the floor, letting out a loud cry of delight as he found whatever it was he’d been searching for and held it up with a wicked grin. Stuffing the small object deep into the pocket of his robes, he then proceeded to toss the rumpled clothing and loose bits of parchment back into the trunk messily, not seeming to care whether or not he ruined either of them in the process.
Remus watched the spectacle quietly from his place hidden in the darkness of his bed, curling onto his side to get a better view so he wouldn’t have to strain his neck any.
He didn’t bother to announce his presence to the other boy. Didn’t think it would matter much considering Sirius was a known troublemaker and was no doubt about to cause a stir during supper for which he would gladly take full credit and land himself another month’s worth of detentions. Why waste energy if he was just going to be overlooked, all the same?
The trunk closed with a soft click, the boy rising to his feet and bending at the waist to dust his knees off impatiently. Something small and round slipped from the upper breast pocket of his robes, bouncing along the hardwood floor and coming to stop just at the edge of Remus’ bedside.
Sirius watched it roll under with a frown, clicking his tongue distastefully as he went back down onto hands and knees to retrieve the offending object from beneath the bed. When his head popped back up, their eyes locked, a soft gasp of surprise catching in his throat.
“Merlin, you nearly scared the piss out of me, Lupin,” Sirius huffed, porcelain features pinching into something rigid and cold. “The least you could do is make some noise so I don’t nearly have a heart attack when I realize I’m not alone up here.”
“Sorry,” Remus croaked out, wincing slightly at the scratchy sound of his own voice. Surely it hadn’t been that long since he’d used it, had it? He honestly couldn't recall, not with the fog of the full moon creeping in. A day or two, at most.
Sirius’ expression seemed to soften at that, grey eyes taking in the implications of his pitiful state and coming to some sort of conclusion because of it. “Not feeling well, then,” he asked, a sympathetic lilt to his tone.
“Not really, no,” Remus confirmed quietly.
The dark-haired boy nodded like he’d already guessed at the answer. “You get sick quite a bit, yeah? Three or so times since the start of the school year.”
Remus’ eyes blew wide in response. Since when did Sirius Black notice him enough to remember how many times he’d gotten sick? The boy was practically the most self-absorbed person on the planet. If he’d noticed, how much longer would it be until others did, as well? Until they began questioning the implications of his monthly absences?
It wouldn’t do, at any rate. He’d have to discuss some alternatives with Dumbledore before the rest of the school caught on and shunned him for his disease. Or worse.
“Just not used to being around a lot of other people,” he lied, shocking himself with how easily it slipped from his tongue. Not that he was the most honest child around. There was just never a good enough reason for him to twist the truth until right then. “Compromised my immune system, and all that.”
“Didn’t you have any friends that you played with back home?”
“No.”
Sirius seemed to accept the answer easy enough, grimacing slightly to portray his displeasure. “That must have been difficult,” he replied, situating himself in a more comfortable position on the floor. Tucking his long legs up to his chest, he wrapped them in his arms and set his chin on his knee. “I was never allowed to play with anyone who wasn’t deemed appropriate by my parents, so I mostly just saw members of my own family. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have nobody.”
“It wasn’t all that bad,” Remus relented, feeling terrible for making it sound like his entire childhood was lonely. In fact, until very recently, he’d never quite understood the meaning of the word. “We moved a bit, anyway, so I never really minded playing by myself. More serene. Less chaos.”
“Hogwarts must feel like a zoo to you, then,” Sirius said with a smirk. “All the students rushing around between classes and whatnot. Must be hard to find a spot of peace and quiet.”
The ends of his own mouth quirked slightly in amusement. “I admit some make it a bit louder than others,” he teased, shooting the boy a pointed look.
“Some people are just so inconsiderate,” Sirius deadpanned.
Remus let out a hoarse bark of laughter in response, feeling it sink all the way down into his chest and pool there softly. The last time he’d laughed, truly laughed, had been that morning before climbing aboard the Hogwarts Express. When he was still excited by the prospect of attending a real wizard’s school and daydreaming about which house he might be sorted into.
Not that things hadn’t been funny since. He was just too glum to really appreciate the humor much.
“Quite right,” he agreed after the feeling died down, glancing at the clock and noting the time. It was half past five already, which meant that dinner was about to start at any moment. “You should probably head down to the Great Hall if you don’t want to be late to supper.”
Sirius looked a bit reluctant to leave, which struck him as odd as there was no reason he should want to stay. “Are you coming along? I was actually just on my way there when I remembered something in my trunk that I needed for later. We can go down together, if you’d like. I’m sure James wouldn’t mind the extra company.”
“I’m fine,” Remus replied with a slight shake of the head, ignoring the way it made his vision swim and stomach roll with nausea. Lifting one corner of his mouth in a wry smile, he pressed on. “Not really up for walking around after attending all my classes this afternoon. I’d rather just sleep.”
“You’ll attend classes but you won’t go down and get food?”
“I didn’t want to fall behind,” he admitted sheepishly.
“You’re barking mad,” Sirius informed him with a snort, quirking an incredulous brow. “If you’re that sick then you should’ve just stayed in bed the whole day. You’ll never get better if you don’t rest and properly nourish yourself.”
“I’ll already have to miss a couple of classes if I don’t feel better tomorrow,” Remus told him gravely. “So, I’d rather miss as few as possible. Eating isn’t as important as all that. Besides, I had lunch. I’ll be fine.”
It was the truth, for the most part, though he knew his absence would be closer to a week depending on how bad his injuries were that time around. Each month had been a bit worse than the one before it, the amount of anger and rage the wolf felt at being locked up in an empty house that smelled unfamiliar to it seeming to grow a little stronger the longer its cries of fury went unanswered. It was still too soon to tell if that would change with time, but his recovery period had nearly doubled since the last full moon. He shuddered to think of what might happen to him down the road.
The teachers all knew, of course. They’d have to with the amount of class he’d have to miss in the coming years. Every last one had been spoken to, before the fact, and asked if they’d care about a werewolf attending or if it was too much trouble to deal with. Only a few seemed less than thrilled, though Dumbledore smoothed over the rough edges in his own uniquely diplomatic way—which meant nearly everyone received a few bribes to help still their tongues.
The system set in place for him meant he had access to makeup work that was easily done from the comfort of the infirmary, but that didn’t mean it was enjoyable. On the contrary, it made him feel all the more alone. If he had to force his tired body out of bed and into class just so he could have one less afternoon spent wallowing in self-pity, then he’d do what he must to get it done.
Leaning back with a tilt of his head, Sirius regarded him with curious grey eyes. They seemed to bore right through him for a moment, almost calculatingly, before a large grin slipped its way across his mouth. “All right, then. If you won’t come down, I’ll just sneak something up for you on my way back. Any requests? I’ve gotten pretty good at shrinking spells, so quantity isn’t an issue.”
For the second time in ten minutes, Remus’ eyes widened in shock. The two were practically strangers, having said no more than a handful of sentences to one another in the last couple months. Why was Sirius Black offering to help someone he didn’t even know, especially when that someone was Remus? He was invisible. Quiet. Guarded. Nothing at all like the vibrant whirlwind of a boy sitting before him with a smile so bright and warm it nearly hurt to look at it.
Licking his lips nervously, he shook his head once more. “I-I’m fine, honestly. No need to go out of your way for me.”
“But I want to,” Sirius replied with a frown, seemingly confused as to why anyone would turn down his request. It probably didn’t happen all too often, if the boy even bothered to offer, to begin with. Which made it all the more perplexing that he’d try it now.
“You… want to,” Remus parroted, not quite sure the words made sense when strung together in that order. Not when they came out of the mouth of the other, and certainly not when directed at him. Narrowing his eyes thoughtfully, he chewed on his lower lip. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason,” the boy asked with another quirked brow. “And what’s more, do you have a real reason to say no? It’s not like it’s any trouble, I often sneak a few extra desserts for James and myself to snack on before bed. I’m sure we can manage a few more items. I insist.”
While he had a fair point, that didn’t explain why he’d be so eager to be nice to a complete stranger. It wasn’t as if he’d gain anything from it. Remus was a no one. Being kind to him held little advantage. It would be far simpler to just ignore him indefinitely than it would be to feign sympathy for his condition.
“Why would you want to help me,” he blurted out, flustered by the fact he couldn’t figure it out on his own. “You don’t even know me.”
Sirius blinked a few times in surprise before another crooked grin brightened up his face. “Well, not yet, no. But that’s no reason not to do something nice for someone else. Besides, I like talking with you. It’s… different from how James and I talk.”
“You do,” Remus asked quietly, feeling his cheeks begin to heat from mild embarrassment. No one had ever told him that before. Unless he counted his mum, which he most certainly did not. Mums were supposed to tell you things like that; random boys who happened to share a common sleeping space were under far less obligation.
The corners of Sirius’ stormy eyes crinkled softly as he nodded his head. “Yeah, I do.”
“Chocolate.”
“Pardon?”
“Chocolate,” he repeated a little louder, curling his mouth wryly. “I’d like some chocolate, if you can find some. And a cup of ginger tea.”
“What are you, an old man,” Sirius quipped, rising to his feet to stretch out his limbs and twist his spine with an audible pop. Running a hand through his messy black hair, he gazed down through long lashes. “I suppose I could do that. The kitchens are bound to have it, at the very least.”
“I thought the kitchens were off limits to students,” Remus stated dryly.
Grinning wickedly, the other boy lifted one arm up in a shrug. “Rules were put there to be broken.”
“That’s not how—“
“Ah-ah,” Sirius cut him off with a waggle of his finger. “Ask and you shall receive. I’ll be back in about an hour, so get some rest and feel better, yeah?” Turning on his heel, he sauntered out of the room, closing the door behind himself with a soft click.
Rolling onto his back, Remus gazed up at the burgundy canopy above his four-poster, unable to keep the smile from blooming across his lips.
Notes:
I struggled with the idea of posting this pretty much ever, but decided to give it a shot because it sat in the back of my mind taking up space for roughly six years until I finished it a couple of months ago.
I think it deserves to stand as a testament to my belief that we can still offer something to the parts of ourselves long forgotten. Plus I really hate that I was robbed of the opportunity to pour myself into the project without constant doubt plaguing me simultaneously.Anyway, I wrote this for them. For the past. And to a future that lives unapologetically no matter what anyone else has to say.
Hit me up on Tumblr if you so choose --Cherrywrites626
Stay lovely<3
Chapter 2: The First Time I Noticed You Had Secrets
Notes:
What do you mean I already posted today and swore not to do it again for two weeks?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1972
Sirius
Sirius stared hard at the far wall in quiet contemplation, the hint of a slight pout outturning his bottom lip.
Remus lay just next to him on his stomach, legs crossed at the ankle and poised high in the air, flitting through the pages of their Charms book with intense concentration. A scroll of parchment had been set out before him to jot down notes with, the ink spelled to float nearby to avoid spilling it on the crisp white sheets.
There was still a good hour or more until dinner was going to be served, and neither one of his two preferred people were available to listen to him mope about how unfair it was that nobody had any time for him these days.
James was off at Quidditch practice like a git because he’d tried out and had actually made the team, and of course, Remus was lost to the world for the next little while playing the part of the diligent student. If it could be helped, hanging out with Peter down in the Commons playing chess was typically viewed as a last resort to satisfy his need for attention. Which left him no choice but to pester Remus incessantly until he cracked.
Not that that was an easy feat to accomplish. The boy who was once so easily baited into hour-long discussions when they should’ve been doing homework was already impervious to his typical brand of shenanigans, having picked up quite speedily the exact way that Sirius functioned. Anymore, it was a major win if he could get the lad to momentarily glance up from his studies, let alone respond to some manner of verbal stimuli. Sentences over four syllables in length were the very rarest of gems, reserved for only the most obnoxious of times.
That didn’t stop him from doing everything in his power to reach that level of sheer pigheadedness. It was a gift, and he would be damned before he left well enough alone. Remus, the wonderful friend that he was, continually allowed Sirius into his private study sessions despite that fact. Which was perhaps the sole reason he seemed to keep aiming so high, in the first place.
“I’m bored,” Sirius finally announced when he could take being silent no longer, flopping onto his stomach and heaving a dramatic sigh. The boy at his side made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, but otherwise, ignored him outright. Pursing his lips, he pressed on. “I just wish there was something to do, someone willing to listen to my plight.”
All he received in response was a half-hearted ‘ah’ to console himself with.
Rolling over so he was on his back, he threw an arm over his eyes and sighed even louder. “I’m certain that I’ll perish, at this rate. I can already feel myself slipping slowly toward the sweet embrace of death.”
“Hm.”
“Honestly, Rem, the least you could do is humor me a little.”
Remus flipped the page in his book, glancing at him from out of the corner of his eye. “If I did that, then you’d never let me study in peace,” he replied in a flat tone.
That was far more than only four syllables. It must be an off day.
Always one to take advantage of the small moments of leeway he received from the other, Sirius stood true to form and attempted to draw out every last second he could muster. “I might,” he wagered, curling the left side of his mouth in a self-satisfied smirk.
“Ha. That’s one I haven’t heard before,” Remus muttered under his breath.
Reaching out with his elbow, he prodded his friend gently in the ribs. “I would definitely be more inclined to every now and then, if you did.”
“Go pester James if you’re so keen on some attention,” the boy finally snapped, shooting him a withering glare. The hint of a crease could be seen between his thick brows, amber eyes flashing in warning. “I’m sure he’d be glad to listen to your nonsense while I finish up. Merlin knows you two prats are going to beg me to help you at the last minute, anyway, so one of us might as well be prepared.”
“You wound me,” Sirius sniffed as he turned his head away with an exaggerated pout. “You know very well that you’re all I have left in this pitiful existence.”
“Mm.”
Sunlight trickled its way in through the window nearby, casting its golden-hued rays on the hangings above his head. A long beat of silence passed in which the only sound came from the fluttering of textbook pages. Rolling onto his side, he propped his head up with a loosely curled fist and grinned. “And besides, studying is overrated. You already know the whole book, by this point. Why bother cramming even more information into that giant brain of yours?”
“Because. Not all of us feel inclined to get by with the skin of our teeth,” Remus informed him curtly, the corners of his lips drooping with his displeasure. Picking up the quill on his right, he jotted down a quick note onto the parchment, taking special care not to smudge the wet ink. “Now hush up. If you wish to find someone else with which to chat, there’s the door.”
Feeling pleased with himself for getting so far, Sirius mimed zipping his lips, content for the time being to simply watch the other boy as he resumed his studies with renewed gusto.
It wasn’t so bad, lying there silently while his friend studied to his heart’s content. In fact, if he had to choose between all the many ways they spent time together outside of meals and class, doing so in the comfort of their dorm was far better than the times he had to do similarly down in the infirmary while Remus laid in bed looking like absolute shite after another one of his infamous relapses got the better of him.
The story was, his immune system was shoddy. It didn’t react well to a number of things, but especially not the hundreds of students filling the halls on a daily basis spreading their germs around left and right without a care in the world.
For someone like Remus, the wrong kind of handshake could cause a mild flare-up and send him right back down to Pomfrey for another week or more to recuperate from the worst of his symptoms.
All of the teachers made special accommodations for him because he was the brightest in their year, but Sirius noticed the way some of them looked toward his empty seat whenever he was absent again on account of being the one closest to it. Like they were relieved he wasn’t around. Or hoped that this time would be the one that he wouldn’t come back.
Not all of them approved of his being accepted into the school with such a debilitating illness taking time away from his studies, and so he and James made it a point to make their lives exceptionally dreadful in retaliation for being closed-minded ponces who didn’t know a damn thing about anything and likely never would.
If any one of them deserved to be at Hogwarts, it was Remus Lupin. Most of the rest of the student body only attended because their parents said they had to, but Remus was there because he actually enjoyed all of the nonsense about learning how to use their magic the ‘appropriate way’.
As if prior to the school being built, wizarding society all lived inside caves like their muggle counterparts, never knowing how to cast a single spell until someone came along and handed them the correct type of stick.
Even without a wand, it wasn’t unheard of to become good at magic. Probably not as good as someone with one, but even children were capable of simple tricks here and there, or else how would they ever know a wizard-born from a squib?
The point being, Remus enjoyed many of the aspects of learning that he and James both took for granted, and so believing that someone who cared that much about their studies they’d go and drag their sick body out of a bed before they were fully recovered was somehow less deserving than the rest of them was barking mad and made him want to punch something for good measure.
It was a sudden sneeze that drew him from his quiet revere, head snapping over in time to watch his friend rub the end of his nose along his robe’s sleeves and give a small sniff that otherwise might have gone unnoticed between them, flipping the page and jotting down another note as if nothing at all were the slightest bit awry.
Who was he kidding? When it came to Remus, Sirius’ attention was almost always narrowed down to a laser-pointed focus as he awaited the first telltale sign that his friend was about to have another rough week spent in the infirmary. Usually a lot more time passed between episodes, but it was never too early to take caution and throw it straight into the wind.
“You all right,” he asked, feeling his brow furrow as his eyes skipped back and forth over his friend's pale face in search of clues that might tell him more than those gently parted lips ever seemed to want to disclose in full.
Not that it made even a lick of sense to him, but for whatever reason, Remus didn’t much prefer to discuss just how sick he truly was.
It was clear from their short-lived conversations about the matter that the issue wasn’t terminal, but maybe that was just the other’s way of keeping them all from pitying him any. Which was also mad, because if anything, they all thought him to be the bravest of their group for constantly refusing to give up on life when others in his place wouldn’t have bothered to ever try.
At the continued silence that followed his initial inquiry, he tried again, this time reaching out a hand and brushing it over his friend’s too-warm brow.
“What are you doing,” Remus finally asked with a long-suffering sigh, forgoing paying any attention to his book in favor of leveling him with an unamused stare.
Not really sure what it was he was looking for anyway, Sirius pulled his arm back and moved to sit himself in a far more upright position than before. “I was just checking to see if you’re getting sick again, is all,” he replied with a shrug, absentmindedly picking at the corner of the bedsheet.
Amber eyes watched him for a full beat before the boy quirked an incredulous brow. “Why would you think me sick?”
“Because you sneezed.”
“So?”
“People who are sick sneeze sometimes.”
Whatever he’d said must have been far more hilarious than even he’d given himself credit for, because his friend suddenly collapsed into a fit of giggles that started in his chest and grew outward until his entire body was practically vibrating from the force of it, dropping his head onto his arm and wheezing through the worst of his guffaws until they ran their course and finally subsided.
It took a moment of quiet composure for him to get the situation under control again, but when he did, Remus turned to look up at him with a small sad smile that sat in direct opposition to his previous laughter. “I can promise you that I’m not about to get sick,” he said, voice soft and warm and filled to the brim with something equally painful.
Sirius frowned at the disparity, confused even more by the level of sheer adamance to the contrary. “But what if you are,” he argued, shifting a bit in mild discomfort. “Maybe we should go down for a visit with Pomfrey, and she can—”
“Really, Sirius,” the other cut him off with a laugh, reaching out to give his fidgeting hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance. “I know my body well enough to tell you I’m okay right now. But thank you for worrying about me all the same.”
“If you’re sure,” he relented far sooner than he’d have liked—if only to wipe that guilty expression off his friend’s face before it made his chest feel any tighter than it already did.
Remus gave him another quick squeeze and a soft smile before returning to his studies as if the conversation between them had never even happened, jotting down a few notes here and there every so often until the time came for James to drag them downstairs for dinner.
It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but something about the encounter sat oddly with him. As if the boy was keeping a secret and felt badly about not telling him the truth.
What it could be was anyone’s guess, but he put it on himself to find out that answer no matter the cost. Sooner rather than later, too, because anything that made Remus feel as if he had to hide away parts of himself was definitely worth discovering. For his friend’s sake as much as it was his own peace of mind.
Notes:
Okay, I swear this was just a one-time offer of a secondary chapter drop back-to-back due to the nature of the first couple chapters being a lot slower-going overall and about literal children. They pick up later? Obviously.
Plus I like to think it helps set the expectation a bit to see the year-by-year progression in effect.Next chapter is back to Remus with third year.
Hit me up on Tumblr if you like--Cherrywrites626Stay lovely<3
Chapter 3: The First Time Your Laugh Made Me Warm Inside
Notes:
Two weeks on the dot. I'd call that impressive, but seeing as how I already finished the entire fic........
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1973
Remus
“I can’t believe muggles have to go their whole entire lives without the convenience of magic,” Sirius lamented with a sad shake of the head, holding open the door for Remus to pass through much the way he did every day leading up to and then away from a particularly harrowing full moon.
Although, if he were being perfectly honest, it might’ve had a bit more to do with the fact that they were the only two out of the rest of their group who were even taking the class. Not for a lack of trying on his friend’s part, adamant as he was that they find as many overlapping extra curricular activities as possible now that they were expected to broaden their horizons and supplement their education in other, more work-related fields of study starting at the beginning of their third year.
Which was just a bunch of hogwash, really, seeing as how not all of them had the good fortune to dream of doing literally anything of merit once they inevitably left Hogwarts behind. For those unlucky sorts, it was a matter of simply going through the motions and choosing a path that didn’t leave them subsequently hating life once their O.W.L.s came ‘round at the tailend of fifth.
Or, he supposed, in his own case, picking a field of study that one might actually wish to pursue if circumstances weren’t what they were and pretending it wouldn’t all end in abject misery come the end of seventh when his accomplishments looked great on paper but he himself fell woefully short of the kind of personage most institutions were willing to take on…
Muggle Studies had initially been one of the last on Remus’ short list of classes that might actually intrigue him enough to sit through a minimum of three years’ worth of lessons. Most of them would rarely need the information in their daily lives, and it wasn’t like it benefited anyone career-wise who wasn’t also keen on ending up in one of the departments that specialized in magical containment and things of that nature, so it was easy to write off as low-level priority and thus not worth the time wasted on such frivolity.
Not when there were far better areas of study to hone in on even as the rest of his group turned their noses up at the prospect of additional workloads that weren’t synonymous with the words ‘fun’ or ‘easy’. Who needed Care of Magical Creatures when you could take Ancient Runes and Arithmancy instead, nevermind the fact he was probably the scariest creature around and had already been warned away from going near the edges of the forest lest he rile up the ones inside and make even more trouble for the teachers than his regular presence happened to on a monthly basis.
If it hadn’t been for the fact he’d caught the way Sirius’ jokes about trying it out for a laugh held within them a grain of true yearning for seeing what the other side had to offer, he might not have offered to take it himself.
Third years were allowed to tackle as many or as few extracurriculars as they were able, so long as their schedules could handle the load and they didn’t simultaneously burn themselves out in doing so. But even with a perfect organization of their time and rearranging classes back-to-back from dawn until dusk, the absolute limit that became feasible to undertake without outside help was realistically two.
Three, if you counted Quidditch as a form of extracurricular, seeing as how games traditionally fell on weekends and practices were okayed for the same to allot students the freedom for studies and the like throughout the remainder of the week. Only advanced years were offered the privilege of using time turners to bump that number up to the maximum of four, and that was if they were given the go-ahead by Pomfrey and underwent a whole heap of additional testing to ensure the effects of the magic wasn’t deteriorating their minds and causing them to go mad.
Picking which class to give up on indefinitely had indeed been difficult. Initially, at least. That was no longer the case while staring directly into the beaming wattage of his dear friend’s smile as it turned his way not only once, but over and again periodically throughout their lessons, until it became hard to see the reason for his prior hesitation to such a silly thing as giving up on what he wanted in favor of doing something nice of his own.
“How they manage to get anything accomplished is perhaps a testament to their species’ continued ability to defy the odds,” Sirius continued with his former thought once they’re both outside of the classroom and he was finally able to step away from pretending to be gentleman-ly for the sake of a delicate ego.
The corners of Remus’ mouth quirked ever so slightly in response. “You do realize that you are of that very species,” he reminded his friend—not for the first time since the beginning of their class learning about all manner of technological advancements muggles happened to stumble upon seemingly by chance.
Most of which were indeed within the last hundred-or-so years, but a few others sprinkled throughout time that he found no less fascinating despite the lack of magical knowledge to attribute them to.
Grey eyes slid his way for a brief moment before skittering back down the hall, the boy attached giving a flippant wave to brush the comment aside. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I, now?”
“Wizards are—well, obviously we’re a different sort. You could hardly call our breed of one ilk.”
“How very blood-purist of you to think so,” he noted, holding back a laugh at the splutter of indignation the words had elicited.
Sirius Black may have been a great many things due to his less than savory upbringing, but a bigot and a closed-minded wanker were thankfully not among them. Even if the boy did occasionally do or say things to the direct contrary that were way too much fun not to then utilize for a bit of playful ribbing shared between mates.
“What I meant was on a cultural standard,” he sniffed then, tone picking up some of that haughty vernacular that only seemed to ever want to slip out when he was feeling particularly defensive about a subject. “You know as well as I do that our societies are vastly different, and that makes it feel like we’re operating on separate spectrums with very little in the middle to overlap.”
“I understand,” Remus agreed, finally allowing a bit of the humor to show on his face. “Which is why I’m messing with you.”
“Oh, piss off,” Sirius replied with a derisive eye roll, bumping their shoulders together to undercut some of the harshness of the exclamation. “I can’t believe you had me going for your own amusement.”
“In my defense, you walked right into it.”
“Only because I was expressing genuine awe and didn’t think it necessary to utilize preferential phrasing. Remind me never to say anything off the cuff in your presence.”
“But then you’d likely never have anything to say at all,” he quipped back, feeling his mouth stretch ever upward at the glower of annoyance shot his way. “And I do so enjoy our chats.”
“‘Torements of decorum’, more like,” the other corrected, clicking his tongue to further emphasize he’d reached his limit and was about to take offense.
Adjusting the strap over his shoulder, Remus hummed low in wry amusement. “I take it that means you’re enjoying the class, then,” he hedged, steering the conversation into far more amiable waters if only to see the resurgence of that winning smile brighten what little remained of his afternoon.
Just like that, his friend was back to his former cheery self, gushing on and on about the things he found interesting pertaining to the topic with hardly a break to breathe—let alone allow a word in edgewise—throwing his arms out as he spoke to help punctuate his sentences with a flair of pazzazz that was unique enough as to be wholly ridiculous and just this side of undeniably endearing to watch.
And that was fine by him. The general lack of back and forth between the two of them that would traditionally denote a true conversation taking place. Remus was more than happy simply listening to the lyrical cadence of the other’s smooth-as-silk voice as they kept their gait trained to an unhurried pace walking the same small stretch of hallway that always led to their imminent separation far sooner than he would have preferred it if given a choice in the matter.
But that was the unfortunate reality of much of his day. Too few moments actually enjoying himself and far too many instances of falling to the wayside, in general, even as he was rarely not part of the group.
Without James around to steal his attention away by accident, it was far easier for Remus to find himself on the receiving end of the other’s more thoughtful qualities on a close-to-regular basis. Case in point, the meticulous notes Sirius helped to take on the days he was absent from the one singular class they alone shared that didn’t transfer to any of the other subjects.
Not that he thought his friend wouldn’t do more for him if asked. Both he and James had even offered back toward the end of their second year to better listen in on all of the many lessons that occurred during the short period he was absent, although it never really stuck all that well in practice.
It was simply too hard for them to achieve anything of merit when sat next to one another for a prolonged stretch of time. As such, after a week of disjointed stories and misinformation that actually did more harm than they did good when he had to then turn around and study the same subjects again anyway, he thanked them kindly for their offer and made the two swear to never again attempt a complete reenactment of McGonagall teaching their Transfiguration class in his presence.
And to leave the acting to those who actually knew what they were doing—though something told him the way in which he’d been accosted by a flagrant disregard for the art was meant to be a kind of remedy in its own right.
It was the thought behind the actions that mattered the most to him, anyway, not how well they were executed. That the three boys he’d come to think of as his very best mates were still willing to do anything for him despite their rather heated confrontation about the true reason he was never around during a full moon was enough of a miracle as is. No need to push his luck and make himself into an even larger burden by asking for more than what he knew they were willing to offer up freely.
To say it came as a complete shock the first time Sirius wandered into the infirmary and presented him with a beautifully-written scroll of the near-verbatim recitation of all the many questions and answers brought up during their class that afternoon was a bit of an understatement. And wholly unnecessary, as he was always given an exact replica of the key notes each professor used for their lesson plans and thus was more than capable of using them to follow along in his book—but he didn’t say that part out loud.
Nor did he the following day when once again there his friend was with a similar scroll in hand, the bright smile on his face enough to stay Remus’ tongue indefinitely had he the gumption to even try.
It was the addition of several doodles that began to fill the outside margins with the next batch that made him decide to keep a few in his bag as a cherished memento. That way, whenever he was feeling down and needed a quick pick-me-up, he could pull one out and watch as a poorly drawn blob zipped across the border of the page leaving little tyre tracks in its wake, and it would help to remind him that the pain and loneliness were only temporary hurdles to overcome. Not a permanent fixture in his life anymore.
Would that he could find himself on the receiving end of more than just that, even as it was selfish to want to steal his friend’s time away from the rest of their group.
They had their shared class. Their short walks. The occasional visit to his bedside when he was on the verge of tearing his own hair out at being locked away in the infirmary for days on end. That should have been enough…
The fact that it sort of wasn’t didn’t make it any less of his own problem to figure out a solution for. So what if he happened to be somewhat jealous of the easy manner in which James stole most of the attention away for himself? That he received as much as he already did was a gift, in its own right, and not one to be squandered.
Which is why every single time he caught sight of the bespectacled boy rushing toward them from the opposite end of the hall, he fell in line at his natural spot off to one side to allow the two the opportunity to play catch-up instead, no longer the sole focus of the ongoing tangent but no less part of the conversation for it.
It was all about the perspective, Remus supposed. If he told himself it was just how things were, then he didn’t get all up in his own head feeling sorry for himself about getting shoved back into second place. After all, there were far worse straws to draw. Fourth. Last. Barely a blip on the radar and overlooked for more important things.
“And then Mulligan sent it flying off, and it was centimeters from Bradshaw’s head. You should have seen the look on her face, mate. She was ready to hex his bollocks clean off, House Cup be damned.”
“As fascinating as your Quidditch tales are, Potter,” Sirius drawled, grey eyes rolling to the side and leveling him with one of his famous ‘can you believe this guy’s audacity to make everything about himself’ flat stares that were often reserved for just such an occasion and made him want to laugh outright at the hypocrisy therein. “If we don’t get a move on, we’re gonna be late to class, and I don’t know about you, but cleaning out the Thestral pens is not my idea of a good way to spend the weekend.”
“Quite right,” James agreed, mouth going a bit wry in response. Shoving his glasses further up his nose with a quick nudge from his finger, he offered Remus a cursory wave farewell. “See you back at the dorm, Lupin.”
“You, too,” he replied, offering one back for good measure as the other turned down the hall that led out to the courtyards and beyond.
Theirs was Care of Magical Creatures next, meanwhile he was on his way to Arithmancy, and Pete had opted in for a free period to avoid having to pick between scary creatures and even scarier numerical charts—both of which gave the poor lad a headache.
Even if it was one of the few times throughout the day he found himself completely on his own, it still made him glum to have to go it alone. Not that he had much of a choice, seeing as the aforementioned issue of his furry little problem tended to frighten most of the creatures who were being studied outright. And the two would rather die than increase their workload taking a class that had anything to do with numbers.
Spinning on his heel, Sirius began a treacherous journey walking backward in the same general direction so that they remained, for the most part, face to face while he gave his own far more lengthy goodbye. “Still on for helping me with that assignment in Charms later this evening,” he asked, mouth ticking up on the ends ever so slightly.
Rolling his eyes in fond exasperation, he shook his head. “Would it kill you to do your own work for a change and let me have a bit of peace from your nonsense,” Remus griped back—if only to spare himself the dignity of admitting that he cherished their weekly study sessions and wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.
A fact he knew was quite frankly abhorrently transparent in the way his friend’s smile grew downright devious in response to the initial brushoff, grey eyes twinkling with abject delight when next he spoke.
“No,” he agreed, hooking his thumbs into the belt loops of his trousers and cocking his head to the side in a playful gesture. “But I do so enjoy our chats.”
If the sunnier smiles being directed his way caused his tongue to go still and silent, it was the more crooked variety that made his heart give a painful lurch instead, squeezing in such a way that it became impossible to know whether or not he enjoyed them immensely or hated every last one for haunting his afternoons with their confusing visceral response.
Before he found the opportunity to wet his too-dry lips in preparation of speech, James’ annoyed voice hollering that they were actually going to be late from somewhere down the hall jolted him out of his stupor with a well-placed clearing of his throat, shaking his head once more at their other friend’s continued antics.
“You had better be off before he throws an outright fit,” Remus replied, nodding in the direction of where he could just make out the curve of an elbow fisting a hip far off in the distance.
Sirius didn’t even spare a glance over his shoulder to check for himself, rolling his shoulders up in a casual shrug that spoke of his general unflappable nature coming into play. “Is that a yes?”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“So I hear.”
“Seeing as you wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he finally acquiesced with a sigh.
And if the set of that smile leveling him outright made his heart go positively haywire, the low curl of rich laughter reserved only for some of the more illustrious wins had his stomach doing absolute somersaults in tandem.
“Have a good class, Rem,” Sirius responded all too soon, pivoting around and practically bolting in the direction the other boy was still waiting impatiently tapping his foot for good measure.
When he caught up, they both burst into raucous laughter, throwing arms over shoulders and trotting off with an almost literal skip in their combined step.
Remus watched until they were all the way down nearly as far as his eyes could track their movements, struck once more by the odd sensation pooling in his chest.
Shaking his head to clear it of such unnecessary foolishness as wherever his brain was about to go, he quickened his own pace in kind, not wanting to be late himself.
Notes:
I've already mentioned there's a secondary fic after this fic (long, linear, so so worth it), and I am currently working on chapter 3/15, so it brings me great pleasure to have the stars all aligning this way.
Next chapter is fourth year and we return with Sirius' pov.
Comments and keyboard smashes all welcomeHit me up on Tumblr if you'd like Cherrywrites626
As always, stay lovely<3
Chapter 4: The First Time You Listened To Me Without Judgement
Notes:
A day late, but the whole Ao3 going down thing made it difficult to do so yesterday
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1974
Sirius
It was the sound of his mother’s shrill voice that woke him from a fitful slumber. Harsh, wailing screams pitched right next to his ear as the awful woman berated him incessantly for every last glaring fault her icy gaze was able to uncover through staring alone. As if he were transparent as a sheet of glass, and on the verge of being just as painfully brittle, to boot.
Sirius sat bolt upright with a gasp and rubbed the sleep from his bleary eyes, but for whatever reason, the screaming in his mind didn’t halt.
It took a full beat for his sleep-addled brain to realize that the sound was actively coming from someplace in the room with him, not part of some twisted nightmare that refused to abate. As he tossed the curtains back to spare a peek into the night-dark room, the reason for that became all too clear. It was the sharp sound of wind. Nothing more. Yet it rattled around inside his skull until he felt himself on the verge of screaming his lungs hoarse in order to get it to stop.
Which, honestly. What was he? A small child of five? Who got so shaken up by a bit of howling wind whistling across the stone walls of the tower that it gave them actual nightmares? Only a pathetic wanker, that’s who.
The truth of the matter was more likely he was still reeling from the latest letter his mother had sent only the morning prior, a rarer commodity the older he became once the vile woman realized she couldn’t actually smack him into a different house no matter how many times she tried—though still not infrequent enough he was able to find even an iota of peace from the deranged ramblings seeping into the darker parts of his subconscious while he attempted a short stretch of dreamless sleep.
Especially now that little Regulus had become the newest example of what any self-respecting Black should strive toward after his own sorting proved far more favorable a couple of years prior. Leaving Sirius even more of an outright disappointment—a fact that was somehow the most apparent the closer it was to his dreaded day of birth.
Having your mother lament the fact she didn’t smother you in your infancy when she still had the chance to hide the shame you caused would give anyone a complex, really. Sirius wasn’t special in that regard, either.
Raking a hand down his face, he hoped to chase away the last vestiges of his previous nightmare with a firm shake of the head, drawing back just enough to see the fine glisten of sweat drops marring his pale palm.
It would be at least an hour or more before he was able to drift back into another bout of restless slumber. And that was if the wind didn’t keep him up indefinitely with its furious wailing. Which meant he may not even have that much to look forward to, but it was also far too early to get up for the day with how thickly darkness still pressed in on their shared window, and really, what all was there to do if he could pass the time another way?
Sitting back against the headboard, he huffed a quiet sigh out through his nose.
Reading was out. Even the books he kind of liked weren’t worth venturing out of bed in the wee hours only to be found fluttering through their pages like some kind of—well, reader, he supposed was the best word for it, but it felt synonymous with something far more dreadful when strapped alongside a person of his moral character.
Sirius would rather be stuck inside another endless nightmare than be caught dead studying instead of sleeping, so that was definitely off the table as an acceptable means of passing the time until getting ready for the day’s classes wouldn’t accidentally wake everyone in the room.
Staring at the wall wasn’t the worst idea he’d had…
If only any of his mates shared a similar insomniatic tendency as the one he’d recently picked up. Maybe then he’d have a bit of company while he whiled away the hours before dawn on a near nightly basis.
As it stood, James and Pete were both the worst kind of pass-out-and-don’t-wake-up-until-someone-smacks-you-with-a-pillow sleepers, and Remus had to suffer through far too much hellishness every month for him to ever consider shortening one of the more blissful moments with his ridiculous nighttime musings.
Which left him doing a whole heap of the same shite over and again to combat the boredom, but hey, who was he to complain? At least he could sleep in small fits here and there. Some nights better than others. That was more than a lot of people could say.
It had yet to become so bad that he was unable to focus, but only just. Should it come to that, he would suck it up and ask Pomfrey for a potion or two. Merlin knows the witch was stocked up on an ample supply of Dreamless Draught with how many times he’d wandered into the infirmary and found the occupied beds sporting predominantly sleeping students.
It begged the question whether that was simply her go-to way of dealing with annoyances, or simply had enough problem patients to warrant a good drugging, but either way, he didn’t mind.
Bugger everything—there had to be at least something down in the Common room that was better than gazing sadly into the darkness daydreaming about Poppy and which potions she could dose him with to fix his little problem.
Throwing the covers off, Sirius slipped from the bed on silent feet and made his way toward the door, taking special care not to step all the many places he could recall where the wooden floors let out a harsh screech of protest.
It wasn’t until he was passing close to Remus’ four poster that he heard the soft whimper of sound—drowned as it was by the harsh wail of glass rattling and wind sweeping over the surface of uneven stone—and it gave him pause enough to consider an alternative distraction to end his plight.
With the full moon finally rounding out the following evening, his friend had looked absolute shite the whole of the day scraping through classes and the like to finally make it to bed and collapse without supper. None of them blamed him. They’d seen enough pre-and-post-moon havoc in their time together to know the more he tried to shove it down and push through the intensity of it, the harder it became to remain upright or even conscious as one hour ultimately spilled into the next.
Remus was nothing if not stubborn about how much class he’d end up missing every month, often planning out to the best of his ability when would be appropriate to slag off and when it was imperative he suck it up and blaze through only to crash and burn at a later date.
Weekend moons were always the worst in terms of his overdoing it.
If he could ride out the terrible waves and then have to be floated half dead all the way down to the shack by Pomfrey, he’d do it. Happily so. And then when Monday rolled in and he was battered and bruised but still awake and alert enough to once again drag himself out of bed through sheer force of will alone, he’d do just that with a fierce glare leveled at any sod who didn’t think twice before opening their big dumb mouth to ask why he wasn’t resting in the infirmary if he looked like fresh hell frozen over.
More than one row had been started over the idiot collapsing in the middle of the floor and scaring them all near to death.
It was in those moments of blind panic, scrambling hands over pulse points to check for signs of life, that he’d first noticed just how feverish his friend became this close to the change. And how the poor circulation that often plagued his own body in the form of icy hands and feet was actually a welcomed balm in those moments helping to fight down the worst of the aches and pains and bring a sense of comfort where it was most needed.
Sirius wasn’t very good for much, but helping his friend find even an ounce of relief was definitely a thing he could do to pass the time. And hey, if it distracted him from his racing thoughts, then it was almost like a win-win.
Slipping inside the darkness of the closed hangings, he felt his way over to where the other was letting out those small whimpers of pain and placed the back of his hand directly over a sweat-slick cheek, letting out a few shushing sounds of his own when the sudden shock of temperature change cause his friend to pull back with a muffled cry of surprise.
“Wh—Sirius,” came a croak from the general location of his arm, the too-hot press of strong fingers clamping down on his wrist causing a shiver to run down his spine.
That, or it was the direct proximity to a delirious werewolf practically trapping him in a vice-like hold. Not that he was afraid of the other hurting him—accidentally or otherwise.
Scooting forward until his knees made contact with something warm and solid, Sirius gave a small sound of confirmation from somewhere deep in his throat. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“What’s wrong,” Remus gasped, far less groggy than the last words had been but no less muddled by the tremendous pain lancing through his system.
Shortly after discovering the full truth, he’d asked about it. Whether it was a kind of illness brought on by the change or else just appeared that way from the outside.
The boy had described it to him back then as every last nerve-ending suddenly catching fire all at once. Every muscle clenching and unclenching over and again in preparation of what was about to be a metamorphosis his body couldn’t stop from coming on even if it screamed in agony and passed out from the worst parts of it.
And that was just what he’d been told at the time. After watching it, truly understanding the whole extent of what went on in those small glimpses caught in passing, a part of him wondered if that hadn’t been the abridged version. The one that kept him satisfied into never bringing it up again. If it wasn’t actually so much worse than he could ever hope to imagine—a pain so intense it defied both logic and explanation. Torturous. Malevolent. Eternal.
It was nearly impossible to do more with his wrist still contained, but he somehow managed to balance the majority of his weight on his elbow in order to give his other arm the freedom of additional movement, gliding his palm over the curve of another cheek with the hope to lessen some of the misery.
When it proved too much effort to continue without face planting outright, he pried the hand holding his wrist loose and set it somewhere in the vicinity of his friend’s chest instead.
“You were whimpering in your sleep,” is what he said after a beat of consideration, sliding his fingers up to the edges of a dampened hairline and giving the tawny curls a gentle pet to further soothe the boy back to a state of calmed rest.
Remus made a pitiful sound and caught hold of his wrist once more, exceptionally careful of hurting him any and yet undeniably strong enough to snap his bones with only a simple involuntary squeeze. “I’m sorry if I woke you by being too loud.”
”You didn’t,” he admitted truthfully.
His eyes had yet to fully adjust to the darkness, but he was pretty certain he saw a flash of relief on his friend’s face nonetheless. ”What time is it?”
”Late.”
The word hung in the darkness between them for so long Sirius began to wonder if the boy hadn’t passed out prior to its utterance, making to release the hold keeping him prisoner only to gasp when he was pulled down into a crushing hug not long after.
If it was already pleasantly warm in the thick cocoon of the hangings, it was unbearably hot pressed tightly into the other’s chest—but for all it felt gross and damp being accosted by someone sweating out their fever, not a single part of him was screaming to be let free.
On the contrary, all he wanted to do was bury his face down and drown himself in it, the calming scent of ginger tea and acrid aroma of something sharp and musky pouring into his airways until all that was left in his lungs was distinctly and utterly Remus Lupin.
”Do you want to talk about it,” Remus asked, the rumble of his words practically a lion’s purr with the way his ear had ended up pressed so close to the vibrations coming from the boy’s sternum.
Sirius’ shoulders sagged that much further at being caught onto so easily, the act of denying anything when he was already woefully transparent almost worse than the thought of his leaving outright.
Licking his lips in a tentative fashion, he gave his head a tiny shake.
It was less a proper no and more a type of deflection, of sorts, not wanting to bother any one of them with his stupid family shite at any given time, but especially not when he was only being a twat who had made a bed and now was forced to go lie in it.
Because wasn’t that all that it was, deep down? His refusal to be the son and heir his parents hoped for. His penchant for driving himself right down underneath their skin. The harsh words and the outward defiance and the snide remarks no amount of angry backhands would ever cure him of letting spill past his lips.
Keeping his head down and his nose clean would have been the smarter course of action. Instead, he’d learned exactly which buttons to press to do the most damage and then smashed the remote to smithereens so that no one could undo the havoc he caused even if they got on their knees and begged him for it.
Remus’ long fingers threaded into his hair, and whatever pitiful thing remained of his resolve broke in tandem.
”What if she’s right about me,” Sirius whispered, grey eyes slipping shut to fight back against the sting of emotion threatening to tip him beneath a tidal wave of self-doubt.
Making a shushing noise of his own, his friend used the other hand not tangled in his hair to rub soothing circles into his back. “She’s not.”
”But you don’t know—“
”She’s not,” Remus repeated in a low growl of sound, effectively cutting off all chances of him getting the remainder of the words out of his throat. When it was clear he wasn’t about to argue further, his friend pressed on with a far more placid tone. “Even if for whatever reason your mum told you nothing but the truth as she saw it, the fact that she said it with the intention to hurt you makes it wrong, all the same.”
“You don’t know that she was trying to hurt me,” he countered, feeling exceptionally childish in the moment.
Letting out a small laugh in response, the hand cupping his head began to move in careful strokes, starting near his temple and following the curve of his skull all the way down the nape of his neck before repeating the process over again several times. “I might not know what is written in those letters you get from her, but I’ve seen the way you are after the fact. If that isn’t her trying to hurt you, I shudder to think what it would look like if she ever did.”
”Are you spying on me, now,” Sirius asked in a cheeky drawl.
Remus clicked his tongue ever so slightly in response, but didn’t fall for the poor attempt to change the subject, instead shifting the hold he had so that his trapped arm could take up the gentle ministrations while the other came to rest across the slight dip in his waist. “For what it’s worth, I’m here to listen if you ever need to vent about it.”
If his resolve had been thoroughly crumbled before, it was entirely obliterated by the earnest lull tugging the other’s voice down into a whispered cadence, so un-invasive and wholly genuine it took all of his willpower not to sob outright.
How was it that he’d come to soothe his friend’s miseries, and had instead found the door ajar to talk through his own far less meaningful problems? Was he really so pathetic that the first glimmer of kindness offered to him in a time of need was about to make him spill his guts all over the place?
Probably.
And so, Sirius talked. About the very first letter he’d ever received from his mum way back in first year all the way through to their most recent fight about the many types of paraphernalia he chose to plaster all over the walls of his bedroom as a show of rebellion for the fact every time he came home they’d been changed into an awful emerald trimmed at the edges with streaks of silver that were as far of a cry from who he wanted to be as he was from the son his parents wrongfully expected he’d eclipse himself into.
It shouldn’t have bothered him so much, trapped in a room with high ceilings and bedding so overtly green it made him seasick. There were far worse things than sleeping on Egyptian cotton with a ridiculously astronomical thread count, but as his eyes raked over the shitty excuse for wallpaper that kept miraculously swapping from his own preferred house colors to those that reeked of his obvious failure, the one thing he’d seen at that moment had been and endless sea of angry red.
If the stickfast charm he’d used made it impossible to blast the images into oblivion the moment he wasn’t occupying the space, then it was a testament to how livid he’d been upon their casting.
It served Walburga right for undermining his personal refuge by turning it into a prison cell, in the first place. None of the trinkets were ever once displaced in all his time sleeping in that room. The only touch of personality he’d ever sought after was in magicking the colors back to ones of a preferred familiarity—but even that was too much of an ask in his mother’s book, and so maybe he really was being a spoiled brat who didn’t deserve the amount of time and effort that had been wasted on him.
Not that anyone had ever thought to ask what it was he’d wanted. How could they? When they were all far too busy stuffing their expectations down his throat and never once checking to see whether or not he’d choke on them in the process.
It was the stilling of the hand that let him know the other had fallen asleep totally by accident. Lost as he’d been in the downward spiral of recounting his entire childhood trauma in one sitting, it was nearly impossible to know exactly where the act first began its own descent toward oblivion—but for all of the vehemence and negativity that had spilled out of his mouth in what had to be no less than an hours’ time, he was somehow no longer at the mercy of his anger despite stewing in it incessantly.
And maybe that had been the point of the exercise. To get it off his chest so that his mind was no longer running in those endless circles that kept him from seeking out whatever constituted proper rest.
Speaking of.
Sirius made to move once more with every intention of going back to his own bed for whatever remained of the night and subsequently the earliest hours of dawn, but the arms wrapped around his person held fast in their chains of adamant protest, Remus going so far as to let out another low whine of displeasure for deigning to retreat from their cocoon of safety before he’d gotten his fill.
With the way his limbs felt properly relaxed and his eyes drooped precariously, he knew he wasn’t long for the world even if he wanted to fight back, so he gave in with a small huff of indignation and allowed the wave crashing over his head to drag him that much further beneath the undertow of quiet acceptance.
It had been his every intention to make his friend’s misery subside a fraction of a percentage. Whether or not he’d managed to do that with his ramblings was still unforeseen, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t strive to do more.
There had been a plan in the works since the week they all found out the truth back in second year. A jest, really, and James had indeed researched a smidge about how to begin going about putting it into motion, but for all of their silly ramblings about wanting to do more for their friend’s suffering, none of them had ever sat down and actually figured out where to start the process in earnest.
Come the following day, he would do just that. No exceptions. No excuses.
If it meant bearing the brunt of helping Remus through the worst of his suffering every single month for the remainder of their lives, he’d do it with a smile on his face and never once feel a single ounce of resentment.
It was the least he could think to do to pay back the boy who was willing to fight through the fog of his aching misery in order to be a certain kind of friend.
The most loyal and devoted there was ever going to be. The absolute best.
Notes:
Next chapter is Remus again with fifth year, aka the calm before the storm
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Chapter 5: The First Time I Hated The Word Friendship
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1975
Remus
“Check.”
Amber eyes flicked from the place they’d been glued to the page to glance sidelong at the board, feeling his mouth curve upward into an amused smile. James and Sirius had been at it for the better part of an hour yet, and though the captured pieces had been piling up left and right in the beginning, more than half of that time had been spent dancing around the finish line with no certain indication as to who was about to be named victor in what could only be described as a game of foolish pride.
Sirius swore under his breath and moved his king to the side, effectively blocking it from view behind the safety of his knight. In response, James let out a sound of intrigue and moved his rook three paces to the left, stopping short of the square that would’ve had himself caught and shifted back in his seat with a look of intense concentration pinching his bespectacled face.
Neither one of them was getting anywhere of merit playing the way they’d been forced into through sheer pigheaded stupidity, but seeing as they were both too stubborn to call for a draw even though they’d lost their respective queens to brazen showmanship very early on and thus were down to only two viable pieces each, another hasty decision enacted without the appropriate forethought was only going to net whoever got cocky next a surefire loss.
Moving his knight quickly out of harm's way left his king exposed to future attacks, but with the bishop poised and at the ready to swoop in and claim the rook should it wander into its territory, James was given little choice but to revise his strategy and try for another tactic to win.
And so, the game was left at an impasse once more, returning his attention to the novel cracked open in his left hand and flipping the page to resume his own preferential version of whiling away the long hours until supper.
Not that Remus didn’t love a good game of wit and strategy. Whenever he and Pete sat down together, it was always short and fun and full of laughs, the end results never quite mattering enough to keep a running tally of which among them was the better player.
Like all things, James and Sirius made what should have been a good time between friends into an outright competition—but while he was more than capable of holding his own and devising a decent enough plan that balanced both the defensive and the offensive to keep things interesting from one game to the next, the two were far more aggressive with their own style of play and often found themselves at a similar deadlock no matter how many times the fools tried to see who would be crowned the ultimate chess champion.
Watching a dead horse get beaten well beyond the respectable number of moves had lost all intrigue for him years ago. Now whenever either one got a wild hair up their arse and decided to drag the other down into the mess, he preferred to opt for something a tad less headache-inducing.
Always within the same general location, of course. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to participate at least a little bit in seeing who would be the first to buckle under the pressure and give up with a huff. Only that he was tired of the endless reminder of how stubborn the two prats happened to be, and finding a method that allotted him the best of both worlds was never not going to be a smarter decision.
Pete still found it great fun to antagonize the two into gnashing their teeth and hurling insults at one another left and right, but for Remus, there were better alternative methods to spending an afternoon wasting the day in the Gryffindor Commons. Especially when the couches gave him superior back support for what might realistically turn into a three hour stretch should no one come along and demand to use the board for a game that might actually have an end in sight.
Most of their housemates knew better than to approach on days such as these. In the beginning, crowds would form around the two and bets would be placed on who would triumph even if it was only by refusing to give up, but not even the other Gryffindor students were able to tolerate the madness indefinitely.
Something had to give eventually, but far be it from him to be the one to push his friends out the door and into some other type of mischief instead.
A distracted James Potter and Sirius Black were a gift to the rest of them. Anyone who couldn’t see that had never found themselves on the wrong side of a prank.
“Bugger this,” came Sirius’ huff of indignation as he rose from the chair far sooner than expected and cast a withering stare down at the board as if it was what had personally affronted him and not the person seated across from him spinning the rook between his fingers and grinning wolfishly in regard to whatever move had been played that had initiated the response in the first place.
James leaned back in his chair once more and crossed his arms over his chest, the manic gleam in his eye no less of a boast of superiority than his next choice words. “If you’re so keen on admitting your defeat.”
“What I’m keen on is getting off my arse and doing something productive, already, you insufferable git,” the other replied in his usual haughty tone equally reserved for occasions such as these. Waving a hand down at the pieces still sat in much the same position as before, he used the evidence available to him to further emphasize the point. “Have at it, though, if you’re so desperate for empty victories.”
“A win is still a win,” the bespectacled boy singsang back, resetting the game no doubt with the intention of claiming yet another unwitting victim dumb enough to offer themselves up for the slaughter. “You forfeit, and I am once again left undefeated.”
“Hooray James! I call next game!”
Before the chair had even a moment to grow cold, Peter was sliding into it with an expression of unquestionable glee, bouncing around as if he’d just witnessed the most fascinating duel of his entire life and was ready to try his luck against the self-proclaimed hero of Gryffindor house.
“Brave of you, my good sir,” James told the boy with a wicked grin, lacing his hands beneath his chin as he awaited the start of the match.
Peter moved a pawn forward two spaces and gave an eager nod, blue eyes sharp despite the outward show of enthusiasm. “I’ve been practicing. You won’t get me so easily this time.”
“We’ll see about that.”
All throughout their little display, Remus continued to feign the act of paying greater attention to his book than the goings on around him, sweeping his gaze back and forth across the page even as he knew what was likely to come next.
Plopping down into the small sliver of space on his right-hand side, Sirius all but draped himself over his shoulder without asking for his permission to get so close, letting out a long-suffering sigh to better signify the state of his growing displeasure as well as a means to initiate the first part of their imminent conversation.
“Something I can help you with, Black,” he asked in what he hoped was a decently nonchalant tone, ignoring the pair of sad grey eyes caught in his peripheral lest he cave to their silent demands and lose all sense of what little propriety he’d managed to scrounge back up since their last encounter.
Not that he didn’t always try his utmost to hold strong against the onslaught. Sirius was just ridiculously good at manipulating him into chipping away at himself piece by tiny piece with little more to show for it than an unmistakable tightness in his chest and a sense of impending doom he wasn’t soon to shake.
If ever he hoped to survive their increasingly torturous encounters, it was best to stand firm for as long as his resolve was able to last. Which was arguably never as lengthy as he’d like it to. No surprise there.
“Remy,” the boy whined, further proving that he was right to keep his focus glued to the page in hand like it was the sole lifeline he had left keeping him from being dragged beneath the undertow of his own stupid unrequited emotions. “James is being a prat to me again.”
“And what, pray tell, would you like for me to do about it,” Remus replied with a sigh of his own—never mind that his was of the increasingly exhausted variety.
Sirius toyed with the button over his heart for a solid beat as he pretended to mull the question over. Just when it began to feel on the verge of being physically painful to endure the ministrations any longer, he stopped and turned his gaze back toward Remus’ face, watching him carefully through a veil of ink-stained lashes. “Tell him not to be mean to me anymore.”
“James, don’t be mean to Sirius anymore,” he parroted the request in a dry monotone. Throwing up a rude muggle gesture in lieu of a more verbal response, the bespectacled boy continued on with his game as if he couldn’t already hear every single word spoken between the two of them with near perfect clarity. “Well, so much for that.”
“Whatcha reading,” the other asked then, perking up ever so slightly as if he hadn’t actively been doing his best rendition of a pouty toddler being told they couldn’t have their dessert before they ate their supper.
Without so much as sparing a single glance the other’s way, he turned the book in his hand just enough to flash him the cover.
Not that it would halt the flow of conversation even if he didn’t use words. Case in point, the next sentence that came out of his friend’s curious mouth.
“Persuasion. Never heard of it. What’s it about?”
“Societal expectations,” Remus replied as vaguely as he could muster, flipping to the next page with the use of his thumb even as the greater portion of the words his eyes tracked had failed to sink in with how little room had been left between their persons.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be so abrasive. Giving even an inch would only lead to far worse things happening later down the road, and for the time being, it was the only form of protection he had left to spare his poor heart what was ultimately going to become a huge threat to his future survival.
Which sounded so very silly while Sirius was snuggled into his side trying to merge their entire top halves into a single whole, but never let it be said that actions didn’t scream the loudest of all when the truth of the matter had already smacked him right upside the head in the worst possible way imaginable.
After the first time he’d allowed the other boy into his bed for the night like a complete and utter idiot, every few weeks saw a repeat of the same basic proceedings cropping up where one or both of them would seek solace from the horrors that plagued their minds in the form of what should have been a harmless display of platonic cuddling.
And maybe that had truly been the way it’d started off initially. It was difficult to say what exactly he’d been feeling in those moments, foggy as they were, the vast majority of them riddled with fevered delirium and a pain so deep and endless it ripped claws of fire into his mind with the single-minded purpose to distort all coherent thought.
In that state of being, he was more instinct than anything else. Basal need driven by the desperate pull to find something lasting enough it would all but chase away whatever made the wolf inside of him rabid with want.
Somehow, it had escaped him that the time it took for him to recover from his post-change wounds had been cut down by nearly a third of what they’d been prior to the development. Almost as if the connection to something deeper helped to soothe the more savage side of his brain even when he was completely at the mercy of whatever the wolf ravaging his body had been searching for.
It was so easy to write it off as his growing more used to the same basic routine after so many years of dealing with it. The shack no longer smelled as foreign to him, the scent of his time spent inside those walls dripping with the kind of familiarity he found during his full moons spent in the mild comfort of his parents’ cottage. Just a step in the correct direction to getting his issue under control. No more, no less.
Only that summer away from Hogwarts had been so much worse than he remembered experiencing all the other times before. And it wasn’t until he was back on the Express with a shoulder pressed tightly to his own and a sense of relief so deep it sent a literal shiver down his spine that he even knew there was a problem developing in the shadows. Right under his nose. Figuratively as much as it was completely literal.
If he allowed himself even a fraction more, he’d never recover. Not without leaving lasting damage to his soul no amount of healing potions could ever truly fix.
Sirius Black wasn’t his to keep. A fact that Remus was made painfully aware of anytime a blushing bird wandered over with lashes all a fluttering, and he was once again pushed to the wayside for something fleeting and inconsequential coming forward to take his place.
The attention he doled out freely was merely a way to amuse his friend until something better turned up. Cutting his heart out of his chest and locking it inside an impenetrable box was the only way he could think up to protect himself indefinitely.
Which is why he fought so hard to maintain that last tiny inch of a gap between their interactions. That it almost never went to plan and he almost always succumbed to the temptation to reach out and ghost the tips of his fingers over supple flesh, chasing the sensation of a feeling that was never meant to last forever, was but an unfortunate side effect of going and doing an idiotic thing like falling in love with the bright sound of his best friend’s melodic laughter.
Maybe one day, if he kept to it, he’d succeed in lessening the blow. Picking himself back up and dusting himself off each and every time he found he’d forgotten not to wear such a delicate organ pinned to the outside of his shirt’s sleeve as if waiting for someone to come along and stab a bloody stake straight through it.
Sirius let out a low laugh of disbelief at the obvious curtness of his answer, and just like that, it was all that he could do not to heave another sigh at his own misfortune, marking the page with the attached ribbon dangling from the bottom of the book and setting it down beside himself like he always knew he was going to do eventually.
Sparing a glance to the side, grey eyes danced up at him with triumph for having won out their little game, seemingly oblivious to the fact that with every push and prod given to have their way, they sent him that much closer to tipping over the edge into quiet oblivion. “What exactly do you want to know,” Remus hedged, surprised by the level sound of his own voice despite the tight lump of regret choking off his airway.
Satisfied for the time being, his friend snuggled back down and gave a half-hearted shrug in response. “I don’t know,” he replied with a small yawn, stifled somewhat by the back of the hand not absentmindedly drawing maddening circles against the skin of his palm. “Anything, really. Tell me something interesting that’s happened so far. I like listening to the sound of your voice.”
“Well, it starts off seven years after a young woman was persuaded by her family to end her engagement to the love of her life due to his low status and lack of funds.”
“Oh, this should be good.”
It was going to hurt him something terrible the moment it ceased to be. There was no denying that. No amount of planning and forethought and perfect execution was going to keep him from that terrible ache if he didn’t wise up and put an end to their unspoken chess match before Sirius grew tired of the game and moved on to something better than he could ever hope to supply.
And yet. Try as he might to fight against the current of his own misguided feelings, they had already carved a place inside of him that ran bone deep.
If he somehow managed to make it out the other side unscathed, it would be a bloody miracle. And if the wolf didn’t kill him for losing it all when everything was said and done, the loneliness undoubtedly would.
The only part that Remus could count on for sure was that there wasn’t anywhere else to go but wherever it was Sirius chose to lead him next. Whether to disaster or salvation, or some strange mix of the two, was forevermore in the hands of fate.
Notes:
Next chapter is a delicious one. Stay tuned.
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Chapter 6: The First Time I Truly Knew What This Meant
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1976
Sirius
It had been months. Months without a smile or a laugh directed his way. Months of trying and failing to earn back even a fraction of the trust he'd obliterated with a single foolish act, desperate to undo the damage and return things to a semblance of normalcy before the aftereffects of his childishness created lasting fissures to his very soul.
Remus was pissed. Rightfully so. It hadn’t occurred to him at the time that the backlash of his actions would spiral that far outward. Tiny ripples creating massive waves of misery for all of the involved parties, not just the boy he’d allowed his short temper to convince to go to the Willow after sun down on the day of the full moon specifically because he wouldn’t stop giving his friend narrow-eyed looks across a crowded classroom.
That he’d been too stupid to see the bigger picture really wasn’t a surprise to any of them. The fact that his self-absorbed tendencies hurt the people he cared for most was really an inevitability of his character flaws. Bound to happen to him sooner or later.
It didn’t make it right, but it did make sense. Sirius shouldn’t be trusted with delicate objects. The only thing he knew how to do was break them.
“All right, there, mate,” James asked him with a knowing look, bumping their shoulders together gently as they made their way down the hall in the direction of that morning’s breakfast.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d created a false narrative that there was nothing he could do or say to ever push his friends past their breaking point. A silly notion, really, seeing as how he’d managed to piss every last one of them off in one fell swoop and nearly got an innocent student killed all at the same time. But hey, when you’re a pompous twat who thinks they’re well above the repercussions of their own actions, you’re bound to find yourself similarly humbled sooner or later.
Twitching his lips into what he hoped constituted a reassuring smile, Sirius gave his head a tiny shake. “Just feeling a bit knackered, I guess,” he replied, as close to the truth as he could possibly muster.
Not that he needed to lie any. It was obvious what had his spirits dragging in the dirt.
True to form, his friend plastered on a cheery grin that was far too wide to be anything other than wholly disingenuous. “Moony’ll come around,” he told him, nearly as hollow as the last time he’d said it several days prior. “You’ll see. He isn’t one to stay mad at a friend indefinitely.”
“Quite right,” Sirius agreed, feeling his stomach bottom out at the cruel reminder.
Because despite the fact the four of them used to be closer than anything, as the weeks slipped by and the days grew brighter, the strain on their group created whenever he was in attendance became more and more obvious the more he attempted to stay where he was no longer welcomed.
By the end of fifth year, he hadn’t even sat with any of them on the train ride home, too tired of hearing the laughter cut off the second he entered into a room to deal with the stilted silences his presence elicited. None of the cars he’d passed by proved any less daunting to enter, and so, he’d chosen instead to spend the whole of the journey in quiet solitude riding in one of the cargo halls where they stored a greater portion of the larger trunks—the singular place he could think up where no living soul would dare to impede on his self-enacted misery.
If it hadn’t been for his home life being such shit, not even James might have forgiven him so soon.
It turns out, showing up on someone’s doorstep half-starved with the fading shadow of a black eye and a bag full of dirty clothes and little else to your name makes it far easier to forgive any past discretions that might be keeping other people at arm’s length.
Would that he’d had the courage to pick Remus to try to burden first. Maybe then he would’ve earned back at least a small modicum of sympathy even if the door ended up slammed in his face shortly thereafter.
James was simply the one he knew was the easiest to cave when furious. Plus his parents lived relatively closeby to the park he’d been sleeping in, so despite never once expecting to be invited to stay—let alone for the remainder of his time until he was a legal adult and free to find better accommodations—he sucked up his wounded pride when the last of his socks had been worn through by the power of far too many scourgify castings and asked if he could use the family wash bucket the way a normal human might attempt to clean the filth off their clothes.
Pity was perhaps his greatest ally that day. That, and a mother’s kindness, which was nothing to scoff at once he’d received a huge enough dose of it after explaining the reasons he had for running away from Grimmauld Place.
It was also James who brought to his attention that he’d yet to apologize for his actions in any meaningful way, and that showing his sincerity took more than standing around giving the three of them puppy dog eyes until they accepted him back into the group.
It never occurred to him there might be a chance Remus was too far past his tipping point to accept a half-assed apology stuttered out months after it should have been offered.
Pete stopped ignoring him when it was obvious James and he were once again on good terms, though the occasional hard glare he found directed at the side of his head was enough to signify some things can be forgiven even if they’ll never be forgotten. When it came to the boy that smelled of cedarwood oil and freshly inked parchment, forgiveness might no longer be in his vocabulary where it pertained to people like Sirius Black.
And that was fair. Out of anyone, his trust was the one that had been the most betrayed. If Remus never fully forgave him for the stupidity of his actions, it would be more than deserved on his end. Why should he get to trample all over everyone and never face the consequences?
The part he didn’t count on was just how badly it would hurt. Like a limb that had been torn off years prior, the phantom ache still left him bloody and broken and gasping into his pillow in the middle of the night, riding out the waves of endless torment crashing down on his head.
James had told him innumerable times that Remus wasn’t the type of person who stayed mad at their friends. And that was true. Hurting others was not a thing he’d ever do willingly, no matter how sore he was with the outcome of their actions. No amount of disappointment or anger or even pain enacted onto him would make the boy turn around and lash out in such a cruel manner.
If Sirius had yet to be forgiven, it wasn’t because the thing he’d done was too big or too terrible to ever get over. It was because he no longer had the privilege of being thought of as a friend.
The fact he’d broken his own heart in tandem with breaking his friend’s trust was merely the icing on life’s shit cake.
The Great Hall was packed, raucous noise erupting from the chaotic crowd hoping to scarf down a quick meal before classes started boasting of just how many among them preferred to substitute an extra half hour of precious sleep for the quieter trickling of goings on should they instead choose to arrive the moment the doors opened at half six.
James made a beeline toward the Gryffindor table and their usual spot without so much as a thought to whether their presence would be welcomed, but Sirius wasn’t as quick to follow, grey eyes scanning over the tops of heads until he zeroed in on the shock of tawny curls that made his heart clench painfully in his chest.
Remus still had that morning’s paper in hand—blocking out the lower half of his face—amber eyes downcast and sweeping across the page with rapid precision. When the boy plopped into the seat across from him and began reaching for a pot of apricot jam at the table’s center, he lowered it just enough to offer up a warm smile in greeting, gaze flicking next in his direction and stuttering to an icy stop.
It lasted only a millisecond before the stark white of the page went back up and the other resumed the task of reading, but that didn’t matter. For all the air had been punched from his lungs—stomach bottoming out all over again at the sheer disparity between those two brief moments—it may as well have lasted a lifetime and then some.
If the table hadn’t been packed to the brim with students enjoying their food, Sirius would’ve considered finding himself a different seat to go lick his wounds in the aftermath of that obvious dismissal. As it stood, he tried his best to give ample space for the other to get away from him, but not everywhere they went inside the castle made that feat entirely possible.
At least he’d been smart enough to pick a fresh batch of extracurriculars that didn’t overlap with those he figured the boy might choose at the beginning of the year. Muggle Studies had always been a class he’d guessed was one Remus only opted into for his sake—so it wasn’t hard to wager he’d be switching to Ancient Runes for N.E.W.T levels once the opportunity to do so finally arose.
Even some of their core classes no longer lined up together once they’d both applied for their respective majors, and that was a blessing as much as it felt like a curse when he stopped having as big of an excuse to ask for any type of assistance going forward.
As much as it killed him to do so, if backing off and making himself scarce was the one thing the boy needed from him, he’d swallow down every last pitiful expression and silent whimper and give his friend the space he so greatly deserved. No matter if it flayed his insides open and left them exposed to open air. No matter if he never recovered from the wounds inflicted to his soul by giving up the very thing his body and mind craved most.
Remus and his happiness mattered to him more than anything else. That it took their falling out for him to realize exactly how much it tied into his own was nothing short of a total tragedy, but now that he’d already lost it and didn’t know if he’d ever win it back, there was little more for him to do than accept the hand fate had drawn for him and try his best to move on.
James scooted over enough that there was room for him at his side, but even though he sat down without much of an argument, whatever sliver of an appetite he’d managed to scrounge up since rolling out of bed earlier that morning had already vanished without a trace, leaving only a pit full of knives in its wake that promised to shred him to pieces if he so much as tried putting something substantial inside along with them.
Coffee had been his go-to most days, seeing as it didn’t take all that long to polish off in a few quick gulps that seared the inside of his mouth. Toast with butter and jam used to be his favorite thing to accompany it, but that was in the before stages of his life, and this was decidedly in the after. Whatever got him out the door with his tail between his legs was definitely preferred to wearing out what little welcome he’d only been offered up by happenstance.
“As you lot know, the game against Slytherin is coming up,” James announced to the table in what could only be called an overtly conversational manner, hazel eyes flicking to where Pete sat across from him with the intention to goad the poor lad into helping with whatever hairbrained scheme was no doubt brewing in that head of his. “I hope to see everyone out there in the stands cheering for us this weekend.”
“Oh, yes, Prongs,” Peter agreed with a nod, wringing a napkin through his hands until it was practically a stick from how densely packed the material became between his pudgy little fingers. “I know I speak for all of us when I say we wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Now, Wormy,” the other chastised with a click of the tongue, belying the harshness a moment later when his lips then quirked into a soft smile that said he was grateful for the opening. “It isn’t right to make plans for others. We should ask what it is they want to do first before we go jumping to conclusions.”
“R-right. Sorry, James. My Bad.”
“Moony,” he hedged, drawing the pair of amber eyes away from the article they were seemingly engrossed in.
Remus huffed a small sigh-like breath out through his nose, no doubt pursing his lips in response to being baited so openly into giving an affirmative when it was obvious what the two of them were trying to do. A beat passed, his brow furrowing in displeasure, but like a good friend, he soon acquiesced to the sad looks turned his way and gave a nod of concession. “Might as well. I think I’m free that afternoon anyway.”
“Excellent,” James replied with a wolfish grin, turning next to the side to address him instead. “And as for you, Padfoot,” he asked, that same note of hopeful plea filling his voice, begging for him to take the lifeline for what it was meant to be.
The trouble with that was, he hadn’t earned it. Manipulating them into being in the same place at the same time the way friends should wasn’t the kind of pity party he wanted to give himself on this or any day.
Sirius had already managed to snatch a cup of coffee during the short discussion and was about halfway to finished when the boy had chosen to turn to him with an expectant eyebrow raise, staring down into the liquid in his cup and giving it a small swirl to watch the grounds at the bottom spin through the darkness like tiny black holes floating out in space. “Sorry, James,” he mumbled, polishing off the remainder in one large gulp and wiping the dribble of juice that spilled out off his lips with the corner of his robes’ sleeve. “I’m not feeling much like celebrating anything lately. Maybe next time, yeah?”
As he rose to leave, a hand pressed him down onto the bench once more, hazel eyes bulging back at him like they couldn’t believe he was so stupid the invitation went right over his head.
“Where are you going,” the other asked in a decidedly pointed manner, gesturing to the spread on the table for further emphasis to the point he was meant to stay and have a nice amicable chat in the meantime. “You haven’t even eaten anything yet.”
“I’m not hungry,” Sirius shot back, throwing a scowl at his friend for good measure.
How sad would he have to be to accept such a shitty invitation back into group activities when it was so blatantly obvious his presence was barely tolerated enough as is?
What was he supposed to do the whole of the game? Sit there in the stands with his hands folded neatly in his lap and a knife in his chest twisting and twisting itself deeper the more apparent it became that he was still considered an outcast?
Of all the selfish crap he’d pulled in his life, refusing to get the hint and inserting his person where it wasn’t explicitly requested would likely be the worst of his offenses to date. And it wasn’t just that it made his stomach turn to even consider doing that to his friend again. It hurt him something fierce, as well.
It was in self-preservation that he’d decided to back down. If he hadn’t cried any of the times his mother raised a hand to him, he certainly wasn’t going to burst into tears in the middle of a bloody Quidditch match all because he was feeling sorry for himself for losing everything he ever cared about. He wasn’t a wanker.
Something in his hardened gaze must have portrayed that, because though James’ jaw rippled as his teeth clenched, he didn’t fight him on the matter. Simply released his hold with a wounded look on his face as if it was somehow him that had been suffering the most out of any of them.
And maybe it was. It couldn’t have been easy for his friend being caught in the middle of one of their messes with no discernable way to go about fixing it. That he didn’t deserve anyone swooping in attempting to save him was of little consequence. Daft as he was for trying, James' heart was always in the right place.
Sirius shot the boy a thankful barely there twitch of the lips before making to rise from his seat, prepared to do the scurrying thing a bit sooner than he normally did now that he didn’t have much of an excuse to linger further.
Or he would have, had a piece of buttered and jammed toast not landed on the plate in front of him with an audible thunk, gaze swinging around in complete shock just in time to watch Remus dust the lingering crumbs off of his fingers and level him with a disappointed stare.
“Eat,” he commanded, amber eyes flashing with poorly-veiled annoyance.
In all his sixteen years, eleven months, and twenty eight days on this green Earth, Sirius had never picked up a piece of food so fast and shoveled half of it into his mouth without first pausing to think. Not even Walburga on one of her more violent rampages had inspired that level of obedience in him with a single word dripping with threat. And that was saying a helluva lot.
When it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, the corners of the other's mouth twitched into an amused smile, lifting the newspaper back up in the next beat to resume his previous task of perusing the Prophet as if nothing had ever been amiss.
It wasn’t until he’d swallowed the first bite and was well on his way through chewing the second that he heard the low chuckle of sound proceeding his brain short-circuiting in full.
“Good boy,” Remus praised him in a voice kept low enough that he had to strain his ears to actually hear the words spoken as more than just a whisper over the sound of the Great Hall’s chaotic lull.
If he hadn't already been certain before, he was in that moment. Why it ached not to be able to go near the other boy whenever the fancy struck. How he was able to miss the sound of a laugh or the wry curve of a smile when it was no longer being directed at him for a change.
The way his cheeks suddenly burned with a strange mixture of embarrassment and heady arousal painted a good enough picture as to the culprit for responding so viscerally, but that didn’t matter any.
There was nothing in the world, neither the armies of heaven or those that rose up from hell, that would ever stop him from doing every last thing in his power to make it up to his friend for choosing to give him another chance.
Even if he’d guessed at the reasoning for his morose condition well before it knocked him over the head with an answer, there was no chance he’d ever risk ruining their tentative new relationship for his own selfish purposes again. Of that much, he was undoubtedly certain.
Until or unless he’d paid off his debt in full, Sirius would have to settle for good enough. It was the least he could do for very nearly losing the only person in the world who was important enough to make his miserable life worth living.
Notes:
Next chapter finishes out Hogwarts with 7th year. See you in two weeks.
Chapter 7: The First Time My Hopes For The Future Looked Brighter
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1977
Remus
Flipping the page in his Ancient Runes book, Remus scribbled down a few key points to remember for the upcoming lesson and huffed out a quiet sigh.
Seventh year. That he had actually made it that far without being discovered by the majority of the students who attended the fine institution was somewhat of a miracle—though he supposed a lot of that may have had to do with the suspension of disbelief that the adults around them would ever do anything so reckless in accordance with their safety as to allow a literal werewolf into the school to study magic when it was so very obvious his kind were only good for being a plague on their society and a preferred pawn used by the Death Eaters to do their dirty work.
Not even Severus at his most suspicious had connected those dots until it was nearly too late. Who would ever believe that quiet, bookish, sickly little Remus Lupin was actually a monster hiding in boy’s clothes? Only a daft fool without a truckload of proper evidence. Which was thankfully kept under tight lock and key by the school’s very own Headmaster anyway.
Lucky him.
Even if he had been expelled at the end of fifth year, it wouldn’t have changed all that much. Living on borrowed time meant you were ready for the other shoe to drop at any second, and it wasn’t like he’d really lose anything of true merit by being publicly outed as a menace.
The powers that be already had his name written on a list in their records, so short of muggle employment or a very open-minded wizard who didn’t mind risking the lives of everyone else in their place of business both on and off the clock, he wasn’t like to find a decent job even with a solid O average on all of his N.E.W.T.s come the end of the year.
Why he bothered any was beyond him.
Perhaps a part of him still held out the hope there was more to life than the limitations his disease presented for him. Or maybe that things would be different one day, and it wouldn’t matter what he was if he kept proving himself worthy in all other aspects.
It certainly wasn’t that he had a plan already. Thinking that far into the future only resulted in massive panic attacks. The kind that made it difficult to drag himself out of bed in the morning on the days when his body didn’t feel like every bone was on the verge of shattering at the first hint of wind. Remus didn’t need any further excuses to give up trying.
If he persevered despite the odds, maybe the other side of it was something worthwhile. His friends all seemed to think so. That, or they chose to lie through their teeth until such a time as they could abandon him under the guise of moving on in life to places his hands never stood a chance of reaching them again.
Thoughts like that only led to even worse depressive episodes, so for the time being, going through the motions was as good a plan as anything else. One foot in front of the other until the path forward either branched out or hit a dead end. Only fate knew where he’d land himself in the meantime, and it was silly to think too hard about the logistics when he was already defying the odds every second Dumbledore continued allowing him to finish his studies unimpeded.
The scraping of a chair drew his attention up to the other side of the table just in time to watch Sirius flip it around and straddle the thing backward, the curl of his smile when their eyes locked both cocky and somehow unsure of itself in the way it pertained to their tentative and newly reformed friendship.
Most of the prior year had felt like a bit of a fencing match. Two steps forward, one back, parry and riposte, feeling out the way the changes in their vastly different fighting styles were simultaneously complementary and awkwardly juxtaposed, all the time wondering if there was even a reason to salvage the relationship or if it wasn’t better to call it quits and move on to better and brighter things.
The problem was, Remus didn’t have anything in his life brighter than Sirius Black. With the options left to him either to suffer without the git or suffer with him, it was easy to pick the path of least resistance and find a rockier middle ground to halt both of their obvious misery full stop.
As much as he wanted to live in a place of anger and resentment eternally, it was far too difficult to remember the reasons for that rage when a pair of sad grey eyes regarded him from across a crowded room looking for all the world like they expected him to lash out and abuse them more than they’d already been harmed by life giving them the short end of the stick.
James had confided in him early on what had transpired over the summer between fifth and sixth year and why he’d chosen to forgive the prat sooner than his own hurt had a chance to heal over, but if anything, the rage he felt only grew stronger in the aftermath of hearing the truth. Sirius hadn’t only buggered everything between them by being a careless fool, he had also hurt himself in the process by driving all of them away in one great big selfish push, and thus was forced to suffer more for his actions with no one to lean on when times were at their toughest.
Being angry at a person for not allowing you the privilege of helping to take their pain away was an interesting development he never would have understood if it hadn’t happened to him outright. Letting go of that anger didn’t happen overnight, and sometimes he still found himself incensed by the reminder that nothing about their relationship felt as easy and carefree as it used to, but faulting his friend for past mistakes and keeping him at arm’s length indefinitely wasn’t the kind of future he wanted to create.
Remus didn’t hold the hurt so close to his chest anymore. It would appear that, at least where his feelings on the matter stood, time really did have a way of ebbing the worst bits and bringing back a sense of peace to build upon an even better foundation where they were able to stand together on a somewhat leveled playing field.
Laying his quill to the side where it wouldn’t accidentally spill ink all over the still-drying parchment, Remus quirked a single brow in question as to why the other boy was inside the library on a Tuesday afternoon instead of literally anywhere else on the castle’s vast grounds.
Not that there weren’t other students milling about completing their work. Just that Sirius Black had never been and would never be the studious type. Even after roughly seven straight years of his nagging the lot of them to care more about the kind of future he could only dream of striving toward.
“Let me guess,” he said after a beat of continued silence, folding his hands atop the table and giving his inconsiderate friend an annoyed look. “Prongs is off with Evans under the guise of doing Head duties together, and Wormy is still miffed at you for calling his grandmother a decrepit old hag with bad taste, and so I am the one who gets to suffer your stint of boredom next in line even though I said no one is allowed to pester me when I’m in my holy place for anything less than a life or death situation. Do I have that about right, or is there anything you’d like to tack on while we’re at it?”
“I wasn’t going to pester you any until you were finished,” Sirius mumbled in a drawn voice, ducking his head ever so slightly in a show of outward embarrassment.
At least the prat had the decency to look abashed for his actions for once. That kind of self reflection would have been almost impossible in the time before their fallout. Another mild advantage to nearly obliterating their previous dynamic. More accountability overall making it far easier to say his piece even when the response to it generally left him feeling like a right tosser no matter how vindicated his reaction might be.
Which was only fair. Forgiveness meant accepting you didn’t get to hold things over someone else’s head as a form of rectifying past hurts by inflicting new ones.
Huffing a breath out through his nose, he shut his book and pushed it aside for good measure. “I suppose I’ve spent enough energy on this subject anyway. A break might be more advantageous than not.”
“What’re you doing this time,” the other asked, grey eyes flicking to the parchment as if the answer to that and future questions would be written clear as day.
Remus supposed that might actually be the case if anyone besides himself knew how to translate the text in the slightest. Who needed secret codes and doublespeak when you could just study an ancient and long-dead language and use that to communicate instead? No one else thought the idea anywhere close to brilliant.
“The usual,” he said, because it was more or less the truth of the matter.
Despite the attempt at being evasive, Sirius proved once again that he was far too observant for his own good. In all the areas it mattered, save one.
Cracking an actual smile this time, the boy shook his head in fond amusement. “Only you would think it necessary to begin studying for N.E.W.T.s seven months early.”
“I sincerely hope you don’t wait a full seven months to begin studying for yours,” Remus countered with a snort, knowing all the while it was a fruitless endeavor to convince any one of them not to wait until the last minute to lock in.
Flapping a hand in the air, Sirius confirmed his suspicion without so much as trying to pretend the matter was of any import going forward. “Studying is overrated anyway,” he replied in a blase manner, which was about as true to character for someone who never had to worry a day in their life about providing for themselves as outright claiming the act was only a job for peasants to aim toward.
Funny how not even running away from home to be a penniless beggar stuck long enough to offer his friend an ounce of humility for how the other side had to live. And why should it? For all the many ways things hadn’t been fair for the boy growing up with a mother as vile and twisted as Walburga Black, fate never seemed to want to shit all over him too hard when it came to money-related issues.
Pursing his lips in disappointment, Remus tried his best to keep his voice from betraying just how offended he truly was by the offhand comment. “Not all of us are lucky enough to have a rich uncle who chooses to will us their inheritance out of spite when they pass,” he stated in a dry tone, aiming for pleasantly annoyed over the level of outlandish rage threatening to bubble up if he didn’t shove a lid on it and reduce the heat to a duller simmer.
Another fun little byproduct of their near fallout. Occasional bouts of wanting to throttle the idiot due to dwindling patience for certain self-absorbed tendencies.
So forgiveness was maybe an uphill battle most days. Could anyone really blame him?
“Some of us common folk have to work for our next meal,” he finished in as succinct a manner as he was able without saying something scathing along with it.
Sirius blinked at him in what could only be called abrupt shock, grey eyes going wide when the gears suddenly began turning the way they were supposed to and he realized he’d once again shoved his foot right into his big dumb mouth.
“Not for someone like you Moony,” he said with the utmost sincerity, expression wilting a bit at the idea he’d buggered something new and needed to repair the damage before it ended up a more permanent fixture. “I meant because there’s nothing I want to do with my life that a few points on a test are going to matter more than my actions could, which I suppose is a kind of unfair advantage I still have, and I apologize for not realizing that fact until this very moment.”
“And what’s that,” he asked to change the subject sooner rather than later, mostly to prevent the wounded look he’d caused from lodging itself deeper into his brain when he already knew it was equally unfair of him to throw the disparity between their situations in his friend’s handsome face.
Doing so would be pointless and combative for the sake of dragging another down right along with him when he should have been celebrating the fact no one else had to suffer as thoroughly as he did. A bit of perception flipping was never a bad thing. It certainly stopped him from burning innumerable bridges by total accident.
Sirius shifted around in his seat then, leaning away from where he’d been hovering just over the chair’s wooden back and drumming his fingers along the table in an absentminded gesture. “I honestly haven’t gotten that far just yet,” he admitted with a wry smile, gaze flicking away as if the notion was embarrassing not to have everything figured out quite yet.
Remus hummed low in his throat in understanding, though less because he had no aspirations and more that he was equally limited in planning for future endeavors despite his being very much a type A personality. “Not everything needs to be planned out so far in advance,” he said in a far gentler tone, encouraging those stormy eyes back to his person and offering a small twitch of his lips to signify he was no longer feeling cross about the subject matter. “It’s fine just to know the direction you want to head and go from there.”
“I know I’d like to help fight back against the Death Eaters somehow,” the other told him after a beat of consideration, brow furrowing a bit in quiet thought.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he sat back in his chair with a pensive nod. “That’s an amicable ambition given the current political climate,” he agreed, knowing it was true for many of them who felt weighed down with utter hopelessness after having grown up hearing very little good news coming out of the wizarding world that wasn’t overshadowed by endless dread.
Seven straight years of war was bound to do that to anyone. Who among them couldn’t say they hoped for a speedy resolution where good triumphed over evil? Even as most things were rarely so cut-and-dry as to be able to boil down to such childish notions of black-and-white thinking.
“I think I would be fine with any number of odd jobs, so long as they were beneficial,” Sirius continued with a determined glint in his eye, reminding him once again that maybe his friend had indeed changed somewhat from the brazen boy who used to pull pranks on others simply for a good laugh and refused to do anything of merit if it wasn’t wholly in his own benefit or that of his loved ones’.
Not to speak ill of what was unerringly an outstanding moral character. Abject selfishness was a different story, but when it came to doing the right thing for the right reasons, the boy had yet to disappoint aside from that one singular incident that proved the theory even good people could make dumb choices if given the proper push.
A thought occurred to him, and he voiced the question aloud. “Why not apply for an Auror position within the ministry, then?”
“And be put on a leash chasing whatever case was handed down from on high by some pencil pusher who wouldn’t know good detective work if it jumped up and bit them on the arse,” the other drawled, lip curling at the very idea of being a lapdog for a perceived authority figure.
Never let it be said his friend wasn’t a rebel to the cause no matter how seemingly important and potentially beneficial it might be.
Rolling his eyes goodnaturedly, Remus shook his head in wry amusement. “And I suppose being a rogue agent is far more noble than proper funding and the secured backing that would ensure you didn’t end up arrested for sticking your nose where it didn’t belong, hm?”
“At least I’d have a sense of integrity,” Sirius agreed, expression turning all the more sour the further down the rabbit hole his mind took him away from the point. “I mean, honestly, Moons. Would you be glad if I accepted a position working with the very tossers who made your life and the lives of so many others that much more difficult simply for being born a certain way or as a perceived lesser creature?”
“So, it’s about salvaging my good name, is it,” he teased, smirking at the gentle flush tinging the other’s cheeks a delightful shade of pink in response to being called out so openly. “And they say chivalry is dead.”
“It certainly doesn’t help to incite enthusiasm in my wanting to join their ranks,” the boy muttered under his breath, grey eyes steely in their determination once more.
Remus let out a laugh at that, unable to stop himself even if it did go against the rules of the library not to be disruptive to the other students hoping to study in the peace and quiet so rarely found elsewhere inside the castle’s thick stone walls. “Only you would snub a decent paycheque in favor of running odd jobs for Dumbledore for free. As much as it boggles the mind to think anyone capable of such flagrant disregard for the natural order of things, I do suppose you, out of most, could get away with it easily enough it wouldn’t matter that you weren’t helping to secure your own future.”
“Or yours,” Sirius informed him with a crooked grin, much of the hostility in his expression having melted away at the sound of several students shushing the two of them for their blatant disrespect and a noticeable lack of proper containment spells thrown up for the sheer length and pitch their conversation had taken. Pulling his wand out, he cast a silent muffliato before continuing on with a casual shrug. “But I don’t mind having the added freedom anyway. Who needs a real job when you can instead coast through on a rich uncle’s spiteful assistance?”
“I’m not sure I follow,” he admitted with a frown, mind far too caught up on the first part of the comment to really chastise his friend for once again boasting about the fact he’d never need to work a day in his life for how much money was now stored in his personal bank vault. “How would what you choose to do for a living affect me any?”
It had almost sounded like… but surely not. Why would he…
Cocking his head to one side, grey eyes blinked at him once more in a state of similar confusion. “How else are we going to find a decent flat to accommodate all of those extra books I know you’re going to collect over the years?”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m sure you’ll survive having to downsize a bit,” Sirius replied with another crooked smile—the kind that showed off the cute dimple in his left cheek.
If it hadn’t been for that, he might never have found himself a decent enough focal point to drag his brain back up to speed while in the midst of literally spiraling into oblivion.
Of course, there was always the chance he was understanding things completely out of context, so when it was apparent his tongue would allow him the ability to use it freely, Remus voiced aloud the one question his thoughts were having the hardest time digesting in full.
“We’re gonna live together?”
“That is the plan, yeah,” the other said with a slow nod, grey eyes flicking over his face attempting to gauge what it was that had made the words sound so out of breath. Realization must have dawned just as quickly, because in the next instant, his friend’s face was turning a deep crimson hue that showcased the extent of his sudden embarrassment. “Unless—well, I mean, I had thought it obvious that—I could have sworn we already—you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No, I—I’m not opposed to the idea,” Remus backpedaled before the option was suddenly off the table and he had little choice but to navigate the horrors of post-Hogwarts life kicking himself endlessly for buggering up what might be his only chance at getting out of his parents tiny cottage before the age of forty. “I just—well, I can’t exactly pay my fair share, is all.”
“So?”
Blinking his eyes a few times in outward perplexment, it took another beat before his expression caught up with the growing sense of indignation flooding his veins. “I am not going to be a burden for the rest of my life.”
“I never thought that you’d try to be,” Sirius agreed with a gentle uptick of his mouth.
Leaning forward in his chair, he leveled the boy with a more reserved amount of consternation than previously exhibited. “I will find some way to pay you back,” he argued—because it needed to be said prior to the arrangement, or else he’d find himself caught in a precarious position later on if and when he couldn’t do so quickly enough and ended up coddled to the point it made him lose all sense of self worth. “Even if that means taking on an inordinate amount of housework until I can earn enough on my own to make up for the handout. I refuse to take charity.”
“Understood.”
“And don’t you even dare try to undersell what constitutes an equal contribution, or so help me, I will take my belongings and you will never again see hide nor hair of me except at functions where it is impossible not to run into one another and be civil.”
“Deal.”
“I can’t believe you talked me into it,” Remus bemoaned, pinching the place between his eyes with the hope to halt the sudden onslaught of a headache trying to grow larger by the second.
Huffing a rich laugh under his breath, Sirius offered him a winning smile in response. “What can I say, I guess I just have a way with words.”
“And I have a lot more studying to get done if I ever hope to find an acceptable means of paying you back,” he replied with a derisive click of the tongue, amber eyes rolling in fond exasperation for more of his friend’s shenanigans that somehow only made him love the prat that much harder. As if he needed anything else to add to the list of reasons he was doomed for all time. “Run along and find someone else to bother now. I’d like to finish well before supper, and I can’t do that with you throwing me puppy dog eyes left and right. Pun fully intended.”
“I’m sure Prongs is indeed finished by now,” the other agreed, rising to his feet and stretching his arms high above his head in a lazy fashion. Swooping his bag up from the place he’d deposited it on the floor, he offered another smile and took a small step backward, grey eyes trained on him all the while. “Catch you later, Moons.”
“Apologize to Pete while you’re at it,” Remus informed his friend in a chastising tone, lips pursing in renewed annoyance for the situation at hand. “I meant what I said about disrupting my studies with anything short of a matter of life or death.”
“Aye-aye, mon capitan,” Sirius shot back with a cheeky wink, spinning on his heel and sauntering in the direction of the door.
The boy made it all of about ten paces before he turned around once more with a curious frown of inner reflection, taking another beat to come to a decision and march back over all while rifling for something in his side bag.
Stopping when he was within arm’s reach, his friend pulled out what appeared to be a flowering stick of some sort and offered it over with a slight flush painting his cheeks. “I forgot I came here to give you this,” he said by way of explanation, never mind that it only made the gesture that much more confusing overall.
Remus took the stick in hand and surveyed the delicate white petals a little closer, feeling the crackle of power from the stasis spell cast over them tingle in the pad of his finger when he ran it over the glossy surface in experimentation.
“I thought you’d find it fitting,” the other continued after another pregnant pause.
Glancing up, he found those stormy eyes watching him with a strange mixture of embarrassment and breathtaking softness. “Why is that,” he asked, still not quite understanding the gesture in the least.
Raking a hand through his ink-dark hair, Sirius shook his head in wry amusement. “I found it while exploring greenhouse five. It’s called cornus florida, better known as the flowering dogwood.” Flicking his gaze over the branch for half a beat, grey eyes moved back to his face dancing with fresh amusement. “Get it? Dog. Wood.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Remus said in what could only be labeled as a painfully enamored tone. Not that either one of them would point the matter out as being anything but just this side of back-breakingly friendly.
Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, the boy shot him one last beaming smile in response. “Keep it, yeah,” he told him, taking another step backward while doing the intense eye contact thing all over again. “I’d hate to have the spellwork go to waste. It’s lived in my bag for a couple of days now and still looks good as new.”
“An admirable level of natural talent,” he teased with the hope to combat some of the heat rising to his own face.
Sirius tilted his head to the side and grinned cheekily. “Only the best for my Moonbeam.”
This time when he spun around and sauntered off, he didn’t turn back once to see exactly how outlandishly the new endearment affected him—a fact Remus would be forever grateful for as it allowed him that much more plausible deniability in regard to being absolutely smitten with the wanker.
Reaching for his own bag tucked neatly underneath the chair, he carefully set the branch inside and huffed a long-suffering sigh out for good measure. Leave it to Sirius Black to be accidentally romantic while simultaneously making a stupid pun all for the sake of a good laugh.
If he never fell out of love with the prat, who could really blame him? No one in the world would ever compare to the boy who made his heart flutter uncontrollably with little more than a crooked smile and a smooth-as-silk laugh.
Lifting his quill from where it had last been placed, Remus resumed the task of scribbling down key points to remember for later feeling a whole lot lighter than he had in what felt like an eternity. For the first he could recall since the day he stepped foot onto the Hogwarts Express and saw the possibilities stretch outward into infinity, his future wasn’t uncertain.
Maybe there wouldn’t be a job waiting for him at the end of N.E.W.T.s no matter how perfect his marks were at graduation. Maybe he couldn’t trust in the system to save a place at the table for someone with lycanthrope running through their veins.
In the moment, it didn’t matter. What he did have was far superior to all that. A friendship that would last no matter what cruel misery fate had in store for the two of them.
Nothing and no one could ever make him let go of that. If he had to fight the whole world, at least he was doing it with Sirius at his back.
Notes:
I mean. The date. Working on chapter 9 of the second fic and glanced to check the time, saw November 1st, and said fuck it. How could I not post this chapter a week early?
So ends the Hogwarts experience and enters into real adult life. Next one is another good one. See you then.
Chapter 8: The First Time We Had Something All Our Own
Notes:
I'm a week late, but that just puts me back on my original schedule.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1978
Sirius
Sirius moved the last box onto the coffee table and opened its lid, peering inside at the contents within. It had been one of many stuffed beneath his bed for months now, marked on the outside with the words miscellaneous junk, and upon a second glance, the name was apt.
A few old school books Remus had been insistent on his clinging to for some ungodly reason, the weird muggle camera James and he had gotten on one of their many trips around town that was horrible at taking decent photographs, a bunch of said loose pictures where the subject was blurry at best yet commemorated the day well enough he couldn’t bear to part with them, an old Gryffindor scarf that probably no longer fit, half-used bottles of mostly dry ink, a few loose scraps of parchment he’d honestly meant to toss in the bin but instead shoved them the first place he could to deal with later, and his most unique and prized possession at the time of its procurement—an actual stone ripped from the seventh floor exterior wall of the castle as proof of his conquest surviving everything that life had thrown at him thus far.
Aside from the stone and maybe the books lest he upset his roommate for refusing to listen, the lot of it was rubbish. Probably why it had taken him so long to get around with dealing with the blasted thing. Sirius had never been one to do a task that wasn’t inherently necessary to complete in a timely manner.
The only reason he was bothering at all was Lily had made an offhand comment the night prior about how no one is truly ‘moved in’ until the final box is unpacked, and seeing as how Remus had finished with his own boxes three days after their official move date sometime in late August, he didn’t want to be the one keeping them from their grand achievement of renting their very own flat.
It was by happenstance they even acquired the bloody thing, picky as his roommate was about where they were able to live within their purported ‘means’. Whatever the hell that meant.
If left up to him to decide, the first space they looked at had been a literal dream. High vaulted ceilings, large french doors opening up into a grand balcony area where they could keep cute little patio furniture and house plants, three spacious bedrooms, two baths, the works. Not nearly as grand as he could afford without risking emptying his vault in a year or two, but quaint and modest. The perfect first place to call their own.
Remus’ idea of acceptable had been little more than a dank hole in the wall where mould had been growing in the corner of the ceiling, the air itself suffused with the scent of what may very well have been an actual rat’s nest located beneath the floorboard, however, so really, what did the daft fool know about good taste?
If it wasn’t ‘too expensive’, it was too far away from the location Sirius would have preferred for them to be. Right in the heart of Muggle London, the hustle and bustle of the city streets calling to him after so long spent trapped inside a posh manor and then locked away in a castle with very little by way of interesting goings on nearby.
The only real freedom he’d gotten from all that had been the time he’d been with the Potters. Not quite in the Muggle areas of the city, but close enough he and James could spend a day of exploration and still make it home in time for Euphemia’s delicious roast pork bap come supper.
Falling in love with an area made it difficult to compromise, and so they’d decided to instead take a break from all of the arguing and find someplace nice to get lunch. It was in passing by the old antique shop that his dear friend had the sudden urge to go look inside, and upon chatting with the kind older lady behind the counter, somehow managed to find them a flat that checked every last box they both had for what constituted an acceptable living arrangement.
It wasn’t nice by any means. The space itself had been layered with thick coatings of dust from years of going unused, and he’d probably never cover up the scent of ancient relics wafting up through the floorboards, but it was centrally located and boasted two adequately sized bedrooms, a common space complete with a tiny stone fireplace, and a cute little kitchen with yellow walls and mahogany floors spread throughout.
The best part was, it made Remus happy. So long as there was no vermin running around or leaky pipes dripping condensation down the walls, Sirius would be fine with almost anything. A large cardboard box that remained sufficiently dry would have worked for him if it kept his boy smiling. By the end of that long, headache-inducing afternoon, he was ready to sign the first document that appeared in his hand next if it got them out of the ‘where’ talks and into the ‘how soon’ ones.
Because the small building was owned by Miss Ward already, there was no issue with them packing up immediately and dropping off their things by weeks’ end. Which was unheard of, normally, especially in some of the seedier areas they’d visited.
Getting the rent for absurdly cheap was a nice bonus, but Remus didn’t stop there and offered his services anytime the old bat requested it of him. Lo and behold, she knocked another fifty pounds off the asking price because he was ‘such a dear’ as to help an old unmarried woman in her eighties who never had any children or grandchildren of her own make sure that no one broke in and remembered to turn the lights off at night. Or something like that.
Gertrude Ward hadn’t taken as much of a liking to him as she had his roommate, but most old birds tended to turn their noses up at his flashy style and rather unkempt appearance. And the combat boots. No one without an eye for fashion understood why he chose to sport a pair everywhere he went no matter how unforgiving the temperature outside happened to be.
Soft, cozy jumpers and crisp button downs made an immensely greater impression overall. It was no wonder they got away with so much shite in school. Polite, unassuming, quiet little Remus Lupin with his tawny curls, amber eyes, and a smattering of freckles in a crescent shape over his nose and cheeks. All the teachers over the age of fifty loved and fawned over the boy whenever he fluttered his thick lashes and apologized for any inconvenience the lot of them had stirred up.
Sirius didn’t blame them. He was kind of gone on his friend, himself.
Once the salvageable contents had been properly stashed in several new locations about the room, he set about disposing of the things that had no business cluttering up their new space by actually depositing them into the bin this time and huffed a tiny laugh out once the box was completely empty. Two months and some odd days might sound like a lot to be completely unpacked, but seeing as how he was a lazy git at the best of times, the accomplishment was actually quite commendable indeed.
In all, he’d managed to empty a total of five different boxes in the course of a single afternoon. That he’d chosen to throw the vast majority of stuff away, placing an extension charm over the bag in order to fit everything without going to grab another, was of little consequence.
An achievement was an achievement no matter how small. The proper thing to do for it was to make it into a cause to celebrate. Preferably with loads of booze and good laughs.
A sound from the kitchen had him turning just in time to catch his roommate wandering through the open doorway with a letter in hand, opening his arms wide in a dramatic show of his efforts that were no doubt worthy of vast amounts of praise.
“James just owled,” Remus informed him in lieu of a proper greeting, amber eyes sweeping over the contents of the page and thus oblivious to what it was he’d been doing for the past hour or more with literally zero help to speak of. “He wanted to know whether we’re going to be celebrating your upcoming birthday or not, and if so, where you’d like to celebrate at, ours or theirs.”
“Bugger that,” he replied, perhaps a tad more sour than was warranted even with his hatred of all things related to his birth. Gesturing a bit more forcibly at the empty boxes littering the ground, he once again showed his roommate a better cause to gather for. “If we’re going to celebrate anything, it’s this.”
“Hm?”
Flicking his eyes up from where they’d been reading something that made his mouth bloom slowly in response, it took a full beat for the other to actually understand exactly what it was that he was getting at, starting at the position of his arms and then dropping down to the contents around his feet. “We already had a housewarming party months ago,” his roommate reminded him, an edge of something warm and fond laced through his voice as he shook his head in exasperation for the antics therein.
Never one to be begrudged a good opportunity to have a bit of fun, Sirius clucked his tongue and fisted his hips. “Moonbeam, this is even bigger than a silly little housewarming party,” he argued, using the most serious tone he had in his repertoire to better emphasize the point “This is us. Finally moved into our first flat. If we don’t choose to monumentalize the occasion, who will?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Remus informed him with a snort, using the letter as a means to hide away the smile on his face that was steadily growing larger by the second.
Spurred on by the development and the likeliness he was going to succeed in having his way, he cocked his own terribly cheeky grin and hummed a sound of deep amusement low in his throat. “And that’s exactly why you’re gonna help me plan a smashing hit, aren’t you, Remy,” he replied in an equally cheeky manner, fluttering his lashes to really sell the schtick.
With a derisive eye roll that was nothing short of adorable, his roommate spun on his heel and made his way back into the kitchen to go write up their response letter posthaste.
The boxes wouldn’t fit into the bag in their current state, so whipping out his wand, he shrunk the lot of them down and levitated the entire thing out the front door and into the hallway to be dealt with later on—possibly the next morning, when he was already planning to head out to run a few errands and could drop the thing on the curb for the Muggle rubbish collectors to come whisk away for good.
If he wasn’t too hungover to bother, that is. Merlin knows the type of escapades the four of them got up to when a bit of drink was involved. Things that would no doubt send old Minnie to an early grave if she could only see the way they’d finally tainted Evans with their terrible influence.
“What time should I tell the two of them to arrive,” Remus hollered from somewhere deep in the other room, the sound of parchment fluttering telling him his friend had only just sat down to begin scribbling out a quick reply for the owl to take back on its return trip.
Fisting his hips once more, he surveyed the area with a critical eye, checking for anything breakable that might need to be moved elsewhere for the time being. “Whenever is good,” he replied in an offhand manner, beelining over to a vase on the end table where a certain flowering branch had come to reside as a small pop of fresh life amidst the otherwise sparse environment they’d yet to find decent enough objects to fill the several emptier nooks and crannies with permanently.
“I’ll tell them no later than half six,” his roommate informed him a beat later.
Clicking his tongue, he shook his head, moving the vase from the shelf by the window over to the fireplace mantle instead. “Better make it half seven, you know how they get when they’re both intoxicated in the same room together. I’ve been blinded enough times to know better than to allow them more than a couple of hours on our couch.”
“Half seven it is.”
The coffee table had a few old tomes sitting upon it, but that wouldn’t matter. Even if James did have a bad habit of sticking his dirty trainers all over the place, it was no worse than the things he and Lily had done to their other poor, defenseless furniture. Speaking of which. A thought occurred to him, and he scowled outright.
“And tell them they have to leave by no later than nine. It’s my we-just-finished-unpacking-and-are-officially-moved-in party, and I’ll say how long guests are allowed to stay before they’ve worn out their welcome.”
A small noncommittal hum was all he got in response this time, swearing a particularly fun little curse under his breath and rushing toward the door to go see what it was his roommate had actually added to the letter in question and just how many of his demands were going to be met before it was too late to stop a repeat performance of the housewarming party defilement of the century.
Remus was bent over the page at his preferred spot at the table, hand moving so fast it was no wonder an entire block of text had already made its way onto the parchment in such a short amount of time.
Try as he might to read and comprehend the messy scrawl while internally panicking, it proved useless. Giving up a moment later, Sirius pawed at his roommate’s shoulder like an annoying child begging an adult for even a hint of attention. “On second thought, tell James he’s never allowed back inside this flat until he apologizes for every last thing he’s put me through for the past eleven-and-a-half months. Lily can come, but he’s a wanker.”
“Mhm,” Remus agreed, decidedly not writing anything close to those words based on how soon he was placing the quill down and blowing over the ink to help it dry that much faster. Amber eyes scanned the page once more in quick succession, flicking to him after another beat as the boy attached offered up a soft smile. “Should I tell them to bring anything while I’m at it,” he asked with a curl of fresh amusement lacing his tone.
Jutting his bottom lip out in a childish pout, Sirius held the look for as long as he was able to muster before heaving an annoyed sigh at his roommate’s superior level of patience. “No less than three bottles of Firewhisky,” he muttered then, crossing his arms over his chest and grumbling internally about losing yet another sparring match even if it was against such a worthy opponent.
Call him whatever you wanted for it, when Remus smiled, it was nearly impossible not to cave almost immediately to anything the boy requested of him. The look was simply that powerful.
“And tell him they had better be of decent quality this time,” he continued, wagging a finger down at the page as if the sentiment would stick better if he chastised it thoroughly. “I know he has the funds for it, and it is the least he can do to make up for his crimes.”
Humming a laugh under his breath, his roommate picked up the quill once more and scribbled a tiny addition at the bottom of the page. “Four it is,” he agreed, rolling the parchment up and rising to his feet.
The owl had remained patiently perched out on the empty flower box outside the window, large orange eyes watching the two of them intently. When the message had been neatly affixed to its claw, it took off, milky white wings flapping against the dying light of the setting sun.
Watching it go for a beat, Remus turned back to him with a cheeky smile, nodding off in the direction of the living room. “Better hurry and make sure the floo is open,” he said, amber eyes dancing bright with fresh amusement. “I informed James he and Lily were welcome as soon as they were ready and that you’d be ecstatic to celebrate your birthday with them here and now a few days early.”
“So, it’s betrayal, is it,” Sirius gasped, clutching the area over his heart even as he couldn’t stop the return smile from blooming across his own mouth in tandem. “And here I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”
“Who says I’m on any side but my own,” he countered, the tilt of his smile turning decidedly wicked in nature.
And wasn’t that just totally unfair, seeing as how he was absolutely without a doubt incapable of doing anything but succumbing to his fate in the face of his roommate finally learning how to pull a moderately successful prank on him. The bastard. “I suppose I have no choice but to grin and bear it, then,” he lamented with a sigh.
Lifting one shoulder up in a half hearted shrug, the other stepped around the table and made to head through the door, beckoning him closer with one last lingering glance spared over his shoulder.
If Sirius followed eagerly behind, he’d always believe it was of his own volition and not because he was powerless to fight back against a single command given to him by his person.
Notes:
Giving this a quick reread prior to posting it had me feeling all swoony by the end. I think mutual pining, post-Hogwarts wolfstar is my favorite look on them.
Stay tuned for next chapter. It's even more delectable, if I do say so myself.
Chapter 9: The First Time I Got A Real Job
Chapter Text
November 1st, 1979
Remus
Glaring down at the pot on the stove, Remus huffed an annoyed sound out through his nose and promptly floated the entire mess over to the bin, depositing the contents inside with a flick of his fingers that was just this side of too forceful. Bits of charred noodle burned black in several places slid down the side of the wall, coalescing into a small heap of rubbish on the once clean linoleum that was likely going to stay there until such a time as he had the renewed energy to scour the spot free from the evidence of his most recent failure in a few days time.
With the moon so close to full, it was no wonder he was too exhausted to successfully make dinner without completely buggering it.
Here he’d sworn he’d only sat down at the table for an instant while the water did its thing. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes, tops, but somehow, as luck would have it, that was enough to burn the pot dry and upend any chance he had at salvaging his attempted surprise.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, he noted the hour at just a little past half six. Not enough time really to run and pick anything up, either. At least he still had the sweets… a lot of good it would do him without a proper meal to accompany them.
When first his roommate left that morning after getting him to agree not to get out of bed for anything that wasn’t an absolute emergency, Sirius had told him he’d be back home by no later than seven o’ clock.
Typically his errands for the Order didn’t last a full day like that, but seeing as he was going to be taking off the next few to be with Remus in his hour of need, he’d promised Dumbledore to pull two rounds of patrols and run another few odd jobs in the meantime to more than make up for the upcoming absence.
Not that it was needed any, seeing as how their old Headmaster was perhaps the only member who understood exactly why the time away was completely necessary. Sirius had really grown up quite a bit in the year plus since their graduation, however, and though he was still silly and ridiculous on the best of days, petulant and unyielding on his worst, shirking responsibility was not something he did as often as one might expect.
That change may have had a little something to do with his baby brother joining the enemy ranks and thoroughly breaking his heart, even as he pretended it didn’t hurt that Regulus refused to see reason the one and only conversation they were able to have amicably before the post began returning itself to their window and the only other option for contacting the younger Black was to forward it to their parents’ home where it would undoubtedly end up incinerated on the spot.
Remus hadn’t intended to break his promise, either. Not when every inch of him ached down to the marrow and he was more than willing to lay in bed catching up on a bit of reading that for once had absolutely nothing to do with coded messages or anything even close to war-related business and how they were effectively getting nowhere fast and things were beginning to feel a tad hopeless for all involved parties.
Bright spots were growing increasingly hard to find nearly a decade into the mess, which is more than likely the reason Lily and James had elected to get married rather abruptly over the summer. None of them knew whether or not they’d make it very long with all the death and destruction cloaking their world. Many Order members felt similarly inclined to hold their loved ones closer, and it wouldn’t surprise him any if a string of pregnancy announcements were the next to follow the recent string of weddings speckled throughout the year thus far.
It might not have been his intention to leave the bed until he heard the door that signified his roommate had returned, but fate was not as well-behaved a mistress as he’d hoped, and not even a full half hour after Sirius said his goodbyes while lingering in the doorway to his room, the phone had decided to ring.
The only reason they even had the blasted thing was for Muggle-related issues. It was a pain to listen into with his extra sensitive hearing, but seeing as how he’d promised the nice old woman who rented out her flat to them to try and be available for a quick check-in whenever the fancy struck, the least he could do was drag his tired bones out of bed and assuage her fears and possibly have a nice long chat about what Barnaby the cat had decided to do this time around.
Never once as he was shuffling toward the annoying mechanism did he ever consider it might have been good news on his end.
It had taken months to find anything in the paper that sounded fitting for a true job. The arrangement he’d made with their quasi-landlady aside, the vast bulk of his contribution to their household was still chores and errands to make his roommate’s more important work-life balance easier.
That wasn’t his preferred choice, but it helped infinitesimally that he wasn’t as much of a freeloader as he could have been while doing less. Still, there weren’t many things available that met the requirements necessary for him to bother to even apply, and those few he had never seemed to want to get back to him after taking one look at his shabby clothes and haggard appearance and formulating opinions about him that can’t have been all that pleasant.
The one he expected the least out of all of them had been the bookshop. The owner had put in she needed a hand a few days a week for modest pay, and when he’d first told her his schedule was sporadic at best while he assisted Gertrude a bit more than he actually did to account for the full week he’d be out every single month, she had regrettably told him the position wasn’t quite that level of flexible.
No matter. It had been the same for a lot of the people he’d interviewed with, not even the most accommodating among them willing to agree to a full week every month without some serious medical reason backing the claim.
Granted, he could have simply lied and claimed to be taking care of a sick parent or something equally benign. For whatever reason, when the time came to explain his odd request, all that ever seemed to want to come out was as much of the truth as he’d originally rehearsed about already working to help his landlady run her shop in exchange for a decent sum off the top of his rent.
Funny how sometimes that was more than enough to change someone’s mind.
It had caught him wholly by surprise to hear the sound of the woman’s voice on the other end of the receiver telling him she’d thought it over some and had decided to work around his absences if he could promise a solid schedule all of the other weeks and give her ample notice for when he’d need anything changed around.
After that, Remus couldn’t sit still.
A job. A real, true, actual job. With money. That he could use to pay his way and no longer be a miserable sod who had to drag his feet anytime something essential ran out that they may or may not need to continue living and he had to once again suck up his shattered pride and ask his roommate to foot the bill.
Sirius had offered to give him access to his bank vault whenever it was needed, but that was way too much for him to handle at the time. The sheer number of spats they got into involving his willingness to see himself as anything less than a burden was equally getting on both of their nerves.
It would do him some good to have ample reason to get out of the house more often. And so, as a way to commemorate the occasion in a manner he thought was more than warranted, Remus had wandered out with the intention of picking up a few things to showcase exactly how grateful he was both for his roommate’s sacrifice and the fact he could finally buy his own toothpaste at the market.
Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had. Not after so long spent cooped up most of the day working with scrolls and whatnot instead of what he used to do walking through the grounds of an entire bloody castle for years on end.
It wasn’t even far to the nearest confectionery shop, but it still felt like he’d exerted himself immensely by the time he’d finally stepped back out onto the street and had to then navigate a bustling crowd for several blocks more to make it to the corner market in the exact opposite direction of their little flat.
If it wasn’t for the fact they didn’t keep near enough stuff on hand to whip up anything of merit at any given time—often opting to order in and only grab what was needed for a planned meal or two aside from the usual necessities—he might have simply turned around and gone home. Last he’d looked into the fridge, there was maybe a litre of milk left and the ends of a bread loaf. Not exactly the makings for a gourmet meal, at any rate.
Heaving a sigh, he’d pushed his body past the tipping point with the hope to do something nice for a change. Sirius was always cooking for him at the insistence it was both a joy and that he was the better chef. Which would have been annoying had he not the skillset of a toddler who’d only managed to discover the steps necessary to work a toaster and put a kettle on the stove.
So maybe he was far better at other things. So what? Not everyone needed five-star meals when following the directions on the back of a box was equally sufficient at ending in the proper nourishment of hungry bodies.
Armed with a bag filled with perhaps the only meal he could craft that didn’t end up in the bin nine times out of ten, Remus dragged his tired and overworked body back the way he’d come if only to spare himself the added misery of winding up splinched should he try to do something infinitely more foolish like attempt to apparate while completely knackered.
Staring down at the mess still left in the pot, he realized belatedly that he should have taken the chance. What’s an arm or leg really worth in the grand scheme of things? Surely it would only make his life easier if he couldn’t properly run amok every single full moon?
Dropping back into his preferred chair at the small kitchen table, Remus buried his face in his hands and tried his best to breathe through the onslaught of angry emotion threatening to drag him down into a full-on hissy fit.
So he’d burned a bag of noodles. There were far worse things in life than failing miserably at what should have been a mundane task any moron could replicate. None were coming to mind, at the moment, but he knew that was a byproduct of the headache pounding behind his eyeballs more than that he was simply fooling himself to calm down.
At least he’d tried to do something special. Wasn’t there a saying about it being the thought that mattered more than the shittiness of the outcome?
The sound of footsteps are what alerted him to the fact his roommate was home before he found the strength to pull himself together, the scent of something recently burnt causing them to grow more rapid in his direction when they more than likely would have gone down to his bedroom first on any other given day.
”Moon—is everything all right,” Sirius asked, a note of fresh panic lacing his voice as he crossed the kitchen in a few quick strides and came to kneel beside the chair to better assess the situation. “What’s wrong?”
When he didn’t respond outright, cold fingers gripped his own and pulled them gently back, a pair of worried grey eyes sweeping over his face in careful consideration before the man cracked a lopsided smile and gave a small hum of understanding. “Bad day, hm?”
”It was supposed to be a good one,” Remus huffed, glaring at the pot once more as if he could vanish it with nothing more than a cross look and sheer conviction of will.
Following his line of sight first there and then over to the neatly wrapped box of chocolates sitting on the table, his roommate let out a warm laugh in response to the entirely wrong conclusion. “You know it’s not my birthday for another two days, right?”
”I do know my way around a calendar, I’m not a complete invalid,” he snapped, immediately regretting the harshness of the words when it made the other go silent and still in an unnatural way. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he shook his head, leveling his roommate with an apologetic wince. “I was trying to surprise you because I got the job at the bookstore.”
”Moonbeam,” Sirius breathed, expression going horribly soft and achingly sincere as if he hadn’t just had his head bitten off by a grumpy werewolf two days from the full moon. “That’s wonderful news. When do you start?”
“I should think after I’ve recovered a bit and can manage the task,” Remus mumbled, gaze flicking off once more to avoid the way the close proximity made his heart clench painfully in his chest.
All of his emotions ran their highest directly before the change. If he didn’t remain constantly vigilant, he might do something he’d later regret. Like bugger their living situation entirely by bringing his big dumb feelings into the equation. And then where would he be?
It was easy to find a myriad of reasons he wasn’t alone in wanting to close that small sliver of distance and do something absurd and likely dangerous. The trouble was, Sirius had never been the type to hold anything back in his life, so if he was actually adamant about pursuing something, he’d have done so by now. Right?
Five years was a long time to be hopelessly in love with someone and accept the fact they didn’t feel the same way about you. For all the gentle touches and intense stares, for all the smiles and laughs and lingering press of a hand literally anywhere on his person, the truth of the matter was, he wasn’t who his friend wanted to be with.
And that was fine. Nothing he couldn’t handle. After all, he’d spent many years assuming there’d never even be a happy ending for him in this life. That even if he managed to scrape together some semblance of happiness in the slim pickings left for him, it was always going to be stained with blood and weighed down by the full extent of his unnatural affliction.
It was the brush against his cheek that drew his gaze back, grey eyes once again far too pained for someone who wasn’t also suffering through the intense heartache of being madly in love with a person they could never truly have.
Sirius quirked his lips in what was probably supposed to be a sad smile but ended far closer to an outright grimace, swiping the pad of his thumb in the place a tear might track if he’d so much as an ounce less dignity in him to hold them where they rightfully belonged.
“Whatever nonsense you’re thinking right now that’s making you so glum, tell it to bugger off,” he said, voice a warm lull in the quiet of their kitchen. “I’ll not have your big day ruined by a few unfortunate missteps.”
”Could you please stop doing that already,” Remus asked, swallowing down the lump steadily forming in his throat.
Furrowing his brow in obvious confusion, his roommate drew the hand cupping the side of his face back a beat later like the continuation of soft touch was suddenly a shock to the underside of his skin. “I’m sorry, I should’ve—“
”That,” he whined then, gesturing to the whole of the others’ person as if it would help get the point across better than his words ever could. “Treating me as if I’m—as if I’m some sort of child or something.”
”I didn’t—“
”Can’t you see it’s making me mental? You swore to me you wouldn’t let me become a burden, and yet here you are always talking to me like I’m fragile or whatever, like you are the one who has to ensure that my suffering never gets to be too big for me to handle, and what is that if not a burden by another name?”
”That’s—“
”I don’t want to feel like I’m indebted to you for the rest of my life because you feel like you need to take care of me after everything we’ve been through together. I’m not some helpless little lamb who is lost in the woods, I’m the fucking monster who stalks it at night and rips it apart to devour it for their next meal. Stop insulting me by acting like I’m your fucking pet project and start treating me like you actually respect me some.”
Throughout all of his tirade, Sirius’ expression had gone from utterly shocked, to confused, to entirely incised by the word vomit that couldn’t help spewing past his lips in regard to every last fear and quiet thought he’d kept bottled up for the vast majority of their unbalanced power dynamic that ever made him feel like he couldn’t speak his mind without accidentally overstepping his bounds.
Well, no more. Now that he had a means to earn his way through life, Remus was damned if he was gonna allow a silly thing like the abject terror of being abandoned keep him from saying what needed to be said in the moment. If his friend didn’t like it, tough shite.
When it was clear he had at least halted for the amount of time it took to suck in a sharp breath of fresh oxygen, his roommate pursed his lips, grey eyes staring up at him from their spot a good few centimeters lower than him with their own poorly-veiled annoyance.
”Are you quite finished,” he snapped, waving his hand through the air as if to say ‘don’t hold back for my sake, tell me exactly what it is that you really think’.
Aiming to do just that because why not, he had loads of grievances he could air that wouldn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg in regard to his complicated knot of raw emotions, Remus glowered down in response to the snippy sound of the other’s voice and opened his mouth once more to unleash hell while he still had the upper hand. “Actually, no, I don’t think I—“
Before he could get the words out in full, his brain stuttered to an abrupt stop.
Not because he’d lost all of that residual energy that helped him continue in a similar trajectory, although he wouldn’t be surprised if that had been the case with how bone-weary he’d felt even just a few minutes prior. It was because Sirius had surged forward to tangle long fingers through his hair and had yanked him down into an abrupt, searing, toe-curling kiss.
It took a beat more for him to understand just what, exactly, was going on. When it finally clicked in full, despite the way everything about the action made his body zing and his spine tingle with so much right and good and finally, as his hands reached up to find purchase literally anywhere that might help ground him even a tiny bit, it was all he could do to shove his friend off of him with a new glower of indignation that was somehow even more irate than the last had been.
”Did you just kiss me to shut me up,” Remus snarled, heart thundering through his veins quickly enough he thought he might faint if he didn’t find a way to dial back his emotions to a far more respectable level.
It was either rage, or he was going to begin sobbing outright—torn between feeling hurt for having everything he’d ever dreamed of slap him right across the face with cruel mockery and wounded by the fact his best friend had tried to use how he felt against him in such a horrible, gut-churning manner.
Instead of the embarrassment or sorrow he’d expected from the other for being called out so openly, Sirius huffed a humorless laugh and shook his head. “I kissed you so maybe you’d finally get it through that thick skull of yours why I do what I do and stop insulting me for giving a shite when I come home to find the man I love is close to tears because he burnt the celebration dinner black and there’s nothing I can do to make it better except maybe to be considerate for once in my life when all I want to do is grin ear to ear like a daft fool who can’t see beyond themselves to find a touch of empathy for the people they care about most. So, I am terribly sorry if I’ve offended you, but in my defense, you attacked me first.”
”You love me,” is what he finally managed to croak out when the silence that followed the grand declaration began to become painfully awkward to deal with, the words repeating themselves on an endless track in his mind over and again looking for some kind of alternative meaning that could explain everything that was divulged as being just this side of heartbreakingly platonic.
Leveling him with an unimpressed look that said he was being intentionally dense for the fun of it, his roommate released the hold he’d somehow kept on his person and sat back on his haunches, grey eyes flicking to the side as his brow furrowed in quiet consternation. “As if it weren’t painfully obvious by this point,” he muttered under his breath, seemingly to himself. Glancing back a moment later, the strange smile that stole over his mouth was about as self-deprecating and borderline nauseous as he’d ever seen it. “Yeah, Rem, I kind of do.”
”Since when,” Remus asked in a voice he hoped didn’t come off as wholly accusatory, trying his best to keep his own lips from twisting into a grimace that might make him seem disappointed in the wrong aspect of the confession.
Sirius took a full beat to study his face for something unknown, coming to a kind of decision in the next instant as he flapped a hand through the air in his typical noncommittal fashion. “Probably sometime at the end of fifth year, beginning of sixth,” he replied, giving a small shrug for good measure. “I wasn’t exactly keeping a tally in my brain with which to refer to later on like it was some sort of meter to help me navigate why hurting you hurts me just as deeply. I had more important things to focus on, in case you don’t remember.”
”Oh.”
”Is that everything you want to know,” he asked, making to rise to his feet and dusting off his knees as his expression shuddered closed in self-preservation.
It was obvious from the way those icy grey eyes stared down at him that he was on the precipice of something big. Monumental, even. And one wrong move might just bugger everything if he didn’t handle the situation with as much care and consideration as it begged him in return for thoroughly derailing it like an utter fool.
Because, come to think of it, maybe he did know the truth of the matter from the start. Deep down, beneath the fear and the doubt clawing itself through his stomach on a near-daily basis, hadn’t he always known the full picture and simply refused to take charge until such a time as he once again felt himself on equal footing?
Licking his lips, he swallowed down the urge to deflect and babble out excuses in favor of steering their evening back on course. “If I could have a simple request,” he countered, following suit on wobbly legs that very nearly found him collapsing to the ground when what he needed was to stand tall and face the problem head on.
Sirius reached out to steady him some with a careful press to his forearms—ever the gentleman, even when he thought he was about to have his heart torn from his chest and stomped all over by blatant rejection.
The fact he hadn’t let it click sooner was perhaps a testament to how much he was afraid of a similar reaction. That he didn’t see his friend as far too kind to ever do such a thing even if the situation had been completely unreciprocated was a terrible misjudgement on his part he’d likely spend the remainder of his life trying to rectify by proving his own feelings wholly sincere.
“Anything, Moonbeam,” the other informed him with a sad quirk of the lips.
Glancing down, he tracked the subtle movement with a laser-pointed focus. ”Can you do it again,” he asked, feeling the way his heart rate once again revved up to impossible speeds and his pupils dilated in response to the scent of a potential chase about to be underway.
When it was obvious he had only managed to confuse his roommate further, Remus took a step forward to draw those grey eyes up with a surprised start, feeling the next abrupt gasp of an exhale dance sweetly across his tongue. “Shut me up,” he clarified then, as if the way he was practically shivering with want hadn’t had the chance to make itself apparent enough in regard to where his roommate should choose to put his mouth next.
It was hard to say which of them moved to close the remaining distance first.
Remus would always believe he had held out until the last possible second, allowing for that tiny speck of a chance he'd been hallucinating and reality was about to crash down on him in a wave of abject misery.
Kissing Sirius Black was everything he could have ever dreamed of and then some. The push and pull, the burning intensity shooting electricity through his veins, and if his head hadn’t already been on the verge of woozy from everything the day had already brought to the forefront, he probably wouldn't have ever wanted to stop.
It was his great misfortune that he had no choice but to, however, breaking apart a moment later with a loud gasp and panting his way through the worst parts of the vertigo making the room sway as his vision swam and his knees threatened to buckle in tandem.
”I do tend to have that effect on people,” Sirius quipped even as he snaked an arm around his waist to hold him steady, and like the besotted fool he was, he couldn’t help the way he laughed outright at the absurdity of it all.
That he could be anymore in love with the prat should have been impossible—but there in the kitchen with the light still off and a blanket of darkness encroaching on the window, Remus found it difficult to deny that he had fallen and continued to fall through every last layer of foundation he thought capable of supporting his weight for the time it took to say with full confidence he’d finally found his way to the very bottom.
Later, when he was shoved back into bed with the blankets pulled up to his chin and a cool hand brushing a few stray curls out of his eyes, it was so much easier to reach out and say the words he’d always felt pressing there against the tight clench of his teeth.
“Please stay,” Remus asked, meaning it in such a way that it encompassed the whole of everything, everywhere, all at once—from the times when he felt that his bones were going to shatter into dust and blow away with the next breeze that passed him by to the ones where his heart swelled so large it was almost certain to burst with undue happiness, he wanted every last moment he was allowed to be filled to the brim with Sirius Black.
If he thought the message lost in translation even slightly, it was soon remedied by the way soft lips made to brush against his mouth the sweetest of promises to do just that. Pulling back, grey eyes shined down on him with endless tenderness, tracing the lines and mapping the spaces his fingers touched as if they could never get enough of it in this or any lifetime.
“For you, Moonbeam? Always.”
Notes:
It only took them 9 years to reach this point. NBD.
Coincidentally I just finished writing Chapter 9 of the other fic, too.
Next chapter is another really good one. See you in two weeks.
TheBookaholic7 on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Sep 2025 10:51PM UTC
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Maya (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Dec 2025 11:51PM UTC
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SlytherinSweetheart (Cherrypie62666) on Chapter 2 Sat 30 Aug 2025 01:00AM UTC
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SlytherinSweetheart (Cherrypie62666) on Chapter 2 Sat 30 Aug 2025 05:26PM UTC
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zgin13 on Chapter 6 Sun 02 Nov 2025 02:16AM UTC
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SlytherinSweetheart (Cherrypie62666) on Chapter 6 Sun 02 Nov 2025 02:46AM UTC
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