Remain in Light

by orphan_account

Summary:

What if Sirius Black didn't die? It's been done many times. Here's my take on it.

Notes:

• Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: Remain in Light by Sophiainwolfstar
• Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: 只緣身在此光中 by ClaudiaFekete

I am orphaning this work because I know it means a lot to a lot of people but I have no desire to be associated with this media property any longer. Support for Harry Potter creates real harm for real people in the real world - people like me, a person who is transmasc/nonbinary. If you enjoy reading this, please please please do not spend any money that would ever go to JK Rowling. Do not buy HP merch. Do not visit HP theme parks. Do not support HP shows. If you do so, you are directly funding transphobia.

Death and taxes to all billionaires forever. They shouldn't exist, and that includes you, Joanne.

Chapter 1: Dumbledore’s Office

“I've had enough, I've seen enough, I want out, I want it to end, I don't care anymore!”

"You do care." – The Order of the Phoenix

 

Harry takes a deep breath, ready to burst out with something else, not wanting to hear whatever Dumbledore has to say, when he sees his headmaster’s eyes suddenly focus behind him. ‘Remus,’ Dumbledore says.

Harry turns and sees his former professor standing in the doorway to the headmaster’s office. The last time he’d seen Remus, – can it really have been just a few hours ago? – he had looked like every word was costing him more than he had to give. He still looks much the same, except the despair in his face seems tempered by determination. He’s not looking at Dumbledore. He’s looking directly at Harry.

‘Harry,’ he says, voice quiet but urgent, ‘I need you to come with me. Right now. Sirius needs you.’

Chapter 2: St Mungo's

Remus is pacing the St Mungo’s waiting room. He won’t, he can’t lose Sirius again. This time would somehow be worse, more final: nothing except the fragile promise of meeting in another form, in another elsewhere and elsewhen.

Remus is in no mood for fragile promises. He can’t, he won’t, he can’t do this again.

He has to pace or he’ll come apart.

He hasn’t stopped moving since the Department of Mysteries – no, since before that, since Sirius had found him, frantic, saying that they had to go, they had to reach Harry – since the battle, the ebb and flow of magic and his own wand and Sirius’s and watching out for Harry the way they’d once watched out for James and Peter – not since he had stopped Harry from going after Sirius, thus preventing himself from going after Sirius – clever that – and since Harry had run upstairs, and he had started to go after him, but then Albus had appeared and Minerva had held him back and he had turned, like an animal in a cage – like Padfoot in Azkaban and he won’t think about it, he won’t, he can’t – and ran back to the veil, to where Sirius’s crumpled form lay on the other side of the dais.

He had knelt down and put his hands on Sirius, and he’d whispered, without thinking, ‘Don’t leave me here alone,’ and then he’d reached inside of himself and tried, desperate, to heal Sirius. He’d felt something, a tiny movement, and he’d picked him up – Sirius was light, too light, like a husk, like his soul had departed already – and someone had said something about not being able to Apparate properly directly from the Department of Mysteries but he hadn’t bothered to listen, he’d just reached inside of himself for his magic that he has learned is sometimes different from that of an ordinary human’s and he’d reached and reached and then they were in the lobby of St Mungo’s and he was clutching Sirius’s limp form, nearly dropping his dangling limbs, and screaming for a Healer.

And then there’d been that fiasco with the Healer who did come, and he’d had to get Kingsley and then he’d had to get Harry and suddenly they are both gone and he’s left here, alone, surrounded by people who hate him in this sterile and white waiting room, and he has to keep pacing, he has to keep moving, or else he will fucking disintegrate and it will be fucking awful.

He knows because he’s done it once before and it was fucking awful then and this time it is worse, it will be worse, and he has to think about something else.

Remus had found Kingsley upstairs in the hospital, in another ward. Remus had rounded the corner, winded, and seen the other wizard standing, head turned to stare at a curtain-shuttered window looking into a healing room. Remus’s first thought had been to tell Sirius that he had finally seen Kingsley looking mildly harried, and a second later the impossibility of that had hit him like a punch to the stomach but he had pressed on, until Kingsley had finally made eye contact with him.

‘You need to get Sirius a pardon,’ he had said without preamble.

Something in Kingsley’s face had softened. ‘Yes, I can do that,’ he’d said, but then he’d continued to stand there, his attention obviously on whatever was happening in the room beyond

‘Kingsley,’ Remus had said. ‘You need to do it now.’ He’d held out Sirius’s wand, the new one. ‘Here. This is his. It has his last spells on it. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?’

Kingsley had looked back at him, focusing more, and Remus had no time for his pity before he’d even opened his mouth to say, ‘Remus, I’m so sorry for your loss. But I –‘

‘He’s not dead,’ Remus had said, teeth gritted, and he’d been certain that Kingsley had thought for a second that he’d lost it, that he’d actually gone crazy with grief, so he’d continued, ‘but the Healer wants to notify Azkaban that he’s here rather than treat him.’  

Kingsley had blinked and looked back at the room beside him as if in a daze. Remus had wanted to tell Sirius that they’d have to update Kingsley’s range of expressions to include vaguely surprised. In his slow voice, he’d asked, ‘How could he have survived the veil?’

‘Who’s in there?’ Remus had demanded.

‘Tonks,’ Kingsley’d said, and Remus had felt an immense, fleeting guilt that he hadn’t known.

‘Is she…?’

‘They’re working,’ Kingsley had said. ‘They think she’ll be ok. In time.’

‘Well,’ Remus had replied, brisk, hating himself, ‘you’re not doing much good here, are you?’ Kingsley had given him a look, but Remus had ploughed onward regardless, ‘So you can get Sirius a pardon, right?’

Kingsley had done it. When Remus had returned from Hogwarts with Harry courtesy of a portkey from Albus, he’d been standing there, holding a piece of parchment covered in official looking stamps. Harry had given Remus a solemn look and then led Kingsley through the big doors and back into the A&E. Remus had been left alone with his thoughts and nothing to do and now he’s certain that if he stops moving he’s going to cause even more of a scene than he already has today.

He hates St Mungo’s but he’s not going to let it get to him. Sirius is here, just beyond those doors. They’re going to take care of Sirius. They’ll have to. This place is a necessary evil.

He sits down and puts his head in his hands so he can’t see the accusatory stares of everyone else in the room and gets down to the business of waiting.

Chapter 3: St Mungo's

Summary:

Harry arrives at St Mungo's

‘It’s an absolute disgrace,’ Kingsley is saying to Harry.

 

Harry feels dazed – he’d broken all those things in Dumbledore’s office, he’d yelled at Dumbledore, he hasn’t slept, he hasn’t eaten, he’s probably failed one of his OWLs, not to mention that whole thing that had happened in the Department of Mysteries an hour ago – and doesn’t quite register Kingsley’s words until a few seconds after he says them. Then, belatedly, as they wait for the Healer to return from reviewing Sirius’s pardon, he says, ‘What is?’

 

‘That they wouldn’t accept Remus as Sirius’s next of kin,’ Kingsley says, shaking his head. ‘I mean, yes, technically, legally, you are his next of kin as his godson and I shudder to think what they would have done without that given who Sirius’s relatives are. And yes, technically, legally, he and Remus aren’t married but I have to assume that that’s just because he’s been on the run. But the Healer had no right to turn Remus away.’

 

Harry is nodding before the meaning sinks in, and by the time it does, the Healer has returned and Kingsley is saying goodbye and Harry is being ushered into the Healer’s office. Then he has an immense feeling of stupidity for not realising sooner that which is suddenly incredibly obvious. He assumes Hermione has known for a year at least.

 

‘How is he?’ he asks the Healer, not taking the proffered seat. He’s had enough of that for one day, thanks.

 

The Healer hesitates, and Harry’s stomach dips. Then the Healer says, ‘He’s stable. We’ve put him into a magically-induced coma.’

 

‘What does that mean?’ Harry asks, reaching out to grip the chair in front of him.

 

‘It means that we need to decide how best to heal him, and this will keep him in a stable state until we can do that,’ the Healer says. He spreads his hands out on his desk. ‘If we could know more about the spell that hit him, the circumstances that brought him here…’ He shrugs at Harry. ‘Unfortunately I think that my colleague had an, uhm, disagreement with the person who might have been able to tell us.’

 

‘What?’ Harry asks.

 

The Healer sighs. ‘My colleague can be a little bit quick to, uhm, make assumptions. Your godfather’s, uhm, friend – ‘

 

‘Partner,’ Harry corrects him.

 

‘Ah, ok,’ the Healer says awkwardly, ‘I’d thought so but didn’t want to make, uhm, assumptions. Anyway, he was very upset when my colleague was a little, uhm, hesitant to heal someone who is supposed to be in Azkaban…’

 

‘Isn’t it your duty to heal people?’ Harry demands. ‘Regardless of who they are?’

 

‘Funnily enough,’ the Healer says, ‘that was the exact argument that your godfather’s partner made. Unfortunately my colleague took it a bit poorly to have his job described to him by a werewolf.’

 

Harry frowns. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

 

The Healer’s eyes widen. ‘Surely you know how, uhm, some people feel about, uhm, Dark Creatures?’

 

Harry glares and wishes Hermione was there. She’d have done well in this fight. ‘Bigoted, you mean. That’s how some people feel.’

 

The Healer hesitates. ‘It’s not an opinion shared by all,’ he says finally, ‘but he is my senior colleague…’

 

‘Well, keep him away from Sirius,’ Harry says. ‘And let Remus come tell you what happened. He’ll know what spells were used.’

 

‘Let’s give it an hour,’ the Healer says. Harry starts to protest, but the Healer holds up his hand and says, ‘It will give your godfather a little more time to begin the healing process, and it will also give my colleague a chance to finish for the day.’ He shakes his head at Harry. ‘You missed the row they had earlier. It wasn’t pleasant. I’d prefer it if we could avoid those two seeing each other again for a while.’

 

Harry hesitates. He doesn’t really care if it’s pleasant or not. However, if it’s better for Sirius… He acquiesces and starts to leave the room, intent on speaking with Remus. As the Healer opens the office door for him, he says, ‘Listen, you should tell the werewolf –‘

 

‘Remus,’ Harry interrupts. ‘That’s his name. Remus Lupin.’

 

The Healer huffs out a laugh. ‘The Daily Prophet seems to have gotten some of your character right, anyway. But listen. Please tell, uhm, Mr Lupin that he saved your godfather’s life.’

 

Harry finds Remus sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands. All the waiting wizards and witches are staring at him and sitting as far away from him as possible. Harry takes the seat beside his and when he doesn’t move, awkwardly reaches out and puts a hand on his arm.

 

‘Harry,’ Remus says, voice muffled by his hands. ‘What did the Healer say?’

 

‘He says Sirius is in a magically-induced coma, and that in a little bit, he’d like to talk to you –‘ Remus raises his head and frowns at Harry ‘—it’s a new Healer, different from the first one you, uh, spoke with,’ Harry adds. ‘But he says Sirius is stable.’ Remus breathes out raggedly and puts his head back into his hands, shoulders hunched. ‘And he wants you to tell him what kind of spells he might have been hit by.’ Remus nods without looking up. ‘Also he wanted me to tell you that you saved his life.’ Remus doesn’t respond to that.

 

‘What, uh, happened with the other Healer?’ Harry asks. ‘He said you’d had a row.’

 

Remus lifts his head and exhales. ’Yes, well. He didn’t want to treat Sirius because he’s a wanted man. I had other ideas.’ Remus looks up and smiles, though it in no way reaches his eyes. ‘He seemed to think that werewolves shouldn’t have ideas. He announced my,’ Remus punctuates this with an eyeroll, ‘status to the entire waiting room and forbade me from seeing Sirius.’ Remus smiles again and nods toward the room and the frightened looking people who populate it. ‘I’m afraid it’s made me rather unpopular in here.’

 

‘Well that’s stupid,’ Harry says loudly. ‘What do they expect, that the moon is suddenly going to come out in the middle of the day?’

 

Remus raises an eyebrow. ‘You’d be surprised what kinds of things people think when they hear there’s a werewolf in their midst.’ Then he smiles again. ‘But I appreciate it, Harry.’ He swallows and looks down at the floor. ‘By the way, Harry, I’m so sorry.’

 

‘For what?’ Harry asks.

 

‘For having to involve you in this,’ Remus says bleakly. ‘For taking you away from your conversation with Albus. I think if I hadn’t lost my temper with the Healer, I wouldn’t have needed to get you. But they wouldn’t let me see him. They needed his legal next of kin.’

 

‘Yeah, well,’ Harry says, ‘I thought Sirius was… you know. So I’m really glad you came to get me. And Kingsley said it was a disgrace that they could throw you out anyway.’

 

‘Why did he say that?’ Remus asks, frowning. 

 

‘He said that you, uh,’ Harry swallows, then rushes onward, ‘might as well be married anyway so they should have just accepted you as his next of kin.’

 

‘Kingsley said that, did he?’ Remus asks, and for a second he sounds like his old, wry self. Then he presses his fingers into the corners of his eyes while Harry carefully looks at the floor, and continues, back to sounding weary, ‘I’ll have to send him a thank you note for outing us.’

 

Harry hesitates, but he has to know, because people have been keeping a lot from him, it seems: ‘Why didn’t you and Sirius tell me?’ He tries not to sound petulant. ‘Did you think it would bother me?’

 

‘No,’ Remus says immediately. He finally looks at Harry, concern obvious in his face. ‘No, no, not at all. Sirius wanted to tell you. He’s wanted to for ages. I just thought,’ and he looks away again, towards the doors into the treatment area, and Harry has an idea that he’s looking for Sirius to help him, ‘well, I just thought you should get to know him first.’

 

‘Get to know Sirius, you mean?’ Harry asks, and Remus nods.

 

‘He is your godfather, after all,’ he says. He looks quickly at one family sitting not too far away and the mother lifts up her young daughter and puts her on her lap, glaring at him. Remus drops his head again as Harry glares back at her. He has a sudden inkling that Remus was maybe worried that Harry would care that he’s a werewolf.

 

He’s searching for a way to tell Remus that he never would when Remus says, ‘I hope you know that this is – was – never what your parents would have wanted for you, Harry.’ He spreads out his hands and looks at them. ‘All of this, the war, Voldemort, the role you’re being forced to play in it… James and Lily wanted you to just be a normal boy, to have a happy childhood and go to Hogwarts and have a happy time.’ He straightens up and leans his head back against the wall. ‘Sirius and I… we’re trying so hard to know what’s right for you but also to honour what they would have wanted.’ He huffs a shaky laugh and looks at Harry, smiling. ‘It turns out that trying to be someone’s parent is incredibly difficult.’

 

Harry grins back at him. ‘It can’t help that Voldemort’s after me.’

 

‘No,’ Remus agrees, ‘I think we’d much rather be angry with you for drinking too much firewhiskey and getting caught breaking into Slytherin.’

 

‘I don’t think you’d really be angry about that,’ Harry suggests. ‘I know Sirius wouldn’t be.’

 

Remus’s mouth does something complicated and he shuts his eyes for a second. ‘You never know,’ he says. ‘After he spoke with you about “Dumbledore’s Army” as I’ve heard it’s called he was absolutely tortured by the thought of what Lily would have said if she’d heard him.’

 

Harry laughs. ‘But you told me that you thought my parents would be proud of me!’

 

‘We did,’ Remus agrees. He looks back at Harry and clearly tries to smile. ‘They would be,’ he says firmly. ‘Sirius is.’ He swallows hard. ‘And for what it’s worth, I am too.’

 

‘It’s worth a lot,’ Harry says quietly. ‘I reckon that my parents would have wanted to know that you were both looking after me, too.’

 

‘We both swore we would,’ Remus says. ‘It felt so strange then, like we were playing at being adults. But Lily and James meant it.’ He pauses and adds, ‘Of course, Peter swore too. But disregard that.’

 

The doors into the healing area swing open and Remus stands. Harry recognises the Healer he spoke with earlier. He walks over to them, trailed by a thick sheaf of floating parchment with several quills poised over it, taking rapid notes. Harry sees that one of the quills seems to be continuously drawing a heartbeat down the open section of an incredibly fat roll of parchment, but he has no idea how to interpret if it’s healthy or not.

 

‘Harry,’ the Healer says, shaking Harry’s hand, ‘and you must be Remus?’ Remus nods and the Healer shakes his hand quickly. Harry can feel the eyes of everyone in the room on them, presumably as some of them have realised that he is Harry Potter, hanging out with a known werewolf. He wonders how many of them have seen the most recent Daily Prophet, which he assumes is already full of information about the battle at the Ministry.

 

‘I’d like to have a chat in my office,’ the Healer says. He leads them through the double doors, leaving behind the prying eyes. They follow him down a narrow corridor full of bustling people in white robes. Harry sees Remus’s eyes flicking to every curtain-shuttered room that they pass, but the rooms reveal nothing.

 

The Healer situates them in his office and offers them tea, then quizzes them on Bellatrix’s spell, and the veil in the Department of Mysteries, and the aftermath of the battle. All the while, his quills scroll out ink on at least a dozen pieces of parchment.

 

Remus and the Healer cannot come up with a satisfactory explanation about what Bellatrix cast on Sirius. ‘I rather suspect,’ Remus says finally, holding his tea cup mechanically without drinking from it, ‘that it’s a dark spell we don’t know. It was red, not green, and non-verbal, and that’s really all I can say.’

 

‘A spell we don’t know?’ the Healer asks, sceptical.

 

‘The Death Eaters are well known to invent spells,’ Remus says. ‘The exsanguination spell that caused so many problems in the last war against Voldemort’ – the Healer nearly drops his cup and for a second every quill except the one recording the heartbeat stops before resuming their frantic races across the parchment – ‘was invented only a year before his downfall, I believe.’ Remus’s eyes are unfocused; he’s looking blankly at the edge of the Healer’s handsome wooden desk. ‘Or so I recall, perhaps it was invented sooner but not in use.’

 

‘Is it really the Death Eaters?’ the Healer asks, and Harry has to bite his tongue to stop from shouting at him, this officious little man who holds so much power over his godfather.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says. ‘And it really is Voldemort.’

 

The man winces and says, ‘Yes, so the Prophet said, but I didn’t know if I should believe it…’

 

‘You didn’t want to believe it,’ Remus says quietly.

 

‘No,’ the Healer agrees. ‘I didn’t lose anyone in the last war but it scares me just the same. And life is going to get a lot harder for healers if the violence keeps up…’

 

Harry thinks of Remus, and Sirius, and what they lost in the last war. They’re not pretending it isn’t happening. Remus is still staring blankly at the desk in front of him. Then the Healer says, business-like again, ‘One last question. Did you perform a healing spell of any kind of him before you brought him here?’

 

Remus blinks. ‘I suppose… not a spell, per se.’

 

‘Some other kind of healing magic?’

 

Harry is confused; the Healer sounds annoyed, now, which makes little sense. Remus says, voice dull, ‘Werewolf magic.’

 

‘Right,’ the Healer says, ‘I rather thought so, once I learned what you are.’ Harry glares at him and he says quickly, ‘Werewolves have great healing powers, of course. So they can heal themselves after the full moon. But if you apply those powers to a human, well. The effect is rather strong.’

 

Remus has gone paler than normal as the Healer speaks. Harry says quickly, ‘But you said he would have died if not for Remus.’

 

‘Right,’ the Healer says, nodding. ‘Right. He’ll just need to recover from the stress of the healing spell as well as whatever he was hit with and the effects of the veil.’

 

‘At least he’s alive,’ Harry says. He stands. ‘Can we see him now?’

 

The Healer leads them to a private room and lets them inside before scurrying away, seeming glad to be done with them. As he’s turning to head back to his office, he calls that he’ll return soon and they should fetch him if anything with the patient changes, and then he whips out of sight, the edge of his white robe flying behind him. Harry turns back and nearly runs into Remus, who seems to be temporarily frozen in the doorway. Harry sees Sirius, who is deathly pale, his eyes shut, his hair spread out darkly against a white pillowcase that makes his face seem grey, and he is reminded strongly of the night he first met his godfather. Remus suddenly lunges across the room, takes one of Sirius’s hands in both of his, and sinks back into a chair beside the bed. After a second, he looks back at Harry, and then releases Sirius’s hand with one of his own just long enough to conjure another chair on the other side of the bed.

 

‘Please,’ he says, ‘sit.’

 

Harry sits down, suddenly exhausted. After a few minutes of near silence, broken only by the sounds of their breathing and the constant scurry of feet down the corridor outside, Harry is startled awake by Remus saying, ‘Somehow, despite all that we’ve been through, I’ve never done this.’

 

‘Done what?’ Harry asks groggily.

 

Remus is looking down at Sirius’s hand the way he’d been looking at the Healer’s desk. Harry thinks he looks utterly drained, even more so than normal. ‘Sat at Sirius’s bedside when he was injured,’ Remus says. ‘He never got injured in the last war, not seriously, not anything we couldn’t heal with some bandages and spells.’ He takes a deep breath and says, ‘And I – I got hit with a very bad spell once, they thought I would have died if I wasn’t a werewolf and able to heal myself quickly – but I didn’t want to be brought here, to St Mungo’s, because I knew they wouldn’t treat me well, so they just took me home.’ He smiles, the corners of his mouth just barely turning up, and adds, ‘Thank god, I think Sirius would have gone crazy sitting in the hospital waiting for me.’ He pauses. ‘Of course the worst part of this is how still he is. Sirius has never been still a day in his life, not even when he was by my bedside. Kept pacing around, rearranging the furniture, fussing. Even when he came back from Azkaban, he wasn’t still. Not like this.’

 

Harry feels like he’s being allowed into a private world. Remus isn’t looking at him and he gets the impression that speaking about this subject is taking a great deal of effort. Also… ‘Were you together then too?’ Harry asks quietly. ‘During the first war?’ Remus, lips pressed tightly together, nods. Suddenly it’s imperative for Harry to know: ‘Did… did my parents know you were together?’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says.

 

‘So when they made Sirius my godfather, they must have thought you’d be there too, right?’

 

Remus swallows. ‘Yes, I think they did.’ He pauses and adds, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been… more distant than I should have been. I didn’t want to intrude on your life.’

 

Harry shakes his head, his throat suddenly tight, and looks at Sirius, who, the first night they had met, had offered him a different kind of family. He wants it so badly that he can taste it, a metallic emotions in the back of his throat.

 

When he lets sleep overtake him a few minutes later, the last thing he sees is Remus, still leaning forward, still holding Sirius’s hand tight.

Chapter 4: St Mungo's

Like many children who grow up in unhappy circumstances, Sirius Black loves to read.

He starts with children’s books like Maurice the Mad Muggle and Dragonriders but quickly progresses to scaling the shelves in 12 Grimmauld Place in search of longer, more immersive stories. The summer before he goes to Hogwarts, he runs away from home for a few hours and finds himself in an immense downpour shivering outside of a Muggle public library. He feels ashamed that he can’t protect himself from the rain magically and utterly terrified of entering a space full of Muggles, who according to his cousins do things like casually murder Wizarding children, but he’s wet and cold so he ducks inside the lobby and tries to make himself small and invisible to Muggle eyes. A Muggle librarian spots him almost immediately and, after giving him tea and biscuits that he’s too busy wolfing down to remember to worry about poison, she asks him if he’d like to read a book while he waits for the rain to pass. He stammers out that he would, and she asks him what subjects he likes. He can’t think of a thing that wouldn’t sound odd, so, gently, she asks him if he’d like to read about animals. Sirius is fascinated by animals and his chief reason for wanting to go to Hogwarts is so he can have a pet, something he has wanted all his life but that his parents have not allowed. He nods excitedly. The librarian brings him a dog-eared old book called If Only They Could Talk, about the adventures of a Muggle veterinarian in Yorkshire, and Sirius falls in love with it. He steals it from the library and keeps it in his room, hidden, for Muggle artefacts are taboo in the Black family. That single book opens up an entire new world of literature to him, and he hungrily devours books from that one too whenever he can find them.

Books provide an entry point into friendship with the boy he’s unhealthily obsessed with his first year at Hogwarts, and when he confronts Remus about his lycanthropy at the start of their second year, he defuses the situation by describing all the reading he’s done on the topic. Sirius comes to understand that a book he’s read is the most intimate gift he can give: it’s like recommending a secret lover. He only ever gives books to Remus.

There are no books in Azkaban. There is nothing, really, in Azkaban, except time. Years ago, Sirius cast a spell to attune himself to the phases of the moon and that is how he knows how much has passed; the sliver of a white timepiece in the sky comes to him when his eyes are shut, flaring like an afterglow on the dark side of his eyelids. In lieu of books, he tries to remember quotes from those he read before this place and scratch them into the stone walls of his cell. He rarely gets past The Count of Monte Cristo: ‘All human wisdom is contained in these two words--"Wait and Hope”.’

And after Azkaban, there are so many books, too many, all the books he’s missed out on and all the ones that he already had known he would never get to before he went. He dreams that he’s surrounded by them, stacks and stacks that stretch to the ceiling, places he’ll never go, things he’ll never know. He dreams and dreams –

Sirius Black is eleven years old. His Hogwarts letter is spread open carefully on his desk, his trunk open and empty, awaiting Kreacher to fill it with all of the new things that wait in paper-wrapped packages, fresh from Diagon Alley. He has a beautiful new eagle owl and robes that feel weightless when they slide through his fingers. He has a stack of books –

The flat they share, that Sirius always calls ‘ours’ and Remus never calls anything but ‘Sirius’s’, is crammed with bookshelves, some of them overflowing, and they cannot resist a book sale, the hardcovers for 10p offered on plastic covered tables on the rain-slick pavement under the bridge across the river from Charing Cross, the treasures they find, together, the worlds they’ll escape into, safely ensconced in their own private space, and James will take the piss, he always does, but it’s fond, and Peter will laugh at whatever he says, but it’s fond…

Peter…

And they buy a book for Harry, a book about learning spells, A is for Accio and B is for Banishing and C is for Colloportus, and Remus jokes darkly that A is for Avada Kedavra …

Harry…

Sirius swims upwards into consciousness through what feels like a deep and murky sea. For an eternity, he can’t open his eyes, just feel pain. It laces throughout his entire body, agonising, making him want to twitch his muscles but he can’t… quite… seem… to do it. Slowly, so so slowly, he becomes aware of a weight on his ankles. And then he finally figures out how to open his eyes. The room is a shade of white beyond any he has ever known, so bright it blinds him, and he shuts them again almost immediately and then opens them just enough to squint against the light. He is in a bed somewhere and James is asleep in a chair facing him, his mouth open, his glasses drooping down his nose.

Except James is dead. Has been dead a long time. No, this is Harry, looking more like his father every day. Sirius tries to reach out to him but moving his arm seems like a task too far. He manages to move his eyes to see that the weight on his legs is Remus, sound asleep, who even deep in slumber appears exhausted. Sirius decides to let them sleep. He’s worked out that he’s in St Mungo’s, but no Dementors seem in imminent danger of knocking down the door. He shuts his eyes and falls into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 5: Letter, 14 July, the summer after Harry’s fifth year

Notes:

I wanted to post something to say that this is not a dead fic. Apologies if you've been waiting a long time for what is a very brief update. I should have more free time coming up soon -- new job + finishing some schooling has left me without time to write. Thank you as always for reading!

Dear Harry,

How are you? Are you keeping well? How are the Dursleys treating you? AD still says that you have to stay there (he’s also asked us to stop asking, but Sirius isn’t going to let that deter him – R). Too bad. You could be hanging about in hospital, keeping me company (And I could use the break, he’s driving me round the bend – R).

So Fudge is out as Minister? I guess I can stop counting the days since he’s owed me an apology; it seems very unlikely that I’ll be receiving one (not that he should have expected one in the first place, really – R). Scrimgeour is a definite change of pace but we both think that he’s the kind to value security over ethics, if you know what I mean. AD hinted that he might try to make contact with you. Just a warning.

How’s the cooking around your place, by the way? Hospital food is going to finish off the job that Bellatrix started (Please don’t send him anything, he’s on a special healing diet and if you send him something then I’ll never hear the end of how I’ve refused to go to the shops every hour to buy him another Toffee Crisp – R).

We’re going to listen to the Harpies game now, they’re playing versus Lancashire and we’re very interested in finding out how that new keeper is going to do. Supposedly the best in the junior league, but we’ll see if she can compete at this level – looking forward to hearing your analysis, if you get a chance to listen. I’ve tried to get Remus to make a little wager with me about the match but he’s no fun at all (He wanted to wager a walk around the hallway, and the last time we did that, he fainted. – R).

Talk soon,

Padfoot and Moony

Chapter 6: Two Years Ago, almost exactly, Gwynedd

They come inside because of the rain; somewhere in the course of their conversation, it has transitioned from dampening mist to drenching sheets and the drooping thatched eaves were no longer sufficient shelter. The door from the garden leads into the kitchen, and once there, Sirius watches Remus gravitate towards the kettle. He shakes the water from his hair – the weight of it feels strange after the haircut Remus had given him last night, though he is getting used to it – and watches the other man. Methodically Remus fills the kettle from the tap, places it on its stand, and flips a switch atop it. It is a Muggle device powered by electricity. Sirius remembers this fact, and feels a little adrenaline surge of triumph, like he does every time he remembers something that Azkaban should have taken from him.

Remus is leaning back against the kitchen counter, clearly watching Sirius. Sirius thinks that Remus is wary. He looks exhausted and so much older and his eyes are puffy. Sirius thinks of last night: of seeing himself in a proper mirror for the first time in thirteen years; the glass shattering in his horror, an involuntary magical reaction, and he hadn’t been so out of control with magic since he was a teenager. And Remus hadn’t run into the room, but instead had knocked almost instantly, so Sirius knew that he’d been outside the door the whole time, no doubt anticipating the incident…

‘Sirius,’ Remus says now, gently, and Sirius refocuses. He knows that he’s having trouble with time. He knows that he keeps getting stuck out of the present form of it, back in memory, whether from ten years ago or last night, and that Remus is being so patient at recalling him to it, but that there’s gaps, unaccountable gaps, while his brain flies over details that it never should have been made to forget.

‘Sirius,’ Remus repeats.

‘Sorry,’ Sirius says. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

‘I know,’ Remus says. He smiles, just a quick, closed mouth flash, flicks his gaze up and to the side, blinks. Sirius remembers that this is how Remus looks when he doesn’t want to cry. He’s been remembering that a lot in the last forty eight hours. Without thinking, Sirius moves forward, and Remus puts his arms around him and holds him. Sirius can feel the tension in Remus’s arms, feel that he wants to hold him more tightly, but they both know that Sirius is fragile right now, and prone to bolting from too much touch, sight, sound, too much anything, really, but Sirius wants Remus to know that he won’t bolt from this, so he slides his arms under Remus’s and curves his hands up to squeeze Remus’s shoulders from behind, and just clings. He feels Remus’s nose press into his hair behind his ear, feels Remus’s breath, hot and fast and ragged, enveloping his neck in a kind of moist second embrace, and he squeezes Remus’s shoulders a little bit harder to stay anchored in the here and now. It occurs to him belatedly that he may be squeezing rather more than is comfortable, but Remus does not complain.

The kettle clicks. Remus keeps one arm around Sirius and with the other slowly gathers two mugs and drops two teabags into them. Then he has to stretch to reach for the kettle, and Sirius leans back to let him, and as Remus comes back, kettle in one hand, he leans forward a fraction and his lips brush Sirius’s. It’s clearly deliberate, but it’s also clearly done out of pure habit, and Remus jerks back, regret instantly obvious on his face.

Sirius reaches up to run his fingers over his lips. They tingle. They’re skin long untouched too.

‘Oh fuck, I’m so sorry,’ Remus says. He’s completely let go of Sirius now, and looks mortified. ‘I just didn’t think at all,’ and here he sort of flaps his hands, more flustered than Sirius has seen him in two days of emotional post-mortem. ‘It just, you were there, I was here, just, I’m an idiot, a fucking idiot, completely, utterly…’

‘It’s all right,’ Sirius manages to say. He knows the next thing out of his mouth is going to hurt, but he says it anyway. ‘I wanted to do that again someday.’ And there’s that feeling, his throat aching, his eyes starting to run, and he can’t quite look directly at Remus so he focuses on the tiles at hand height and says, ‘Fuck, I need some kind of drip system, maybe a gutter running directly from my face,’ trying to make a joke about how he’s been basically leaking tears and mucus for the last two days, but Remus makes a weird choking noise that definitely does not sound like a laugh and when Sirius looks up, startled, he sees that Remus, who until just an hour ago, until he’d found that stupid, stupid ring, had been handling the entire situation so stoically that Sirius had almost been fooled by the façade, is crying again. Remus Lupin, crying for the second time in an hour – for the second time in a year, in a decade, Sirius isn’t sure that this has ever happened before, because he remembers that Remus cried when he’d confronted him about being a werewolf (so, twelve years old) and had then cried again when his father had been murdered by Death Eaters (so, twenty years old) and nothing in between.

What Remus says next does not fit into anything Sirius remembers either. From the way that Remus is looking at him, he becomes aware that more time has passed than is probably normal for a conversation. He opens his mouth to say something, say anything, but Remus says instead:

‘I’ve thought a lot about this, you know.’ Remus looks steadily into Sirius’s face. ‘About what I did wrong. About how I could do it better. If I had, you know,’ he takes a deep breath, ‘a second chance.’

Sirius doesn’t – he doesn’t know how to feel. He has spent so long wanting this, and knowing that he’ll never really have it, that the few brief years where he did have it feel like a dream, and all the years around it feel like the reality. Remus is waiting for him to say something. ‘Are you,’ he tries. Stops. Starts again. ‘How would…’

‘I was a fool last time,’ Remus says quickly. ‘What’s the song? “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone”?’ He rolls his eyes, ever self-deprecating. ‘I never knew how much I,’ he pauses, and Sirius can see him make the deliberate decision to soldier on, and that makes Sirius love him so much, so very, very much, in the space between these words, ‘well, how much I need you in my life.’ Remus pauses, clears his throat. ‘Until you were gone. But now,’ and here his voice breaks, ‘you’re here again. And we could.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘We could, you know.’

Sirius swallows hard. ‘Yes,’ he says. This is a terrible idea. Even he, Sirius Black, prince, king, lord god emperor of bad ideas, like not trusting the man you love, knows that this is a terrible idea. Most of the time he feels barely human, let alone capable of sharing a life with another human. But. But he wants this. He wants it so much.

Remus’s hands are on his face then, cupping it, one hand sliding into his hair, and he is kissing him, gentle and searching. There is a long moment where that is all that happens in the room, and Sirius’s head is empty of everything but this, and he stays there, in that moment.

‘Yes?’ Remus asks against his mouth.

‘I’m going to be a disaster,’ Sirius gasps. ‘You know I am.’ A terrible thought occurs to him. ‘I’m not even sure, I mean, it’s been a long time. I don’t know how, if, you know. It might take some, well, some time.’

‘I know,’ Remus says. He pauses. ‘I don’t think I care.’ He leans back. ‘But listen, if you don’t, if you can’t, if you don’t want me…’

Sirius shakes his head, unable to speak.

‘Or,’ Remus continues, ‘if you think I’m not attractive anymore…’

‘Shut up,’ Sirius says, startled into a laugh. ‘You’re gorgeous. I’m the one who looks like a horror show. So just shut up, Remus Lupin.’

Remus grins wolfishly. ‘Make me.’

Chapter 7: Hogwarts, about twenty years ago

James is the kind of middle class that has quite enough money; that always has a new, large flying carpet rolled up in the garage; that lives in a rambling big country house with homey but obviously curated decoration; that can afford to let a son take a year off after Hogwarts to ‘sort out what he wants to do in life’; that has parents who work but who never seem to work too much and who go on long holidays to stay in a cottage in the south of France every summer. The cottage will be described later over drinks in the way that someone else might describe a prospective wife: lovely; charming; diminutive. James is aware of his own privilege but in a benevolent, unsuspecting way. He has ideas about cleaning his own kitchen when he moves away from home and teaches himself domestic spells. He thinks of money as something his parents possess and imagines a post-Hogwarts lifestyle of small, leaky flats forming a backdrop against his own inevitable rise to the exact same comfortable place in society. He almost never notices the circumstances of those below him in the class chain, and will happily lend money to Peter or Remus without them even having to ask. Conversely, he finds his knowledge of the rich to be exacting, and in the presence of the truly wealthy he has a ubiquity of awareness at the differences between them.

Peter is from a family that wants to be in the Potters’ position: the aspiring working class. They live in a two-up, two-down house with windows at the front and back that have views only of streets and train tracks, respectively. The house is in a dingy part of a northern town and both have seen better times. It is cosy, especially with Peter’s three younger sisters bouncing around, but after Peter’s father dies when he is nine and his mother has to make up for his absence by running their robe-making business out of the front room herself – even fitting two robes on the day of the funeral, rest in peace, such a tragedy, with the children so little and all – the house takes on an air of neglect. Items that once spoke excitedly to the children droop and lean; plates are always in the sink, grime growing in the corners, a shattered window papered over rather than repaired. Peter tells Remus about his dad within two days, but it takes him longer to say anything to James and even longer to Sirius. Peter thinks a lot about ways to make money, and he finds the circumstances of his friends’ lives so alien as to be almost threatening. His first visit to James’s house results in a near-existential crisis about his own place in the universe and the factors at work that give James both parents alive and well and living in this amazing house and Peter just the one who works all hours to keep them in their small and dingy space.

Remus is an interesting kind of poor. His mother is well-educated, a Muggle – Remus being the only one between them with a close Muggle relative – and has a tremendous number of Opinions. Remus likes listening to them but finds quickly that sharing them is probably not advised. Teenage boy wizards are very uninterested in things like feminism. Remus’s father used to be a writer of some kind – he’s delightful to speak with, but always changing the subject so that the listener is left with only a vague impression of his own past – and his surname can be traced to records of an orphaned French boy. Only the most dedicated sleuth would follow the trail and realise that he was once part of a very different, rather larger family than just the three people – mother, father, son – who compose the entirety of the Lupin name in the Wizarding World. Remus’s poverty seems to stem from something else, with parents like he has. They run a small bookstore that specialises in getting Muggle books to wizarding customers, and yet, they never seem to have two pence to rub together. Remus has shabby clothes, second-hand books, slightly used-up everything, but he is so expert at blending into the background that very few people actually perceive this about him.

Sirius, at first glance, is the kind of boy for whom the word scion was invented: signet rings and the family crest embroidered on his robes. At second glance, he becomes the kind of boy of whom knowing intimately verges upon a bad idea; at third glance, it’s clear that he’s the black sheep, and it's well-earned. The Black family is ancient, and it and Pureblood society have deemed it noble, with a large house in London and a stately manor in the gentle country of the Cotswolds, and business and political and blood ties to Everyone who is Anyone in the Wizarding World. Sirius's mother has held an ambassadorship to the Nordic countries for most of his life and his father travels often to secure financial deals and monitor the family's assets around the world. When Sirius arrives at Hogwarts, he is wrapped in an ermine-lined cloak and exudes an air of privileged charm that will, in the next seven years, sour and crack and disintegrate, nothing so easy as a snake shedding its skin; more of a wounded dog struggling to free itself from a trap, resorting to gnawing at its own leg and vowing to leave behind less than it takes. That first night at Hogwarts, when, not by choice (because he begs and begs with the Sorting Hat, his hands clamped on its leathery sides to prevent it from flying off his head, please, please, I am a Slytherin, we all are, I must be...) but by character he is flung from his mother's favour (his father has never liked him, as the eldest child who took his mother's affection). By the simple act of being placed in Gryffindor House, Sirius is cast into purgatory, a place where he is neither quite of the Black family nor not of it, but an intruder, a hungry child at the window, looking in with clenched hands while swearing that he is not ravenous. It takes him an additional six years to truly be banished, and even then, his Uncle Alphard leaves him enough money that he can still live the only way he knows how: profligately. Money is another thing that he is keenly aware separates him from the others. He overcompensates, often. Very early on in his unfolding of romantic feelings for Remus, he buys him a gift so extravagant -- to Remus -- that Remus won’t even speak with him for days. It takes him years to understand why.

These are the four boys (men) of Gryffindor House, and it is a testament to some ineffable chemistry between them that four people of such different background and character could spend seven years in the same small room together and emerge friends. And not just friends, but the kind of friends who are brothers, who have taken oaths, who have broken Wizarding Law and turned themselves into Animagi for each other, with each other, and who will soon be blood brothers, fighting a war together. This is why it is so difficult, when things do start to fall apart, for any of them to understand or react appropriately. Even Peter, the one who has always seen them all the clearest and who is able to use that to actually complete the business of making things fall apart, doesn’t really understand how or why it happens the way it does -- and he spends thirteen years as a rat thinking about it. He wonders often if he had just been able to talk to James -- they’re both prey animals, James might have understood this fear, this constant, gnawing fear… but it’s too late for that now. When he does see Remus and Sirius again, it is just as he always expected: that he was always the least of them, and they all knew it.

Chapter 8: The summer after Harry's fifth year

It has been a cold, clammy, miserable summer, without any warm weeks to redeem it, and so Harry is asleep burrowed under the duvet in his room when he hears the doorbell. He rolls over and tries to ignore the sounds below – footsteps, the door opening, his aunt’s voice – but then there’s another voice, this one with a familiar cadence, and Harry sits upright so fast he almost knocks a lamp off the bedside table. He scrambles out of bed and yanks on his clothing from the day before, easily accessible as it is from the pile on the floor, and then stops to take a deep breath. Why is Remus here? Why didn’t he send a letter? Is it bad news? Why hasn’t his aunt called him down? Is it about Sirius? He glances involuntarily at the stack of letters he keeps beside the bed, most of them written in Remus’s neat hand, having been dictated (with much editorial content) by Sirius. Recently Sirius has been feeling well enough to write himself, though. Panic constricts Harry’s stomach; what if Sirius has had a setback?

He walks quietly down the stairs, trying to listen, but can only hear the murmur of voices from the kitchen; coming around the corner, he sees his aunt smiling, and Remus seated, dressed perfectly passably if a bit shabbily as a Muggle. He’s holding a steaming mug of tea and also smiling.

‘Hello?’ Harry says, and Remus looks up at him and smiles even more widely. His aunt’s smile has disappeared.

‘Hello, Harry.’ Remus sets down his mug of tea and nods at Petunia. ‘I was just speaking with your aunt here about having you over today to see Sirius.’

‘It would be nice to have you out of the house,’ Petunia says quickly.

‘Yes,’ Harry agrees, staring at Remus. ‘Really nice.’

‘Excellent.’ Remus stands, leaving his tea behind, and says directly to Harry, ‘He’s just been able to come home. If we have you back here before this time tomorrow, everything with the protection spells should be fine.’

‘Are there protection spells?’ Harry asks, as Petunia says, ‘Spells? Here?’

‘Of course,’ Remus says soothingly. ‘Everyone wants to make certain that your family is well looked after, Petunia. They’re invisible and silent, only intended to be detectable by a few people.’

Somehow, Petunia looks mollified. Harry doesn’t want to question it; he runs upstairs and grabs his bookbag, shoving some clean clothes into it. Remus and Petunia say pleasant goodbyes -- Harry has no idea what is going on there -- and then Remus takes his arm and they Apparate.

They are standing in a grassy, sloping moorland, slightly up a hill, with rocky outcrops above them and, in the distance, green fields dotted with sheep. Harry stares around them, still reeling slightly from the Apparition, as Remus takes off his cardigan and meticulously folds it and tucks it under his arm.

‘Where are we?’

‘Wales,’ Remus says. ‘We have a bit of a hike to the house, I’m afraid. It’s probably going to be warm.’

They set off, walking sideways along the slope; the air is heavy with humidity and soon Harry is sweating despite overcast skies. He has to keep an eye on where his feet are going -- they seem to be following a path that is much narrower than his feet want it to be.

‘Sheep track,’ Remus explains. ‘They always find the best routes -- but it might be the best route only for sheep.’ He pushes his hair off his face and Harry sees that he’s sweating too.

‘Why not just Apparate to your house?’

‘Ah, well,’ Remus looks back at him and smiles. ‘It’s for defence. Areas that have a high magical concentration can be detected. As an example, in the last war, it became clear that the Death Eaters had perfected the art of detecting an area where people were Apparating often -- which leaves a very flashy magical fingerprint on the landscape if you know how to look. Many wizards and witches are simply unable to live without magic and chose to just accept the risk… but my parents, well, they were already familiar with methods for trying to live without detection. So they insisted that no magic be done near the house. I still live there -- I inherited it from them.’

‘Why were they familiar…?’ Harry trails off, suddenly understanding. ‘Because of you.’

‘Yeah,’ Remus says. ‘Though it turns out that the transformation to werewolf is quite detectable. So they built a little area away from the house where that could be done more… safely. Of course, there are magical methods for concealment as well -- Grimmauld Place, before Kreacher, well, you know.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But those require a lot of skill and are easy to do poorly. We’ve never done magic at this house, so it makes sense to keep it up.’

‘But isn’t that…’ Harry tries to think of how to say it. ‘Isn’t that like… letting them win, kind of? Not being able to do magic?’

Remus glances back at him before returning to focus on the rocky trail. ‘I suppose that’s a way of thinking about it. But…’

They round a corner and suddenly the trail widens and the view opens up, although Harry can see that ahead there is a solid wall of misty cloud below their level. The scenery is breathtaking; soaring, rocky mountains, larger than any Harry has ever seen, and below them, a rock-strewn valley. Remus stops and points towards a grove of pines, dark on the side of another mountain. ‘That’s where we’re going,’ he says. ‘The house is hidden from view here.’ He takes out a handkerchief and wipes the mist off his face. ‘I think you raise a good point. But during the first war, we all had to adapt to the Death Eaters’ tactics or face, well, death.’

‘Like how they could track magic?’

Remus nods. ‘See, the war before that -- the one against Grindelwald -- that was a very, I guess you could say, classical war. I wasn’t around, obviously, but my impression is that everyone was finding magical swords and killing people with them, that kind of thing. There was a famous poisoning but that’s about it for subterfuge and both sides decried it as cowardly. But the way that Voldemort and the Death Eaters rose to power… they started out in the shadows. Like he has been this time. Not wanting to reveal himself or themselves too soon. Part of that is that the Death Eaters are quite smart, and quite well connected, and many of them had been studying magical problems for a long time -- like how to detect magic, how to stop Apparation, how to make wands bend against the will of their master -- those were all things that they made significant advances into during the years leading up to the war. And also, of course, their complete mastery of the Imperius curse, which I think you learned about…?’

‘Yeah,’ Harry says, trying to take in all this information. ‘So you had to adapt, on the other side.’

‘Exactly.’

They move down a steep hill and onto the valley floor, side by side on the wide path, occasionally passing the remains of old stone crofts or other evidence of past human habitation. They descend into the clouds and the air becomes heavy, a fine mist that clings to their clothes and face.

‘What’s happening now?’ Harry asks, as soon as they are next to each other. ‘With the war?’

Harry doesn’t see Remus’s face closing off; he’s too busy watching where his feet go to avoid tripping on a rock. Remus says, ‘Regrouping, mainly. Recruiting new people to the cause.’

‘People who didn’t believe Voldemort was back?’

‘Yes. Or people who for whatever reason had to wait until he was out in the open to throw their allegiance with us.’

‘What about the Ministry?’

Remus glances over at him. ‘You read the Prophet, right?’

Harry hesitates. ‘Well, I mean, I skim it. To make sure I see all the important…’ Remus starts laughing, but it’s not at him, or if it is, it doesn’t feel mean. Harry starts laughing too.

‘That’s quite all right, Harry,’ Remus says. ‘It’s not the most exciting thing in the world. But, my point is, Ministry politics are getting interesting. Fudge is going to resign very soon -- he’s utterly cocked up this crisis and people want someone stronger in the position. There’s a few names floating around from the opposition but I think it’s likely we’ll get this fellow named Rufus Scrimgeour.’

‘What’s he like?’ Harry asked.

Remus shrugged. ‘He’s head of the Auror Office. Moody likes him well enough but isn’t surprised about him having political ambitions. He’s been to see Sirius as well, told him that he thought the pardon was “a bit hasty” which you can imagine Sirius hasn’t taken well…’

‘Of course not!’ Harry agrees, but the second he says it, he can see that Remus maybe doesn’t agree.

‘Not finding Sirius Black has been the biggest failure of the Auror Office. I can see how a man in his position -- angling for political office and wanting to appear strong -- might try to downplay it.’ Remus shrugs again. ‘I’m reserving my opinion until I see him in action. They’re still in the process of disentangling the Ministry from Fudge’s people -- he’s been Minister for a very long time.’

‘Harry!’

Harry looks up from his feet, startled, and realizes that they are quite close to the little stand of trees, and that nestled between them is a neat stone farmhouse with an equally neat stone wall demarcating an overgrown garden. Sirius is leaning over the wall, thin but beaming.

‘Harry!’ he says again, and Harry takes off up the path and embraces him across the wall. He feels like skin and bones, with a slight tremor, but his grip is strong.

‘Come in the gate, won’t you?’ Remus asks, slightly out of breath and smiling as he holds it open. Harry lets go of Sirius and walks through it, looking around at everything -- the grey stone walls of the house, the wildflowers blooming in forgotten corners, the high grass around his feet -- and then back to Sirius, who is giving Remus’s arm a squeeze and still beaming in Harry’s direction.

‘Nice place!’ Harry says. ‘Much nicer than where you were last!’

‘St Mungo’s?’ Sirius asks.

Harry laughs. ‘You know where I mean.’

‘I do,’ Sirius confirms, and Remus rolls his eyes and says, ‘You might think he let Kreacher ruin it as a hideout on purpose…’

‘I wish I’d been that clever,’ Sirius says ruefully, and then all three of them are laughing.

‘How are you, Harry?’ Sirius asks. ‘I mean, really? How has your summer been?’

Harry shrugs. ‘Better now,’ he says. He looks at Remus. ‘I’m not sure how you managed to talk my aunt into letting me come here…’

‘Ha!’ Sirius says. ‘The allure that this man has over middle-aged women is a marvel.’

Remus rolls his eyes. ‘I’m just polite, Sirius.’

‘Yeah,’ Harry says, ‘but she hates wizards!’

‘She knows I knew your mother,’ Remus says. ‘And, again, I’m polite about it. I don’t mention magic if I don’t have to.’

‘And middle-aged women love him,’ Sirius whispers.

‘Not just middle-aged women,’ Remus replies neatly, before opening the front door. ‘Shall I make dinner?’

***
The interior of the farmhouse is surprisingly cozy, which is good, because the clouds set in and it begins to truly rain almost as soon as Sirius shuts the door. He shows Harry to a small room with a warm-looking bed, a desk, a bookshelf, and a series of Quidditch posters. ‘What do you think?’ he asks and Harry feels the same way that he did when SIrius had suggested two years ago that they might live together. ‘Any time you come to visit,’ Sirius adds, ‘this is yours.’

Harry steps into the room and puts his bag on the bed to give himself a moment to get the lump out of his throat. He glances back at Sirius and sees that he is twisting the doorknob over and over with one bony hand and looking quite nervous. ‘It’s brilliant!’ Harry says. ‘Really.’ And then to cover any awkward emotion, ‘But what about the magic? Aren’t the posters…’

‘You mean at the house?’ Sirius asks. He steps into the room and leans over the bed to look out the window. ‘It’s big flashy spellwork that’s the problem. Latent magic like a few posters or my medicine are not enough to really trigger it. That’s at the same level as you’d find in any place.’

Harry takes a deep breath. ‘I have a lot to learn about magic, SIrius.’

‘Don’t we all,’ Sirius agrees. ‘Do you want a moment to settle in? I’m going to help Remus with dinner.’

‘No, I’ll come with you,’ Harry says, ‘But --’ concerned that Sirius won’t understand -- ‘this is brilliant. I’ve never had my own room before.’

Sirius puts an arm around his shoulders and guides him out of the room. ‘Yes, well, I wish it could be yours all the time, but…’

‘Right. Professor Dumbledore explained.’

Sirius makes a face. ‘Soon, I hope.’ And Harry knows that this means, once Voldemort is gone.

They spend the evening cooking -- Remus does most of it, while Sirius sits at the table directing and Harry tries to help but mostly is hopeless -- and eating, a big, messy dinner; then they talk about going for a walk, but the weather has settled in for the night, a steady, driving rain, and instead they apply themselves to an ancient Muggle board game that Harry finds on a shelf, Monopoly. They are all bad at it, but it is fun, and Remus lights a fire in the grate and the entire farmhouse heats to a gentle glow. Even though Harry notices that Remus is alert, often standing and walking about, touching doorframes and windowsills, and that Sirius watches Remus whenever he does this, still, like a dog that has heard a sound, Harry feels safer than he has in months.

They go to bed after midnight and Harry curls up in the warm bed. Buried under a soft blanket and sunk into soft pillows, he has a moment of cognizance that this is probably too nice to last, and he should enjoy it as much as he can. Then he is asleep, and he doesn’t wake until he smells sausages.

In the kitchen, Sirius is sitting at the table with the Prophet spread out before him, a grim look on his face; Remus is leaning against the counter next to the stove, from which the sausage smell is emanating. Remus is flipping through a thick stack of letters and looking concerned.

‘You know that Emmy wouldn’t write if it wasn’t serious,’ Remus is saying, and Sirius replies, ‘But what exactly does she expect us to do about it?’

‘Harry,’ Remus says. Sirius turns quickly and smiles, but Harry can tell it’s strained.

‘Bad news?’ he asks.

‘Only that we need to take you back to your aunt and uncle’s soon,’ Sirius says. Harry raises his eyebrows, and Sirius adds, ‘Really. Emmy wrote to us about something that isn’t an immediate worry.’

‘Ok,’ Harry says. ‘But you…’

‘Really,’ Sirius says firmly. ‘You know that I’d tell you.’

‘Yeah,’ Harry concedes. ‘Is that breakfast?’

After they eat, they go out into the garden, which is warm and fragrant from the sun, but on the horizon, clouds loom.

‘I can’t tell if the weather is influenced by dark magic or just Welsh,’ Sirius mutters to Harry, who grins at him.

Much too soon, Harry has to pack his things. Remus stands by the garden gate, ready to escort him back to the Dursleys. His stomach turns into a leaden pit. Sirius is suddenly too keen, fretting about everything, checking that Harry has what he brought and that he has plenty of chocolate to take with him; Harry can tell that he wishes he was coming too. They say their goodbyes and Harry can see Sirius standing at the gate, watching them, until they walk through some kind of glamour and the outlines of the farmhouse and the figure in front of it blur so that they appear to be much further away than they truly are. Remus picks up the pace, and they are too out of breath to talk, but still Remus keeps moving on, even faster, until he suddenly stops. Harry nearly runs into him, and as he recovers, he realizes that Remus’s wand is suddenly in his hand.

‘We’re being watched,’ Remus says, very quietly.

‘Uhm,’ Harry says, and he reaches for his wand too, but it is too late, there is a sudden burst of light and Remus has grabbed his arm and done some kind of twisting magical motion -- light spurts from his wand, not a line but a tight spiral, edges flaring, slopping over with molten energy, and whatever spell hits them, the spiral of light absorbs it. Then there is another flash of light, an animal cry Harry recognizes, and a hard jerk behind his navel as someone Apparates with him. They hit the ground, hard, and Harry staggers, but the hand around his arm is steady.

‘Remus, that was extraordinarily foolish.’

‘Yes, Albus.’

Harry figures out who is holding his arm as Remus says the words; they are standing in a tunnel not far from where he and Dudley had encountered the Dementors last year.

‘Professor,’ he manages to say, and Dumbledore does not look at him -- he is staring only at Remus -- but he lets go of Harry’s arm and says, ‘I must go. Do not do this again, Remus.’

Remus bows his head in acquiescence, and with an elegant step and turn, Dumbledore is gone. Harry stares after him, and then says to Remus, ‘What just happened?’

‘Death Eaters,’ Remus says shortly. ‘Come on. Let’s get you to the Dursleys.’

‘But then…’ Harry pauses. ‘Is Sirius ok?’

‘We were well past the glamour when they caught on to us,’ Remus says. ‘They have no way of knowing where we came from. That might have been a random waypoint on a series of Apparitions we were doing to lose them.’ He looks at Harry, and Harry isn’t sure if he’s trying to reassure himself of just Harry. ‘Sirius will know if the glamour is breached. There’s alarms. He’ll get out.’

‘Ok,’ Harry says quietly. ‘Will you write me when you see him?’

‘Yes, of cousre.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

Remus laughs. ‘Probably.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It was our choice.’ They have arrived at the door and Aunt Petunia, who has been in the garden, is looking at them with narrowed eyes. ‘All right, Harry, we’ll see you… soon.’

‘Please,’ Harry agrees, but he doesn’t see them again until he’s preparing to board the Hogwarts Express.

Chapter 9: Remus, in the years between James and Lily's deaths and Sirius's escape

Notes:

I have a few shorter sections I decided to post all at once but as separate chapters. I know this is disjointed and the stories are out of chronological order, but I do actually have a method to my madness! Thank you for reading, as always!

Remus had sex with other people in the years without Sirius. He slept with other men, with women, with people who didn’t want to choose either category, with Dark Creatures and full humans, with people who were beautiful and people who were not, people who picked him up in bars or on the side of the road and took him home for a single night of fumbling passion and people who he got to know over long periods of time, people whose sexual desires he came to anticipate intimately through practice and repetition. When they asked him about his scars, if they got far enough to see them, he’d make up stories, the more boring the better. He didn’t want to be known, or recognised later, and he was careful to never imply that it was anything more than sex. The number isn’t anywhere near as high as Sirius later imagines it is, but Remus didn’t hold back either. If someone propositioned him and he had any desire whatsoever, he went where it took him.

During those years, when he thinks about Sirius – in his darker moments, in the thoughts that haunt him when he wakes up in the middle of the night, driving him to hate the nights he doesn’t sleep through – he thinks that if their positions were reversed, things would be different. If it had been he who had murdered their three best friends and orphaned their baby godson and Sirius whose heart had been laid waste like a Belgian field ca. 1916, Sirius would have sworn himself to celibacy. Sirius, Remus thinks, has – had, he reminds himself, had, because the Sirius he knew and loved with a wild abandon is certainly gone, subsumed by the presence of Dementors – Sirius had been the kind of dramatic personality who would never have been able to betray Remus by touching another. Remus, on the other hand, takes a vicious pleasure in betraying Sirius in every way he can, in spite fucking anything that comes his way, and if it is Sirius he thinks of at least once in every encounter, often in the final moments, and after, when he’s fleeing the scene to avoid an awkward conversation suggesting that commitment might be on the horizon, then, well, he’s not going to admit it to himself.

It is seven years after the event, and Remus is sitting in a bar in Tokyo.

He’d had a respectable job up until three days ago, working at a research institute studying katsune and other magical canines native to the islands of Japan. He’d loved that job. He’d gotten the position via a tip and a good word from an old colleague he’d had at UCL who still worried about him. It had been on the island of Hokkaido, deep in the mountains, with only four year-round researchers. There’d been a strong language barrier (though he’d been working on it) between him and his colleagues. Mostly they left him alone and he would spend weeks at a time tracking the creatures in the field, travelling through the forest on wooden skis that sliced and glided over the deep powder that fell for eight months of the year. Solitude suited him. He wrote long letters to Sirius, letters that he had known for years Sirius would never read because he would never send them, so they became more like a diary written to a dead person. Sometimes he’d address entries to James, Lily, or Peter, or break into the narrative to Sirius to mention something to one of them. He had probably gone crazy out there, wearing fingerless gloves in his tent, writing as his breath crystallised, but he’d found some measure of peace, at least.

And then, just like that, a series of grant applications had been denied; the word from the outside world, which had seemed so distant only a week before, was that the global economy was going through one of its periodic paroxysms where certain powers-that-be slash scientific funding for topics unrelated to making money or weapons. The institute had to shut down, and Remus found himself on a long series of trains and ferries heading south with a work visa soon to expire without gainful employment. He didn’t have anywhere to stay when he arrived in Tokyo and absolutely no contacts in the city; it seemed likely that he’d have to find a way to leave the country with his rapidly dwindling resources or overstay his visa. He is sitting in a bar, shooting sake too cheap to sip and wondering where to sleep rough in the milder southern winter – Tokyo seems too immaculate a city to allow anyone to be homeless – when an incredibly handsome man approaches him.

Later he would have no idea what could possibly have drawn Daisuke to him, but whatever it was, he knows exactly why he’s drawn to the other man: he reminds him of Sirius. He is dark-haired, devilishly handsome, obviously posh, with a mischievous glint in his eye that immediately makes Remus’s heart start pounding. They talk, Remus in his somewhat broken Japanese and Daisuke in his even worse English, until Daisuke invites him home. And then he leans in and does the thing that Remus has never allowed anyone else to do since Sirius: he kisses Remus full on the mouth. It feels like the crossing of a final barrier, like the last gate has fallen and Remus kisses him back, enthusiastically, optimistically, thinking that he can finally banish the spectre that has been haunting him for so many years.

But that night, he lies awake in bed, stomach twisting with guilt and regret and longing. Beside him, Daisuke sleeps, gorgeous dark hair spread out across the pillow and one strong arm across Remus’s chest. As stupid as he knows it will sound in the light of day, Remus hates that he’d kissed Daisuke because now the last lips that have touched his will not be Sirius’s.

Sirius had last kissed him on Halloween night, standing in the doorway of their flat, on his way out to check on James and Lily, or so he’d said. It had been a quick kiss, an interruption rather than punctuation – not quite perfunctory, Sirius was incapable of the established-couple’s light peck even four years down that road – but its brevity had promised a quick return. Remus has been thinking about that kiss for years since, searching through it the way he has every other second of their last encounter, trying to pinpoint the moment in which Sirius had suddenly stopped being his and had instead become Voldemort’s. He’s never found that moment though, and Sirius, drawing back from the kiss, exhaling, one hand already undoing the latch, had said he’d be right back.

Then he’d walked out of Remus’s life forever.

The ceiling of Daisuke’s place is amazing; there’s golden moulding along the edges and smooth white tiles in the centre and the lights are hidden so that it all glows but is somehow tasteful. Remus stares up at it and aches for the ceiling in the flat he and Sirius had shared, with its suspect stains and low lighting. He eventually falls back to sleep, the exhaustion of his journey overtaking him, but he’s miserable for days.

Over time, in the space of those liminal night thoughts gazing up at Daisuke’s beautiful ceiling and later, in other places, never as nice as this place, Remus develops an elaborate fantasy about going to Azkaban to see Sirius. Never mind the practicalities. He’ll walk down a dark corridor lined with cells, an older man who knows his time is drawing near, until he smells a familiar scent. Sometimes in the fantasy, he’ll have prepared himself and Sirius’s proximity won’t completely destroy him, but sometimes he admits to himself that it will. Either way, he will push through and approach the bars of the cell. He doesn’t know if he’ll be allowed inside – he has no idea how visiting works, as it seems to be a realm reserved for the wealthy and/or powerful and in reality he’ll probably have to have hatched some elaborate scheme to break in – though who’s going to stop someone breaking into Azkaban, honestly? – but for the purposes of fantasy, he is able to enter. On good days, Sirius recognises him immediately, and his apologies and explanations are perfect and he kisses Remus like the last few decades haven’t happened. On really good days, Remus smuggles him out of the prison and they spend their last bit of time together, lying in bed in a cottage not far from a quietly lapping sea and holding each other, reminiscing. Sirius confesses that he had to do it because of some perfectly reasonable explanation that Remus cannot even imagine, but it makes perfect sense when Sirius says it.

On bad days, though, Remus imagines Sirius as he almost certainly is: broken by Azkaban, memories stripped by the Dementors, not even cognizant of time passing much less of whom the stooped man before him may have once been. Remus will press a simple kiss to his lips, carefully not looking in his eyes, and then he will whisper, ‘It has been enough,’ and put him out of his misery.

Remus clings onto that fantasy like a lifeline for years. Daisuke and he stay together for several months before Remus can’t stand to look at himself in the mirror, weighed down as he is with betrayal. Daisuke is a wonderful partner but Remus’s memories have poisoned this, too. He hates Sirius, he loves Sirius, he can’t escape Sirius, and so he flees Tokyo like he’s fled everywhere else and keeps running and doesn’t stop until the day he sees Sirius himself, on a Muggle news report in a dusty cantina in the north Mexican desert. Then he thinks that the news story must be that he’s died, and he can’t breathe, even after all these years, until someone beside him makes a comment about the escape, and now suddenly there’s too much air in the world and Remus thinks he will fill up with it and float away. Dumbledore writes to him and he drops everything and on the long journey to King’s Cross via Mexico City he debates with himself what percentage of his return is for Harry, and what percentage is purely selfish.

Chapter 10: The summer after the Triwizard Tournament

Sirius wants desperately to be useful to the Order, and Remus knows it, but he doesn’t quite know how much until Sirius suggests the possibility of using #12 Grimmauld Place as headquarters.

Remus has been in that house twice – once, when they were sixteen and through a complicated chain of events he had stayed the night without Sirius’s parents finding out, and again, the day after Peter’s ‘funeral’, when Sirius’s parents had summoned Remus there and then tried to give him money. It had taken Remus fully thirty minutes of his own stunted silences and Sirius’s mother’s increasingly difficult-to-understand ramblings as she sloshed gin over the edge of her martini glass to realise that they had wanted to buy his silence. They didn’t want anyone to know that their son had been living in sin with a Halfblood werewolf. He had left, taking nothing, promising nothing, but thinking that they were lucky, as it was a secret he planned to take to his grave with or without financial incentive.

Remus surveys Sirius across the kitchen table now and sees how earnestly he means this and suggests that they go look at the house. ‘I imagine,’ he says gently, ‘that it may have fallen into some disrepair.’

‘There’s a house elf there,’ Sirius says. ‘If he hasn’t died,’ he adds, sounding rather hopeful.

Remus has a sudden flash of them finding the mummified body of the house elf, shrivelled and horrible, somewhere inside the dark halls. He remembers the mounted heads all too well. ‘I’d imagine he must have done,’ he says, and Sirius shrugs.

They assess the place the next morning. It is worse than Remus had imagined it could be. The portrait is a horror; there are more dark objects than Remus had remembered or known; mildew is pervasive – ‘Maybe he has died, then,’ Sirius says – and the house elf, Kreacher, appears shortly after they have arrived and follows them from room to room, muttering insults. Remus privately thinks that the place is unusable, then remembers that he and Sirius have a pact to always be honest with each other now. He sees how much Sirius wants this to work, so he decides to lie to himself instead. We can make this work, he tells himself after each fresh horror. We’ll clean it up. A door burns his hand and the house elf calls him a filthy werewolf and Sirius looks like he’s going to be sick. It will be fine.

After they’ve surveyed most of the rooms, Sirius turns to him and says in that new gruff way he has when he wants to prevent himself from getting emotional, ‘Well, what do you think?’

And Remus says, ‘I think it’s a bloody rat trap.’ He pauses, gives it the comic beat, but not too much of one, because he knows how Sirius is now – fragile – and goes on, ‘Luckily, you and I are very much in the market for rat traps if I’m not mistaken?’

Sirius bursts into startled laughter, his bark of a laugh echoing in the house like a charming spell. Remus smiles at him. It’s worth it, for this.

Chapter 11: Grimmauld Place, during Harry's fifth year

Notes:

This one got kinda, uhm, sappy.

Tonks fancies him? What on earth is she thinking?

Remus obsesses over this information for days. Long hours patrolling will do that for you. Eventually he realises that he’s flailing with the vertigo of the long-time coupled suddenly being treated as single. He cannot bring himself to even imagine leaving Sirius, but he’s terribly flattered by Tonks’s attention. He finds himself glancing at her to see if she approves whenever he does something. He finds that she almost always is looking back at him, a winning grin on her face. Then one night at an Order meeting, he catches Sirius watching him, eyes narrowed, and his stomach drops.

Sirius doesn’t say anything as they’re getting ready for bed, following the old routine, standing side by side in front of the basin brushing their teeth. In good moods, they’d jostle elbows, poke each other a bit, whinge about the space in front of the sink, get in each other’s space, but Sirius doesn’t do that either. He stares blankly at the corner of the mirror while he brushes, spits, and runs the tap; then he turns, without waiting for Remus as he usually does, and walks into the bedroom. Remus winces at himself in the mirror, wonders for the thousandth time in the past week what it is that Tonks sees in his lined face and grey hair – wonders for the first time in a long time what it is that Sirius sees in it – wonders when he became half of a couple so strong that he is actually startled to think that someone might not see him as just that, a half of a whole, rather than a whole thing himself – and knows that he needs to do something about this, without delay.

In the bedroom, Sirius has crawled into bed and is sitting with his knees up under the blankets, a book resting open on them that he is staring at a little too intently. Remus goes to Sirius’s side of the bed, neatly snatches up the book and snaps it shut, flips back the covers over Sirius’s protests, and crawls in beside him, pushing and nuzzling until he gets his head onto Sirius’s chest with Sirius’s arm around his shoulders.

‘You’re a git,’ Sirius says mildly.

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees, ‘but I’m your git.’

Sirius snorts, but his grip on Remus’s shoulder tightens. Remus continues, ‘I’ve been thinking about Tonks fancying me.’

‘Oh?’ Sirius asks. Remus can tell that he’s not looking at him.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘And I’ll admit right now – both to you and to myself – that it’s flattering. Really, terribly flattering.’ He twists to look up at Sirius, who he sees now is looking down at him warily. ‘Do you understand that?’

‘Yes,’ Sirius says quietly. ‘I do, I suppose.’

‘To think that someone really likes me,’ Remus continues, trying to make himself understood.

‘I can promise you,’ Sirius says, still quiet, ‘that no matter how much she likes you, I like you more.’

Remus smiles and turns his head into Sirius’s neck. ‘I know. And you must know, Sirius,’ he takes a deep breath and sits up, pulling away so that he can look fully at him, his best friend, the love of his life, the one who has saved him from himself more than he’ll ever know, ‘you must know that I will never, ever leave you for someone else.’

Sirius shuts his eyes just a fraction longer than a blink and then smiles brilliantly. ‘Promise, Moony?’

‘Promise,’ Remus says, and then they tangle together and fall asleep bunched up on Sirius’s side of the bed and when he wakes in the morning he has a pounding headache from the position his neck has been in all night but it doesn’t matter, not really, not when Sirius throws a glass of cold water on him while he showers in retaliation for stealing his towel.

Over the next few days and then weeks, Remus realises that Sirius has started waging his own campaign of flattery. And even if Remus doesn’t believe a word of it when he comes back looking and smelling like a wet wolf after a miserable night of patrolling and Sirius tells him that he’s the most handsome thing he’s ever seen, he still appreciates it.

Chapter 12: Late May, Harry's Fifth Year, Grimmauld Place

'We’ll be back soon,' Remus says quietly to Sirius, looking directly at him while his hands fiddle with the buttons on his coat. Code for: 'I will be as safe as I can be,' which also means, 'I will do everything I can to come back to you.' Saying anything that acknowledges both the danger they are in and what that means for their relationship is a relatively new development, a second war development, and even though it logically is meaningless - Remus obviously has very little control over if a Death Eater kills him - Sirius appreciates it.

'I will see you soon,' he says, also quietly, and that’s all, because Tonks is standing in the doorway watching them, but it’s also a second war development that he knows Remus knows what he means. Remus gets the last button on the coat, turns up the collar against the cold May rain (spring has not yet come), and then the door is shutting behind them and Sirius is standing alone in the hallway. He puts a hand on the door, feels the physical locks, and the magic around them, a faint glow that often wakes him in the night, certain that Voldemort can feel it too, but this is his family home and the magic in it speaks to the magic in him louder than it does to others. He turns and walks down the hallway, past the portrait, consciously doesn’t flinch, and goes downstairs into the kitchen. He’s going to sit and drink tea and do the hard business of waiting.

Except maybe not, because sitting in the kitchen, mending a robe, is Molly Weasley. Sirius freezes.

'Sirius!' Molly says, and she breaks into a huge smile. She’s been being nice to him ever since he had her family stay over the Christmas holidays, and he thinks it’s an effort every time. 'I hope you don’t mind me being here. I promised Bill I’d meet him after he finishes work for the day and this seemed like the easiest place to, well, to meet.'

Sirius manages to nod. 'Of course. Order headquarters is for everyone.' Annoyed, he turns to the kettle. 'Tea?'

'That would be wonderful,' Molly says. Sirius finds some teacups and struggles to think of small talk; he and Molly are almost never alone together and never for extended periods of time. He knows that they need to reach some understanding; they are both surrogate parents to Harry, and he can’t deny how much Molly has done for his godson, but the emotional effort required to make theirs a real, non-superficial relationship exhausts him. He glances back at her and sees her staring determinedly at her mending, watching her wand make the stitches with unusual intent. The exhaustion seems mutual.

Still, when he places a full cup of tea in front of her, she looks up, and he can see that she is going to make An Effort. Her opening gambit is the worst possible choice: ‘Tonks told me that she’s going to ask Remus to dinner after they’ve done their errand.’

Sirius isn’t insecure, exactly - Remus and he have discussed this, after all, and he trusts Remus - but Sirius isn’t not insecure either. Tonks is young and vibrant and not a walking pile of thirteen years of prison horror combined with sixteen years of alternating parental abuse and neglect. No matter what Remus says, when Sirius wakes him for the thousandth time in a cold sweat sobbing from a nightmare about Dementors, Sirius knows that Remus must feel a twinge - this could be easier with someone, anyone else - and it kills him to think that Tonks might be…

‘I just think,’ Molly says, her voice a little tremulous in the quiet, and Sirius realises that he has probably been silent an uncomfortably long time while those thoughts ran through his head, ‘that they would make a nice couple.’ She shrugs in a sympathetic manner. ‘Tonks really adores him. And Remus has been through so much. I think he deserves someone to make him happy.’

Sirius flees the room. Remus is always telling him to just remove himself from a situation that makes him panic and for once he takes that advice. He’s halfway up the stairs before it occurs to him that this is probably not the correct course of action; it takes another three or four steps to convince himself that, given that he might need Molly to vouch for him someday in a legal situation as a suitable caretaker for Harry, he should probably stop acting like the crazy person he very much is in front of her. He stops and leans against the stone wall. He can see the portrait ahead of him, the ever present reminder that crazy runs in the family. He takes several deep breaths, clenches his fists, turns, and walks back down the stairs.

Molly is standing by the door, an undecided look on her face, which rapidly turns to stricken when he steps inside and says in a clipped voice, ‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘well, uhm, it’s quite…’

‘Remus says,’ Sirius says, and tries to explain it in a way that makes sense, ‘that I should step away from a, ah, a situation that I find difficult instead of just, ah, reacting to it.’

Molly opens her mouth, then nods. ‘Remus is very sensible.’

‘Yes,’ Sirius agrees. That is a good point of discussion to have with Molly: the sensibility of Remus. He can hit that conversational note all night long if he has to. He pauses. ‘I don’t think…’

But Molly has already started to speak. ‘Do you not want Tonks to be…’

‘No,’ Sirius says. ‘I don’t. I mean, she can feel whatever she wants, of course. But please don’t,’ he hits on the right angle, ‘don’t encourage her.’

Molly blinks. ‘Has Remus said something?’

‘Yes,’ Sirius concedes, which is not a lie. ‘He says it’s flattering. But…’

‘Not interested?’ Molly asks. ‘Or is he being a martyr?’ She makes a face. ‘He’s too hard on himself. I really do think they’d make an excellent couple.’

‘No.’ Sirius stops. He knows that it must seem absurd to her that he would be so vehement.

‘Well,’ Molly says, ‘if that’s what he wants, of course, I won’t encourage her. But…’

Sirius becomes aware that he is, as they say, drained - bone-weary, dog-tired - of this secrecy. ‘I’ll tell you why,’ he announces, more for himself, to hold himself to it.

‘Ok,’ Molly says, reasonably, and, reasonably, she waits.

‘Remus isn’t interested in her,’ Sirius says, and his mouth goes dry, and his head starts to buzz, because honestly, when was the last time he came out to someone? The list is tiny: Remus, Lily, James and Peter, and his brother. So, what, seventeen years ago? Regulus had been hardest, the look on his face, while Sirius’s hands had been shaking and sweating underneath the table. ‘My partner,’ he’d said, to describe Remus, and Regulus hadn’t gotten it at first, but then he had. Molly doesn’t matter this much, shouldn’t matter this much - not to mention that the world has utterly moved on, that homosexuality is so much more acceptable - but there’s still that edge of fear, that what he says will be shocking, or dismaying, that it will change how she thinks of him, or that she’ll tell him it’s a mistake, a phase - and he’s taking away Remus’s agency in this, he’s giving up one of Remus’s secrets, something he’d sworn never to do again, but this is his secret too, and he wants to give it up so desperately that it feels like a thing clawing at his throat. He’s so, so tired of hiding. It comes out all in a jumble. ‘I’m in love with Remus. He’s in love with me. It’s, it’s, we’ve been together a long time. We talked about Tonks. He said it was flattering but this was more important.’ Molly is looking utterly shocked, so Sirius adds, for clarification, ‘I’m gay.’ He finds that on the last sentence he has fluttered his hands around, involuntarily, as if his body wants to emphasize it.

‘I didn’t know,’ she says after a few seconds. ‘I had no idea. Sirius, I’m so sorry. Of course I won’t encourage her. Do you want me to talk to her?’

‘No,’ Sirius says, ‘no, it’s all right.’ His heart is thudding in his chest. Molly is watching him intently. ‘It’s, we should do it. Just, be open.’ He hesitates, and then more spills out, like he’s a goddamned leaky tap. ‘I want to tell Harry, but Remus isn’t sure. He won’t say it, but I think he thinks Harry will be disappointed. He won’t be, of course.’

‘No,’ Molly agrees. ‘Absolutely not. He loves you both.’

Sirius sighs and runs a head through his hair. ‘Molly…’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ she says. ‘Now, the tea is cold, why don’t I make us some more? And -’ she smiles at him, ‘if you’ll forgive me being nosy, I’d love to hear about more about you and Remus.’

Sirius frowns. ‘What about us?’

‘How you, well, I suppose you met because you were at Hogwarts together, but how you fell in love?’ Sirius blinks at her and she says, ‘I’m a romantic, Sirius. I like to know these stories.’

‘No one’s ever asked me before,’ he says, a little blank. ‘I’m not even sure where to begin…’

Two hours later, having gone through several cups of tea and most of a packet of biscuits, Sirius has pieced together the narrative of their lives, and found himself genuinely interested in hearing about Molly and Arthur (one early accident with birth control, they realized they loved being parents, and the ridicule was worth it in exchange for their wonderful family). The kitchen door opens and Remus enters, shaking water from his coat and rubbing his hand through his hair. He stops when he sees the two of them together and, although he smiles, Sirius knows that he’s confused.

‘Molly! How are you?’ Remus asks.

‘Wonderful,’ she says. ‘Sirius and I are having a fun conversation.’ She smiles at Sirius conspiratorially and he catches himself grinning back.

‘I’m happy to hear it,’ Remus says, giving Sirius a look that says, you need to explain what is going on here immediately. He reaches out for Sirius’s teacup, takes a swig, and makes a face. ‘So cold.’

‘Did Tonks ask you out to dinner?’ Sirius asks, as innocently as possible. Remus is instantly, instantly on guard, giving Sirius a wary look.

‘Yes, but I said no thank you.’

‘We really have to tell her something, Sirius,’ Molly says, and Sirius nods.

‘I’ve been talking to Molly,’ he informs Remus, and he sees Remus get it a second later. Remus sits down and takes Sirius’s hand. Molly smiles.

‘Seems like a good idea,’ Remus says. With his free hand, he rubs his eyes. ‘It’s going to be tiresome to tell everyone. Molly, can you just…’

Molly laughs. ‘I’m not that much of a gossip!’

The kitchen door opens again, and Bill Weasley strides in, saying, ‘I heard you down here…’ Remus’s hand clenches on Sirius’s, but he does not let go. Bill’s eyes go a little glassy when he notices, but he recovers almost instantly. Sirius’s heart rate slows again.

Later, when they are getting ready for bed, Sirius asks Remus, ‘Do you care that I told her?’

Remus perches on the end of the bed, sock in one hand, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says finally. ‘But why did you?’

‘She was asking me about Tonks. I don’t know. She was very nice about it. A good listener.’

Remus smiles. ‘I’ve told you for ages that Molly is a good person.’

‘You don’t get to turn this into an I-told-you-so, Remus.’

‘I think I just did?’

Sirius smacks him in the head with his own sock and Remus grabs him around the waist and tugs him onto the bed. They wrestle for a minute, and then kiss, and then Remus says, ‘God I’m tired,’ and Sirius curls a leg between Remus’s and strokes his hair while Remus’s eyes close.

‘I was tired of hiding,’ Sirius whispers.

‘Mm,’ Remus says, and Sirius thinks he’s fallen asleep because there is silence for nearly a full minute. He closes his eyes and then Remus says, ‘We should tell Harry.’

‘In person,’ Sirius agrees, happiness spiking through him. ‘When he comes home for the summer.’

‘And the rest of the Order,’ Remus yawns.

‘Yes,’ Sirius agrees. ‘Yes, let’s.’

‘At the meeting tomorrow,’ Remus mumbles, and yawns again, hugely, and then he really does fall asleep. Sirius pulls the blanket up around them and curls up and closes his eyes, content.

Chapter 13: June of Harry's Fifth Year, Grimmauld Place

They are all in the dining room, every member of the Order, which is rare enough, and Profess- Albus (hard habit to break, for Sirius) looks particularly solemn. Worry is making Sirius’s stomach hurt. Under the table, he reaches for Remus’s hand, catches it in mid-air on its way to reaching for his. They settle for holding them together on Remus’s knee.

 

‘I have a somewhat dangerous task ahead of me,’ Albus says, without preamble, once they are all seated and silent. This, too, is unusual. Albus almost never tells them what he is doing in the war effort; they all trust that he is doing whatever he can. Sirius starts to feel genuinely sick. ‘I think it is necessary that we discuss what might happen to the Order in case of my becoming incapacitated.’

 

Sirius glances around. Remus is rapt, eyes directly on Albus; Molly looks grim, lips pressed in a line; Arthur is looking down at his hands; Kingsley is chewing a quill; Tonks, looking at Remus; the others in various stages of quiet concern. Emmeline catches his eye and makes a little scared frown. He widens his eyes at her in agreement. Severus, beside her, is as unreadable as a coiled snake.

 

‘I won’t mince words,’ Albus continues, and Sirius can’t help but note how well he has commanded their attention. ‘If something happens to me, it will be difficult to maintain the Order. Fighting Voldemort will be much harder, and the task of organising will be enormous. I’m asking you to talk amongst yourselves and put it to an anonymous vote.’ In the centre of the table, a stack of small pieces of parchment appear, faintly glowing. He places a tea cup beside them. ‘My best successor is in this room.’ He stands. ‘Now, I think I won’t be a part of this discussion. After all, I won’t be here to see them succeed me!’

 

On that cheery note, he exits the room. The silence he leaves behind is a vacuum. Sirius’s hand is clammy in Remus’s; he’s not sure which of them is sweating. Probably both. No one is looking at each other.

 

Finally, Minerva says, ‘Well, I am going to take myself out of the running, thank you very much. My job is at Hogwarts. If Dumbledore is… I’m Deputy Headmistress, after all.’ There’s general assent, and obvious relief at the silence being broken. Several other people disavow themselves for various reasons.

 

Then Severus speaks, which is another rarity in this meeting of odd occurrences. ‘I know who many of you are considering,’ he says quietly, ‘and I’d urge you to consider that, as appealing as his always-willing-to-please personality is, well…’ Severus trails off. Sirius has no idea who he is talking about, but Remus suddenly lets go of his hand, brings his up onto the table, and laughs.

 

‘Severus, really,’ he says, and Sirius knows from long experience that most people will not hear the warning in his jolly voice. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

 

‘It’s not a bad idea,’ Arthur says. He’s looking at Remus. ‘You’re a fantastic wizard. You’re knowledgeable. Everyone likes you, everyone likes working with you. Everyone feels safe going out on patrol with you. You were in the first Order, and you have studied a lot of defensive magic -’

 

Belatedly, Sirius realises who Severus means, and almost blurts out ‘no!’. He settles for gripping the underside of the table instead.

 

Remus spreads his hands. ‘I’m also incapacitated at least one night of the month and can’t be trusted during that time period.’

 

‘With the wolfsbane-’ Severus says, but Remus interrupts him.

 

‘I can’t guarantee I’ll have that.’

 

‘Even then, no one can get anything out of you as a werewolf,’ Arthur says.

 

‘You would be very good,’ Emmeline says. ‘Not only does everyone like you, they respect you.’

 

‘I-’

 

The room dissolves into a babble of voices, mostly directed at Remus. Sirius, heart pounding, sees side conversations that are also looking at him, nodding in approval, agreement. He’s suddenly so nervous he thinks he might faint, but he has to be here, he has to be present, by Remus’s side.

 

Then Severus speaks again, and everyone shuts up. ‘Yes, yes,’ he says, to the room at large, but his eyes are focused on Remus’s. ‘He’d be wonderful, I’m sure, despite his... shortcoming.’ Remus’s hand hits Sirius’s knee before he can be up and snarling so he settles for clenched fists. ‘But,’ Severus says, and his voice takes on that silky tone it gets before he’s about to strike, ‘please take into consideration who he’s closest to.’

 

‘Severus,’ Remus says, and now there’s nothing in his tone but warning.

 

Severus gives a little shrug. ‘This is a question of leadership, right? Of character fit to take on the task and judgment equal to executing it?’ He cocks his head. ‘And I find myself questioning the judgment of a man who is in an intimate relationship with someone who is undeniably mentally unstable.’

 

There’s buzzing in Sirius’s ears, or maybe that’s everyone suddenly talking; he sees Molly grab for Tonks’ arm and Tonks’ face go completely white. He’s not particularly hurt, or even surprised. Severus is just voicing what must be obvious to every person in the Order: he’s damaged goods. It’s not until Remus speaks, in a clipped, soft, obviously-to-him furious tone, that he realises that Severus has just outed them.

 

‘You can question my judgment all you want, Severus, but I stand by Sirius no matter what.’

 

‘And I am questioning your judgment, over that very statement. He’s not-’

 

‘Severus,’ Remus says, and suddenly the room is silent, because everyone else has realised how furious he is too, ‘you have no right, absolutely none, to suggest that it is a lapse in my judgment to confide in Sirius.’

 

‘But-’

 

‘No.’ Remus leans forward, his entire body a tense line of energy. ‘Arthur is right. I was here for the last war. And I have learned from at least some of my multitude of mistakes. I will never keep a secret from Sirius, ever again.’

 

Severus takes a deep breath, clearly ready to speak again, but Remus leans closer and says, ‘And you have zero qualifications to judge his mental health.’

 

‘They say,’ Severus says, eyes glittering, ‘that most people go insane within weeks in Azkaban.’

 

‘Only the guilty,’ Remus snarls, and even Severus leans back from his fury. ‘Sirius was there for twelve years,’ He looks up at the room, eyes moving between all of them. ‘None of you, absolutely none of you, have sacrificed what he has for this Order. Severus discounts love, he derides it as a weakness, but Sirius is here today because he loves his godson, because he loved James,’ Remus’s gaze is now back on Severus, ‘and Lily. And I love him, and I will never keep a secret from him again, and if that is a problem for any of you, don’t vote for me. I wasn’t asking for your votes in the first place.’

 

Severus darts forward, as if to speak again, but Remus cuts him off. ‘You have been jealous of us since school, Severus. I suppose it’s difficult to see a mutually reciprocal relationship.’

 

‘If we’re resorting to personal insults,’ Severus announces, shoving his chair back and standing, ‘You, Remus, are a simplistic fool whose depth of understanding of human relationships can be summed up in a pop song.’

 

‘Witty comeback,’ Sirius snaps. ‘Really top notch.’

 

‘No one was talking to you, Black,’ Severus says, and sweeps out of the room.

 

Sirius looks at Remus, who is looking back at the door Severus has just gone through. He says, quietly, to no one in particular, ‘Fuck,’ pushes back from the table, stands, and follows Severus.

 

‘That man,’ Molly says after a moment, ‘is a saint.’

 

‘Honestly, everything that just happened is a good indicator that he would make an excellent leader.’

 

‘Whoever it is, is going to have to deal with Severus…’

 

‘And he just handled him better than I could have!’

 

‘Exactly!’

 

‘Sirius,’ Tonks says, voice deathly quiet but still cutting through the chatter. ‘What do you think?’

 

Sirius knows exactly what he thinks. He loathes the very idea. He hates every single second of even considering it. He wants Remus as far away from death and destruction and crushing responsibility as he can be. But of course they’re right; of them, Remus is suddenly, glaringly, the obvious choice. He has the temperament, he has the experience, he has the intelligence and the skill… not to replace Albus, no one could, it’s absurd to suggest it, but to take these people and hold them together… Sirius knows that Remus has a personal relationship with every person in that room, that he’s spoken with each of them and knows about their families and understands their skills and weaknesses. This is what Remus does, he deflects attention from himself and absorbs information about other people, assessing the level of trust he can place in them. It was monumental for him to let Albus tell them all about his lycanthropy, and it is not at all lost on Sirius how out of character it was for Remus to defend their relationship in front of the room just now.

 

He stands up, finds that his hands are shaking. ‘Of course,’ he says, and his voice is shaking too, fuck , ‘of course I would choose him, objectively. But I’m not objective, am I?’

 

‘Sirius,’ Molly says, and her eyes are asking him something kind. Maybe she’s asking him if he’s ok. He shakes his head at her, shakes her off.

 

‘I’m not going to vote for him. Make no mistake, he’s the right one for the job. But I won’t be complicit in a vote that is,’ and his voice breaks, and he hates himself for it, but he soldiers on, ‘that is essentially a death sentence. Because this will kill him, and every one of you voting for him knows that.’ He sees Molly’s face, shocked, upset, and sees that tears are streaming silently down Tonks’ cheeks. Good , he thinks savagely, let them see what they’ve done , and flees the room before he breaks down himself.

 

He practically runs down two flights of stairs, not sure where he’s going, or what he’s doing, except getting away from the meeting. He slams through two sets of doors and into a small chamber that leads to the stairwell that goes to the front door and nearly collides with Albus, who is sitting with one knee over the other on a velvet Louis XIV style chair that Sirius thinks an ancestor looted from Versailles. It matches Albus’s olive green robes. Albus holds up a finger to his lips: ssssh .

 

‘I had no idea you were going to nominate me, Severus.’

 

‘You’re welcome for that, Remus,’ he hears Severus say, only slightly muffled through the door, angry, and something else, something deeper. ‘Charming as always.’

 

‘Severus, I am sorry that I lost my temper,’ Remus says. ‘Truly. But you did have, well, rather a lot to say about my private business.’

 

They must be standing on the stairs; Remus must have caught Severus on his way out the door. Sirius glances at Albus, who looks deliberately off to the side.

 

‘You’ll have to deal with worse from him.’

 

He can’t hear Remus sigh, but he knows that pause, and he can imagine it. ‘Severus, just because our enemies are terrible doesn’t mean our allies have to be as well.’

 

‘I don’t trust Black.’

 

‘What about him don’t you trust? What could he possibly do to prove to you-’

 

‘Oh, I know that he’s dedicated to the cause. But he has a sense of entitlement a mile long and a nasty temper-’

 

Sirius catches himself digging his fingernails into his palms and consciously retracts them. Albus taps his fingers together, a tiny smile on his face. Sirius wonders for the hundredth time if this is all somehow a game to him.

 

‘Spare me the schoolboy drama, Severus,’ Remus says, sounding deeply weary. ‘Albus asked you two to work together.’

 

‘I don’t trust Black’s judgment. And I don’t trust yours if you insist upon trusting him.’

 

‘Why?’

 

Severus makes a frustrated noise. ‘Whether or not you’ll admit it, he’s clearly not well. You can deny it all you like, but he did not come out of Azkaban right in the head.’

 

There’s a moment of silence. Sirius is practically bent in half, ear at the keyhole. The buzzing is back in his ears. Then, Remus says, ‘How could he, Severus? You know what that place is like. You know what Dementors do. Sirius didn’t come back whole but that doesn’t mean I don’t trust him.’

 

Sirius pulls away; he’s heard enough. Albus is looking at him. He can feel the force of that gaze. He wants to run upstairs and put his head under a pillow and die. Even Remus thinks he’s broken.

 

‘Sirius,’ Albus says. Sirius looks at him, a little wild, and he can see Albus reject whatever he was about to say and say instead, ‘I think you make an excellent couple.’ Sirius blinks once - did he just get his headmaster’s blessing? - and then Albus stands and says, ‘Do you think they’re done voting?’

 

‘I - thank you, sir. I don’t know. It seemed like things were winding down.’

 

Albus nods. ‘And what do you think?’

 

‘I’m scared,’ Sirius admits. ‘For Remus.’

 

Albus cocks his head to one side. ‘Yes, I thought you would be. As any reasonable man would be.’

 

‘But I understand,’ Sirius adds, silently thanking Albus for that ‘reasonable’. ‘For Harry.’

 

The door opens and Remus almost hits them both with it. He looks at them, cheek twitching, and asks, ‘How much did you hear?’

 

‘Quite a lot,’ Sirius admits.

 

‘And did you hear the end?’ Remus demands. ‘When I told him that if his objection is to people damaged by the war then I think that he and I had better go toss our wands in the Thames, along with most of the people in that meeting today?’

 

Sirius shakes his head. Remus, apparently unphased by Albus’s presence, takes Sirius’s arm and squeezes it. ‘Sirius, I need you.’

 

Albus says, ‘I’m just going to see if they’ve tallied the votes,’ and slips away; Sirius moves immediately into Remus’s arms, holding him as tightly as he can, trying to keep his emotions to a minimum.

 

‘Did you know this would happen?’

 

‘No,’ Remus breathes, hot in his ear. ‘Truly. I had no idea.’

 

‘Remus…’

 

‘It’s almost certainly meaningless,’ Remus says, and Sirius can’t tell who he’s trying to reassure. ‘Albus will be fine. Nothing could harm him.’

 

‘Sna- Severus likes you, it turns out,’ Sirius offers. ‘So that’s, uh, in the plus column?’

 

Remus leans back, shaking his head. ‘I’m just delighted.’

 

‘People trust you, Remus,’ Sirius adds. ‘With something huge.’

 

‘They’re fools.’

 

Sirius puts his hand on Remus’s chin and makes him look at him. ‘They’re not.’

 

Remus makes a little face. ‘Sirius, I need you. If something… I could never do this without you. I could never even think of doing it.’

 

‘I heard I’m a bit of a liability.’ It doesn’t come off as lightly as he’d hoped. ‘You once told me that those who love us see us as our best selves.’

 

‘I learned that from you,’ Remus says. ‘And I don’t think acknowledging mental health issues brought on by horrendous, unspeakable circumstances - things I genuinely have a hard time even imagining because I find it so painful - is not seeing you as your best self. You’re a fighter, Sirius. You’re here. You could very easily have retired to the countryside and left all this behind.’

 

‘I couldn’t have. You know that. I’d go - I’d be even crazier. You’re here. Harry’s here. That’s why I’m here.’

 

‘And that is your best self,’ Remus says quietly. ‘You don’t need me to see it, because you are it.’

Chapter 14: Remus and Dumbledore, A Series of Memories

Notes:

This skips around quite a bit in time. Hopefully it is not difficult to follow!

Remus doesn’t remember the moment he was bitten, but he does remember being in hospital afterwards, the healer telling his mother quietly that it would be better to let him die than to let him live like he was now.

 

His mother had slapped the man in the face and told him to never come near her son ever again.

 

Remus recognises later that they both acted out of compassion; he isn’t certain who was right, but he’s so, so grateful that his mother didn’t listen.

 

His parents do try to find a cure, for years, until he is six or seven. Then he remembers hIs mother, holding him while he tries not to sob in pain on her lap as his father drives, leaving the latest ‘miracle cure’ healer who they’d paid god knows what in the hope of curing him. She says, ‘This is it, Lyall.’

 

His father, staring hard at the road, says, ‘Hope-’

 

‘This is our son,’ she says, more gentle than steely. ‘Let’s love him as he is.’

 

They had. Remus knows his parents were amazing, transforming their lives to accommodate this unwanted condition. His mother, a Muggle who turned completely against the Wizarding World when she saw the prejudice they had in store for her son, had always made certain to remind him that there are no children who are perfect, no children who are exactly what their parents ask for. She enrolls him in the Muggle school in the remote village they move to and she and his father both tutor him when he is too ill to attend.

 

But Remus is undeniably magical, no matter how much Muggle schooling he receives, and Lyall is terrified of what that means. A magical child who is not properly taught is a dangerous thing. It is why Hogwarts has agents all over Britain who seek out magical children, no matter their background, and why the Purebloods have been forced to allow Muggleborn children to attend Hogwarts for so many centuries.

 

Lyall is in a bind; his son is undeniably meant to be a wizard, but there has never been a werewolf who has gone to Hogwarts. He does some research and learns that children who are bitten almost never live to adulthood. Although there is very limited data, he surmises that most of them die within a year of being bitten, almost always through self-inflicted wounds that are left untreated. He has seen the terrible things that Remus can do to himself, but they’ve built him a special room that keeps him safe, for the most part, and he seems to heal quickly. When he has a serious injury, Lyall has taught himself to deal with it, knowing that St Mungo’s is useless on this count. They’d rather quarantine him than treat him. Hope often chips in, with Muggle potion called ibuprofen and bandages. Within a few days of each full moon, Remus is back to being a happy, clever, inquisitive boy. All the while, growing, approaching his eleventh birthday.

 

***

 

One day, the morning after a full moon, Remus is sitting propped in an armchair with a blanket over his legs, watching Muggle TV with his mum, when his dad comes in the room and says, ‘Remus, I want you to meet someone.’

 

Remus’s first impression of Albus - Professor Dumbledore, as he would be calling him for the next many years - is that he is very tall. He has to stoop to walk into their living room. Remus has not been exposed to many wizarding folk but he can tell something is different about this man.

 

‘Remus, my name is Professor Dumbledore,’ the man says, and his voice is kind. Remus senses that his mum is upset with his dad; she’s giving him a Look. He surmises that it is because of the presence of this man, and his natural inclination is to side with her, but he’s intrigued too.

 

‘Hello, Professor,’ he says politely.

 

‘Your father asked me to come and speak with you.’ Dumbledore sits down in another armchair and they have a conversation about magic, the first proper one that Remus has ever had. He finds himself telling the professor everything he has already discovered he can do. Dumbledore asks all the right questions, kind and encouraging, and Remus even forgets that he feels terrible as he describes some of the magical creatures he has seen walking around the hills here. He is particularly keen on magical creatures.

 

Dumbledore lets him talk himself out, and then says to his father, ‘You’re right, of course.’ They proceed to have a cryptic conversation, while Hope hovers at the edge, looking miserable but asking sharp questions. Later, Remus understands that this conversation is fundamentally about his own magical abilities, and that Dumbledore is inviting him to go to Hogwarts, and discussing options about how to conceal his lycanthropy. He also comes to understand that, without the very progressive Dumbledore being headmaster, this never would have happened. He does not like to dwell on what his fate might have been then.

 

At school, Remus’s favorite professor is McGonagall; he enjoys her teaching style and finds the subject matter fascinating (and, of course, secretly quite useful). When it comes time to choose future careers, it is she who plants the seed of academia in his mind. When he needs letters of introduction to apply to university for further study, however, both she and Dumbledore write them, and Remus realises that Dumbledore has been watching him very closely indeed.

 

***

 

He has one serious encounter with Dumbledore late in his seventh year that he takes deeply to heart. It is soon after he and Sirius have started to figure out this thing that is between them, and it still feels fragile and urgent. One afternoon, he and Lily leave a meeting with the other Gryffindor prefects and walk together to the Great Hall, where he knows the rest of the Marauders will be, ostensibly revising - in fact, with N.E.W.T.s so close, they might even be doing it. His mind flies ahead, anticipating seeing Sirius, still shocked and thrilled and, honestly, horrified by the entire thing. They walk through the door of the Hall into an atmosphere charged with tension; a second later, he sees James, Sirius, and Severus, in tableau as if painted by a Dutch master, James holding back Sirius’s wand arm, Sirius leaning forward, snarling, and Severus smirking, doubtless knowing that if Sirius fires a single spell at him it is an expellable offence. Without hesitation - Lily, who does hesitate, is a step behind him - he runs into the middle of the fray.

 

‘Severus, you are a prefect .’

 

James manages to drag Sirius back as Severus starts to protest. He says something about Sirius; later Remus isn’t even entirely certain what it is, but he knows it is something terrible because his mind fills up with a kind of humming noise, and he says something back - the Hall is completely silent, everyone waiting for the entertainment - and whatever he says, there are gasps, and then Professor McGonagall is demanding that he come with her. He winds up in Professor Dumbledore’s office, cursing himself.

 

Remus expects Dumbledore to exude disappointment, but he doesn’t. Instead, he seems weary. ‘Mr Lupin, I haven’t much time to deal with this right now. We both know that you lost your temper with Mr Snape, and I think we both can surmise that it was at least somewhat provoked.’

 

Remus blinks. ‘Yes, sir, but that’s no excuse, and I’m sorry, sir-’

 

Dumbledore waves a hand. ‘We all get angry, Remus.’

 

‘Yes, sir,’ Remus agrees, cautious. Is he not in trouble?

 

‘Listen, Remus,’ Dumbledore says, leaning forward, elbows resting on his desk, hands steepled in front of his face. ‘You know about the war.’

 

Remus is startled, but he nods.

 

‘It may seem easy to have enemies here at Hogwarts - like it’s just a game - but you boys are nearly out of time here, and then, I’m afraid, you may learn that childhood enemies have become something much more serious.’

 

Remus hesitates. ‘Do you mean that Severus…’

 

‘I am not saying anything about any individuals,’ Dumbledore says, waving a hand. ‘What I am doing is warning you to think twice before you lose your temper.’

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Remus says, hanging his head, and he means it. He is not a generally angry person but he also knows that, as a werewolf, he must control what little temper he has or he will be judged for it. What people see as righteous anger in a normal person is out of control and scary in him.

 

‘Learn from your mistake,’ Dumbledore says. ‘Remus, the things that are happening beyond Hogwarts are completely out of my control.’ He pauses and smiles. ‘Not to say that the things happening inside these walls are in any way under my control but at least,’ and here the smile disappears, ‘I know that agents of Voldemort are not here.’

 

It is the first time Remus has ever heard anyone use the dark wizard’s name aloud; it quietly thrills him. Here is someone not showing deference to this monster who hates Muggles like his mother. ‘But some of the students,’ he ventures, emboldened, ‘seem like they are going to join his-’ he swallows, ‘-Voldemort’s side. Once they leave here, I mean.’

 

Dumbledore gives him a long look that feels like an appraisal. ‘So long as they are students here, we must support them and consider them one of us.’ He spreads his hands wide on the desk. ‘After that, their choices are not ours to make, Remus.’

 

Remus leaves the meeting in a sober mood; not even Sirius’s presence cheers him. They have made enemies, especially with Severus, who, for all his obnoxious Severus-ness, is a very clever wizard. Remus tells the rest of the Marauders later about the conversation, and it is a sign of the truly dire state of the times that they take it seriously.

 

***

 

Two weeks after leaving Hogwarts, Remus is at his parents’ house, in the garden, helping his mother clean up some weeds. He is in that liminal state between youth and adulthood, waiting for his N.E.W.T.s results and then to see if they, combined with the letters from his professors, will be good enough to gain entrance to university in the autumn. He has chosen not to disclose his condition, so he thinks - hopes - he has a good chance. Right now, though, he is thinking, of course, about Sirius, when his father and Dumbledore appear at the garden gate, deep in conversation.

 

Remus experiences that strange feeling of seeing something out of place; he is not used to seeing Dumbledore anywhere but at Hogwarts and it is particularly disconcerting to see him in his parents’ back garden. It has been nearly eight years since Dumbledore was last here. Remus stands, wiping his hands on his filthy trousers, and is startled when Dumbledore shakes his hand. Lyall looks incredibly serious.

 

‘Remus, might I have a word with you?’ Dumbledore asks.

 

‘Of course, Headmaster. Let’s…’ Remus glances at his mother, who is looking between them with intense suspicion on her face. ‘Let’s go into the sitting room.’

 

Once inside, Dumbledore waves off any offers of refreshment or even a chair. ‘I have very little time,’ he says, ‘and I imagine your mother would like to know what we are speaking of as soon as possible. Let me be brief: I am forming a group of people to fight against Voldemort. I would like you to be in it.’

 

Whatever Remus was expecting from today, this is emphatically not it. He looks towards the door, knows his dad is outside with his mum, probably telling her about this. ‘Is my dad joining?’ he asks, a little blank.

 

‘Yes,’ Dumbledore says. ‘But it is you I am interested in right now. I think that your expertise in the matter of lycanthropy will make you particularly valuable to the cause.’

 

Remus swallows. ‘What would… would this replace my other plans? Is this a full time thing?’

 

‘No,’ Dumbledore says, ‘not right now. In fact, you are hoping to go to university to study dark creatures, right?’ Remus nods. ‘I think that will be extremely complementary to your work for my Order.’

 

‘Order, sir?’

 

‘I am thinking of calling it the Order of the Phoenix. A collection of like-minded people, with the single purpose of fighting against Voldemort.’

 

Remus hesitates; this is incredibly surreal. Why him? ‘But sir, what about the Ministry?’ He thinks of Sirius, who has applied to enter Auror training, who he is quietly terrified for, because the Aurors are the front line in this war, at least to his mind now. ‘The Aurors? They were… I mean, I know you were the main person involved, but didn’t they at least contribute to the war against Grindelwald?’

 

Dumbledore gives him an unreadable but piercing look. ‘Voldemort is an entirely different creature,’ he says. ‘Voldemort operates in the shadows, at least right now. The Ministry has to play politics, and some of Voldemort’s supporters are high up in it.’

 

‘Because he’s preaching to the anti-Muggle choir,’ Remus says bitterly. He thinks of the Blacks. ‘Who happen to be high society.’

 

‘Yes,’ Dumbledore agrees. ‘Certainly we will help the Ministry if they seem willing to fight him head on, but we won’t be hindered by their considerations of what is politic.’

 

Remus takes a deep breath. ‘Sir, are you asking anyone else I know?’ Hearing how it sounds, he quickly adds, ‘Just because, you know, I speak with Sirius and James and Peter quite often…’

 

‘I’d like to hear your answer first,’ Dumbledore says.

 

‘If you’re certain you want me… I mean with my...’

 

‘I do.’

 

Remus shrugs, a little helplessly. By allowing him to come to Hogwarts, Dumbledore has given him everything; the least he can do is this. ‘Then of course.’

 

Dumbledore nods and starts to move towards the door. ‘Thank you. I’ll owl you with details of our first meeting.’ He exits, leaving Remus mentally winded. It takes him a minute to realise he cannot tell Sirius; Dumbledore has left without saying if the others are receiving similar invitations.

 

***

 

All those years of the first war, Remus does whatever Dumbledore asks of him. He speaks with other dark creatures, no matter the circumstances; he does not tell anyone, not even Sirius, what he is doing; he works as many hours as he has to and studies as hard as he can at university and, long past the point when it seems hope is rational or reasonable, he wills himself to believe that, with Dumbledore’s guidance, if he tries as hard as he possibly can, this will all be fine.

 

And then suddenly, abruptly, the war is over, and the wizarding world is rejoicing, but Remus’s world has ended. His best friends are dead; his lover is in Azkaban; and he fluctuates between an empty vessel and a ball of crushing emotional pain greater than any his body has ever felt. For the first time in his life, he prays as the transformation overtakes him that he will not wake in the morning.

 

Of course he does.

 

***

 

Dumbledore offers Remus the job of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor roughly three minutes after he returns to the UK for the first time in twelve years.

 

‘You should know there is a curse on the position,’ he cautions Remus, while Remus stands in front of his boarded-up childhood home, staring intently at a small photograph of Harry that Dumbledore has handed him.

 

‘A curse?’ he asks faintly. Harry looks achingly similar to James.

 

‘You will only be able to have the position for a year.’

 

‘You can’t remove the curse?’

 

Dumbledore shakes his head. ‘I’ve tried,’ he says, ‘many times. Unfortunately Voldemort…’

 

Remus starts. ‘There’s a name I haven’t heard in years,’ he says. The war feels so distant, but here is this house, this valley, as if he could step to the door, push it open, and there they would all be, all the dead, his parents and James and Peter and Lily, and the missing, Sirius, all of them together…

 

‘Remus,’ Dumbledore says, and Remus struggles to pay attention to him. ‘Will you do this for me?’

 

‘Of course,’ Remus says, because Dumbledore is the one who gave him the key to this world and somehow, still, Remus does not regret that he did. And because it is not exactly for Dumbledore that he is doing this.

 

***

 

Remus and Sirius are sitting facing each other on a low couch in the library of Grimmauld Place. Remus has one leg out on the floor and the other drawn up under himself, while Sirius is cross-legged. They are holding hands, and have, periodically, been resting their foreheads together.

 

‘Why not Mad Eye?’ Remus asks for what feels like the hundredth time.

 

‘Mad Eye is old,’ Sirius says, patiently, and Remus thinks that if Sirius is the one being patient then the situation is truly terrible. ‘And you know that he didn’t come out of everything that happened with Barty Crouch all that well. Honestly, I think he’d turn it down.’

 

‘I know, I know,’ Remus says. ‘But I can’t imagine a world without Albus. How am I supposed to plan for one?’

 

‘You can do this,’ Sirius says, and Remus squeezes his hands and says, ‘We can do this.’

 

‘We can do this,’ Sirius affirms, squeezing back, and then there’s a knock at the door and Albus lets himself in to the study.

 

‘Remus,’ he says, as ever without any semblance of preamble, ‘you’ve been chosen to be my successor, should something happen to me.’

 

Remus feels like he’s been thrown into an icy bath. Sirius’s hands squeeze his harder, and he is certain that the fear in his eyes is mirrored in his own. ‘Albus…’

 

‘I must leave,’ Albus says, ‘but I assure you that soon we will sit down and discuss this. Should anything happen to me in the interim, instructions will be sent to you via Fawkes.’

 

Now Remus feels like that icy bath is the North Atlantic, and he’s on the Titanic, and the deck is listing wildly, pulling gravity out from under him. ‘Are you going to be doing something particularly dangerous?’

 

‘I’m not sure,’ Albus says, cheerful as ever. ‘But the clock is ticking, and I must be away.’ He steps forward and puts one hand on Remus’s shoulder; he holds out the other. Remus lets go of Sirius’s hand and takes Albus’s, just for a second, and then Albus leaves.

 

When Remus sees him again, Albus wears a cracked ring, and the hand Remus shook is shrivelled and black.

Chapter 15: Lying Low at Lupin's

Summary:

Immediately after the Triwizard Tournament

Notes:

Explicit sex in this one. Sorry not sorry?

Sirius approaches the cottage on silent paws, nose attuned to the smells of flowers opening and animals awakening and others going to sleep. This is the early morning bouquet, a transition place in the structure of time, and his nose knows it well. He can smell the moss on the stones and the overgrown plants in the front garden and then, there it is, home. He smells Remus open the door before he sees him, and he ducks into the shadows under a hedge and approaches in semi-darkness until he has to bound the last few feet through the gate. He knows it is safe to transfigure but he hesitates; emerging into human form is sometimes a journey into unblunted despair and he is reluctant to do it. Then Remus crouches down and reaches for him and he knows that he must.

 

Remus watches him with a wary look on his face as he twists and turns into a human on the floor of the kitchen. It doesn’t hurt - it never does, unless he’s incurred some serious injury as a dog - but it does itch. He’s halfway to raising a back paw to scratch his cheek when he remembers he no longer has back paws.

 

‘What happened?’ Remus demands. ‘Is Harry all right?’

 

‘Harry’s all right,’ Sirius says, as the full force of his exhaustion hits him. He has made it to where he needs to for now, but there is so much more to be done. ‘He’s all right.’

 

Remus runs a hand over his face and breathes out sharply. ‘Did something happen? What happened? Something happened.’

 

Sirius nods. ‘Something happened.’ He stops, unsure where to start. ‘He saw James and Lily.’

 

Remus blinks at him. ‘What?’

 

‘I-’ Sirius waves his hand. ‘I’m trying to think how to tell you.’

 

‘Start at the beginning.’

 

‘But there’s two - well, maybe three - god, I don’t know, four major points here.’

 

‘How could he have seen James and Lily?’

 

‘Their,’ Sirius swallows, ‘their spirits.’

 

Remus is silent, eyes on the floor. Then he looks up at Sirius and demands, ‘How?’

 

‘Moony, so much happened.’ Sirius gives him a helpless look. ‘Voldemort’s back.’

 

Remus shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. After a second: ‘Are you certain?’

 

Sirius nods. ‘Harry saw him. James and Lily, they - they protected him.’

 

‘Harry saw him?’

 

‘The Triwizard Cup was a portkey. It transported Harry to him.’

 

‘Who could have made it a portkey? Was it Karkaroff?’

 

Sirius shakes his head. ‘Mad Eye wasn’t… it wasn’t him. It was a Death Eater, using Polyjuice Potion.’

 

‘Where’s the real Mad Eye?’

 

‘On his way to St Mungo’s, I’d imagine. He’s going to be all right as well.’

 

‘Which Death Eater?’ Remus demands. ‘One we know?’

 

‘Barty Crouch Jr.’

 

‘One of the ones who attacked Frank and Alice?’

 

Sirius nods.

 

‘Wasn’t he in Azkaban?’

 

‘Briefly. Turns out he faked his death. Seems maybe it wasn’t that hard to escape, if you have a powerful father who wants to get you out.’

 

‘But Harry is back? At Hogwarts? With Albus?’

 

Sirius nods again. There’s a short silence, then Remus says, briskly, ‘Well, we always knew Voldemort would come back. How did he do it?’

 

‘I don’t fully understand the magic behind it. I’m not sure anyone but him does. But… Peter helped.’

 

Remus hisses. ‘Of course he fucking did.’

 

‘There’s more,’ Sirius warns.

 

‘What?’ Remus asks, suddenly tense, as if expecting a physical blow.

 

‘He killed a student.’ Sirius reaches for Remus then, because he knows that Remus taught there, and will remember the boy.

 

‘Who?’ Remus whispers.

 

‘Cedric Diggory.’

 

‘Cedric,’ Remus repeats. Sirius steps close and holds him while he huffs shuddering breaths onto Sirius’s shoulder. His hands are fists, clutching at Sirius’s shirt, as he says, ‘He was...’

 

‘I heard,’ Sirius whispers, putting his face into Remus’s hair and trying to will things to be better, and so so grateful that Harry is all right.

 

‘What else?’ Remus asks eventually. ‘What are the other things you need to tell me?’

 

‘Dumbledore wants us to write to the old members of the Order. Tell them what’s happened and that Voldemort is back. Ask them to join up again.’

 

‘I assume our joining up was taken for granted.’ Remus sounds bitter.

 

‘Should it not be?’ Sirius asks, and Remus shakes his head against Sirius’s neck.

 

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to lose you again.’

 

‘I know,’ Sirius says grimly. ‘Me either. But Harry…’

 

‘Harry,’ Remus agrees.

 

They go into the kitchen; sun is streaming through the windows now. Remus makes tea and they talk together about drafting a letter. It is difficult. There is a tremendous amount to explain, and it is unclear how to work Sirius’s innocence into it. It helps that Peter is partly responsible for Voldemort’s return, and that the story doesn’t make sense without him. Then they start thinking of who to write. The surviving members of the Order are a depressingly small group. Sirius writes to Moody, asks him if he knows of any Aurors who might be interested. Remus writes to some academics he knows to ask the same.

 

Hours later, they are still sitting at the table, writing the final letters.

 

‘Whatever happened to Emmy?’ Sirius asks. He had once known Emmeline Vance well; she had dated Peter from the end of their seventh year until about a year before James and Lily’s deaths. She was a talented Ravenclaw, and a sweet woman, and Sirius had always been fond of her.

 

Remus makes a face. ‘She’s fine, as far as I know.’

 

‘What’s the face? You two used to get on like a house on fire. We should write to her.’

 

‘You should write to her.’

 

‘Why not us?’

 

Remus puts down his pen and stretches. ‘We had a… bad encounter the last time I saw her.’

 

‘What happened?’

 

Remus looks uncomfortable. ‘Sort of a long story. She was very angry with me.’

 

Sirius raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

 

‘At Peter’s “funeral”. She said I should have known about you, about you being the spy.’ Remus looks down at the table. ‘She slapped me in the face.’

 

Sirius wants to say something sharp about Peter, but then he realises how that must have felt for Remus: three friends dead, betrayed by Sirius, while the rest of the Wizarding World rejoiced.

 

‘I assume the emotions have died down but… we haven’t spoken since then.’

 

‘I’m really sorry, Remus.’

 

Remus shrugs. ‘It is what it is. It happened a long time ago.’

 

‘Still.’

 

‘I know. But if I repeat those phrases often enough, maybe they’ll become meaningful.’

 

Sirius takes the pen and writes to her:

 

‘Emmy, I’d like to talk to you in person. Voldemort is back. I have some news about Peter that I think you need to hear. I’m innocent. Please write to Dumbledore if you would like him to verify that. I am at Remus’s cottage (used to be his parents’, if you remember it). Let me know if you would like to speak. - Sirius.’

 

He ties the letter to Remus’s owl. ‘Last one, friend,’ he says quietly; the poor bird has been flying all over this morning. Then he sends him on his way and collapses back into a chair, exhausted. ‘It’s odd we haven’t gotten any responses,’ he says. ‘But I think people are probably writing to Dumbledore to verify that I’m not lying.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees. ‘And trying to process what this means.’ He yawns for what seems like the hundredth time and then pushes back from the table and stands. ‘I have to go to work.’

 

‘What?’ Sirius asks, startled. ‘You haven’t gotten any sleep.’

 

‘Doesn’t mean I can just skip out on my obligations,’ Remus says lightly. He pulls on his robes and says, ‘You take a nap. I’m sure we’ll start hearing from people soon.’

 

***

 

Remus returns at some unspecified hour. Sirius, who has managed to strip off his clothing and collapse into Remus’s bed, hears him come in through a haze of exhaustion. He mumbles, ‘Should we be doing something, like, uhm, security wise here?’

 

‘Making sure I’m me?’ Remus asks. He is stripping off his clothes and dropping them on the bedroom floor. ‘Sure, ask me something.’

 

Sirius can’t think of anything good. ‘Uhm…’

 

‘One time we spent the night in a girls’ toilet trying to avoid Filch,’ Remus suggests. ‘One time you accidentally crashed your motorcycle into a post box because you thought a squirrel ran in front of it. One time -’

 

‘Ok, you’re you,’ Sirius mumbles.

 

‘Are you you though.’ Remus mutters, dropping his white vest on the floor and crawling into the bed in just his pants.

 

Sirius reaches for him, pulls him into the nest of blankets and pillows he’s made, and wraps himself around him every way he can. ‘Oh Remus,’ he murmurs.

 

‘I’ll just set an alarm charm,’ Remus says softly, kissing Sirius’s neck. ‘Just for an hour, that’s all I need. Then we’ll see where we’re at.’

 

Sirius nods against him and falls back to sleep. What feels like a moment later, Remus’s hideous charm is clanging across the room. Remus is a solid lump against him, completely asleep, because of course Remus has always been able to sleep through an alarm. Disorientated, Sirius tries to find a wand on the bedside table and silence it; eventually he manages to grab Remus’s stop the clanging.

 

‘Was that the alarm?’ Remus slurs as Sirius puts a hand to his chest and tries to slow his pounding heart.

 

‘Moony…’

 

Remus opens his eyes with what appears to be immense struggle. ‘Mmh?’

 

‘Never change,’ Sirius says, fond but a little bit admonitory.

 

Remus puts a hand up to Sirius’s face and says, ‘Sorry.’ Sirius nuzzles into his hand and then snuggles back down against him, aware that they have something much more important they are supposed to be doing, but god, this is nice, and Remus’s skin is so hot against his, and he feels desire flood through his body. Suddenly he’s hard and shoving against Remus’s leg, needy for him. Remus opens his eyes more fully and kisses Sirius, lazy and sloppy, but getting more awake, one hand trailing down Sirius’s body, grabbing his ass and pulling him down, to grind against his own erection, which Sirius can feel through the thin cloth of his briefs.

 

An enormous barn owl flaps through the window. Before Sirius has even registered what is happening, Remus has his wand and is ready to hex it.

 

‘Just an owl, Moony,’ Sirius says, scrambling to catch the letter it is proffering; it hovers over them, flapping violently, until he gets it off its leg, and then it flies back out the window and disappears.

 

‘Fuck,’ Remus says. He collapses backwards onto the bed. ‘That rather killed the mood.’

 

‘Yeah…’ Sirius is opening the letter; it is from Moody.

 

‘In St Mungo’s, but I’ve sent some letters to people. Got to be careful. Head of Auror Office now would absolutely not be up for any kind of extra-governmental activity. Hope you hear back. Never wanted to believe you could have done it, and I’m sorry for what happened. - Moody.’

 

Sirius passes it to Remus, who reads it silently, mouthing the words.

 

‘Who’s the head of the Auror Office?’ Sirius asks when he’s done.

 

‘Scrimgeour.’

 

‘Ugh,’ Sirius says. ‘He would be.’

 

Sirius had been accepted to the prestigious Auror training programme straight from Hogwarts, but had quit less than a year into it when he’d been given the choice of sending some innocent werewolves to Azkaban or disobeying a direct order. He’d been set up by some of his teachers, who had noticed in him an affinity for Dark Creatures, and who had come to suspect him of not quite having it in him to be an Auror at a time when they were about to be authorised for the use of Unforgivable Curses. He’d known Scrimgeour, already rising through the ranks, always ready to ‘do what must be done’ with a grim determination, rather than think of the morality of it all. Sirius had hated him.

 

Remus gently takes the letter out of Sirius’s hand and places it on the bedside table; then he takes Sirius’s hands and pulls him close, kissing him gently. ‘Maybe we can get the mood back?’ he suggests.

 

‘Hmm,’ Sirius murmurs, ‘maybe. What are you proposing?’

 

‘I was thinking I’d suck your cock?’ Remus asks sweetly, which is the magic phrase. The world is terrible but this is a refuge. Sirius leans back into the sheets and arches his back as Remus kisses his way down his body, taking his time, teasing at his nipples and belly and hips, carefully avoiding anything but gentle breath on Sirius’s cock. Sirius aches with arousal. He puts one hand in Remus’s thick, slightly curling hair, and tugs him gently towards where he wants his mouth to be. Remus makes a little noise and Sirius pulls his hair a little harder. When they were younger, when they did this all the time, Sirius would have yanked, but now he’s careful, still feeling it out, and he thinks that Remus, who used to tease him to the point of begging, who sometimes used to get up and walk out of the room and leave him unsatisfied for hours just to make it better, is not going to do that now either.

 

‘You’re overthinking this, love,’ Remus murmurs, and then he takes his cock in his mouth and Sirius forgets all about thinking of any kind for a few minutes.

 

***

 

They’re lucky that they get that brief time alone, because shortly afterwards, owls start flying in at alarming speed.

 

‘What the hell?’ Sirius asks, as the fifth one in a few minutes pops through the bedroom window, this time a tiny, fluttering thing that seems frightened to land long enough to let him get the letter.

 

‘I imagine Albus has gotten around to answering people’s queries about your innocence,’ Remus replies, digging a box out of a drawer and pouring some owl treats into Sirius’s hand. The flighty little thing lands immediately and starts eating while he removes the letter with his other hand.

 

Correspondence takes up much of that day, and the next several. There are so many questions to answer. Sirius checks in with Harry periodically, and worries about him constantly. Meanwhile, Voldemort resolutely refuses to show himself, and there are no new attacks. The Ministry passes off Cedric Diggory’s death as the fault of an escaped Death Eater, Barty Crouch Jr. The papers and the government get into a row about Azkaban, and its security; one of Fudge’s strongest critics, Amelia Bones, rails against the escape of two high level Death Eaters in one year. New security measures are proposed, but they’re nothing in the face of the threat that Sirius and Remus know lurks in the background.

 

This is also the first time that Sirius and Remus have consistently been together in nearly fourteen years. After Sirius had to flee Hogwarts a year ago, he’d come by Remus’s on his way to elsewhere. He knew it was illogical, but he couldn’t resist. Two days of tiptoeing around each other had resulted in an emotional blow up followed by reconciliation and a tentative revival of their relationship, but a close encounter with a Ministry official had convinced them that Sirius needed to leave the country. Remus had wanted to accompany him, but as a Dark Creature, he cannot travel abroad through magical means without special permission. While Sirius was gone, they had corresponded, usually multiple times a day, and when Sirius came rushing back to Britain to look after Harry, Remus had gone to see him as often as he could without arousing suspicion. He’d even persuaded Sirius back to the cottage for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Lying on the couch, full of Christmas dinner, lazy kissing had turned into making love for the first time in over a decade. Sirius had been worried that he never could feel that way again and then, when he wasn’t even thinking of it, he suddenly had.

 

But this process is hard, uncomfortable, and frustrating; things they had taken for granted before are now a struggle to discuss, work through, and understand. They are carefully, completely honest, and it is has been so, so painful and, at least for Sirius, and he hopes for Remus, so, so rewarding. He really feels like this is worth it, that he is actively building something positive in these burnt out ruins that are his life. And now, finally being able to be together in the same place, he starts to feel like maybe he is going to make it through the other side of this war and into something more.

 

He and Remus have always had a relationship based on proximity; from their earliest days at school, things have been best when they’ve been able to communicate with a silent look or quick touch. Just being in the same room is important. Remus confesses to him one night that he feels codependent, like if Sirius leaves he won’t know what to do. Sirius knows that that’s a big thing to say, for Remus. He tells him that he’s always felt that way.

 

The other issue at play - which becomes obvious very quickly to Sirius - is that Remus is killing himself just trying to survive on a meagre tutoring salary. Organising the Order blossoms to a tremendous amount of correspondence and Remus refuses to let him do all of it, but he’s constantly exhausted. Sirius has more than enough money for them both to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but Remus has never in the past even considered taking money from him. Sirius can anticipate the conversation already: something something charity, he doesn’t like it, he has to earn it, martyr complex.

 

He brings it up anyway, trying this new ‘effective communication’ thing they’ve been working on instead of ignoring a problem until they both decide the other is a spy and multiple people wind up dead.

 

‘Remus, I want to take our relationship to the next level,’ he announces, at a time when he knows Remus is tired and therefore more emotionally malleable: in the morning, over tea and toast.

 

Remus frowns at him. ‘What level is that, exactly?’ he asks.

 

‘I want to give you money.’

 

Remus quirks an eyebrow at him. ‘You want to pay me for sex? I had no idea I was that good.’

 

‘First, you are that good, and second, shut up. You know what I mean.’

 

‘I assure you, I don’t. Do you mean rent? Because that’s absurd. I want you here. You don’t have to pay to be here.’

 

Sirius rolls his eyes. ‘Moony, I want you to stop tutoring.’

 

‘I like tutoring,’ Remus says. There’s a note of strong warning in his voice that Sirius hears and ignores.

 

‘You don’t have the time for it.’

 

‘I…’ Remus pauses. Sirius can see him running through what to say. God, he loves him, to a stupid degree. How is this even possible? To love someone like this? ‘I need to do it, Sirius.’

 

‘This is why I want to share my money with you,’ Sirius says. ‘I won’t notice it’s gone, and it will make your life a lot better.’

 

‘But Sirius…’

 

‘Moony,’ Sirius says, and he tries to lay on the kicker, which also happens to be the truth, though it sounds quite dramatic: ‘I worry about your health. Being a werewolf is rough on your body, you know that. So you need to take care of yourself.’

 

Remus snorts. ‘First of all, it’s funny you should mention that I need to take care of myself when we’re plotting how best to go to war against one of the worst dark wizards of all time. And second of all, part of the reason why being a werewolf is rough is because we get no societal support…’

 

‘So take my support,’ Sirius says. ‘Please. You never would before, and I don’t know why, but please take it now.’ Remus opens his mouth to protest again, and Sirius says, ‘It would make me much, much happier.’

 

‘That’s emotional blackmail,’ Remus says flatly.

 

‘Probably,’ Sirius admits. ‘But it’s still true.’

 

Remus hums unhappily and pushes his toast around on his plate.

 

‘Remus,’ Sirius says, and then he waits, until Remus looks up. ‘I mean it. I want us to be in a serious, committed relationship-’

 

‘Are we not already?’ Remus asks, sounding alarmed.

 

‘-And to me that means sharing resources.’

 

‘That isn’t how it was before.’

 

‘Only because you’re a stubborn asshole.’

 

‘But I’ve got nothing to share!’

 

Sirius snorts. ‘You’re sharing your home with me right now. And you’re too smart to fall into this idea that your worth is tied to money.’

 

Remus sighs and shuts his eyes for a moment. ‘Sirius…’

 

‘Think about it,’ Sirius says. He thinks he’s won. He has an idea, percolating in the back of his head, about another resource he has that he wants to share, and he’s going to need Remus to be there full-time if he’s to go through with it. His family home would make an excellent headquarters for the Order, but just the thought of going inside of it is panic-attack-inducing. The only thing that will make it bearable to even investigate the possibility is Remus.

 

***

Ten days after the Triwizard Tournament, Sirius gets a letter from Emmeline: ‘Let’s meet. I want to talk.’

 

He shows it to Remus, who says, ‘I guess she had better come here.’

 

They meet her outside of the enchanted boundary that rings the cottage. Sirius is a dog, who is not on a lead thank you very much (though Remus had suggested that he ought to be). Emmeline looks much thinner than when he last saw her - gaunt even - and her face is drawn and serious, like she hasn’t been sleeping.

 

‘Hello, Emmeline,’ Remus says in a formal tone.

 

‘Remus,’ she says, and her voice wavers but she maintains control. Sirius sniffs her hand; it is her. He rubs against Remus’s leg to communicate this. ‘Remus, I’m so sorry. About…’

 

‘It’s fine,’ Remus says. ‘Very much water under the bridge. You had no idea.’

 

‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeats. ‘Is this…’ She looks at Sirius. ‘Is this… him?’

 

Remus smiles and says, ‘Come with us.’ He leads her to the enchantment boundary, reaches up, fumbles at the invisible latch. Sirius thinks that they need to make a better design for introducing newcomers; imagine if they’d been being chased and Remus had to do this. Remus finds it, and then leads her through it, into the safe area. Sirius transforms and Emmeline starts crying.

 

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she says to them both. ‘You have no idea. I spoke with Albus… he confirmed everything… I’ve just been trying to wrap my head around it…’

 

‘Emmy, it’s ok,’ Remus says, putting an arm around her. ‘Come on, let’s have some tea and talk. It’s all going to be fine.’

 

They get inside and Sirius makes tea for them while Remus hands Emmeline a handkerchief and sits with his hand on her shoulder. Soon she’s sniffling into her mug, but calmer.

 

‘This has all brought up so much that I’ve tried to get past,’ she says. ‘I mean, obviously that must be the case for you both as well…’

 

‘It’s ok,’ Sirius says, sitting on her other side. He’d been angry with her before she came for not being kinder to Remus, but now that he sees how truly sorry she is, he’s instantly mollified. ‘Really, Emmy, it’s fine.’

 

‘Albus told me that Peter was James and Lily’s Secret Keeper,’ she says. ‘That you switched at the last moment.’

 

‘That’s right.’

 

She reaches into her robes and pulls out a very tattered piece of parchment. ‘He wrote this to me,’ she says. ‘The night that it happened. I mean, you know we’d broken up ages before… almost a year before… but I still loved him. And I thought that he still loved me.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘We broke up because we were just too frayed from the war. No time for each other, constantly worrying…’ She gives them a watery smile. ‘You remember.’

 

Sirius and Remus grin at each other across the table. ‘Indeed,’ Remus says.

 

‘But he wrote me this,’ she says, smoothing it out on the table. ‘You don’t have to read it, but he says he has to go find Sirius - find you - and avenge Lily and James. And, and that he loves me. Was it all a lie, do you think?’

 

Sirius’s first instinct is to say yes, but Remus says, very gently, ‘Peter loved you very much, Emmy. And I think he had complex motives for what he did, but that he was very scared. I think he broke up with you to protect you, because he cared about you. And I think he handed over James and Lily to Voldemort as a last resort. Again, because he was very scared.’ He glances up at Sirius. ‘He said as much to us when we saw him a year ago.’

 

Emmy takes a deep breath. ‘Tell me what happened that night, will you? Or is it too much?’

 

‘Ok,’ Remus says. ‘I’ll tell you. I can’t speak for Sirius…’

 

Sirius nods. ‘You go first, Remus.’

 

***

Albus had been the one to tell him, calmly, gently, but in that Albus way of his, also brisk and to the point - Voldemort was dead, probably. Or at least, gone, for now, and for a long time. The Potters were also dead. And then Albus had had to go, leaving Remus to put together the obvious conclusion. He manages to hold himself together until he gets to Peter’s flat, shakily Apparating in small bursts.

 

Peter opens the door just a crack, leaving the chain on the lock, and Remus can feel a number of magical locks backing it up as well.

 

‘Remus?’ Peter whispers.

 

‘Have you heard?’ Remus demands.

 

‘About….’

 

‘They’re dead, Peter.’

 

‘James and Lily and Harry.’ It’s not a question.

 

Remus takes in a shaky breath. ‘Peter…’

 

‘And He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is defeated…’

 

‘Peter…’

 

‘What?’

 

Remus can barely whisper it. ‘Sirius was their Secret Keeper.’

 

Peter undoes the lock and chain then, waves his wand and the enchantments fall away; he opens the door and Remus practically falls through it. Peter catches him and gives him a tight hug. ‘Remus… I’m so sorry.’

 

Remus considers crying - he wants to cry - but he can’t seem to do it. This is all too surreal. He’s running on pure adrenaline. He grips Peter tightly and tells him the truth: ‘I have no idea what to do.’

 

‘We have to find Sirius,’ Peter says.

 

‘What?’

 

‘We have to find him before the Aurors do.’

 

‘Why?’

 

Peter draws back and gives Remus a long, appraising look. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’

 

Remus struggles to answer that.

 

‘Sirius is - he was - our best friend, Remus. Aside from everything else to you. And I don’t for a second believe that he has been against us all this time.’

 

‘No,’ Remus whispers.

 

‘I want to find him,’ Peter says, a sudden burning intensity in his look that Remus has never seen before. ‘I want to know why he did this to James and Lily.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees quietly. ‘All right.’

 

‘Let’s split up,’ Peter says. ‘I don’t know where he’ll go but… we’ll find him faster that way.’

 

‘Ok,’ Remus says.

 

They leave; Remus has no idea where to go or what to do. He can’t face going home. He wanders London for hours, not really sure what he’s looking for, until Albus finds him again in the morning and tells him that Sirius has been captured, and Peter is dead - but Harry is all right.

 

***

 

Sirius, meanwhile, had left the flat he shares with Remus that night, feeling jittery and nervous. The Potters had gone under Peter’s protection less than twenty four hours before and he has a bad feeling about it all. He doesn’t know where they are but then, suddenly, he does. And he knows the secret has been given up.

 

He races to Godric’s Hollow on his motorcycle, not trusting himself to Apparate. Soon he can see smoke, and closer in a sickly green glow. He is moving too fast to feel. From the air, even in the dark, he can see that the house is a ruin, rubble everywhere. The front room has been destroyed. The upstairs, where Harry’s room was, is completely blown apart, as if a giant had grabbed the house by two sides and yanked. He lands at the edge and gets off his bike and steps on a pair of glasses that crunch underfoot. He looks down, and will wish for the rest of his life that he hadn’t, because there is James.

 

Then he hears crying from the rubble, and he fights his way through it, cutting his hands and clothes on sharp wood and broken tiles. He has to climb half the stairs to get to the upper pile, and all the while the only sound is this crying baby, Harry, his beloved godson, somewhere in the ruins of this.

 

He finds him, thrown clear of a stack of white splinters that was once his crib. Lily is nearby. He picks up Harry and closes her eyes and realises that he forgot to close James’s, so he crawls back down the rubble, terrified to drop the baby, until he returns to the body of his best friend. He puts his hand on James’s face, tries to wipe the dirt from it, and just smears it around. He thinks about putting the broken glasses on his face, because he looks weird without them, but somehow the fact that they are broken makes it seem a bigger insult. Harry keeps crying. He closes James’s eyes and stands, trying to bounce and juggle Harry into silence. He finds that Harry has a small cut on his forehead, shaped like a lightning bolt, oozing a tiny bit of blood; he wipes it away with his filthy fingers and kisses him on the forehead.

 

It occurs to him that he has no idea where Voldemort is. He wonders if he should leave, take Harry someplace, but he can’t leave James and Lily. He walks with the baby on the street beside the house for nearly a half hour, cooing and shushing him, but he keeps crying. Sirius thinks Harry is in shock. He knows he is.

 

‘Who’s there?’

 

The shout belongs to a familiar voice. Sirius blinks and looks up from Harry’s small face. ‘Hagrid?’ he calls, and his voice sounds crazy, wavering out of control.

 

Hagrid rounds a corner of the rubble. He is white as a ghost, hair somehow wilder than Sirius had ever seen it. He sees Sirius, and then Sirius sees him see Harry, and he comes towards them.

 

‘Sirius? Wha’ happened?’

 

Sirius shakes his head. ‘I think Voldemort was here.’

 

Hagrid must see something - panic, confusion, shock - in his face, because he speaks quietly, calmly. ‘Sirius, Dumbledore sent me to get Harry. He wants to see Harry.’

 

Sirius blinks a few times and then looks down at his godson, who has abruptly stopped crying at the sight of the enormous man. ‘Where is he?’

 

‘He asked me to bring him to him.’

 

Sirius kisses Harry’s forehead again. ‘I love you, Harry,’ he whispers against his baby soft skin. Rage is building in him, now, burning away the edges of this blank space at his center. ‘Here,’ he says. ‘Take my motorcycle. That’ll be quickest. And - look after him.’

 

He watches Hagrid, his bundle swaddled close to his chest, rise into the sky on the motorcycle. Then he looks at the house. He walks to James, and to Lily, and back to James.

 

This is his fault.

 

He didn’t believe in Remus.

 

He sees it now: how Peter manipulated him, a carefully timed comment here and there, the seeds of suspicion planted. He’s a werewolf, he’s clever, he knows there’s nothing that will change for him, circumstance-wise, if the Ministry prevails. Why is Remus late for this, why did he miss that meeting, isn’t it strange that…

 

And he’d thought: I can’t be objective about Remus. When they’d known there was a spy, he’d thought about everyone else, but he’d never thought about Remus, because he knew it was useless. Whatever he thought about Remus was bound up in too much emotion.

 

Peter must have seen that too. He must have seen it, and manipulated it.

 

But Peter was one of his best friends. What had happened? How could he have done this to them?

 

And how could he have trusted Peter over Remus?

 

Sirius grips his wand inside his pocket and Apparates to Peter’s flat. There’s signs that he left in a hurry, but no one there. He considers going home and getting Remus, but he knows that this is his job. He needs to set this situation right, or as right as it can be, which is not right at all, but.

 

Sirius sniffs the air and thinks about where to go next. He has a rat to find and by morning it will be done.

 

***

Emmeline has been listening with her head in her hands. Finally, she says, ‘I thought I was completely over this but…’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees, a little faintly. ‘Me too. But it all comes back, now.’

 

‘And if Voldemort is back,’ Emmeline says, ‘then this is all going to start happening again, isn’t it?’

 

‘We won’t have a spy this time,’ Sirius says.

 

‘Peter is well and truly with Voldemort now,’ Emmeline says, almost to herself. ‘He helped resurrect him, Albus said.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says.

 

Emmeline flicks her gaze to him. ‘And he let an innocent man rot in Azkaban.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, meeting her look.

 

‘Then the Peter I loved is gone,’ she says quietly. ‘He might as well be dead.’

 

Sirius nods. Remus puts a hand over his eyes and Sirius takes his hand across the table.

 

‘I understand the desire to miss him,’ he says, ‘but…’

 

‘You’ve had nearly thirteen years to think about it,’ Remus says hoarsely. ‘I mourned him the most, you know. Everyone said Lily and James died bravely; everyone sort of made fun of Peter for thinking he could take on you. We always underestimated him, and so did everyone else.’

 

‘We won’t make that mistake again,’ Emmeline says.

 

‘No,’ Remus agrees.

 

‘I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to defeat Voldemort for good,’ she says. ‘I want to rejoin the Order.’

 

***

Sirius is flopping around in bed like a dying fish on a dock. It’s three in the morning, and there’s heavy rain pattering on the window, and he feels like he’s drowning in these sheets. He’s too exhausted to sleep, and his brain is whirring as fast as it can, going over every wrong he’s ever done, which is a lot, and compounds the exhaustion.

 

‘Padfoot,’ Remus mutters finally. ‘What is the matter?’

 

Sirius settles, guilty. He’d thought it was impossible to wake up Remus in the dead of night. ‘Sorry.’

 

‘Don’t be,’ Remus says, rolling onto his side. Sirius sees the gleam of his eyes in the dark room. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

 

Sirius is frustrated. ‘Everything,’ he suggests. ‘I fucked up everything. All of this is my fault. And if I’d gotten to Peter sooner…’

 

‘You know, I’ve never once forgotten a transformation,’ Remus says quietly. ‘Not until that night. Not until I saw your name on the map. And if I hadn’t forgotten…’

 

‘If I hadn’t made him Secret Keeper,’ Sirius snaps.

 

Remus sighs. ‘We can’t fix the past, Sirius.’

 

Sirius kicks at the sheets violently. ‘Then what can we do?’ he demands.

 

‘Not dwell on it? Try to make the future better?’

 

‘Do you actually believe your own advice?’

 

Remus laughs softly. ‘Sometimes.’

 

‘I ruined our lives.’

 

Remus reaches out and pulls Sirius close to him, so that their noses are almost touching. ‘I don’t know about you, my love, but I’m hoping to have a lot more life to get through before I make that decision.’

 

Sirius puts a hand onto Remus’s cheek. ‘Moony…’

 

‘I love you,’ Remus says. ‘No matter what. You’re a good person. We all make mistakes.’

 

‘My mistakes killed people. People I love.’

 

‘No,’ Remus says quietly. ‘Voldemort killed the people you love. Wormtail killed them. You tried to make the best possible decisions to protect them. This isn’t your guilt to carry.’

 

Sirius starts to cry, and Remus whispers, ‘My love,’ and pulls Sirius’s head into his neck. Sirius sobs against him, but it feels like a tiny weight has been released, like he’s flung off a small piece of ballast and can start to feel the tug of something inside him rising. Eventually, he cries himself out, and Remus is still there, still holding him steady.

 

***

 

Sirius wakes again, and this time Remus kisses him before he says anything and puts one hand on his thigh. This is a classic Remus move, the power of subtle suggestion done with a single, light touch in a sensitive area, and Sirius’s heart starts racing and his mouth starts getting dry and arousal starts throbbing in him.

 

‘Is this ok?’ Remus whispers, breaking the kiss but not the contact. ‘Or do you…’

 

‘This is ok,’ Sirius whispers back. ‘Better than ok.’

 

Remus’s hand strokes up his thigh, gives his hardening cock a tug, and then strokes back down before gripping his leg and pulling it over his body. Sirius winds up straddling him, already breathing heavily, pushing against Remus’s erection and panting into his neck. Remus puts his other hand onto his ass and grips that too, so that he’s holding Sirius tightly against him. Sirius grinds down into him and holds his shoulders and runs his fingers down the laugh lines on his face. He wants to know this, he wants to be here, he wants nothing but this knowledge of how Remus feels right now, beneath him, and around him.

 

In Azkaban, there’d been no physicality, nor even any thoughts of it. His only brushes with his corporeal form were the changes from dog to human and vice versa. The punishment there was in the mind, and the body was an afterthought for the Dementors, for the prison administrators, and most of all for the prisoners, many of whom died because they gave up on the most basic of physical needs. Sirius had forgotten - sometimes willfully, because willful forgetting is what he needed to do to survive the Dementors - what his body feels like when it has desire. Every time Remus touches him like this, he feels like he’s coming alive.

 

‘It’s too much,’ he gasps, dragging his fingernails down Remus’s chest, and Remus bites his ear and shoves up against him harder. He is going to come, and quickly, especially as Remus thrusts there , and grips his ass there , and grinds into him right - fucking - there .

 

‘I used to be better at this, I think,’ he says a minute later, when he has caught his breath.

 

‘Nah,’ Remus says. Sirius cranks his head around to look at him, startled. Remus is gazing at him with big eyes and bats his eyelashes.

 

‘Fuck off,’ Sirius suggests.

 

‘Trying,’ Remus replies, sugar sweet, slinging his leg over Sirius’s back and pressing into his side.

 

Sirius hums and pushes back with his hip, but he’s not going to just give it to Remus, not after that comment. ‘So you think I wasn’t better?’

 

‘Nothing better than this,’ Remus replies, kissing a line down his shoulder, throwing a few nips with his teeth into the mix to keep it interesting.

 

Sirius laughs. Remus is so very charming, but he’s self conscious. It is an unspoken knowledge between them that Remus has had other lovers in the past several years apart - obviously, as is reasonable, as Sirius tells himself often, trying, of course, to be reasonable - but what if they were better than he is? What if he’s been doing this all wrong? What if…

 

‘Sirius,’ Remus says quietly. ‘What are you thinking?’

 

‘I feel like a pile of rubbish.’

 

‘Well, you’re my pile of rubbish.’

 

‘Were you always this romantic?’

 

Remus hums a little into his shoulder. ‘Not out loud. And for that, I’m sorry. I should have been.’

 

Sirius sighs and turns towards him, so that they are on their sides, face to face, with Remus’s leg atop his. Remus takes his hand and moves it down their bodies, presses it against his hard cock, moans. Sirius shivers involuntarily. He loves this. ‘You’ll say anything to get me to suck on that,’ he says.

 

‘Oh yes,’ Remus agrees. ‘Absolutely. Honestly can’t think of anything but.’

 

Sirius hauls him up and over, so that Remus is on all fours, head hanging down near Sirius’s lower belly, his pendulous cock dangling onto Sirius’s chest, trailing milky liquid onto his skin. He runs his tongue up its back, and Remus moans again; then he wraps a hand around it and pulls Remus back by one hip and takes his whole cock into his mouth, sucking, licking what he can, until Remus is struggling to stay upright, arms shaking, head leaning heavily into Sirius’s upper thigh, gasping and thrusting and then coming, and Sirius swallows all of it at once and then lets Remus collapse on top of him and his cock slide out of his mouth and land wetly against his collarbone. Remus lies, trembling a little, while Sirius strokes one hand up and down his thigh, feeling the long muscle in it, the solidness of him, the realness of the moment. Eventually, Sirius realises that Remus has fallen asleep, and he rouses him and drags him into a normal sleep position.

 

Much, much later, Remus wakes Sirius with a hand on his face. Sirius blinks at him in the morning light streaming through the window. Remus says, ‘I meant it.’

Chapter 16: The Start of Harry's Sixth Year

Sirius and Remus arrive at the Burrow very early on the first of September, but Harry is downstairs, waiting for them, his trunk packed, even before they appear at the door. Sirius looks much better than the last time Harry had seen him, but he thinks he can sense a gaunt worry in both of them. They come into the house quickly and Sirius gives Harry a long, tight hug. Harry can see Remus looking on with a faintly worried frown from behind him.

 

‘Everything all right?’ Sirius asks quietly. ‘I’m so sorry we’ve been so absent. Lots of Order business.’

 

‘It’s ok,’ Harry says, a little awkwardly, because he wishes he had seen them more but he knows he has to understand.

 

Sirius seems to sense this. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ he suggests. ‘We still have quite a while before we need to leave.’

 

Outside, Harry knows there is a perimeter around the Burrow that gives them a little space to walk through the Weasleys’ expansive garden. It is a blustery, chilly day, unseasonably cold, as the whole summer has been. They wander back towards the hedge boundary, talking in low voices.

 

‘It’s the Dementors, right?’ Harry asks. ‘They’re making the weather so awful?’ Sirius nods, eyes on the ground ahead of him. ‘Is that… I mean… that can’t be good for you.’

 

‘Well,’ Sirius sounds thoughtful, ‘it’s not as bad for me as it is for most, I think. I’m quite used to the effects of Dementors. This is a fairly pleasant level for them to be at, honestly. Though Remus is a bit paranoid that they might have it in for me. Want to finish the job they started, you know.’

 

Harry glances at him, concerned, and Sirius smiles. ‘I wouldn’t worry.’

 

They come to a slightly listing wooden bench beside the hedge. Sirius toes a gnome off of it so they can sit and Harry, watching him, thinks of better times, de-gnoming the garden years ago, everyone so innocent and happy.

 

‘How have you been, Harry? Really?’

 

‘I’ve been…’ Harry has no idea where to begin. ‘Did Professor Dumbledore tell you that I went with him to meet the new Defence professor?’

 

Sirius shakes his head, eyebrows raised. ‘How did it go? Who is it?’

 

‘He’s named Horace Slughorn.’

 

Sirius frowns. ‘Really?’

 

‘Do you know him?’

 

‘He taught Potions when I was at school. I can’t imagine him teaching Defence.’

 

‘But Snape teaches Potions,’ Harry says. ‘Unless…’

 

‘Maybe Albus wants him available for missions,’ Sirius says.

 

‘That would be amazing,’ Harry says fervently. ‘If Snape wasn’t teaching.’

 

Sirius grins. ‘We can only hope.’

 

‘What was Professor Slughorn like when he was your teacher?’

 

‘Hm,’ Sirius says. ‘He’s an interesting fellow. He was…’ he seems to be searching for words. ‘He was a good professor. I learned a tremendous amount from him. And he seemed to genuinely love the subject and to keep up with new research and want to make sure we really did learn.’

 

‘So he sounds good!’

 

Sirius is clearly still searching. ‘He’s… I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of him. He’s got a bad habit of playing favourites. Usually those favourites are Purebloods, from good families, but not always.’ He smiles, fondly, like he’s thinking of something far in the distance. ‘I’ll tell you a story. On our first day of class, I was sitting with - I think your father - one of the other Gryffindor boys, anyway. He announced that we needed to partner up for the first lesson and I obviously thought I’d be partnering with one of them. Then he came over to me and asked me to be someone else’s partner. I thought he’d decided we were going to be rowdy or wanted to break up the Gryffindors and get inter-house friendships going but no, what he actually wanted was for me to help a Muggleborn girl.’ Sirius rolls his eyes. ‘I later realised that he thought since I was the most Pureblooded of them all, I should be the best at helping out this girl. Of course what actually happened is that she turned out to be amazing at Potions - one of the top students in our year - and that I wound up learning more from her than she ever would have from me.’ He looks at Harry. ‘Lily, of course.’

 

‘Really?’ Harry asks. ‘She was good at Potions?’

 

‘The best,’ Sirius says. ‘Knowing him, he’ll tell you all about her.’ He smiles at Harry. ‘Did anything else interesting happen?’ Harry hesitates, not sure if he should tell him about seeing Draco in Knockturn Alley, but Sirius frowns and says, ‘Whatever it is, Harry, you know you can tell me.’

 

‘You know Draco Malfoy?’

 

‘My cousin,’ Sirius says dryly. ‘I don’t exactly know him but I certainly know who he is. And I know his parents much better than I’d like to.’

 

‘Oh right,’ Harry says, feeling stupid. ‘I always forget…’

 

‘Thank you,’ Sirius says sincerely, and then he laughs. ‘Truly, thank you, I appreciate it. Sometimes I worry that that’s all anyone ever thinks of me.’

 

‘No,’ Harry says, ‘not at all. I mean, I knew you before I knew you were related to them all but…’ He thinks back to Lucius Malfoy, to Bellatrix. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

 

Sirius looks very pleased. ‘What about Draco, then?’

 

‘He’s…’ Harry pauses. ‘I think he’s up to something, Sirius. Ron and Hermione think I’m crazy but… I think he’s gotten the Dark Mark.’

 

Sirius raises an eyebrow, and Harry hastily explains his evidence from Madame Malkin’s and Borgin and Burkes. ‘I know he’s really young,’ he finishes, anticipating Sirius’s argument, but Sirius looks troubled and shakes his head.

 

‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t know about that. In the last war… well, I wouldn’t be shocked, I suppose. It’s more that I assume Lucius, and by extension Cissy - Narcissa, sorry, we never called her by her full name - are in a great deal of trouble with Voldemort right now. After what happened at the Ministry, I mean. And I don’t know how Draco fits into that but… he’s still just a boy. It can’t be good, whatever it is.’

 

‘You mean the prophecy getting destroyed? You think Voldemort is punishing them?’

 

Sirius nods. He’s looking at the ground, clearly deep in thought. ‘Harry…’

 

‘What?’

 

Sirius looks up and looks directly at him. It’s obvious that he is trying to think how to say something. ‘Be careful,’ he says finally. ‘It sounds stupid. Voldemort is obviously after you. But I can’t overstate how dangerous that really is. He lured you to the Ministry…’

 

‘I know,’ Harry says, hot shame flooding through him. ‘I know, Sirius. And I’m really sorry…’

 

Sirius shakes his head and waves his hand. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. You have nothing to be sorry for.’

 

‘I almost got you killed.’

 

‘But you didn’t,’ Sirius says with a little shrug. ‘And even if you had, even if you had gotten everyone killed, it wouldn’t be your fault. Those Occlumency lessons were a terrible idea and I’ve already spoken with Albus about them-’

 

‘He said I’d be having private lessons with him!’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius agrees forcefully. ‘That’s what should have happened all along.’

 

Harry is startled; it had never once occurred to him to question Dumbledore, much less to criticise him. ‘But I should have-’

 

Sirius shakes his head again. ‘Harry, listen. Learn from mistakes, take them seriously, but don’t take them personally. Don’t dwell on them.’  He smiles sardonically. ‘Trust me on that one.’

 

‘It was so hard to know what was real, with the Occlumency,’ Harry confesses. ‘And Umbridge…’ He longs to tell Sirius about what she’d done to him, how she’d tried to deny the truth and bleed it out of him with that evil quill. Sometimes in her detentions, as unwavering as he’d tried to be, he’d found himself questioning if he really had seen what he knew he’d seen: how could she be so obtuse, how could she deny it so much that it inflicted physical pain on him?

 

But he also knows that if he tells Sirius, it will be one more thing for him to worry about, and more than that, it will be a thing that is no longer actively hurting him. He looks at his godfather’s concerned, expectant face, and finishes lamely, ‘she just made such a weird, I don’t know, atmosphere in the school, it was hard to, well, to know what to do.’

 

Sirius puts an arm around him and pulls him close, giving him a tight hug that Harry returns gratefully. ‘You did brilliantly,’ Sirius says, keeping his arm around Harry’s shoulders. ‘So like I said, learn from your mistakes. Be careful. I know you aren’t going to just keep your head down - I know that’s not how you are, and I understand - but be careful about what you’re doing. Keep James’s invisibility cloak with you. Keep Ron and Hermione close.’ He leans back a bit and looks at Harry in a way that Harry thinks is meant to be stern. It’s not particularly convincing. ‘And keep me - and Remus - in the loop. Write to us.’

 

Harry has never felt such a singularly directed force of parental worry before; embarrassingly, his throat aches from wanting to cry. Without meaning to sound so plaintive, he asks, ‘Will you write to me too?’

 

‘Absolutely,’ Sirius says.

 

‘And, you know,’ Harry is still embarrassed, but he rushes into saying it, ‘you be careful too. I’ll be at Hogwarts, but you’ll be out here.’

 

Sirius smiles and then looks off to the side. Harry follows his gaze and sees Remus standing by the doorway to the garden; Remus sees them looking and waves. ‘The car from the Ministry is here,’ he calls.

 

‘Ready?’ Sirius asks, and Harry, not really feeling it at all, nods.

 

***

 

They get to Kings Cross easily, and go through the barrier. For the first time ever, Harry has his own dedicated family with him, and as much as he loves the Weasleys, he never knew how much he’d wanted this until now. People are staring at him openly, as if daring him to acknowledge it; he thinks a few of them are also staring at Sirius in a similar way, but with Remus and Sirius at his side, he feels shielded from the naked greediness of their looks. Together, the three of them get his trunk and Hedwig in her cage directly next to the train and then they look at each other, lost for words. Harry has a sudden fear that he might never see one, or both, of them again.

 

Remus reaches out and puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders. ‘Have a good term, and we’ll see you at Christmas,’ he says in a kind voice. ‘Write to us, please.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius echoes, stepping forward and hugging Harry, who returns the hug as tightly as he can. ‘Promise you will.’

 

‘I will.’

 

‘Promise?’ Sirius asks, again clearly trying to sound stern. Remus’s lips quirk like he’s trying not to smile.

 

‘I promise,’ Harry says.

 

‘About anything,’ Sirius says, all pretense of sternness gone. ‘School, friends, Quidditch, anything or anyone you’re worried about…’

 

Harry nods. The train whistles and Sirius huffs out a breath. ‘This is stressful,’ he says to them both.

 

‘We will see you soon,’ Remus says, very firmly. ‘Do you want a hand with your trunk?’

Harry shakes his head. Sirius is looking between them, his lips pressed in a thin worried line. Harry can’t help but grin at his concerned parent look. ‘No, I’m pretty used to it.’ He grabs it and the cage and steps away from them. ‘See you soon!’ he calls back, and sets off down the corridor. As the train starts to pull away, he looks for them out the window, Sirius watching the train while Remus says something in his ear that makes him suddenly break into a laugh and look at Remus, before he looks back at the train, worry immediately returning to his face.

Chapter 17: The Summer Before and the Start of Harry's Sixth Year, Sirius's Perspective

The pub is warm and the company excellent, Sirius and Remus and Emmeline, having one too many, laughing together like they’re teenagers again, like there’s not a war on and almost two decades between them and seventeen. Sirius is telling the story of falling in love with Remus, the summer after sixth year, realising it when he saw Remus on a filthy dancefloor at a punk gig snogging the most beautiful girl - no, woman - he’d ever seen.

 

‘Who was she?’ Emmeline asks, giggling.

 

‘An art student at UCL,’ Remus says.

 

‘You’re leaving out a crucial detail,’ Sirius points out. ‘She was also 23.’

 

‘What?’ Emmeline gasps. ‘No!’

 

‘She thought I was older,’ Remus interjects.

 

‘How much older?’

 

Remus shakes his head. His cheeks are very red. ‘Just… older.’

 

‘They broke up at the end of the summer because he told her he was going back to school,’ Sirius says, grinning.

 

Emmeline laughs harder. ‘Oh my god, you didn’t know she thought you were older?’

 

‘I thought age was just a number and my personality spoke for itself,’ Remus sniffs.

 

‘And she was beautiful?’

 

Remus glances at Sirius and grins.

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius confirms. ‘Really.’

 

‘So you realized you were in love with him…’

 

‘And then in classic teenage fashion, spent the entire summer moping around, accompanying them on dates.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘She didn’t believe in dating,’ Remus clarifies. ‘It was too old fashioned for her. So she would invite me out and tell me to bring a friend. And so I’d bring Sirius…’

 

‘Because I was always eager to do anything he invited me to…’

 

‘And inevitably, because she was in art school, she would want to go to an art museum.’

 

‘Or there was that time we went to that performance art, where that man played a guitar with his…’

 

‘And then halfway through the outing, she’d decide she still fancied me…’

 

‘And I’d wind up standing guard while they copped off in the toilets.’

 

‘Oh god,’ Emmeline says, wiping her eyes from laughter. ‘I can just picture you. Presumably sulking and miserable.’

 

‘Absolutely,’ Sirius says. ‘Totally convinced that no one had ever had it as badly as I. When they broke up, it was the best day of my life.’ He looks at Remus and grins. ‘I mean, of course I was sympathetic to your broken heart…’

 

‘And I was very broken hearted.’

 

‘She was beautiful,’ Emmeline grins.

 

‘And clever.’ Remus pauses, looks back at Sirius. ‘I should look her up.’ He waits a beat and adds, ‘I bet her first question will be if we ever got together.’

 

‘She will definitely be asking if I ever told you how I feel.’

 

Later, Emmy goes to the toilets as they are leaving. She meets them outside the pub, where they are holding hands and kissing underneath a street lamp. ‘How do you two keep the romance alive?’ she asks jokingly.

 

‘Lots of near death experiences,’ Sirius suggests, as Remus says, ‘Twelve and a half year absences.’

 

***

 

Two nights later, Sirius and Remus stand in Emmeline’s ruined kitchen. The light through the windows glows eerily green from the fading Dark Mark above the house. They were the Order members able to respond and had arrived, as always when the Mark appears, too late to do anything.

 

Emmeline did not go without a fight.

 

‘Well,’ Remus says eventually, after Sirius is done retching in the garden, ‘at least we know she won’t be coming back as a useful Inferi.’ Sirius looks at him and sees him looking away, out the window and up at the sky. Then he strides out of the house. Sirius follows him, terror gripping his chest.

 

‘How did they know about her?’ he demands of Remus’s tense back. ‘She’s - she was an editor. Of textbooks. She wasn’t an Auror. She wasn’t in law enforcement…’

 

‘What are you asking?’ Remus says quietly.

 

Sirius licks his lips. ‘Was it Kreacher? Did he tell them about her?’

 

Remus blinks. ‘They could have found out she was a member of the Order from any number of ways. It’s not like we wear masks.’

 

‘But what if it was Kreacher?’ Sirius cannot forgive himself that Kreacher had been able to go to Narcissa.

 

Remus hesitates. ‘Well, maybe it’s time to, well, ask him what he told her.’

 

***

After Sirius’s release from St Mungo’s, they had moved into Remus’s cottage, but, fearing its discovery by Death Eaters, they had decided to build a magical workshop somewhere remote and easier to guard.

 

Magic burns the landscape; the more powerful, and more frequent, the stronger the burn. Places like Hogsmeade or Godric’s Hollow are indelible magical stains from centuries of wizardry and witchcraft and individual magical activities within them bleed into the wider impression. Other areas are more diffuse, but still do not have definable magical points, just a kind of glow - the area round where the Weasleys, Diggorys, and Lovegoods live, for example. London, Glasgow, and other large cities are the same, except Leeds, which expelled its wizards in the 1200s and has never had its population recover. However, Remus’s cottage is remote, away from any wizarding communities, and any strong or sustained use of magic there would be discoverable by a dedicated party - like someone seeking out wizards to do them harm.

 

Sirius and Remus have been intensive enough students of the magic of cartography to understand how to manipulate that magical landscape. Pouring over Ordnance Survey maps, they had found a small island off the Welsh coast that would suit them well. Legally, it is close to the magical border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and so Apparition to its west side would be difficult due to treaties on magical travel between the countries - that border, scene of so much violence throughout the twentieth century, remains quite fortified. The island has only one Muggle approach, by boat, to a single opening in the coastline’s impressive wall of cliffs. It has a few farms on the east side of the island, but the bulk of it is untamed moorland. There is a historical marker on the Ordnance map, an abandoned croft, that seems like it will be perfect.

 

They Apparate to near the dock and walk up a steep hill to look out over the verdant landscape. It is a rare sunny day in a summer of gloom, and they can see for miles. Seabirds wheel and kite overhead and there are a few curious sheep who follow the progress of these two men walking across the island. It takes them a half hour to find the croft; it really has been abandoned. Sirius repeatedly walks a perimeter around it, laying down the first defensive spell, while Remus starts to clear debris from the interior. With a few hours of work, they have made a place that seems likely to be overlooked by Death Eaters, challenging to get to, and yet easily left if discovered. They walk back down the path to the dock to Apparate from there, both laying out traces of magic to catch anyone walking this same path. They have cast a glamour so that anyone on the island who sees them will not be inquisitive enough to wonder where these two outsiders are walking.

 

‘Peter could find us here,’ Sirius says as they are leaving the croft, standing back and looking at the rough stone walls and the wooden boards for a roof. From a Muggle viewpoint, the roof is collapsed and the door missing. ‘He could at least make an educated guess and narrow down where we would go.’

 

‘Peter knows where the cottage is,’ Remus points out. ‘He knows where Grimmauld Place is, too.’ They have agreed not to specifically hunt Peter for Harry’s sake, and they think he knows it; they haven’t seen crooked whisker nor naked tail of him in over two years. Still, it is unnerving to know that the enemy has someone who knows them so well.

 

***

Sirius and Remus have had - not exactly a fight - but certainly a series of disagreements about Kreacher. The denouement of the Ministry battle and the clear proof that Sirius’s treatment of Kreacher has had some disastrous consequences beyond just being an asshole to one elf mean that Remus had effectively been correct, but neither one is going to admit it aloud.

 

Sirius can’t bear to go back to Grimmauld Place, obviously, so they don’t even discuss that. They leave Emmeline’s ruined house and Apparate immediately to the island. It is a grim walk up the hill and through the fields in the dark; the clouds are low and there is no natural light, only Sirius’s wand tip. One more from their generation is dead from this terrible war. The path is steep and muddy and once they reach moorland it stops being a path at all and rocks rise up unexpectedly. They know they are nearing the croft, which is near the coast, because they begin to hear the multitude of seabirds cooing and rustling in their nests below them on the cliff wall.

 

Once inside their workshop, Remus lights several lanterns that hang around the place, casting a flickering light that feels ominous and magnifies shadows. Sirius suspects it’s just his mood. He leans against the heavy work table, currently spread with maps of all kinds, correspondence, and runes charts. He doesn’t want to do this.

 

When Sirius was a child, he ran away from home with great frequency. The house was miserable. His mother was gone often, and ranged between cloyingly sweet and tipsily angry when she was there. His father had never liked him as well as he liked Regulus and made no secret of it. Kreacher felt the same. So Sirius would sneak out and explore London and count down the days until he would go to Hogwarts and then, inevitably, Kreacher would come to retrieve him. His parents never said a word about him disappearing, just waited some amount of time - he never could guess why sometimes Kreacher would come within minutes, intercepting him before he was out of Mayfair, and why, at least on one occasion, it had got to seem like he would be sleeping rough under a bridge by the river before the elf came. Kreacher wouldn’t say a word either, just take him by the arm, often by surprise, and Apparate him back into the house.

 

And he’s always wondered - why did Kreacher like Regulus better? What is wrong with him? A house elf is supposed to love every member of the family, but for as long as he can remember, it hasn’t been so and when he was a child, that had hurt him, deeply.

 

‘I’m going outside,’ Remus says now. ‘All right?’

 

Sirius nods. Kreacher can’t stand the sight of Remus, who he seems to view as the reason there will be no more heirs to the House of Black. Remus exits the croft and Sirius can hear him crunching around the rocky ground outside the building. Then Sirius snaps his fingers and wordlessly summons the elf.

 

Kreacher is startled, but recovers quickly. He stares at Sirius hatefully and croaks, ‘What does Master Black want?’

 

Before Kreacher can start muttering under his breath, Sirius says, ‘I want to know what you told Narcissa.’

 

Kreacher is clearly caught off guard, and Sirius thinks vividly of Hermione and Remus, trying to convince him that house elves have feelings that deserve to be respected. Then Kreacher says, ‘I told her that it was very nice to see her after so long without seeing a - without seeing many proper wizards.’

 

Sirius rolls his eyes. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘I’m sure she appreciated the pleasantries. What did you tell her about the Order of the Phoenix?’

 

Kreacher hesitates. ‘I told her you were at home,’ he says finally, and it is clear that the words are being dragged out of him. Sirius almost pities him - almost. ‘I told her that you sometimes talk to Harry Potter using the Floo Network, and that he - filthy Halfblood that he is - is very dear to you. I told her that Andromeda’s Halfblood daughter was with you. I told her that you -’ he glances up at Sirius, who tries to maintain a neutral expression, ‘I told her that you were a blood traitor with a halfblood werewolf.’ Kreacher offers this last as what he clearly thinks it is, a terrible insult. It makes Sirius want to laugh. Kreacher had apparently just told her a load of family gossip.

 

‘Anything else, Kreacher?’

 

Kreacher seems to be struggling with something. Sirius assumes it’s going to be some other random piece of gossip, probably that he saw Sirius disrespecting yet another tenet of the House of Black.

 

‘Go on…’

 

Kreacher’s mouth twists and he says very quickly. ‘Mistress Narcissa called over Mistress Bellatrix and she asked me about some of Regulus’s things but I told her they were gone.’ He pauses. ‘I told her you threw them away.’

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, a bit blankly. He supposes he had thrown away quite a few of Regulus’s things. And a second later, he supposes that this is the kind of thing Kreacher would be upset about - though he wonders why Bellatrix asked. ‘Anything else?’

 

Kreacher shakes his head.

 

Sirius hesitates. ‘Kreacher, you must promise me that in future, you won’t talk to anyone from the family but me. Do you understand?’

 

Kreacher winces as if in terrible pain. Sirius assumes he is not faking. ‘Yes, Master Black.’

 

Sirius tries to be kind. ‘Where would you like to stay? You can go back to the house or…’ Kreacher is already nodding. ‘And you’re… you’re all right there? Do you need anything, or…’ Kreacher shakes his head, an odd expression on his face. ‘Ok, well, if you do need something,’ Sirius says, hoping he’s not going to regret this, ‘please come tell me. Also if you notice some disturbance with the house.’ Kreacher nods again, still that strange look. ‘All right,’ Sirius says, standing. ‘Well, thank you. Goodbye.’ Kreacher frowns at him and vanishes with a pop.

 

Remus comes in the door almost immediately. ‘How was it?’ he asks.

 

‘Honestly?’ Sirius says, puzzling, ‘I’m a bit unnerved by the whole thing.’ He summarises what Kreacher had said.

 

‘Any of Regulus’s things?’ Remus repeats. ‘What’s that about?’

 

‘You’re not upset that he outed us?’

 

Remus rolls his eyes. ‘I mean it, SIrius. Why would Bellatrix care about Regulus’s things? Is there some powerful magical object or…’

 

Sirius shrugs helplessly. ‘You remember what the house was like,’ he says. ‘But I think we got everything of value or use and destroyed what wasn’t…’

 

‘Yeah…’ Remus crosses to their worktable. There are a few things from Grimmauld Place there, of which a finely wrought antique Sneak-O-Scope is probably the prized item. It lies dormant. ‘But would we necessarily have recognised something valuable?’

 

‘Arthur would have,’ Sirius says. ‘Or Mad-Eye.’

 

Remus nods. ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ he agrees. ‘Should we tell Albus?’

 

They consider it, but Albus seems to have vanished on a mission to somewhere they cannot reach; Remus’s wolf Patronus returns unable to have delivered its message, which suggests that Albus is somewhere truly dark indeed. They become distracted trying to discern his location with mapping magic, and still find nothing. Britain is studded with swirling vortices of magical import, places where great magical events (not necessarily connected to wizards - many are ancient dragon lairs) occurred - the two from the twentieth century are Godric’s Hollow and the site of the final battle between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. The intensity of each fluctuates according to both arcane and mundane patterns, as for example the two known on coastal cliffs change with the tide and the ones located under Ben Nevis, Snowden, Scafell, and Snaefell are all linked to the weather. Albus does not seem to be at any of these either - but there are hidden ones, too, marking events that have been lost to time, and how many of these there are in the landscape is unknown but probably far outnumbers the known ones. Ultimately they are forced to conclude that Albus is truly somehow nowhere to be found , an incredibly rare magical circumstance, which is a deep enough mystery that they push aside the question of whatever Bellatrix wanted and discuss it, fruitlessly, deep into the night.

 

Three days later, they see Albus at an Order meeting. One of his hands is shrivelled and black. He won’t discuss it.

 

***

After seeing Harry off to Hogwarts, Order business becomes almost nonstop. They take up a project that had been discussed in the previous war but never fully implemented, a magical encryption scheme for owl-based communication using enchanted runes, and have a great deal of success writing a spell that any Order member can use. Attacks on Apparating wizards and witches become commonplace, with the Death Eaters apparently developing a spell that can pull someone in the act of Apparating out of the ether. Splinching is the least of someone’s worries who is caught that way, and a member of the Abbott family is found dead probably as a result of this in early autumn. Order members start having to enchant their Apparition paths, which is time consuming and requires a high level of magical skill. They meet together in small groups to practice, and Sirius thinks of Harry, and Dumbledore’s Army, and misses his godson immensely.

 

Then Remus takes on a mission he has taken on before, which is envoy to Dark creatures, and Sirius is left to his own devices in the cottage. Harry, at least, writes more frequently now.

 

Of course, that means Sirius is worrying about him so much that he thinks it counts for both James and Lily.

 

Then Harry sends Sirius a letter about Snape as his Defence professor, and Sirius almost lights the cottage on fire in rage trying to get into the Floo Network.

 

He arrives at Molly’s house in a puff of Floo powder and emotion, striding out of her fireplace and into her kitchen holding Harry’s letter. She’s standing at the sink. It takes him a second to realise how alarmed she is.

 

‘We need to talk about the education of our children,’ he says, trying to explain. ‘Does Ron ever write to you about school?’

 

‘Umm…’

 

‘Sorry. Are you busy?’ Sirius pauses, suddenly feeling immensely awkward. ‘I can come back later.’

 

Molly glances behind her, then shakes her head. ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she says.

 

‘It seems… important.’ Sirius rolls his eyes at himself, feeling like a fool. ‘Sorry, Molly. I should have owled ahead.’

 

‘No, no,’ she says. ‘Let’s talk.’ She reaches for the kettle. ‘And no, Ron doesn’t really write about school much. Why, has Harry written to you?’

 

Sirius nods and reaches for two mugs from the sideboard. ‘Harry wrote to me about his new professors and I have some serious concerns. And I was thinking that we, as, you know, well...’

 

‘Parents,’ Molly says firmly, pouring him his tea.

 

Sirius takes a deep breath. ‘Well, you, obviously, and me of a sort, yes.’

 

She hands him the milk and gestures to the table in a clear invitation to sit. ‘Yes, you are his parent,’ she says, and Sirius loves her for it. ‘So you were thinking we should…?’

 

‘I don’t know. Write to Albus. Write to Minerva. Something.’

 

They sit down across from each other at one end of the long table. Molly is clearly trying not to smile. ‘Remus has been gone a few days, has he?’

 

Sirius glares, tries to maintain the glare, and fails. ‘That’s not the only reason I’m concerned, you know.’

 

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But it might be why this is occupying you.’ She leans forward and puts her chin on her hand. ‘Tell me your concerns.’

 

‘Severus is their new Defence professor.’

 

Molly makes a face. ‘What can Albus be thinking?’ she asks. ‘They never have a good professor for that course. Well, not since Remus. The children all adored him, you know.’

 

Sirius is happy to hear that - wants to hear that - but instantly feels bitter. ‘And yet he can’t teach there again. Because people are horrid and think a werewolf would, would…’

 

‘There’s not a lot of education about werewolves,’ Molly says gently. ‘Many people don’t know they’re harmless most of the time.’

 

‘People call it a curse, instead of recognising that it’s an illness, nothing more. Some people think werewolves should be, you know, should be punished for…’ Sirius sputters out, upset. ‘This isn’t the point,’ he says.

 

‘No,’ Molly agrees. ‘We have to work with the ingredients we have to make the potion. Now, obviously Severus is not ideal, especially for such an important class.’

 

‘You know he was supposed to give Harry Occlumency lessons last year and they were a disaster.’

 

Molly frowns sympathetically. ‘Severus is so biased against Harry, and by extension Ron, and Hermione… It seems absurd to have him teach them, but I’m sure there were no other options.’

 

Sirius nods but can think of nothing more to say. ‘I’m upset about it,’ he says, more plaintive than he means to be, ‘but we can’t really trouble Albus over this.’

 

‘He can’t be spending much time at Hogwarts anyway,’ Molly says. ‘Not with all the things he seems to be doing.’

 

Sirius nods again and stares into his tea. ‘What do you think he’s doing?’

 

Molly hums and then says, ‘Arthur and I have speculated, of course. But… just like we didn’t know what was in the Ministry, I don’t think we’re going to figure this one out either.’

 

‘It’s so absurd,’ Sirius says. ‘He says that if something happens to him, instructions will come to Remus, but shouldn’t Remus be receiving instructions already? So he can be ready if…’

 

‘Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,’ Molly says. They both take deep breaths at the same time, and then meet each other’s eyes and smile. ‘I’m sorry, Sirius,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’

 

‘It’s nice just to talk about it,’ Sirius admits. He looks at the counter behind her and notices the big clock, all of its hands pointing towards ‘Mortal Danger’. ‘How does that clock work?’ he asks.

 

Molly glances behind herself at it and says, ‘I don’t totally know. My mother gave it to me when I was pregnant with Bill. It only had two hands then. I know it was made by a travelling peddler but beyond that, I don’t know much. It always grew an arm while I was pregnant - it’s how I found out about Ginny!’

 

Sirius leans forward, incredibly intrigued. ‘But it normally gives a location that corresponds to a real place, right? When it’s not on mortal danger?’ He can see the places on the face for ‘travelling’ and ‘work’ and ‘school’.

 

‘Yes,’ Molly says. ‘It came with nearly all of them, but Arthur added “dentist” as a bit of a joke about Muggles.’

 

‘You can add locations?’

 

Molly reaches back and passes him the clock, holding it with both hands. Sirius runs his hands over it, feeling its magic. ‘It’s quite powerful, when you think about it,’ she says, and he nods.

 

‘Remus and I - we were thinking of making a map and putting the Order members on it,’ he says. ‘To track their locations. But what I find most interesting is that the locations here are both real and…’ he searches for the word to describe what ‘mortal danger’ is. ‘Real and figurative.’

 

‘You’re welcome to study it,’ Molly says. ‘Though I’d prefer it if you did it here. I like to be close to it.’

 

And so Sirius - with Molly’s help - begins the project of a new kind of Marauders’ Map.

 

***

 

Remus comes home without warning, through the kitchen door in the middle of the afternoon, looking pale and thin and with his cloak drenched from the driving autumn rain. Sirius, sitting at the table and reading the Prophet after a morning at the workshop, is on his feet and to him within seconds. Remus sort of collapses against him; he’s sodden and heavy and the best thing Sirius has ever felt.

 

‘Moony,’ he says against his neck, and Remus clutches him tightly for a second before drawing back and saying, ‘I have to sleep.’

 

Sirius follows him into the bedroom. ‘What happened?’ he asks, worry starting to cloud out the happiness of seeing Remus home.

 

‘I’ll tell you soon,’ Remus says, plainly exhausted. He disappears down the hall and into the bathroom; Sirius frets in the bedroom. When Remus returns, he’s wearing pyjamas. He crawls into the bed and pulls the duvet up to his neck. Sirius sits down on the edge of the bed and says, ‘Moony-’

 

‘Really,’ Remus says. ‘I will tell you soon. I am exhausted. I need to sleep.’ He finishes pulling the duvet up over his head. Sirius stands and shuts the blinds to keep out the fading daylight and goes to fetch the paper.

 

Remus sleeps through the night. Sirius curls up beside him and wraps his arms around him but he does not even stir; in the morning, he is turned away from Sirius but still soundly asleep. Throughout the day, Sirius tries to write up his notes about his and Molly’s latest ideas for the map, but is increasingly consumed by thoughts of what had transpired on Remus’s mission. Remus finally gets up, without preamble, around noon; he goes to the toilet, returns, and crawls back under the duvet.

 

‘Moony-’

 

‘Later,’ Remus croaks.

 

Hours later, an owl taps on the window. Sirius is up like a shot - what if it says something about whatever has happened to Remus - but instead it is a letter from Harry. He has written about Katie Bell’s curse from a magical necklace and his suspicions that Draco Malfoy is behind it. Sirius gently shakes Remus’s shoulder.

 

‘Mmh?’

 

‘Letter for us,’ Sirius says, and passes it to Remus before he can close his eyes again. He watches him read it once, then read it again. Then he says, with meaning, ‘A powerful Dark object, Remus.’

 

Remus nods and leans back into the pillow. ‘Do you remember a necklace like that?’

 

Sirius thinks and shakes his head helplessly. ‘There were so many things in that house…’

 

‘Another mystery,’ Remus says, and makes like he is going to go back to sleep again. Sirius panics.

 

‘What is wrong?’ he demands, sounding angrier than he means to. ‘Remus, please tell me, what happened?’ He can’t help himself, and his tone turns to pleading. ‘You’re really scaring me.’

 

He can see Remus consider going back to sleep anyway, but then he pushes himself up, carefully, like it’s painful on his wrists, and Sirius knows that the full moon was only a few days ago and he aches for Remus’s pain.

 

‘It’s an impossible mission,’ Remus says quietly, ‘convincing people that they should trust the Order when there’s the history there of what has been done by witches and wizards of supposed good conscience.’ He looks up at Sirius and meets his eyes for the first time since he came home. ‘So that’s… it’s hard. Their lives are very hard, without access to proper healthcare or education or…’ He shakes his head. ‘There but for the grace of Albus go I.’

 

Sirius reaches for him but Remus holds up a hand, holding him off. Sirius hates it. ‘There’s another thing.’

 

‘What?’

 

Remus closes his eyes, and when he opens them they are glittering. ‘Do you remember Fenrir Greyback?’

 

‘Death Eater,’ Sirius says, not sure where this is going. ‘I can’t remember… did he die? Or go to Azkaban?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘Neither. He went into hiding.’ He blinks several times, eyes still wet. ‘He’s a werewolf, you know.’

 

Sirius remembers now. ‘The one who was biting people even when he was in human form.’

 

Remus nods.

 

‘What about him? Is he back?’

 

Remus nods again.

 

‘Did you see him?’

 

‘He’s running the show,’ Remus says quietly. ‘In London. The entire werewolf community is in thrall to him. Apparently he’s made them a lot of promises if they’ll be loyal to Voldemort.’

 

‘Fuck,’ Sirius says. ‘Did you meet him?’

 

Remus hesitates and looks off to one side. ‘Yes,’ he says finally. ‘And he… he remembered me. I didn’t remember him - didn’t know that I even should. But he remembered me.’

 

Sirius feels certain there’s something important here that he’s not quite catching. ‘From the Order?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘From when I was a child,’ he says, voice now deathly quiet. ‘From when he bit me.’

Chapter 18: The Creation of Remus Lupin, Werewolf, Part 1

Notes:

This is a chapter split into two because it became much longer than I intended it to. Mainly because I got carried away writing a bunch of pornography into it. Please be warned that there are two (2!) explicit sex scenes in this chapter! As always, comments are welcome and I hope you enjoy! Part 2 should arrive very soon, just editing that one now.

Over the Christmas holidays of their seventh year, when it is just the two of them at Remus’s parents’ house, he and Sirius have a fight that Remus has been both anticipating and dreading for actual years - a fight called, why do you like James better than me? He is terrified of the answer, but also morbidly curious about it, turning it over and over again, studying how those two interact, obsessing over what is wrong with him - even though he knows what it is. He’s not like James; he could never be like James.

 

After all, he’s a werewolf.

 

Remus feels petulant bringing it up, but somehow it gets to a breaking point that afternoon and once they are alone - James has gone home early to help his mother with something, Peter is away for the holidays - Remus can’t help himself.

 

Almost immediately, the fight goes in a direction he never, ever could have foreseen, no matter how many teacups he reads in Divination. After a brief back and forth, Sirius gets very pale, and says, ‘I just think of you and James differently.’

 

After all, Remus thinks, I’m a werewolf.

 

And then Sirius says, a strange sound to his voice, ‘Can I tell you a secret?’

 

Remus frowns. ‘Of course,’ he says.

 

‘I mean, a really, well, a big secret.’

 

Remus raises his eyebrows. ‘I think I can be trusted…’

 

‘It’s going to change how you think of me.’ Sirius is speaking quickly now, almost manically, and not looking at Remus.

 

‘I have some expertise in the area of life-altering secrets,’ Remus says. He has no idea where this is going. Sirius is not being cool. This is very abnormal Sirius behavior.

 

‘I love James like a brother,’ Sirius says, and then he doesn’t say anything else, just looks at Remus plaintively, uncannily like Padfoot wanting a treat.

 

‘But not me,’ Remus prompts. There is lead in his stomach. Because a werewolf can’t be a brother to a human boy.

 

Sirius shuts his eyes for just a second in a wince. ‘It’s different, Moony,’ he says. ‘It’s… if I say it, it will be real.’

 

Remus is baffled, but decides to try to tackle this conversation head-on. ‘In my experience, not saying a thing doesn’t make it not real.’ Sirius looks up at him, eyes like wide lamps. ‘I mean, I can tell everyone I’m not a werewolf,’ Remus continues, unnerved, ‘but on the full moon…’

 

‘I think of you differently,’ Sirius says in a rush.

 

‘Not... like a brother?’

 

Sirius nods.

 

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say.’

 

Sirius takes a deep breath, steps forward, puts his hands on Remus’s shoulders, says, ‘I’m so sorry, please forgive me,’ and then leans forward and presses his lips to Remus’s. For a single, flailing moment, Remus has no response whatsoever; his brain seems to have completely shut down. Sirius does not hold the kiss for long - indeed, before Remus really registers what has just happened, he is already leaning back, oddly out of breath, his face very flushed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says again. ‘Do you want me to go? Only I wanted you to know. This isn’t… you and James are… so very different. To me. Should I go?’

 

He is halfway to the door before Remus manages to say, ‘No.’ He doesn’t know what compels him to say it - he has never once thought of this possibility, not with Sirius or any boy for that matter - but he does not want Sirius to leave. For the next half hour, they try to have a reasonable conversation, a very adult conversation, about What This Means. It fails quickly when Remus suggests Sirius kiss him again, just to see, because after all, Sirius became an Animagus for him, and so he can certainly try this. Sirius does, for longer this time, still just his lips pressed hard against Remus’s, but Remus feels awkward about that, too close, too much time to think, so he opens his mouth very slightly and tastes Sirius’s lower lip. He really does smell nice when he’s this close, which is a weird thing to think, about a fellow boy, particularly this fellow boy. Sirius makes a little noise, and then his lips part a little, and then his tongue is on Remus’s, and Remus doesn’t think about it right now because it feels like he should just go with it. When they finally separate, Sirius is out of breath and red again, and Remus is wide eyed and utterly confused. They kiss again, longer this time, skipping the pressed lips, straight to mouths opening wider, until they are really snogging, Sirius’s hands clenched around Remus’s biceps and one of Remus’s hands tangled up in Sirius’s hair while the other one clutches at the edge of the table he is leaning up against for support. The conversation is utterly derailed. They snog for minutes at a time, until they hear the sounds of someone coming their way in the house and part, both mortified, Sirius trying to smooth down his hair while Remus wipes his mouth and wonders helplessly why he’d felt the need to muss it up so much.

 

It is Remus’s dad. He has had a letter from James’s mum. Sirius has to return to the Potters’ at once. They are shutting down the Floo Network due to suspected terrorist activity. This news is shocking, and the implications - within a year the Floo Network is all but nonfunctional due to Death Eater attacks - are staggering, but all Remus will ever associate with this pivotal moment in the First War is his discovery of the heat and taste of Sirius’s mouth.

 

What follows is a six-month-long series of mostly stops interspersed with a very few starts. It is a wonder, later, that either of them manage to scrape any NEWTs, let alone the many between them that they do ultimately achieve. It is a time of escalating war that bleeds over into daily life at Hogwarts and Remus remembers every milestone by where he was in his feelings towards Sirius.

 

It becomes obvious very quickly that Sirius means this, in that unnerving Sirius way that he means all of his strong emotions: intensely, and, mind made up, without reservation. Remus is the opposite. Sirius is kind about it, pointing out that he’s been thinking of this for a long time and it’s really been sprung on Remus in a rather startling manner. The fact that Sirius is so kind about it sets off alarm bells in Remus’s brain, because, again, it signifies that Sirius means this. And perhaps because he is just seventeen years old, and a bit of an idiot, it takes Remus much too long to realise the power that he has over Sirius.

 

Instead, he prevaricates. When they return to Hogwarts, he tells Sirius they can’t be together, and that he doesn’t feel anything for him. He knows one of those things is true - there’s no way Sirius would ultimately want to be with him. He tells himself that Sirius just does not understand what being with a werewolf would mean, and he convinces himself that the experiment is not even worth attempting, because Sirius would quickly see the error of his ways. The fact that Sirius spent years becoming an Animagus in order to specifically help him be a werewolf - a thing he continues to do loyally every month - gets willfully pushed to the back of Remus’s mind. To Sirius, he says that he won’t risk destroying their friendship.

 

Academically, Remus sees and understands that he is making Sirius miserable. He doesn’t know how to stop.

 

One morning after the full moon he leaves Madam Pomfrey’s and finds Sirius slumped outside the door of the Infirmary, asleep, but clearly waiting for him. He is furious - this is absolutely against the rules he laid down about how they were to treat him in order to keep his secret safe - but when he wakes Sirius, somehow that fury winds up translated to them snogging in the nearest toilets while Sirius breathlessly apologises, over and over, and Remus tries to shut him up with his mouth. Later that day, he rigidly and falsely tells Sirius no more, that this is nothing to him but something physical that is fun but that they need to stop. He tells him in a note in the middle of History of Magic. Sirius abruptly stands and leaves the classroom and they don’t see him until after dinner; Remus feels his absence for those few hours like a missing limb. Finally, he has found something that hurts more than the transformation.

 

Months later, another morning after a full moon, and he wakes in the Infirmary. It is late in the school year now, and by the light streaming in the window, he guesses it is near six in the morning. He can tell that it has been a rough transformation. Sick to his stomach, he wonders if something bad happened. He reaches for the basin Madam Pomfrey always places on his bedside table in case he needs to retch and his hand runs into Sirius’s head.

 

Sirius is soundly asleep, draped across the edge of his bed. This is the most unacceptable thing Sirius has ever done. Madam Pomfrey will absolutely know, now, that Sirius knows Remus is a werewolf. None of the students were ever to know. That was part of the promise to Dumbledore when he allowed Remus to come to school here. Remus wakes Sirius by vomiting into the basin. He is angry and scared enough that he doesn’t try to hide how disgusting it is, or, for that matter, that he is heaving up what appears to be most of a rabbit, bones and all, in very close proximity to Sirius’s face. It feels unspeakably awful, and cathartic, and like the most honest thing he’s ever done in this relationship.

 

‘Moony,’ Sirius says quietly, and then his hands are under the basin, supporting it, taking it out of sight. Remus slumps back against the pillows and hears Sirius mutter a cleaning charm.

 

‘Why are you here?’ he whispers around his raw throat. ‘What happened last night? Did I do something bad?’

 

‘No,’ Sirius says. He puts a cool, damp cloth on Remus’s forehead. It feels incredible. Remus wonders why he doesn’t want to die from mortification. ‘We didn’t make it last night. Filch was out in the corridors all night. I think something was happening in the school, something to do with… the war? maybe… you should have seen the map. It was going crazy with people it didn’t recognize. We just managed to make it into a broom cupboard and spent the rest of the night in there.’ His hand slides down off the cloth and touches Remus’s cheek, very lightly. ‘Peter and James went to bed once we could get out. But I knew you’d wake and not know what happened…’

 

‘Basin,’ Remus croaks. Sirius holds it for him this time, and rubs his back, too. It is so kind it makes Remus want to cry; his throat starts to close up and he panics and vomits again.

 

It is the worst he has felt after a full moon in years; in fact in the years since the other three started coming with him most months. He can barely get out of the bed. He sends Sirius away and dresses himself very slowly but calls him back in to tie his tie; holding his arms up is excruciating. Madam Pomfrey enters, sees Sirius, says absolutely nothing, and Remus realises that she has almost certainly known that they know for years. He wonders how many other things he has deluded himself about.

 

She asks: ‘Are you sure you want to go to class? I can get a note to your professors.’

 

Remus shakes his head. They are very close to NEWTs. He is terrified that without perfect scores, he will never be accepted for any future career. He cannot afford to miss a day. Sirius takes out most of his books and puts them in his own bag. At breakfast, he, James, and Peter all steal food off of Remus’s plate to make it look like Remus has eaten a full meal. Remus throws up twice more during the day and Sirius comes with him each time, something Remus has never before let happen. They do not discuss it, but once, after he is done and is slumped with his cheek on the toilet, his eyes closed, he reaches for Sirius’s hand and squeezes. Sirius squeezes back, and they do not let go until they have to, to leave the stall.

 

Once classes are done for the day, Remus curls up in bed. James and Peter go to Quidditch and to see Emmeline, respectively; Sirius sits quietly on the end of Remus’s bed, reading, while Remus debates with himself. Finally, he acquiesces.

 

‘Padfoot?’

 

Sirius instantly looks up from his book. ‘What do you need?’

 

Remus takes a deep breath. ‘I, uhm, well, you.’

 

Sirius hesitates, and Remus says, outwardly calm, while inside he is shaking and so, so frightened, ‘I mean it. Really. I need you.’

 

‘Remus-’

 

‘I’ve been awful,’ Remus says quietly, ‘to you. I haven’t - I should have told you. How much I care for you. I shouldn’t have tried to lie about it once I realised it. But I didn’t think you would keep meaning it if - when - you just sat down and thought about the implications.’

 

Sirius frowns. ‘I thought I made it quite clear that I didn’t care that we’re both… you know… that we’re both...’

 

Remus almost laughs; homosexuality is the last thing that has been on his mind, truly. He shakes his head. ‘I mean because I’m,’ and he doesn’t want to say it, because what if that will break the spell? It’s an absurd, powerful fear. ‘Because I’m a, a-’

 

‘Werewolf?’ Sirius asks. Grateful, Remus nods. ‘Did you think I hadn’t noticed?’ Sirius asks, but his voice is kind.

 

‘Honestly? I was hoping you hadn’t. I was hoping that when you look at me, it’s not all that you think.’

 

Sirius’s face does something complicated. Then he says, ‘Moony, when I look at you, all I think about is you. And, and… everything that makes up you. Which includes, yes, being a werewolf. But it’s not bad. It’s just a part of you. And,’ he swallows, hard, ‘there is no part of you I don’t…’

 

Remus, scared of whatever Sirius is about to blurt, cuts him off by kissing him. ‘Do you want this?’ he asks.

 

Sirius is grinning hugely. ‘Yes,’ he says, fervent.

 

***

 

Of course, now that this is really happening, Remus realises that he probably needs to come to terms with the gayness of it. He’s kissed some of the girls in their year and one or two at home and always found it to be fun, so sexuality hasn’t even crossed his mind. For two weeks, they sneak off together wherever and whenever they can, but given the constant presence of James and Peter in their lives (they have agreed not to tell the other two until they no longer share a bedroom), it never has a chance to go beyond kissing.

 

Then an opportunity comes where both James and Peter are going to be out for an evening. Determined and nervous, Remus makes himself look as good as he can, standing in front of the mirror in the washroom off their bedroom and smoothing his hair. He’s wearing his least shabby shirt and a jumper that Sirius had complimented him on recently. In the process of lamenting the dark circles under his eyes while feeling like a complete idiot, he realises that Sirius has come into the washroom - perfectly normal practice, they all share this area when getting ready for class or for bed - and is leaning up against the wall, staring at him in the mirror.

 

‘What?’ he asks, unnerved.

 

‘Just thinking about how gorgeous you are,’ Sirius says quietly. The word sounds so posh coming out of his mouth, that first syllable elongated. Remus is new to this world of being intoxicated by Sirius and it hits him hard. He turns away from the tap and meets Sirius’s eyes.

 

‘They’re gone for a few hours, you know,’ he says, which isn’t exactly the most romantic thing in the world, but he hopes Sirius gets it. He holds out his hands and Sirius comes to him immediately, kissing him hard.

 

‘Are you sure?’ he asks against Remus’s mouth, and Remus nods. They are the same height, and he wants some leverage, so he pushes himself up onto the counter, Sirius standing between his legs. He likes that Sirius has to tilt his head up to kiss him. Sirius puts his hands, very lightly, on Remus’s thighs, and Remus makes a little involuntary noise against his mouth. This is sexy, Sirius is sexy, and Remus isn’t sure what he wants aside from this, and more of this, with this person, right here. He wraps his legs around Sirius’s waist and pulls him closer; Sirius makes a little noise and resists for a second and then he presses tightly against him, and a moment later, he realises that Sirius has a massive hard on.

 

‘Moony,’ Sirius says, his voice breaking a little, and Remus says, as steadily as he can, ‘Let’s go to bed.’

 

Sirius leans back and looks at him for a long moment. He is flushed, breathing hard. ‘Are you sure?’

 

‘James is having a team meeting, you know those go on for hours, and Peter and Emmy are probably off in some abandoned classroom doing the exact same thing…’

 

Sirius grins. ‘Good for them,’ he says, and then, ducking his head into Remus’s neck, he asks earnestly, ‘but I meant are you sure about this?’

 

Remus turns his face to the side and buries it in Sirius’s hair, inhaling the smell there. He imagines what it will feel like to have that scent all over him. ‘Yes.’

 

Sirius starts kissing his neck, hard, nipping kisses that include some teeth; Remus tips his head back involuntarily and runs his hands up Sirius’s back, feeling the muscles there, how tense he is as he leans into Remus, hands now tight across the top of his thighs. Sirius moves over to kiss his mouth, hard, and his hands come up and start on the buttons of Remus’s shirt and Remus panics.

 

‘Not-’ he blurts out, and Sirius instantly stops and draws back, blinking. ‘Sorry,’ Remus says, ‘can we,’ feeling like a complete idiot, because of course Sirius wants to take his clothes off, and he wants him to - as scary as it is, he wants to feel Sirius naked, pressed up against his skin, hot and hard and - ‘Padfoot, I’m sorry,’ but the problem is that Remus is not at all comfortable in his own skin. Sometimes at home he looks at himself in the mirror and he loathes it - he is scarred in so many places, puckered lines and stranger shapes, and the mass of scar tissue on his thigh where the werewolf bit him is hideous and discoloured, like a Muggle burn victim before there was corrective surgery. He doesn’t want Sirius to see him, or more accurately to see that, this body that is his own but that doesn’t feel like it is who he is. Sirius is frowning now, hands sliding down to Remus’s sides, and Remus says, ‘This is going to sound ridiculous.’

 

‘Go on,’ Sirius prompts.

 

Remus swallows. This is (one of) the terrifying parts of this - having to be honest with Sirius. ‘I want this,’ he says, ‘so much, Sirius…’

 

Sirius looks wary. ‘But?’

 

‘I don’t want you to see me.’

 

Now Sirius looks mystified. ‘Why not?’

 

‘I’m all…’ He gestures at himself. ‘You know I have bite marks on my body, right?’

 

Sirius blinks a few times. ‘Do they hurt?’

 

‘What? No. They’re fifteen years old.’

 

‘Then what’s…’

 

‘I don’t want you to see them.’

 

Sirius purses his lips. ‘Moony…’

 

‘Don’t,’ Remus says, putting a finger to his mouth. ‘Don’t say something nice and noble about how you don’t care, or it won’t change how you feel, or…’

 

‘Consider it said then,’ Sirius says, and he bites Remus’s finger, but gently. ‘Because I really, really do not-’

 

‘Don’t,’ Remus repeats. ‘I just… want to have this thing without having to think about being a werewolf for once.’

 

‘Well,’ Sirius says, reaching up to take Remus’s hand and holding it while he licks and kisses and sucks on his finger, which is oh-so-very-sexy, ‘what if we turned off the lights?’

 

They wind up in Remus’s bed, which is closer to the washroom door, with all the lights off, fully underneath the heavy duvet. Even though the night is chill, it is unbearably hot, and they are frantic in taking off each other’s clothing - Sirius actually pops two buttons off of Remus’s trousers, although they don’t know it until the morning - until they are just in their briefs, all mouths and sweat and hands hovering above the waistline. They are unable to see anything of each other, which to Remus makes it more erotic, to learn each other’s bodies by touch and scent and tongue. He dips his fingers under the front of Sirius’s waistband and feels the curly hair there with the back of his fingers, and Sirius presses harder against him, his breath coming in hot, damp huffs against Remus’s shoulder. Remus wonders if it will be strange to touch someone else’s cock. Sirius’s hands find his briefs, roll down the waistband. They are perilously close to coming off now, and Remus thinks that the rub of the fabric might make him come. He’s too turned on to think about how weird it this is. Sirius slides his hands down the back of his briefs, inside, and cups Remus’s ass, hitching him closer still. Remus’s hand gets trapped between his stomach and Sirius’s body, and he twists it around uncomfortably and slides it down and there is Sirius’s cock, hot and hard and leaking. Fascinated, Remus runs his thumb over the glossy skin of the tip and Sirius gasps, ‘I can’t…’ His hands clutch Remus’s ass hard and convulsively. Remus manages to drag him just right so that he can rub their cocks together, through the fabric. Sirius is just making noise now, not words, and it turns Remus on so much that he wonders if he’s gone blind or if it is just really fucking dark in here. He manages to move his hips enough to pull down his own briefs; Sirius gets the idea and then their cocks are touching. Remus wraps his hand awkwardly around them both, jerks it upwards once, and realises that Sirius is coming. That makes him come too, his other hand leaving - though he does not know it yet - a ring of bruises around Sirius’s upper arm.

 

Afterwards, they lie for a moment, Sirius mostly on top of Remus, legs and briefs tangled together at the knees, until Remus remembers that James and Peter will not be gone forever. The washroom has showers with curtains - four of them to be exact, which is good luck that there are only four in their year (and when they’d first arrived, there’d just been the one bath, but as they’d gotten older, the room seems to have adjusted for them) - but neither wants to be without the other. Sirius turns off the lights and Remus joins him in a dark shower where they wind up grinding together against the wall until they both come again. Remus slumps down the wall while Sirius stands with his hands against it, swaying, panting. Remus can see in the faint light the pale outline of Sirius’s calves. He leans forward and holds onto them. Then they hear a noise in the other room and Sirius jumps so far that he kicks Remus in the nose. He has run into another stall and turned on the tap while Remus tilts his head back to stop the bleeding when James enters the room.

 

‘Padfoot? Moony?’

 

‘Prongs,’ Sirius says; Remus hopes that James will be oblivious to the strangled sound of his voice.

 

‘Why are you both showering?’

 

‘We were testing something,’ Remus says. ‘Got soaked in pus.’

 

‘... why are you showering in the dark?’

 

‘It was an emergency situation.’

 

James flicks on the lights. Remus is behind the closed curtain. He manages to stand on shaking legs and clutches at the soap dish for support. His nosebleed is slowing. James tells them an inane story about Quidditch that Remus has a great deal of trouble following, because his brain is fixated on Sirius. He has to go to bed under his sweaty duvet with all of his and Sirius’s clothing still tangled in it, because James is talking about something or other and Sirius is talking back but Remus, well, he looks across at Sirius, sitting on his bed, his dark hair wet and dangling around his face - and Remus is completely lost.

 

***

 

But never did the course of love fly smooth or some other mixed, vaguely Shakespearean metaphor, as Remus knows, and he can tell that he has fucked it up from the start by changing his mind repeatedly over the last six months. Sirius is wary of everything he says, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Remus clumsily feels his way to deciding that he has to make some grand romantic gesture to prove his commitment to Sirius.

 

They sit their NEWTs - Remus feels, cautiously, that he has probably done well on most of them, somehow, despite - and their final Hogsmeade day of their final year of school looms. Peter and Emmy are planning to spend it together, and Remus’s plan requires Sirius and him to do the same - but he doubts that Sirius will abandon James. He considers making James indisposed - giving him something to make him ill, or faint - but that seems unnecessarily cruel given that it is their last Hogsmeade trip ever.

 

The night before Hogsmeade day is also the final day of NEWTs; although some people have finished in the days before, Potions is on that final Friday. Everyone leaves it giddy with exhaustion, but after dinner, they manage to pull themselves together. James and Sirius appear with mysterious bottles of firewhisky and Gryffindor Tower rapidly devolves into a drunk bacchanal. In the waning summer light, Remus finds himself lying on the floor of the common room, listening to his peers range from utterly munted to, like himself, pleasantly tipsy. Sirius is in the center of it - with James - commanding attention from everyone with their easy banter. Lily is off to the side, watching them, a little smile on her face, and Remus has sudden inspiration.

 

He stands up, sways a little, dodges a flaming Fanged Frisbee, dodges the fourth year who he really wishes Sirius hadn’t let drink, dodges a chair that seems determined to trip him, and finds himself beside Lily. She looks at him with a raised eyebrow as he leans against the wall beside her.

 

‘Should we tell anyone off?’ she asks him. ‘I think we are still, technically, prefects.’

 

‘Will it make you happy?’ Remus asks.

 

She grins. ‘Probably not.’

 

‘I mean,’ Remus says, thinking yes, the perfect segue, ‘James and Sirius have really been very good all year.’

 

Lily bursts into startled laughter. ‘What??’

 

‘After you told them off for being rude to Severus,’ Remus says, ‘they have left him alone.’ He doesn’t add that they have left him alone because a year ago Sirius nearly killed him and Remus threatened to never speak to him again over it. He is just presenting two facts, one: that Lily told them off for being rude to Severus; and two: that they have, for the most part, stopped acknowledging his existence. His implied thesis is that these facts occurred one after the other and therefore might be inferred to be linked by causality.

 

Lily has her face screwed up comically as she thinks about it. ‘I guess you’re right… aside from a few fights that I think were his fault rather than theirs…’

 

Remus nods. ‘They listened to you. Well,’ and here comes the real massage of the truth, ‘I should say that James listened to you. And Sirius listened to James.’

 

‘Did he?’ Lily asks. ‘Hmm.’

 

‘You should give him a chance,’ Remus suggests.

 

‘Don’t you start too,’ Lily says. ‘Everyone says I should.’

 

‘He’s been pining after you for seven years.’

 

‘That’s kind of creepy. And not really a reason to give him a chance.’

 

Remus looks across the room; James has now tackled Sirius into a sofa. There are lots of limbs flying around. He wonders if he should save Sirius but decides that it would probably be misinterpreted - or, rather, very correctly interpreted in a way that he would prefer it not be. Sirius’s head emerges, hair tousled, cheeks flushed, and Remus temporarily forgets the conversation and thinks about sex.

 

‘I mean,’ Lily says, startling him back to reality, ‘what would giving James a chance even look like?’

 

It is the first time that Lily has ever sounded unsure about this, at least in Remus’s hearing, and he knows her well. He looks at her and she is looking at James, a strange look on her face. It’s almost like - well, almost like she can see something there.

 

Remus’s heart starts beating faster at the thought, which is strangely hilarious, and a sign of how in-tune they are as friends. He tries to imagine James doing the same for him if he’d heard that Sirius fancied him. Probably not. ‘You could ask him to Hogsmeade tomorrow,’ he suggests, and in his head he thinks, I am the motherfucking chessmaster. ‘It is your last chance,’ he adds when she doesn’t reply.

 

‘I could,’ she says slowly. ‘It is my last chance…’ She glances at him. ‘Is this a bad idea?’

 

‘Honestly?’ Remus asks. She nods. He thinks about it, looking back at the two of them in the center of the room. Other people are standing around yelling things, passing galleons back and forth in a betting manner. Sirius is sneaking up behind James while he bargains with someone, scarf ready to sling around James’s neck. Remus tries to imagine what James will say, or do, if Lily asks him on a date. ‘Honestly, I think that he will be so terrified of the whole thing that he’ll barely be able to speak. I think you’ll have one drink and conclude that it was very boring and go on with your life, curiosity satisfied.’

 

Lily laughs, brightly, and says, ‘You’ve convinced me, love.’ She pushes herself off from the wall and strides into the center of the room; Remus follows her and perches on the side of the sofa where Sirius is now enthusiastically trying to strangle James while several others yell encouragement.

 

‘James Potter,’ Lily says. Sirius stops strangling him immediately. James, hands clenched around the scarf at his neck, looks up at her, eyes widening. Sirius drops the scarf and James scrambles to sit up. He kicks over the bottle of firewhisky and Sirius rights it with his wand. It is clear that James does not notice.

 

‘Yes?’ he asks, voice husky, presumably not just from the recent assault on his neck.

 

Without hesitation, Lily asks, ‘Would you go to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow?’

 

The entire common room falls silent, but it is one of the most ringing silences that Remus has ever heard. People are genuinely gawking. This is James’s great love story, his unrequited quest, and every person in the room knows it. James audibly gulps.

 

‘He’d love to,’ Sirius says. ‘Ten o’clock? Here in the common room?’

 

‘Ten fifteen,’ Lily says.

 

‘Wonderful,’ Sirius replies. ‘He’ll see you there.’

 

Lily grins at Remus and disappears into a corner where she is immediately surrounded by girls. James stands up, almost trips over the sofa, and says, ‘Um…’

 

‘Upstairs,’ Sirius suggests, looking at James, and then at Remus.

 

‘I’ll find Peter,’ Remus says.

 

Peter and Emmy are where he knew he’d find them, in a particular unlocked room that is known, as far as he knows, only to them. He knocks on the door and hears a lot of noise behind it; then Peter appears at the door, concern on his face.

 

‘Remus?’

 

‘We have a situation,’ Remus says, trying to convey meaning with his eyes. ‘Lily just asked James to Hogsmeade.’

 

Emmy appears at Peter’s side, smoothing down her shirt. ‘What?’ she gasps.

 

‘Did James freeze up?’

 

‘Sirius had to reply for him.’

 

‘Oh god.’

 

‘Yeah. Strategy session, upstairs.’

 

‘Go,’ Emmy says, faux-dramatically. ‘James needs you.’

 

Upstairs in their room, Remus and Peter burst in on James pacing. Sirius is sitting on the end of his bed.

 

‘Everything is going to be fine,’ Sirius is saying, in the kind of soothing voice one might use on a small child who has fallen and is debating whether or not to break into screams. ‘Just take some deep breaths.’

 

‘Why did she ask me?’ James demands. ‘Why? Why would she do that?’

 

‘Maybe she fancies you,’ Peter suggests, flopping down onto the end of James’ bed beside Sirius.

 

‘No,’ James says.

 

‘Probably not,’ Sirius agrees.

 

‘But maybe,’ Remus says, remembering that look on her face.

 

‘Why now?’ James asks. His face is ashen. ‘It’s the last moment possible.’

 

‘Maybe she didn’t want to have any regrets when she leaves,’ Remus says.

 

‘No missed opportunities,’ Sirius agrees. He pats the bed beside him and looks meaningfully at Remus, who joins him, sitting just a smidge too close, their legs pressed together.

 

‘I can’t do it,’ James announces. ‘I think I’m going to vomit now, what about tomorrow morning?’

 

‘Of course you can do it,’ Sirius says, again in that soothing voice. ‘We all believe in you.’ He nudges Remus.

 

‘Yes, we do,’ Remus says, and Peter echoes him.

 

Whatever they believe, James is an utter shambles by morning. It is clear he has not slept. Sirius presents him with several small slips of parchment on which he has written conversational suggestions and convinces him to put on trousers; Remus gets him to shave and it is Peter who ultimately coaxes him out the door and down to the common room. He is early, but Lily is there, dressed spectacularly in a pale yellow summer dress of the Muggle style, long legs bare and slung over the side of the chair she’s sitting in, the skirt riding up her pale thighs; she is reading a book with a rather too-casual air. James seems to lose some of his ability to be mobile upon seeing her and needs a shove from Sirius to move forward; Remus thinks it is a testament to how homosexual Sirius is that he isn’t fazed at all by Lily.

 

‘Shall we all walk into town together?’ Peter asks. ‘I told Emmy I’d meet her in the hall.’

 

Remus is scheming how best to separate Sirius from the others, and desperately hopes that they are not going to be trapped into playing the dutiful friends at Madam Puddifoot’s all day. The place is a horror of pink and cheaply manufactured romance and he wants Sirius somewhere else altogether. He tries to get him to make eye contact, but Sirius is watching James with concern. James has not yet said a word to Lily.

 

‘Sounds wonderful,’ Lily says graciously, giving Remus her own meaningful look. ‘I adore Emmy.’

 

The day is shockingly warm, almost hot, and as they walk past the lake on their way to the path to town, Lily peels off her jumper. Even as committed as he is to Sirius, Remus has to admit that her breasts look spectacular. Remus sees James shut his eyes for a second and sort of sway in place until Sirius gives him another shove. He starts to have real concerns that he will not be able to get Sirius alone. Emmy and Lily are talking, brightly, and Peter and Remus join in, while Sirius seems to be muttering a nonstop chain of encouragement in James’s ear. As they get close to the town, nearly past the Forbidden Forest, Remus reaches behind James’s back and touches Sirius’s hand. Sirius falls back a little, as does Remus.

 

‘Those four can probably go off on their own, don’t you think?’ Remus says quietly.

 

Sirius glances at James and grins. ‘I’m not sure they can, you know.’

 

‘I’d really like for us to go off on our own,’ Remus says, more quietly still. ‘I have something I want to, well, to show you.’

 

Sirius’s face goes still; this is his attentive canine expression. Remus’s body thrills to it. Then Sirius nods. ‘Where?’

 

‘Shrieking Shack, I was thinking,’ Remus says.

 

‘Ok.’

 

James is looking back at them; Lily is looking back at him; and Peter and Emmy are starting to pull away, hand in hand, the picture of a happy couple heading off on a carefree date.

 

‘Go on,’ Sirius says to James. ‘We’ll meet up with you later.’

 

‘Where are you going?’ James asks, plaintive.

 

‘Not on your date,’ Remus says.

 

‘We will meet up with you later,’ Sirius repeats. He waves his hands. ‘Now, shoo.’

 

James gives them a last, doomed look, before turning back to Lily and saying, a bit too loudly, ‘So, this weather. Nice?’

 

Remus’s heart starts pounding. It sounds very loud in his chest in the still summer air. He and Sirius stand side by side, watching James and Lily’s figures dwindle as they walk up the road. Remus is suddenly very unsure about what he’s decided to do. Too soppy? Too stupid? Too terrible? This had all seemed brilliant when he was drunk last night but now it seems like the worst idea he’s ever had. Sirius is looking at him expectantly. He swallows and says, ‘Shack?’

 

They set off through the forest. They know their way well, better than anyone save maybe the groundskeeper, Hagrid. Once they are deep in dense foliage and away from the road, Sirius reaches for Remus’s hand.

 

‘What is this about?’ he asks. He sounds nervous.

 

‘I want to show you something,’ Remus repeats, while frantically trying to think of something, anything else that he could show Sirius that would warrant this level of secrecy, so that he has an escape plan if he can’t go through with it. ‘I think you’ll like it, hopefully,’ he adds, somewhat lamely, but Sirius looks reassured.

 

‘I’m sure I will.’

 

They have to crawl in through the hole under the floorboards of the porch to get into the Shack - a tight feat they have never done as humans. It requires a tremendous amount of wriggling. Once inside, brushing dirt and cobwebs off his shirt, Remus starts feeling panicky. He takes Sirius’s hand and realises that his own is sweating. He feels clammy and dirty. He hopes he doesn’t look it but is certain that he does.

 

‘Upstairs?’ Sirius suggests, sounding hopeful. ‘Or…?’

 

Remus nods. Still holding hands, they ascend the rickety staircase. At the top, he leads Sirius into the main bedroom - the one with the four-poster. Madam Pomfrey sees to it every month that it is clean, with fresh sheets. Remus feels a flash of guilt about what he’s planning to do to them.

 

‘It’s dark in here,’ Sirius says softly, and, Remus thinks, suggestively. Swallowing hard, he walks to the window and opens the heavy curtains. Hazy, golden summer light floods into the room, catching dust motes as they drift. He turns to Sirius, who is watching him, wary again, frowning slightly.

 

‘Will you sit down?’ Remus asks. Sirius steps back and sits on the edge of the bed.

 

Remus swallows. His mouth is dry, presumably because he is sweating so much everywhere else. His hands are shaking and his stomach is roiling around like a ship in the stormiest of seas. He thinks for a second that he might be sick.

 

Sirius is watching him, clearly concerned. ‘Moony, are you breaking up with me?’

 

‘No,’ Remus says, startled. ‘Is that what this seems like?’

 

‘I…’ Sirius looks at the window. ‘You opened the curtains. That seems… not to be a prick but… isn’t that a no?’

 

‘I wanted you to, uhm, I want to show you something,’ Remus says, feeling sorry. He tries to keep his voice steady. ‘Something I’ve never shown anyone before.’ He swallows. ‘Sirius, I want you to know, uhm,’ god this is very sentimental, ‘that, uhm, I… you’re very important to me. And that I’m actually not planning to break up with you anytime, uhm, anytime soon. Or, you know, I don’t have any plans to do that, in the future. Even though we’re going to be leaving school very soon, and things are going to change a lot, but, I’d like us to stay, uhm…’ He knows he is babbling, but he seems to be getting somewhere...

 

‘Moony…’

 

‘And to prove it to you, to show you how much I, I mean this, I want you to,’ Remus takes a deep breath, ‘to know this. To see this.’ His hands are shaking so much that when he raises them to his collar, he fumbles with the button before he gets it undone. He has to consciously move on to the next. He can’t look at Sirius. He’s not sure he’s ever been this terrified in his life, and he was sent to Professor Dumbledore’s office for dueling as a first year. He gets the first one undone, and moves his hands down to the next.

 

Sirius is suddenly standing in front of him. He cups his face and kisses him. Remus resists.

 

‘Sirius, if you stop me now, I won’t…’

 

Sirius takes his hands and says, ‘Let me do it, then.’

 

Remus swallows but doesn’t object. Sirius all but rips the rest open, slides his hands around Remus’s body - he is still wearing a white vest - and shoves the shirt off. He runs his hands up Remus’s chest and asks, ‘Vest or trousers?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘Which first?’

 

His hands are roaming everywhere. Desire, hot and urgent, is eating away at the terror Remus feels but the question throws him into chaos again. ‘Vest,’ he manages. Trousers will be much worse. Sirius puts his hands under the thin fabric and slides it up and over his head, leaving it over his face. Remus flails as Sirius leans forward and starts kissing his chest.

 

‘Padfoot - what the - take this -’ He manages to extricate himself, letting it fall to the floor, just as Sirius gets his teeth around one of his nipples.

 

‘Thought I’d distract you,’ Sirius says, surfacing for a second, before returning to the task. His mouth is fire and his teeth are sharp. Remus yelps and grabs Sirius’s shoulders, hard. The teeth stop and are replaced by a hot, rough tongue.

 

‘Oh, god,’ Remus manages to say, before he feels Sirius’s hands on his belt. He freezes.

 

Sirius murmurs against his chest, ‘Why is this scary?’ Remus doesn’t respond. Sirius straightens up and puts his hand over Remus’s heart, which is so loud that Remus is certain Sirius can hear it too. ‘Moony,’ Sirius whispers, imploring.

 

‘You’ll see,’ Remus says. He puts his hands on Sirius’s. ‘Just, I… if it changes your mind, it’s all right. I’ll understand.’

 

Sirius gives him a solemn look. ‘You know it won’t.’

 

‘Just, be honest with me. Please.’ Remus realises what he is truly frightened of: not rejection - he expects that - but that Sirius would lie and say it was ok when it wasn’t. ‘Promise me, Padfoot.’

 

‘I promise.’

 

Remus makes a conscious decision to trust him. It is so, so scary. He lets go of Sirius’s hands. Sirius makes quick work of the belt and then takes a deep breath. Remus takes one too. ‘You don’t have to…’

 

‘Moony, you have no idea. I have been fantasising about, uhm,’ Sirius starts to turn very red, ‘your, uhm,’ he ducks his head and mumbles, ‘your…’

 

Remus bursts into startled laughter. ‘Really?’ Sirius raises his gaze and Remus stops laughing instantly. He puts his hand on Sirius’s cheek and asks again, much more softly, ‘Really?’

 

‘Really.’ Sirius’s hands are shaking now too; Remus can feel them against his stomach. He undoes the buttons at his waist and fly and - Remus’s stomach swoops - takes them by the belt loops and tugs them down so that they crumple around Remus’s feet. Before Remus can kick them aside, Sirius drops to his knees and tugs them off from around his calves and feet. Remus steadies himself on Sirius’s shoulders and then realises where, exactly, Sirius’s face is just as Sirius buries his nose into the fabric of his briefs at the hot junction between his thigh and groin. Remus takes a deep breath as Sirius does too. Sirius’s hands come up and stroke once down his sides, where his right hand runs over the mass of scar tissue on Remus’s left thigh. Remus freezes and Sirius leans back.

 

‘I’m very torn,’ he says quietly.

 

Remus’s heart stutters and his palms instantly break out into a sweat. ‘Why?’

 

‘I’m so, so into you,’ Sirius says, looking up at him, ‘but I feel like I would really be bang out of line if I didn’t have a conversation with you right now.’

 

‘A conversation?’ Remus asks, a little hysterically. Sirius is hovering about his cock, breathing, and it is not helping his mental state.

 

‘This is important,’ Sirius says fiercely. He pushes himself up off his knees and sits on the bed. Remus is incredibly aware that Sirius is fully clothed and he is wearing nothing but his briefs; Sirius is now surveying him the way he thought he would have at first, doubtless taking in every imperfection and mark on his body. He sees Sirius’s eyes land on the his original bite scar and he tries to steel himself for whatever Sirius will say.

 

Preemptively, he says, ‘People have been telling me that I’m a horrible monster my whole life, Sirius.’

 

‘I see you,’ is what Sirius says, which is not what he was expecting and doesn’t really seem to be a response to what he said. ‘I think you’re - really, Remus - I think you’re so, so gorgeous.’ He stands up and comes to him again, runs his hands over his body slowly, gently, seemingly wonderingly. ‘I’ve wanted to see you like this for a long time.’ He puts his hands into the waistband of Remus’s briefs and meets his eyes. ‘And you’re letting me. This is - this feels - so very important.’ He touches the bite scar again, gentle. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

 

Remus feels a strange kind of peace wash over him. ‘I’ve never told anyone the story before,’ he says quietly. ‘Well, my parents know some of it. But not all of it.’

 

‘I want you to tell me,’ Sirius says. ‘I want to know every single thing there is to know about you, Remus Lupin.’

 

Remus looks directly at him. ‘Right now?’

 

‘I’d like that.’

 

‘It’s not sexy.’

 

‘I wasn’t expecting it to be.’ Sirius frowns. ‘I can’t really describe it. It sounds weird. Maybe a bit, uhm, creepy. I just know that I want to, to know everything about you that I can.’ He runs his hand down Remus’s cheek. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

 

Remus finds that it is all right if he just keeps looking into Sirius’s pale eyes. ‘I wanted a pet dog,’ he says. Sirius blinks. Remus does not have to take a moment to put his thoughts in order because he has told himself this story many times; he knows how it goes. It is his creation myth. ‘We lived in a tiny flat at the time, and we couldn’t have one. I begged and begged, but we just couldn’t have one. One night, I was asleep, but I heard something outside my window. My parents didn’t know that I had watched them when they opened the window and I knew how to do it. I saw a - I thought it was a dog - out in the garden. It was huge. I wanted to meet it. I had a whole scheme in my head about what I’d tell them, how I’d found it and it needed a home. I opened the window and got outside. It wasn’t a dog, obviously. It grabbed me by the leg - it bit me there, it grabbed me with its teeth - and was shaking me and I guess I screamed, or there was noise, or something, because my father ran out and chased it off. It - no one ever caught it. I’m not sure if anyone even looked for it. But it was right at dawn and my body didn’t have time to transform that night, so I was able to heal a full month before I had to deal with that. That’s probably why I survived. In small children, it’s that first transformation combined with the bite that usually kills them.’ Remus shrugs at the horrified look on Sirius’s face. ‘Don’t be sad about it. It was a long time ago.’

 

‘Did it hurt?’

 

Remus thinks of Sirius saying that he wants to know everything about him. Once again, he chooses to trust him. ‘Yes. My parents think I passed out almost immediately from the pain but I didn’t. Don’t ever tell them that, by the way, please. I remember it quite clearly. But, honestly, it didn’t hurt as badly as a usual transformation does.’

 

Sirius reaches out and hugs him very tightly. They stand together just breathing for a long time. Sirius’s face against Remus’s is wet. Remus reaches up to stroke his hair. ‘I’ll be your pet dog,’ Sirius mumbles against his neck.

 

Remus wants to cry too. ‘I know,’ he says, trying to make a joke of it. After a minute, Sirius leans back to look at him, smiling faintly, and Remus asks, ‘Can I take your clothes off too?’

 

‘No,’ Sirius says. ‘Not yet. First I get to take these -’ he runs his finger around the inside of Remus’s briefs ‘off of you.’

 

Remus looks at him for a long moment. ‘Are you certain?’ he asks. ‘Really, really certain?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius breathes, and he slides them down. Remus shoves him lightly onto the bed - Sirius does not even pretend to resist - and, desperately trying not to be self conscious, climbs on top of him, kicking away his briefs as he goes. Pressed together, kissing frantically, he can feel Sirius’s cock through his trousers, shoving into his leg. It’s the sexiest thing he’s ever felt and he is suddenly so fucking hard. Sirius grabs him by the thighs and his hand goes right around his scar like it’s not even there. He drags him up his chest so that Remus is propped on his elbows and takes Remus’s cock in one hand and says, ‘Oh, Moony,’ before leaning forward to run his tongue over the head. Remus’s vision blurs for a second and he moves, with Sirius’s guidance, so that he can slide his cock into the hot, wet space of Sirius’s mouth. He can’t help but lean into him, into that burning heat and Sirius’s tongue, which is pushing hard into the underside of his cock, just below the head. Sirius takes it for a moment and then makes a muffled noise and pushes at his chest with his free hand. Remus pulls back, worried.

 

‘Too much?’ he asks, leaning on one arm and running his free hand down Sirius’s face.

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius says, wincing. ‘Sorry. I’ve never…’

 

‘Of course,’ Remus says, mortified. ‘No, no, don’t apologize, I got carried away, it just felt so good…’

 

‘Did it?’ Sirius mumbles and Remus says, ‘Yes,’ so fervently that they both laugh.

 

‘What if I was on top?’ Sirius suggests. ‘Then I could control…’

 

‘Yeah,’ Remus agrees. He doesn’t move; instead he starts unbuttoning Sirius’s shirt. Together, they get his clothes off, until they are naked, side by side, pressed into each other. Remus runs his fingers down Sirius’s body, from his collarbone to his thigh, and looks at them, intertwined on the white sheets. Sirius is perfect, of course, all lean muscle and unmarred skin, but there’s something about the contrast. It’s intoxicating to look at their bodies wrapped around each other. Sirius presses into him and moans.

 

‘This is what the Yule Ball must feel like for the girls,’ Remus murmurs, pressing back, and Sirius giggles and grinds into Remus’s hard on and says, ‘Fuck, I wish I was one of them then.’

 

‘I don’t wish you were,’ Remus says. He kisses his mouth - and thinks with a thrill that this is the mouth that recently was occupied with sucking him off - and says, ‘No, I very much prefer you like this.’

 

Sirius reaches down and grasps Remus’s cock; Remus rolls onto his back and Sirius slithers down his body, nipping and sucking at every available bit of skin. Remus tries to calm down, to stop rolling his hips upward, but it’s so hard, everything is so fucking hard…

 

‘Hey Remus?’

 

‘Mmhm?’

 

‘Can you maybe just, uhm, give me some advice? Or tell me how I’m doing?’

 

Remus can barely think. ‘You’re doing great?’

 

Sirius props himself on his elbows on either side of Remus’s legs. He looks exasperated. ‘I’m not doing anything.’

 

‘You’re torturing me,’ Remus suggests.

 

Sirius takes a deep breath and wraps one hand around Remus’s cock, which is so hard that even this light touch makes Remus whimper. Sirius leans forward and puts his lips around the head; slowly, agonisingly, he slides down, taking more and more of him into his mouth. Remus winds his fingers into Sirius’s hair and tries to ride it out rather than thrust, but god, he wants to thrust. He wants to yank Sirius’s hair until his mouth is bruised, he wants to come all over him and see and feel the marks he leaves on his body, and he doesn’t know where these thoughts are coming from because he has never even considered them and they’re fucked up and maybe he’s an awful person, but maybe Sirius would like it…

 

‘Remus,’ Sirius says, coming up for air - Remus whines in frustration as his cock is exposed to the cold - ‘tell me what to do. Guide me here.’

 

Remus winds his fingers into Sirius’s hair and moves him, not quite as gently as he knows he should, back down to his cock. Sirius makes an unreadable panting noise. ‘Am I hurting you?’

 

‘Fuck, Moony, keep doing what you’re doing,’ Sirius gasps. Remus takes the invitation and lightly pushes his head down.

 

‘Padfoot, I want…’

 

Sirius’s tongue and mouth and hand are there, and Remus thrusts, tries to stop himself - Sirius makes a startled yelp, but doesn’t stop - Remus tugs his hair and Sirius’s free hand clenches around his thigh in an iron grip and holds him down - Remus gasps, because he loves this, how strong Sirius is - ‘Fuck, Padfoot, fuck,’ is all he manages now, a steady stream of unwarranted profanities, and Sirius holds him down harder and sucks harder and faster and Remus starts getting dots in his vision and shuts his eyes and writhes around, grabbing at the edge of the bed with his free hand, bunching the sheets until he can’t take it anymore, and then he tries to warn him, he gasps in one long stream, ‘Sirius Padfoot Sirius I’m going to come I’m going to come so fucking hard I’m going to-’ he’s on the edge of it and then abruptly he is falling, his entire body pulsing.

 

He rides the orgasm for what feels like an impossibly long time and then flops backwards into the mattress. Sirius has his head buried in his groin and is breathing hard, each breath huffing across Remus’s stomach. Remus becomes slowly aware that they are both sweaty and sticky.

 

‘Padfoot,’ he mutters, trying to drag him up to his chest, and after a second’s hesitation, Sirius obeys. ‘I should,’ Remus tries for coherent thought, ‘you must be, well, I should-’

 

‘I came,’ Sirius mumbles. ‘When you… I was… I mean, I was rubbing against your leg and…’

 

Remus understands now why he feels so sticky. ‘Are you… was that…’

 

‘You made me come by watching you come,’ Sirius says, his voice oddly flat. Remus looks at him; his pupils are blown wide and he looks stunned. ‘I didn’t know it could be that good, Moony.’

 

‘Me either,’ Remus says, stunned himself at how good this feels. ‘Really. I can’t even describe…’

 

They lie there, touching everywhere they can, chests slowly returning to normal breathing levels. The light in the room is golden on their skin. Sirius strokes Remus’s side and kisses him slowly, sloppily.

 

Later, they will go down to Madam Puddifoots’ to meet the others and find out that James and Lily have - after a disastrous start with some scraps of parchment covered in Sirius’s handwriting - hit it off swimmingly whilst Peter and Emmy spy on them from behind a mound of tea cakes. They will hold hands under the table they share with Peter and Emmy and try their hardest not to just sit and gaze at each other and Sirius will buy him a gin and tonic with the poshest gin in the place and Remus will wonder if it is obvious to everyone that they are fucking, because he certainly feels like he is glowing.

 

Right now, though, Sirius leans into him, perfect and young and the sexiest thing Remus has ever seen. He brings his mouth to Remus’s ear, and his breath is hot and makes Remus stiffen again.

 

Sirius whispers for the first time, ‘Moony, I love you.’

 

***
But no matter how much Sirius loves him, there is no escaping that Remus is a werewolf.

 

There is the grinding and scraping for any money at all beyond his meagre student stipends and scholarships once he leaves school, all the doors closed in his face or contracts terminated after the first full moon.

 

There is the fellow student on his course at Oxford who tells everyone that he was admitted not for his NEWTs but because ‘they had to let someone like you on to a programme about Dark Creatures.’

 

There is the professor who congratulates him for an academic prize by saying, ‘Remarkable that you were able to keep up with the other students.’

 

There is an attractive young woman who is his student when he, as a doctoral candidate at UCL, is teaching a course about Dark Creatures, who approaches him in his office. He tells her that he is taken. She is shocked - ‘You found another werewolf?’

 

There is the time Remus is looking down at his feet in Diagon Alley, scuffed Doc Martens crunching through hard-packed snow turned to ice, trying not to fall as he navigates his way up the sidewalk, when a tall man shoves him, hard, into a shop window and says, ‘The Dark Lord doesn’t take kindly to Dark Creatures out in public.’

 

There is another professor, this one already doing him down for his shabby clothing and working class Welsh accent, who tells him that they shouldn’t have let ‘his kind’ into university, and that when the Dark Lord is in power, they won’t anymore.

 

There is the healer at St Mungo’s who refuses to even see him after he is injured by a Death Eater because he, ‘Doesn’t know a thing about how a werewolf might respond to treatment.’

 

There is the aunt at his father’s funeral who tells him that this is his fault, that he brought ruin upon his father’s life.

 

After Sirius is in Azkaban, it is somehow both worse and better - worse because without Sirius, everything is worse, but better, because he doesn’t have to play it down to temper Sirius’s furious response.

 

By the time Sirius is back, though, Remus has been worn down by anti-werewolf sentiment, and Sirius’s righteous fury feels good. When he writes to Sirius - currently hiding in the tropics - to tell him about Dolores Umbridge and her new law that makes it much more difficult for him to get a job, the blast of Sirius’s anger coming off the pages of his reply thaws out a place in Remus that he had forgotten he has. He remembers how idealistic he was, starting out at Oxford just months after leaving Hogwarts, on a scholarship, doing research on Dark Creatures and convinced that he would change the world. He’s not sure if he’s bitter about how things have turned out or not. He’s going to wait and see.

Chapter 19: The Creation of Remus Lupin, Werewolf, Part 2

Notes:

This is really Part 2 of the previous chapter, just added as a separate chapter due to length. Hence the rather abrupt transition to start it.

Remus knows Sirius. He knows how much he loathes authority, and how much he likes to have a little rebellion, and he sees how it is killing him to be inside this house, and he also understands that Mundungus is useful to the Order.

 

But right now, Remus is furious.

 

‘He left watching Harry to engage in some illegal activities?’ he snaps. ‘And you’re going to forgive him?’

 

‘What can you expect from him?’ Sirius snaps back. ‘We know what kind of a man he is. Frankly, this is on Dumbledore for assigning him that job.’

 

There’s the root of it: Dumbledore. Sirius has two kinds of anger, one a fast flare that burns bright but quick. Remus knows how to manage that, as he has often been on the receiving end of it. The second kind is much worse: a kind of cold, haughty loathing that never fails to remind Remus that Sirius is an aristocrat, raised with every privilege, and the entitlement to an absolute opinion of others that it entails. Dumbledore has confined him to this house, and he seems intent upon truly hating him for it.

 

It’s a tricky situation for Remus. He doesn’t exactly agree with Albus, but it is clear to him that Sirius is a liability right now. Remus loves Sirius more than he would have ever guessed it was possible to love anyone, loves him to the point of it being painful, to the point of waking up in the middle of the night at least once a week and involuntarily reaching for him, terrified that he will be gone again, but he is also a clear-eyed pragmatist. Sirius was always reckless. Azkaban stripped away any caution he’d ever had and made him even more of a live wire.

 

‘Albus assigned him the job because there’s not that many of us in the Order,’ Remus says now. ‘But I don’t want to be fighting alongside someone so unreliable.’

 

Sirius rolls his eyes like a petulant child. Remus considers slapping him. When they had been boys, long before either had considered a different kind of relationship, they had, roughly every six months, gotten into a massive fight. They’d fought with each other and with James and Peter, and especially when they were very young, those fights had sometimes turned physical, either with hexes or with fists. As they grew up, their fights had changed; between the two of them, they’d developed a particular frisson. Remus used to love fighting with Sirius just to break through his cool facade, because he knew that Sirius would always apologize first. Later, he realised just how emotionally manipulative that was, and nowadays does - almost always - stop himself before it gets too divisive. Now, though…

 

‘Sirius, either talk to him about the illegal activities or I will go to Albus,’ he says. He stands up and sees the flicker of concern on Sirius’s face. Good.

 

‘Where are you off to?’

 

Remus considers saying, ‘Out of this house,’ which is where he would like to go right now but which would be too cruel. ‘Upstairs,’ he says, instead, and leaves the room. Sirius follows him a moment later, just as he knew he would, and he hates himself for feeling triumphant.

 

‘Sorry, Moony,’ Sirius says gruffly. ‘I know - believe me, I really do know - how difficult I am.’ The look on Remus’s face must betray what a spectacular understatement this is, because Sirius hesitates, and then says, ‘Anyway, you wanted to be alone, so I’ll leave you to it.’ He turns around sharply and departs back down the stairs to the kitchen.

 

Remus is left in the hallway staring at the dark space he disappeared down, utterly shocked. Sirius has never once walked away from a fight between them. He remembers desperately trying to just have a moment of peace during a serious row in their old flat in London and Sirius following him, seemingly unable to stop himself, until Remus had yelled, ‘I’m trying to walk away from this argument, not change its venue to another room!’ He doesn’t remember Sirius’s response but he can guarantee it wasn’t de-escalation.

 

Cautiously, Remus follows him and finds Sirius standing in front of the fire, hands clenched into fists at his sides, staring into the flames so intently that he doesn’t notice Remus until he says, ‘Padfoot.’

 

Sirius turns away from the fire; his eyes are dark. ‘Moony,’ he says calmly, ‘it’s perfectly reasonable to not want to be trapped in here with me. Why don’t you go for a walk in the park or something?’

 

Remus thinks it isn’t fair that he’s just realised how much it would break his heart for Sirius to give up like this. He shakes his head. ‘There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with you,’ he says, and as sentimental as it sounds, it’s true. ‘Even if it means I’m in here.’ Sirius looks at him, screwing up his mouth in a way Remus knows means he’s trying not to cry. ‘Listen,’ Remus says, suddenly feeling reckless. ‘Let’s both go for a walk in the park.’

 

Sirius blinks at him. ‘Remus -’

 

‘You as a dog,’ Remus says. ‘I’ll even go buy a leash if we need to,’ he adds, and raises his eyebrow in what he hopes is comic lasciviousness.

 

Sirius swallows. ‘Really?’

 

‘Really.’

 

They get up the stairs and are in the foyer before Remus notices how reluctant Sirius is. ‘We’re supposed to be the contact point for the Order,’ he says. ‘I am.’ He stops walking and says helplessly, ‘Moony.’

 

Remus reaches for his hands. ‘Padfoot, please,’ he says, not giving a fuck about the Order in that moment, just wanting to do anything to make Sirius happy.

 

To avoid using too much magic, they take the tube - Remus and his big black dog, who makes an entire car laugh at his antics of trying to be a lapdog despite being enormous, while Remus grins and wraps his arms around him and buries his face in the soft fur behind his ears to inhale his doggy smell. They get out on Primrose Hill and Sirius runs and runs while Remus sits on a park bench, watching him, quietly content. When they get back to the house, Sirius transforms and presses Remus up against the door, kissing him passionately. Remus forgets that this is the Order headquarters and is halfway to shoving his hands down the back of Sirius’s trousers when they hear a noise in the kitchen. They break apart and Remus can see the horror on his face reflected back in Sirius’s. Putting a finger to his lips, Remus shoves Sirius towards the upstairs - of course he must have not heard anyone come in, that’s a plausible story, sort of - and heads down to the kitchen, cheeks flushed, knowing he still smells of the autumn air.

 

Severus is bent over the kitchen table. Of course it’s fucking Severus. He is writing a note. Remus says, ‘Evening,’ as pleasantly as he can.

 

‘Where is Black?’ Severus asks without looking up, but shifting the note slightly so it is impossible for Remus to read.

 

‘I’m not sure,’ Remus says. ‘I’ll go check upstairs, shall I?’

 

Severus meets Remus’s eyes and rolls his own. ‘I’m not an idiot, Lupin. Wherever you are, he’s keeping a close eye on you. Have you been out walking your pet dog? You must know that the Death Eaters know that he is an Animagus.’

 

‘Why would they know?’ Remus asks pleasantly. ‘Did you tell them?’

 

Severus snorts. ‘Have you forgotten your friend Peter Pettigrew? He’s not very good with secrets.’

 

Remus has never once forgotten Peter, and never will, but he’s shocked at the realisation that Severus is almost certainly correct. This feels like such an intimate betrayal. He realises a second too late that Severus is watching him, and knows exactly what he is thinking. Severus snorts. ‘You and Sirius and James, so trusting of him.’

 

‘He was our friend,’ Remus says. He does not want to be drawn into this conversation.

 

Severus smirks. ‘Unsurprising really that you all turned out the way you did.’

 

‘Severus…’

 

Remus pauses as he hears footsteps above them, coming towards the stairs down to the kitchen. He knows from their cadence that they are Sirius’s. Severus throws a contemptuous look at the ceiling and asks, ‘And how is being shut up with the mental patient?’

 

‘Severus, do you really have nothing more productive to do with your time than taunt me?’

 

‘I’m waiting for Albus,’ Severus says with a little shrug. ‘And it is so much fun to taunt the utter disaster that is the fate of you four. Tell me, Remus, is it really working for you, being with someone so… damaged? I know you think he’s the only one crazy enough to be with a werewolf, but Nymphadora has certainly been keeping a close eye on you.’

 

Sirius opens the door as Remus, now truly angry, says, ‘I have never given you permission to discuss my private life, Severus.’ In his peripheral vision, he sees Sirius freeze in the doorway. ‘I do not want to have a row.’

 

‘Just making conversation,’ Severus says, infuriatingly calm. Remus knows that Severus has won, and knows that Severus knows it. Severus looks in Sirius’s direction. ‘I suppose I could go out and return in a bit when Albus is nearer.’

 

‘Please do,’ Remus says, and turns to the doorway - ‘Sirius, excuse me,’ he says, not caring about if he needs to stop a fight between those two or not. Sirius steps sideways, giving him a frown of concern, and Remus exits up the stairs in a way he hopes looks more like a sweep than a flounce. He comes into the hallway and doesn’t break stride as he turns to the stairs to the first floor, where they have made a sitting room that is not too awful. Sirius catches up to him as he is wrenching open its door.

 

‘Moony?’

 

‘Severus is a git,’ Remus snaps. ‘It’s not important.’

 

He leads them into the sitting room, collects the pile of Order correspondence that needs reading from a low table by the door, and throws himself onto the leather sofa, opening a letter and staring blankly at it. Sirius sits on the floor beside his leg and lays his head on his knee, one hand wrapped around his calf and holding tightly. Remus takes several deep breaths and then puts his hand on Sirius’s head. He strokes the soft hair that falls behind Sirius’s ears until he calms down enough to work. Then Sirius joins him on the sofa and they resume the task.

 

***

One time Tonks had asked him, ‘What do you want to do when the war is over?’ and he had lamely told her, ‘Return to teaching.’ She had accepted the answer, but he had not, and has been mulling over it for months. There are so many things he wants to do.

 

He wants to return to UCL and finish his PhD thesis, now fifteen years dormant. He wants to create a group for Dark Creature advocacy and raise money to help Dark Creatures - so many of them become runaways as teenagers, or fall into dire financial straits. He used to wonder if it was selfish to be so interested in advancing his own rights, but an older werewolf whom he met during his studies named Lila told him that he had to fight for his own rights because no one else would. He’s held those words in his heart for years.

 

He wants to work on prison reform, too.

 

He wants to make the world a better place, not just return it to the baseline of discrimination that allowed Voldemort to rise.

 

He wants them to always have a home that Harry can return to (if he wants).

 

He wants to marry Sirius, now that that’s legal.

 

First, though, he has to do this: the war.

 

Albus writes to him and asks him to go to London and see what is happening in the werewolf community there. Remus had checked on them a little over a year ago - during the summer before Harry’s fifth year - and all had seemed as well as it usually did, although Lila, their leader, was getting very old and it was clear that many more rough transformations would kill her. He had first become aware of the den while he was doing his PhD research, and had met her then, when she had been strong and vibrant. The rapidity with which she has aged makes him sad.

 

Once in London, he knows that it is best to approach the den using werewolf magic rather than wizarding magic. Most of the werewolves are not wizards - they were Muggles, once. There are a few who were adult wizards when bitten. Remus remains, as far as he knows, the only werewolf to have survived childhood and gone on to attend Hogwarts and become a proper wizard.

 

He rides the tube late at night to an underused stop and hops down onto the tracks. He knows that preventing the CCTV from picking up on the use of this entrance required quite a bit of effort, but he is grateful for it - the other way in requires use of the sewers via a seemingly-abandoned Anderson shelter and it is truly unpleasant. Twenty feet along on the tracks is a service door; he knows the code and steps through the doorway. After that it is a brief walk to the abandoned station one down the line. The CCTV in here has been doctored as well, but he can’t help it - his eyes automatically look for the cameras. Remus has an idea to use CCTV within London to track the movement of the Death Eaters and has been trying to work out the logistics of it for some time; the most delightful part of the idea is that it would be using Muggle technology against those who disdain it.

 

As always, he can smell the den long before he can see any signs of it. It is located in some of the warren of tunnels behind the abandoned and shuttered tube station, which is one of the deep level ones. Because underground London is a honeycomb of tunnels, the movement of unseen trains nearby is a constant presence, and in the close atmosphere, Remus always has a period of uncomfortable claustrophobia that he can’t think about too much or he’ll risk a panic attack. He comes to the entrance to the den proper and presses a hand to the electronic pad that serves as a door knocker. There is a long wait. Then the door opens; it is a man Remus does not recognise.

 

‘I came to see Lila,’ he says quietly. The man regards him without a word, and then opens the door further and allows him to enter. He leads him down a corridor and then turns abruptly away from the main area to the medical area. Remus’s stomach dips in sudden anxiety. The man delivers him to someone else - this seems remarkably formal - and the someone else, an equally silent woman with a scar on her neck that looks like the werewolf tried to take her head off, leads him to an antechamber. She points towards the door without a word and watches him. Not seeing any other choice, he opens it and steps inside.

 

Lila is lying on a bed, covered in a grey blanket; at first, Remus thinks she is dead, but a second later, he sees the blanket move slightly. At her bedside is Tenebrae, her granddaughter, who turns to look at him. Ten does not have lycanthropy, but she has lived with the pack and served as a caretaker on full moon nights for as long as Remus has known them.

 

‘Remus,’ she says quietly, holding out her hand to him. He steps forward and takes it, squeezing tightly.

 

‘How is she?’ he asks, but it is five days after the full moon and she does not look well.

 

Ten looks back, her hair swinging in front of her face. ‘She won’t survive the next transformation,’ she says quietly, ‘at least, I hope not. We thought she wouldn’t survive this one. She hasn’t awoken or said anything since.’

 

Remus sinks into a chair beside Ten. The feeling of grief that threatens to overwhelm him is surprising in its vastness; he hadn’t known how much she meant to him. She had been leading London’s werewolves - the largest society of werewolves, and their occasional human companions - for decades, through poverty and deprivation and outside threats, and all that she has now is a thin blanket and a small private place in a hospital that had been her idea.

 

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says to Ten.

 

‘I’m sorry too,’ Ten says. She raises an eyebrow. ‘I’m going to be moving on, after. I don’t like what’s happening here.’

 

Remus frowns. ‘What do you mean?’

 

‘Have you met Dear Leader?’ she asks.

 

He shakes his head. ‘I just arrived. I thought Lila was still…’

 

‘No,’ she says. ‘Someone called Fenrir Greyback. He’s knows a lot about wizards, by the way.’

 

For a moment, Remus isn’t sure how to respond. This is stunningly terrible news. ‘He’s one of Voldemort’s,’ he says, very quietly.

 

Ten is watching him. He can tell she doesn’t know what that means. ‘He’s made a lot of promises to them,’ she says. ‘A lot of them think he has the right idea.’

 

‘What do you think?’

 

She hesitates. ‘I think… I think he’s lying. I think he can’t deliver on what he’s promising.’

 

‘Which is what?’

 

‘Equal treatment. Money. For some, revenge on the humans who shunned them.’

 

***

 

One of the den’s healers - a man named Joseph, a wizard who was bitten shortly after he left Hogwarts - slips Remus a note as he is leaving Lila’s room. Remus leaves the den without going further into it; he is not sure if Greyback will recognise him as a member of the Order but he doesn’t feel like taking the chance just now. He has an idea to disguise himself but he’ll need time to prepare. On the tube, he opens the note from Joseph; it is a request to meet at a nearby Costa.

 

Inside the Costa, Remus pays for two teas with the Muggle credit card he and Sirius set up together - a way to escape into the Muggle world if need be - and feels infinitely grateful to be able to buy two teas and not worry about the cost of it. He sits at a back table and takes a book out of his coat pocket. He stares at the pages, thinking about Lila, and Fenrir’s presence. Out of habit, he keeps an eye on the door, and Joseph enters not too long after him.

 

Joseph pulls out the chair opposite and asks, ‘Is that for me?’

 

Remus smiles. ‘Of course.’ He slides it towards the older man and leans forward. ‘How have you been, Joseph?’

 

‘Not well,’ Joseph says, sipping thirstily at the tea and wincing. ‘Hot.’

 

‘I haven’t been here long.’ Remus smoothes his hands across the cover of his book. ‘I’m sorry to hear you’re not well,’ he prompts.

 

Joseph sighs and rubs a hand across his face. ‘Things are different now, Remus.’

 

‘With Lila ill?’

 

‘Lila is going to die soon,’ Joseph says bluntly. ‘Frankly, it would be better for Ten if she did. It’s becoming very unsafe for any humans to be in the den.’

 

‘Because of Greyback?’

 

Joseph meets his eyes and nods. ‘You know who he is?’

 

‘He was a Death Eater in the last war,’ Remus says. ‘Joined up late. I never encountered him, but I knew him by reputation.’ His reputation had made some of the people in the Order suspicious of Remus: a werewolf who bit even when it wasn’t the full moon.

 

Joseph takes another sip of tea. Remus has the impression that he doesn’t want to share bad news. Finally, he says, ‘You know that in the last war, we stayed out of it, for the most part. Lila kept the den neutral. You were the only person actively fighting for either side-’ Remus opens his mouth to speak and he holds up a hand - ‘and I know you didn’t ever really consider yourself one of us.’

 

‘That’s not-’

 

‘It’s all right,’ Joseph says. ‘You have humans who love you. You weren’t raised with the den and you didn’t have to run to it for protection. It’s completely understandable.’

 

When he was in the early stages of his PhD research, Remus had first met and interviewed Joseph. His story had felt like a funhouse mirror image of Remus’s. Joseph had come recently to the den at that time. He had been a promising young wizard, but his marriage had dissolved after he was bitten and then he had lost his job at the Ministry. He had been on the verge of taking his own life when he had gone to meet Lila as a last resort. Remus had met him only a few months later. Joseph knows that Remus has - or at least back then had - a partner and that he was raised amongst wizards despite his lycanthropy.

 

‘How are you, by the way?’ Joseph asks quietly.

 

‘I’m worried,’ Remus says. ‘For myself and my -’ he thinks of Sirius and Harry, ‘and for my family.’

 

‘The Dark Lord?’

 

‘Is that what he’s being called these days?’

 

Joseph shrugs. ‘I don’t want any part of this fight, Remus. Not on either side. But I’m being forced into it.’

 

‘How so?’

 

‘Greyback is lying,’ Joseph says flatly. ‘At least, I feel quite certain he is.’

 

‘About what?’

 

‘He says that when the Dark Lord is in power, werewolves - those who were loyal - will have high status. At least be on the same level as wizards. No more discriminatory laws. The right to work…’

 

Remus sighs. ‘Of course he’s lying.’

 

‘But people in the den are desperate. That law that was written by Fudge’s undersecretary -’

 

‘Umbridge.’

 

‘Yes, her, that law has really put us all into a difficult situation.’

 

‘They’re being fools,’ Remus says, more forcefully than he means to.

 

‘Very few of us have the resources you do,’ Joseph says, and Remus hears a warning tone in his voice. ‘In fact, not a one of us can run off to our wealthy partner…’

 

‘I got lucky,’ Remus says sharply. ‘But there’s another side to this.’

 

‘What’s that?’

 

‘If - when - Voldemort’s side loses, the Ministry will still be in power. And if they can point to us - to any werewolves - who fought on his side - that will negate everything. We’ll be declared dangerous enemies of the wizarding world, we’ll be feared and reviled more than we are now.’ He leans forward. ‘We cannot be on the wrong side of this fight.’

 

Joseph stares down at his tea. ‘Seems like a lose-lose, then. Greyback won’t be swayed, and he’s already recruited a lot of people.’

 

‘Then I’ll have to recruit more,’ Remus says, grim. He doesn’t feel a tremendous amount of optimism. ‘Joseph-’

 

‘Yes, yes.’ the other man says, sounding exasperated. ‘Of course I’m with you. You knew that from the start. What’s your plan?’

 

***

That night, Remus walks the length of the central part of the city, all the way down to the river across from Westminster, and finds a soggy tourist display of postcards. He needs a specific one - the Tower of London - but it’s easy to find. Sirius will know that he means the Tower from tarot. This tarot analogy postcard is a callback to the first war, when they had every card in the tarot assigned to a London landmark in order to communicate easily and in a roughly encrypted manner via Muggle post. The Tower portends sudden, potentially violent change; Remus’s mission here is different than they had thought it was.

 

Stepping into a tunnel along the river, he bends over the postcard and writes, in his careful, blackboard-ready script, ‘I miss you and I love you. Xx -M’ He longs to write more - to Apparate home and talk to Sirius - but he knows communications could be monitored and that travel is dangerous. He also knows that if he goes home it will be very difficult for him to leave again. He affixes a stamp and drops the postcard into a postbox by the Tate Modern. Then he crosses the river and, casting a final look up at the leaden, dripping sky, heads underground.

 

In the abandoned station, he casts a glamour. He wants to look different, but Polyjuice is too complex - taking a potion every hour would be impossible - and he doesn’t want to look like someone else anyway. His story is that he has been abroad for many years, returned to the UK, and found it impossible to secure a job. He has old memories of the den from years ago and thought it would be a welcoming place. His bite scar is too old to pass himself off as a recent werewolf and he wants the ability to reference the distant past of the den anyway. Only Joseph and Ten will know.

 

Immediately, it is clear how different things are. When he enters, people are suspicious of him. His story is questioned rigorously and he’s glad he has the details to draw on from his own past because he is brought before Greyback almost immediately. He has never met him before, but loathes his brutal reputation. He tries to keep an open mind, but it is difficult. In person, his appearance is strange - almost as if he is emphasizing his wolf-like qualities so much that they are distorting his human ones - but Remus is well-practised at hiding his true feelings.

 

Somehow, he passes the first tests. He can tell they are suspicious of him; it is clear that he has lived among wizards, a benefit few of them were ever given, and many of them resent him for it. They always did before, too, but not quite like this. Living in the poor and sometimes downright squalid conditions of the den, he longs for what it was like when Lila was in charge. It had been poor then too - but there had been a sense of purpose, and of hope.

 

He also is desperately aware that he does not have to be here. Yes, Albus asked him, and yes, he is going to do it, but he could walk out of the den at any time and go home and afford to eat whatever he likes and sleep in a warm bed beside the man he loves. He has so many things, compared to the people here, that he feels at times like he is playing a game, while for them it is life and death.

 

At other times he thinks that it is in the other world that he is playing: playing at being a wizard, a human. Here he doesn’t deny who - what - he is: a werewolf.

 

His mission moves forward with slow progress. He convinces some members of the den to remain neutral, and he knows that Joseph does as well. They survive a full moon together. Greyback brings some Wolfsbane Potion and rations it to his favourites; he claims he has randomly chosen who will receive it but it is very clear that this is a power play. Grimly, the next morning, wrapping his wounds - for Remus has certainly not been one of the lucky ones - he reminds himself to add access to preventative healing to his list of issues necessary to werewolves. It has been a long time since he has been without either Wolfsbane or Padfoot, and it reminds him sharply of the bad old years without Sirius. It reminds him of how fragile his personal peace is, and what a shaky house of cards he has built it upon.

 

Greyback is recruiting for people to accompany him on the next full moon. Remus declines, and does his best to make a case for why others should not go. He knows he is causing some defections and also knows that Greyback will soon take notice. He’s not sure of when the best time to disappear from the den will be. He becomes increasingly anxious, and thinks of one of his favourite Pynchon quotes: ‘Paranoids are not paranoid because they’re paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.’ The morning after the next full moon proves him right.

 

He falls asleep immediately after the transformation back to human, as he always does. He is exhausted in body and mind, having spent the night tearing at himself, in one of the many tiny kennels in the depths of the den. Unchecked, he would sleep for hours, while his body heals itself. Instead, he is awoken by someone opening the door to his kennel.

 

It is Ash, one of Greyback’s favorites. He looks exhausted but triumphant. Remus’s stomach clenches in fear; what have they done in the night?

 

‘Get up,’ Ash says. He takes Remus’s clothes from their hook and throws them at him. ‘Greyback wants to speak to you.’

 

Remus dresses himself slowly, aching in every part of his body. Ash watches him with a leering expression.

 

‘You’re getting old,’ he says as Remus fumbles with the buttons of his trousers.

 

‘We all are,’ Remus says, trying to sound cheerful.

 

Ash ignores him and takes him up to the meeting room. Greyback is seated on a chair that he clearly intends to have look like a throne. Remus fights the familiar feeling of loathing as he enters the large, low-ceilinged room. There are many people around, all recovering from the night before, but most of them had Wolfsbane and are in better shape than he is. It smells like stale blood, with an undercurrent of something else unpleasant.

 

‘Your name is Remus Lupin, isn’t it?’ Greyback says without preamble. ‘Don’t lie, now. I know you’re telling everyone it’s something else but…’

 

Remus decides to go with radical truth telling and see if he can throw Greyback off. He is nauseous with sudden terror and lingering pain. ‘Yes, it is.’  

 

‘You are with the Order?’ Greyback asks.

 

‘Yes.’

 

Greyback snorts. ‘Their puppet.’

 

In his pocket, Remus grips his wand. ‘How is that?’ he asks politely.

 

‘They’re using you to get to us,’ Greyback snarls. ‘You think they value you?’

 

Remus thinks of his shocking election to be Albus’s successor and is surprised to find that he thinks they do. It lights a small, warm fire in his belly. ‘Do you think Voldemort values you?’

 

There is a sharp intake of breath around the room. Even Greyback looks horrified, though he recovers quickly. ‘Do not say the Dark Lord’s name.’

 

‘I’m not afraid to say Voldemort,’ Remus says quietly, ‘because he holds no power over me.’

 

‘Remus Lupin,’ Greyback says, and his voice is chillingly cold, ‘I know you.’ He stands and Remus clenches his wand tighter and refuses to step back. Greyback comes right up to him - he is an enormous man, taller than Remus, and with a great deal of muscular bulk. He seems to sniff at Remus for a long moment, moving around him, while Remus wills himself to stand in place. Then Greyback says, ‘Let me see your scar.’

 

‘It’s covered,’ Remus says, not sure where this is going but knowing it’s not anywhere good.

 

‘Upper thigh?’ Greyback asks, leaning close enough that Remus can smell his breath, which is appalling. ‘You were a small child?’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says.

 

‘I remember you,’ Greyback says. He leans back and grins; his teeth are a horror. ‘You were tiny.’

 

‘Three years old,’ Remus says, automatically, his brain struggling to process what Greyback is saying. How can he know how does he know why would he know?

 

‘Your father,’ Greyback says. ‘He deserved it.’

 

Remus blinks. ‘My father?’

 

‘He told the Ministry about me,’ Greyback says. ‘I escaped and I bit you to teach him a lesson.’ He steps forward again and puts his hand on Remus’s leg; Remus shudders and tries to pull away but Greyback uses his other hand to grip his shoulder. He feels immensely strong. ‘You’re one of mine. You belong to me.’

 

Remus hexes him. Greyback jerks backward and Remus spins, wand out, threatening the others about coming near him. Most will not have learned to use a wand and are terrified of magic. He knows this is disastrous - they will not trust a wizard - but he has to leave. Greyback has no wand and Remus knows it. He hexes him again, for good measure, and says, in as strong a voice as he can manage, ‘If any of you - any one of you, no matter what you have done in the past - wants to join me, send me a letter. I will protect you.’ Greyback is lurching to his feet, enraged, and Remus knows that his magic will be less effective against him because of his werewolf magic. He hexes him a final time, sweeps his wand in a circle in front of himself to create a Shield Charm, and runs for it.

 

He does not stop running until he emerges into the tunnel that leads to the Underground station. He crawls up onto the platform and doubles over, gasping, pain wracking his body - he vomits over the side onto the tracks - someone grabs his arm and he spins, ready to attack, realises it is a Muggle who is trying to stop him from falling in front of the train - and pelts past them and into the broad hallway of the station. He steps onto the escalator up and bends over, hands on his knees, trying to breathe. His adrenaline is expiring, fast. He has a suspicion that Greyback will be waiting for him upstairs, so he slips into a service corridor. His glamour is still present, still making his appearance forgettable, even more so for Muggles. He picks a lock with a whispered Alohomora and collapses into a broom cupboard. Reaching up, he pulls the door shut behind him and curls his arms around his knees. He is startled to find that he is sobbing. His body, where Greyback touched him, feels filthy. He wants to scrub off the skin.

 

You’re one of mine. You belong to me.

 

He hadn’t known. All his life, he’d believed that the werewolf who had bitten him was innocent, in thrall to the disease. He’d never blamed him.

 

My father…

 

He doesn’t know how his father might have exposed Greyback but this explains so much: the move to the country, his parents changing their careers, the obvious guilt they felt for his condition… His entire childhood, his relationship with his parents, which had always been an honest one, feels like it is a sand castle crumbling slowly but inexorably with the creep of the tide.

 

Eventually, he leaves the station. Greyback is not there. He is too weak to Apparate well, so he buys a train ticket and rides, sleeping fitfully and waking frequently from instantly forgettable nightmares, to Cardiff. From there he is able to Apparate in short hops to a safe place near to home. It is raining, a slow, undramatic drizzle. He walks the rest of the way, freezing, letting the rain trickle into his clothes and cleanse him.

 

With every step, he dreads seeing Sirius. Interacting with humans on the train after the darkness of the den is hard enough. He feels inhuman and wrong. Sirius will be a bright spark reminding him of the world he pretends to be a part of. He holds his wand tightly. It his tether to the world of wizards. He remembers, suddenly and vividly, James, in their fifth year:

 

‘Wait, how will we hold our wands?’ he’d asked, looking around the room at his fellow soon-to-be Animagi. ‘Do we fashion some way to carry it or…?’

 

‘I think we have to go without,’ Sirius had said, always ready for a flash of the wild. But James and Peter had been shockingly reluctant to the point of almost not wanting to transfigure fully and it had startled Remus. He had never once considered what it meant to be without his wand during the transformation. Was this another way that he was wrong?

 

When he opens the door, Sirius is there, on his feet in a second and reaching out to catch him. Exhausted, Remus sags against him without meaning to; Sirius’s arms are warm and strong and his breath is warm in Remus’s ear. Remus lets him go, gently. Sirius, always empathetic when it comes to Remus, is instantly alarmed, Remus can tell, but he doesn’t have the emotional - or physical - strength to worry about that right now.

 

‘I have to sleep,’ he says, his own voice sounding like it is coming from very far underwater. He is suddenly afraid he’ll collapse right there. He walks away, every step deliberate.

 

Sirius follows him to the bedroom. ‘What happened?’ Concern is making his voice jump.

 

‘I’ll tell you soon,’ Remus says. He steps into the bathroom and looks at the bath - he’ll fall asleep and drown if he gets in there - so he settles for stripping off all of his clothes and kicking them underneath it. There are pyjamas on the door, either his or Sirius’s, he’s not sure, but he pulls them on, scrubs his face clean in the basin, and leaves, walking into the bedroom.

 

Sirius freezes in mid-pace. ‘Moony…’

 

Remus crawls into the bed and mumbles something appeasing; then he pulls the duvet over his head and falls into a black and mercifully dreamless sleep.

 

***

He thinks he could have slept for days, but a letter from Harry forces his brain to lurch back into gear. Sirius wakes him to show him it and after a few moments of reading it dumbly, its meaning penetrates through the fog in his brain.

 

‘Do you remember a necklace like that?’ he asks Sirius, struggling to do so himself..

 

Sirius shakes his head, making a face. ‘There were so many things in that house…’

 

Remus finds it tough to care, even though he knows he should. ‘Another mystery,’ he says wearily, reaching for the duvet, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and not have to think about any of it.

 

‘What is wrong?’ Sirius grabs for the duvet. ‘Remus, please. Tell me what happened.’ The fear in his voice finally breaks through to somewhere inside of Remus. ‘You’re really scaring me,’ he adds.

 

Remus pushes the duvet back and winces. He remembers Ash: ‘You’re getting old,’ and thinks he used to heal faster. ‘It’s an impossible mission convincing people that they should trust the Order when there’s the history of what has been done by witches and wizards of supposed good conscience.’ He finally looks at Sirius, fully: this imperfect perfect man. ‘So that’s, well, it’s hard. Their lives are very hard, without access to proper healthcare or education or… There but for the grace of Albus go I.’ He does not need to add, there but for the grace of you, because Sirius is already reaching for him. He doesn’t want to be touched yet. That violated, ugly feeling is back. He holds up his hand and can see Sirius struggle to stop himself. ‘There’s another thing.’

 

Sirius puts his hands in his lap and fidgets with them. ‘What?’

 

‘Do you remember,’ Remus swallows, ‘Fenrir Greyback?’

 

Sirius purses his lips, thinking. ‘Death Eater… I can’t remember… did he die? Or go to Azkaban?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘Neither,’ and he knows he has to rush through this, his throat is already aching, his eyes prickling. ‘He went into hiding. He’s a werewolf, you know.’

 

‘The one who was biting people even when he was in human form,’ Sirius says. All Remus can do is nod. ‘What about him?’ Sirius asks. ‘Is he back?’ Remus nods again. ‘Did you see him?’

 

Remus takes a deep breath and tries to steady his voice. ‘He’s running the show in London.’ He swallows hard again. ‘The entire werewolf community is in thrall to him. Apparently he’s made them a lot of promises if they’ll be loyal to Voldemort.

 

Sirius looks genuinely appalled. ‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Did you meet him?’

 

It’s like he’s been stabbed in the stomach. It takes him a moment to be able to say the next part. ‘Yes. And he, he, he remembered me. I didn’t remember him - didn’t know that I even should. But he remembered me.’

 

Sirius sounds confused. ‘From the Order?’

 

Remus manages to shake his head. ‘From when I was a child,’ he whispers. ‘From when he bit me.’

 

Sirius blinks once and stares. ‘I thought you didn’t know who…’

 

‘I didn’t,’ Remus says, and he starts to fall apart. ‘I didn’t.’

 

Remus winds up sobbing into Sirius’s lap while Sirius smoothes his hair and strokes his back. When Remus finally stops, and manages to push himself up, Sirius hands him a handkerchief. His face is set. ‘Did he do it on purpose?’ he asks.

 

‘He said he did,’ Remus says. ‘He said my father outed him as a werewolf to the Ministry so in retaliation he attacked me.’

 

‘I’ll kill him,’ Sirius says matter-of-factly.

 

Remus is startled. ‘Sirius.’

 

‘I mean it,’ Sirius says. ‘He did this to you. He did this to your family. He gave you this disease and he…’

 

‘He ruined my life?’ Remus asks softly.

 

Sirius hesitates. ‘Remus…’

 

Remus tries to articulate something he’s been thinking about in the gaps between sleeping the past two days. It’s not something he’s ever had to contemplate before, when he thought that his bite was accidental, when he’d believed there was no choice in it. ‘I wouldn’t be who I am without my lycanthropy.’

 

Sirius studies him. Remus can tell he wants to say the right thing. ‘But your life would be easier.’

 

‘You wouldn’t be an Animagus,’ Remus says. He takes Sirius’s hand from the bed and twists their fingers together. ‘You couldn’t have escaped.’

 

‘He hurt you,’ Sirius says, very firmly. ‘Whatever the consequences. And he’s hurt a lot of other people too.’

 

‘Remember what Harry said,’ Remus says quietly. ‘Don’t go killing anyone.’

 

Sirius squeezes Remus’s hand. They sit in silence for a few moments. Sirius picks up Harry’s letter from the bedside table and re-reads it. Remus remembers the weight of Fenrir’s hand on his shoulder and stands up.

 

‘I’m going to take a bath,’ he says.

 

‘Do you want me to make you food?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘Maybe just a cup of tea.’

 

He heats the water in the bath until it is almost too hot to touch and then lowers himself into it, sinking down as far as he can, feeling it tingle and burn. He sinks into the water and stares at the wall. The room is silent but for the drip of condensation from the tap into the bath; he can hear Sirius in the kitchen, puttering, clinking glasses as he washes dishes. How fragile this is…

 

Sirius knocks and enters. He sets two cups of tea down on the stool beside the bath and peels off his jumper.

 

‘Are you coming in?’ Remus asks, reaching for one of the cups.

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius says. He finishes undressing as Remus sips at his tea - just the perfect temperature, swirling creamy from the milk, the perfect taste. He scoots forward and Sirius climbs into the tub behind him. There’s a lot of sloshing and adjusting but eventually Remus is leaning back against him, Sirius’s arm wrapped around his chest, Remus holding his arm with one hand and his tea with the other.

 

‘Fuck, this is hot,’ Sirius says in his ear. Remus turns his head and presses it into Sirius’s collarbone. Sirius kisses his ear. ‘Are you all right, Moony?’

 

Remus thinks about it. ‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘It feels wrong to be here. Wrong in the sense that I have these nice things and they don’t have anything…’

 

Sirius hums acknowledgement against the side of his head. ‘You deserve nice things,’ he says after a minute.

 

‘Not more than anyone else.’

 

‘I think you do.’

 

Remus laughs softly. ‘I love you.’

 

‘I love you ,’ Sirius replies. He sucks Remus’s earlobe into his mouth and Remus squirms back against him. He feels how hard Sirius is against his back and aches with sudden want. Sirius sets his tea back on the stool and lets his hand roam down Remus’s chest to his inner thigh. Remus makes a little inadvertent moan. ‘I missed you, too,’ Sirius whispers, running a finger around the sensitive skin there. ‘Everything about you.’

 

Remus turns a little in the water and kisses Sirius deeply, longingly, trying to convey to him how much he needs him and needs this and how empty his life would be - how empty it was - without it. Sirius knows; Sirius has to know; and Remus pours himself into the kiss, managing to set his tea down without upending it and to press his hand to Sirius’s chest, just over his steady heartbeat, while Sirius’s hands pull him close and stroke him. Remus manages to straddle him despite the cramped space of the tub - if he didn’t know better, he’d swear Sirius is doing something magical to expand it - and they get a lot more water on the floor.

 

Afterwards, he leans against Sirius’s chest, feeling his breaths rise and fall, Sirius still inside of him, just. Sirius strokes his hair lazily.

 

‘Sirius?’

 

‘Mm?’

 

‘Do you think I look old?’

 

Sirius raises one eyebrow at him. ‘What?’

 

‘Someone said I did. In the den.’

 

Sirius snorts. ‘Fuck ‘em,’ he says. There’s a pause. Then: ‘Or, you know, don’t, fuck me instead -’

 

‘Again?’ Remus asks sweetly.

 

‘Later,’ Sirius grins. He runs his hand down Remus’s cheek and to his mouth, touches his lips and his teeth and his tongue. Remus kisses his fingertips. ‘Fuck ‘em,’ Sirius repeats. ‘You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.’

 

Remus takes Sirius’s hand and holds it tight. This body is his, and he can give it freely to the man he loves. Nothing can change that.

Chapter 20: Peter

Peter’s mum tells him he’s very brave as he’s about to board the train. His four younger sisters are all looking up at him with big eyes and his mother, wiping her tears with a polka-dotted handkerchief, hugs him tight enough that he sees stars. She says it over and over again, like she wants to bolster herself. Peter won’t be home to help in the shop anymore, and with his father gone nearly a year now, he knows it’s going to be hard for her.

 

‘I’ll be back at Christmas,’ he says, trying to separate himself from her, because people are staring.

 

At Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat settles onto his head and he’s thrust into velvety darkness. He hasn’t given this process a tremendous amount of thought; without malice, he’d concluded that he’s not from a nice enough family to be in Slytherin and he’s definitely not got the brains for Ravenclaw, so one of the other two…

 

‘You’re a difficult one, Peter Pettigrew,’ the hat says, and Peter is vaguely flattered that anyone, let alone an institution as venerable as the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, would find him a mystery.

 

‘Can I help?’ he asks politely.

 

The Hat ponders a moment more. ‘You could go either way,’ it announces. ‘I think I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Gryffindor!’

 

So: the Hat places him into the brave house. As Peter sits down at the table, surrounded by mostly larger students he doesn’t know, he doesn’t feel brave; but then the next boy, James Potter, gets sorted to the same house and comes to sit beside him.

 

‘I think we’re going to be best friends,’ James announces to Peter and the other two Gryffindor first year boys, a stricken-looking one who even eleven year old Peter can tell is handsome when he isn’t looking like he’s at a funeral, and a very pale and sickly-looking one who is watching the handsome one with concern. James does not seem to have picked up on any of the emotional cues on their faces, and ploughs onward. ‘We’re going to have so many adventures!’

 

It’s tough not to feel brave in the face of that kind of enthusiasm.

 

***

Two months into their first year, Peter, victim of too much juice with breakfast, nips into the loo on their way to lunch and emerges into a startling scene. A stunningly beautiful blond - girl is not the word, because she appears to be a fully grown adult, but Peter guesses she is actually a seventh year - so, er, woman, then - is standing in front of his friends in the hallway, a smirk on her face.

 

‘You’re such a disappointment,’ he hears her say as the door swings shut behind him. ‘Your mother -’

 

‘You don’t have to listen to her,’ Remus interrupts, and Peter is struck by how young his voice sounds.

 

‘What did you say?’ the woman demands.

 

‘I said,’ Remus stands up a little straighter, and Peter wants to sink back into the wall and disappear, ‘Sirius, you don’t have to listen to her.’

 

‘Nah, mate, you don’t,’ James says in a tone of forced insouciance. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

 

The woman puts out a hand to block him. ‘I’m having a private conversation with my cousin here -’

 

‘Doesn’t seem too private,’ James says.

 

‘You kind of interrupted us in the middle of the hallway,’ Remus says.

 

Sirius isn’t saying anything. Peter wants to know what his face looks like right now but can’t see it from back here.

 

The woman is angry now. ‘Sirius, if this is the kind of company you’re keeping-’

 

‘We’re precisely the kind of company he’s keeping,’ James says cheekily.

 

‘We’re his friends,’ Remus adds, and there’s nothing cheeky about it. Peter thinks he’s suddenly a bit scary, and files that away in his mind as very interesting. Nothing Remus has ever done before has suggested this side of him. That is in contrast to James, where everything Peter has ever observed him doing has suggested - no, shouted - that he is cheeky.

 

The woman now seems to be speaking to Sirius only, furious and bent towards him. ‘These three?’ she demands, and Peter realises that he must be obvious, and steps forward to join the other two. ‘Two blood traitors and, and,’ she looks at Remus, but the look is hard, as if she isn’t seeing another human being at all. Peter sees Remus see the look and sees Remus tense completely, like he’s expecting a physical blow. Strangely, what she says next makes him relax: ‘And this Halfblood? Really, Sirius, friends with a Halfblood?’

 

The next thing Peter knows, Sirius’s wand is out, and so are James’s and Remus’s, a half second later. The woman stares at them and asks incredulously, ‘You three are going to hex me?’ James glances back, sees Peter, and raises his eyebrows, like, where’s your wand, mate? Peter knows he has to; terrified, he fishes it out of his pocket and stands, ready. His heart is beating in a weird, shallow, thready way. He wonders if he needs a healer.

 

Then Professor McGonagall walks around the corner, sees them all, and shrieks.

 

The walk to Professor Dumbledore’s office is not the silent walk to the gallows that Peter would have expected; instead, James, who is apparently chatty when threatened, keeps up a running commentary of their story. Peter belatedly comes to understand that the woman is a fifth year - Sirius’s cousin, Narcissa.

 

In the Headmaster’s office, they sit on a hard wooden bench before his desk, one which seems designed specifically to be uncomfortable, so they all shift around – all except Remus, who is crouched more than sitting and seems to be extremely tense. Remus is the logical one among them and his body language concerns Peter deeply; if Remus is anxious, Peter is officially distraught.

 

Professor Dumbledore enters and says, without preamble, ‘Dueling with a fifth year, and a highly accomplished one at that?’

 

‘We didn’t actually cast any spells, sir,’ James ventures into the silence that follows.

 

‘But you were prepared to.’ It’s not a question.  

 

‘She was, uhm,’ James says, and trails off.

 

‘It won’t happen again,’ Remus says in a strange voice. ‘We promise.’

 

‘I highly doubt that,’ Dumbledore replies. There’s a long pause. Then he says, ‘Perhaps you boys are too new to the school to know that duelling is an expellable offence.’

 

Peter hears the ‘e’ word and like a newsreel in his head the footage starts up: him arriving back home, his mother’s disappointment, him working in the shop, never learning magic beyond tailoring and mending, growing old alongside his mother, while his sisters go on to fabulous careers in exotic locales like Manchester or Leeds or even London…

 

‘I think that you will learn that rule if you serve detention for the next three weeks,’ Dumbledore continues. ‘What do you think?’

 

‘Yes, Professor,’ James says instantly. Remus seems to breathe again. Sirius remains inscrutable; later, Peter will find out that he’d half wished for expulsion, because his parents are threatening to send him to Durmstrang, and that would at least kill the suspense. Now, Peter’s brain shuts down its parade of depressing images and he feels his legs wobble. He wonders if this is what bravery feels like.

 

***

 

‘Wait,’ Peter says, for what feels like the hundredth time. ‘Wait, wait, wait. Sirius. This is an insane idea.’ He knows by now that what he is saying is meaningless protest - the fervent light of the true believer has come up in James’s eyes - but he wants it registered nonetheless. ‘I mean, first of all, it’s illegal.’ Sirius rolls his eyes. ‘Second of all, it’s impossible.’

 

‘Not for everyone,’ Sirius says. ‘Lots of people do it.’

 

‘Lots of people?’ Peter repeats, aghast. ‘Have you seen the registry? There’s, what, three people this century? One of whom is Professor McGonagall?’

 

‘But the book even says that lots of people are rumored to have done it without registering,’ Sirius points out.

 

‘And we can register when we’re older,’ James suggests. ‘After the fact.’

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘What’s the point of registering?’

 

‘Because it’s very dangerous magic,’ Peter says. He turns around the book Sirius has shown him. ‘Look at what’s happened to most people who’ve tried it!’

 

‘I didn’t read that far,’ Sirius says fiercely as James says, ‘He didn’t read that far,’ with a dismissive wave of his hand.

 

‘Peter, this will help Remus.’ Sirius leans forward. ‘Are you in or out?’

 

Peter, quietly terrified but unwilling to admit it, licks his lips, which he finds are quite dry. ‘In.’

 

***

 

Sixth year, and romance is in the air. They’re in an abandoned classroom late after curfew, seated around an empty butterbeer bottle - one of many in the room - with a mixed group of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs spaced out girl-boy-girl-boy. Peter is a little bit drunk, but he’s not bad at holding his liquor. Definitely not as bad as Sirius, who gets outrageously, dramatically drunk and who is certain to end the night puking; and better, too, than James, who just gets hiccupy and giggly and will fall asleep early. Remus has some kind of werewolf metabolism or maybe just moderates himself well because he rarely ever seems to be drunk - though tonight, he’s a little bit louder than usual.

 

James leans forward and spins the bottle; a fierce battle of wands ensues as he tries to disguise his behind his back and spin it to Lily and she blatantly holds hers out in front of her lap and stops him. The bottle lands on someone else, they kiss, and that’s that - someone else’s turn.

 

Peter is enjoying watching the spectacle more than playing the game. He can’t imagine that any of the girls fancy him. Instead, he laughs (internally) at how stupid James acts around Lily, and is also just starting to notice how much Sirius watches Remus. He isn’t sure why that might be, but it’s an interesting thing to observe. Remus does not seem to return the attention. Peter wonders if Sirius is jealous of something.

 

After a few times round the circle, they change up the rules; now if the bottle wobbles the two parties involved get sent into a cupboard for an enforced three minutes of being alone in the dark, during which time the party can drink more. A very pretty, curvy blonde girl named Emmeline spins to Peter; the bottle wobbles as it stops and they are banished to the cupboard. It’s dark and Peter is suddenly very nervous; he can hear the others out there, talking, moving around, refilling drinks. He is very aware of the girl pressed up against him. As his eyes adjust, he sees that she is leaning towards him.

 

‘I like you, Peter Pettigrew,’ she says, and then she kisses him, not just the quick peck of spin the bottle, but a proper kiss. His first.

 

‘Do you?’ he whispers as she pulls back.

 

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You’re funny and you’re cute.’ She kisses him again. Time’s up; the cupboard doors open and they tumble out. Peter feels like he’s suddenly flying above it all; his senses feel sharper than normal, like he can see everything and control everything. He sees Sirius watching Remus again, and James watching Lily, and decides to just… see where this might go. When Remus spins, Peter, wand behind his back, makes the bottle stop on Lily.

 

There’s silence; everyone seems to be looking at James, except Sirius, who is looking at Remus like he wants to light him on fire with his eyes, and Lily, who is also looking at Remus, defiant, and who stands up and says, ‘Well if it had to be one of you…’

 

‘Not Sirius?’ Emmeline asks, and Peter grins, looking down at his feet. Sirius is, of course, the handsome one. But Emmeline said she likes Peter...

 

‘His blood’s too pure for me,’ Lily says, winking at him. Sirius barely acknowledges her, just a roll of his eyes.

 

‘Well,’ Remus says, standing too, ‘I always like to think of kissing as an audition.’ Peter bursts into startled laughter; Remus is definitely drunk. He and Lily go into the cupboard. Before the door is shut, James has poured shots, which he hands out to Sirius and then Peter, a fierce look on his face. Sirius throws his back in a fluid, continuous motion upon receiving it from James; Peter, not wanting to be sick, Vanishes his when they aren’t paying attention. When Remus and Lily emerge, flushed, hair mussed, clothing even a little bit in disarray, Peter gives up watching James, who looks sick, and watches Sirius instead, whose mouth is in a hard line and who is now sipping almost continuously from a Muggle bottle of vodka that someone has brought.

 

Later, in their bedroom, after he has practically carried Sirius up the stairs with some help from Peter, Remus says to James, ‘It was just a game.’

 

Classic Remus, Peter thinks. The appeaser. He wonders if Remus fancies Lily too. He’d never say, not with James, but he certainly hadn’t complained about going into that cupboard.

 

‘Yeah, well,’ James says - he is staggering around the room, accompanied by the sounds of Sirius worshipping at the porcelain god in the small toilet beyond - ‘she’d probably fancy you over me anyway.’

 

‘James,’ Remus says, warningly. Peter wants to tell him, James doesn’t know you’re warning him. He never knows.

 

‘Prefects and all,’ James continues, and then he trips over Peter’s stack of textbooks and falls hard on the stone floor. ‘Fuck.’

 

‘Have some water,’ Remus suggests, and he conjures a cup, but James is up on all fours and crawling in the direction of the toilet, suddenly intent upon joining Sirius. Remus watches him go, and Peter watches Remus, until Remus turns to meet his eyes and then plunks himself down on the side of Peter’s bed.

 

‘Think he’ll remember in the morning?’

 

‘Probably not,’ Peter says truthfully.

 

‘Fuuuuuck,’ Remus replies, flopping backwards onto Peter’s pillow. ‘Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.’

 

‘That good, huh?’ Peter asks. Remus moans in reply. ‘So tell me,’ Peter continues, lowering his voice, ‘is Lily a good kisser?’

 

Remus clearly tries to stop himself grinning; his smirk is much guiltier looking than a grin would have been. ‘I mean…’

 

‘Do you fancy her?’

 

Remus thinks for a minute. ‘I fancy kissing her again,’ he says, ‘but I’m not writing “Mr Lily Evans” in my schoolbooks like someone we know.’ He sits up, seeming suddenly sober. ‘And I’m not. Going to kiss her again, I mean.’

 

‘Because of James?’

 

‘Obviously.’

 

Peter wonders if he would do the same. He’s not sure he would. ‘You’re a good friend, Remus.’

 

Remus shrugs, deflects. Classic Remus. ‘Tell me about Emmeline. You seemed like you had a good time with her.’

 

James doesn’t remember any of it the next morning, and neither Remus nor Peter mentions it. Sirius, though, seems to have some new sharpness to him that Peter can’t parse for a long time. He even wonders if Sirius fancies Lily too. It takes him until early in seventh year to finally understand why Sirius looks at Remus the way he does.

 

He catches him in an unguarded moment, early in the morning, when they are out on the Quidditch pitch tossing around Quaffles for James.

 

The light is slanting through the thick trees that ring the north side of the pitch, golden and early heralding of autumn, and Remus has just tumbled off of his borrowed broom and is lying on the ground, somewhere between winded and hysterical laughter. Peter turns to see Sirius standing beside the nearest goal post with his hands wrapped tightly around it and his face completely arrested, his eyes fixed solely on Remus, with such an unmistakable look of need that it makes Peter want to look away instinctively - it doesn’t seem decent, to see a look like that.

 

He ponders this development for months, certain that Remus does not - and will never - return those feelings. He is also quietly shocked that Sirius, who usually wears whatever emotion is guaranteed to cause the most upset on his sleeve, has managed to not say anything. Peter and Emmeline finally make it official at the Yule Ball that year while James and Sirius are depressed and drunk; Lily goes alone and Remus looks after the other two with what he confesses to Peter is relief - relief that he’d dodged the bullet of having to find a date.

 

(‘I can’t believe,’ James slurs that night, ‘that Wormy got laid before me.’ Peter laughs it off at the time but later, he’ll return to it, and wonder why James so obviously thought he was inferior.)

 

It takes six more months - and Lily asking James on a date to Hogsmeade - for Peter to finally realise what Remus feels. That day in town, he and Emmeline go to Madam Puddifoot’s and sit behind a slowly diminishing pile of cakes, spying on the date that is attracting so much attention that several people from other houses have come in to gawk. Emmeline, wickedly funny as ever, keeps up a running commentary that Peter is happy to supplement with his own observations. Lily seems charmed in spite of herself, is the thesis that Emmeline lands on halfway through, and Peter has to agree.

 

Then Sirius sweeps in, Remus close behind him, and Peter and Emmeline offer them seats. They seem in high spirits but also strange ones; Sirius is doing his usual adoring gazing but Remus seems weird too, sort of nervy, his eyes darting around but often landing on Sirius. Sirius goes to buy drinks and Remus keeps looking for him, and commenting what a long time it is taking for him to make it through the queue. Sirius returns with some fabulously expensive cocktail that he gives to Remus. Peter and Emmeline give each other a look across the table; Peter can count on her to be as observant as he is, but he hasn’t shared his thoughts on Sirius’s feelings for Remus with her. It feels treasonous, like sharing that he’s an Animagus.

 

‘So there’s the happy couple,’ Emmeline whispers to them, and Remus looks startled, then relaxes. Sirius is all smiles in a way that Peter has not seen him, well, ever.

 

‘How’s it going?’ Remus whispers. ‘Are they really getting along?’

 

‘It started off rough, but they seem pretty into it now…’

 

Peter drops his napkin deliberately and bends over to retrieve it, catching sight of a flash of movement that he realises a half second later is Remus letting go of Sirius’s hand. He’s so startled he comes up and slams the back of his head on the table. Emmeline fusses over him, Sirius asks if he’s all right through laughter, and Remus makes a concerned face that isn’t quite convincing now that Peter realises he is practically glowing. He tries frantically to communicate to Emmeline with his eyes that she needs to see what he is seeing. James and Lily finally leave at the last possible moment and the six of them walk back to the castle together and Peter wonders if he has hallucinated the whole thing until Emmeline slides a note into his hand as they say goodbye in the Great Hall.

 

Opening it on the walk to Gryffindor Tower, he reads, ‘Not to sound crazy but are Sirius and Remus fucking?!’

 

***

Peter is happy for his friends, of course.

 

Right?

 

But something is shifting - has shifted - and as much as he wants to be a good friend, he doesn’t like it.

 

Within the Marauders, there are factions - there is the four of them, and then there is James and Sirius, and then there is Peter and Remus and then the other pairings but not quite as strong - but now there is Sirius and Remus, which is suddenly eclipsing all other factions in its importance to the two of them. James does not seem to have noticed that Sirius has become a partner in crime who would forget to bring the getaway brooms if a certain werewolf was around, but Peter can’t not notice how Remus doesn’t even try to reign in Sirius anymore and sort of drifts off whenever he walks into the room. The force of Sirius and James’s friendship is so powerful that any fraction of losing Remus as an ally feels like Peter will be forced from the group entirely.

 

He doesn’t want them to break up, no, definitely not, but he wants, well, something from them that will make up for this unbalancing of the order that has held their lives together through seven tumultuous years.

 

Remus is invited to an interview at Oxford after they get their N.E.W.T. results. The interview includes a meal and provides overnight accommodation. They are all staying at James’s parents’ rambling pile in the Devon countryside that weekend; Sirius and Remus have said nothing to James and Peter about their relationship but it now feels transparent to Peter. Once Remus has left - after several hours of Sirius fussing around him at an increasingly more fevered pitch, and an extended time where neither could be found - Peter decides that he has been pushed to the limits of human kindness and makes his goal for the evening to extract a confession from Sirius.

 

Sirius is in such a state of nerves that even James picks up on it, which Peter appreciates, because sometimes getting James to where he wants him to be on a social situation is heavy lifting indeed.

 

‘Listen, mate,’ James says, pouring firewhisky from his parents’ special collection into three tumblers and passing them out, ‘what exactly is the problem?’

 

‘Nothing,’ Sirius says. He goes to down the liquid and James looks aghast. ‘What?’

 

‘This is for sipping,’ James says fiercely.

 

Sirius shrugs and downs it all. ‘I’ll sip the next,’ he gasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and coughing.

 

‘Can you believe this?’ James asks Peter.

 

‘Yes,’ Peter says. ‘That was completely predictable.’ He nails Sirius with his most innocently concerned look. ‘Why are you so worried about Remus’s interview? Do you know something we don’t?’

 

Sirius hesitates. That Sirius is having to formulate an answer rather than blurting out whatever is on his mind is a sign of his uncharacteristic caution on the matter. Peter takes careful note of it.

 

‘It’s just very important to him,’ Sirius says. ‘He needs top everything to succeed with the laws against Dark Creatures.’

 

‘He shouldn’t worry so much,’ James says airily. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll take care of him.’

 

‘He wouldn’t like that, though,’ Sirius says. ‘Anyway, it’s his dream to become a professor.’

 

‘At Hogwarts?’ James asks, looking startled. Peter wonders how James might have missed that. Remus has been preparing to be a professor from the day he met him.

 

‘Or somewhere else,’ Sirius says, and then hesitates, like he has something to add.

 

Peter notices that Sirius really wants to talk about Remus, so he decides to encourage him. ‘What kind of professor?’

 

‘He wants to study Dark Creatures,’ Sirius says immediately. ‘But not, you know, like they’re evil. He wants to know about how the wizarding world oppresses them and figure out how to fix it.’

 

Peter is certain that Sirius is quoting Remus verbatim; still, he’s impressed and a bit alarmed that Sirius knows all that because it suggests a confidence-sharing that Remus has never before shown to anyone, as far as Peter knows. Remus, the most cautious man in the world, is apparently in deep.

 

‘He told you that?’ James asks, and Peter thinks that maybe James is starting to get it too.

 

‘Well, I mean, we were just talking about future plans…’ Sirius trails off.

 

‘Last I heard, we were all going to live in your place together,’ James says, and Peter wants to cheer at James’s sudden realisation that Sirius and Remus are talking without him.

 

‘We will,’ Sirius says quickly. ‘Remus will always have a place there. But he might,’ and Sirius swallows, and Peter thinks that this is all too, too obvious, ‘get a room if he gets a scholarship. In Oxford. And he’d have to be there sometimes, it’s the rules, you have to sleep within a certain distance of this bell tower in the centre of town… But at weekends, and outside term time, he’d be at our place.’

 

Peter can see the quiet panic inside Sirius at this thought. He has to admit that Sirius is a good boyfriend. If Emmy was applying for something far away, he’s not sure he’d be so supportive. Luckily they will both be in London, and she’s going to let a flat with some friends not far from theirs.

 

(‘Though it’s a bit far,’ she’d said, holding his hand tightly. ‘How on earth can you afford to live in that neighbourhood?’

 

‘Sirius bought the place with some money from his Uncle,’ Peter had explained. ‘He’s hardly charging us much to live there at all.’

 

Emmy had sighed. ‘Why do you think Sirius is so lonely?’ Peter had shaken his head; some combination of childhood and neuroses, if he had to guess, but he doesn’t like to speculate too much.)

 

‘Well, it’ll be too bad if he’s not living there all the time,’ Peter prompts, hoping he’s not laying it on too thick.

 

‘It will be,’ James agrees. ‘It won’t be the same at all without him.’

 

Sirius sighs and twists his whisky glass around in his hands. Peter leans forward and pours him some more.

 

From there it is a simple enough trick to get everyone drunk, and Sirius the drunkest, and then Peter steers the conversation to the topic of women.

 

‘And what do you think, Padfoot?’ he asks, after James has raved about something Lily said for several minutes.

 

‘About Lily?’ Sirius asks, a bit blankly. ‘I mean, she’s all right, I suppose. Not terrible to talk to. Makes Prongs happy.’

 

Peter laughs. ‘No, I meant… do you fancy anyone?’

 

Sirius opens his mouth, then closes it again, hard. ‘No, not really.’ Peter pities him for being such a bad liar.

 

‘Not really?’ James asks, sitting up to attention.

 

Sirius looks truly alarmed. ‘No,’ he says, emphatically, damningly.

 

‘Who?’ James demands. ‘How long? Why haven’t you told us?’

 

‘No one,’ Sirius says. ‘Nothing. Never.’

 

‘You haven’t even talked about girls in…’ James stops, and Peter can see him counting off the months. ‘Forever.’

 

‘I never talk about girls,’ Sirius points out, which is true, though maybe not the argument he wants to advance, Peter thinks.

 

‘Why not? Don’t you trust us?’

 

‘I’m just not that interested!’

 

‘In girls?’

 

‘We’re not all like you, Prongs,’ Sirius snaps. ‘I have room in my head to think about other things.’

 

‘Like what?’ James demands.

 

‘Not girls?’ Peter suggests, and he can’t stop himself smirking. Sirius blinks at him, and there’s a moment of recognition there, and then Peter can see that Sirius is horrified.

 

‘I think about girls,’ Sirius says quickly. ‘I just don’t talk about them with you lot.’

 

‘But I talk about them with you!’

 

‘Peter doesn’t talk much about Emmeline,’ Sirius says. He won’t look at Peter.

 

‘I don’t want to be boring,’ Peter says. ‘We all know what James sounds like.’

 

‘Fuck you,’ James says amicably. ‘If you had a girl like Lily, you’d talk about her all the time…’

 

‘Hey, Emmy’s great!’

 

‘And you talked about Lily all the time long before you “had” her,’ Sirius says. Peter can sense that Sirius is desperately trying to change the subject. He’s not going to let it happen.

 

‘But surely you must fancy someone?’ he asks.

 

Sirius flicks his gaze to Peter, and his eyes are clearly pleading to not have this conversation. Peter considers it – truly – but then he thinks about all the times Sirius has done something carelessly cruel to him. He looks away from Sirius to James and says, ‘I don’t remember him ever saying he fancies anyone.’

 

James is squinting at Sirius. Sirius looks off to the side, puts his tumbler to his mouth to drink, seems to think better of it, and says, ‘What exactly do you want me to say?’

 

‘It’s all right if you don’t,’ James says, and Peter wants to curse him for being so nice, because they are so close to getting Sirius to admit to this. ‘It’s just… you’re acting like you’re keeping a secret.’

 

Sirius looks at Peter again. ‘What do you want me to say?’

 

Peter shrugs. ‘I want you to admit it, I guess,’ he says. ‘Instead of lying about it.’

 

Sirius bites his lip. ‘But you know why I might lie about it.’

 

‘Sure,’ Peter says. ‘But, I mean, I don’t care. I mean, I don’t care if you fancy him. I care that you’re lying about it. To us.’ Is that it? Peter’s not entirely sure why he’s so upset about this, but that’s at least some of it. And it’s not like he can come out and say that Sirius and Remus getting together is making him feel like he’s not part of the friendship. Even contemplating admitting that makes him feel ill.

 

‘What?’ James asks. ‘Fancy him? Him? What are you talking about?’

 

Sirius raises his eyebrows at Peter. ‘You know it.’

 

‘I’m not going to say it for you,’ Peter says.

 

‘Why does Wormy know and not me?’ James demands.

 

‘Because I’m observant,’ Peter snaps.

 

‘I fancy Remus,’ Sirius says.

 

There’s a moment of complete silence. James goes from petulant to confused to stunned, the emotions playing over his face like cloud shadow over a field on a windy day. Sirius looks terrified. Peter feels suddenly very, very badly about how this has played out. The triumph he’d thought he’d feel isn’t there at all.

 

‘Remus?’ James says finally.

 

‘That’s the one,’ Sirius says. He swallows hard and puts down his tumbler. ‘And listen, James, he uhm, he fancies me too.’

 

‘Wait, really?’ James asks. ‘He does?’

 

Sirius nods.

 

‘Well that’s,’ James looks at Peter, ‘that’s brilliant, mate. Are you… have you…’

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius says in a rush of air. ‘Yeah, it’s brilliant.’

 

‘You should have told us,’ James says sternly. ‘Did you think we wouldn’t…’

 

‘I know,’ Sirius says. ‘I know. I should have, we should have. It’s new. We’re just figuring it out.’

 

‘There’s four of us in this relationship,’ James says sternly, ‘and we’re going to need to communicate better,’ and they all start laughing, nervous tension dissipating.

 

The next morning, Sirius takes Peter aside and says, ‘Wormy, listen, thank you.’

 

‘For what?’

 

‘I’ve wanted to tell you all for ages,’ Sirius says. ‘I just, I didn’t know how. So thank you for forcing me to say it.’

 

Peter feels immensely guilty for weeks about that.

 

***

 

The first thing Peter says when he sees Remus at the new year is, ‘I can’t believe they got engaged.’

 

‘I know,’ Remus says, shaking his head and grinning. ‘After all those years, and all that pining, I truly can’t believe James got the girl.’

 

‘And that after being together six months they’re engaged!’ Peter points out, which is the thing that is really troubling him.

 

‘Feeling some pressure?’ Remus asks gently.

 

‘Emmy and I have been together much longer.’

 

‘But do you feel ready?’

 

Peter thinks. ‘No,’ he says, honestly. ‘Is that bad?’

 

‘No,’ Remus says.

 

‘What if you and Sirius could get married?’

 

Remus looks alarmed. ‘What?’

 

‘What if, I don’t know, one of you was a woman, and Sirius proposed to you right now?’

 

Remus laughs. ‘Thank god that’s not a possibility so I don’t even have to worry about it,’ he says.

 

‘Come on, that’s getting out of it.’

 

Remus shrugs. ‘I’m not even twenty,’ he says. ‘I’d need more time, I think.’

 

‘Sirius wouldn’t be happy to hear that,’ Peter points out.

 

‘Well,’ Remus says with a little smile, ‘luckily, he doesn’t have to.’

 

Remus can say that all he wants, Peter thinks later, but whether or not Remus wants to admit it, Peter thinks that he would marry Sirius in an instant if the opportunity were there. Peter wishes he could feel the same about Emmy. He loves her but the world is so uncertain; he can’t imagine it five years from now well enough to know if he’ll want her there. He envies James and Lily – that certainty, that security – so much it hurts.

***

 

The Order is having a Christmas party, but it feels like the last night before the end of the world.

 

Everyone seems to be on a mission to get apocalyptically drunk, and Peter, looking around at them all, sees only the holes where the dead are missing. He is panicking, and has somehow gotten separated from Remus and Sirius, who he was just necking from a bottle with a moment ago.

 

The party is at Gideon Prewett’s new house, whose rooms seem to multiply the drunker Peter gets, and he is trying to find Emmeline, or one of his friends, and is searching through room after room until they feel like a carnival funhouse.

 

‘Peter, have a drink with me!’ says someone, but he brushes past them, through another door, another room full of people he doesn’t want to bother to get to know that well, because they’ll all be murdered by Death Eaters soon.

 

Does it count as murder if they’re secret soldiers?

 

Who will remember any of them if they lose?

 

Why is everyone drinking like they know they’re going to lose?

 

Peter does a shot with Frank Longbottom, sees Alice asleep on a chair. Their baby must be home with Grandmother. Peter wonders if he’ll - she’ll? He can’t remember - have parents for much longer, or be consigned to a dusty childhood in Grandmother’s house.

 

Frank tries to press him for another but he remembers that it’s other people he wants, and he moves onward, eventually leaving the noise and heat of the party and walking unsteadily upstairs, fingers gripping the smooth wooden bannister for purchase and finding little. It is quiet up here, but there’s whispering or something like it coming from one of the bedrooms. Thinking that surely it must be one of the people he’s looking for, he pushes open the door.

 

Sirius and Remus leap apart - or more accurately, Remus shoves Sirius back, who stumbles and nearly falls into a dresser - and their clothes are in disarray and they both look first horrified, then guilty, then relieved.

 

Peter feels unreasonably annoyed with them; did they ditch him to do this? ‘You might as well do it downstairs, you’re not exactly subtle when you’re drunk,’ he snaps, hoping it hurts, and leaves them, still looking for Emmeline. He sees them the next day when someone wants to take a photo of the Order and Remus stands nearly on the opposite side of the room from them, ignoring Sirius’s hurt looks. Peter, guiltily, feels a little bit elated. He and Emmy had ended the night with a row about where she’d gone - she’d just been outside talking to Marlene but they’d both shut up right away when he’d come out and anyway why had she ditched him too? - and they’re not speaking either. He wants them to know that it’s not fair that they have this easy love; it’s not fair to rub it in his face. He also knows that that’s a very shitty thing to think.

 

Increasingly, he’s not sure if he cares.

 

***

How the Dark Lord gets to him, in the end, is not a very interesting story. There’s no dramatic moment or shocking incident; he’s not captured, or tortured; no one he loves dies; instead, he is sitting beside Remus, watching him as he mutters an incantation over small vials which he has filled with a conflagration potion of their own devising that they call Greek fire, just before they toss them down into a room full of Inferi.

 

He is, of course, scared shitless. He has been for months, years, what feels like a decade, since he met these three and left the safety of his parents’ shop, since before that even, since death took his dad when he was just a lad and left him to be the man in the family. He’s been a thoroughly disappointing man, he thinks, as Remus lays down the vials on an unfolded strip of leather and runs his wand over them, the final step in a potion they never quite perfected, this added incantation to try to prevent them from exploding too soon. The smell of the Inferi is brutal, so they both have rags stuffed in their noses, and Remus is having a hard time with the incantation because of how nasal he sounds. It is comically absurd and deathly serious. It is this fucking war.

 

And so, Peter is frightened in a way that makes him not a rational thinker, and yet, from the outside, he knows rationally that he is not being rational. After they throw the vials, he leaves. He tells Remus later that he chased a fleeing Death Eater but in reality once he is out of Remus’s line of sight, he slows to a walk and practically strolls away from the scene. He’s never once left a Marauder in a fight and it feels like a revelation. He isn’t chained to their sides. He can save himself if he needs to. He starts deserting more and more, and it feels great: he isn’t responsible for whatever happens if he isn’t there. His stories are believable - he’s a good liar, and what’s more, the people who love him want to believe him - and sometimes he even gets caught up in his own stories and starts to believe them too.

 

The winter before the Dark Lord orphans Harry, Sirius’s brother Regulus is murdered by Death Eaters; this is quite a surprise as they’d all believed he was one himself. Sirius speculates that his little brother had fucked up in some way but no one really knows. Whatever the reason, Sirius goes a little - ok, well, Peter thinks, a lot - crazy afterwards. Going on any kind of patrol with him feels like a death sentence, because he has become almost suicidally impulsive, rushing into danger without hesitation. Remus’s perpetually worried look deepens. Lily tells Peter that something has to be done or Sirius is going to get himself killed. It’s such an absurd statement, given the kinds of things they face near-daily now, that they both burst into laughter a beat after she says it.

 

Shortly after Regulus’s death, two Ministry officials seek out Peter on the grounds that they believe he is involved with a ‘suspected paramilitary force’ that is ‘intent upon undermining the authority of the Minister for Magic’. They come to his house and appeal to him as a fellow Pureblood; when he isn’t entirely responsive to that tactic, they threaten to have him tried for ‘terrorist acts’. Peter is terrified throughout the entire encounter, too terrified, in fact, to send his Patronus to Emmeline for help. On his way out the door, having asked for nothing but another audience, one of the officials pauses to pick up a photo of the two of them that is on a bookshelf by the door. He says nothing, just looks at it for a long moment before replacing it carefully and taking his leave, but his intent feels very clear to Peter.

 

He Apparates to Remus and Sirius’s and tells them the whole story. They both listen carefully, Remus from his seat at the kitchen table, unreadable (to Peter) runes on a long parchment spread out before him, and Sirius as he stalks around the kitchen, picking up and putting down all manner of objects, before Remus looks at him and he stops instantly, yanks out a chair with some violence, and sits in it, practically vibrating.

 

‘They know about the Order,’ Peter says. ‘They sounded like next time they’d be doing more than “just asking questions”.’

 

‘Why you, I wonder?’ Remus murmurs.

 

‘Fuck them,’ Sirius says contemptuously.

 

Peter loses it. ‘No, Sirius, fuck you,’ he snaps, voice rising. ‘They’re not going to show up at your fucking door hinting at Azkaban. They showed up at mine because they know I’m the weak link here -’

 

‘Peter,’ Remus says, but Sirius just blinks, and Peter wants to hurt him.

 

‘-Or they’ll show up at your boyfriend’s door,’ he snarls. ‘You know, drum up some of that anti-werewolf sentiment, it’s running high already with that monster Greyback roaming around -’

 

‘You’re right about that,’ Remus says. ‘He’s right,’ he adds to Sirius, shrugging. Sirius’s mouth is set in a hard line, the corners twitching.

 

‘So what do you want?’ he demands.

 

Peter takes a deep breath. Honestly? He wants out. He has done for months. But he can’t be honest, not with them, which is a crushing realisation - two of his three best friends, and he has to lie to them, because they would never be his friends if they knew how he feels. ‘To complain to you about it,’ he says. ‘To have a whinge.’

 

Sirius barks a laugh and Remus tips back on his chair to reach into the cupboard. He pulls out a bottle of firewhisky. ‘Let’s drink to that.’  

 

***

One of the Ministry employees comes back a week later, but not in an official capacity - at least, not for the Ministry. He offers Peter a deal. If Peter meets with him weekly and tells him what is going on with the Order, he won’t murder him in his sleep. To show his trust, he gives Peter a few hours to think about it.

 

Peter goes home and looks at his flat. Emmeline’s things are strewn about it - even though she’s never officially moved in, she might as well have done - and he realises that he will have to break up with her. Funny how it doesn’t even hurt; it’s just another thing to tick off in the long cold road ahead. He cleans up her things, arranges them in a neat pile, and waits for her to come home.

 

He’s always known she could do better; now here’s her chance.

 

***

 

It takes them until June to know there’s a spy. There’s one too many raids gone wrong, Death Eaters in unlikely places, and then there’s a flurry of encryption changes, protocol changes, reporting changes… only Dumbledore receives reports now. People are not allowed to discuss their activities with others. And Peter, accordingly, stops having much information to pass to the Death Eaters. Anything he could tell them would be about his own activities, and would point directly to him. They already have it narrowed down – there are fifteen, maybe twenty possibilities based on events.

 

He’s in too deep and he knows it. Sometimes at night he goes home and transfigures and spends the night hiding under the furniture as a rat, tiny, shaking, wishing he could disappear.

 

He convinces himself that the only way to survive is to cast suspicion on others. He knows of three people, at least, who he can manipulate, and two of them who will be very receptive to it. He has watched them for a decade now and he knows how they work. Both have outside circumstances – Sirius, his family, and Remus, his lycanthropy – that can cause significant tension. And neither is in any way capable of being rational or objective about the other.

 

Peter and the other Marauders see each other very often; they act as a support network for each other when loved ones are away on missions. They also do a lot of Harry-sitting.  

 

So, one night when he and Sirius are eating takeaway curry: ‘What are Remus’s secret missions about, anyway?’ he asks, and Sirius shakes his head and shrugs. ‘Doesn’t he tell you?’

 

‘He can’t,’ Sirius says. It is obvious how much this distresses him.

 

‘Oh,’ Peter says, ‘I mean, sure, Professor Dumbledore says that, but Emmeline and I used to tell each other everything. And James and Lily tell each other everything. So I just thought…’ He leaves it hanging. Sirius is biting his lip.

 

And when he and Remus are watching Harry: ‘You should have seen Sirius at the pub last night.’

 

‘Oh?’ Remus asks. He’d had to leave, called away on urgent business.

 

‘He just walked off into the rain after you left.’ Remus looks up at him. ‘Just walked straight out the door, didn’t say goodbye to anyone.’

 

Remus hesitates. ‘He’s…’

 

‘I know,’ Peter says quickly. ‘He’s so worried. I think he’s driving himself mad with this spy business, trying to figure out who it is.  He’s always distracted, always wandering off and not talking to anyone.  At meetings he just sits there, doesn’t say a word—he’s completely changed since we found out there was a spy.’

 

Remus looks at him for a long moment. Peter is scared he’s gone too far – Sirius is much easier to play than Remus. But then Remus says, ‘Peter… Do you think he’s changed since Regulus died?’

 

‘What do you mean?’

 

Remus takes a deep breath. ‘I just think…’ He pauses, seems to steel himself. ‘Maybe he has regrets about his family. About not being closer to them.’

 

This is an unexpected windfall. Peter puts on his most clueless, worried voice. ‘Has he said anything like that to you?’

 

‘No,’ Remus says quickly. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. ‘He won’t… he’s not telling me how much he’s grieving for Regulus. But I know he is, and I know it’s a lot.’ Remus gives Peter an almost pleading look. ‘When they were boys, Regulus was his only thing at all like a friend. You have no idea… it was so hard for him growing up in that house.’

 

Peter nods, very sympathetically. ‘We just have to give him some time and space, I guess,’ he says. ‘But I am worried about him.’

 

Remus nods. ‘Me too.’

 

And the time Sirius is at James and Lily’s, and they are all sitting up waiting for Remus, who is out on some mission he can tell no one about (of course) but is hours overdue, and Sirius is clearly on the edge of panic. Peter is holding Harry, bouncing him gently. When James and Lily step out of the room, he leans towards Sirius and says, ‘Don’t be worried. I know Remus can take care of himself.’

 

Sirius flicks his eyes to Peter. ‘Can he?’ he asks. ‘What if he’s dead in an alley, what if…’

 

‘There’s signals for that,’ Peter says. ‘We’d know.’

 

Sirius takes a deep breath. ‘Why is he so late, Peter?’

 

‘Anything could have happened,’ Peter says. ‘He could have met someone else, he could have run into another Dark Creature wanting to talk… you know he knows a lot of the ones in London from his research…’

 

‘What would they talk about?’ Sirius asks.

 

Peter shrugs. ‘No idea. How the Ministry is shit to them?’ He rolls his eyes. ‘Honestly, it’s a wonder Remus even fights for their side, given how shit the Ministry is.’

 

‘We’re not on the Ministry’s side,’ Sirius says, frowning. ‘We’re on our side.’

 

‘Right,’ Peter says quickly. ‘But I just meant, it’s not like things are going to get better for him if our side wins.’ He sees Sirius’s look and amends quickly, ‘When our side wins.’

 

Sirius puts his head in his hands and whispers, ‘Where is he, Peter?’ And when Remus does appear, another hour later, filthy, with no good explanation, Peter thinks he can see that Sirius has his doubts.  

 

And another time, Peter and Remus are both in headquarters, when they realise that they need to send someone out immediately. A Dark Mark has been seen over the Prewetts’.

‘Who should we send?’ Remus asks, frantically scanning the list of available names. There seems to be only one: ‘Sirius?’

Peter senses an opening. ‘I… no… I mean…’

‘What?’ Remus looks up at him, confused.

‘It’s up to you, Remus,’ Peter says quickly. ‘You’re a better wizard than I am.’ He pauses, then lets it slip: ‘But we can’t trust Sirius.’

Remus blinks. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ He’s practically baring his teeth.

Peter, scared, and knowing he looks it, says, ‘I mean, not, not that we can’t trust him. He’s just been, acting, I don’t know, he’s just so… worried.  He can’t…’ He can see Remus watching him closely, but listening. ‘He’s got so much on his mind already, he was just out last night, I just don’t think we can give him another responsibility tonight.’ He pauses. He has Remus, he can tell. He decides to sink the knife in further. ‘You know—of course you know—what happened when he was… when we were…’

Peter leaves it hanging, because he knows Remus will fill in the spaces for him: Sirius’s one and only previous betrayal, telling Snape where to find Remus on the night of a full moon. It is foul play to bring it up, because it had nearly destroyed things between the four of them once and they’d made it through that and don’t talk about it anymore. But Peter knows that none of them have forgotten, least of all Remus, what Sirius can do when pushed.

Remus turns away. Peter waits a beat, then says, ‘It’s up to you, really. You’re a better wizard than I am-’

Remus turns back, shaking his head. ‘Stop saying that,’ he says, sounding infinitely weary.

‘It’s true.’

‘It’s not,’ Remus says. ‘Just because Sirius and James always acted like it when we were at school doesn’t mean anything.  You remember how they were.’

Of course Peter remembers how they were; it’s part of the reason why he can justify doing this. But it feels like a stab in the gut to hear Remus say it. ‘Thanks,’ he says quietly. He reaches out, genuine, and touches Remus’s arm. ‘Thank you, really, Remus. You’ve been the best friend I ever could have asked for.’

‘Stop talking like we’re going to die,’ Remus says, clearly unnerved.

‘I just want you to know that,’ Peter says doggedly, and he really, really does. ‘In case it’s ever too late.’

‘It’s not going to be,’ Remus snaps, and then he pulls out a piece of parchment and presses his wand to it, the magical information about the placement of the Dark Mark flowing out of it and into the paper. He’s come up with some new system of hiding their writing within the fibers of parchment and it’s ingenious. Right now, Peter wishes desperately that he hadn’t had to tell his Death Eater contact exactly how they do it.

Remus does not send the letter to Sirius.

***

Early October, and Peter and Remus are down in the cold mud, hiding behind an outbuilding of an enormous manor house, unable to Apparate and hiding from Death Eaters.

 

‘I’m so fucking scared,’ Remus says, teeth chattering, with cold or fear, Peter doesn’t know, and it takes him a second to process what Remus has just said - scared? Remus?!

 

‘You are?’ he asks, shocked enough that he almost forgets their situation. ‘But…’

 

‘Of course I am,’ Remus says. He leans his head back against the barn wall. ‘Aren’t you?’

 

Peter hesitates. Remus turns his head to look at him, his dark eyes searching Peter’s face, earnest, honest, and Peter feels suddenly reckless. ‘All the time,’ he says.

 

‘Me too,’ Remus says, and he turns his head back, wand suddenly ready in his hand, and a second later they have to run for it, because the Death Eaters are rounding the corner. Later, Peter thinks about him saying it and regret blooms in him for the choice he’s made - if Remus is scared all the time too, then why is Remus still on this side?

 

***

James makes them sit at his parents’ – now his, by inheritance – dining room table. It feels immensely solemn. It is just the four of them, and later, Peter will remember that it was the last time they were all together alone, just the Marauders, no wife or baby or other Order members.

 

There’s wine on the table but no one has bothered to open it. James looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, months, and it is not the kind of sleepless new-baby euphoria of just over a year ago. Peter will later wonder if this face is how James looked in death, pale and glassy-eyed.

 

Remus and Sirius sit side by side, and Peter knows that if he looked under the table their hands would be clenched together, white-knuckled, in Remus’s lap.

 

Peter also knows that James had summoned Sirius at some point yesterday for reasons he could not relate – Remus had come to see Peter, anxious – and that Sirius has been sequestered with James ever since. The two of them had used their Patronuses to summon Peter and Remus just a few minutes ago.

 

(‘To the Potters’?’ Peter had said, confused. ‘James never… not since his parents…’

 

‘It has old protections,’ Remus had replied. ‘It must. Come on.’

 

They’d had to Apparate to nearby and walk up the road. Sirius had been waiting for them at the stile that led onto the property, an unreadable look on his face. He had led them to James, in the old hall, seated at the long table, looking like the last scion of a once noble and now fallen house. It is a role meant for Sirius but one that James plays surprisingly well tonight.)

 

It is near midnight, and the candles are guttering. The house feels cold and abandoned, like the black edges of the room would move in on them if not carefully watched.

 

At some signal from James, Sirius says, without preamble, ‘Lily and James need to ask something of us. A favour.’

 

‘Anything,’ Remus says at once, and Peter echoes him. He glances at James; he has his head in his hands.

 

Sirius takes a deep breath. Peter has the impression that he is holding himself together by sheer force of will. He has no idea what this is about, but his heart is suddenly racing.

 

‘Professor Dumbledore has told James and Lily that they have to go into hiding,’ he says. ‘They are in grave danger from Voldemort himself.’ He swallows and his next words are barely above a whisper. ‘Professor Dumbledore believes that Voldemort has reason to try to murder Harry.’

 

James makes a sobbing noise from behind his hands; Sirius reaches out to him and grasps one of his hands tightly.

 

‘We’re not going to let that happen,’ he says, voice stronger.

 

‘No,’ Remus breathes. ‘We’re not.’

 

Peter can’t speak. He feels like he’s running. James’s shoulders are shaking. Not Harry, Peter thinks. Please, not Harry.

 

‘We have a plan,’ Sirius says firmly. ‘We have a plan.’ He squeezes James’s hand hard and James makes a muffled noise from behind his other hand.

 

‘Tell us what to do,’ Remus says immediately. Peter manages to nod but he can feel dark thoughts lurking in the back of his mind and there is nothing, nothing at all, that he can do to stop them.

 

This is information that the Dark Lord would pay for handsomely. Maybe they would stop following him, stop leaving him intimidating messages like small dead animals – rodents, always – on his windowsill. Maybe he could have a full night’s sleep again. Maybe he could see Emmy again.

 

Part of him knows that the terror will never end, that with a man like the Dark Lord there is no final bargaining chip, no way he can buy himself out of this unending horror.

 

But he wants so badly to believe, to have hope – that if this is what the Dark Lord wants so much, then the man who delivers it to him might gain some measure of freedom…

 

‘We need a Secret Keeper,’ Sirius says. ‘One of us. We’re not sure who. I’m too obvious, maybe. We’re trying to decide.’

 

Remus looks swiftly at Peter. ‘Which of us…?’

 

‘You decide,’ James croaks. ‘One of you. We don’t know. We don’t know which is best.’

 

Peter sees it: how to get the information that will make him safe.

 

He also sees this: around a table, four people bound to each other by ties stronger than blood, a chosen family, who have fought for and bled for and protected one another for a decade and vowed to do so for a lifetime.

 

He thinks, fleetingly, of Emmy.

 

And, inevitably, he knows that he will give this up too.

 

***

He deliberately finds Remus later, when they have all separated to think for a few hours. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘it should be you.’

 

Remus has gone for a walk alone on the grounds. It is freezing cold and spitting rain. Peter has his cloak pulled as tightly around himself as he can, but Remus stands with his open, his head uncovered, hair soaked and windblown. He seems almost too lost in thought to be concerned with the materiality of the moment. Peter is not, but he wishes that he could be.

 

‘Should it?’ Remus asks. ‘I’m not…’ He hesitates.

 

‘You’re a much better wizard than I am.’

 

Remus shakes his head doggedly; this old argument. Peter knows Remus will rise to his defence. ‘That’s not…’

 

‘The only reason it makes sense for me to do it rather than you is if you’re worried about the full moon,’ Peter continues. ‘But you’d be insensible then. And unapproachable.’

 

Remus looks up at him, and Peter knows he has won. Remus doesn’t trust himself; there’s no way he’s going to let others trust him.

 

Peter feels strangely empowered; like he’s killed his feelings and all he’s left with inside of himself is a black hole.

 

***

When he finds Sirius, he has a different mission entirely.

 

Sirius is upstairs, in his old bedroom at the Potters’. It is very dark and very cold in the room. Sirius is sitting cross-legged on the bed, twisting his wand in his hands.

 

‘I think you’re right,’ Peter says. ‘I think you’re too obvious.’

 

Sirius says, ‘So what if I am?’

 

‘So if they capture you and kill you, the Fidelius Charm is broken.’

 

Sirius swallows. ‘Peter,’ he says quietly. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

 

‘It should be Remus,’ Peter suggests. ‘He’s a great wizard. Top of our class in Defence. Calm. Steady. Rational.’

 

Sirius shakes his head. ‘Peter…’

 

‘What?’

 

‘I don’t know if I can trust him,’ Sirius whispers.

 

Peter has to clench his hands into fists inside his robes to contain the unnameable emotion that springs up inside of him. ‘Sirius,’ he gasps.

 

‘I know,’ Sirius says, and his voice breaks. ‘Peter, I know, I know, but I can’t…’

 

‘Why not?’ Peter asks, coming to sit on the bed beside him. He puts a hand on Sirius’s knee, trying to calm him down. A part of him – his heart, he supposes – is fracturing at seeing Sirius so miserable. But another part of him is quietly triumphant. He’s done it; he’s outsmarted them all.

 

‘I love him so much,’ Sirius whispers. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes a deep breath. ‘I can’t be objective. I can’t be rational. If I try to even think that he’s the spy… I can’t. But if I make a list, if I check who it could be...’ Peter’s heart stops. ‘It can’t be James and Lily. I know it’s not me. And it can’t be you.’ … and restarts… ‘And it can’t be him. But I can’t think about him the way I think about you three. So it must be him. The one I can’t approach logically.’ He takes away his hands and looks at Peter so bleakly that Peter wants to cry. ‘He’s said it himself, the Ministry has nothing to offer Dark Creatures. He has always had a strong mission to do what’s right for them, to gain rights for them…’

 

‘Sirius,’ Peter says, ‘Remus is not the spy.’ Even telling the truth to tell a greater lie relieves some of the awful pressure inside himself. ‘You’re being ridiculous. It’s none of us. It must be someone else. Frank, or Alice, or, or, I don’t know…’

 

Sirius is crying, a kind of terrible silent crying, where his eyes and cheeks are perpetually wet but he’s not making a sound. Peter has seen Sirius cry before, but never like this. He seems to be beyond all hope. Then he surprises Peter by reaching for his hands; he takes them and holds them very tightly in his own, which are ice cold. ‘Peter.’

 

‘Yes?’ Peter asks, terrified. What does Sirius know?

 

‘Wormtail.’ It’s not a question.

 

‘Padfoot, what?’ Peter asks. He squeezes Sirius’s hands back, trying to disguise how much his are shaking.

 

‘We won’t tell Remus, but you should be the Secret Keeper.’

 

***

 

He didn’t know Voldemort would die.

 

They will come after him. Not all of them, but some of them. Bellatrix will come after him.

 

And Sirius. Sirius knows.

 

Someone is banging at the door. Peter wants to die. He wants the moment to come, right now, and to not have to feel anything anymore.

 

‘Peter!’

 

It’s Remus. What does he know? Peter creeps to the door, shaking violently, and undoes just one lock. ‘Remus?’ he whispers.

 

‘Have you heard?’

 

‘About….’

 

‘They’re dead, Peter.’

Peter thinks he won’t be able to say it, but then he has to, and he does. ‘James and Lily and Harry.’

Remus sounds more upset than he has ever heard him before. ‘Peter…’

Peter forces himself to continue. ‘And He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is defeated…’

‘Peter…’ There is something else in his voice… what does he know?

 

Terrified beyond what he had ever thought possible, he asks, ‘What?’

Remus’s voice breaks. ‘Sirius was their Secret Keeper.’

Relief, sickening, cloying, miserable relief washes through him. He undoes the locks all at once and opens the door. Remus collapses through it and Peter catches him and hugs him as tightly as he can bear. ‘Remus, I’m so sorry,’ he gasps, and he means it.  

Remus clutches Peter’s arms. He has a manic look that Peter has never seen before. ‘Peter, I have no idea what to do.’

A plan springs fully formed into Peter’s head. He can escape. He can survive this too. ‘We have to find Sirius,’ he announces.

 

Remus blinks. ‘What?’

 

‘We have to find him before the Aurors do.’

‘Why?’

Peter draws back. One more time, he has to play this right. Then he can disappear forever. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’

Remus is clearly lost. ‘I…’ 

Peter makes his voice as strong as he can. ‘Sirius is - he was - our best friend, Remus. Aside from everything else to you. And I don’t for a second believe that he has been against us all this time.’

 

‘No,’ Remus whispers.

 

Peter knows he has him. ‘I want to find him. I want to know why he did this to James and Lily.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says quietly. Peter can tell that he’s glad to have direction. ‘All right.’

 

‘Let’s split up,’ Peter says. This is vital. ‘I don’t know where he’ll go but… we’ll find him faster that way.’

 

Remus does not have to know – will never know – that Sirius is hunting Peter. When he finds him, in the street, Peter feels everything around him go still. He will do anything he can to not be Sirius’s prey. He does not care what cost it exacts. He screams at Sirius, voice wavering out of control, ‘James and Lily, Sirius! How could you?’ and then he releases the most powerful magic he has ever done and scampers away into the sewers, the remains of his finger bleeding freely, away, away, as far away as he can run.

 

***

 

Even then, fear consumes him. He gets into a wizarding household to keep an ear out for news. He never transfigures back to human, so terrified is he of being found. Sirius is in Azkaban and Remus is god knows where and Voldemort’s supporters are rounded up or cleared of suspicion and still he waits, often not sure for what, often forgetting what it is he’s waiting for, just knowing that he lives in fear.

 

Sirius’s return only amplifies the desperate feeling he has had for twelve years. Sirius is the personification of a dog with a bone and Peter knows he’s the bone.

 

It feels inevitable, in the Shrieking Shack, when Sirius and Remus look at each other – when Sirius asks, ‘Together?’ and Remus says, ‘I think so…’ – Peter realises in a second that putting the crux of his plan on tearing these two apart was his greatest mistake. He feels the transfiguration take him and then he is human again, for the first time in countless years.

 

It does not feel good.

 

He looks at Remus and Sirius. Time has not been kind to either of them – Remus’s face is lined, his hair salt-and-pepper, new scars on his neck and hands, and Sirius, well, Sirius is a horror compared to the handsome young man he’d been, all stringy hair and skeletal cheekbones and burning eyes. Peter hates to think what he looks like himself now, but it doesn’t really matter. He looks quickly at Harry – like James is in the room, really, James who never had a chance to age and that’s my fault…

 

‘Well, hello, Peter. Long time, no see.’ Remus says, and he sounds pleasant; Peter is chilled to the bone because he hears the fury beneath it. Remus was always the scariest of them when pressed.

 

‘S -- Sirius... R -- Remus...’ What choice does he have? Does Remus believe Sirius? Peter looks at the door again – so close… ‘My friends... my old friends...’

 

Sirius takes it as a taunt and raises his wand arm but Remus seizes his wrist and gives him another look that stops him immediately – god, they haven’t changed at all, have they? – and Remus says, still in that pleasant tone, ‘We've been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed –‘

 

Remus was always a good friend, always, and maybe there’s a chance… ‘Remus, you don't believe him, do you...? He tried to kill me, Remus...’

 

‘So we've heard,’ Remus says, and Peter knows the game is up. Remus is Sirius’s, forever and ever, and whatever Peter says, Remus will believe Sirius over him. And then there’s the matter of it being the truth… ‘I'd like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter, if you'll be so –‘

 

Peter can’t, he can’t do this, why won’t they just kill him and end it? He remembers Sirius’s face on that day, in the middle of the street; there had been no trace of the decade of friendship between them anywhere. No regret, no second thought, no question as to why Peter might have done this – just fury, cold and clear as the morning air. And now Remus. All these years, he was nothing to either of them. They don’t care at all for his reasons – they were good reasons! He was never as brave as they were! How could they expect him to be? ‘He's come to try and kill me again!’ he says, voice wavering out of control, trying to force their hand, trying to make them just end it. ‘He killed Lily and James and now he's going to kill me too.... You've got to help me, Remus....’

 

‘No one's going to try and kill you until we've sorted a few things out,’ says Remus.

 

‘Sorted things out?’ Peter is near tears now, trying to make Remus see how hard this has been for him. ‘I knew he'd come after me! I knew he'd be back for me! I've been waiting for this for twelve years!’

 

They go back and forth – the children get involved – Sirius tells the story of how he got out of prison and Peter curses himself again because he’d believed Sirius, who has always been emotional, volatile, girly if he had to really say it, at least how he acted about Remus – would have crumbled in Azkaban and yet here he is, burning with the same intensity as ever, and here Peter is, reduced to begging as Harry – James’s son, his lookalike, with Lily’s eyes shining strangely from behind his thick glasses – turns away from him – Sirius and then Remus, and they are looking only at each other, they are forgiving each other, and he hates them for it, and then even the other children… no one will ever forgive him… He watches Sirius and Remus, who have eyes for no one but each other, even when it comes to the matter of killing him.

 

When he is able to escape, he is consumed by a burning hatred for them. He hopes Remus runs out of the Forest and murders someone; he hopes Sirius gets the Dementor’s Kiss because he, Peter, ran away.

 

Peter runs until he finds the Dark Lord, a desperate need for vengeance in his heart.

 

***

It was probably not his best move, in retrospect, and it is clear that the Dark Lord has no real use for him once he has played his part in the resurrection. Loyal – really, unbelievably loyal – service for months and this is what he receives? Ultimately sent to lurk in Snape’s home, a miserable and unwanted houseguest of someone who truly hates him?

 

‘I don’t hate you,’ Snape says, and Peter remembers that he’s a master Occlumens and curses himself. ‘You’re beneath contempt.’

 

But what is a rat to do? He has nothing left in this life except to try to make the best of this situation. Someday this war will end, and hopefully he’ll be on the right side of it.

 

Then his fellow Death Eaters murder Emmeline.

 

He had forgotten… not about her, exactly, but about what it felt like to care about her. Seeing her name in the Prophet brings up a lot of painful and, frankly, unwanted emotions. She’s listed as a textbook editor, beloved by Miranda Goshawk, and the killing as random, but Peter reads between the lines and surmises that she was working for the Order. Upset, he goes to speak to the Dark Lord. His audience does not go well.

 

Voldemort sighs dramatically and looks at his wand. ‘Am I to be constantly deluged by mediocre wizards crying about their dead school girlfriends?’

 

Peter has no idea who he could be referring to. ‘I’m not crying,’ he says, trying to be resolute. ‘I just wanted to, well, to register my protest.’

 

‘Noted,’ Voldemort says, obviously bored. ‘Now go.’

 

Peter wants to say something more, but his courage fails him. He turns and leaves. Bellatrix follows him into the hall and smiles sweetly. Peter instantly recognizes that he is being stalked. ‘She fought until the last, you know. She didn’t give in. Even when I had plucked out one of her pretty blue eyeballs.’

 

Peter stares at her, stomach churning. ‘Why are telling me this?’

 

Bellatrix bites her lip and smiles. ‘To remind you that she was brave, and you are not.’

 

Notes:

If you aren't familiar with the Jamie T song "Peter", I highly recommend it. I hear it a lot in my head when I am writing this character: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWA7dGGWOBw

Chapter 21: Harry's Sixth Year, Winter, Part I

Notes:

Another very long chapter I split in two. Part II will be on its way shortly.

The morning after Remus finally feels human again, Sirius cooks him breakfast while he goes through the enormous pile of correspondence that has arrived in his absence.

 

‘I’m going to see Albus tomorrow,’ he says, looking up from a reply as Sirius adds some tea to his cup. ‘He wants to hear about the mission.’

 

Sirius considers this. ‘Are you meeting him at Hogwarts?’

 

‘Yeah.’

 

‘You should say hello to Harry.’

 

Remus cocks his head. ‘Is that allowed?’

 

Sirius shrugs and slides into the seat beside him. ‘I don’t see why not.’

 

Remus reaches towards the stack of blank parchment and Sirius passes him one. ‘That’ll be lovely.’

 

Sirius watches him write for a moment. ‘Anything crucial you need to do today?’

 

‘Beyond dying before I reach the bottom of this stack of letters? I don’t think so. You?’

 

‘Umm,’ Sirius thinks. ‘I need to meet Molly, but not until late afternoon. We’re testing something. You should come see it. But, well,’ he pauses and gives Remus an apologetic face. ‘It was very sweet of you to buy me a wand…’

 

‘Oh god,’ Remus says. ‘I completely forgot.’

 

Sirius’s original wand had been confiscated and broken the day they took him to Azkaban, so when he’d come back, Remus had gone to Ollivander’s and pretended to have broken his own to acquire a new one. It works well enough – Remus had done a good job of replicating Sirius’s style of magic when testing it – but it could be a lot better.

 

‘We have to get you a new one,’ Remus says. ‘You can’t keep going into dangerous situations with that one.’

 

‘Exactly,’ Sirius says. ‘But Ollivander is gone…’

 

‘I know,’ Remus says. ‘But there will be someone in Diagon Alley.’

 

‘Want to come with me?’ Sirius asks hopefully.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says without hesitation. ‘We haven’t spent time together in ages. We haven’t been in London together since the battle at the Ministry.’

 

After breakfast, they Apparate into Diagon Alley. Many people are afraid to come here now; the public Apparition point, which Sirius remembers from times past as being crowded enough that he could expect someone to Apparate on top of him if he wasn’t being quick, is empty.

 

Ollivander’s is open, but the man behind the desk is not Ollivander.

 

‘I am – was – his apprentice,’ he says. ‘Carmine Michaelson.’ He shakes Sirius and Remus’s hands and then sits again at the desk. 'Mr Black, you know that Mr Ollivander was expecting you. If I'm not mistaken, you've been using a wand that is not your own.'

 

Sirius is startled. ‘Kind of him to have thought of me, I suppose,’ he says. ‘But, under the circumstances -'

 

'Oh, yes, of course,' Carmine replies. 'Mr Ollivander was not concerned with the justice system.’ He waves a hand, as if all the murder charges against Sirius were nothing. ‘He was concerned with you using an incorrect wand. Spoke of it often, if we’re honest. And now that your name is cleared, we must get you one that is correct for you.'

 

Sirius doesn’t really know what to say to that. 'Thank you.’

 

'Can you do me a favour?' Carmine asks. He gestures behind his desk; high bookshelves stacked with identical thick books and labelled by year loom over him. 'Find the year you matriculated at Hogwarts and bring the book to me.'

 

Sirius looks up at the shelves - and then further up - until he spots it. He makes a horrified face at Remus, who turns away, stifling a giggle.

 

'It's been rather a long time, has it?' Carmine asks.

 

Sirius climbs up the ladder and retrieves the book. The thought flashes through his mind that it contains records on all of them - Remus's, James's, and Peter's wands will be in here as well. He hands it to Carmine, not really wanting to see.

 

‘Hmm, yes,’ Carmine says, and then he retrieves five boxes of wands and starts handing them to Sirius to try.

 

Forty minutes later, Sirius hands over twelve Galleons for his new wand. It feels right in his hand. Like maybe he could even conjure a Patronus again…

 

Carmine steps to get the door for them and then stops, hand on the knob, ‘Listen,’ he says quietly, ‘I know that you’re close to Dumbledore. If there’s any way you can help find Mr Ollivander…’

 

‘We’re working on it,’ Remus says gently. ‘We’ll do all that we can.’

 

‘It’s not like him to be gone like this,’ Carmine says, a note of urgency in his voice.

 

‘Do you have any idea about what might have happened to him?’ Remus asks.

 

Carmine shakes his head. ‘Nothing real,’ he says. ‘But Mr Ollivander knew so much wandlore, I have to think that just the information he had in his head would be valuable to someone.’

 

Remus nods thoughtfully and looks at Sirius. ‘We’ll pass that idea on,’ Sirius says to Carmine. ‘Thank you so much.’

 

Carmine nods. ‘Thank you,’ he says, and opens the door.

 

They leave Diagon Alley quickly, exiting through the Leaky Cauldron into Muggle London. It is shockingly sunny and even a little bit warm after months of rain and darkness. Sirius is still gawking up at the sunny sky when Remus reaches out and takes his hand.

 

In broad daylight. In the middle of the street in London. Sirius looks over at him, wide-eyed.

 

‘When are you meeting Molly?’ Remus asks, tugging Sirius closer and seemingly ignoring his look.

 

‘Mm, like three or four,’ Sirius says, voice coming out a little higher pitched than he’d intended. ‘Is this all right? Can we do this now?’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says. ‘And if someone says something, I’ll punch them in the face.’

 

Sirius finds that he is grinning uncontrollably. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Well.’

 

‘I fancy getting tea somewhere,’ Remus says.

 

‘Where?’ Sirius steps a little closer. No one seems to be staring, or pointing, or shouting. His heart beat is slowly returning to normal.

 

‘Let’s go to that café in the courtyard at the V&A,’ Remus suggests. ‘It’s the middle of the week, hopefully it won’t be overrun by tourists.’

 

They stroll across central London, hand in hand, and all Sirius sees is the occasional smile. It’s shocking what fifteen years can do to the public consciousness. Sirius has never been out like this before and it is incredible. In the museum’s ornate courtyard, they buy teas and split a croissant and sit on the steps of the round pond in the centre. Remus leans over and kisses him. They are outside, surrounded by people, and Remus is kissing him, and Sirius thinks he could die happy right here. The pale winter sunlight glints off of the grey in Remus’s hair and Sirius shivers with a little frisson, because everyone watching them must be jealous of him for having this gorgeous man.

 

‘Having a good day?’ Remus asks sweetly, and then he puts his arm around Sirius’s shoulders and draws him close.

 

‘Always with you,’ Sirius murmurs against his ear, and then he steals the rest of Remus’s croissant half and eats it to stop from being too soppy.

 

***

 

Molly greets them at the door. ‘Sirius,’ she says, smiling. ‘Security question, of course. What did we find in the upstairs library at Grimmauld Place?’

 

‘A drunken doxy,’ Sirius says. ‘And an empty bottle of brandy.’

 

Remus bursts into laughter. ‘No one told me that!’

 

‘It stank,’ Molly says.

 

‘Ugh,’ Sirius agrees, making a face.

 

‘Come in,’ Molly says. ‘Remus, it’s lovely to see you. I thought you wouldn’t be back so soon!’

 

‘I’m very happy to be back,’ Remus says emphatically, giving her a hug.

 

‘I wanted Remus to see our project,’ Sirius explains.

 

‘Perfect,’ Molly says. ‘Because Arthur is here and I wanted to show him!’

 

Sirius and Molly leave Remus to chat with Arthur at the kitchen table and go into the lounge, where Molly is storing their work.

 

‘I didn’t realise this was going to be a formal presentation,’ Molly says, making a faux-scared face at Sirius.

 

‘Me either,’ Sirius says, copying her face. ‘But I think,’ he unrolls their prototype and looks at it, ‘yeah, I think we’ve got something really good here.’

 

‘It’ll be good to talk to them about it,’ Molly says. ‘And hear someone else’s opinion.’ She smiles at him. ‘You look really well, Sirius.’

 

‘Thanks,’ Sirius says. ‘Remus is home, and I finally got a wand that suits me this morning.’ He takes a deep breath, suddenly nervous. They’ve been working hard on this. ‘Ready?’

 

She nods. ‘Ready.’

 

Back in the kitchen, Remus is laughing helplessly at some anecdote Arthur is telling. ‘He really thought that?’

 

‘Honestly,’ Arthur says, ‘I am shocked – utterly shocked – at the level of ignorance so many wizards have about Muggles.’

 

Remus shakes his head, suddenly sober. ‘It’s probably a great deal of the problems we have today.’ He looks up at Sirius. ‘You two have something to tell us about?’

 

‘Ok,’ Sirius says, ‘so,’ he glances at Molly, ‘uhm…’

 

‘Sirius noticed my clock,’ Molly says, pointing towards its current position on the kitchen counter. ‘And he had some very interesting thoughts about it relating to what he knows about maps.’

 

‘Right,’ Sirius says, nodding. ‘Ever since I was the point man for everyone coming into Order headquarters and I had to keep track of where everyone was, I’ve been trying to think of a better way to do it. And Molly’s clock is able to track people’s locations in a very interesting way that got me thinking. I talked to her about it and we’ve come up with some prototypes…’ He unfurls the smaller one and lays it out on the table. ‘First, we created this map of the Burrow, just as a test.’ The map shows the house in cross section, sketched out complete with furniture. Four circles, bearing their names, are at the kitchen table.

 

Remus leans forward, peering at it. ‘You’ve got a ghoul on there!’ he says, sounding astonished. He looks up at Sirius, eyes wide. ‘You solved James’s problem!’

 

‘I know,’ Sirius says, grinning at him. ‘It’s the clock’s magic. That’s the solution. We were going about it all the wrong way.’

 

‘Wait, what was James’s problem?’ Arthur asks.

 

‘You’d better explain about your old map to Arthur,’ Molly says.

 

‘Sorry,’ Remus says, ‘I just…’ he pulls the map to him. ‘Oh you’ve solved a lot of our problems here, haven’t you?’

 

Sirius nods and grins at him. ‘So, Arthur,’ he says, turning to him, ‘briefly, when we were at school, we…’ He looks at Remus. ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’

 

‘We made a map,’ Remus says to Arthur, ‘of the entirety of Hogwarts.’ He looks up at Sirius. ‘Fred and George had it, you know. For a while.’

 

‘I remember. We talked to them,’ Sirius says. ‘They hadn’t figured it out, though. Just found it useful.’

 

Molly rolls her eyes. ‘Yes, we talked to them,’ she says, rather darkly.

 

‘So Arthur,’ Remus says, ‘we had an issue with having to travel around Hogwarts undetected at odd hours.’

 

Arthur raises his eyebrows. ‘Because your friends – Sirius, James, and Peter, right?’ Remus and Sirius nod. ‘They were sneaking out to spend time with you as a werewolf.’ The entire story had come out to several key people over the past year and a half when explaining Sirius’s innocence.

 

Remus nods. ‘Exactly. And James had an invisibility cloak that worked all right, but if people needed to be in different places, it obviously was a problem. Not to mention that there are some people and things at Hogwarts that can see through invisibility cloaks.’

 

‘Dumbledore,’ Sirius mutters under his breath, remembering a very close call.

 

‘So, we came up with a plan to make a map that would track the location of everyone in Hogwarts in real time.'

 

Arthur looks at Molly and whistles. ‘That’s quite a plan.’

 

‘We were nothing if not ambitious,’ Remus says, making a guilty face.

 

‘To be fair,’ Sirius says, ‘at first it was just tracking teachers.’

 

‘Right,’ Remus says. ‘But once we got a rudimentary form working, we just…’ He looks up at Sirius and shrugs. ‘We were rather perfectionist. We realised we could make a truly excellent resource for mischief making and we got carried away with it.’

 

‘And your map covered all of Hogwarts and everyone in it?’

 

‘Well, almost,’ Remus says. ‘The way we did it, we had a bit of a problem.’

 

‘The James Problem,’ Sirius says.

 

‘Which you’ve somehow solved,’ Remus says. His eyes are gleaming with excitement in a way that Sirius is very familiar with from school.

 

‘So the way we did it back then,’ Sirius says, ‘we largely used boundaries. The very first rooms we did – Gryffindor Tower, and the hallways that led from it down to the front door – we literally walked the bounds of each space. It was incredibly time consuming. It took us, I don’t know, six months? Just to get that very limited area of the castle. Then we realised that we didn’t physically have to walk the boundaries – we could create a scale model version on paper and draw the boundaries that way. We still had to have knowledge of all the boundaries but we didn’t physically have to walk them, so long as we understood their dimensions.’

 

Remus is grinning in memory. ‘And for this reason, the Ravenclaw girls’ dormitory was never properly mapped.’

 

‘Girls’ dormitories were a real problem,’ Sirius says. ‘We knew five hidden ways out of the castle before we ever mapped a girls’ dormitory.’

 

‘Since you had to get into them,’ Arthur says. ‘Thus needing a girl to invite you up.’

 

‘Boys can’t go into Gryffindor’s at all,’ Remus says. ‘Or at least we couldn’t. We actually had to enlist someone to map that one for us, although we didn’t explain what we were doing or why.’

 

‘And Ravenclaw…?’

 

Remus grins. ‘Someone,’ he says, looking at Sirius, ‘was supposed to get that information, but it didn’t quite work.’

 

‘She was too smart for me,’ Sirius says. ‘Marlene McKinnon. She said it was obvious I wasn’t interested in her and kicked me out before I got much information.’ He makes a rueful face at the others. ‘And then I was just stuck in the Ravenclaw common room without my trousers.’

 

‘I’m so glad I was out of school before you four arrived,’ Molly says, shaking her head. ‘You sound like absolute terrors.’

 

‘We were awful,’ Remus says.

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius agrees. ‘I would not have wished us upon anyone.’

 

‘It’s shocking Albus trusts us at all,’ Remus says.

 

‘Not to mention Minerva.’

 

‘But anyway,’ Remus says, ‘that’s how we mapped the castle. It was tedious and I can do cartography spells in my sleep as a result, but the map was incredible. And saved us from expulsion, god, I don’t know, a hundred times.’

 

‘At least,’ Sirius agrees.

 

‘How did you add people to it?’ Arthur asks. ‘I know nothing about cartography magic.’

 

‘We did it with the boundaries,’ Sirius says. ‘Very basically, when you have a closed polygon, it’s quite easy to determine what is inside of it.’

 

‘And the smaller the polygon, the easier it is,’ Remus adds. ‘You need a lot of magical energy to understand what is within the boundaries of, say, the castle. But if you divide it into smaller shapes, it gets much easier.’

 

‘Again, if you know the boundaries,’ Sirius says.

 

‘This is how some of the protection around our house works,’ Remus explains. ‘It lets us know if something comes through the boundary.’

 

‘So,’ Arthur says, frowning, ‘I guess the problem lies in the places where boundaries break. Doorways, windows, that kind of thing.’

 

‘Well, sort of,’ Sirius says. ‘You can build known boundaries into it – like doorways and windows. And when the polygons share edges there’s only a second where someone is between boundaries. And on the map we built in school, they would flicker across the boundary and then almost immediately back. Remus fixed the flicker very late on – when we were just being showy with our magic – by making each boundary doorway have a “prediction” of where the person was going – just into the next room.’

 

‘In the Department of Mysteries,’ Remus says, ‘if you recall the room with the rotating doors…’

 

‘That’s designed to defeat that?’

 

‘Yes, it’s designed to confuse cartographic magic. Same as the staircases at Hogwarts.’

 

‘How did you deal with those?’

 

‘We cheated. They’re not actually random,’ Remus says. ‘Well, the ones in the Department of Mysteries are, but the Hogwarts ones follow a set pattern, if you watch them long enough.’

 

‘And you did.’

 

‘Peter convinced the Fat Lady to do it for us.’

 

Arthur bursts into laughter. ‘That’s bloody impressive.’

 

‘But,’ Sirius says, ‘you were right that there’s a problem with boundary edges. Also with things that are not strictly, well, living. And that is the James Problem.’

 

‘James got caught by the Bloody Baron, who turned him in to Filch,’ Remus explains. ‘He came back to our room incredibly mad and demanded that we figure out a way to map ghosts. The fact that they move through walls rather than doors or windows was defeating our methods.’

 

‘Not to mention being dead,’ Arthur says.

 

‘Right, but that’s actually easier to deal with,’ Remus says, ‘because they have a consciousness. There’s a murderous plant in the greenhouses that was harder to map than ghosts for that reason.’

 

‘So the problem is disregarding boundaries.’

 

‘Right. Which we sort of solved by just finding each individual ghost and setting a tracking spell on them. But that’s obviously unrealistic if you don’t know where every ghost is. And the way they move confuses the map boundaries.’ He shrugs. ‘The solution we came up with was not elegant and as a result was unstable and sometimes unreliable.’

 

‘Another problem we never dealt with, that Molly and I had to,’ Sirius says, ‘is Apparition. People suddenly appearing in places without having travelled there linearly.’

 

‘Since you can’t Apparate into Hogwarts,’ Molly adds.

 

‘Oh yes,’ Remus says. ‘I always forget about that. Because all of the mapping of individuals we did was in this unrealistic system without Apparition. It was like mapping Muggles.’

 

‘But,’ Sirius says, reaching for Molly’s clock, ‘the clock’s magic knows how to deal with that. If someone is travelling, it knows.’ He points to the travelling arrow. ‘Even if that travelling is non-linear, through Apparition or Floo Powder.’

 

Remus squints. ‘Those work very differently though. With Floo Powder, you use non-linear waypoints in the Floo Network – that’s why you see all those fireplaces…’

 

‘We know, Professor,’ Sirius says, grinning. ‘And Apparition uses entirely different pathways.’

 

Remus sticks out his tongue. ‘So how could the clock map them the same?’

 

‘Because the clock isn’t mapping pathways,’ Sirius says. ‘The Marauder’s Map treated every individual on it as a pathway – not a person. Just a moving point.’

 

‘Right…’

 

‘Well, this is Molly’s insight,’ Sirius says, nodding to her. ‘You understand the clock better than I do.’

 

‘The clock recognises people,’ Molly says. ‘Like Sirius said, the Marauder’s Map worked because it mapped people as moving points. But the clock sees people as people – it recognises individuals that are valuable to it, no matter where they are magically. It has boundaries, just like your map of Hogwarts – but when things it recognises are outside of those boundaries, it knows they are “travelling”.’ She points to a corner of the map, where there are three labelled columns in Sirius’s hand: “Apparition”, “Floo”, and “Portkey”. ‘And it can tell how people are moving.’

 

‘Portkey too,’ Remus murmurs. ‘Of course. Related to Apparition but…’

 

‘So if someone in the Burrow Apparates between rooms…’ Arthur says.

 

‘Sure,’ Sirius says. ‘Watch.’ With a crack, he Apparates up to the attic; a second later he Apparates back into the kitchen. His name is still glowing, brown rather than black, in the Apparition column and in the attic; it is black here at the kitchen table.

 

‘Amazing,’ Arthur says, a little faintly.

 

‘Watch the clock,’ Molly says to him, and she Apparates too. They all watch as its arm swings to travelling, and then a second later swings to “Home”. She walks in from the lounge and they look at the map – it has recorded all of this too.

 

‘We had to teach the map,’ Molly says. ‘The clock doesn’t need to learn – it’s my clock and it is attuned to me. We couldn’t figure out how to change that. But we did figure out how to teach the map to recognise people.’

 

‘How?’ Remus asks.

 

‘Handwriting,’ Sirius says. ‘We used letters.’

 

‘“In written word recreate my soul”,’ Remus says, quoting a spellbook. ‘Excellent. The Marauder’s Map has a primitive version of that – from us writing it.’

 

‘That was a side effect, though. We didn’t know it would do that.’

 

‘Sirius, it insults people now,’ Remus says.

 

‘Does it really?’

 

‘Well, I don’t know about people, but I’ve seen it insult Severus.’

 

Sirius can’t help but feel happy about that. ‘Our baby,’ he says fondly. ‘It knows us so well.’

 

‘So you created a map of the Burrow that shows when people are travelling and who is here,’ Arthur says.

 

‘And the ghoul,’ Sirius says, ‘who appeared because Molly got him to scribble with a pen.’

 

‘Fascinating,’ Remus says, eyes wide.

 

‘But,’ Molly says quickly, ‘it’s not that impressive if it’s just the Burrow.’

 

‘Is it not?’ Arthur asks. ‘It seems very impressive.’

 

Molly unfurls the second map, which covers the entire table: Britain. Sirius can’t help but be proud of their work. There are circles moving all over it – Order members. And in the corners – boxes for different modes of travelling. Kingsley has just Apparated somewhere. He watches Remus trace the map with his finger, his mouth hanging open slightly, until he gets to Hogwarts. ‘Albus isn’t there,’ he says.

 

‘Albus disappears sometimes,’ Sirius says. ‘He’s the only one who does, and we have no idea where he goes. Like we talked about, probably – hidden places in the landscape.’

 

Remus looks very worried, but nods.

 

‘The boundaries were too big,’ Molly says, ‘for all of Britain. Like you said, the magical energy was too much if the map was tracking all the moving things inside the boundaries. So instead, we taught the map to track only very limited individuals.’

 

‘And there’s one other thing,’ Sirius says. ‘Again, from Molly’s clock.’

 

Molly nods. ‘We’ve had to adjust it a bit,’ she says. ‘The clock is more sensitive.’

 

‘Oh my god,’ Arthur says. ‘“Mortal peril”.’

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘So it will warn us…’

 

Sirius and Molly both nod. ‘When someone needs help,’ Molly says.

 

‘What do you think?’ Sirius asks, suddenly nervous again.

 

‘This is amazing,’ Arthur says, but Sirius is watching Remus – the one who knows about maps.

 

‘This is ambitious,’ Remus says quietly, running his fingers down the parchment. ‘Very ambitious.’

 

‘But it works,’ Molly says. She glances at Sirius. ‘At least, our tests of it seem to work…’

 

‘Oh, I believe you,’ Remus says. He looks up at the two of them and smiles hugely. ‘I’m just very impressed. You need to show Albus.’

 

***

The next morning, Remus leaves the house and walks down the path to the stand of trees where their shield charm ends. It is raining lightly and the rocks on the path are slick; he keeps reminding himself to pay attention to them because he is lost in thought. A very important idea is percolating in his head, and he wants to talk to Harry about it.

 

Ever since Sirius almost died at the Department of Mysteries and, specifically, since the Healers at St Mungo’s wouldn’t let Remus see him, Remus has been thinking about the possibility of them getting married. Their lives are increasingly dangerous and he finds that he is genuinely terrified at the thought of Sirius being in hospital again and them being separated.

 

Marriage was illegal for them the first time they were together, and though he’d discussed it with both Peter and James – obliquely, in the context of other people getting married, although the conversation had obviously been about himself – he and Sirius have only ever talked about it once, and it was painful.  

 

After everything that happened that Halloween night, Remus had cleared out everything in their flat – mostly by throwing everything out the back window into a conveniently placed skip – and, after three funerals and a meeting with the elder Blacks, he had fled the country. The only thing of Sirius’s that he hadn’t tossed is a small box that he hadn’t even known was Sirius’s when he’d found it under the bed – he’d thought it was something left by a previous tenant because he hadn’t recognized it. He’d pulled it out and opened it, no idea what he’d find. Inside had been what looked like a pile of notes and photos. The top one was from Lily to Sirius and featured a photograph of Harry racing on a tiny broomstick that Sirius had given him for his birthday. Remus had slammed the box shut, stashed it at his parents’ house with a few things of his own he didn’t need but couldn’t bear to part with, and had not thought about it again until Sirius returns, the night after their reunion in the Shrieking Shack.

 

Late on the second day that Sirius is at the cottage with him, Remus remembers the box. Sirius is emotionally fragile – understatement of the decade – but Remus suspects that he would like to see those letters and photographs again. He takes it out from under his own bed and they sit side by side on the floor with it between them.

 

‘Wow,’ Sirius says softly, looking at the top photo. ‘He’s all grown up, isn’t he?’

 

They flip through the letters – Sirius lingers over one from James, one finger resting on the signed ‘Prongs’ at the bottom – and Remus finds a little velvet bag near the bottom. While Sirius stares at the letter, Remus looks in the bag, trying to give him some space. There are two rings inside – one incredibly ornate, with a large, smooth black stone, the other plain by contrast but beautiful. Remus tips them into his hand and examines them.

 

‘Don’t put that one on,’ Sirius says, voice suddenly sharp.

 

Remus looks up, startled. He hadn’t even known Sirius was paying attention to him. ‘Which one?’

 

Sirius reaches across the box and plucks the ornate ring out of Remus’s hand. His touch makes Remus’s skin burn. ‘This is for the heir to the House of Black,’ Sirius says. ‘It was Regulus’s. I rather suspect that if someone who is not the heir to the House of Black tries to wear it, there might be unpleasant consequences.’

 

‘Thanks,’ Remus says. Sirius is now staring at the ring, and Remus starts to regret bringing out the box. He looks down at the other ring in his hand. It is captivating. Something about the pale gold seems deeper in colour, iridescent. Without thinking about it, he slides it onto the ring finger of his right hand. It fits perfectly, and emits a warm glow. He runs the fingers of his other hand over it. ‘Does this one have a protection charm?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says. There’s a note in his voice that Remus doesn’t quite understand. ‘I’m surprised it still works. I cast it a long time ago.’

 

‘Is this yours?’ Remus asks, still looking at the ring. ‘I don’t remember you having it.’

 

‘I bought it,’ Sirius says. There’s a pause, and then he says, ‘I bought it for you, actually.’

 

Remus looks up, startled. ‘What?’

 

Sirius is looking at Remus’s hand. ‘It’s…’ He pauses, smiles like it hurts. ‘James made me go with him when he went ring shopping for Lily. He said he needed the emotional support. He kept trying to convince me that I should get a ring for you, that it didn’t matter that I was gay, that we could just do something privately. Told me he’d even officiate. And I kept saying no, and then I found this one and, well,’ Sirius looks up, directly into Remus’s eyes. ‘He convinced me.’

 

Remus has been avoiding this exact emotion for two days now: the emotion that wells up whenever he looks at Sirius, whenever they accidentally-on-purpose touch, whenever Sirius leaves the room and he’s left without him. He’s told himself over and over again that he is here for whatever Sirius needs, and that whatever he, Remus, needs, doesn’t matter. Sirius is the injured party. Remus is the strong one.

 

He remembers Lily, having just witnessed him capitulate completely to settle some domestic squabble between the four of them when they had lived together the autumn after leaving Hogwarts: ‘So your role in this perpetual morality play is that of the martyr, hm?’ she’d asked sweetly.

 

He shoves himself up from the floor and says, ‘I’m just stepping outside.’ His voice sounds thin and he doesn’t look at Sirius as he leaves the room, walks rapidly down the hallway, and out the front door. He shuts it very quietly and carefully, keeping the handle twisted until he can feel that it is fully within its frame, and then the emotion really hits him and he slumps down the outer wall of the house and puts his head in his hands.

 

Remus has some ideas about what might have gone wrong in the relationship he's been unhealthily relitigating for thirteen years. There’s a running video in his head of every single thing he did wrong and he knows what he would do differently, this time, if he could…

 

But that’s an utterly idiotic idea. Their relationship towards the end had been a disaster. They hadn’t trusted each other at all and they’d fought horribly. Sirius had once accused Remus of cheating on him and then told him it was easier to accuse him of that than to accuse him of being the spy. Remus had gone through all of Sirius’s things when Sirius was out, searching frantically and repeatedly for anything that might have confirmed what he felt to be certain, which was that Sirius was lying to him.

 

But Sirius had bought him a ring, James had wanted Sirius to buy him a ring, Sirius had put protection charms just for him on the ring…

 

The door opens. Remus keeps his head in his hands and tries to stop making hideous sobbing noises. He feels Sirius sit beside him and then Sirius’s hands, warm and large and strong, are on his shoulders, tugging him close. Remus winds up settled halfway into his lap, trying to stop crying while Sirius says over and over again, ‘I’m so sorry, Remus, this is all my fault, I’m so sorry.’

 

‘Why didn’t you ever give it to me?’ Remus asks finally, when he can breathe and speak at the same time again.

 

‘The ring?’

 

‘Yeah.’

 

Sirius takes Remus’s hand and looks at it. The simple gold band glints in the pale sunlight. Remus can still feel the warmth radiating from it. ‘It just…’ Sirius sighs. ‘I wanted to. Truly. But the moment never, well, it never felt right. There was always something.’

 

‘I know,’ Remus says. Later, inside the kitchen, he accidentally-on-purpose kisses Sirius and they start over again, this thing that he needs a frightening amount. He takes the ring off that night, putting it back into the smooth velvet bag. He tries to apply what he’s learned and he can tell Sirius is trying too. It is hard and grown up and the most important thing he can imagine.

 

Now, stepping into the turn to Apparate to Hogsmeade, he comes to a decision. He is tired of waiting for the moment to be right. The moment has always been right. He’s going to talk to Harry about it, and then he’s going to ask Sirius to marry him.

 

***

Harry meets him in the Great Hall. Remus can’t help smiling when he sees him, and Harry smiles back. ‘Remus!’ he says. ‘Professor McGonagall gave me permission to walk around the grounds with you!’

 

‘How long until your next class?’ Remus asks.

 

‘An hour.’

 

‘Perfect. Where shall we go?’

 

It is cold outside, but not unpleasantly so, with just a light drizzle that settles in their hair and on their faces as they walk.

 

‘I have to get this out of the way,’ Remus says. ‘Obligatory question. How is school?’

 

‘It’s great,’ Harry says. ‘Well, aside from Defence.’

 

‘Severus?’

 

Harry makes a face. ‘He’s awful, Remus. He really is. And I’m convinced he’s not on our side.’

 

Remus wants to laugh – Harry sounds so much like Sirius – but doesn’t want Harry to think he’s laughing at him. ‘Because of Draco Malfoy?’ he asks. He wouldn’t be shocked if Malfoy is up to something, though probably something rather trivial – he remembers him as a student who seemed to constantly need to prove himself.

 

Harry nods fervently and talks for several minutes about his suspicions.

 

‘Wait,’ Remus says, alarmed, ‘he Stunned you on the train?’

 

‘Yeah!’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘Well, water under the bridge now, but I wish he’d gotten in more trouble for that. That could have been quite dangerous for you.’ He realises belatedly that he and his friends had done far worse things to other students, but there’s something different about it when it’s his godson.

 

‘Oh,’ Harry says, ‘and I’m taking special lessons with Professor Dumbledore.’

 

‘Oh?’ Remus asks, interested. ‘What about?’

 

Harry starts to say something, then stops. ‘I’m actually… I think I’m not supposed to talk about it with anyone else. Except Ron and Hermione.’

 

‘Ok,’ Remus says quickly, wondering why exactly Albus has decided that.

 

‘But it’s been really interesting,’ Harry says. ‘I’m learning a lot.’

 

‘Good,’ Remus says, filing that away as something he wants to hear about from Albus.

 

‘What about you and Sirius?’ Harry asks. ‘Are you – how is the – can I ask you about it, sorry, I wanted to ask sooner, but I had a lot to tell you.’

 

Remus grins. ‘I can’t tell you too much, unfortunately. The war continues. I tried to recruit some,’ he swallows, wishes he didn’t, ‘werewolves, but it didn’t work out well.’

 

‘Why not?’ Harry asks.

 

‘They’re being led by someone named Fenrir Greyback – the werewolf who bit me, actually.’ Remus is surprised that that information doesn’t hurt more to say.

 

Harry looks shocked. ‘You know who it was?’

 

Remus nods. ‘And he’s a Death Eater.’

 

‘And he’s leading the other werewolves?’

 

‘Some of them. The most organised ones.’

 

‘That’s not great.’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘No, it’s not. I tried to lure a few people away, but, well, we’ll see.’

 

‘What about Sirius?’

 

‘He’s been working on quite a cool project with Molly,’ Remus says. ‘You’ll have to see it at Christmas. It’s a bit like the Marauder’s Map, but it uses the magic in that clock of hers…’

 

‘The one that says things like “mortal peril”?’

 

‘Exactly. It uses that magic to locate Order members.’

 

‘But isn’t everyone just “in mortal peril”?’

 

‘You’d think. But they’ve modified it a bit. It makes a warning system that seems like it will be quite effective.’

 

‘Wait, did you say at Christmas? Do I get to go to the Burrow?’

 

‘I was going to make sure when I speak with Albus today, but, yes, I think so.’ Harry hesitates. Remus looks at him, quizzical. ‘What’s wrong?’

 

‘I thought I might get to go home to – well, to go with you and Sirius.’ Harry looks instantly embarrassed, but Remus is hugely touched.

 

‘I wish you could,’ he says. ‘Truly. But the Burrow is an easier place to protect in the way that we need to protect it for you to be there. And,’ Remus adds, ‘Molly and Sirius are getting along so well now that I imagine we’ll be there most of the time anyway.’

 

Harry nods. ‘It just was nice to have my own room,’ he says, then adds quickly, ‘but I mean, I want to spend it with the Weasleys too.’

 

‘Who knows, maybe the war will be over by then,’ Remus says. ‘Maybe we’ll all go spend it on the beach somewhere.’

 

Harry stops and looks at him, ‘Are you…?’

 

Remus laughs. ‘No. In no way do I mean that. Just wishful thinking.’

 

‘That would be amazing, though.’

 

Remus sees his opening. ‘Listen, Harry, speaking of wishful thinking…’

 

‘Yeah?’

 

‘I think I’m going to ask Sirius to marry me.’

 

Harry breaks into a huge grin. ‘Really?’

 

Remus nods. ‘Really. I don’t want a repeat of what happened over the summer, where I couldn’t see him in the hospital.’

 

‘Completely understandable,’ Harry says.

 

‘But I wanted to talk to you about it first. Is that all right with you?’

 

‘Yes,’ Harry says immediately. ‘Of course. And maybe…’ He looks embarrassed.

 

Remus suddenly understands. ‘We’d love to adopt you,’ he says gently, ‘but it would be a mistake from a magical perspective. We need your aunt’s protection.’

 

Harry looks crestfallen. ‘I know,’ he says.

 

‘When the war is over,’ Remus says firmly. ‘I promise you, if you still want us to, we will.’

 

‘I’ll probably be too old by then,’ Harry mutters.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Remus says, because there’s nothing else he can say.

 

‘The night I met Sirius,’ Harry says quietly, ‘he said I could live with him. And I’ve wanted that ever since, more than anything. When I thought I was going to get expelled last year, I hoped at least I’d get to come back and live with him.’

 

Remus’s heart breaks. ‘I wish things were different,’ he says. He does not add that more than anything, he wishes James and Lily were still here.

 

‘Me too,’ Harry says.

 

***

The door to Albus’s office is just as intimidating as it ever was, but for a different reason now. Remus feels that sense of vertigo he gets whenever he remembers that he is somehow supposed to follow Albus should the worst happen. There’s just no way he can ever come close…

 

‘Remus,’ Albus says when he enters, and he sounds genuinely pleased to see him. Remus is touched. ‘Thank you for coming. Sit, have a drink with me.’

 

‘Thank you,’ Remus says, sitting opposite him. ‘A drink would be lovely.’

 

Albus pours him a glass of red wine from a bottle on his desk and Remus accepts it, inhaling the smell and holding it for a moment. He wants to laugh, looking across the desk at Albus and remembering how many times he has sat here in rather different circumstances.

 

‘Remembering old exploits?’ Albus asks.

 

‘Remembering sitting here.’ Remus grins. ‘You don’t look stern or disappointed today, though.’

 

Albus laughs. ‘I am glad that I often was. You seem to have taken my lessons to heart.’

 

‘Oh, I did,’ Remus says. ‘And I’m infinitely grateful to you for them. And rather sorry that we were always so difficult.’

 

Albus waves a hand. ‘I wouldn’t have had it any other way,’ he says. ‘Well, aside from the incident with the giant pumpkin. I would rather have not had to deal with that.’

 

Remus winces. ‘Oh god, I’d forgotten about that.’

 

‘Imelda Grey did eventually get the seeds removed.’

 

Remus ducks his head and searches for a change of subject. ‘I’ve just seen Harry,’ he says. ‘He told me that you’re giving him some kind of lessons.’

 

‘Oh, yes,’ Albus says. ‘I’ve been trying to learn as much about Voldemort as I can for years now, his family, his past…’ He takes a sip of wine. ‘I’ve been sharing those memories with Harry. I find that it’s useful to have a young man’s perspective. Especially Harry’s.’

 

‘He’s,’ Remus stops, not sure what to say. ‘He’s very...’

 

‘Good?’ Albus suggests.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says. ‘Despite everything, he’s just a very good person.’

 

‘I know,’ Albus says. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ He takes another sip of wine and sighs. ‘And you know, Remus, if I could have done anything to allow him to be raised by you and Sirius… it is truly a great regret of mine that he had to go to his aunt and uncle, rather than the two of you.’

 

Remus’s heart aches thinking of the possibility; he feels tears prickle the back of his throat and says quickly, ‘It is a great regret of mine that he was not raised by James and Lily.’

 

Albus nods and raises his glass. ‘To James and Lily,’ he says quietly, and Remus raises his own and echoes him. ‘Now,’ Albus says, ‘tell me about your mission.’

 

Remus gives a detailed outline of the events of the past two months. At the end, Albus asks, ‘And what do you think the chance of many of them coming to our side is?’

 

‘It’s hard,’ Remus admits. ‘Even the ones who might be reasonable, the ones who I would naturally gravitate towards as allies… they see Scrimgeour is the Minister now. They know what he was like as an Auror, rounding up as many of them as he could – most of them are on the Registry because of his efforts – and they especially know what he was like as Head of the Auror Office, because that’s when Umbridge’s laws,’ Remus makes a disgusted noise, because they had been threatened for years but Umbridge had correctly read the political moment of fear of Voldemort after the Triwizard Tournament to push them through. ‘Well, you know. Scrimgeour was the one who started enforcing them. And that seriously impacted a lot of people there.’ Remus shakes his head. ‘People had employment, they were getting by. Her laws drove them underground.’

 

‘So they’ll never trust him as Minister,’ Albus says.

 

‘No,’ Remus says. He shakes his head. ‘Most of them won’t. And there’s a very destructive mood among people, especially the ones who were most affected by her laws.’

 

‘What do you mean?’

 

‘They want to destroy the system,’ Remus says. ‘I would say that most of them know Voldemort is bad, they know he’s terrible. Appealing to them in that sense does nothing, because they know it. But they’re determined to believe that if he gets into power, the system will somehow correct itself and everything will be perfect. How that happens, they don’t know. Some vague talk about revolution. They see the current world as imperfect, so rather than actively trying to fix it from within, they’ve decided to blow it up.’

 

Albus sighs. ‘That’s terribly frustrating.’

 

‘And most of them won’t listen to me,’ Remus adds. ‘Greyback has them convinced I’m a kept werewolf, some tame creature of yours.’ He shakes his head violently. ‘Of course the truth is that he’s just that to Voldemort.’

 

Albus is studying him. ‘And what do you think?’

 

‘I think they’re idiots,’ Remus snaps. ‘The idea that something perfect is going to rise from the ashes of Voldemort’s regime is absolutely absurd, and, and,’ he shrugs, ‘and frankly ahistorical and ignorant. It also ignores that in-between step where things under Voldemort are so bad that people start a revolution. People are already dying, human wizards and witches are terrified and looking for anyone to blame to make the fear stop – who do these werewolves think is going to get blamed? Not upstanding wizards and witches, that’s for damn sure.’

 

Albus stands and walks over to look out one of the windows. Remus decides he isn’t done. ‘It’s impossibly stupid. The first war was not all that long ago, they must remember how it went. Installing a fascist regime was never, ever the right answer.’

 

‘I know,’ Albus says. ‘It’s not just the werewolves. It’s incredibly hard to convince people that this is happening again; harder almost than when it happened the last time… People seem to want to be wilfully ignorant about it.’

 

‘To protect themselves,’ Remus snaps. ‘Fuck, I sound bitter. Sorry.’

 

Albus turns back to look at him and leans against the window sill. ‘It’s quite all right, Remus. It’s a very frustrating situation.’

 

‘At least we know we’re doing the right thing,’ Remus says quietly. ‘When he was still in the shadows, it was hard to know if we were overreacting.’

 

‘Yes,’ Albus agrees, ‘though sadly I’ve found that I’ve never been too concerned about one of these situations.’ They both sit in silence for a moment. Then Albus says, ‘That’s what Grindelwald always said, too.’

 

‘What’s that?’ Remus asks, startled out of his own thoughts by the mention of Grindelwald’s name.

 

‘He wanted to destroy the established system.’ Albus sighs and smiles ruefully. ‘In my head, I always added that it was to make a better world. Sadly, that isn’t what he was saying at all.’

 

This is certainly new information. Remus frowns at him. ‘Did you know him well?’

 

‘Oh,’ Albus says, ‘did you not know that? It’s not hidden knowledge. I was certain the gossip mill would have put that out into the public consciousness long ago.’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘I had no idea.’

 

Albus looks down and to the side. ‘There was a time – early on – when he and I were very close.’

 

It takes Remus a second to realise how candid this conversation truly is. Then he says, ‘I completely understand, then. It’s not a rational…’ He grins, thinking of himself. ‘It’s not a rational feeling.’

 

‘Even you, Remus?’ Albus asks. ‘You’re one of the most rational people I know.’

 

‘There’s Minerva,’ Remus protests, joking, trying to keep the moment light, but desperately curious to know more.

 

‘Ah, yes,’ Albus says, ‘of course, Minerva is first. Then you.’

 

‘And yes, absolutely, even me.’ Remus says. ‘A lot of things would be different if I’d been, well, rational.’

 

‘Indeed,’ Albus says. He looks down into his wine glass, and says, seemingly both to himself and to Remus, ‘But love, of course, is what makes us who we are.’

 

***

Hestia has organised fortnightly meetings for Order members in her local church hall. Each time, someone goes over a spell they feel has been particularly helpful to them, and then everyone practices it for an hour or so, and then some of the members often wind up at the pub together. These practices have grown out of their Apparition sessions to cover more.

 

In early December, when Sirius arrives at the meeting a few minutes late and Remus gives him a quick peck on the lips, Sirius sees Tonks look away, and decides that things have been awkward between them long enough. Tonks hasn’t spoken to him aside from what’s necessary since she found out about his relationship with Remus. He catches her on her way out the door.

 

‘Your hair isn’t pink,’ he says in greeting.

 

She opens her mouth once, then says, ‘It’s kind of a mood, honestly.’

 

‘Maybe your mood would improve if you went to the pub with us.’

 

Tonks raises her eyebrows. ‘I think you don’t understand my mood.’

 

‘Come on, now, Tonks, you’re my cousin.’

 

‘So’s Bellatrix,’ she says, but she grins.

 

‘The good ones have to stick together,’ Sirius says firmly. ‘Come to the pub.’

 

Tonks hesitates. ‘Sirius…’

 

‘I’d love to talk to you,’ Sirius says. ‘Just you and me, having a chat.’

 

‘With drinks?’

 

‘Obviously.’ He gives her his best big, exaggerated smile. ‘I’ll even buy.’

 

She sighs. ‘All right.’

 

The pub – a magical one very close to the church hall – is quiet on the Tuesday night. A Quidditch match between lower league teams from obscure parts of the North is playing above the bar, with three supporters watching who seem depressed by the results. The influx of Order members – about twelve of them make the journey over – temporarily puts the bartender into a panic.

 

‘I’m just going to have a chat with Tonks,’ Sirius says quietly to Remus.

 

‘Oh,’ Remus says. He nods. ‘Good idea. I’ll speak with the others.’

 

Sirius buys pints for the two of them and finds her seated in the booth nearest the toilets. She is staring out the window, apparently looking through the condensation running down it at the rainy street beyond.

 

‘Tonks, can we be friends?’ he asks her, sliding her drink across the table.

 

‘Sure,’ she says. She takes a drink. ‘How are you?’

 

‘Well,’ Sirius says, ‘I’ve got a lot of things on my mind right now. You?’

 

She huffs a single, sardonic laugh. ‘Same, really.’

 

‘How’s your mother?’ Sirius asks solicitously. ‘I always liked what I heard about her.’

 

‘That she got disowned from your family, you mean?’

 

‘Right.’

 

Tonks squints her eyes at him. ‘You’re very charming, you know.’

 

‘So I’ve been told. I mean, not lately, but in the past, I had that reputation.’

 

Tonks hums. ‘You can turn it on.’

 

‘When I’m with people I like,’ Sirius says.

 

Tonks rolls her eyes. ‘Mum’s fine,’ she says. ‘Worried. Dad too.’

 

‘Common problem going around,’ Sirius says. They both take a drink. The silence is unbearable. Sirius decides to apologise. ‘Listen, Tonks, I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other better last year. I was going through a difficult time.’

 

Tonks finally looks at him. ‘It seemed awful,’ she says candidly. ‘Stuck in that house you grew up in, not able to really go out. I mean, you did loads of good for the Order – the house was so crucial to all of us getting to know one another and being able to coordinate – we’ve all said we feel the loss of it now – but Jesus.’ She makes a face. ‘I just, I can’t imagine what it was like for you.’

 

Sirius is taken aback by the sudden sympathy. ‘Thanks,’ he manages to say. ‘Really, thank you.’

 

‘And I’m sorry,’ she says, and then stops and looks down at her hands. ‘Fuck.’

 

‘For what?’ Sirius asks gently. ‘You really have nothing to be sorry for.’

 

‘Well, for being an idiot,’ she says. ‘For thinking that…’ She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’

 

‘Remus is a hard man to read.’ Tonks looks at him again. ‘You didn’t know.’

 

‘I’m not drunk enough to have this conversation yet,’ she informs him.

 

‘Let’s finish our pints then,’ Sirius says, ‘because I’d like to have it, and get it over with, and get to be your friend, if you’ll let me.’

 

She sighs again, makes a face at him, and says, ‘All right.’

 

Forty-five minutes, two full pints, and one whisky later, she holds up a hand, stopping Sirius mid-sentence, and says, ‘Ok, let’s talk about Remus.’

 

Sirius grins. ‘You don’t want to hear the rest of my thoughts on Scrimgeour’s bad Auror policies?’

 

‘I-‘ Tonks laughs. ‘I mean, I agree with you. Completely. But.’ She bites her lip. ‘I’m really sorry about everything.’

 

‘I really don’t want you to apologise,’ Sirius says earnestly.

 

‘I feel like a stupid child.’

 

‘Why?’

 

She shakes her head. ‘I thought I met the love of my bloody life, and then it turns out he’s dating my cousin. Who is a man. So not only was he taken, but he was never even interested in me. And Molly said, “Oh, you’re not the first to fall in love with a gay man,” but that’s not exactly comforting, you know?’

 

‘If it makes you feel better,’ Sirius says, ‘Remus isn’t… he’s slept with women.’

 

Tonks cocks her head to the side. ‘Oddly, I guess that does make me feel a little bit better.’

 

‘That’s why I told you.’

 

‘But Sirius, he’s not going to sleep with me.’

 

‘Well, no, I don’t think he is.’

 

‘Because he’s in love with you.’

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry about that.’

 

‘I don’t want you to,’ Tonks says, shaking her head emphatically. ‘That’s not what I mean. I mean that, I feel like a stupid child, because I didn’t see any of that. I just saw that he was nice to me, and he was a good listener, and a good person.’

 

‘And deadly handsome,’ Sirius suggests.

 

‘Obviously,’ Tonks says glumly. ‘They should rename “silver fox” to “silver werewolf” in his honour.’

 

Sirius laughs. ‘I like that.’

 

‘But Sirius, he made me feel like I was the most important person whenever I talked to him. And then it turns out that that’s what he does to everyone. After you left the meeting where we were all debating Dumbledore’s successor, that’s what everyone said.’

 

‘That’s his armour,’ Sirius says gently. ‘I mean, he is genuinely a good person. But he also keeps people from asking uncomfortable questions of him by making them talk about themselves. I’ve seen him do it,’ he shrugs, ‘a hundred times.’

 

‘And I didn’t get that I was just one of that hundred,’ Tonks says bitterly.

 

‘He likes you,’ Sirius says. ‘Really. He’s,’ he shakes his head, ‘like I said, he’s a hard man to read.’

 

‘How did you know?’

 

‘Know what?’

 

‘That he loved you.’

 

‘He told me,’ Sirius says quietly. ‘But, believe me, it took a lot longer than I wanted it to. I was in love with him for ages.’

 

‘Did you tell him?’

 

Sirius nods. ‘After a while. After a year or so of thinking about it. We had a fight about…’ He remembers all of it – ‘well, about something stupid. Something not worth explaining. But the only way that I could see to resolve the fight was to tell him how I felt.’

 

‘When was this?’

 

‘Our last year at school.’

 

‘You were together then?’

 

‘Not quite. It took him about six months to wrap his head around it.’

 

‘But I mean,’ Tonks looks shocked, ‘you were together during the first war?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘And you got back together? After everything that happened?’

 

Sirius grins at her. ‘Did you really think that he would get together with me for the first time while I was skulking around my mother’s old house?’

 

‘I just,’ Tonks shakes her head. ‘I can’t imagine.’

 

‘It’s weird,’ Sirius says. ‘I’ll admit that.’

 

‘But it works.’

 

‘For the most part.’ Sirius raises an eyebrow at her. ‘I was jealous of you, for a bit.’

 

‘Really?’ she asks. ‘Because reflecting on it, I had zero chance with him.’

 

‘It didn’t feel that way to me,’ Sirius says. ‘You’re young, you’re free to go wherever you like, which I wasn’t at the time, you’re,’ he shrugs, ‘well, to be perfectly honest, you’re in a lot better mental state than I am.’

 

Tonks looks at him for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says quietly.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Sirius says. ‘I should have talked to you sooner.’ Tonks looks bleak for a moment, so Sirius says, ‘And at any rate, if anyone can understand how you’re feeling about him, it’s me.’

 

‘You were really in love with him for a year and a half before he did anything about it?’

 

Sirius nods.

 

‘That sounds miserable,’ she says.

 

‘I was seventeen. Being miserable was kind of my thing.’

 

‘Hey,’ Hestia slides into the booth next to Sirius. ‘Are you two getting privately drunk together?’

 

‘Sort of,’ Sirius says. ‘Why are you still here?’ Sirius doesn’t know Hestia very well – she’s in the new generation – but he does know that she’s married. ‘Isn’t your Muggle wife waiting at home?’

 

‘Actually Clara is trying to lure us all out to the club,’ Hestia says. ‘And I’m still here because you ditched your boyfriend to talk to Tonks.’

 

‘All of us?’ Sirius asks as Tonks says, ‘I am not going out.’

 

‘It’s ladies’ night at the local gay club,’ Hestia says, ‘but of course men who aren’t going to aggressively try to pull the ladies are welcome.’

 

‘I don’t what you’re saying about me,’ Sirius says.

 

‘That you wouldn’t know how to pull a lady even if you wanted to try,’ Hestia says. ‘Come on, it’ll be good fun.’

 

Sirius looks at Tonks, who is busy looking torn. ‘All right, I’ll go out, but only if Tonks comes.’

 

‘No,’ Tonks protests. ‘No way.’

 

‘Clara has a lot of cute friends,’ Hestia suggests.

 

‘I don’t think they’re my type,’ Tonks says.

 

‘They’re not werewolves,’ Hestia says. ‘Oh god, are we not joking about that yet?’

 

Tonks groans and puts her head in her hands.

 

‘I’m so sorry,’ Hestia says, making an apologetic face at Sirius. ‘Remus got me really drunk and now I’m just saying whatever pops into my head.’

 

‘Come on,’ Sirius says. He reaches across the table and grabs Tonks’ hand. ‘Nothing will be better for all of us than stopping talking and going dancing.’

 

***

Sirius hasn’t been to a gay club since before Azkaban, and he’d never frequented them much when he was younger either, being best friends with James and Peter. He remembers his first visit vividly, in the tableau-style scenes of a night out when he was blacking out whole chunks of time from drink.

 

Eighteen year old Sirius is way too drunk, and way too flirty, in a way that he will never be in public again, because he’s going to learn his lesson tonight. He touches Remus in a raucous Friday night pub in the middle of Muggle London in some way that the huge man seated at the bar doesn’t like, and the man decks him, and in the middle of seeing stars and reeling sideways into a table and upending all the drinks on it, he catches a glimpse of Remus breaking his hand across the man’s face.

 

Next thing he remembers, they’re all out on the kerb and Remus is holding his hand and swearing fluently while James mends it with his wand. Peter triumphantly produces two bottles of vodka from behind the bar that he has hidden in his coat. Sirius keeps trying to get to Remus and simultaneously drink from one of Peter’s cheeky bottles and James, sounding panicked, keeps telling him to stop. Someone – maybe the big man – yells at them.

 

Next thing, they’re running full tilt down the street, Remus in the lead, and he takes them into the tight warren of streets in Soho, they pop out into some gardens, and Remus grabs Sirius’s hand and drags him somewhere, into a queue, James or someone pays their entry, Sirius has no idea, he’s so drunk, and then they are inside a dark, heaving space whose music is so loud that Sirius feels it more in the vibration of his organs than in his ears.

 

Next thing, and Peter’s eyes are enormous. Two muscular men wearing very little are full on snogging and grinding beside him. Sirius can’t stop staring at them. They’re one of the sexiest things he’s ever seen. Isn’t someone going to deck them? Remus is yelling something at James. James shakes his head and grabs one of Peter’s bottles – the other seems to have gone somewhere, was it already empty? – and takes a big swig and then throws his hands up and starts dancing with wild abandon. Remus is laughing, uproariously, and a minute later, Peter is too, but Sirius can’t hear anything, just see them doing it. He reaches for the vodka and instead connects with Remus’s hand.

 

Next thing, he’s dancing with Remus, and it will sound incredibly stupid when, appallingly hungover on the couch the next morning he tries to explain it to James, but he’s dancing the way he’s wanted to his whole life for the very first time. Remus has made him understand that this is all right here, and so he puts his hands all over Remus’s body, he grinds up against him and feels his hard cock through his trousers and he runs his hands over it through the fabric and completely loses himself in the music. Remus’s hands are all over him too, and Remus kisses him, right there, in the middle of all those people, in front of James and Peter even, who whistle and yell. Then someone tries to pull Peter and he says he’s taken, which seems to offend the man. James complains that no one wants to pull him. Everything is enormously funny. Sirius loves everyone. It is transgressive in a way he wishes it could always be, as if it’s perfectly normal to have a love like they do.

 

‘I wish there was a place like this to be a werewolf,’ Remus says to him on the way home, words that, no matter how drunk he is the moment he hears them, he will remember for the rest of his life.

 

***

Ladies night at Hestia’s local gay club is not quite as revelatory, especially now that he and Remus can walk down the street holding hands, but it is still fun to let go of their cares and dance to some pop music for a bit. Tonks receives a tremendous amount of attention from Hestia’s wife’s friends that doesn’t seem unwanted and Sirius and Remus make a graceful exit when she suggests shots.

 

‘Are we getting old?’ Sirius asks Remus. ‘I’m barely tipsy.’

 

Remus laughs and wraps his arms around Sirius on the street corner. ‘I rather thought you’d like to go home before we’re too drunk to fuck,’ he says romantically.

 

‘Well then by all means,’ Sirius says, ‘take me home.’

Chapter 22: Harry's Sixth Year, Winter, Part II

Albus appears at their garden gate early one morning. Sirius takes a moment to appreciate how very surreal it is that he is having a conversation with the most impressive wizard in the world whilst wearing his boyfriend’s tatty bathrobe, and then Remus puts a hand on his arm and steers him politely but firmly back into the house and towards the direction of the bedroom. When he returns a few minutes later, fully dressed, Remus and Albus are seated at the kitchen table drinking tea.

 

‘It’s all Sirius and Molly,’ Remus is saying.

 

‘The map?’ Sirius asks. He pulls out a chair and sits down; Remus pours him a cup from the kettle and slides it towards him.

 

‘Indeed,’ Albus says. ‘We should plan to meet with Molly. I would very much like to see it.’ He frowns. ‘It’s good that you two are working on keeping the Order organised and safe. I’m afraid I’ve gotten quite obsessed with a particular aspect of the Voldemort problem and have been neglecting all others.’

 

‘What part’s that?’ Remus asks.

 

‘It’s what I’ve come to ask you about,’ he says. ‘Sirius, specifically.’

 

‘All right,’ Sirius says, slightly taken aback.

 

‘I have reason to believe that Voldemort is using certain magical objects to channel his power,’ Albus says. ‘Certain dark magical objects. But I’m having trouble locating them.’

 

Sirius, whose mind has been in map mode for months now, immediately starts thinking of cartographic magic solutions. ‘Well, hm, we could…’

 

‘I don’t think they’ll be possible to find using conventional magic,’ Albus says. ‘I think it requires deduction.’

 

‘“The little grey cells”,’ Remus murmurs, and Albus nods.

 

‘Sirius, when you were cleaning out your parents’ house, did you find any dark objects that seemed to have unusual power?’

 

Sirius almost laughs. ‘We found a tremendous quantity of dark objects,’ he says. ‘Remus even bought us some books about how best to dispose of them.’

 

‘Were there any you didn’t dispose of? Possibly that you couldn’t dispose of?’

 

Sirius thinks back, scouring through his memory. Every day away from Azkaban, it gets better, but there are still terrifying moments when he feels that he has forgotten things he needs to have remembered, and he doesn’t fully trust himself.

 

Remus is watching him closely. He knows Remus knows what he’s thinking, and it calms him enough to focus.

 

‘Didn’t Kreacher keep some things?’ Remus asks him. ‘Some things we couldn’t get away from him?’

 

‘We can ask him,’ Sirius suggests.

 

‘Ah, excellent idea,’ Albus says. ‘Although I’ve found that he is not the most forthcoming of elves.’

 

‘He’ll do his best to lie his way out of it,’ Sirius says. ‘We have to think how to word the question.’ He hesitates. ‘By the way, when I talked to Kreacher last, he told me that my cousin Bellatrix Lestrange was asking about this too. About powerful magical objects.’

 

‘Bellatrix was?’ Albus asks. ‘That’s very interesting.’ Sirius senses something grim behind his voice, though Albus is as calm as ever. ‘Very interesting.’ He abruptly stands. ‘If she has spoken with him, that’s all I need to know.’

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, somewhat dumbly. ‘All right.’

 

‘We must set a time for you and Molly to show me that map,’ Albus says. ‘Soon. But for now, I need to go.’

 

Sirius stands to let him out the door, then remembers something else. ‘Wait, I don’t know if this is relevant, but we spoke with Ollivander’s apprentice recently.’

 

‘Go on,’ Albus says.

 

‘Ollivander has disappeared,’ Sirius says.

 

‘I know,’ Albus says, a slight note of impatience in his voice. ‘Some time ago, I believe.’

 

‘Right,’ Sirius says quickly. ‘His apprentice specifically asked us to tell you that he thinks it has to do with Ollivander’s knowledge of wandlore.’

 

Albus surveys him for a moment, then says, ‘Indeed, I would be shocked if that wasn’t the reason.’

 

‘Ah,’ Sirius says. That seems to be all there is to say, so he opens the door. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he says, uselessly, and Albus nods and leaves.

 

Sirius shuts the door and looks back at Remus, who is chewing a fingernail and staring intently off to the side. ‘What was that all about?’ he asks, feeling helpless. ‘Was that the wrong thing to say?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘We said we’d tell him,’ he says. ‘It does seem rather obvious though.’

 

Now Sirius feels stupid, and annoyed with himself. ‘Sorry,’ he snaps.

 

‘Don’t be,’ Remus says absently, which only exacerbates Sirius’s sudden mood. He has his mouth open to escalate the argument that Remus doesn’t yet know they’re having when a large barn owl appears at the window.

 

‘Who’s this, then?’ Sirius demands. The owl practically tosses a letter his way and flaps off haughtily. Sirius opens the letter, which is from Kingsley looking for some help, and looks up to tell Remus.

 

Who has disappeared from the room.

 

Sirius frowns and exits the kitchen. ‘Moony?’ he calls into the lounge. When he gets no answer, he marches across the room and into the bedroom. Remus is wearing a coat and throwing some parchment into a book bag on the bed. ‘What are you doing?’

 

‘I need to do some research,’ Remus says, and he still sounds distracted. ‘I’ll be back later.’

 

‘Right, I’ll just go help Kingsley then,’ Sirius says, exasperated.

 

‘Great,’ Remus says. He picks up the bag, slings it over his shoulder and says, ‘Wait, Kingsley?’ Sirius’s annoyed blink must trigger something in him, because he says, ‘What about Kingsley?’

 

‘He’s just sent us a letter,’ Sirius says, ‘requesting one of us come help him with something.’

 

Concern passes over Remus’s face. ‘Does he need me? Should I go?’

 

‘No.’ Sirius gives up on having a row. Law of diminishing returns, at this point. ‘What are you researching?’

 

‘Magical objects,’ Remus says. ‘And what Voldemort might be able to do with them.’

 

***

Remus’s educational history is not quite what he wishes it was. He’d left Hogwarts and been accepted to a program of study at St Cyprian’s, one of Oxford’s two magical colleges. The plan had been to become an academic, and to do research that would help Dark Creatures in their fight for equal rights with wizards. Unfortunately, the war and the reality of academia had intervened quickly. The Death Eaters’ stranglehold on transport methods had destroyed his ability to study in Oxford and live with Sirius (who was bound to London while he trained at the Ministry to be an Auror), and Remus’s supervisor had accepted a new position at the Mortimer Andrew Gates Institute of Cooperative Magic at University College London. By January of his first year at Oxford, desperately missing Sirius (and the other two as well) and feeling disconnected and useless, he had decided to transfer to London. He sat exams for a one year degree, passed with distinction, and then matriculated at UCL as a doctoral candidate. As he became more involved in the war, it became harder for him to keep up with his work, but he persevered as best he could. The fall of Voldemort roughly three and a half years later – taking James, Lily, Peter, and Sirius with him – put the final nail in the coffin of his PhD; he couldn’t stand to be in Britain, let alone the streets of central London that he had walked every day with them. He’d fled to the world beyond, and after not paying his fees for a few terms, UCL had quietly removed him from their student rolls.

 

He is, however, an alumnus of Oxford, which grants him lifetime access to the university’s library. He leaves the cottage’s protective shield, walks a short way down the path, whispers a protection spell, and steps into the turn to Apparate to Oxford’s public Apparition station. He is grateful, as he always is now, to arrive at his destination without having been accosted by Death Eaters. The station is deserted, and he steps out into the cold, wet streets alone.

 

It is a quick walk up the hill and across the centre of the city to the Bodleian, the university’s central library. Inside the vast yellow-stoned courtyard, Remus steps through the doorway – offset from the regularly spaced Muggle doorways – that signifies the School of Magic and its library. He presents his reader card at the front desk and walks rapidly up the worn stone stairs to the reading room he is seeking. Inside, he peers out through the eyes of the statue of King James, looking down at the rainy courtyard, now crowded with tourists outfitted in bright yellow macs. Then he turns his attention to the bookshelves.

 

Hours later, seated at one of the long readers’ tables and breathing in the scent of polished wood and old books, he still feels no closer to understanding what it is that Albus – and Bellatrix, presumably on the orders of her master – are seeking. Nearly every book on the topic of dark magical objects is stacked in front of him, and he’s been through each one.

 

Albus had said that he is trying to learn as much about Voldemort as he can…his family, his past…

 

Remus leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers underneath his chin, thinking hard. Albus seems intent upon unravelling Voldemort’s motives. Remus has very little idea who he was or what he was like before he became Voldemort. He had been a student at Hogwarts, and Remus knows he had a different name at school, Tom Riddle. He had once sought the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, and when he didn’t get it, he’d cursed it – Remus knows that because Albus had warned him that he’d only be a professor for one year.

 

But what, really, does Voldemort want? Power? Remus isn’t sure about that. He knows Voldemort doesn’t want to govern, and doubts that he wants to rule. It seems like a lot of trouble. That had been more clearly his goal last time, but this time, he seems to be doing something different – something subtler. Last time, of course, he’d wound up with the Ministry arrayed against him, whereas this time he’s managed to divide it. During the first war, the Minister had scurried to Albus for help constantly. Afterwards, Fudge had done that for years too. Then Fudge had stopped after Voldemort’s mysterious return, and Scrimgeour similarly seems to have no use for Albus. Voldemort is sowing discord and misinformation. And without Albus’s influence, the Ministry is moving towards a more authoritarian, wizards-first position, than it has been for some time.

 

Remus leans forward on the desk, idly flipping through a book. If Voldemort doesn’t want to govern, then what does he want?

 

Eradication of Muggle-born wizards seems high on his list, but why?

 

They’re a common enemy, Remus thinks. The old guard will be behind him for that. Same for harsh laws on werewolves and vampires, and re-allowing Muggle hunting…

 

And the old guard – the old wizarding families like the Blacks, and the Malfoys, and many others – they are often the keepers of ancient magical objects. The kinds that have accrued enormous power over the years. These artefacts are passed down through generations.

 

They might include wands, he supposes, trying to tie it back to Ollivander, and wandlore. But Bellatrix wasn’t asking Kreacher about wands. She was asking about dark magical objects in general. As was Albus.

 

But what could you do with a dark magical object? What could you do that Voldemort would want? You could bend the world to your desires. And if your desires are to eradicate Muggles… Remus is thinking himself in circles. He stands and walks to the massive window that looks outward from the library. The Bridge of Sighs is resolutely scenic despite the rain, and a huddle of tourists stand underneath it, fingers up in the peace sign, waiting for their friend to take a photo. Remus wonders what the Muggles are making of this Dementor-driven weather.

 

Staring down at them, he tries to think how this feels different than the last war. The wizarding world feels inhumane right now, as if they’ve circled the wagons to protect what they can against the encroaching shadows, and all the gains that they’d made – better protections for Muggle born wizards, for example – are being forgotten or actively changed. He seems to remember that last time they’d felt more united, but he’s not sure if he’s just putting a rose-coloured tint on the past. Voldemort being out in the open had made him seem more unacceptable, certainly. But he had still had his supporters, many of them at the highest levels…

 

Remus remembers Professor Conrad.

 

During his year at Oxford, he’d been on a scholarship for students from underprivileged backgrounds. It included a termly dinner at the high table, where ordinarily only faculty and guests could sit. It was an opportunity for networking with professors and alumni. The first term, he had brought Peter, because Sirius had had some training that meant he couldn’t make it. Peter had been the perfect dinner date for a black-tie event in the poshest place either of them had ever been – they’d giggled their way through the arcane rituals and helped each other with the dress code and been appropriately awed by the expensive wine and oak-panelled rooms. Remus had been crap at networking, but it was all right, because they’d had a fantastic time.

 

The second term, Sirius had been able to come, and things had gone rather disastrously.

 

Sirius arrives in Oxford in a flying car – the first of his absurd transportation purchases, soon to be topped by a motorcycle – and he and Remus spend a delightful afternoon in bed in Remus’s college room. Remus has bought a nice (one pound up from what was on offer) bottle of wine to drink while they prepare for dinner. In the shower, he sets his glass up on the high window ledge and fifteen minutes later emerges clean, damp, and tipsy. Sirius is just finishing putting on his black-tie robes when Remus emerges.

 

(Earlier in the day, he’d stupidly offered to find some robes for Sirius to borrow, and Sirius had given him a strange look and said that he owned them already, thanks, because sometimes Remus manages to forget what family Sirius comes from, but Sirius never does.)

 

Sirius looks stunning, of course; he’s had a glass of wine and his high cheekbones have a little flush to them. Every time they are apart for any length of time – and it had been three weeks before today – Remus forgets just how very handsome Sirius is. It’s a bit like walking out of a cave into blinding sunlight.

 

The problem, of course, is that Sirius also knows that he is this handsome. He sees Remus looking, leans close, and breathes in his ear, ‘I’m going to bend you over the desk when we get back.’ Remus gets a hard-on so fast he’s surprised he doesn’t lose his towel. Then the bell tolls for dinner and he has to rush into his robe.

 

It’s easy, at dinner, to present Sirius as his friend; after all, that’s what they were for six and a half years and that’s what they are in public still. They sit beside each other and Remus is prepared to just talk to Sirius the way he’d just talked to Peter last time, when someone across from them says, ‘Aren’t you Sirius Black?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, startled.

 

Remus recognises one of the fellows of the college, but he doesn’t know his name or what he studies.

 

‘Professor Walter Conrad,’ the man says, extending a hand to Sirius. ‘I know your father.’

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, a bit awkwardly, ‘yes, pleased to meet you.’

 

Someone comes by with wine and Conrad leans back and lets him pour. Then he leans forward again and says to Sirius, ‘I do hope your family troubles are for a teenage reason, and not politics.’

 

Remus feels Sirius go still beside him; his own heart skips a beat.

 

‘It’s complicated,’ Sirius says, much too pleasant.

 

‘You’ll come around, I’m sure,’ Conrad carries on, ‘to accepting that your family is correct. Once you’re older, and you’ve experienced more of the world.’

 

Remus wants to slap Conrad in the face; he might as well be waving a red flag in front of Sirius’s eyes.

 

‘So you think that people with Muggle parents should be some kind of second class citizens?’ Sirius asks, his pleasant tone now undergirded with aggression.

 

‘“Second class citizens” is of course the leftie term for anyone you think is being treated unfairly,’ Conrad says, waving a hand. ‘But to be a wizard is a privilege.’

 

‘A privilege you’re born with,’ Sirius snaps.

 

‘Just like money,’ Conrad replies, smiling at Sirius. ‘Right?’

 

‘Just because I was born with money doesn’t mean I deserved it,’ Sirius says quietly.

 

‘“Deserve” is such a strange word,’ Conrad replies, sounding bored. ‘You were born with it, you have it, why wouldn’t you want to protect it?’

 

‘Magic isn’t a finite resource,’ Remus tries.

 

‘Is it not?’ Conrad asks, barely looking at him. ‘Then why is it so scarce? Less than 2% of the population will have any magical ability at all.’

 

Remus wonders if that’s true. He’s never looked at the numbers.

 

‘I’m a demographic historian,’ Conrad says, obviously reading Remus’s silence.

 

‘We have a friend,’ Sirius says, ignoring this, ‘completely Muggle born, her sister is a Muggle, and she’s a brilliant witch. One of the top students in our year.’

 

‘Oh of course,’ Conrad says. ‘Anecdotally, it happens. Now who knows what would be proven if she were tested… perhaps a wizard back in her family, repressed magic, or maybe that she’s not all that good, just been given special treatment… but it does certainly happen.’

 

‘Not to mention,’ Sirius continues, ‘that I know of another wizard, his mother is a Muggle…’

 

Remus kicks Sirius sharply under the table, but Conrad has already caught on. ‘Even Oxford admits some,’ he says, smirking in Remus’s direction, but not, Remus is certain, directly at him. That would imply some level of engagement. ‘But the fact of the matter is, those are statistical anomalies. People who are Muggle born are simply not up to achieving the highest levels of wizardry, in general. There’s plenty of research to back it up, much of it done right here.’

 

‘And so what would you propose?’ Remus asks, more to derail Sirius from actual violence than because he’s interested.

 

‘Confining the Muggle born to a particular Hogwarts house, for a start,’ Conrad suggests. ‘Not allowing real wizard children to be held back by them.’

 

‘“Real wizard children”?’ Sirius repeats, much too loudly. Others around the table look up, startled. Remus considers faking that he’s choking to stop the conversation, but isn’t sure Sirius will notice.

 

‘Nearly all upper level careers are filled by people who are at least two generations pureblooded,’ Conrad says. ‘That’s peer reviewed research.’ Remus can tell that he’s relishing how upset he’s made Sirius, and that makes him angry.

 

‘No wonder,’ he says, leaning forward, his career in academia be damned, ‘when nepotism plays a huge role in our society. How much time did you waste writing up that brilliant conclusion? Purebloods call in their connections to see that their children are appointed to good positions. Next I’m sure you’ll be publishing about how dragon burns are painful.’

 

Sirius laughs, which is all that Remus cares about at the moment. Conrad rolls his eyes. ‘What is it you study?’ he asks, raising an eyebrow. In a mocking tone, he says, ‘Dark creatures are all right, honest?’

 

‘Better than your bunk about Purebloods and real wizards,’ Sirius says. ‘Honestly, it’s no wonder you and my father know each other. You probably like each other, too.’

 

‘Your father is on the right side of history,’ Conrad informs Sirius earnestly. ‘And I hope for everyone’s sake that you get there too.’

 

‘Me?’ Sirius asks, incredulous. ‘My father doesn’t want anything to do with me.’

 

But Remus sees where the argument is going before Conrad opens his mouth and says, ‘You are from one of the oldest Pureblood families in Britain. It’s your duty to your family – and to all wizards – to have children.’

 

Remus has previously believed that it is impossible to do a genuine spit take, but, here it is: Sirius, who has been angrily draining his wine glass, inhales hard and starts coughing. ‘It’s my duty?’ he manages.

 

‘We are at a crossroads,’ Conrad says, and now he seems to have moved beyond the role of professor looking for a debate and more into genuine personal ideology. Remus finds him much more repugnant now. ‘The wizarding world stands at the edge of a precipice. Purebloods have to defend who we are as a race. And people like you are, quite frankly, traitors. When the Dark Lord-’

 

‘I won’t,’ Sirius says, and he stands up so abruptly that his chair falls over backwards. The noise and action brings the rest of the dining hall to a halt. Remus shuts his eyes for a second and tries to wake up from this nightmare. ‘I won’t,’ Sirius repeats, in a ringing tone, and everyone is looking and listening. ‘You’re the traitor,’ Sirius adds, brandishing his wine glass. ‘We’re trying to have a, a,’ he looks to Remus for help.

 

Remus suggests, very quietly, ‘An inclusive society?’

 

‘That,’ Sirius spits at Conrad. ‘An inclusive society. And you’re selling us out to a monster.’

 

‘You’re making a fool of yourself,’ Conrad says quietly enough that only Remus and Sirius can hear him. ‘I hope you’re pleased. And I hope equally that someday you’ll look back on this and feel terrible at your mistakes.’ He leans forward and says, very, very quietly, ‘You’re a blood traitor, not worthy of the name Black.’

 

‘Good,’ Sirius snarls. ‘I don’t want it.’ And then he exits, very loudly, stage left, pushing past his downed chair, around the backs of a dozen fellows, down the step from high table, and out the long length of the dining hall, the heels of his dress shoes clacking with every step. It takes fully thirty seconds of riveted attention from the rest of the dinner-goers before he reaches the door to the hall and slams it shut behind him. Remus sits for a second, then quietly folds his napkin, places it on the table, stands, rights Sirius’s chair, and follows him, without looking up once, out of the still-silent hall.

 

Sirius has run down the two flights of stairs to the quad and is circling the grass like a dog in a cage when Remus finds him.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ he says immediately, and Remus shakes his head.

 

‘I’m sorry. I had no idea. I feel…’

 

‘I meant it,’ Sirius says, obviously still wound up. His hair is mussed, as if he’s been tugging at it. ‘I don’t want to be a Black.’ He gives Remus a plaintive look. ‘Can I be a Lupin instead?’

 

‘Of course,’ Remus says. He tries to joke. ‘I mean you’ll be sent to a separate House at Hogwarts…’ Sirius does not laugh, so Remus switches tack. ‘What an absurd thing to say.’

 

‘My family believes all that,’ Sirius says, voice shaking. ‘Every bit of it. Christmas of my first year, my mother demanded to know the names of everyone in Gryffindor and forbade me from being friends with non-Purebloods.’

 

Remus laughs, startled. ‘I’m not a Pureblood,’ he says.

 

‘I know,’ says Sirius. ‘She forbade me from being friends with you.’

 

Remus blinks and looks at him. ‘Well,’ he says, absurdly touched. ‘Well, thank you.’

 

Sirius waves a hand to indicate that it’s nothing. ‘The point is, they believe this. And they are powerful. As discussed.’

 

‘And rich.’

 

‘And willing to give money to Voldemort’s causes.’

 

Remus sighs. He’s kind of too drunk to be having this conversation. ‘I don’t know what…’

 

‘Remus, Professor Dumbledore didn’t want me in the Order,’ Sirius says abruptly.

 

‘What?’ Remus snaps back to focus on Sirius. ‘Why on earth not?’

 

‘He thought I might be compromised by my family,’ Sirius says. ‘He thought that they’d be the ones fighting on Voldemort’s side and he didn’t want to make me choose. I had to tell him, that’s not how this will be. But I had to go to him, after James joined, and ask.’

 

Remus feels a moment of guilt that he had listened to Dumbledore and not told Sirius anything about it. He wishes he’d been the one to tell him. But this is months after the fact, and Sirius is just telling him now? That hurts. Still, he doesn’t want to fight. ‘That’s very heroic,’ he says, and he means it.

 

‘I’m sorry I ruined your dinner.’ Sirius does look genuinely sorry.

 

Remus puts his arm around his shoulders and says, ‘No matter. It wasn’t a very nice dinner anyway. Let’s go get a kebab.’

 

Now, separated from that night by twenty-five years (but less than a mile), Remus still isn’t sure what Voldemort himself wants. He feels like a palimpsest onto which wizards can project their worst fears and worst ideas.

 

‘Remus Lupin?’ a small voice at his shoulder asks.

 

He turns and sees one of the junior librarians. She is holding out a note to him. ‘Is that you?’

 

He nods and takes it. ‘Thank you,’ he says, recognising Sirius’s handwriting and a second later, as he is in the act of unfolding it, remembering that he is supposed to be somewhere this evening. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says, to no one in particular. The librarian makes an annoyed noise and he looks up to see her surveying the enormous pile of books on his table. With a flick of her wand, she sends all of them flying back to their shelves, humans in the room be damned; Remus ducks, then grabs his bag, and walk-runs his way to the public Apparition point.

 

He hits the one on the other side in Kings Cross at high speed and emerges slightly dizzy and nauseous to find Sirius waiting, conspicuously looking at his watch.

 

‘Hello darling, very sorry, I’m terrible, I forgot,’ Remus says breathlessly.

 

‘Well, you’re here now,’ Sirius says. He reaches out, takes Remus’s scarf, and tugs him close. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

 

‘No,’ Remus says. ‘Though I’m not sure what it is exactly.’ He leans in and kisses Sirius. ‘Am I still in trouble?’

 

‘I didn’t know you’d noticed,’ Sirius says, but his tone says an emphatic no.

 

‘You were radiating death beams at me,’ Remus replies. He kisses him again and gently extracts his scarf from his hand ‘I’m not completely thick.’

 

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ Sirius says.

 

‘You too,’ Remus agrees, and his voice can’t even convey how fervently he means it.

 

‘Molly, Arthur!’ Sirius barks over Remus’s shoulder. Remus turns to see them walking up, hand in hand, and looking slightly out of breath themselves.

 

‘We got Ministry cars,’ Arthur says to Sirius in greeting. ‘Hello, how are you?’

 

‘Oh,’ Remus says, remembering that they were all supposed to have gotten together and sorted out a mode of transport for getting to the Weasleys’ for dinner this evening.

 

‘Don’t worry,’ Sirius whispers in his ear sotto voce. ‘I took care of it.’

 

‘We heard you were doing something important for the Order.’ Molly smiles at him, but she looks worried.

 

‘Mostly banging my head against a wall,’ Remus says. He glances at Arthur. ‘Maybe you have some ideas… Albus and Bellatrix Lestrange are both interested in dark magical objects. I have no idea why and I’m trying to figure out what Voldemort might want with them.’

 

‘Hm,’ Arthur says, ‘well, I’ll think about it, but I mostly work with Muggle objects that someone has enchanted to be dark, rather than real dark objects.’

 

‘Oh, it’s the Weasleys!’

 

They all turn to see a pair of serious-looking Muggles approaching them.

 

‘Hermione’s parents,’ Molly explains. ‘Hello! Wonderful to see you!’ She introduces them to Remus and Sirius.

 

‘Harry’s godparents?’ says Hermione’s father, looking startled.

 

‘Sadly Harry’s parents died when he very young,’ Remus explains. ‘We were their best friends.’

 

‘So kind of you to do that!’ Hermione’s mother exclaims.

 

‘It’s been our privilege,’ Sirius says. ‘But now I think the train is arriving…’

 

‘Go get them, we’ll just wait here,’ Hermione’s mother says, waving them on. ‘And so lovely to meet you both.’

 

They go through the barrier with Molly and Arthur; the train is there, billowing smoke and steam and making loud hissing noises. There are the kids, and then Remus is caught up in a flow of greeting Harry and the rest and listening to their chatter.

 

It isn’t until much later in the evening – when they’re all sitting in the Weasleys’ lounge, drinking wine after dinner and attempting to digest the mountains of food that they’ve been served, that Remus remembers the morning, when Sirius had gone to see Kingsley.

 

‘How was it?’ he asks.

 

‘We’re setting up a wireless network,’ Sirius says. ‘To communicate with people all over the country.’

 

‘Brilliant,’ Remus says.

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius agrees. ‘I rather thought so too. A friend of Fred and George’s thought of it, but Kingsley and I needed to do some reconnaissance on how to patch into the WWN.’

 

Remus looks around at them all, happy and (for the moment) safe and feels, for the first time in a while, that they can win this thing.

 

***

While Sirius and Tonks had their heart to heart at the pub, Remus was briefly cornered by Fleur Delacour.

 

‘Remus,’ she says in her heavy accent and without greeting, ‘I would like to speak with you.’

 

‘Of course,’ he replies, taken aback. ‘Let’s get a table.’ He has never spoken with Fleur outside of perfunctory comments at Order meetings, which she has been attending since the start of autumn. Today is the first time he’s ever seen her without Bill, who had had some work reason for not being able to attend. Now that Sirius and Molly are apparently confidants – a development Remus did not anticipate – he has heard a bit about Fleur from Molly’s side of the story, which seems to be that she’s rude, arrogant, and in no way deserving of Bill.

 

‘I ‘ave four friends,’ she says as they sit, ‘who ‘ave come over from ze continent to fight against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.’

 

Remus is startled. ‘From Beauxbatons?’

 

‘Three are from zere,’ she says, ‘and one from Italy who came to our school on exchange.’

 

‘How old are they?’

 

‘Zis is what I want to talk to you about. Zey ‘ave all just finished school in ze summer – we finish a bit later zan Hogwarts.’ She looks up at him imploringly and Remus feels that Veela magic work on him and wonders for a second what it’s like to live with that power and how much of it is voluntary. ‘I know zat you and Sirius were very young when you joined ze Order. Is zat right?’

 

Remus nods. ‘Just out of school ourselves.’

 

She looks relieved. ‘Zat is what Arthur said when I told him about my friends. He said zat I should speak with you about zem, and zat you would be happy to help zem.’

 

‘Help them how?’

 

‘I want zem to be able to join ze Order.’

 

Remus frowns, thinking. ‘We would have to be certain they are not spies.’

 

Fleur looks taken aback. ‘Zey are my friends!’ she snaps.

 

Remus sees why Molly might not have taken to her. ‘Peter Pettigrew was my best friend,’ he says gently, ‘for ten years.’

 

Fleur at least has the good grace to look embarrassed. ‘I am sorry,’ she says. ‘I ‘ad forgotten.’

 

‘It’s quite all right,’ Remus says, wondering for a fleeting second what exactly people say about him and Sirius behind their backs, ‘and I truly don’t mean to imply anything about your friends. But we must be careful.’

 

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I understand.’

 

‘Are they here now?’

 

‘Yes, zey are staying with me.’

 

‘Why did they say they came?’

 

Fleur gives him a look like he’s stupid. He’s definitely feeling sympathetic to Molly. ‘We are not idiots in Europe,’ she says, ‘no matter what you English think.’

 

‘Just so you know,’ Remus says, trying not to smile, ‘I’m Welsh.’

 

‘Fine, you British,’ she says, unperturbed. ‘I haven’t missed your politics here.’

 

‘Fair,’ Remus admits, ‘though not all of us.’

 

‘My friends, zey can see what is coming,’ she says, ignoring that. ‘What is sweeping Britain. There are strains of it in France as well.’ Remus can see that it is hard for her to admit that, and appreciates it. ‘If ze hatred that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is spreading were to win here, it would be easier for it to triumph at home. It could engulf all of us.’ She looks at him evenly. ‘Your people came to help us when Grindelwald was in power. Now we want to help you.’

 

Remus studies her earnest face for a moment. ‘I’m touched that they – and you – came,’ he says sincerely. ‘How can I help?’

 

So now he is here: in London, in the lashing rain, with an appalling cold, two days before Christmas, and there are four young Europeans with him. They are very green.

 

He and Sirius had had a fight about him going out with this cold. Sirius had said, very reasonably, that he worries about Remus and wants him to take care of his health; Remus had snapped angrily at him about his concern and now feels like absolute shit about it.

 

But if he doesn’t attend to Order business, someone else will have to answer the call. And what if that person is injured, or killed? Remus could never live with himself.

 

‘Tell us what to do,’ says the Italian one, a curly-haired woman named Guiliana.

 

Remus surveys their faces, which read: solemn, determined, scared, and very solemn. ‘Listen,’ he says gently, ‘I won’t lie to you, this is a grim business. But we can probably get through it better if we have a little humour with each other.’ This statement has zero impact. Remus blows his nose into a handkerchief and says, ‘All right, tell me what I told you before we came out. Let’s review it.’

 

Guiliana says, ‘We will use what we learned when we studied the shape of the building.’

 

Baptiste says, ‘We will always stay in pairs.’

 

Nolan says, ‘We will keep our wands ready.’

 

And Salome says, ‘We will be patient and vigilant.’

 

Good, Remus thinks. At least they listen. He nods and blows his nose.

 

Remus has chosen this particular adventure to bring them along for training purposes because it does not seem like it will be dangerous. Kingsley has identified a strange operation on one of the highest floors of a skyscraper in the city of London. There’s dark magic going on up there, but it doesn’t seem too dark. Remus has dealt with remarkably stupid Death Eaters before and suspects that he will again, probably tonight. They enter through the front door; they have all cast glamours that will not allow the hundreds of CCTV cameras to see them. They go into the lift and Giuliana looks at Remus.

 

‘Floor four zero?’ she asks quietly, and Remus nods.

 

The lift has clear glass for two of its walls, and the city, lit up at night, flashes by them; the other two are mirrors. Remus looks at the five of them in reflection and feels old. Then the doors ding open, they step out, and walk up the stairs as silently as they can to the next floor, the one Kingsley has identified. A quick Alohomora and they emerge into a dark space full of long tables with computers on them. Tall chairs are spaced out at random intervals. There are voices down the hallway. Remus feels the others tense and thinks, Good. He’s suddenly very aware of how much he would like to have any more experienced member of the Order with him.

 

But.

 

Kingsley said this was a low-level operation.

 

Then why does Remus feel this ominous weight pressing down on –

 

‘Someone is here,’ says a woman’s voice, and Remus’s heart stops. Bellatrix.

 

This is emphatically not a low-level operation.

 

He jerks a hand at the four of them – get back to the stairs – and they all look at him, goggle-eyed. He jerks the hand again and they scamper. He hears her footsteps and ducks down behind one of the tables. They of course don’t have anything beneath them – they’re supported on tall, spindly legs, he thinks they’re standing desks, because of course they are, fuck this modern design aesthetic, because it’s never going to protect him. He sees the others still making their way to the stairs and urges them mentally to go faster. He sees Giuliana look back as if looking for him, bless her heart, and then he sees Bellatrix come into the office.

 

Her wand speed is always shocking to him. He has his out already but she almost beats him with a spell.

 

Almost.

 

He hits the computer nearest her and it explodes in a cacophony of sparks. She shrieks – he had hoped that a Muggle device would be the most intimidating thing to throw at her – and he hits the whiteboard on her other side. It falls off the wall and shatters; he flings the pieces at her and starts retreating underneath the tables, knocking computers off of them as he goes. She is now firing back, and her aim is close, if a bit wild. Those aren’t stunning spells either.

 

‘Remus,’ whispers a tiny French voice beside him; he takes a second to look and sees that the others are pinned down behind a table. They all look frankly terrified. The door to the stairs is fifteen feet away, and requires movement across an open space. Bellatrix is calling for others and Remus can hear them coming over the crackling sound of small fires as some of the computers burn.

 

Bellatrix tried to murder Sirius. Remus loathes her, but he also knows that he doesn’t have the will to use one of the Unforgivables on her or anyone for that matter. He stands and fires off a spell that cracks the glass behind her. The wind starts to howl into the building, whipping up papers on desks. ‘Go,’ he says hoarsely to the other four.

 

‘But,’ Nolan says, and then Remus is lifted bodily off his feet and shoved, as if by an invisible hand, out the window.

 

For a second he is falling and it is the greatest terror he’s ever felt but then he remembers that he is a wizard. Bellatrix will have tried to temporarily impede his ability to Apparate but he’s practiced for this and he can – if he tries – he can –

 

He manages to stop two feet above the street, but using magic to counteract the force of the fall is incredibly draining and a second later he lets go and lands hard on his back.

 

He lies on the ground for a moment, letting the fact that he has just plummeted some forty stories process through his brain. He notices that the rain has turned to sleet, and that it is very, very cold on his face.

 

Then he remembers that there are four young people still inside with a lot of Death Eaters and that he is responsible for them. He hauls himself to his feet and nearly collapses against a streetlamp. He braces himself on it, struggling to remain upright as he takes a second to breathe deep, seek inner peace, try to find his equilibrium, and when he’s just started to grasp it, he Apparates back to the battle.

 

No one is there. The window Bellatrix threw him out of is still broken, and the floor is slick with rain. Glass crunches underfoot but Remus is done teaching or playing or whatever you want to call it, he is done fucking around where Bellatrix Lestrange is concerned. Wordlessly, without touching his wand, he sweeps the glass up magically and keeps it suspended in a tight ball beside his right hand. He is ready to throw it in her face.

 

But then, he doesn’t find her. All of the Death Eaters are gone. They have completely cleaned out a room and it is clear from the lingering scorched feel of magic that they were there and that they departed at high speed. Remus considers trying to trace them, but knows it would be suicidally stupid alone. He stalks through the rest of the rooms on the floor, just to be sure, and then allows the glass to fall to the floor. In the distance, he hears sirens. He goes to the stairwell and finds the four Europeans crouched together, having a whispered debate about what to do. They all look up at him, stunned in unison, when he opens the door. It suddenly all seems immensely funny.

 

‘So those were the Death Eaters,’ he announces. ‘Charming, aren’t they?’ They all blink and stare. ‘We’ve got to go,’ Remus adds, as he hears the sirens grow close. ‘Best just to Apparate somewhere nearby, I think.’

 

They make their way in short hops back to Fleur’s flat, where they collapse around the kitchen table. Fleur is out for the evening and they have the place to themselves. Remus is coughing up a fit and ignoring the blood trickling into his eye from a glass cut above his eyebrow. ‘Listen,’ he says to them, ‘if any of you want to go home, I’d completely understand.’

 

They look at each other, and then at him. ‘No,’ Giuliana says. ‘We are here to fight.’

 

***

On Christmas Eve morning, Sirius wakes up to an empty bed and the smell of sausages. Confused by Remus’s early morning rising, he also rises, pulls on a robe, and, yawning, walks into the kitchen. Remus is fully dressed, appears to have bathed, and has made enough food for a small army.

 

‘What…?’ Sirius asks, gesturing in confusion at the scene.

 

‘Good morning,’ Remus chirps, hustling to the doorway and pressing a cup of tea into Sirius’s outstretched hand.

 

‘What’s going on?’ Sirius asks. ‘Why are you awake? Why are you cooking breakfast?’

 

‘It’s a lovely day,’ Remus says. ‘I woke up and fancied a walk.’

 

Sirius looks out the window. It appears to be drizzling. ‘A lovely day?’ he repeats.

 

‘Yes, will you go on a walk with me?’

 

Sirius squints at him. ‘Where?’

 

‘Up the hill, I think. To get a view.’

 

‘A view of what?’

 

‘You know we can see the sea from there.’

 

Sirius looks again out the window. Still drizzling. ‘On a clear day…’

 

‘Sometimes you can go right above the cloud level.’

 

Sirius stares at Remus, who is watching him, biting his lip. He looks oddly nervous. ‘All right,’ Sirius says. ‘If that’s what you want to do.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says emphatically. ‘Please, sit, I’ll give you some food.’

 

Thirty minutes later, they are both thoroughly bundled up in warm, waterproof clothing, and have cast many spells to the same effect. Up the hill they go, slipping and sliding on the muddy path. For what feels to Sirius like hours, they struggle upward, out of breath, with nothing in sight but fog and rain. Finally, he stops.

 

‘Remus,’ he calls – Remus is a few steps ahead of him. He tries to see anything through the clouds. ‘The weather is quite miserable up here, don’t you think?’

 

Remus doesn’t answer. Sirius looks up at him and he’s staring off into the fog, eyes unfocused. A cold feeling – completely unrelated to the icy drizzle in the air – starts in Sirius’s stomach.

 

‘Moony, what is going on?’ he asks. ‘You’ve been completely distant for days and days now.’

 

Remus looks startled, but at least he looks at him. ‘Have I?’

 

Sirius nods. ‘And you insisted upon this walk despite the appalling weather, which means you have something you want to talk about, but you’re not talking about it.’

 

‘Oh.’ Remus hesitates. ‘Sorry, I just have a tremendous amount on my mind right now.’

 

Nothing more seems forthcoming. ‘Remus, are you mad at me?’

 

‘What?’ Remus shakes his head. ‘No. The opposite.’

 

Sirius is mollified, and slightly embarrassed. ‘Well, all right, fine. Makes sense. I mean, look at me.’

 

Remus grins. ‘Indeed, look at you.’

 

‘So the plan is to continue walking in the rain until…?’

 

‘I was thinking until we reach the top.’

 

‘How far off would you say that is?’

 

‘Soon,’ Remus says firmly, and turns around, and starts walking again.

 

The top is not soon by any definition except Remus’s own. Sirius is miserable and drenched despite repeated attempts, magical and apparel, to stay dry, and he spends much of the time thinking darkly to himself that Remus had better know how much he loves him.

 

‘I think we’re here,’ Remus announces suddenly, and Sirius crashes into him. The fog has intensified. ‘Careful,’ Remus adds, ‘it’s a bit cliffy.’

 

‘Remus,’ Sirius snaps, exasperated. ‘What exactly-‘

 

Remus pulls out his wand, and the clouds seem to fold away, pressing down into the valley below them like a deep, grey carpet. Above them, the sky is an icy blue, but clear. And – far in the distance – glinting in the sunlight – the sea.

 

‘Told you so,’ Remus says. His teeth are chattering.

 

Sirius twists around, looking at the view – the very tops of a few other hills, green and grey, with jutting rock spires, and below each one, a roiling sea of grey cloud – and then back at Remus. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he admits.

 

‘I’m sorry the walk was terrible,’ Remus says. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be any nicer on the way back, either.’

 

‘Not after you stuffed the clouds down even further into the valley,’ Sirius says. ‘But did you clear your head? Have a good think?’

 

Remus smiles. ‘Yes, I did.’

 

‘Good,’ Sirius says, and he means it. Remus has been acting strangely for weeks. ‘Can we go back now? I’m bloody freezing.’

 

‘Just…’ Remus hesitates. ‘Sirius.’

 

Sirius is mystified. ‘What?’

 

‘You came with me,’ Remus says. ‘Despite the weather.’

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, mystification deepening still further, ‘I mean, yes, I… yes. That’s quite all right. You, well, you wanted to walk. And you clearly needed the space to think.’

 

‘Yes, but you didn’t have to come with me.’

 

Exasperated, Sirius says, ‘You invited me. You cooked me breakfast!’

 

‘I know,’ Remus says. ‘But you made the choice. You always come with me.’

 

‘Because I love you,’ Sirius says, each word emphasized, as if speaking to an idiot – which Remus seems to be, at the moment.

 

‘I love you too,’ Remus says simply, no trace of sarcasm or rebuttal. ‘No matter the weather. No matter – no matter any circumstances.’

 

Sirius blinks at him. His heart is starting to beat very fast, though his brain hasn’t caught up to why yet. ‘Moony…’

 

Remus has had his hands in the pockets of his mac, but now he takes them out, and there’s something shiny in the palm of one. ‘Sirius.’

 

Sirius blinks, uncomprehending, at Remus’s hand and the shiny thing in it.

 

‘Padfoot,’ Remus continues. ‘Best friend and love of my life.’

 

‘Moony…’

 

Remus is looking directly at his face, completely calm. His palm is up, his hand open. The ring is there for Sirius to reach out and take. ‘Will you be my husband?’

 

***

They agree to not tell anyone that Sirius bursts into tears immediately after Remus asks, and also agree not to mention that Remus cries so hard on the way down that he can’t see the path very well and slips and falls, and since they are holding hands, he takes Sirius down with him, and they both get covered in mud.

 

Back in the cottage, they clean up while drinking tea, trying to warm up, because now they are late for Christmas dinner at the Weasleys’.

 

‘But Moony,’ Sirius says, hand on Remus’s arm – he hasn’t stopped touching him since he asked, isn’t sure when he’ll ever stop touching him – he’s genuinely considering putting off going to the toilet because of it – ‘why now?’

 

Remus tugs on a second jumper. ‘I’m tired of waiting,’ he says simply, ‘for the war to be over. I’m tired of putting off life.’ He takes Sirius’s hand – the hand now bearing the ring Remus had gotten for him – and says, ‘Imagine if I’d died without asking you.’

 

Sirius swallows so hard it hurts. ‘Oh, Remus.’

 

‘And,’ Remus says, ‘rather less romantic, but if you must go to hospital again, I won’t be shut out of your room. No one is going to just, you know, give me the right to see my partner. So I have to take it.’

 

Sirius is definitely going to start crying again. ‘I think that’s romantic,’ he mumbles.

 

‘It shouldn’t have to be,’ Remus snaps. ‘I shouldn’t have to marry you for political reasons-’

 

‘But it’s not just political reasons, right?’

 

Remus stops, mid-righteous flow. ‘No,’ he says, clearly horrified. ‘That’s not what I meant at all. I’m, I’m, I’m just angry I even have to consider it.’ He puts a hand on either side of Sirius’s face and looks him carefully in the eyes. Sirius looks back, trying to see Remus’s face again for the first time. ‘We’ve been through a lot together,’ Remus says, and his voice wavers.

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius agrees, reaching up and putting his hands around Remus’s wrists, steadying him.

 

‘We almost didn’t make it.’

 

‘But we did,’ Sirius whispers.

 

‘The time we didn’t trust each other and believe each other was the worst time in my life,’ Remus says. ‘Aside from everything else it was too.’

 

Sirius nods, unable to speak.

 

‘Not to mention, James and Lily told me to do this a long time ago.’

 

Startled, Sirius laughs. ‘Did they?’

 

‘They were right,’ Remus says. ‘I wish they were here.’

 

‘Me too,’ Sirius says. He hesitates, then says, ‘When we got back together – after I came back – I wasn’t sure for a while if it was just nostalgia that was putting us together again. I was all mixed up about memory and what was happening when and what I really felt. But it was how you were ready to carry on what James and Lily asked of us – how despite completely reasonable fears you jumped right in to being half of Harry’s godparents. That’s what convinced me that this wasn’t just nostalgia. This is new, and it’s better than last time.’ He searches Remus’s face, sees the care in it and hopes he doesn’t start crying again. ‘Much better.’

 

‘Nothing is ever going to tear us apart again,’ Remus says. ‘I want to celebrate that. I want the whole world to look at us and know that we belong to each other.’

 

‘You should take the ring I bought. With James’s help. Remember it?’ Remus nods. ‘I’ll get you another if you don’t like that one, but-‘

 

‘I want it,’ Remus says, and he grins brilliantly. ‘I think I’ve wanted it since I learned it existed.’

 

Sirius finds the ring, and kisses Remus as he puts it on, and then the kissing gets a bit more heated, until Remus gently puts his hand on Sirius’s chest and pushes.

 

‘We have to go to Arthur and Molly’s,’ he says, and it sounds like it’s to remind them both.

 

***

The Burrow is overheated and steaming, crammed with all the Weasleys, Harry, and Fleur when they arrive. Sirius leaves Remus in the kitchen delivering the wine they’ve brought and goes to find Harry, who is playing some game with a lot of yelling involved with Ron and Ginny.

 

‘Sirius!’ Harry says, jumping up when he sees him.

 

Sirius gives him a warm hug and says, ‘Can we talk for a second?’

 

Harry leads him halfway up the stairs. ‘I think Bill and Fleur are up there,’ he says, making a face. ‘Is this ok?’

 

Sirius laughs – everything on earth is funny right now – and says, ‘This is fine. Listen…’ He stops, not even sure where to begin.

 

‘Did Remus ask you?’ Harry asks. ‘I see your ring.’

 

Sirius tries to tamp down his grin into a more normal human expression and fails. ‘He did,’ he says. ‘Did he talk to you about it?’

 

Harry nods. ‘When I saw him at Hogwarts a few weeks ago.’ He grins back. ‘You said yes, right?’

 

‘Obviously,’ Sirius says. ‘I was thinking…’

 

‘Yeah?’

 

‘Will you be my best man?’

 

‘Yes,’ Harry says immediately. ‘Absolutely. I mean,’ he pauses, ‘I’m not sure what kind of stag do I could plan for you…’

 

Sirius starts laughing again. He really can’t seem to stop. ‘I don’t think you need to worry about that. I just want you to be there with me on the day.’

 

‘Definitely,’ Harry says. ‘I wouldn’t miss it.’ He pauses. ‘And Sirius…’

 

‘As soon as we can adopt you,’ Sirius says, ‘we will. But, listen,’ he’s thought hard about how to say this, and he hopes it doesn’t come out sounding prepared. ‘Remus and I couldn’t get married for a long time. That didn’t make our relationship any less real. Just because it’s not a formal, legal thing,’ Sirius looks at Harry closely, who is watching him with big eyes, ‘we’re your godparents. We swore to James and Lily that we’d take care of you, and we will.’

 

Molly calls them to dinner. They hear ominous stirrings from above, give each other looks of mock horror, and go to the table together. Remus has saved him a seat and Harry sits across from them. As soon as Sirius sits down, he finds Remus’s hand, reaching for his, and holds it tightly in his lap under the table.

 

It occurs to Sirius halfway through eating that no one but Harry knows. Remus is talking animatedly to Arthur and eating with his left hand, cutting his ham with the side of his fork rather than stop holding Sirius’s with his right. Sirius is trying to concentrate on the conversation around him but he can’t stop looking over at Remus. Remus, soon to be his husband. He squeezes his hand and Remus squeezes back, getting a little smile on his face even as he’s listening to Arthur.

 

Then it’s time for toasts, and Harry says immediately, ‘Can I make one?’

 

‘Of course,’ Arthur says, sounding a little startled.

 

Harry looks at Sirius, ‘Can I?’

 

Sirius’s stomach dips and he feels Remus go still beside him. ‘Yes,’ he says. He feels everyone in the room looking at him, and then swivelling their heads to look at Harry.

 

‘First of all,’ Harry says, ‘thank you to the Weasleys for hosting me, and everyone, and for the delicious food.’

 

‘Any time,’ Arthur says, amidst other protestations from the rest of them.

 

Harry raises his glass. ‘To the Weasleys,’ he says, which is echoed boisterously by the rest of the table.

 

‘Second,’ Harry says, ‘I want to give a toast to my godparents.’ Harry pauses, with a bit of an air of the showman that reminds Sirius viscerally of prefect Lily holding court over her fellow Gryffindors. Then Harry grins, apparently unable to maintain the illusion of solemnity, and that’s pure James. ‘Today they decided to get married. Congratulations!’

 

There’s a moment of total pandemonium in which everyone is trying to congratulate them at once; Sirius can’t stop grinning again, and looks from Harry to Remus, who is blushing more than he thinks he’s ever seen him blush, and is staring down at the table, blinking hard. To give him a moment, Sirius puts his arm around Remus’s shoulder and says, ‘Thank you,’ several times over, while Fred and George shake his hand vigorously and Molly gets up and hugs them both.

 

‘How did it happen?’ Ginny asks, when things have calmed down somewhat and Remus seems more able to speak.

 

‘I expect the makers of the Marauders’ Map have a great story,’ Fred, or maybe it’s George, says, leaning forward over his plate.

 

‘We went for a walk up a hill,’ Sirius says.

 

Arthur frowns. ‘How was the weather?’

 

‘Not great,’ Remus and Sirius say together, and everyone laughs.

 

‘And at the top,’ Sirius continues, ‘he asked me. As simple as that.’

 

‘Did you have to think about it?’ Ginny asks. ‘Or did you say yes right away?’

 

‘Ginny!’ Molly says.

 

‘Just wondering,’ she shrugs.

 

‘I did not have to think about it,’ Sirius says, and he can feel himself grinning stupidly again.

 

‘We shall ‘ave to plan your wedding,’ Fleur says, to much general amusement, although she corners Sirius after dinner and he thinks for a second that she meant it.

 

Instead she asks, ‘Is zis the happiest day of your life?’ smiling like she knows the answer. Sirius grins back - his face is honestly getting a bit sore from it, but he can’t seem to stop, nor does he want to.

 

He says, ‘Yes.’

 

Fleur nods. ‘I am so happy for you both.’

 

But the truth is more complicated than that. The truth is that this is the best day of his life so far, but it is not the happiest. He has already seen the happiest day of his life, and he knows exactly when and where it was, and he knows that no day going forward will be it, because Peter has betrayed them, and James is gone from this earth. On the happiest day of his life, he was ignorant of even the possibility of either of those things. The distinction between happiest and best seems suddenly very important to him, but he can’t explain it to Fleur. She is, compared to him, very young. He looks across the room to where Remus is standing, listening to something Bill is saying.  

 

Remus: the one person in this world who will always understand.

***

It is the summer after their seventh year, and the four of them are spending a few days at James’ parents’ house in Devon. Their N.E.W.T.s scores are due any day now, but not soon enough to be an intrusive worry. It is hot, and sunny – Sirius remembers no rain at all from this holiday – and some crucial facts are still true:

 

Sirius is not yet a member of the Order, nor does he know that his friends are.

 

James is still alive.

 

Peter hasn’t betrayed them yet.

 

Remus is Sirius’s brand new boyfriend, and he has gotten over the hard work of telling James and Peter, and life is wonderful.

 

They are traipsing down a path along some narrow waterway – a small river arm, maybe, Sirius doesn’t remember its name. James is tossing a snitch back and forth and Sirius is periodically transforming and chasing it, stealing it away from James and crashing into the underbrush, barking joyfully, circling back with it so James can release it again and Padfoot can affectionately nip at Remus’s hand on his way. It will be months more before he and Remus feel comfortable showing affection in front of James and Peter, but as a dog, he can’t help himself from expressing the pure joy in his heart.

 

They come to the wide spot in the river that they are certain only they know, and James, Peter, and Sirius-as-human start stripping down to their briefs. Remus always waits on the bank, not undressing or getting wet, tossing the snitch to them when it flies too far away, so no one waits for him before racing up the leaning log and leaping feet first into the water. Peter comes last, balling himself up, and spraying water everywhere. He surfaces, laughing, and James tackles him. Sirius shakes his wet hair out, his heart pounding from the icy cold water, and looks up towards Remus.

 

Remus has an arrested look on his face, staring at the water. Sirius twists around, wondering if there’s a snake, but with the racket James and Peter are making as they enthusiastically try to drown one another it doesn’t seem likely that there’s any wildlife left for miles.

 

‘What?’ Sirius calls to him.

 

‘Is the water nice?’ Remus asks. Sirius thinks there’s another question underneath this one.

 

‘Heavenly,’ James calls. ‘Except for this giant rat.’

 

Sirius grins at Remus. ‘Come dip in a toe, Moony. It’s too hot not to enjoy it.’

 

Remus says, ‘You know, I think I might come in.’ And he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

 

Sirius is so delighted he bursts into laughter. ‘Come in!’

 

‘Moony,’ says Peter, ‘can you swim?’

 

‘I’ve swum with you loads,’ Remus says, not looking up from his buttons.

 

‘As a wolf,’ Peter says. ‘Can you swim as a human?’

 

‘It can’t be that hard, can it?’ Remus asks. He sounds determined.

 

‘I’ll teach you!’ Sirius says.

 

‘Oh god, what will we tell your parents when you drown?’ James asks, splashing his way to Sirius’s side.

 

Remus pushes off his shirt and in one fluid motion tugs off his undershirt. If it wasn’t so cold in the water, Sirius would probably get a hard-on just from watching the way he does it – but the water is very cold. James obviously sees Sirius watching him and smacks the back of his head; Sirius manages to look away and James makes an exaggerated wanking motion, grinning wickedly. Sirius decides to murder him, sort of, so he launches himself forward and grabs James’s shoulder and shoves down, hard. James goes under, squawking, and resurfaces coughing.

 

‘I’m not sure I want you helping me,’ Remus says wryly.

 

‘I’m not going to do that to you,’ Sirius says. ‘You’re not King Twat.’

 

‘King!’ James says, still coughing. ‘And yet you treat me so poorly. Surely my title commands some respect.’

 

‘None whatsoever,’ Peter says.

 

Remus is now fussing an unnecessary amount with the buttons on his fly; Sirius is definitely going to get a hard-on if he doesn’t do something else. He dives under the water and considers yanking off James’s briefs but doesn’t want to give him any ideas. He surfaces and finds both Peter and James staring at Remus, who has gotten his trousers down around his ankles and is bent over, unlacing his shoes. His bite scar is in full view and the dappled sunlight does nothing to disguise it. Sirius realises that the other two have never seen it before, so he shoves them both, and they both look away, clearly embarrassed.

 

Remus straightens up, kicking off his shoes and trousers, and looks at the pool. ‘I’ll just jump in,’ he says.

 

‘Just walk in from the edge,’ Sirius suggests. ‘I’ll come to you.’ He swims over until he hits the muddy bottom and reaches up to Remus, who takes a deep breath and then steps gingerly down into the mud, grabbing for Sirius’s outstretched hands.

 

‘Oh, that’s cold,’ he gasps, and Sirius grins and tugs him further in to the pool.

 

‘The balls are the worst,’ James says sagely. ‘Then the nipples.’

 

‘Thanks,’ Remus says, and, clutching Sirius’s hand tightly, he ducks under the water. Sirius squeezes his hand and ducks under too.

 

Teaching Remus to swim is one of the most enjoyable things Sirius has ever done. James and Peter splash around and make suggestions. Remus touches him gratuitously everywhere, holding onto him tightly in the deep water at the centre of the pool, never letting go of his hand when they duck underwater, where the slide of their legs against each other feels natural and perfect. Soon all four of them are floating on their backs, looking up at the few clouds drifting across the sky, talking idly about nothing important at all. They do it for hours, sometimes swimming around, sometimes playing with the snitch, until they get hungry. James’s mum serves them a fantastic dinner – Sirius doesn’t remember what it was, but he knows it was delicious – and that night they conjure sleeping bags and sleep outside in the garden.

 

Their N.E.W.T.s results come the next day, and just like that, the moment is gone. 

***

They Apparate to the boundary of home and walk up the path and into the cottage in happy silence. It has been a long day.

 

Sirius flops back against the door, exhausted, opens his eyes to announce his exhaustion, and sees the way Remus is looking at him.

 

‘You look so fucking fit right now,’ Remus informs him.

 

Exhaustion forgotten, Sirius reaches for him.

 

Remus kisses him breathless, hands in his hair and all over his body. It’s been a few weeks since they could do anything but fall into bed at night and Sirius wants this so badly that it actually hurts, a hard ache in his cock and stomach. They stumble and trip their way into the bedroom, groping each other like teenagers. Sirius shoves Remus backwards onto the bed and crawls over him. They kiss frantically, yanking and tugging at each other’s clothing, desperate for each other, until Sirius manages to kick Remus’s pants off from around his ankles, and then they are naked on the bed, touching everywhere they can, and Sirius is biting Remus’s neck and suckling at the skin and he suddenly realises that Remus is laughing.

 

‘What?’ he asks, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘What’s so funny?’

 

Remus shakes his head and laughs harder, so Sirius strokes his hand down his body and gives his hard cock a tug. Remus moans and arches his back and then dissolves into giggles again.

 

‘What?’ Sirius asks, mystified.

 

‘I,’ Remus manages to stop laughing, but he’s grinning as he says, ‘you know, I think we should get married.’

 

Sirius’s heart skips a beat; then he raises his hand to Remus’s face and touches him with the back of it, so that the cool metal of his ring is pressed to his cheek. Remus stops laughing and takes Sirius’s hand in his. They look at each other for a long moment.

 

‘I think so too,’ Sirius says. ‘When, do you think?’

 

‘Soon,’ Remus says. ‘But not, you know.’ He nudges Sirius’s leg with his cock.

 

‘Until after this?’ Sirius kisses him before he can respond and then whispers, ‘I want you inside me,’ and Remus makes a little noise of desire, a noise Sirius knows infinitely well, and is going to continue to know, until death does them part.

Chapter 23: The Gathering Storm - Harry's Sixth Year Ends

Notes:

Thank you to ruinsplume for taking a look at a section of this for me. Any errors of continuity, canon, or prophecy interpretation are solely my own.

The bed is warm, and Remus is exhausted, so when Sirius wakes him and tells him he needs to go, there’s a mission, Remus barely registers it.

 

‘I’ll be back,’ Sirius says, and he kisses Remus, lightly. Remus reaches for his hand but he’s already gone.

 

Later, but not too much later based on how Remus feels and the light in the sky, he’s awoken by a persistent knocking. Disorientated and off-balance, he manages to get out of bed and find some trousers – surprise, they’re Sirius’s – and then tug on a jumper. The knocking continues. He limps to the door and is greeted by one of the more unpleasant things to see the morning after a full moon: Severus Snape.

 

‘Severus,’ he says to his old colleague, ‘this is a surprise.’ Severus arches an eyebrow. ‘How did you make it past our wards?’

 

‘They’re trivially easy to detect,’ Severus snorts.

 

Annoyed, and making a mental note to double them up, Remus asks in his most falsely-pleasant voice, ‘Did you drop by for my notes for the N.E.W.T class? I have some excellent lesson plans you’re welcome to borrow.’

 

‘We need to talk’ Severus says in that silky voice of his, ‘unless, of course, you’re busy?’

 

‘Please come in,’ Remus says, inwardly wondering what fresh hell this will be. He leads Severus into the kitchen and indicates a chair, then he goes to the kettle and leans heavily against the counter, feeling light headed. He makes tea deliberately, every step a challenge with his hands still tingling a bit like they’re paws and his limbs pretending to weigh several hundred stone. He places the kettle, two cups, and milk on the table and pulls out a seat, careful to not look like he’s collapsing into it in front of Severus, even though he’s certain Severus knows. Severus’s beady eyes watch his every move.

 

‘I can make you the Wolfsbane if you need it,’ he says, and somehow even that sounds mocking.

 

‘Sirius makes it for me,’ Remus says, ‘but it’s not a cure-all. I still have to physically go through the transformation.’

 

‘I hope he’s making it correctly,’ Severus snarks.

 

‘Is this a social call?’ Remus asks, trying not to grit his teeth, and offering Severus a cup.

 

‘I know you have a pathological need to be liked,’ Severus replies, waving it away, ‘but don’t you think it’s time you stopped trying with me?’

 

Remus considers pouring boiling tea on Severus’s lap, but it would require more physical effort than he’s up for. ‘Severus, we went to school together, worked together, and now we’re in the Order together. I don’t hold a grudge against you. Don’t you think it’s time you started acting more civil towards me?’

 

Severus rolls his eyes. ‘Black isn’t here, is he?’ he asks.

 

‘You know he isn’t,’ Remus says wearily, ‘or else he’d be in here telling you to fuck off.’ He puts a hand to his face and massages the hollows on either side of the bridge of his nose. He can feel a vicious headache twinging at the edges of his vision, threatening to join the cacophony of pain in the rest of his body. ‘Will you please have a cup of tea?’

 

Severus ignores this last. ‘I do not want you to share what I am about to tell you with Black.’

 

‘I don’t keep information from him,’ Remus says, ‘And you know it. We’ve been over this. Besides, you cannot possibly believe he is a spy, can you? After all that he’s been through?’

 

Severus hesitates in a very un-Severus way, then says, ‘I don’t want him to tell Potter.’

 

Remus frowns and pours himself a cup of tea. ‘That’s more reasonable,’ he says. ‘I’ll tell him that.’ He looks up at Severus, who seems reluctant to say more. ‘So you came here to tell me something you don’t want Harry to find out…’ he prompts.

 

‘You need to prepare yourself,’ Severus says. ‘Albus is in more danger than you know.’

 

Remus’s stomach drops and he takes a deep breath. ‘Does Albus know that?’

 

‘Oh, I’ve told him,’ Severus says bitterly. ‘But he has no desire to listen to me.’

 

Remus taps his fingers on the side of his cup nervously. ‘What is… can we do something? What’s the cause of this danger?’

 

‘He’s searching for something,’ Severus says. ‘I’m not sure what it is, fully, though I have my suspicions.’

 

‘Powerful magical objects,’ Remus says quietly, and is grimly satisfied when Severus looks startled.

 

‘Yes,’ Severus says. ‘Do you have any idea why?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘It’s been a theme, though. Bellatrix Lestrange asked Kreacher about them as well.’

 

Severus narrows his eyes. ‘Bellatrix is an idiot.’

 

‘I don’t know about that.’ Remus shrugs. He knows very little about Bellatrix except that Sirius loathes her more than anyone else still living from his family.

 

‘Trust me,’ Severus says, rolling his eyes. ‘She’s an utter fanatic. Azkaban unhinged whatever door she might have had holding back the insanity and it’s all out now.’

 

‘But she’s an incredibly powerful witch, at least in a fight,’ Remus says, remembering the skyscraper. ‘And she’s looking for the same thing Albus is.’

 

Severus grimaces. ‘I assume she’s looking on the Dark Lord’s orders.’

 

Remus feels suddenly that he’s treading on very thin ice. Cautiously, he asks, ‘Has he – has Voldemort’ and here Severus flinches, and Remus pities him, ‘given you any indication about why he might be looking for these things?’

 

Severus pauses, and Remus can tell he’s deliberating whether or not to answer. Then he says, ‘No. That’s not the sort of thing that he and I would discuss.’

 

Remus nods, relieved that they’ve breached the barrier on this conversational topic. ‘So tell me more about Albus,’ he says, a tactical retreat to give Severus a moment to decide if he’s willing to more fully discuss his relationship with Voldemort.

 

‘Like I said,’ Severus says, a trace of waspishness back, ‘he’s searching for something. One of the consequences of this quest was the destruction of his hand by a curse.’ He pauses, then adds, almost to himself, ‘It could have been much worse.’

 

Remus senses something he never has before from Severus: care for another human being. Severus cares about Albus, and is worried about him. Well. That’s something. ‘Can we do anything?’ he asks quietly. ‘Can one of us take on the search?’

 

Severus raises an eyebrow. ‘Not me,’ he says. ‘I have rather another role to play.’

 

‘Myself,’ Remus suggests. ‘Or Sirius.’

 

‘Albus won’t let Black do anything too overly dangerous,’ Severus says, and now he sounds bitter. ‘Not since the Ministry. Albus wants Potter to have a godfather.’

 

‘I could-‘

 

‘You could,’ Severus agrees quietly, ‘but you’re needed by the Order.’

 

‘Nowhere near as much as Albus is,’ Remus protests.

 

‘Trust me, Albus will not relinquish this quest.’

 

Frustrated, Remus says, ‘So you came here to tell me that Albus is in danger and there’s nothing we can do.’

 

‘And to prepare yourself for him to… for him to be gone.’ Severus looks so bleak at this statement that Remus really does feel sorry for him.

 

‘Severus,’ he says quietly, ‘I think Albus has meant the most to you and me.’ Severus gives him a blank look, clearly still thinking about his own pronouncement. ‘He let me attend Hogwarts and become a wizard,’ Remus explains, ‘and he forgave you whatever it was you did and let you teach for him.’

 

‘At a price,’ Severus says, voice unreadable. ‘He took our allegiance. He made me swear to do whatever he asked of me.’

 

‘I swore the same,’ Remus says, ‘though he didn’t have to make me do it.’

 

‘Yes, yes, I know, you’re the perfect martyr,’ Severus snaps.

 

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Remus snaps back, annoyed. ‘I was happy to do it. He gave me my life, essentially.’

 

‘Yes, but he shouldn’t have had to give it to you,’ Severus says, and then, completely unexpectedly: ‘You’re a competent wizard, whatever your medical condition. Don’t be so blindly grateful.’

 

‘Severus,’ Remus says wryly, ‘that is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

 

‘Don’t get used to it,’ Severus says, clearly mortified.

 

Remus grins. ‘You’re worried about Albus, I’m worried about Albus, frankly I think we’re bonding.’

 

‘That is not-‘

 

‘And,’ Remus continues, more serious, ‘that’s important. I think. If we’re,’ he swallows, ‘if we have to plan for the future,’ he can’t say it, he can’t say anything at all about Albus, his throat suddenly thick, ‘then you and I need to trust each other.’ He raises his eyebrows at Severus. ‘I need to believe that you really are a spy for the right side.’

 

‘Don’t you?’ Severus asks.

 

‘I trust Albus,’ Remus says. ‘But if your allegiance is just to him…’

 

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Severus says quickly. ‘My allegiance is to the Order.’

 

‘I’m glad to hear you say that.’ Remus isn’t sure if he doubts it, but he kind of wants Severus to think that he does.

 

‘Remus…’

 

Remus offers him the tea cup. ‘Let’s talk, Severus,’ he says sweetly. ‘And please, drink my goddamn tea.’

 

Severus glares, then sighs, then takes the cup of tea. ‘When is Black coming back?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘No idea. He’s on Order business.’ He watches Severus take a sip and tries to stifle a grin. ‘Are you concerned about him seeing you here, acting polite?’

 

‘Oh, go to hell,’ Severus says wearily. He takes another sip of tea and stares into his cup.

 

‘This might be completely off-topic,’ Remus says, an idea occurring to him, ‘but Harry seems to think that Draco Malfoy is up to something. Do you know anything about that?’ Severus’s face starts into a sneer and Remus cuts him off, ‘And please keep in mind that nasty comments about Harry are not acceptable.’

 

‘Draco is in a difficult position,’ Severus says. Now he’s watching Remus closely. ‘The Dark Lord is holding his father responsible for the fiasco at the Ministry.’

 

‘I feel for Draco,’ Remus says. ‘I truly do. He was born into a family that was always going to make doing the right thing difficult.’

 

‘I’m surprised to hear you say that.’ Severus frowns. ‘I wouldn’t think you’d have any sympathy for him. As I recall, he was rather rude to you as a student.’

 

‘He was a teenage boy,’ Remus says, shrugging. ‘Still is, in fact, though he’s approaching an age where I’d expect him to start developing his own morals.’

 

‘The worst thing about you,’ Severus says, ‘is that I think you are truly, sincerely, this nice.’

 

Remus almost starts laughing. ‘Have you ever considered trying it?’ he suggests gently.

 

‘No,’ Severus says, but it’s not particularly cold. He leans forward and pours himself more tea. ‘I believe I have the Draco situation in hand, at least for now,’ he adds, unexpectedly. ‘I’ve spoken with his mother and dear Auntie Bellatrix about it as well. But if the Dark Lord decides that he wants to change something, I can’t predict what will happen to Draco. Particularly not if Bellatrix gets involved. She’s incredibly unpredictable.’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘It’s terrible that children are being made to fight this war. On both sides.’

 

‘Remus,’ Severus says, voice tight, and Remus isn’t sure if he’s ever heard Severus say his first name before, ‘are you up to this task? Can you make difficult decisions?’ Remus starts to open his mouth, defensive, but Severus cuts him off. ‘Can you make difficult decisions about Harry?’

 

Remus thinks for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he says honestly. ‘I didn’t choose this role. I barely accepted it. But I promise you that I will, I don’t quite know how to say it, but I will do it to the best of my ability.’

 

‘Of course you will,’ Severus says, clearly annoyed. ‘But you’re too compassionate.’

 

‘I told you I didn’t want to do it!’ Remus is hugely frustrated. He didn’t ask for any of this and he doesn’t know why Severus has to be such an unrelenting asshole. Whenever he thinks he’s made a breakthrough with him, it’s immediately back to criticism. ‘What happens to you, if something happens to Albus? What will you do?’

 

Severus shakes his head. ‘I think that the Dark Lord will ask me to stay on at Hogwarts,’ he says. ‘He wants someone there.’ He spreads his hands in front of him. ‘If Albus is… I think the Ministry will fall. Quickly. The Dark Lord is biding his time for now, gathering his allies to him. Without Albus, he’ll start moving forward with his plans.’

 

‘Which are what?’ Remus asks.

 

‘Installing puppets at the Ministry,’ Severus says. ‘Purging Muggleborns.’ He looks at Remus and raises his eyebrows. ‘I suspect, imprisoning Dark Creatures too. Whatever he may have told Greyback to win his allegiance.’

 

Remus rolls his eyes. ‘Greyback’s a fool if he thinks Voldemort isn’t using him.’ He sees Severus flinch again and says, as sincerely as he can, ‘Sorry.’

 

‘It’s-’ Severus shakes his head. ‘You need to be more careful. They’ll put a trace on the name sooner or later.’ He frowns. ‘Have you always said his name?’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says. ‘I never understood the fear of it.’

 

‘If you knew him,’ Severus says quietly, ‘you would.’

 

Remus waits a moment, then realises he is genuinely concerned. ‘What happens to you, in that case?’ he asks. ‘What’s your end game?’

 

Severus hesitates. ‘I’m not like you,’ he says finally. ‘You could flee. Go live somewhere abroad. If the Dark Lord knew that I had betrayed him… there would be nowhere I could hide. I would never be safe.’

 

‘I take your point,’ Remus says, trying to sound as respectful as possible, ‘but I couldn’t flee, because Harry can’t.’

 

Severus’s face is unreadable. ‘I should have known.’ And then, again unexpectedly, perhaps the first time he’s ever said ‘we’, at least in Remus’s earshot, ‘We have to see this to the end.’

 

Remus nods. ‘The end of Voldemort. Sorry.’

 

‘I can’t imagine it,’ Severus says quietly. ‘But yes, that is what I mean.’ He meets Remus’s eyes. ‘I won’t be able to have contact with you, I don’t think. I will have to appear to be fully his, if – without Albus.’

 

Remus nods, jaw tight.

 

‘But believe me,’ Severus says, and in this moment, Remus does, ‘I will be with you.’

 

***

The Order has been using a variety of magical objects to signal for one another and send messages, but they are neither fool proof nor particularly secure. In early spring, Albus requests that everyone begin using only their Patronuses for urgent communications.

 

Problematically, the Patronus charm is a complex one not often performed in the course of daily life and it becomes quickly apparent based on some very garbled, wispy messages that many of the non-Aurors among them need revision.

 

Kingsley says to Remus, ‘We should organise something. I know you taught Harry, and I used to teach Ministry officials who were going to visit Azkaban.’ Remus agrees, and they organise a time, an evening in the usual church hall.  

 

That day, Remus pulls out a selection of textbooks and carefully prepares some ideas – he’s not going to call them lesson plans – for revision. The Patronus charm is a difficult one and he hasn’t taught it to anyone since Harry, who had been a quick learner.

 

As he’s packing his books, he realises that Sirius has been avoiding him. He finds his fiancé in the kitchen, responding to correspondence a little too nonchalantly.

 

‘Ready to go soon?’ Remus asks, already anticipating the answer.

 

‘I’m not going to join you,’ Sirius says, not looking up from his letter.

 

‘Sirius-‘

 

Sirius frowns. ‘I haven’t been able to conjure a Patronus since before Azkaban,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve done it since Regulus died. And I think the Dementors permanently destroyed my ability to do it.’

 

‘Have you tried?’

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘No, but before you start telling me that I should, I’ll warn you that I also can’t focus on any kind of good memory without feeling residual dread that a Dementor will be coming for me.’

 

Remus is appalled. ‘Sirius, love…’

 

Sirius looks up at him, lips pursed in a way that Remus knows means he’s tamping down emotion, and says, ‘So I think I’ll have to get by without, rather.’

 

Remus takes his hand and tugs him to his feet, wrapping his arms around him from the side when Sirius resists. ‘I think we can do this,’ he says quietly, nose pressed into Sirius’s hair just above his ear. ‘Together.’

 

He can feel Sirius’s rigid stance soften a little. ‘We’ll see.’

 

‘Promise me you’ll try?’

 

‘Not with everyone watching,’ Sirius mutters.

 

‘No,’ Remus agrees. ‘Later. When I get home.’

 

‘I don’t know.’

 

‘Sirius, I worry about you.’

 

Sirius leans back and raises an eyebrow. ‘When has me saying that ever stopped you from doing something?’

 

‘You don’t know,’ Remus says, trying to tug him back. ‘It might have.’

 

Sirius lets himself get pulled back in; Remus presses the advantage and nuzzles into his neck. ‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ Sirius says, voice husky.

 

‘Well-spotted,’ Remus murmurs. ‘After all these years, you’ve finally come to recognise my seduction techniques.’

 

‘Don’t you have a class to teach?’ Sirius asks, but his hand on Remus’s waist squeezes him, and then migrates down to slide into the back pocket of his trousers and give his ass a none-too-gentle grope.

 

‘I’d rather do this.’

 

‘But you’re going to do that.’

 

‘How do you know?’

 

‘After all these years,’ Sirius says, and he finally turns fully to press his body against Remus, pushing their cocks together through their clothes, ‘I know that you always do the right thing.’

 

Remus puts both hands on either side of his face and kisses him, slowly, longingly, until Sirius’s body isn’t resisting at all, but seems to be melting into his. ‘I love you,’ Remus murmurs against his mouth. ‘We’re going to solve this.’

 

Sirius opens his eyes; he looks wary. ‘I don’t want to disappoint you,’ he says, ‘but I’m not sure we are.’

 

‘What if you have to confront Dementors again?’

 

‘I assume they’ll take my soul on sight,’ Sirius says. ‘They’re not happy that I escaped from them twice.’

 

‘You have to know the charm then.’ Remus gives him a searching look. ‘Please.’

 

‘I will try,’ Sirius relents. ‘When you get home, I’ll try.’

 

***

 

Remus arrives early, before anyone else. He is perched on the edge of a table, flipping through his books, when Tonks arrives.

 

‘Hi,’ she says. She hasn’t spoken directly to Remus in months.

 

‘Hi, Tonks,’ he replies, genuinely delighted to see her. ‘How are you?’

 

‘I’m good,’ she says. ‘I, um, I’ve missed you. Being your friend.’

 

‘Me too,’ Remus says. ‘I’ve really missed that.’ He smiles at her. ‘I’m sorry about how things happened.’

 

‘Not your fault,’ she says, shaking her head.

 

‘Think we can be friends again?’

 

‘I’d love that,’ she smiles at him, dazzlingly. He wonders if there’s an alternate universe where they’re together. He doesn’t want to live there, but he’d be interested to see it for a day. ‘But listen, something kind of, I dunno, embarrassing I need to tell you first…’

 

Remus waves a hand. ‘Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fine,’ he says. ‘What is it?’

 

‘My patronus,’ Tonks says, ‘is, uh, it’s a wolf.’

 

Remus opens his mouth, startled, and then laughs. ‘Well, mine is as well.’

 

‘Really?’ She grins. ‘I would have thought it was a dog.’

 

‘Me too,’ Remus agrees. ‘But sometimes these things are at a deeper level than I think we understand consciously. Mine has always been a wolf.’ He smiles at her. ‘It’s a good protector. Loyal. Lots of big teeth.’

 

‘Thanks.’ She looks at his books on the table beside him. ‘Ooh, you’re going to play professor for us?’

 

‘If people need help,’ Remus says, embarrassed.

 

‘You’ll be great,’ she says. ‘I heard you taught Harry, after all. And you’ll be better than Mad-Eye, who kept yelling at me so much that I could barely think a happy thought that wasn’t him shutting up.’

 

People do indeed need help, and Remus is delighted to help them. He often tries to forget how much he loves teaching, since he doesn’t get to do it as often as he has always wanted to, but he truly adores it.

 

He comes home in high spirits and finds Sirius sitting grimly alone in the lounge.

 

Sirius is staring into the fire. ‘I don’t think I can do it, Moony.’

 

Remus pulls the other armchair close and sits in it opposite Sirius. The fire feels wonderful after the desultory snow outside. He shivers and puts his hands out over the grate, warming them.

 

‘Why not?’

 

Sirius has open on his lap one of Remus’s textbooks that he’d left behind, thinking the others were more informative. He moves his finger down the page to the section about the Patronus charm and reads, ‘“The wizard must first grasp in his mind the happiest idea he can think of”.’ He looks up at Remus. ‘I can’t do that. If I start, I get,’ he trails off.

 

‘Get what?’ Remus prompts.

 

‘Panicked,’ Sirius says flatly. ‘I start feeling like I can’t breathe. I think about what it feels like when a Dementor comes for a good memory.’ He looks up at Remus, his pale eyes eerie in the flickering firelight. ‘You know that when I was in Azkaban, I had to forget about you. One thought of you, and they would come for me. I could think about the grim facts of the others, but you… they always knew. They always came. I had to train myself to wilfully forget you.’

 

Remus blinks back tears, not sure if he’s deeply sad or incandescently angry. ‘It’s inhumane,’ he whispers. ‘A prison should be about reform, not throwing away the key.’

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘It is what it is,’ he says. ‘I wish it upon Peter.’

 

‘I don’t know if I do.’

 

Sirius half smiles. ‘I knew you would say that.’

 

‘I can’t wish it on anyone, I don’t think. And I’m fucking furious that someone did it to you.’

 

‘The point is, I can’t think of a happy memory – like really think of one – without also thinking of that.’

 

Remus takes Sirius’s hands and holds them tightly in front of the fire. ‘What’s your happiest memory? Not reliving it, just… describe it.’

 

Sirius looks off to the side. ‘The day I taught you to swim.’

 

Remus squeezes his hands, startled. ‘Really?’

 

‘Absolutely.’ Sirius squeezes back. ‘Everyone was happy. Peter can’t have betrayed us yet. James was there. We were outside on a gorgeous summer day with our best friends and you were my new boyfriend and we were lying on our backs in cool water in the hot sun. How could anything be better?’

 

‘When you put it that way…’

 

‘What’s your happiest memory? What do you think about?’

 

‘I can conjure a Patronus very easily,’ Remus says, ‘because I’ve had a lot of practice. All I have to do is think of you, nothing specific, just you, and it comes to me.’ Sirius squeezes his hands again and Remus continues. ‘If I need a prompt for whatever reason, I’ll think about the day Harry was born, and how happy we all were that day.’

 

‘That’s a good one,’ Sirius says quietly.

 

‘Want to try it?’

 

Sirius gives him a pleading look. ‘Not really,’ he whispers. ‘It’s absurd, I know, I know there’s no Dementors here, I know I’m safe, I mean, hell, you’re right here with me, but they were there for over a decade, Remus…’ He’s suddenly trying to blink back tears. ‘I feel like a coward but the second I think they might come, I’m paralysed.’

 

‘It’s ok,’ Remus says. ‘Really.’ It’s not ok, not because Sirius isn’t feeling something valid, but because he needs this skill to survive the war. Remus has just realised that he’s going to have to trick Sirius into it, somehow. Luckily, he’s got a plan. ‘I’m exhausted. Can we go to bed?’

 

Sirius nods. They get ready for bed in companionable silence, standing side by side at the sink and brushing their teeth. In bed, Sirius reaches for Remus and puts an arm around his stomach, clearly ready to fall asleep. Remus lets it pass for a moment, then scoots forward and kisses Sirius under his ear.

 

'For the second time today, I don't know how stupid you think I am, but I know what you're trying to do,' Sirius murmurs. Remus stops and leans back a little; Sirius's mouth is set but twitching.

 

Remus starts giggling. 'Not working?'

 

'I thought you were so exhausted,' Sirius says, rolling his eyes. 'Instead it was just a ploy for some misguided pedagogy...'

 

Remus briefly tries to smother him with a pillow, winding up after not much of a struggle straddling him with Sirius's hands on his hips. 'It might work,' he suggests. 'Don't you want to find out?'

 

'No,' Sirius says. He playfully shoves Remus to the side and after some brief grappling, he winds up straddling him. 'Listen,' he says, and Remus squirms as if trying to dislodge him so he reaches up and seizes Remus's wrists, holding them together in one hand against the wall above his head. 'Listen.'

 

Remus arches his back, pressing against Sirius’s groin. 'Yes?'

 

'Really. Listen.'

 

Remus composes his face into a semblance of solemnity.

 

'I love you,' Sirius says, very sincerely, 'more than anything, really, truly. And it is breaking my heart that I can't use you to summon up a Patronus. But I can't.'

 

'Padfoot,' Remus says, startled, a sharp ache in the back of his throat. 'Don't - it's all right. I know you love me. You don't have to prove it to me.'

 

'I want to, though,' Sirius says, giving him a searching look. 'You're what I want to think about. And I loathe it - really, on a visceral level, it makes me feel ill - that I can't.'

 

'But I understand,' Remus says. 'And let's talk about it. But first, oof, let go my wrists, my hands are tingling.'

 

Sirius squeezes them instead. 'Promise me you'll seduce me later.'

 

'Maybe,' Remus says, fluttering his eyes. 'If my hands are still functional.'

 

'You complain a lot,' Sirius says, very fondly, and he lets go and kisses each of Remus's wrists before sliding over to lie beside him.

 

'I think you have a point,' Remus says, twisting so he's facing him in the bed.

 

'I know, you complain all the time...' Remus narrows his eyes at him and Sirius grins. 'Yes, my dearest? A point about what?'

 

'You've known me a long time,' Remus says. 'Nearly three-quarters of your life.'

 

'Steady on, we're not that old.'

 

'Close.'

 

'Let's say two-thirds.'

 

'But it's more than that.'

 

'What was your point, exactly?'

 

'In that time,' Remus says, tracing Sirius's cheekbone with his finger, 'there's been a lot of, well, of miles covered. Good and bad.'

 

'Mostly good.'

 

'I mean...'

 

'What?'

 

'There was some bad.'

 

Sirius rolls his eyes.

 

'You promised not to lie to me,' Remus points out.

 

'There might have been some very limited bad. Completely outweighed by good.'

 

'Sirius.'

 

'What?'

 

'There have been times in our relationship that have been bad.'

 

'But not because the relationship itself is flawed.'

 

'No, because sometimes we are both stupid and flawed ourselves. I mean, it's just statistics that even in a relationship that is ninety-nine percent good, on a long enough timeline, we'll-'

 

'Like right now, when you're being insufferable.'

 

Remus purses his lips. 'Fine, smart arse.'

 

'Your point being that I'm struggling to have a perfectly good memory of you because I've known you too long?'

 

'I think so,' Remus says thoughtfully. 'I mean, you told me your happiest memory: the day you taught me to swim. And it was a gorgeous day. I can see why you chose it. But as you were telling me about it, you prefaced it by telling me your feelings about Peter, and about James, and about me, and how they relate to your memory of that day.'

 

Sirius chews his lip. 'Mmhmm...'

 

'I think you need something less complicated. And as much as I wanted to think that a bit of fucking might fit the bill – I think fucking me is probably still too complicated.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius admits. ‘Probably.’

 

They both sit in silence for a moment, contemplating that.

 

‘You sure you want to marry someone who you’ll never be able to uncomplicatedly fuck?’ Remus asks, a fraction unsure.

 

‘Yes, prat,’ Sirius says rolling his eyes. ‘Of course I’m bloody sure I want to marry you. I’m just not sure I have any memories that are uncomplicated. I was trying to think of one and every option comes up difficult. I thought of watching Harry fly on the Quidditch pitch, well, he reminds me of James. Everything before Azkaban is, well, before Azkaban, and everything after reminds me of everything that happened before.’ He makes a sad face at Remus. ‘I’m just the most miserable man on the planet, by this measure. But I promise you, I’m not really.’

 

‘We’ll think of something,’ Remus assures him. ‘You’ve cast a Patronus before. I know you’ll be able to get it.’ It’s one of those lies he’s telling himself so he doesn’t have to lie to Sirius.

 

***

Tonks relays a message from her mother, inviting Sirius and Remus around for tea. Sirius hasn’t seen Andromeda in nearly two decades, but is pleasantly surprised. She had never been as obviously rebellious as he was, instead choosing to quietly slip away to marry the Muggle-born Ted Tonks and leave her sisters and his mother and every other member of the family but him to feel outrage. He’d seen it as a beacon of hope: someone made it out of the Black family alive. After he’d run away, they’d exchanged letters – she and Ted and their little daughter had lived in Paris at the time, and she’d invited him there if he needed a place to stay for a bit – but their letters dropped off as the war intensified and they haven’t spoken since he went to Azkaban.

 

Then the night of their meeting, Remus has to do something for the Order, so he can’t come, and Sirius goes alone to their house, clutching a bottle of wine and suddenly quite anxious. He’s coming up with every excuse he can to duck out when Andromeda opens the door and cries, ‘My fellow Black sheep!’

 

‘Meda,’ he says, and she holds out her arms and wraps him in a tight hug.

 

‘What’s this? Wine?’ she asks. ‘How did you guess my favourite thing?’

 

‘Just a hunch,’ Sirius says, grinning as he starts to remember her personality – fearless and just extravagant enough to name her daughter Nymphadora.

 

Inside, she catches him up on what little family gossip she has – her exit from the family had been less terrible than his, and she’d kept up occasional correspondence – and then asks after Remus.

 

‘Nymphadora told me all about him, of course,’ she says. ‘I heard all about him for months and months and kept telling her to just talk to him. Then one day she stopped talking about him and I found out that he’s taken.’

 

‘I really do feel bad for Tonks about that,’ Sirius says, wincing.

 

‘Oh,’ Andromeda shakes her head. ‘Don’t. I told her he was too old for her anyway, and to look for a nice boy closer to her own age.’

 

Sirius grins. ‘How did she take that?’

 

‘Just as well as you’d expect. She loves to complain at me and then doesn’t listen to a word I say when I give her perfectly good advice. Seems to hold a grudge against me for giving her such a beautiful name.’

 

The front door opens and a tall man enters, stooped over in the doorway and shaking out an umbrella. ‘Darling,’ Andromeda calls, ‘this is my cousin, Sirius.’

 

‘The good one,’ Ted replies, and he steps forward and shakes Sirius’s hand with a slightly damp palm. ‘Wonderful to meet you,’ he says with such obvious enthusiasm that Sirius believes him.

 

‘Wonderful to meet you too,’ he replies. ‘You have a great daughter.’

 

‘Thank you!’ Ted exclaims. ‘Anyone who knows that is perfect in our book.’

 

They eat dinner together – Andromeda orders takeaway from a local curry house with a wave of her hand and an, ‘I don’t cook!’

 

(‘She never does,’ Ted says, shaking his head and grinning.)

 

- and then she pours them all big glasses of wine –

 

(‘She does do that, though,’ Ted says, and Andromeda hits him with a tea towel.)

 

- and they get pleasantly tipsy together. Andromeda and Sirius wind up regaling Ted with their most outrageous stories about wealthy wizards doing stupid things in the Black family, culminating in the story of an aunt who wanted to buy one of the pyramids and tried to set fire to the Egyptian Ministry using a cursed statue of Anubis when told she could not.

 

After the third bottle of wine opens, Ted says he’s off to bed, and the conversation turns more pensive.

 

‘I feel so terrible that my generation didn’t solve these problems,’ Andromeda confesses to Sirius. ‘Tonks is young, she shouldn’t have to be fighting against this entrenched evil.’ She looks up from her wine glass at him. ‘You were young, weren’t you? When you first joined the Order?’

 

‘Eighteen,’ Sirius confirms. ‘And I wish we’d been able to solve it too, Meda.’

 

‘Remember how they all used to go on, at dinners?’ she asks. ‘I mean, I know I left the family when you were, what, eleven years old? But I’m sure they were still the same. Everyone talking about how they’d love to still be hunting Muggles, how they deserve to be in charge simply because they were born into the family…’

 

‘That’s exactly how they were,’ Sirius says. He remembers the long table in the house where Andromeda grew up, and dinners sat around it, listening to one faction advocate for the enslavement of the Muggle born while the other couched it in paternalistic phrases, ‘Doing what’s best for Muggles’, ‘They just don’t know what’s best for them.’

 

‘I was always surprised about Regulus,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think he’d wind up a Death Eater.’

 

Sirius remembers his brother sitting beside him at many of those conversations, silently picking at his food, never speaking up but never speaking out either. ‘He didn’t want to be,’ he says. ‘He tried to quit, actually.’

 

‘Did he?’ Andromeda asks, startled. ‘I imagine that’s why he’s not with us today?’

 

Sirius nods, chewing on his lip. He hopes he’s remembering all that there is to that. ‘They murdered him rather than let him.’

 

‘Poor Reg,’ she says, and raises her glass in a toast. ‘Poor all of us who find ourselves in over our heads here.’

 

‘Indeed,’ Sirius agrees, clinking their glasses together and taking a long drink.

 

‘Do you think we should flee, Sirius?’

 

He looks at her, startled. ‘Flee?’

 

‘Ted and I have plenty of friends in Paris,’ she says, an almost pleading tone in her voice. ‘Nymphadora says we’re being ridiculous but…’ She bites her lip. ‘The Ministry didn’t fall last time,’ she says. ‘But this time, they’re putting their own people into it. They’re taking it over from within. And they’ve already started enacting laws that are making life difficult… I’m so worried that they’ll introduce an anti-Muggleborn law, or even one that is anti-Halfblood…’

 

Sirius shakes his head. ‘They certainly could,’ he admits. ‘But it seems like we need to stay and fight.’

 

Andromeda smiles at him, but there’s sadness in her look. ‘I was never as brave as you, Sirius. I didn’t argue at dinner and I didn’t leave until I had Ted.’

 

‘I don’t think it’s bravery,’ Sirius says. ‘I’m not – I don’t choose to be like this. But it’s – it’s all I can be. I couldn’t be quiet and I couldn’t stay there and I can’t leave now.’

 

‘Nymphadora is like you,’ Andromeda says, and suddenly she looks incredibly sad.

 

***

There is a terror attack in central London, on Trafalgar Square, and dozens of Muggles die. The Ministry manages to cover it up to look like Muggle religious extremists but the Wizarding world is ablaze with the news that it is Death Eaters. The mystery of what Bellatrix and her merry band were committing in the London skyscraper is revealed – they were planting spells to mask their magic so that the Ministry couldn’t know in advance.

 

One Muggle man tries to stop a Death Eater during the attack and is gruesomely murdered for his trouble. His husband delivers a gorgeous, life-affirming eulogy that holds the Muggle news cycle for roughly six hours. Sirius is haunted by it. He enchants an empty picture frame to play it against the black velvet background within its borders and takes it out and watches it much more than is healthy. He imagines, vividly, what he would say at Remus’s funeral. He starts to keep a list of things he’ll want to say, if. If if if.

 

Remus catches him with it and isn’t pleased. ‘This is a ridiculous fixation,’ he tells Sirius, who shrugs.

 

‘It helps me,’ he says simply and Remus shakes his head and walks away from the conversation, returning later and apologizing. He holds Sirius tightly that night in bed.

 

‘What are we going to do?’ he murmurs against Sirius’s shoulder in the dark.

 

‘We’re going to keep fighting,’ Sirius says, stroking Remus’s hair, feeling the coarse difference between the grey and the light brown – more of the former now. He kisses the top of his head and remembers the golden boy Remus had been, who he’d found heartbreakingly handsome when they were teenagers. He prefers this one: the lived-in Remus who holds him like he’s the only thing stationary on the surface of a swiftly tilting planet.

 

‘If you die,’ Sirius says, ‘you know what I’ll say at your funeral?’

 

‘For the love of god, Padfoot, stop being morbid.’

 

‘I’ll say, “he had the biggest cock”.’

 

Remus bursts into startled laughter against his neck, which spurs Sirius on. ‘I’ll say, “you couldn’t believe his cock, it was incredible.” I’ll gesture a bit, try to make them understand the size.’

 

‘You are the worst person I have ever met. And I have met a lot of Death Eaters.’

 

‘You chose me,’ Sirius reminds him, wagging a finger in his face. Remus bites the finger and shakes it, playfully. ‘And then I’ll say-‘

 

‘Do shut up.’

 

‘I’ll say, “Listen, in his honour, we’re going to need to rename Big Ben to Big-“’

 

Remus cuts him off by kissing him, and when he tries to keep talking, Remus grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him down towards the aforementioned cock, which is a bit of a change of subject, but that’s kind of their thing, so he goes for it, rolling Remus’s pyjamas down at the waist to expose the object of his desire and then swallowing it whole, so that Remus gasps in a way that is deeply satisfying – he loves that he can still elicit shocked desire from Remus, it makes him feel drunk with desire – and Remus grabs his hair and yanks, really truly pulls, and it turns him on even more, so he puts a hand onto Remus’s hip and holds him down, exerting his own control over the situation – as if he wasn’t completely in control, with Remus’s cock in his mouth and Remus completely undone before him, unbelievably hard as Sirius does exactly what he knows how to do to get Remus off.

 

He’s had years of practice and he is very, very good at it, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to do the best damn job he can.

 

After, Remus is boneless, sweaty, flopped backwards against the pillows, and Sirius crosses his arms over Remus’s hipbones and leans his chin on them, looking up at the mess that was until recently his fiancé.

 

When a minute has passed, Remus slurs, ‘You know what I’ll tell them if you die?’

 

‘Now who’s morbid?’

 

‘I’ll tell them that you were the best at sucking cock.’

 

‘Oh stop,’ Sirius says, feigning embarrassment.

 

‘I’ll really go into detail. I’ll talk about your tongue and how fucking filthy it was.’

 

‘People will say you’re forcing the homosexual agenda on them.’

 

‘I’ll say, guess what, this is the homosexual agenda, deal with it.’

 

‘You’ll interrupt your speech to say that?’

 

‘I’ll say, intolerance and bigotry are the reasons why we’re here today. I’ll say, just accept that no one will ever suck your cock as well as he could. And be happy for me that I got to experience it.’

 

Sirius moves up the bed and snuggles up against him, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close so that they’re spooning. Remus fits neatly against him, and his own half-hard cock fits neatly against the curve of Remus’s ass. He’s tired, and it’s not urgent, but it feels good.

 

‘I’ll tell them,’ he says quietly in Remus’s ear, feeling from Remus’s body that he’s relaxing into sleep, ‘that you were the best thing, just the best thing in the entire world.’

 

‘Padfoot,’ Remus says, softly.

 

‘And then I’ll say, “sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say, his ass was the best thing, just the best thing”-‘

 

Remus bites his hand again, laughing. ‘Go to sleep,’ he says, and then he is asleep himself in the sudden way that only Remus can be. Sirius lies awake holding him as tightly as he can, never wanting to forget what this feels like, terrified that someday he will.

 

***

Remus is at his wits’ end with worry, which is why he was mad at Sirius over his absurd sentimentality. It is nearly a year since Voldemort exposed himself and they seem no closer – and indeed significantly further – from effecting real change.

 

Remus does the last thing he wants to do: he goes to Albus to ask for help.

 

‘Please,’ he says, standing in Dumbledore’s ornately beautiful office, ‘what is the plan? Where is this going?’ Albus doesn’t respond immediately, and Remus, increasingly frustrated, can’t seem to stop himself. ‘The Order’s been in a holding pattern since the fight at the Ministry. We’re keeping our heads above water but just barely. People are dying, Death Eaters are killing Muggles left and right, and Voldemort is trying to consolidate his power at the Ministry for a coup.’

 

‘You’ve been speaking with Severus,’ Albus says quietly, and Remus sees him flex his cursed hand.

 

‘I have,’ Remus agrees, ‘but I’ve been thinking a lot of this on my own as well.’ He sinks down into one of the chairs in front of Albus’s desk. It immediately becomes plush, acknowledging that he’s not a naughty schoolboy anymore, and he fleetingly wishes it was hard, and he was still fifteen, and everything after a bad dream. But, no such luck. He leans forward. ‘Albus. The Order needs a light at the end of this tunnel. Do you have a plan to defeat him? Can we make one?’

 

Albus sighs heavily. ‘What I need from the Order,’ he says, still in that quiet voice, ‘is for you to buy me time.’

 

‘Time,’ Remus repeats, despairing. ‘How much? Time for what?’

 

‘I am searching for some things that Voldemort has hidden,’ Albus says. ‘I must find them before we can have any chance of defeating him.’ He looks Remus in the eyes, his gaze piercing despite his obvious weariness. ‘I need you to give me more time.’

 

‘Powerful magical objects?’ Remus whispers.

 

‘More than that.’

 

‘Tell me what it is,’ Remus says, leaning forward. ‘Let me help.’

 

Albus shakes his head. ‘This is my quest,’ he says.

 

‘What if something happens to you?’

 

‘Now I know you’ve been talking to Severus,’ Albus says, clearly trying to inject levity into the conversation. Remus makes an exasperated noise and Albus continues, ‘I promise you, Remus, if something happens to me, you will find out everything you need to know at that time.’

 

‘Why all this secrecy?’ Remus demands. ‘Don’t you remember what secrecy did to the Order before?’

 

‘Would things have been better if Pettigrew had been allowed to know everything?’

 

Remus shakes his head, frustrated. ‘I don’t know.’

 

‘Think upon it,’ Albus says, a little less kindly than Remus appreciates. ‘If I’m gone, you will have to make these decisions.’

 

‘I’m aware of that,’ Remus says, angry that Albus would imply he could forget, but tamping it down, like he almost always does with that particular emotion. ‘So why not at least tell me what you’re looking for?’

 

‘Because you don’t need to know,’ Albus says simply. ‘The fewer people know this, the better we will be.’

 

Remus breathes heavily through his nostrils and shakes his head. ‘Albus, honestly, I-‘

 

‘Harry will explain everything,’ Albus says.

 

‘Harry?’ Remus repeats, horrified. ‘You’ve involved him in this?’

 

‘Harry has a right to know,’ Albus says. ‘He’s the one who has to ultimately defeat Voldemort.’

 

Remus blinks at Albus. ‘What?’

 

Albus, for once, looks startled. ‘Didn’t James tell you?’

 

‘James?’ Remus repeats. ‘What would James have…’

 

‘I told James and Lily,’ Albus says. ‘I thought he would have told you, as part of the Secret Keeper discussion. I offered to be his Secret Keeper and he insisted that it be one of you, so I’d assumed…’

 

Remus sinks back against his chair. ‘Maybe he told Sirius,’ he says quietly. ‘But Sirius doesn’t… he has memory issues. Because of the Dementors. Especially about things that happened right around that time.’ Remus refuses to think that Sirius hasn’t told him this deliberately. Not told him at the time, fifteen years ago, that he can certainly believe – by the time that they’d had to hide James and Lily their trust in each other had been in tatters – but now? He must have lost this memory. ‘Why does it have to be Harry?’

 

‘That’s the prophecy,’ Albus says, and he sounds deeply regretful. ‘The prophecy specified that it could be one of two children, and Voldemort chose Harry.’

 

Remus blinks. ‘He chose Harry?’

 

‘The conditions of the prophecy suggested it could also be Neville Longbottom. His parents, like James and Lily, had defied Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale. But Voldemort chose Harry, I believe because he’s a Halfblood, like Voldemort.’

 

Remus feels continually a step behind the conversation. ‘Voldemort’s a Halfblood?’

 

‘Oh yes. His father was a Muggle by the name of Tom Riddle.’

 

Remus leans forward and puts his head in his hands. He’ll have to think more about that tidbit of information later. Now, there’s only one thing he can focus on: ‘And so Voldemort chose Harry…’

 

‘And Harry has now escaped from him four times himself,’ Albus says quietly. ‘No one else has done that.’

 

‘But you knew about the prophecy before Voldemort chose Harry.’

 

‘I sent Alice and Frank into hiding as well. I believed it would be Harry, but as a precaution.’

 

‘But Albus.’ Remus realises something terrible. ‘Albus, if you sent James and Lily into hiding because you knew their child had to kill Voldemort…’

 

Albus raises his eyebrows, as if daring Remus to say it.

 

‘How old did you think he’d be when he could kill him?’ Remus asks. ‘How long did you plan for them to be in hiding?’ He starts to feel furious. ‘How long was the Order going to have to hold off Voldemort?’

 

‘Honestly?’ Albus asks. ‘I didn’t know. I had hoped that just contact, just an attempt on Harry’s life might do it at the time – but now I’ve come to realise that he must actually take an active role.’

 

‘So you know that Harry must-‘ Remus shuts his eyes. ‘You know that Harry must murder Voldemort.’

 

‘Yes.’

 

Remus opens them and looks at Albus, clearly, for what feels like the first time. ‘Albus.’

 

‘I didn’t choose this prophecy,’ Albus says, almost like an apology, but not quite. ‘Nor do I wish it on him. You know how much I care for Harry.’

 

Remus stands. ‘I have to tell Sirius,’ he says, mind already elsewhere, trying to decide how to frame that conversation.

 

‘Yes,’ Albus agrees. ‘Remus,’ he calls as Remus puts his hand on the door. He looks back and sees Albus, alone at his desk. ‘Truly, I’m sorry you didn’t know.’

 

That’s the last time they ever speak.

 

***

 

Remus Apparates to the protective ring around the cottage so hard that he stumbles when he hits the ground and has to put out his hands to stop himself from falling. He steps through the barrier and runs into the cottage, but it is deserted. He searches through the rooms anyway, and then sends his Patronus to Sirius.

 

The urgent message has its desired effect, and Remus hears Sirius running up the walk a moment later. He opens the door and Sirius skids to a halt at the garden gate, panic all over his face.

 

‘Moony, what?’ he asks.

 

Remus instantly feels terrible that he scared him and says, ‘Everyone’s all right. I’ve just had a disturbing conversation with Albus and I need to talk to you about it.’

 

Inside, he relays to Sirius what Albus had said about the prophecy while Sirius’s face turns more and more white.

 

‘Did you know?’ Remus asks.

 

Sirius blinks as if pulling himself from a trance. ‘I think I did,’ he says. ‘That weekend… do you remember it? At the Potters’ old house, in Devon…’

 

‘I remember.’

 

‘How could I have forgotten?’ Sirius whispers. ‘At the time, it was all I could think of…’

 

‘Tell me what happened,’ Remus commands him, not entirely certain why he needs Sirius to relive what was doubtless an incredibly traumatic conversation. Something about being as close to hearing James and Lily’s own words…

 

‘James summoned me,’ Sirius says, staring down at his hands and breathing in erratic, short bursts. ‘Yes, that’s what happened, I am almost certain. He must have done… I was at home, you were out. I left you a note?’ He looks up at Remus, who nods, tersely. ‘I went to their flat. Dumbledore had just been there. I remember that,’ Sirius frowns. ‘God, what do I actually remember? I’m trying.’

 

Remus reaches out and takes Sirius’s hands tightly, trying to will him to remember. ‘You left me a note,’ he prompts, because he remembers every event leading up to that Halloween night like it happened this morning. ‘You said you had to talk to James and you’d see me later.’

 

Sirius nods. ‘I went to their flat and Harry was sleeping,’ he says. ‘Lily answered the door and asked me to be quiet, not to wake him up.’ Remus can picture, vividly, the entryway to their flat in London, can even smell that hallway, the touch of damp, and he can picture Lily. She’s forever young in his mind, and he misses her sharply.

 

‘James,’ Sirius says, like the name is hard for him to speak, ‘he said to me that he wanted us to go to his parents’. He said he had to tell me something that it was going to be very hard for me to hear. We went, together, and we put up wards outside so no one could Apparate into the house. It was hard, opening it up, without his parents… with them being gone.’

 

Remus remembers the terrible day that James became an orphan, and James himself, saying, ‘At least they got to meet Harry,’ bleakly, clearly holding on to the only comfort he had.

 

‘And then we sat in the dining room,’ Sirius says, shaking his head and staring fixedly at the table, clearly seeing something far away in both space and time, ‘and we opened a bottle of very old wine we’d found, and James told me about the prophecy.’

 

‘How did he describe it?’ Remus asks. ‘Did he realise what it meant?’

 

Sirius looks up at him and frowns. Remus can see the struggle for him to return to here and now. ‘What it meant?’ he echoes.

 

‘If Harry,’ Remus swallows, ‘has to be the one to kill Voldemort, then he has to be physically, you know, able to do it. He couldn’t have been a baby.’

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says. ‘I see what you meant. We –‘ he hesitates, and screws up his eyes, and says, ‘yes, we did. We talked about that. I remember he asked me how long I thought we’d have to wait. Until he was twelve, or sixteen, or what,’ Sirius suddenly breaks down and puts one hand over his eyes. ‘We were – we had to get drunk to talk about it. How old this little boy we both love – loved – dammit – how old he’d have to be.’ Sirius’s hand over his eyes is shaking and Remus wants to cry too. ‘I mean, how do you decide how old your son needs to be before he can murder someone? You can’t.’

 

‘Albus said to me that he thought just contact with Harry might do it…’

 

‘James said that too. But he didn’t seem optimistic. He said it seemed like Dumbledore didn’t really think that either.’

 

Remus takes a deep breath and tilts his head back, staring at the ceiling. ‘We’re supposed to protect him, Sirius. We promised James and Lily that we would. But if we want to end the war, we have to force him to confront Voldemort…’

 

‘I don’t think we’ll have to force him to do anything,’ Sirius says quietly. ‘It’s his choice. We’ll be there to protect him, but we’ll let him make it.’

 

‘And if he doesn’t want to?’

 

‘He’s James and Lily’s son,’ Sirius says, his voice breaking on the last word. ‘He’ll want to.’

 

***

A rainy June evening, and Remus stares at the letter in his hands, his heart pounding like he’s about to run a race. Then he wordlessly passes it to Sirius.

 

‘Come to Hogwarts at once. I must go on an errand and the school must be guarded.’

 

Sirius looks up at Remus. ‘Is this the thing?’ he whispers. ‘Did he find it – whatever it is? Is this what he’s been waiting for?’

 

Remus swallows. ‘It must be,’ he says. He’s lightheaded; this night could be the end of Voldemort. ‘We have to –‘ He looks around for his robe, wonders if he should take a drink of water, or use the toilet, or do something to prepare. He feels nauseous. ‘We have to go now.’

 

‘We have to get to Harry,’ Sirius agrees.

 

Together, they go.

 

***

Somehow, in the ensuing battle, they get split up – Remus chases one Death Eater, flooded with horror at the knowledge that this has all gone terribly wrong – and Sirius chases another, sprinting away down a hallway and trying to block out the dull, thudding terror of knowing that Harry has gone with Albus.

 

After the Death Eaters have fled, Tonks finds Remus.

 

‘Bill,’ she says, ‘oh Remus, Bill was bitten by Fenrir, you’ve got to come quick!’ He goes with her, numbly, and together they get him to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey sets to healing him immediately.

 

‘It’ll be all right,’ Remus says to no one in particular, not sure who he’s reassuring as he looks at Molly and Arthur’s oldest son, scarred beyond repair. ‘It wasn’t the full moon. They’re not deep cuts…’ Tonks puts a hand on his arm and he grips hers, stepping back to let Madam Pomfrey work.

 

Others come in to the room, including Harry, who looks shell-shocked. Remus recognises the look from his own face. He reaches out to his godson, but before his hand can get to his shoulder, Harry delivers the news.

 

Albus is dead.

 

There’s disbelief in the room, but Remus knows instantly from Harry’s face that this is the truth. He sits, because there’s nothing else he can do, and puts his head in his hands, and just tries to breathe.

 

Albus gave him every chance, he gave him the entire world, he trusted him when literally no one else did, not even Sirius.

 

Now, he’s gone.

 

And Harry says Severus did it…

 

Harry has his hand in his pocket, holding the note and the locket tightly. He thinks, briefly, of comforting Remus, but he feels too numb to do so.

 

Then someone yells just outside the room, and everyone looks up at the door: ‘Where is my godson?’

 

***

 

Sirius is panting hard, having sprinted up the stairs from the dungeons, where he’d pursued a Death Eater to the point of leaving him Petrified in what felt like the tenth floor underground. No one is around – the school is eerily silent – and he thinks the worst and runs for the hospital wing, where he meets Minerva, just leaving the room and shutting the door. Fear and pent-up adrenaline combine and he yells at her, without quite meaning to be so loud, ‘Where is my godson?’

 

Minerva looks, for a second, as if she might burst into tears. Sirius feels ice go through his veins; he thinks he might faint, and then adrenaline surges through him again. ‘Minerva, where is my godson?’

 

‘He’s in there,’ she says, her voice shaking slightly. ‘He’s fine, Sirius. Harry is fine.’

 

‘Remus?’ he asks, barely able to say his fiancé’s name for fear of her response.

 

She shuts her eyes. ‘Albus is dead.’

 

For a second, Sirius has no idea what to do, or say, let alone what to feel. Without Albus, he thinks stupidly, he’d have been handed over the Dementors. He never got to properly thank him for that. He can’t believe he’s just realising that now. ‘Minerva,’ he manages, ‘I’m so sorry.’

 

She shakes her head, and he can see her reach for her composure and find it. ‘I’m sorry too,’ she says briskly, ‘but we’ll carry on.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says softly. ‘I’ll just…’

 

She nods. ‘I must go meet Arthur and Molly,’ she says, and sweeps past him.

 

He gets inside, eyes only for two people, and is stunned to see Bill. He suddenly realises what Minerva had said, and feels a sharp pang for them, but Bill seems to be alive, at any rate.

 

‘I’m right here,’ Harry says, rather wryly, and Sirius steps towards him and wraps him in a tight hug.

 

‘I’m so glad to see you,’ he says. He leans back slightly, holds Harry’s shoulders, and looks into his face, a little startled by how close they are to being eye to eye. James was always shorter than he is. Harry looks like someone who’s had a terrible shock. Sirius keeps one hand on his shoulder and turns to the chair where Remus is slumped, one hand over his eyes. He puts his other hand out to Remus, who takes it with his free one and holds on like a man drowning.

 

Molly, Arthur, and Fleur come in, accompanied by Minerva, and Sirius says quietly, ‘Let’s go elsewhere.’

 

He leads them both into the hallway and to an open, empty classroom. They follow him inside, both seeming shocked in their own way, and he shuts the door and turns to them. Harry has sat on the teachers’ desk and pulled his legs up so that he’s sitting cross-legged, while Remus is pacing near the dark windows. Harry is playing with something he has taken out of his pocket.

 

Sirius is struck, suddenly, by the realisation that this is his family, and that he is needed here. He has to be strong for them. He’s never felt this way before, and it empowers him. He meets Remus’s eyes and beckons him close to Harry, and then he says, ‘We’re going to get through this together.’

 

Remus sits down in one of the student’s chairs and pulls at his hair. ‘We are,’ Sirius repeats fiercely. ‘We’re going to help each other and we aren’t going to let this defeat us.’ He looks at the two of them and feels full of every kind of emotion. ‘I promise.’

 

‘I believe you,’ Harry says softly. Remus, mouth in a tight line, nods.

 

‘I have to,’ Remus says, and then shuts his mouth again like he’s going to be sick.

 

‘Give it a moment,’ Sirius says. ‘The Death Eaters are gone. The danger’s passed, for now.’

 

Remus nods.

 

‘What’s that you’re looking at?’ Sirius asks Harry.

 

‘I’m-‘ Harry hesitates. ‘Professor Dumbledore gave me a special mission,’ he says, sounding determined. ‘I- I’m not sure what I- what to tell you. He asked me to keep it a secret. But we went to do the first part of it tonight. We had to go to this island and find a locket.’

 

Remus sits up very straight, suddenly completely focused on Harry. ‘That’s it?’ he asks. ‘You found it?’

 

‘Well,’ Harry says, ‘no, not quite.’ He holds it out and Sirius takes it. ‘It’s a fake,’ he says, sounding bitter. ‘Professor Dumbledore died because of it and it’s a fake. There was a note inside.’

 

Not really knowing what else to do, Sirius opens the clasp. It feels familiar in his hands, for some reason. The locket is empty.

 

‘What was the note?’ Remus asks.

 

Harry offers a balled-up sheet of paper and Sirius takes that too, uncrumples it, and reads aloud, ‘“To the Dark Lord - I know I will be dead long before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.”’ Sirius starts to get a strange feeling, like he knows the handwriting, or there’s something underlying the words, something magical, that is familiar… ‘“I have stolen the real Horcrux”-‘ he stumbles for a second on the unfamiliar word – ‘“and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.”’ He stops at the initials and stares.

 

‘Then someone signed it, but just with initials,’ Harry says, and he hears him, very distantly. ‘It says “R. A. B.”. So who knows who that is?’

 

‘R. A. B.?’ Remus repeats. Sirius realises that Remus is staring at him now. ‘Is that…?’

 

‘I know who it is,’ Sirius whispers.

 

Harry sounds floored. ‘Who?’

 

Sirius swallows and runs his fingers over the letters, feeling them slightly raised with ink. He imagines him writing it. ‘Regulus Arcturus Black.’ He looks up at the two of them. ‘My brother.’

Notes:

The next chapter may take me some time to write - I wouldn't expect to see it before mid-July. I have a big irl project whose deadline is coming up and I also need to re-read Deathly Hallows and make sure I've got everything in order. I'd guess that there are four more chapters after this one left in the story. And maybe an epilogue ;).

Chapter 24: R. A. B.

Notes:

I know it's taken a long time for me to get this chapter out, so thank you if you are still reading. This one was very tough to write - both because it required a ton of research to get the canon right (I re-read DH! I took extensive notes!) but also because I needed to work to get the tone of the characters right. I hope that it rings true (you know, as true as any of this is...) to you. Please let me know if you enjoyed it!

The Ring of Brodgar, a Sunday night.

 

The orthostats don't like this magic.

 

He can feel them, just at the edge of his perception, vibrating along their length. He stands beside the tallest monolith and takes deep, gulping breaths. This magic is so ancient that its very depth terrifies him. They are ripping it from the ancestors, and if the grey sparks he can see out of the corners of his eyes are any indication, the ancestors are fucking livid.

 

He knows a lot about ancestors. He doesn’t think this is a wrath they want to incur, but, then, the wrath if they don’t won’t be pretty either.

 

Far off to the west, Bellatrix’s signal flares.

 

Regulus raises his wand.

 

***

 

Earlier that day:

 

Mulciber is doing something with his hands, breaking up some unfortunate creature for a spell. Regulus can see the twisting movements and hear occasional crunching. He thinks it might be a rat. The thought makes him ill.

 

Mulciber snorts. ‘Squeamish little thing, aren't you?’

 

The thing about light magic is that it's not supposed to hurt anything, and so you wind up with a bunch of wandwork and inert potions and careful cultivation of plants and animals. Even in transfiguration, you're expending magical energy constantly to ensure that the magic isn't actively harming what you're transfiguring, and creating pathways to allow it to change back if it so wishes. Dark magic has no such rules and as such is a more visceral, dirty, hands-on affair.

 

Mulciber tosses the dead animal onto the table. It is definitely a rat. ‘Hand me the-‘

 

Regulus is ready with tincture. He passes it off and walks to stare out the window. A train rattles somewhere nearby, the scream of its wheels on the rails faint but audible. He hears the hissing as Mulciber does whatever foul thing he’s doing and tries to breath shallowly, through his mouth only, but the stench is pervasive.

 

Mulciber hands him a sack. ‘You know what to do?’ he asks, sounding doubtful that someone as pathetic as Regulus could understand what to do with a dead rat covered in tincture and stuffed in a sack.

 

‘Yes,’ Regulus says, trying to keep it haughty. He knows that a lot of the other Death Eaters are sick of the Blacks’ upper-class shit, and that, perversely, makes him want to emphasise it more.

 

We are the chosen ones, his father always says. They bow down to us.

 

Regulus goes.

 

***

Regulus gives the dead rat as wide a berth as he can once he has used it to gain access to the circle of stones. He steps down into the ditch that the ancient people who built the Ring dug from the sandstone bedrock of the island and, although it is mostly filled in by blowing sand and time, he can sense its original nine-foot depth rising on either side of him. A kind of claustrophobic paranoia has set in: he’s convinced the stones are moving just out of the corners of his eyes as he passes each one, that the empty sockets where others stood – under half of the original orthostats remain today – gape at him like open wounds. Magic is so thick in the air now that he can feel himself moving through it. He comes to the wide entrance of the ring and stops, taking several deep breaths.

 

He has to do this.

 

If he doesn’t do this, Bellatrix will murder him.

 

He looks towards the sack – placed just outside the entrance – and to his horror realises that it is crawling. He can hear the bones crunching inside as it twitches and jerks towards him, leaving a trail of dark liquid. His mouth is dry, his hands wet, his heart so loud it echoes off the stones. He tries to blink but there’s no difference in his view whether his eyes are closed or open: the sack. The ditch. Behind him, the stones. He tilts his head to look up and sees nothing but an endless velvety grey – no sky, no stars.

 

This magic is too powerful for him. He steps backwards and up, keeping his eyes on the sack, through the entryway so that he is now standing out of the ditch and inside of the stone ring. The sky is abruptly normal here. He can see Bellatrix’s signal flare blazing. The power they are channelling flies overhead, arcing off the ragged stone tops. A few seconds later, it is all over.

 

He’s done his part.

 

He doubles over in the sandy grass, retching.

 

***

After they channel the power of the ancient henges, Regulus is beset by a terrible guilt. He tries to work his way out of it, attending meetings about Black family holdings in Paris, Bonn, Amsterdam, his life a blur of international Floo stations and translation spells, but he can’t break free from it. It underlies every moment.

 

He’s walking up the steps to the West German equivalent of the Ministry of Magic, Kreacher hurrying beside him, when he catches a glimpse of a Muggle family walking along the banks of the Rhine. The West German wizarding world has been issuing increasingly desperate warnings to the British, cautioning against the rise of fascism with dire remembrances of Grindelwald and his alignment with the Third Reich. They keep their Muggles much closer here now, protected, and there’s even a movement to break their Statute of Secrecy and use magic to aid them. It’s all nonsense – they’ll never do it – too soft – as his father has blustered, but Regulus can’t get that Muggle family out of his mind. He’s never met a Muggle, and barely interacted with any Muggleborns, and now that makes it worse. He longs for a genuine connection with one, to somehow absolve himself of this terrible, pressing guilt.

 

Being a Death Eater had seemed a bit of a lark at first. Everyone he knew at school was doing it, everyone in his family was doing it (well, mostly), and it had seemed like the kind of thing that would help him make connections and distinguish himself while helping his father manage their various properties, investments, and holdings. Of course, he’d heard rumours about what they did… Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus had had a frankly disturbing wedding ceremony that had involved strange pledges he and his parents had found rather uncomfortable to make… but surely all this talk of actually killing Muggles was just that, talk? The kind of rhetoric the Dark Lord and his most fervent followers would have to use to sway the uncultured wizarding proletariat, who have always despised Muggles, to their side?

 

Instead he’s been drawn into a world of truly dark magic – not just owning some relics that channel dark power, which is a perfectly normal activity for a family like the Blacks, who will of course safeguard them in a way lesser families would not – but the kind of place where, well, he has to get his hands dirty. The Dark Lord designed that ceremony at the Ring of Brodgar to channel and strengthen dark magical power, and ever since Regulus has felt unclean. He’s convinced the ancestors have cursed him for using their artefacts for evil.

 

The curse has taken the form of unceasing contemplation of his own past.  

 

For the first time since leaving Hogwarts, he can’t stop thinking about his brother.

 

***

When they are children, Sirius is his hero.

 

Their house is dark and full of frightening things. For as long as he can remember, the house elf heads on the wall give him nightmares, even though Kreacher, whom he adores, assures him that they are not meant to scare. Whenever he awakes, terrified and crying, he knows he can go to Sirius’s room and his brother will be full of sympathy.

 

Sirius says he will protect him from anything, and Regulus believes him, deep in his heart, even when he is much too old for emotional nonsense. 

 

Their parents have a tumultuous relationship, and it takes Regulus years to understand that it is partially exacerbated by Sirius. One of his earliest memories is of the two of them playing in their mother’s closet, trying on her clothing – he remembers in perfect detail Sirius draped in her jewellery, rings and a tiara and a huge gold locket on a gold chain hanging around his neck as he applies lipstick in the wide mirror she kept by her bed – and of their mother coming home and finding them. She’d slapped Sirius with the back of her hand, making his cheek bleed, and she’d screamed at him about what their father would think if he’d seen his sons like that. In the middle of this, their father had appeared, and led Sirius away by the arm.

 

Sirius had wanted to play that game again the next day when they were once more alone, his face still swollen from bruises and tears, but Regulus had begged him not to because their parents’ anger scares him. At least then, Sirius had listened.

 

Later, after he went to Hogwarts, Sirius had stopped listening to anyone. He’d leave family dinners, slamming doors and yelling at his parents; he’d stay out late, skip holidays, abruptly announce that he was going to a friend’s house. At school, once Regulus starts, Sirius is distant, often at odds with Regulus’s friends, many of whom are their cousins. Sirius has his own friends, and none of them are particularly kind. One of them, a Pureblood from one of the most blood-traitor families, gifts Sirius with a number of posters of Muggle women wearing very little, sitting on Muggle motorcycles; Sirius hangs them defiantly in his room. Another of his friends is a Halfblood! At home, they are still allies, but there is a tightness there, a distance that Regulus longs to bridge but can’t.

 

***

The summons comes late at night: the Dark Lord requires a house elf.

 

Regulus, who is questioning his own loyalty, feels the need to prove it, both to himself and to the Dark Lord. Dark Mark still burning, he walks downstairs to Kreacher’s cupboard and wakes him. Kreacher is an excellent house elf, and Regulus is certain that he will do whatever the Dark Lord needs.

 

‘And come right home when you’re done,’ Regulus adds, because he feels uneasy. The Dark Lord will not hesitate to take again what he’s taken once.

 

His father is in Vienna – he’s just sent an owl to say he’ll be staying the night – and his mother has just had her fourth gin and tonic and is on her way to a dinner party, glamorous and steady on her feet as always, when Kreacher returns. Regulus hears the pop of his Apparition and sets down his paper. He finds Kreacher in the kitchen.

 

The house elf is in a piteous state, lying on his side and shivering uncontrollably, dripping with fetid water. At first, Regulus, horrified, thinks he has soiled himself, but then he sees that Kreacher is fully soaked. He runs forward and falls to his knees before the little elf, putting his hands on his forehead and arm; he’s cold and clammy and his shivering is violent. Without thinking, Regulus grabs a tea towel from the counter and wraps the elf in it, rubbing the water off him and trying to warm him up. Kreacher is gasping for breath, with deep, painful squeaks; eventually, he staggers to the sink and vomits up copious quantities of water. Then he collapses down against the side of the counter, clutching the tea towel to himself, eyes wide open but staring at something far away from the darkened room.

 

‘Kreacher,’ Regulus gasps, utterly stricken and terrified for Kreacher’s life. ‘What happened to you?’

 

Kreacher coughs, a deep, wracking noise from somewhere low in his lungs, and rasps, ‘Kreacher has completed the Dark Lord’s mission for Master Regulus.’

 

Horrified, Regulus asks, ‘What was it? What was the mission?’

 

Kreacher coughs some more. Regulus gets to his feet and searches the drawers until he finds more tea towels, then sits in front of the elf – he’s frightened by how tiny Kreacher is, how fragile he suddenly is – and piles them around him, trying to warm him. Kreacher seems unable or unwilling to hold them, so Regulus tucks them in tightly, then sits in front of him, watching him closely.

 

Finally, Kreacher says, ‘The Dark Lord took Kreacher to a lake. An underground lake, inside a cave. He asked Kreacher to drink a potion he put into a basin on an island in the lake. The Dark Lord took Kreacher to it on a boat.’ Kreacher hesitates, still not looking at Regulus. ‘The potion was not good for Kreacher. It made him very ill.’

 

‘What was the potion?’ Regulus asks, because it is something to ask, to understand how to help the elf.

 

Kreacher looks at him then. ‘Wizard magic,’ he says, impassively, but Regulus feels the weight of the words: it was harmful to elves, and a wizard made him drink it, and a wizard didn’t care that it made him ill.

 

‘Kreacher,’ Regulus says, without really meaning to. Kreacher is still looking at him, but if there’s accusation in his look, Regulus can’t see it.

 

‘Kreacher drank all of the potion,’ Kreacher continues, ‘but it made him thirsty.’

 

‘Why did the Dark Lord have you drink this potion?’ Regulus asks. ‘Did he say?’

 

‘He did not say,’ Kreacher says, the acceptance of a house elf in the face of all human nonsense, the way that Kreacher used to say that he didn’t know why Master Sirius had asked him to burn down the house.

 

‘He put a locket in the basin,’ Kreacher volunteers suddenly. Regulus looks at him, startled. He’s never heard Kreacher spontaneously tell him something.

 

‘A locket?’ he asks, carefully, not wanting to frighten Kreacher. ‘What did it look like?’

 

Kreacher describes something that sounds rather like the locket his mother has, the one that Sirius used to play with. ‘And then he put it in the basin after you drank the potion?’

 

Kreacher nods. ‘Then the Dark Lord took the boat and left.’

 

Regulus is frowning, trying to understand. ‘Then what did you do?’

 

Kreacher doesn’t speak for so long that Regulus starts to ask again; then Kreacher says, voice very quiet, ‘Kreacher was so thirsty. There was water in the lake. Kreacher thought he’d just have a drink from the lake and then come right home like Master Regulus asked.’

 

‘Of course,’ Regulus says. ‘I know you were going to do what I asked you to.’

 

Kreacher starts to cry, very suddenly. Regulus has never seen him or any house elf cry before, and it is horrible. Kreacher has none of the human pretence of trying to hide emotions, and he merely sits, his entire body heaving with sobs. Regulus is struck again by how tiny and frail the house elf is, how important he is. He wants to comfort him, but has no idea how. Then Kreacher says, voice shaking, ‘There were people in the water. Dead people.’

 

Regulus blinks. ‘Dead people?’ Kreacher nods, tears rolling down his withered cheeks. ‘Like… bodies?’

 

‘They moved. They grabbed Kreacher.’

 

Inferi.

 

They channelled the magic to resurrect them that night in of the Ring of Brodgar.

 

***

That night, he lies in bed, images falling heavily like bricks into his consciousness:

 

The rat twitching in the bag, the crunch of its bones.

 

The flickers at the corners of his vision, the shapes on the edge of the henge: the ancestors, out of sight but present.

 

Bellatrix, laughing, standing atop Silbury Hill as Regulus Apparates to her side.

 

Kreacher on the floor of the kitchen, Kreacher soaked in corpse water, Kreacher crying miserably, wrapped in tea towels.

 

This is Regulus’s fault.

 

He tries to tell himself that Bellatrix would have just replaced him that night with someone else, that he’s not even a particularly able wizard – that someone else could have done it better – but he knows the truth. He made a choice.

 

Now, he has to make another.

 

***

They go straight from Gringotts to their private club, where he and his father often share a drink and conduct business.

His father exhales as he sinks back into the plush leather chair in the private room they maintain there. ‘I hate dealing with those little bastards,’ he says of the goblins, without real malice. ‘But at least they’re predictable. They always want more money.’

 

Regulus, preoccupied, makes a noncommittal noise of assent and opens the book he’d bought at Borgin and Burkes. Inside is the newsprint clipping he’d found earlier in the morning at the public library. A house elf, carefully dressed in what appear to be green velvet drape offcuttings, brings them each a tumbler of firewhisky, neat. This is his father’s drink and so it has become Regulus’s too.

 

Orion crosses one leg over his other and takes a long sip of the whisky. ‘What did you think of the meeting?’ he asks, and Regulus hears the shrewd question underneath it: what are you thinking about that has nothing to do with this?

 

‘I think it went as well as could be expected,’ Regulus says, not sure if he’s willing to answer the other. ‘We’ll make a tidy profit on the project in the end, even if they are extorting us with loan interest. And we’re shifting much of the risk of it onto the goblins.’

 

‘Indeed,’ his father agrees. They sit in companionable silence for several minutes, but Regulus cannot bring himself to open the book again. The club is too much their space, he and his father’s, and he doesn’t want to violate its sanctity with whatever evil the Dark Lord has planned.

 

‘Regulus,’ his father says, quietly, and Regulus wonders if he’s somehow practising Occlumency against him. ‘What are you worried about?’

 

‘I,’ Regulus glances, without meaning to, at his forearm, covered in several layers of cotton and wool, but nevertheless intruding into his thoughts, ‘I’m thinking about taking a step back from the Dark Lord’s operations.’

 

‘Oh?’ His father’s voice sounds careful, withholding judgment.

 

‘It seemed advantageous when I joined,’ Regulus says, also speaking carefully. He would die with shame if his father found out the terrible things he’s done. ‘But now that they’ve gotten some power, I fear that things are – that things are getting out of hand.’

 

‘Indeed,’ his father says.

 

Regulus glances at him; he’s nodding, and regarding his son with a steady gaze. Regulus exhales deeply and says, ‘The problem is, it’s not going to be easy to take a step back.’

 

‘Whatever you need,’ his father says immediately. ‘I’m sure I can cook up a scheme in Shanghai that you have to attend to for six months if need be.’

 

Regulus smiles, thinly, because that sounds ideal but he knows that he has work to do here. ‘I may take you up on that,’ he says, hoping against hope that he can.

 

‘Whatever you need,’ his father repeats, before raising his glass to his lips and draining it. He reaches up and rings the bell behind his seat; the house elf appears almost instantly and refills the glass. Regulus senses that the conversation is not done, but for the next hour, as twilight deepens into the early night of deep winter, they speak only of business, moving papers around, writing correspondence. His father rings for the house elf again and has her stoke the fire; Regulus cannot stop watching her, thinking of her inner life. What does she make of this club, this place, his family, of him?

 

Finally, his father pushes aside his papers and says, ‘Regulus.’

 

‘Yes?’

 

Orion doesn’t speak for so long that he looks at him; he is staring at the fire, the light of it playing across his glasses and obscuring his eyes. Then he says the last thing Regulus expects: ‘Have you spoken with – in a while, or recently – have you spoken with your brother?’

 

‘No,’ Regulus says, not sure where this is going, ‘but I think about him often.’

 

His father steeples his fingers in front of his face and says, ‘Before we met at Gringotts, I was at the Ministry, speaking with the Minister, and I happened to run into Rufus Scrimgeour.’

 

‘He’s head of the Aurors?’

 

‘Second in command. Behind Moody.’

 

Regulus nods. The Scrimgeours are a respectable family, much more so than the Moodys. ‘What made you think of… of that?’

 

‘Scrimgeour gave me a warning,’ his father says, voice very quiet. ‘About – your brother.’

 

Regulus has never heard his father even mention Sirius since the night he left. ‘What kind of warning?’

 

‘He said that Sirius was involved in a group sponsored by Dumbledore that is acting outside of the Ministry to – well, to fight the Dark Lord. He said that the Ministry can’t possibly protect this group, and that some members of it have been put into very dangerous situations.’

 

Regulus looks at his father, who is not looking at him at all. He’s still staring into the fire, a grim look on his face. ‘What do you think we should do?’

 

His father shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure there is anything we can do. If you had spoken with him, I’d have had you mention it, but…’

 

Regulus hesitates. ‘Do you want me to speak with him?’ he asks finally.

 

‘Not if it’s out of the ordinary,’ Orion says. There’s such a long pause that Regulus thinks the matter is closed. Then his father says, abruptly, into the warm silence of the room, ‘I do wish that you two spoke. Not often, but sometimes.’ Regulus looks up at his father, who says, without looking at him, ‘It would certainly set your mother’s mind at ease, to know that he’s – that he’s not alone.’

 

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Regulus says. He remembers the last time he saw Sirius: leaving the Hogwarts Express, on his own, at the end of his seventh year, while Kreacher stood by, holding Regulus’s trunk. Sirius had ignored them both.

 

Add another item to the list of impossible things he has to accomplish.

 

***

 

Back in his room, Regulus looks again at the news clippings he’s put up on his wall and adds the newest one. For weeks – ever since things happened with Kreacher – he’s been digging up as much information as he can, consulting records, seeking out seemingly innocuous news stories. He steps back, holding the book on Dark objects from Borgin and Burkes.

 

He's had his suspicions that the Dark Lord is not who he says he is, but this? A Halfblood?

 

Tom Riddle, local son, murdered...

 

The Dark Lord has gone to great lengths to hide his identity. Regulus feels that even knowing this information is a mistake. He will be caught, and he will be made to suffer for it. But the Dark Lord is using them, all of the old families, the Blacks and the Malfoys and Lestranges, in his illegitimate quest for power. He has no right to it, he hasn't earned it...

 

Regulus is moving towards another reason, one that he's been trying to ignore. He remembers Sirius squinting at Bellatrix across the Christmas dinner table a few years ago: "We're not entitled to more than anyone else." Where had Sirius ever learned that? They are Blacks, of course they are...

 

He opens the curtain slightly and waves his hand, briefly dispelling the magic left over from childhood that enchants his view. Outside, the Muggle world is grey, rain pattering on his window and making everything appear as a watercolour. He sees the square and its desultory garden, the black iron fence leaning inward, keeping out a little more of the world at its top than where it meets the ground. This is what Sirius insisted is worth just as much as the magical world within the house?

 

***

Regulus is fourteen, and he sneaks into the kitchen and finds the sandwich that he knows Kreacher will have prepared for Sirius, not because Kreacher has any affection for him, but because the house elf knows that Regulus will want him to do it. Regulus takes the plate and its contents upstairs and finds his brother sitting on his bed. Every other room in the house usually has the curtains drawn, but Sirius has opened his window and has his head turned towards it. Regulus can hear the sounds of Muggle London: sirens and trains and cars and airplanes, all the ways Muggles use to cheat since they don't have magic.

 

'Hey,' he says quietly.

 

'Hey,' Sirius replies. He turns away from the window; his eyes are red. 'Thanks.'

 

'Of course,' Regulus says, sitting on the bed and passing Sirius the plate. He watches his brother eat for a minute, wolfing down the food, clearly famished, then says, 'Why can't you just lie to them?'

 

'I'm trying to change people's minds,' Sirius says around a mouthful of bread and egg salad.

 

'I don't think it's going to work.'

 

'What else can I do? I have to try.'

 

Regulus studies his brother. He's not sure if he believes him or not, but he thinks that Sirius believes himself. 'They're not going to change.'

 

'They?' Sirius repeats. 'What about you?'

 

'What about me?' Regulus says. He flops backwards on the bed. 'I'm sick of the whole thing. I don't even care what happens. I just want to stop fighting about it.'

 

'I don't like fighting,' Sirius objects.

 

'Liar,' Regulus says.

 

'Really.'

 

Regulus shrugs, drops it. He still thinks Sirius is lying, but that's how he deals with conflict. He lets it go. He wishes his brother would do the same.

 

***

 

It takes Regulus several hours to truly understand what a horcrux is.

 

He reads about them that night in the book that he’d purchased. He’s focused in on the locket from Kreacher’s tale, as the object that the Dark Lord so wanted to protect that he borrowed a house elf and forced it to drink the poison. It’s not that the Dark Lord would have considered it a sacrifice to leave the elf to die – he probably thought of that as a side benefit – but rather that he had to get the elf in the first place, travel with it…

 

Travel with him. With Kreacher.

 

So Regulus knows that the locket is valuable. He’s been scouring books on magical objects, at first focusing on the fact that it is a locket (a binding item, the type that wraps around the neck, but also a containing item, that can hold and conceal), and then that it is gold (the most immutable of the true elements), but finally he’s given up on those avenues and is now trying to understand if there are classes of objects that, like portkeys but more permanent, can be something entirely different from their exterior appearance. He’d found the book he holds now in a list of books, deep within another book, and it had taken Borgin some time to source it.

 

In this book is a description of horcruxes. Regulus is disgusted – not fully with murder, which he knows is something the Dark Lord doesn’t hesitate to commit as often as possible, but with the process of ripping the soul – but it doesn’t immediately stick in his mind. He continues reading for another hour, coming up with nothing, eyes growing increasingly heavy despite the fascinating subject matter. Eventually he rings the bell for Kreacher, who enters his room with a warm milk on a tray as he always does.

 

‘Kreacher,’ Regulus says, patting his bed. ‘Sit and talk with me.’

 

They used to talk when Regulus was younger – he’d pour all of his thoughts into the house elf, complaints about this cousin or that, worries about Sirius and school. Regulus does not remember Kreacher ever saying a thing about himself, and it pains him now, deeply, that he never noticed.

 

Kreacher sits on the edge of his bed and holds the tray for him. Regulus takes the milk and leans back against his pillows, waving his hand at the tray to indicate that Kreacher can set it on the floor.

 

‘Kreacher,’ he asks carefully, ‘I’m thinking about when you – when you went on your journey with the Dark Lord.’

 

Kreacher’s grey skin pales. ‘Go on, Master Regulus.’

 

‘Do you remember anything about how the locket felt?’

 

Kreacher screws up his face, thinking hard. ‘The Dark Lord didn’t let Kreacher touch it.’

 

‘Sorry, yes, that makes sense,’ Regulus says quickly. ‘I meant more, how it felt without touching it. Could you – sometimes with magical objects you can –‘

 

Kreacher swallows visibly. ‘The locket felt angry.’

 

‘Angry?’ Regulus repeats, confused.

 

‘It didn’t want to hold what it was holding.’

 

‘What was it holding?’

 

Kreacher hesitates. ‘Something evil, Master Regulus. Something Kreacher does not want to think about.’

 

Regulus leans back against his headboard. He can see that the elf is still upset, and he feels bad for bringing it up, so he leans forward and says, ‘Kreacher, how are you? Are you happy?’

 

Kreacher gives him a look that can best be described as unnerved. ‘Kreacher tries to serve the House of Black well.’

 

‘No one would do it better,’ Regulus assures him, and Kreacher beams with happiness. ‘But what do you – what – is there anything you’d like to do besides that?’

 

Kreacher shakes his head emphatically. ‘To serve his masters well is Kreacher’s only wish.’

 

‘What about,’ Regulus digs around, trying to think of something that he could suggest beyond drudgery, ‘going outside? Going to – to see something else? The seaside, or…?’

 

Kreacher frowns. ‘Mistress Black took Kreacher to the seaside just a year ago,’ he says, and Regulus can feel that the elf does not want to contradict him.

 

‘Good,’ he says, because he is trying to think of Kreacher, and does not want to push him. ‘Well, if you think of anything you want to do – anything at all – tell me, and we’ll do it.’ He pauses, and then adds, ‘That would make me very happy. To do something for you.’

 

Kreacher looks at him with his big, bulbous eyes. Regulus thinks there’s a flicker behind them, some kind of recognition of what Regulus is doing, but he’s not sure. Then Kreacher says something unexpected: ‘Kreacher would not like to work for the Dark Lord again.’

 

‘No,’ Regulus says emphatically, ‘Kreacher – you – will absolutely not be working for him again. Or for anyone who is not a member of the House of Black. I promise you that.’

 

Kreacher exhales like he’s been waiting to do it for days. ‘Master Regulus is the kindest master a house elf could have.’

 

Regulus snorts. ‘If that were true, I never would have sent you to him in the first place,’ he snaps.

 

Kreacher inclines his head in a nod, a familiar expression to Regulus, and one that he realises now indicates polite disagreement. It hurts him deeply that Kreacher still thinks he is a kind master after he sent him off to the Dark Lord to prove his own loyalty without thinking through what Kreacher’s fate would be.

 

‘I need to sleep,’ he says, because he can’t face the unconditional trust and love that Kreacher gives to him. The house elf leaves and he pulls the duvet up to his face, chilled in the winter night.

 

The locket must be a horcrux. What else would the Dark Lord protect so dearly but a part of his own soul? It’s clear he’s never had regard for anything else.

 

Regulus realises that he has to act now, not in the future, not theoretically. The Dark Lord has created a place to store part of his soul – surely he’ll create more – he’ll become impossible to kill.

 

Regulus realises a second later that this means he believes the Dark Lord not only needs to fall from power, but that he needs to be killed.

***

 

He does not sleep that night, in part because he receives a summons. By the time that he arrives, other Death Eaters have already made quick work of the house, and Karkaroff and Dolohov are preparing to leave the Dark Mark in the sky.

 

‘Marlene McKinnon,’ says Dolohov, with extreme contempt. ‘Stupid dyke tried to stun me.’

 

Regulus is disgusted by him, disgusted by Karkaroff, by the partially destroyed house, by the entire enterprise.

 

‘She got what was coming to her,’ Karkaroff agrees. ‘Black, you’re late.’

 

‘I was sleeping,’ Regulus says coldly. ‘I had to dress. I don’t particularly care that I missed you murdering someone because she tried to stun you, by the way.’

 

‘There was a Muggle sleeping in her bed!’ Dolohov snaps.

 

‘Was,’ Karkaroff agrees, one eyebrow raised.

 

Regulus cannot get out of here fast enough. He’s utter shit at hiding his emotions and he loathes these people. Luckily for him, the air suddenly explodes with Apparition. He recognises the face of James Potter amongst others and ducks as Dolohov yells and starts shooting spells.

 

‘There’s too many!’ Karkaroff snaps, grabbing Dolohov and Regulus by the back of their cloaks, which Regulus is infinitely grateful for as they fly through the coloured tube of magical space. Karkaroff drops them in a dark, stone-walled hall. Dolohov is spitting mad.

 

‘I was going to kill James Potter once and for all,’ he snarls. ‘The Dark Lord would have rewarded me for that!’

 

‘You were going to get us all killed,’ Karkaroff hisses. ‘There were at least six of them. McKinnon was one of the most popular Gryffindors.’

 

Regulus clamps his hand around his forearm, which is burning like fire with the residue of the summons and his own blood hammering through his veins. He wants no part of this conversation. ‘If we’re quite done,’ he says, ‘I’m leaving.’

 

Karkaroff gives him a calculating look that activates Regulus’s fight-or-flight response. ‘You seem to have more important business than the Dark Lord’s,’ he says shrewdly.

 

‘I haven’t had a chance tonight to do much business for the Dark Lord,’ Regulus replies, trying to keep his voice even. ‘I arrived at a mess you two made-‘

 

‘Careful, little one,’ Dolohov says, his wand suddenly in his hand. ‘Just because you’re a posh cunt doesn’t mean we have to put up with you.’

 

Regulus considers a fight, but changes his mind. ‘I’m leaving,’ he informs them. ‘If you have something real you need help with, by all means, let me know.’ Shaking, he Apparates to the street outside #12 Grimmauld Place, certain that they will have followed him looking for a fight, certain that he’s about to be murdered, but instead he makes it through the front door without incident. He flops back against the wall, waiting for his heart to slow down enough to make his way upstairs.

 

‘Regulus? Darling?’

 

His mother steps out of the shadows of the hallway. She is wearing a long, green silk dressing gown and holding a single candlestick, her free hand cupped around the flame.

 

‘Mother,’ he says, trying to sound normal. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’

 

She steps close to him and puts the cool back of her hand on his face. ‘Darling, you’re sweating.’

 

‘I – there was – I had to –‘

 

She shakes her head. ‘Come, sit with me,’ she says softly.

 

Regulus follows her up the stairs to one of the libraries, her favourite room in the house, all dark wood panelling and shelves that stretch upward higher than he can look. Sirius had always loved this room too; halfway through family dinners, Regulus would find him in here, slouched across a velvet couch, a book in his lap, sometimes reading, sometimes staring vaguely into the distance.

 

His mother sits down, gracefully sweeping her robe underneath her and her long hair onto her shoulder. She sets the candle into the empty arm of a candelabra and offers Regulus a tumbler of amber liquid. ‘My love,’ she says, ‘what’s happened?’

 

Regulus takes the glass but doesn’t drink from it yet, swirling the liquid and breathing in its heady scent. ‘Just a meeting,’ he says, trying to rid the smell of the McKinnon house from his mind.

 

‘Orion says you’re thinking of leaving the Dark Lord’s organisation,’ she says. Regulus looks up at her, startled; the thought of his parents having a conversation without him is somehow surprising. He didn’t know they’d spoken to each other beyond the most banal pleasantries since Sirius left.

 

‘It’s,’ he swallows, ‘it’s not for me. That’s all. It’s not that I don’t support his ideas…’

 

‘You were never made for anything but leading,’ Walburga says in her husky, always perceptive voice. ‘My darling Regulus.’ She reaches out for his hand and he clasps it tightly, even though the compliment feels like ash on his tongue.

 

‘I’m worried,’ he says, quietly, still not sure if he should reveal his hand, ‘that…’

 

‘What?’

 

‘James Potter was there tonight,’ he says, swallowing. ‘I couldn’t – if it were Sirius-‘

 

Walburga has not spoken Sirius’s name, at least not in Regulus’s earshot, since he was last in this house, and she physically recoils from it now, though she recovers quickly. ‘What do you need?’ she asks, just like Orion had. ‘Orion said we could send you on some urgent business trip far away. Hong Kong, Cape Town, Shanghai… a place too far for brief travel, where there would be bureaucratic red tape to keep you from leaving easily.’

 

Regulus thinks, despairingly, that he has to prepare here – he has to figure out how to destroy a horcrux. If he went somewhere else, he wouldn’t have even the slightest notion of where to begin to look for that information, and he would be far away from where he could do something about it once he does figure out what to do.

 

Over the next few days, however, it becomes clear that he needs to find somewhere to hide, because he cannot bring himself to do Death Eater business and as a result angers multiple other members of the group. He asks Kreacher to lie to his parents, and tell them that he is going to see some old school friends in Hong Kong, and departs one afternoon, shutting the door on 12 Grimmauld Place for what he feels suddenly certain is the final time.

 

***

Approaching the British Museum, Regulus is terrified, possibly more so than he has been during this entire endeavour, but he thinks of Kreacher’s wails of agony and forces himself to walk through the huge metal gates. He has dressed himself in some Muggle clothing he found in Sirius’s room – their mother has insisted that no one touch the room, and Regulus has found it to be full of strange and wondrous artefacts of his brother’s secret internal life – but he feels like he is unmistakably a wizard.

 

The museum is a veritable hive of Muggles, swarming every which way, children racing about, their brightly coloured coats open to the cold day, the adults calling after them lazily, standing in clumps, taking photographs – but they’ll never move! Regulus thinks in pity – and lounging on the wide steps under the clear sky. He ascends the stairs and enters through a large set of double doors, emerging into the cavernous foyer of an even more cavernous place.

 

The allusion to the cave strengthens his resolve.

 

Surrounded by Muggles, he walks forward, trying to appear like he knows where he’s going. He has the idea to put a trace on Sirius. But then –

 

‘Can I help you, sir?’

 

He turns to see a very pretty Muggle woman with a nametag looking up at him and smiling.

 

‘You looked a bit lost, that’s all.’

 

‘I,’ Regulus starts, his first word to a Muggle in he doesn’t know how long – maybe ever – and he has to lick his lips, ‘I’m looking for someone who works here. My brother. I don’t know where his office is.’

 

‘Oh!’ the woman exclaims. ‘I can help you! Come over to my desk and we’ll check the staff directory.’ She leads him to a small, well-lit desk in the foyer and says over her shoulder, ‘I’m new here, so give me a moment. What’s his name?’

 

‘Sirius Black,’ Regulus says, wondering as soon as he does if his brother uses a different name – a more Muggle one. Surely the last name Black must command some memory of respect…

 

‘Here he is, I’ll give him a ring,’ she says, having flipped through a small notebook. She lifts up a device – Regulus has no idea what it is, and shies away from it, but only slightly, not enough for her to notice, he’s certain – and after a complicated series of actions with her fingers, she lifts part of it to her ear and waits. Regulus can hear a periodic double chime coming from it – this must be some kind of summoning bell. His hands are sweating profusely and he resists the urge to wipe them on his trousers. He can’t believe he’s about to see Sirius.

 

But then, he isn’t, or at least not immediately, because she puts down the device and says that he’s not answering, and she’ll just pop upstairs and see if he’s in. Regulus nods and she disappears up a wide set of stairs. Time seems to crawl by, as Muggles pass around him, some close enough to touch him – a child runs towards him, dodges his legs by inches – and he feels trapped inside the building. He tries to slow down his breathing by counting slowly but he can feel his heart pounding in his chest.

 

‘I’m so sorry, I’m new and I forgot to ask his name,’ he hears the woman say, and he looks up to see her descending the stairs, his brother behind her. Sirius is dressed in conventional Muggle clothing and the light is low but he’s unmistakable.

 

Sirius sees Regulus a second later, and he actually stops on the stairs, his face arrested. Regulus tries to make himself look sympathetic.

 

The woman notices Sirius has stopped, turns, and asks, ‘Oh no, is it bad news?’

 

Sirius shakes his head, clearly an act of will, and says in a carrying voice, ‘No, no, I was just expecting,’ he shakes his head again, ‘my other brother.’ He breaks away from the woman and walks to Regulus. There’s fury in his gaze, but he says very politely, ‘Regulus, what a surprise.’

 

‘Hello,’ Regulus breathes, terrified.

 

‘Why don’t we have a cup of tea?’ Sirius suggests, and he puts a hand on Regulus’s arm and steers him in a none-too-kindly way, calling over his shoulder to the still stricken-looking woman, ‘Thanks so much!’

 

‘We could go…’

 

‘Here,’ Sirius says, very grim. ‘In public.’ He doesn’t look at Regulus as he leads him into the museum proper, through endless crowds of Muggles – Muggle children, Muggle adults, yelling, talking, pointing, slumping against walls, holding stationary maps, holding conventional cameras…

 

‘Stop it,’ Sirius snaps.

 

‘What?’

 

‘Staring at people.’

 

‘They’re-‘

 

‘I realise,’ Sirius says, and his voice is impossibly cold, ‘that your natural instinct is to commit genocide, but I’d rather you reined it in at the moment, as I don’t want to cause a scene.’

 

Stung, Regulus tries to jerk his arm out of Sirius’s grasp; Sirius only tightens his hold. Regulus is certain he’s going to bruise. ‘I’m not planning to commit a… a… I’m just not used to being around them.’

 

‘People?’ Sirius suggests. ‘I suppose shut up at home with Kreacher, you wouldn’t be.’

 

‘You know what I mean,’ Regulus hisses, mad at Sirius and mad at himself for taking the bait. They have arrived at a small café inside the building. It is even more full of Muggles and their children, but Regulus finds he is furious enough that he is no longer panicking.

 

Still holding onto Regulus with one hand, Sirius buys them each a tea, chattering inanely with the woman behind the counter, using Muggle money like it’s natural, then forces Regulus to a table. Regulus is fuming until Sirius speaks.

 

‘So, is Father dead or something?’

 

‘What?’ Regulus asks, startled. ‘No. No, absolutely not.’

 

‘Mother?’

 

‘No one’s dead, Sirius.’

 

‘Except all the victims of you and your friends’ terror attacks.’

 

Regulus swallows. ‘No one in the family.’

 

‘Too bad,’ Sirius snaps, sounding bitter. ‘How did you know I was here?’

 

Regulus winces. He’s been dreading this. ‘Kreacher.’

 

‘Kreacher?’

 

Delicately, he says, ‘Mother has him check up on you.’

 

Sirius is obviously horrified. ‘What?’

 

‘Just to be sure you’re well,’ Regulus says quickly. ‘Just to be-‘

 

‘He’s been following me around? And reporting on me?’

 

‘Not- I mean- we just want to know you’re well,’ Regulus spreads his hands in front of him. ‘I’m sorry. Really. I know you don’t want anything to do with us. I wouldn’t have come to you if it wasn’t desperate.’

 

‘Then why did you come?’ Sirius demands.

 

Scared, Regulus lowers his voice. ‘I need your help.’

 

Sirius stares at him. He looks like his eyebrows are in danger of disappearing into his hairline. ‘My help?’

 

‘I know that I’ve,’ Regulus stops, swallows hard, and continues, ‘I’ve made mistakes. I know that. Believe me.’

 

‘Well at least you know,’ Sirius mutters.

 

‘But I don’t want to any more,’ Regulus admits.

 

Sirius blinks at him, then hunches over the table, his hands wrapped around his teacup, leaning in close. ‘What do you want?’ he hisses.

 

Regulus feels – though he’s not certain if it’s psychosomatic – his Dark Mark throb. ‘Do you…’ he reaches for Sirius’s napkin. ‘A pen? Do you have a pen?’

 

Sirius draws out a Muggle pen from his pocket, and when Regulus looks baffled, he uncaps it and presses it into Regulus’s hand. Regulus writes on the napkin, ‘I made a mistake.’ He looks up at Sirius, who is frowning, a line between his eyebrows, looking at the napkin rather than Regulus. Regulus takes a deep breath and writes, ‘I’m sorry.’ He looks up at Sirius again, who nods, once, jerkily. Regulus takes another deep breath and writes the thing he’s been dreading: ‘I don’t want to be a Death Eater anymore.’

 

Sirius looks at the napkin, blinking. ‘Regulus…’

 

‘I can’t talk about it,’ Regulus whispers. ‘Not here.’ He’s terrified of he’s not sure what but he feels exposed. He doesn’t think it’s just being surrounded by Muggles.

 

Sirius hesitates, then says, ‘Let’s go to my office.’

 

Tea forgotten, he takes Regulus upstairs, into a strange warren of offices and then through a door, marked, ‘Ceramics Typology’, obviously designed to keep out Muggles, and then through a magical door, marked, ‘Department of Magical Restoration and Conservation’, through which lies a laboratory filled with objects in varying states of ancient and broken. Regulus looks around, gaping a bit at the strange space, and Sirius says, gruffly, ‘Whatever you’re thinking, however disappointed you are in me, I don’t want to hear it.’

 

‘I’m not,’ Regulus starts, sputtering, and shock is much more the word than disappointed anyway. This is emphatically not where he had expected his brother to be. He manages to say, ‘I just knew you were going to be an Auror, before. And now you’re not.’

 

‘I felt ethically compromised,’ Sirius says, his voice tense. ‘They wanted me to do things I wasn’t comfortable with.’

 

‘All right,’ Regulus says, taken aback. He thinks of the large, neat desks of bankers, of lords, of ministers, of influential people, and looks at Sirius’s small desk, covered in rubbish.

 

‘So?’ Sirius asks. ‘You don’t… you don’t want…’ he seems lost. ‘You don’t want to be a Death Eater. Anymore.’

 

Regulus shakes his head. Tears are unexpectedly prickling behind his eyes. He’s suddenly so happy to see his brother. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. He’s not sure if he’s apologizing for quitting, or for joining in the first place, or for everything else. ‘I made a mistake. I made a lot of mistakes. They… bad things have happened.’

 

Sirius looks incredulous. ‘I mean…’

 

‘I know,’ Regulus says, pleading, ‘I know. I know they have been, for a long time. But really bad things.’

 

Sirius winces. ‘I’m not certain that I want to know,’ he says. ‘Not now, anyway.’ He steps closer to Regulus, so that they are side by side, facing the room, and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘What do you need?’

 

‘I…’ Regulus is viscerally reminded of his parents. He weighs what he wants to tell Sirius. He isn’t sure he can trust him with his plan, even though every part of him is screaming out that he wants to. ‘I need a safe place to stay. Just for a few days. I have some… I’m thinking about what I want to do. I mean, I know I’m not going to be a Death Eater anymore. But, I can’t… I can’t stay in the country if I… I have to put things in motion, I have to…’ He takes a deep breath, tries to collect his thoughts. ‘I told everyone I was travelling abroad for a few days.’

 

‘You need somewhere to stay.’

 

‘Yes,’ Regulus says.

 

‘Stay with me,’ Sirius says, perfectly simple, and if there’s the weight of time and distance there, Regulus doesn’t hear it.

 

‘Are you sure? I think – if they figure out I’m not abroad – it won’t be safe.’

 

‘Who knows you aren’t?’

 

Regulus thinks. ‘Just Kreacher. I lied to father and mother.’

 

‘And you forbade Kreacher to talk about it?’

 

‘Of course.’

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘I think we’ll be all right then,’ he says. ‘Our – my – the flat is very secure.’ He stops talking long enough that Regulus glances at him; he’s staring at his desk, an abstracted look on his face. ‘I live with someone,’ he says, when he notices Regulus looking. ‘We’ve made it very secure.’

 

Regulus nods, so grateful he feels like he might faint. ‘Thank you, really, truly.’

 

Sirius looks pensive for a moment, then says, ‘I’m glad you came to me.’ He steps away and looks around the office, suddenly purposeful. ‘I don’t have anything that won’t wait for tomorrow. Let’s go.’

 

Regulus looks around for a fireplace. ‘Is there…?’

 

‘I’m not authorised to use the Floo network with the new anti-terrorism laws, and I don’t want to create a magical pathway that can be traced by Apparating there. So,’ and Sirius’s voice is, to Regulus’s ears, carefully light, ‘We’ll take the Muggle way.’

 

Regulus’s stomach sinks. ‘A… cab?’

 

Sirius grins. ‘The tube.’

 

***

Regulus does not want to Apparate even partway and get caught by any of his Death Eating colleagues, so instead they walk to a tube station. The day is miserable, cold sleet on the slick pavement, and Regulus is not used to experiencing the elements. The Muggle clothing he borrowed isn’t particularly warm, either. He casts a warming charm on his hands and hopes to Merlin that no one is tracking him closely enough to notice.

 

The tube station is a hot maw at the base of a building, exhaling a metallic smell that Regulus has never encountered before but, with a sinking feeling, realises he’s about to. Sirius seems completely comfortable, and Regulus takes some comfort from that, as Sirius buys him a ticket and then demonstrates how to walk through the barrier to go inside – ‘Easy as Platform 9 ¾,’ Sirius claims, which is a lie. Regulus gets hung up in the barrier and Sirius has to extract him. A stationmaster shouts at them, which terrifies Regulus – don’t Muggles often resort to physical violence? – until Sirius kindly holds up his ticket and the man – a Muggle – lays hands on him and helps tug his arm free. This is black comedy of the highest order: everywhere Regulus turns another Muggle who seems menacing at first but then helps him overcome his own obvious incompetency.

 

They go down in a lift – a stinking one, crowded with Muggles – and onto a platform that also reeks of machinery and filth. Regulus breathes through his mouth and looks at his brother, who is squinting up at an illuminated sign. The numbers flip on the sign and Sirius puts his hand on Regulus’s arm, pulling him back slightly – Regulus’s ears pop as a wave of pressure hits them – he panics, it’s like a spell gone wrong – and then a train whooshes into the station on a gust of hot air and squealing tires. Sirius keeps his hand on Regulus’s arm, but gently now, and guides him onto the train car. It is mostly empty, and Sirius takes a seat and tugs Regulus down into the one beside it.

 

‘The train’s a bit loud,’ Sirius explains.

 

It jerks out of the station. Regulus isn’t unused to trains, but he is unused to this one, which sways drunkenly. A beer can skitters wildly across the floor and trails drops of amber liquid. As quickly as Regulus has become used to the noise and the movement, the train abruptly stops. The doors open, and passengers come and go.

 

‘How many times will it stop?’ Regulus asks, fearful of the answer.

 

‘Uhm,’ Sirius says, ‘let’s see, six I think. No, five.’ The car screeches into motion and Regulus grabs the edge of the seat. ‘Don’t worry,’ Sirius adds. ‘It’s very safe.’

 

‘It’s just, uhm, loud,’ Regulus shouts. ‘And unexpected.’

 

Sirius doesn’t laugh at him, even though he almost certainly deserves it; instead, he looks concerned. Regulus remembers how much he loves his brother like a stab in the side.

 

‘Do you ride it often?’

 

‘I walk home most days,’ Sirius says. He’s looking around the car, which has only a few other passengers, all seated at the other end. ‘Listen, I’ve got to tell you something.’

 

‘Ok,’ Regulus says, but then Sirius is silent as the train screeches around a corner. Regulus is already learning how to lean with it and, stupid as it is to feel this way as an adult, the warmth of Sirius’s arm against his is reassuring. ‘What were you going to tell me?’ he asks, thinking that Sirius thinks he can’t hear him.

 

Sirius frowns. ‘The person I live with –‘ he says, and there’s something under the words. ‘I have to make sure it’s all right with him before you – before you can stay.’

 

‘Oh,’ Regulus says, ‘of course. That makes perfect sense.’ He feels that there’s something more to be said, but he isn’t certain what it is. ‘Is it one of your friends from school?’

 

Sirius is looking down at the floor. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And listen, Regulus…’

 

Regulus waits. He doesn’t understand that Sirius is struggling to define a relationship that doesn’t currently have acceptable nomenclature. Finally, Sirius says, ‘He’s my boyfriend.’

 

The train is screeching and Regulus is confused. ‘Sorry, what?’ he asks over the noise.

 

‘My boyfriend,’ Sirius repeats, very loudly, as the train abruptly becomes silent. Sirius looks around quickly but Regulus is too busy suddenly realising a lot of things very quickly to notice if anyone heard him.

 

Their father, constantly criticising Sirius for not being ‘strong’ or ‘tough’.

 

Their mother, so furious when she caught Sirius playing with her jewels.

 

The look his parents gave each other across the dining room table the night that Sirius left the house for good.

 

Bellatrix, mocking Sirius in a sing-song voice, telling him he’s not a man.

 

Uncle Alphard, the perpetual bachelor and family black sheep, leaving Sirius a pile of money.

 

Smirking looks from cousins, a comment here or there, his mother demanding to know about Sirius’s friends, even though two of the three of them are Purebloods…

 

Sirius is watching him. ‘Do you still want to come with me?’ he asks, and he sounds like he’s steeling himself against a blow.

 

Regulus realises something else: that after everything that has happened, his brother still loves him too. ‘Yes,’ he says. He wonders if something more is required of him. ‘I came to you because I knew you’d help me,’ he explains. ‘I knew I could count on you.’

 

Sirius seems relieved. ‘I’m going to do my best,’ he says.

 

‘Which one is it?’ Regulus asks, a thought occurring to him. ‘Is it… the one who was a prefect?’

 

Sirius nods. ‘Remus,’ he says, and there’s something in the way he says it, some extra meaning for him.

 

Regulus tries to think what to say about him, and absolutely does not say, isn’t he a Halfblood? ‘He’s nice,’ is what he comes up with. ‘I mean, he was nice at school.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, suddenly grinning. ‘He’s great.’

 

***

Sirius’s flat is above a shop not far from a tube station. Regulus goggles at the narrow stairs and Sirius, apparently noticing this, says, ‘It’s nice on the inside.’

 

‘It’s great,’ Regulus lies, a little bit horrified for his brother, who has opened the door. Regulus can see already that it is not nice on the inside.

 

‘You’re home early,’ he hears a voice call from a nearby room.

 

‘Yeah…’ Sirius replies, making a nervous face at his brother as they step inside.

 

‘Everything all right…?’ Remus comes around the corner and stops dead.

 

Regulus hasn’t seen him in a few years and he’s startled by how much older he looks. ‘You’re Remus,’ he says, a bit stupidly.

 

Remus is now looking at Sirius with one eyebrow raised.

 

‘Why don’t we take a walk?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘And leave him here?’ Remus, sounding incredulous and just a little angry, looks quickly at Regulus. ‘You know we have some things here that a Death Eater probably shouldn’t be left alone with?’

 

Regulus winces like he’s been slapped. ‘I can wait elsewhere if you need to talk,’ he suggests, but his heart starts beating frantically, because for the first time in weeks he’s felt safe with Sirius and the thought of leaving even this foyer without him inspires crippling fear.

 

‘No,’ Sirius says, ‘you wait here.’ He seems to be communicating something to Remus with his eyes. ‘He’ll be fine.’

 

Remus, looking incredibly unhappy, says curtly, ‘Let’s step outside.’

 

They both go into the hallway, Remus brushing past him without looking at him and slamming the door with unnecessary force.

 

Regulus hesitates. He feels compelled to listen to the conversation even though he knows it is private. He’s unduly fascinated by his brother’s relationship. Sirius is, well, homosexual, and that explains so very much, but what can it possibly be like? Is he like… is he like a woman? His better nature hopes they’ll walk away but almost immediately he hears Remus’s voice, quiet but furious:

 

‘Why the fuck is there a Death Eater in the flat?’

 

And Sirius, hushed: ‘He doesn’t want to be a Death Eater anymore.’

 

‘And you believe that?’

 

'He's my brother.'

 

'Do you remember the people he used to hang around with at school? Where are all of those people today? They didn't join the bloody Church!'

 

'I know, I know, but he wasn't as bad as most of them...'

 

'Great, he was only a little bit like a bunch of murdering racists.'

 

Regulus is startled by how much that hurts, suddenly wanting to close his eyes and cry. He presses his ear more firmly against the door, listening for Sirius’s answer.

 

It is quiet when it comes, and not exactly a defence. 'You don't know what it's like, growing up in my family.'

 

'I know you.'

 

'Yeah, but I didn't spend my time with them once I met you lot.'

 

'You were already not like them by the time you got to school.'

 

'It's... it's hard. It's different. Regulus isn't me.'

 

'Right. He's a Death Eater.'

 

'But he's also,' and Regulus can hear Sirius struggling, 'he's always been very... eager to please. Always wanted to fit in. Scared to stand out and draw curses.' Regulus thinks, I have been that, and that hurts too.

 

'And so he let you do it for him,' Remus snaps. Through the door, his words radiate fury. 'Let you protect him no matter what it meant for you.'

 

'I was going to be in trouble anyway.'

 

'But he didn't stick up for you.'

 

'He helped me escape,' Sirius says, pleading. 'The night I left for good, he didn't stop me. And he took my mother's attention away from what was happening so I could leave.'

 

Regulus is vividly transported back to that night, one of the worst of his life. He remembers sitting in Sirius’s bed after he’d gone, thinking he should cry, but his grief had felt beyond even that action.

 

'That's what you're grateful to him for?' Remus demands, cutting in on Regulus’s memory. 'Don't you see how shit that is?'

 

'It was incredibly kind,' Sirius counters and Regulus wishes he could see his face. 'Really. You don't... I can't explain it. It was a moment of solidarity.'

 

'By someone who let his friends at school try to taunt and bully you? I think I even gave him detention for it a few times.'

 

'He mentioned that you were really nice,' Sirius says.

 

There’s a pause. Regulus has a feeling that this is not the direction Sirius should have taken this. 'What? When?'

 

'Well,' and Sirius is obviously stalling. Regulus starts to feel sick to his stomach with anxiety, 'I had to tell him about, you know, about us.'

 

'What did you say?'

 

Sirius mumbles, 'That you're my boyfriend.'

 

‘Are you fucking…’ There’s something else, something too quiet for Regulus to hear. Then Remus says, 'So he can report that back to his Death Eater friends, wonderful, and they can try to use that against us.'

 

'I had to tell him,' Sirius says, and Regulus can hear the lie in his voice. He could have kept it concealed easily. He’d volunteered the information. Regulus wonders why, as Sirius revises. 'I wanted to tell him, a little bit. So few people know... I wanted my brother to know. I wanted to be able to tell someone in my family…’  

 

There’s more that’s inaudible. Then he hears Remus say, 'I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the situation.'

 

'What do you mean?'

 

'Do you really trust him? Are you being objective? Or are you just thinking with your heart?'

 

‘I’m fucking terrified for him. If he’s decided to quit…’ Regulus feels a chill go down his back; Sirius knows.

 

Remus’s next words are just as chilling: ‘They’ll kill him.’

 

‘Yes. Which is why we have to help-‘

 

Remus raises his voice again. ‘I can’t believe you did this. You do everything without thinking.’

 

The rest is low and mumbling. Regulus eventually steps away from the door. It’s strange to hear Sirius argue with Remus. So many of his memories of his brother from their teenage years are about him arguing – but this time feels very different. Sirius wasn’t shouting over someone, or deliberately being nasty. Regulus sits on a chair in the sitting room – there are five seats counting a couch, and, in a corner, a small pile of children’s toys – all so crammed in that he wants to tell them just to get rid of a chair or three. He has no idea what the toys are about, either. He tries to breathe, fighting through the nausea that threatens to overwhelm him. Sirius and Remus know that the Death Eaters will kill him for desertion.

 

The black lake is always in his mind, now, unseen but imagined. What he has to do has never felt more real.

 

***

Sirius and Remus return not too much later with the conspicuous air of two people who have rowed and are now trying to make up for it. Sirius pours Remus a glass of wine with almost comical deference and they make dinner together, sharing a single knife and cutting board between them. Regulus has never watched anyone make food before, and is fascinated, until Remus unceremoniously dumps some potatoes on the table in front of him and holds out a strange instrument. Sirius snatches whatever it is from him and says, ‘He’s never cooked before,’ to which Remus snaps, ‘First time for everything, then,’ but doesn’t make another comment as Sirius peels the potatoes.

 

‘Can’t you use magic?’ Regulus asks, when Remus goes to the toilet. He’s afraid of speaking with him glowering in the room.

 

‘We don’t use it in the flat,’ Sirius explains. ‘It attracts, um, well.’

 

‘Death Eaters.’

 

‘Yes.’

 

Regulus and he look at each other for a long moment, hilarity threatening to break out at the obvious. Regulus wants to laugh with his brother, but can’t quite make it come. Instead, he says, ‘Thank you again.’

 

‘Thank Remus, would you?’ Sirius suggests. ‘This is hard for him.’

 

‘Because he’s a Halfblood?’ Regulus asks.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus snaps, appearing behind him in the doorway.

 

‘That’s all…’ Regulus sighs. Now that he knows the Dark Lord is a Halfblood, he doesn’t know what to think. ‘I’m sorry. Please don’t feel that that is a problem for me.’

 

‘I don’t particularly care if it’s a problem for you,’ Remus says coldly. ‘I care that you want to take away my rights.’

 

Sirius is giving Remus a blazing look, but it isn’t a reprimand. Regulus files it away to think about later and says, as earnestly as he can, ‘Please believe me, I want nothing less than to see the rights of – of anyone –‘ He almost says ‘any wizards’ but catches himself – ‘taken away. And thank you for letting me stay. I can’t say how grateful I am.’ Now Sirius is looking at him, and Regulus can almost feel his thoughts: what would Mother and Father say if they heard you?

 

Remus makes a noise of assent and nods, curt, before turning back to the hob. Dinner is simple, but not half bad – nothing like what Kreacher makes, of course, but it is sustenance. Regulus feels slightly revived after it, and somehow less nauseous.

 

After, he steps outside of the kitchen to use the toilet. Walking back, he stops, seeing through the doorway the reflection of his brother with his arms around Remus in the kitchen window. Remus is standing in front of the sink, washing the dishes, and Sirius has put his arms around his shoulders and is leaning into him. In the quiet of the flat, Regulus clearly hears him say, low and fervent, ‘You’re the love of my life, Remus.’ There’s a moment where Remus shuts his eyes – Regulus doesn’t think Sirius can see his face, as his own is pressed against Remus’s hair – and then Remus opens them and sees Regulus watching and says, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ patting Sirius’s hand and then pushing him away.

 

***

Regulus is given the sofa, and sleeps like the dead upon it. He wakes in the morning to whispered debate – ‘I don’t want to leave him here alone,’ Remus saying, and Sirius saying, ‘I’ll be back in time for you to leave for your class’ – and the front door shutting. Then he slips back under into the world of sleep and awakens much later, disorientated. He finds his way into the messy bath and washes his face and hands in the slightly dirty sink. Toothpaste and two toothbrushes dangle precariously at its sides, and there’s little dots of spit on the mirror. Regulus puts some toothpaste onto his finger, rubs it around on his teeth, and examines himself in the mirror. He appears to have aged a decade in a month. Dread weighs on him like a heavy fur cloak.

 

He finds Remus in the kitchen. He’s marking papers with a frown line between his eyes. Remus says, without looking up at him, ‘The kettle’s still warm if you want some tea. Mugs in the cupboard to the left of the sink. Feel free to eat any food you find around.’

 

‘Uhm,’ Regulus replies. He goes to the counter and examines what he guesses is the kettle. Water pours out of it, not tea. He squints at the settings on the side, trying to decide which one of these arcane muggle symbols will equal tea.

 

‘What are you doing?’ Remus’s voice is more curious than cold.

 

‘I was looking for tea,’ Regulus says. ‘This is just giving me water.’

 

Remus blinks at him. ‘You need a tea bag.’

 

‘Oh,’ Regulus says. ‘Are those –‘

 

‘They’re on the counter in front of you,’ Remus says. When Regulus continues to be lost, Remus stands, takes one of the little sachets – not really a bag at all, Regulus thinks – from an open box, pours the plain water out of his mug, puts in the sachet, and toggles a button on the kettle.

 

‘When that flips back,’ he says, ‘then pour it in over the teabag and wait a few minutes. There’s milk in the fridge, I assume you can recognise that?’

 

Regulus glances at him, ready to snap back sarcastically when he remembers Sirius telling him to be kind to Remus. ‘Thank you,’ he says stiffly.

 

Remus says nothing, just returns to his seat at the table. Regulus waits out the entire tedious ritual and sits at the table. The Daily Prophet is on it, so he takes it, and starts reading, marking the catalogue of fresh disasters that have occurred in the roughly eighteen hours since he left his previous life. After a while, his stomach starts rumbling ominously.

 

Remus seems lost in his world of marking, head bent over the table, every so often scribbling furiously with a red quill, sometimes mouthing words or muttering to himself. Regulus finally gets up and re-examines the fridge for things that might be immediately eaten. From its meagre inventory, he extracts a block of cheese and some veg. He can’t find a suitably sharp knife for the cheese – just table knives – and winds up mauling one corner of the block.

 

When he sits, with his plate of mangled cheese and carrots, Remus says, without looking up from the scroll he has rolled out before him, ‘Would you like me to walk you through frying an egg?’

 

‘Yes please,’ Regulus says, immensely relieved.

 

Ten minutes later, he has toast and two eggs – both destroyed, their yolks free from their fragile carapaces and cooked into complete rubber – and is eating them with deep enthusiasm.

 

Remus finishes a scroll, stacks it onto a much larger pile on the floor, and says, ‘Have you truly never cooked before?’

 

‘Why would I cook?’ Regulus asks. ‘Our house elf cooks for us.’ Remus’s face is unreadable, though there’s obviously some thought passing across it. Regulus continues, ‘Surely Sirius told you this. He never cooked anything either.’

 

Remus cocks his head in a gesture that makes Regulus think of a confused dog. Then he says, quite unexpectedly, ‘Sirius used to come over to my parents’ house on school holidays sometimes. My mother taught us both to cook.’

 

Regulus takes a moment to absorb that. His brother learned to cook on school holidays at the home of a halfblood? He’s suddenly desperately curious to know if Remus’s mother or father is the Muggle. Eleven year old Regulus would have been utterly terrified at even entering the house of a Muggle, let alone interacting with one. ‘I didn’t know,’ he says, finally, concluding that there’s no polite way to find out.

 

Remus’s face remains unreadable. ‘I guess Sirius didn’t say what he did.’

 

‘Sirius didn’t even say where he’d gone,’ Regulus says, surprising himself with how bitter he sounds. He adds quickly, ‘Anyway, cooking is a waste of time. House elves can do it.’

 

‘Do you just have one?’

 

‘We used to have two, but one of them died when I was six.’

 

‘What is your house elf like?’

 

Regulus frowns. Remus seems genuinely curious. He’s never been asked a question like this before. ‘He’s excellent,’ he says. ‘The best we could ask for.’

 

‘What’s his name?’

 

‘Kreacher.’

 

Remus looks nonplussed. ‘Did you give him that name?’

 

Regulus has no idea, and the thought has never occurred to him. ‘Um,’ he says. ‘He’s been around since before I was born. I’m not sure.’

 

‘Is he old?’

 

‘Middle-aged, I think?’ Regulus has zero idea. Kreacher seems older than some house elves but does not act particularly aged. Remus is regarding him with that same nonplussed look, which makes Regulus deeply uncomfortable. It makes him feel accountable for his actions. ‘He’s a good companion,’ he stresses, and then he even sort of lies: ‘Sometimes we talk about things.’

 

Remus now looks openly sceptical. 'But Regulus, you have to admit, Kreacher is a slave.'

 

'He's a house elf,' Regulus snaps, exasperated.

 

'He's a sentient being,' Remus says. 'Do you honestly think he wants a life of servitude?'

 

'He's a member of my family,' Regulus tries.

 

'Who's treated worse than other members of the family and also has to serve them under pain of injury or even death?' Remus asks, frowning, like he's a professor who is grilling a particularly recalcitrant student.

 

It infuriates Regulus. 'You don't know what it's like.'

 

'No, I don't,' Remus agrees. 'And I understand that you grew up with him. My family would never have had a house elf.'

 

'Why not? Too self-righteous?' Regulus demands.

 

Remus laughs wryly. 'Maybe. But also too Muggle and too poor.'

 

Regulus feels like he's losing an argument he didn't want to have. 'You don't understand my relationship with Kreacher, and you don't have any right to talk about it.'

 

'While the first is certainly true,' Remus says, and there's steel under his kind voice now, 'I have every right to speak out against the injustice of house elf slavery.'

 

'Kreacher is my best friend,' Regulus says, and it's an admission he's never said before, and feels ripped out of his heart. What a fucking saddo he is! 'He's - you have no idea. None. My family - it's hard. Sirius was my best friend. Then he left.' Suddenly Regulus is on the verge of tears. 'He walked out of my life, and he left me behind.'

 

'Regulus,' Remus says, clearly startled, and Regulus can see that he's made him regret the conversation, so he pushes on, trying to punish him.

 

'I idolised my brother and he left me and he never cared. He never looked back.'

 

'That's not true,' Remus says quietly.

 

This is certainly not what Regulus expected. 'What?'

 

'Look,' Remus says, and he pauses, and spreads his hands on the table, and Regulus hates that he feels compelled to listen. 'You're right. I have no idea what your family is like. Aside from Sirius, you're the first member of it I've even spoken with. And from his accounts, I cannot imagine what growing up with them was like. But to say that Sirius didn't care about you - and doesn't - is completely wrong.'

 

'How would you know?' Regulus demands.

 

'Because I know your brother better than anyone else does, I think,' Remus says simply. ‘And I watched him for six years as he struggled every single day with how much he cared - and cares - about your family, and you specifically. He went back and forth between trying to be the person they - and I think mostly your mother - wanted him to be and the person he actually is.' Remus shakes his head, a pensive look on his face. 'But Sirius isn't a person who can hide himself like that. He's too much - he's -'

 

'He wears his heart on his sleeve,' Regulus says very quietly. 'He always has.'

 

'Yes,' Remus agrees. 'That's a perfect way to describe it.' He looks up at Regulus. 'Don't you understand that he couldn't pretend?’

 

Regulus sighs deeply, suddenly so exhausted he wishes he could lay down on the floor and sleep for a thousand years. ‘Pretending is important, though,’ he says, after thinking about it. ‘It’s crucial to being a good member of the House of Black.’

 

Remus frowns. ‘Why?’

 

‘We have to be leaders,’ Regulus explains, feeling his way towards the answer. ‘We can’t – we can’t admit when we don’t know something, or when we’re frightened.’

 

‘Isn’t allying with Voldemort a way of admitting you’re frightened?’

 

Regulus involuntarily flinches at the name. ‘What?’

 

‘I mean,’ Remus says, ‘frightened of change. Of the power of Muggleborns in wizarding society. That might undermine the power of the old houses, like yours.’

 

‘That’s,’ Regulus says, and he wants to say ‘preposterous’ but… ‘No,’ he says coldly. ‘It’s not fear.’

 

‘Then what is it?’

 

‘Leadership,’ Regulus snaps. ‘Towards a more perfect world.’

 

Remus snorts. ‘You know that there’s study after study about the inclusion of Muggleborn wizards and witches showing that diversity of thought leads to more innovation, better outcomes, and etcetera, right?’

 

Regulus has never heard a person use ‘etcetera’ aloud. ‘What are you a professor of?’ he asks, bemused. ‘And no, I don’t know about these studies. I don’t need studies to know that under the guidance and leadership of the old houses, the wizarding world has done very well for itself against all threats from outside – which are from Muggles, by the way –‘

 

‘You don’t need studies?’ Remus repeats. ‘You don’t need knowledge?’

 

Regulus snaps, ‘We have our own sources of knowledge. We don’t need – we know what’s best.’

 

‘I’m not a professor,’ Remus says, and Regulus is relieved to be done arguing. ‘I’m a PhD candidate.’

 

‘What are the scrolls you’re marking?’

 

‘I help my advisor teach a module about the historic discrimination against Dark Creatures.’

 

Regulus frowns. ‘Why would anyone want to learn about that?’

 

Remus actually laughs at him. ‘I know you’ve got your “own sources of knowledge” but you might have heard something about those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it?’

 

‘But why should we not discriminate against Dark Creatures?’ Regulus demands, frustrated. ‘They pose a threat to society.’

 

‘Do they?’ Remus asks lightly. ‘Is that your feeling about it? Or do you have any factual information, any data to back that up?’

 

Regulus feels like he’s losing his mind. ‘You’re saying Dark Creatures aren’t dangerous.’

 

‘I would argue – and I’m not alone, this is quite accepted among many people – that those classified as so-called Dark Creatures are actually suffering from disease.’

 

‘Incurable disease,’ Regulus says. ‘Disease that murders the innocent.’

 

‘Treatable disease,’ Remus stresses. ‘Many diseases are contagious. It’s like leprosy.’

 

‘How can you treat a, a,’ Regulus struggles for an appropriately horrid example, ‘well, let’s say, a werewolf who is roaming the countryside?’

 

Remus is starting to say something when an owl taps at the window. He stands, opens it – a gust of icy wind and rain blows into the room – and collects a letter before shutting it again. The owl flies off at an angle, disappearing into cloud quickly.

 

‘It’s for you,’ Remus says, sounding surprised. ‘Though it is addressed rather strangely.’

 

Regulus reaches for it and reads, in his father’s neat hand: ‘Regulus Black, Esq. c/o Hong Kong British Dependent Territory.’ The letter is full of neatly annotated notes from a business meeting and a request for his thoughts.

 

‘May I borrow a quill?’ he asks Remus, who passes him one and a sheet of parchment and leaves the room. Later, after he has written his father a detailed response – trying to embed his regret at not being there, and for all the reasons why he’s not there, into each mundane word – he finds Remus in the lounge, now reading. He surreptitiously takes out his own books – enchanted to have different covers – and sits down to do his research. If Remus finds any of this strange, he doesn’t comment, but he does bring Regulus a cup of tea and some biscuits when he gets up to get his own.

 

***

 

Regulus longs to talk to his brother about something meaningful, but finds that he cannot. Sirius has ideological reasons for hating Voldemort that are far more developed than Regulus’s, for one thing. Sirius tries to talk to him about the Death Eaters and Regulus gets stuck on the fact that many of them are cousins.

 

‘Family loyalty is very important to me,’ he says to Sirius, who shuts down entirely at that.

 

And so for four days, they say very little beyond pleasantries. Sirius and Remus are clearly babysitting him, and it is also clearly taking its toll, because they both seem incredibly busy. Late on the third day, Sirius leaves him alone for several hours with a plea to not tell Remus because of some emergency. Regulus wonders about their mysterious activities but tells himself that he doesn’t deserve to ask. He assumes it all relates to the paramilitary activity their father was warned about…

 

On the night of the fourth day, Regulus emerges from the bath rubbing his hands through his hair and finds a touching scene, the first since his first night there as he hasn’t even seen Sirius and Remus together except briefly during the handoffs of Death Eater babysitting since. His brother is seated on the sofa, doing the crossword in the Daily Prophet, his eyebrows pressed together in concentration. Lying with his head on Sirius's thigh and his feet curled up is Remus, apparently asleep. Sirius has the crossword floating in midair, pen in one hand, the other resting gently in Remus's curling hair.

 

Sirius sees him and raises an eyebrow. 'All right?' he asks.

 

'How's the crossword?' Regulus whispers, not wanting to wake Remus.

 

'He'll sleep through anything,' Sirius says loudly.

 

'Fuck you,' Remus mumbles, rolling onto his side and burying his head more thoroughly against Sirius.

 

'Want to help me with this?' Sirius asks, petting Remus’s hair with an air that is both touching and, Regulus thinks, deliberately casual.

 

‘Absolutely,’ Regulus says, desperate for a diversion from incredibly depressing and frankly horrifying magical research. He sits beside Sirius, and his brother leans into him a bit, and it’s the most natural thing in the world.

 

After a while, Remus stands and says, ‘I’m going to make dinner.’

 

‘Need help?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘No, you two finish that,’ Remus says.

 

‘Let’s go sit at the table,’ Sirius suggests to Regulus. ‘It’ll be easier to see.’

 

They fill it out aside from a single block of clues, but can get no further; it seems something is wrong in what they’ve already filled in and it’s throwing off the other clues.

 

‘“It lures travellers into bogs”,’ Regulus reads aloud again, ‘we’ve got that one.’

 

‘Hinkypunk,’ Remus says from his position at the hob.

 

‘Hinkypink,’ Sirius and Regulus say together.

 

‘What?’

 

‘Hinkypink,’ Sirius repeats.

 

Remus turns and stares at them. 'It's hinkypunk.’

 

Sirius and Regulus exchange a confused look. ‘But the book…’ Regulus says.

 

‘Oh no,’ Sirius says, in mock horror, ‘was it just a cute name? Have we been saying it wrong for years?’

 

‘What book?’ Remus asks, clearly amused.

 

Sirius grins at his brother. ‘You say it.’

 

‘No, you,’ Regulus says, starting to laugh. ‘It sounds too stupid.’

 

‘What book?’

 

Sirius starts laughing too. ‘“Rinkydink Hinkypink”. It’s a book we read when we were children.’

 

‘Over and over and over again,’ Regulus adds. ‘We loved it.’

 

‘Kreacher was so sick of reading it to us,’ Sirius says, and for a second he sounds almost fond. Regulus glances at Remus and sees him looking at Sirius, and he knows that he’s heard it too.

 

‘Well, whatever literary liberties the author took,’ Remus says, turning back to the hob, ‘the creature who lures travellers into bogs is most certainly a hinkypunk.’

 

Sirius changes the letter and the puzzle is easily solvable; a minute later, the letters flip and a tiny elf on a tricycle rides across the top of it blowing a whistle. Regulus feels suddenly that this could be it: the moment when he and Sirius will reconnect, will discuss something real. He glances again at Remus and they make eye contact, just a flicker, before Remus says, ‘I think this is ready…’

 

Regulus wonders if he could ever come to appreciate a simple meal (stir fry tonight, which seems to be one of two meals – the other being shepherd’s pie – that the two of them know how to prepare) and a small but warm flat. He longs for home – cavernous rooms that he can walk through alone, quiet luxuries, the finest of everything at the time that it was made and installed, even if some of it has gotten a little bit shabby over the years. He misses his parents, difficult as they can be, and Kreacher. He longs to know if Sirius ever misses those things too.

 

Or if Sirius ever misses him.

 

‘What have you been reading all day?’ Sirius asks now.

 

‘Oh,’ Regulus says, ‘just trying to prepare to travel.’

 

‘Travel?’

 

‘I’ll have to leave the country,’ Regulus lies, or rather doesn’t lie, but skirts the truth with obfuscating facts. ‘I told Mother and Father I’d gone already.’

 

‘Where are you thinking?’ Sirius asks, voice light.

 

‘Shanghai, maybe Hong Kong.’

 

‘That’s good and far away,’ Remus says, encouragingly. Regulus wonders if the encouragement includes a subtle, Hurry up and get out of my flat.

 

‘I think so,’ Regulus says. ‘And Mother and Father agree.’

 

Sirius raises his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’

 

‘They both think the Death Eaters are – well, a bit overzealous. Not really the right place for me.’ Remus and Sirius give each other a look and Regulus hastens to explain, ‘You know, it was all fine and well as a political movement, but once it became violent…’

 

‘It’s been violent for years,’ Sirius says.

 

‘It’s always been violent against some types of people,’ Remus adds.

 

Regulus gives up on having a reasonable discussion. ‘Look, I don’t know what they teach you in Gryffindor, but the Dark Lord is just a more – a more – deep version of the philosophy of Slytherin House.’

 

‘You know,’ Sirius says, ‘when I was first Sorted, I was miserable that I wasn’t in Slytherin. I pretended to everyone that I wasn’t, but…’

 

‘I knew,’ Remus says.

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius agrees. ‘But honestly…’

 

Regulus wants to say, it doesn’t make you better than us.

 

‘Honestly I think it’s more impressive that you’ve changed your mind on your own,’ Sirius finishes.

 

‘What?’ Regulus asks, startled.

 

‘I mean,’ Sirius shrugs, ‘I have friends who agree with what I believe. You don’t.’

 

‘I – I mean…’ Regulus struggles with what to say. He longs to open up about the horcrux, about Kreacher, about his mission, but he also knows that would put them in very real danger. Instead, he says lamely, ‘I just couldn’t do it. I just, I’m just not meant to be a Death Eater.’

 

‘If only they’d all realise that,’ Remus says, and that’s the end of the discussion.

 

***

The next day, Regulus makes the decision that he has to leave this unexpected safe haven. He feels complacent and therefore complicit. He is no closer to understanding how to destroy the horcrux, but violence against Muggles is escalating and he’s afraid that the Dark Lord will realise that he is not in Hong Kong after all and retaliate against his parents. He decides to give the locket to Kreacher and have him take it and hide it in the family home; someone else can find it and destroy it, but it will be out of the Dark Lord’s grasp.

 

He does not sleep that night, but stays up after the other two have gone to bed. He lies awake, thinking over and over again of letters he might write:

 

To Kreacher, giving him clothes.

 

To Remus, thanking him for the hospitality and the conversation. Asking him to keep taking care of Sirius.

 

To his parents, telling them that none of this was their fault.

 

To Sirius. Telling him that he loves him.

 

In the end, he writes none of them.

 

As he readies himself to leave, he looks briefly through the doorway of Sirius and Remus’s bedroom. Sirius is curled around Remus, their hands lying atop each other in front of Remus’s chest, the picture of something that Regulus knows he’ll never have. He hopes it is enough for Sirius.

 

***

The night Sirius leaves the House of Black forever, there is a terrible row.

 

They’d been building towards it for years: brutal shouting matches, occasional violence, things said that could never be unsaid. Regulus has years of memories of hiding in corners and once a cupboard while they screamed at each other, of helping his brother clean up his bruised face after his mother slapped him with her fingers full of rings, of comforting him after his father hit him hard enough to send him into a wall. Sirius acquires a dark, sulky, furious look early in adolescence and wears it for years, so that Regulus only sees him happy from a distance, at school. There are a few terrible terms where he wears it then too.

 

But this row – this one is different. Before, Regulus always told himself that they are family and they will always be loyal to one another, no matter what happens between them. This one feels, emphatically, like there is no going back.

 

Family Christmas Eve dinner. The cousins have two bottles of firewhisky that they are passing around in the upstairs library from fairly early in the day onward. Regulus hates the burn of it but can’t resist the posturing of drinking it. Soon his head is swimming; his brother steers him out of the party and stands guard outside the toilet so no one hears him vomiting. Regulus is fifteen, Sirius sixteen. When Regulus emerges, Sirius puts an arm around him for a second and says, ‘You don’t have to do what they tell you to do. Ever.’ Regulus, still shaky, is taken aback, and doesn’t respond. Sirius squeezes his shoulders and adds, each word fully enunciated, ‘Fuck. Them.’

 

Downstairs, in the formal dining room, Regulus and Sirius are seated beside each other; Regulus always requests that Kreacher ensures this. For most of his life, it was to be close to his big brother. Recently it has become to try to contain him.

 

Earlier in the day, there had been a particularly brutal Muggle murder. Someone at the party has a sibling in Magical Law Enforcement who has apparently spent the day modifying memories with some difficulty because what they’ve seen is so horrific. No one has claimed responsibility, and the party is split: was it the people backing the Dark Lord, and his group of ‘Death Eating’ followers underground? Or just typical Muggle-on-Muggle violence?

 

‘They’re absurdly violent,’ Narcissa says, rolling her eyes. ‘Someone ought to step in for their own good.’

 

Someone, of course, is wizards. Regulus can sense his brother’s anger, which like a living animal stalks beside him, pacing the narrow confines of his seat at the table. Regulus wonders if anyone else can sense it too, or if they’re so caught up in their own anger and arguments that they haven’t noticed how dangerous Sirius’s is. He feels ill and barely touches the soup course. Kreacher, collecting it, gives him a meaningful look: Are you all right? Regulus just raises his eyebrows back.

 

And then, finally, Sirius has enough. Regulus doesn’t even hear the comment that does it; he’s turned to Rodolphus and is asking him to pass the salt. All he hears is Sirius, voice so low that everyone at the table stops moving to hear it: ‘You don’t know a thing about Muggles.’

 

‘And of course you do,’ Bellatrix says, voice cold and ringing. ‘I’m sure in Gryffindor you rub shoulders with plenty of Mudbloods.’

 

‘Don’t call them that,’ Sirius says.

 

Bellatrix laughs. ‘I’m eight years your elder, darling cousin. I rather think I know more than you do.’

 

Regulus knows that one of Sirius’s best friends is a Halfblood: that Gryffindor prefect, Remus Lupin. And the other Gryffindor prefect is a full Mudblood, Lily Evans. And another of Sirius’s best friends is a Pureblood constantly following her around, wanting to – to what? To miscegenate? It’s disgustingly unnatural, but Sirius is not one of them, as far as Regulus knows. He’s never seen his brother with a girlfriend at all, and has idly assumed, without thinking about it too hard, that it’s because Gryffindor has so few suitable partners for the scion of the House of Black.

 

‘I’ve heard,’ says Narcissa, who is three years Bellatrix’s junior, and who overlapped briefly with Sirius and Regulus at school, ‘that Gryffindor will take more than just Mudbloods.’ Everyone looks at her and she preens a bit in the spotlight.

 

‘Narcissa,’ Sirius starts, and there is something in his voice that Regulus hopes only he can hear – some truth or admission.

 

‘I heard that there’s a Dark Creature there.’

 

Everyone starts murmuring. ‘That’s absolutely absurd,’ Sirius says, flatly. ‘Whoever told you that is an idiot.’

 

‘Why is it absurd?’ Narcissa demands.

 

‘Dark Creatures are dangerous,’ Sirius says, and Regulus can tell there’s something here, but he doubts anyone else can – it’s the most convincing lie he’s ever heard his brother tell. ‘They wouldn’t let them into a school near children.’

 

‘Absolutely right,’ their father says, perhaps the first time that he has ever agreed with Sirius.

 

Narcissa looks sulky, but, as always, Bellatrix is the one who pushes it too far. ‘And yet you’re in a House with Mudbloods and Halfbloods, who are just as dangerous, just as, as –‘ She seems to struggle for an appropriate descriptor. ‘As beast-like.’  

 

Sirius rolls his eyes and Regulus tenses. ‘You’re so fucking ignorant.’

 

The room goes silent. There are close to thirty people at the long table and every single one of them is staring at either Sirius, tall enough to be a man, handsome, leaning forward in his seat with a look of crouched rage, or Bellatrix, darkly beautiful with her full lips and languorous eyes, who leans back in her seat and bursts into laughter.

 

‘I’m ignorant?’ she asks, as dangerous as a crouched snake half-hidden by tall grass. Regulus wants to hide under the table. ‘I’m not the one cavorting with these creatures.’

 

‘You don’t know the first real thing,’ Sirius snaps. ‘You rely on rumour and propaganda to create a picture in your mind of some enemy – and you want an enemy not because you care about the fight but because you want someone to be cruel to.’

 

It’s probably true, Regulus thinks, and he assumes at least some of the people at the table are thinking the same.

 

‘You are the ignorant one,’ Bellatrix says, all laughter gone from her face, ‘if you think that the issue of Muggles aren’t thieves of magic, thieves of our knowledge.’

 

Sirius snorts. ‘Still waiting on any proof whatsoever of that, then,’ he says.

 

‘They’d experiment on us,’ Bellatrix hisses. ‘They’d have us all mate with werewolves.’

 

Sirius laughs, a single, barking laugh, and says, ‘Do you honestly believe the stupid shit you say?’

 

‘Sirius,’ their mother gasps. ‘Be respectful of your family.’

 

‘Why should anyone respect such bigoted stupidity?’ Sirius asks. ‘This is clearly nonsense. Wizards have coexisted with Muggles-‘

 

‘And our blood has been diluted,’ Bellatrix snarls. ‘There are books – articles – it’s very clear. The old families are the last bastion against mediocrity, against magic so degraded – Mudbloods cheat their way into school, they steal our men and women –‘

 

‘This is unhinged,’ Sirius says. ‘I recommend you visit a Halfblood family and see who exactly is the degraded one compared to this, this-‘ Regulus grabs his brother’s leg under the table and squeezes it hard. Sirius grabs his hand and either clutches it or tries to pry it off his leg. Sirius’s hand is sweaty and shaking but Regulus holds on for dear life. ‘Compared to this,’ Sirius finishes with deep venom.

 

‘Sirius,’ his father says quietly, and Regulus is instantly so frightened that he thinks for a second he’ll vomit again. ‘Sirius, have you been to the home of a Mudblood?’

 

Sirius looks completely taken aback. Everyone at the party is staring at him. Then Narcissa, the only other person at the table who has ever seen him at school, says, ‘He’s friends with a Halfblood. The most unhealthy looking, miserable boy.’

 

Regulus sees his parents exchange a look; he cannot read it. He knows they have spies at Hogwarts looking out for their sons and he wonders if this is part of it.

 

‘You’re friends with a Halfblood?’ Sirius’s mother asks, her voice extremely neutral.

 

Regulus looks at his brother, willing him to be cautious. He thinks, Just lie, over and over, trying to send the thought through the pressed-together skin of their hands.

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says. He lets go of Regulus’s hand and succeeds in shoving it away. ‘And I’ve been to his house. I’ve met his family. All of them. They’re fantastic. Infinitely better than this.’

 

‘Go to your room,’ Orion says, voice deadly. 

 

‘What if I don’t?’ Sirius asks, and Regulus can tell that he’s out of control. ‘What if I go-‘

 

‘Sirius.’ His father starts to rise from his seat. Sirius is blinking hard. Everyone is watching and Regulus can feel that sometimes their eyes dart to him. He remembers years ago, after a row between Sirius and Orion, Narcissa saying in a stage whisper in front of him: ‘I bet he wishes they’d just disinherit Sirius. Then Regulus inherits everything.’

 

He’s thought it over and he emphatically does not wish that. He wants Sirius to run the family with Regulus as his close partner, not to leap over him and leave him behind. Regulus is terrified of the responsibility and wouldn’t want to be without Sirius’s presence, as terrible as it can be, vacillating always between extremes.

 

‘Sirius, now,’ Orion says, and they leave together and do not return. After several minutes, Walburga excuses herself and disappears as well, leaving Regulus alone with the rest of the family, who immediately begin gossiping: Did Sirius finally do it? Did he go too far? Will they finally disinherit him, the miserable prick who hasn’t represented the family well, who will probably marry a Muggle or a Mudblood just to ruin them? Regulus realises that no one cares that he is there; no one thinks him a threat or even worth acknowledging. He slinks away from the table and goes upstairs.

 

He’s terrified of what he’ll find, his heart pounding with dread, but he does not see anyone until he pushes open the door to Sirius’s bedroom. Sirius is frantically packing, his nose bleeding freely, his eye already swelling.

 

‘Sirius,’ Regulus says, heartbroken. ‘Please.’

 

‘I’m leaving this fucking place,’ Sirius says, his voice thick, with blood or tears Regulus can’t tell. ‘I hate it. I hate everyone in it.’ He stops and looks up at his brother. ‘Not you,’ he amends. ‘But I can’t stay here.’

 

‘Where are mother and father?’

 

‘Mother dragged him off me,’ Sirius says bitterly. ‘I assume they’re rowing elsewhere about what to do with me.’

 

‘Please don’t go.’

 

‘Come with me.’

 

Regulus freezes. ‘To where?’

 

‘A friend’s house.’

 

‘The Halfblood?’ Regulus gasps. ‘Sirius-‘

 

Sirius looks at his brother, blinking rapidly, then wipes his nose and rubs his hand on his duvet. ‘I thought you might be better than them,’ he says, and the weight of his disappointment presses Regulus’s soul to the ground, through the floor, through all the floors of the house and beneath the wine cellar, to the ancient crypt where it nestles with the spirits and sometimes bones of all the other disappointing Blacks.

 

Sirius takes his bag and slings it over his shoulder, then walks purposefully to his window.

 

‘It’s a long drop,’ Regulus says. It is in fact four stories. ‘You can’t use magic, you’re underage.’

 

‘I know very well what I can do, thanks,’ Sirius says, wrenching it open. Icy air flows into the room.

 

‘Wait,’ Regulus says, desperate, visions of Sirius’s broken body on the ground already in his head. ‘Wait, let me.’

 

‘Let you what?’

 

‘I’ll – I’ll distract them.’

 

Sirius frowns at him. ‘So?’

 

‘And you can leave by the door.’

 

Sirius gives him a long look. ‘I wish you’d come with me.’

 

Regulus has never once even considered wishing that. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, and then he runs out of the room to find Kreacher and tell him his plan to create a diversion.

 

The party disburses before anyone knows Sirius has gone; everyone assumes he is in his room. Regulus waits, and waits, for his parents to find out; he is there to comfort them when they do. Their mother, hysterical, blasts Sirius’s name off the family tree, but she does not fully disown him. Regulus knows, without anyone saying a word, that she leaves him as the heir should he ever return. Sirius, always her favourite child, no matter what he does. Regulus is strangely fine with it; he knows Orion has always vastly preferred him, and he prefers Orion – an even keel, not the unpredictable wildness of his mother.

 

Regulus spends that night – what little of it there is left – curled up in Sirius’s bed, surrounded by his Muggle posters, his strange things, the life Sirius has created outside of the family that Regulus knows nothing about and, he thinks then with a despair so pure he can’t fully look at it for fear he will never unsee its face, he never will.

 

***

In the early hours of the morning, Regulus leaves Sirius’s flat and goes home. He takes the locket from his mother’s jewellery box while she sleeps in the next room and rouses Kreacher from his cupboard.

 

‘Take me,’ he says into the still silence of the kitchen, and he imagines the ancestors listening close. ‘Take me to the cave.’

 

Kreacher trembles, tries against all his house elf nature to dissuade him.

 

Eventually, he acquiesces.

 

***

After a week’s fevered imagination, the black lake is worse than anything he could have conjured in his head. He stands on the shore, waiting for the boat, Kreacher at his side. It is cold enough that the stench of death is not overwhelming but he feels certain that it lurks just underneath his senses. They cross the lake unscathed, the boat moving through the water without being affected by it, the movement of the water unnatural.

 

This is Styx, Voldemort’s spell on the boat Charon, the price of passage the locket heavy against his chest.

 

He tells Kreacher his intentions. Kreacher begins to cry – ‘Master Regulus, let me drink the water in the basin for you’ – but Regulus shakes his head.

 

‘Never tell Mother or Father,’ he says. ‘Never, Kreacher, do you understand?’

 

Kreacher, the lines of his face gleaming with tears in the strange green light of the cavern, nods.

 

Regulus conjures a goblet, gleaming silver and studded with emeralds, the House of Black crest upon its side. This is his inheritance, and his fulfilment of the promise he made to his ancestors. He takes a deep breath, and dips the goblet into the basin. The liquid feels like water until it touches his lips.

Chapter 25: The Summer after Harry's Sixth Year

Notes:

I know it's been a veeeeeeeeeery long time since I last posted, but here we are. And just fyi: the next chapter is roughly 2/3 written and should be coming in not too long (because it was supposed to be all part of this chapter and then it got way too long). Thank you so much if you are still reading and as always I appreciate any comments you have. <3 <3 <3

‘We’re not going to talk to Kreacher until Harry is with us,’ Sirius says. He hears the shake in his own voice and hates it.

 

Remus puts one hand to the bridge of his nose; Sirius can see him applying pressure with both fingers. He hates that too. 'Sirius,' Remus begins in Very Reasonable Voice, and Sirius starts squinting in annoyance but Remus can't see it, because Remus is, as previously noted, holding one hand to the bridge of his nose, blocking his eyes from view. 'Sirius, Kreacher knows about the horcrux.’

 

‘Which Regulus took care of.’ Sirius congratulates himself on being able to say his name without dissolving. He thinks, number of days since ugly crying incident relating to buried family trauma: one.

 

‘And yet Voldemort is still with us.’

 

‘We read about this,’ Sirius snaps. ‘He’s mortal now.’

 

Remus takes a deep breath. ‘Sirius, what if Kreacher has something to tell us that will help defeat Voldemort?'

 

Sirius hates everything. He hates that he has to fight with Remus, and he hates that every time they fight it has to have this apocalyptic tinge to it. He wants to fight about something mundane. 'It's been seventeen years,' he says through gritted teeth. 'Whatever it is, it can wait a month more.'

 

Remus takes away his hand and gives Sirius a Look. 'Can it?' he asks. 'Can we?'

 

'Yes,' Sirius snaps. 'Harry has a right to be there.'

 

Remus's mouth goes into a hard line. 'Sirius, you're being too emotional about this.'

 

'You're not being emotional enough,' Sirius retorts. 'There's no point for me if it's not for you and Harry. And Harry deserves to be there to hear it first.'

 

Remus tilts his head back onto the couch. Sirius can tell he has a headache. 'Padfoot...'

 

'Let me get you a potion,' Sirius says, exasperated. 'Don't be a bloody martyr.'

 

Remus ignores him. 'Are you waiting to hear what Kreacher has to say because you feel guilty about Regulus?'

 

The question stops Sirius's thought process completely. He has not considered this possibility, despite the fact that he has felt such crushing guilt about Regulus that he has barely slept in weeks. ‘No,’ he says, truthfully. ‘I genuinely want to wait for Harry. This is the mission that Albus set him –‘

 

‘Albus is dead.’

 

‘Harry isn’t,’ Sirius says, and swallows hard. ‘This is his mission.’

 

Remus twists onto his side on the couch, drawing his knees up to his chest. Sirius sits beside him and runs a hand down his cheek. ‘We don’t fully know what Harry’s mission is,’ Remus says, plaintive. ‘It could direct our actions.’

 

‘Write to him and ask.’

 

‘I’ve tried. He just says that Albus gave it to him and he’s not sure he can talk about it.’

 

This situation frustrates Sirius immensely too, but there’s nothing he can really do about it except support Harry. Remus turns his head and presses his face into Sirius’s palm; Sirius massages his temples with his fingers and feels how hot Remus is. It’s two days until the full moon.

 

A knock on the door, and Hermione enters. ‘Mr and Mrs Weasley are here,’ she says.

 

Remus sits up sharply. ‘I thought the meeting wasn’t for a half hour-‘

 

‘It’s not,’ Hermione says quickly. ‘They’ve brought some things.’

 

Sirius stands, bends down, and kisses Remus’s forehead, running his hand over his head, trying to calm him as he would calm any canine. ‘You stay here,’ he says. ‘Hermione and I will take care of everything.’

 

***

Hermione arrives at their door a week after the year had ended at Hogwarts. She’s alone, dressed neatly in a warm coat against the chill night that Sirius is certain is full of Dementors. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying, her hair frizzing wildly in the thin rain.

 

‘May I stay with you for a few days?’ she asks Sirius.

 

‘Of course,’ he says, waving her inside as Remus calls from the kitchen to find out who it is.

 

‘I could go to the Weasleys’,’ she says, sitting at their kitchen table clutching a cup of tea. ‘But there’s just… I just want quiet for a few days.’

 

‘You’re absolutely welcome here,’ Remus says, while Sirius nods his agreement.

 

‘Your parents,’ Remus begins, and Sirius hears in his voice that he intends to go to them and ensure they’re protected. But Hermione shakes her head.

 

‘I’ve taken care of them,’ she says, voice shaking. ‘The Death Eaters won’t be able to find them.’

 

Remus nods. Sirius remembers them from Kings Cross and hopes they will be well.

 

‘I want to join the Order,’ Hermione says, looking up at Remus and then at Sirius, her eyes very wide, her mouth set in a hard line. ‘I’m a good witch, I’ve had loads of experience with dark magic, I can research whatever you need me to-‘

 

‘I know,’ Remus replies.

 

‘I’m not a child.’

 

‘I know.’

 

She swallows. ‘Well?’

 

Remus looks at Sirius. ‘She’s just the same age we were,’ Sirius says, very quiet. He understands now why Remus’s parents had looked so devastated when they’d joined.

 

‘I know,’ Remus says. ‘Just wanted to make sure we were in agreement.’ He looks back at her. ‘Of course you can join. We’ll be lucky to have you.’

 

***

Sirius shows in the Weasleys, giving Molly a tight hug and taking the map in its tube from her. Remus had asked that she bring it to the meeting. Arthur is giving Hermione a concerned look.

 

‘Are you in the Order now?’

 

‘Yes,’ she says, fiercely.

 

Arthur looks at Molly. ‘We have to tell Ron,’ he says.

 

Molly turns to Sirius. ‘Would you let Harry be in the Order?’

 

‘When he’s seventeen, I doubt I’ll be able to stop him,’ Sirius says, honestly. ‘This is how old Remus and I were.’ In his head, he always adds, ‘And James and Peter,’ but he’s learned that saying that aloud makes people think he’s crazy. And they’re not exactly strong endorsements for the process.

 

Molly shuts her eyes for a second. ‘Owl him, Arthur.’

 

‘Tell him I’ll meet him at the boundary,’ Hermione says, and Sirius hears something in her voice – there’s something between them. He thinks of himself at that age and it breaks his heart. She must see him hear it, because she adds, ‘He won’t know how to get in.’

 

‘Owls are in the barn,’ Sirius says, pointing towards the door, and Arthur nods and leaves.

 

‘What can we do?’ Molly asks. ‘The meeting is in a half hour, I’ve brought some cake over…’

 

‘Thanks, Molly,’ Sirius says, really very glad to see her. He’s feeling overwhelmed. ‘There’s a lot to be done. I’ve got to make a headache potion for Remus, we’ve got to expand the table, put up various extra protective charms…’

 

Hermione and Molly follow him into the kitchen, which is in a bit of a state. He looks around at it, not sure where to begin.

 

‘I can make the potion,’ Hermione says.

 

Sirius reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a small packet. ‘Would you?’ he asks. ‘That’s very kind. It’s just…’ He hands her the packet. ‘Standard potion, but put two of these in at the end and make sure they dissolve. And then add some mint for the taste.’

 

Hermione takes the packet and smiles. ‘Neurofen?’

 

‘His mum used to give him that.’

 

‘That’s a good idea,’ Hermione says.

 

‘Let me go expand the table,’ says Molly, drawing out her wand. ‘I’ve had a lot of practice with this.’

 

Somehow, they make the place presentable. Hermione prepares a potion that Sirius has to admit is good. He considers telling her that if he dies, he’d appreciate it if she stepped in and made it for Remus, but decides that’s too morbid. He takes it into the room where Remus is still sitting on the couch, now surrounded by notes and correspondence.

 

‘Padfoot,’ Remus says when he sees the potion. ‘You’re too good to me.’

 

‘Thank Hermione,’ Sirius says, handing him the warm mug.

 

Remus drinks it and pushes himself up, stretching his hands up to the ceiling and arching his back. Sirius can’t resist touching his chest – his Moony, his husband-to-be. Remus lowers his arms to wrap them around him and pulls him in close; Sirius can feel him breathing in against his ear. ‘First Order meeting that I’ll be chairing,’ he says.

 

‘You’re going to be brilliant,’ Sirius says, truthfully, before kissing his neck. ‘I love you and you are brilliant and you can do this.’

 

Remus holds him a second longer than Sirius thinks he will. ‘I love you too. I couldn’t do this without you.’ Then he pulls away and straightens his robes. ‘How do I look?’

 

‘Gorgeous.’

 

Remus rolls his eyes. ‘Presentable?’

 

Sirius smooths down a few stray curls around Remus’s ears and says, ‘You need a haircut.’

 

‘That’s true. Otherwise?’

 

‘Most gorgeous man in the world.’

 

Remus grins, clearly in spite of his mood. ‘I really could not do this without you.’

 

Sirius is bursting with undefined anxiety. ‘Look, if you’re nervous,’ he says, ‘just give those nerves to me. I’ve got more than enough for the both of us.’

 

‘Not nervous exactly,’ Remus says, his hand resting on Sirius’s arm. ‘Anxious.’

 

‘We can discuss the distinct meaning of all the different kinds of stressful feelings later,’ Sirius suggests.

 

Molly enters the room. ‘We must get you two married,’ she says.

 

‘After Bill and Fleur,’ Sirius says, laughing. ‘One wedding at a time seems like more than enough.’

 

‘We’ll start planning through our hangovers the morning after,’ Molly replies, smiling back at him. ‘People are arriving,’ she adds, more serious.

 

Remus gives Sirius a look full of meaning; Sirius squeezes his arm; and then they hear Kingsley’s low rumble of a voice and time sweeps them forward, inexorably, into their difficult future.

 

***

‘We have to protect the Ministry,’ Arthur says, practically coming out of his seat. ‘Without them, basic services fall apart.’

 

‘But how do we protect it?’ Moody demands. ‘Kingsley is already protecting Scrimgeour. What else is there to do? Voldemort is tearing it apart from the inside. Half the people working at higher levels are his allies…’

 

Remus considers passing out to stop this argument. He feels so ill that his hands are shaking; his headache has gone but in its place is a vague floating sensation. The full moon’s proximity isn’t helping. Sirius, seated at his right hand, has the look of a man at a child’s wake. Everyone else seems equally miserable.

 

It has been three weeks since Albus died, two since his funeral. That is the time of mourning that Remus had decided to allow them while he tore through the correspondence and other information that Albus had left for him. He wanted this meeting done before the full moon comes, and he’d worked himself hard to achieve that. He sees the tendrils of the Order now, all the people and connections in it that were hidden from him before or that he simply did not consider.

 

It is a lot.

 

‘There are people like Umbridge,’ Hermione says. Beside her, Ron is paler than normal. He looks like a boy – a man – who doesn’t know what do to with his face. Remus wants to stop the meeting and tell him: ‘Don’t worry, I don’t either.’ He wishes Harry was here – it doesn’t feel right that he isn’t – and suspects that there are three other people in the room with the same feeling.

 

‘Kingsley, do you think there’s anything else we can do?’ Remus asks.

 

Kingsley shakes his head. ‘Albus told us the Ministry would fall,’ he says in his slow, deep voice. He and Remus share a long look. Of the new Order members, Remus has always liked Kingsley more than most; he’s excellent in a fight and aside from Sirius and maybe Tonks is the person Remus most wants to have his back. He respects his opinion.

 

‘How long do you think we have?’

 

Kingsley leans back, considering. Arthur is watching him too, his face anxious. ‘A few months,’ Kingsley says. ‘If we can keep protecting Scrimgeour, he’s got enough allies to hold things together.’

 

‘Should two of you be assigned to him?’ Remus asks. ‘Tonks?’

 

‘Sure,’ Tonks says. ‘I can do that.’

 

‘Coordinate with Kingsley then,’ Remus suggests. He looks down at his notes. There are a lot of them. ‘Next item. I’d like to vote to see if we should formally expel Severus Snape.’

 

An angry buzz rises from the table. Sirius actually leans over to look at his notes, despite the fact that he’d seen them just an hour ago, a scandalised look on his face. ‘Is there a question about that?’

 

‘I want to put it to a vote,’ Remus says, firmly. ‘This is a democratic institution.’ He remembers their conversation of a few weeks ago. Severus had promised him he would be with them. He’s tormented by the thought that he’s missing something here, that he isn’t fully understanding Severus’s actions. But the motion passes quickly, and just like that, Severus is no longer a member of the Order.

 

They go through the other items, with the penultimate one being what Remus believes will be a note of hope. Remus and Sirius are opening their cottage to be the Order headquarters. They have spent the past two weeks building up protections and guard spells. Remus does not know how long it will hold but he feels it is crucial that they have a place to meet. They’ve all felt the loss of Grimmauld Place keenly (well, except for Sirius). Together, the two of them have fitted out the barn so that there are beds for anyone who can’t make it home. The sitting room is going to have the map on the wall, so anyone present can see where everyone in the Order is. And if he and Sirius need a moment alone, well, there’s always their island croft.

 

The other half of this is that the Order is going to become more formalised. Specifically, the Order is going to pay its members a salary. Orion Black invested his money well, and Sirius can pay everyone quite a nice wage without even leaving the interest portion of his family fortune every month.

 

Then they come to the final point, a tricky question: how to collect Harry from the Dursleys in three short weeks. Albus had had the outlines of a plan, but it has a tremendous number of moving parts, and they have to put it into action.

 

‘He’ll lose his magical protection at midnight exactly?’ Molly asks, and Remus nods.

 

‘He should come to the Burrow,’ Arthur says. ‘We can’t protect a headquarters as strongly as we can protect our house. Not with everyone coming and going.’

 

Sirius doesn’t want this, and Remus knows it. He doesn’t particularly want it either, but Arthur is right. Sirius looks at him – they’ve discussed the possibility – and looks away, not engaging in the fight.

 

‘We’ll bring him to the Burrow that first night,’ Remus says. ‘Let’s just get him safely into our hands. We’ll discuss what’s best after that.’

 

After the meeting, nearly everyone goes home, except for Molly, Arthur, and Ron; Hermione is of course staying with them. Sirius pours everyone a small tumbler of firewhisky and they sit around the kitchen table, mostly drinking in silence. Remus feels exhausted, like the full moon has already passed; he’s not sure how he’s going to make it through the coming one.

 

‘I think the meeting went well,’ Molly says kindly. ‘You kept everyone moving along nicely.’

 

Arthur is looking at Remus. ‘You don’t like Scrimgeour,’ he says.

 

‘No,’ Remus says. ‘He has a very hard-line stance on Dark Creatures.’

 

‘I knew him when I was training to be an Auror,’ says Sirius darkly. He’s shoved back his chair and has one leg crossed over the other. ‘He’ll do his duty, but he’s never struck me as having a moral calling.’

 

‘I think his moral calling is to the Ministry,’ Arthur says. He sits forward, frowning. ‘Do you really think the Ministry will fall?’

 

‘That’s what Albus thought,’ Remus says. He puts a hand to his hair and tugs on his fringe, but it hurts. His headache is returning. He looks at Ron and Hermione. ‘Are you going to write to Harry?’

 

They both nod. Remus knows that Sirius will as well, probably first thing in the morning, but he thinks it will be good for him to get both perspectives.

 

‘Without the Ministry,’ Arthur says, still looking closely at Remus, ‘what will people do? Who will uphold the Statute of Secrecy? Who will modify Muggle memories when the Death Eaters do something?’

 

Remus has to admit that he hasn’t thought about this. Not shocking; he’s thought of ten new things since the meeting started that all seem of vital importance and that his overworked brain hadn’t thought to mention to him. ‘I assume that there will still be a Ministry,’ he says, because he has thought about what exactly it means for the Ministry to fall. ‘It will be a regime change. Voldemort will install a Minister for Magic sympathetic to him, who will in turn choose Ministers who are also sympathetic to him.’ He looks down at his hands. ‘I imagine that for many Pureblood wizards, life will go on as normal, at least for a time. And that will keep them from feeling the need to act.’

 

‘What happens to Percy?’ Molly asks softly, looking at Arthur.

 

‘He makes his choice,’ Arthur replies bitterly.

 

‘Anyone who doesn’t agree with what happens is welcome to join us,’ Remus says.

 

‘We have to be careful of spies,’ Sirius cautions.

 

‘Maybe we’ll institute two levels of Order,’ Remus says, yet another thing he’s been trying to think through. ‘Upper level will know important plans. That’s everyone who was here tonight.’

 

‘What all will Severus tell the Death Eaters about us?’ Sirius asks. ‘He knows a lot. Like where we are, for example.’

 

‘Peter knows where we are too,’ Remus points out.

 

Molly is giving Remus a scrutinizing look. ‘Do you think there’s a chance Severus is still on our side?’

 

Remus hesitates. The conversation in his kitchen has been playing in his head, unbidden, for the past two weeks. Sirius is giving him a hard look. ‘I don’t know,’ he says finally. ‘He and I spoke a few months ago, and he seemed to be – he seemed to be genuinely concerned about Albus.’

 

Sirius snorts. Ron, who hasn’t said a word all evening, says angrily, ‘But he murdered Professor Dumbledore.’

 

‘I know,’ Remus says.

 

‘And he’s a powerful Occlumens,’ Hermione says, eyes wide. ‘What if he was tricking you?’

 

‘I generally pick up on Occlumency,’ Remus says. ‘I’m no good at it myself, but I can tell when someone else is doing it.’ He shrugs. ‘But he is very good at it. So maybe I just couldn’t tell.’ Remus pauses. He’s noticed that everyone is giving him a deferential silence whenever he’s thinking. That’s new. He’s not sure he likes it, or at least the power implied by it. ‘Here’s another thing,’ he says. ‘He warned me about using Voldemort’s name. I’m not going to stop, but he told me they’d put a Trace on it sooner or later. So be aware of that possibility.’

 

After Molly, Arthur, and Ron have left – the older people giving Ron and Hermione a moment in the hallway – Remus, Sirius, and Hermione continue sitting in the kitchen. Sirius pours everyone more firewhisky; Hermione regards hers with a strange look before taking a little sip.

 

‘Not a drinker?’ Sirius asks her.

 

‘Not much,’ she says. ‘But this is… Nice. Warm.’

 

‘What did you think of the meeting?’ Remus asks her. He trusts her intellect more than many of the older adults in the Order.

 

She looks into her glass. ‘It was interesting to me what you didn’t talk about.’

 

Remus raises an eyebrow. ‘The horcrux?’

 

She shivers. ‘Yeah, that, or just… anything to do with actively confronting Voldemort.’

 

‘We both thought we should wait for Harry to discuss that,’ Remus explains. Feeling that she probably knows just as much as they do – the rest of the Order emphatically does not know anything about the prophecy, and Remus and Sirius think that – to protect Harry – they should keep it that way – he adds, ‘Since he’s going to be integral to it.’

 

‘Right,’ Hermione says grimly. ‘I agree with that.’ She reaches under the table and pulls out her bookbag, rifling through it until she pulls out a particular slim volume. ‘Do you want to see this?’ she asks. ‘I, umm,’ she pauses, looking embarrassed.

 

‘What is it?’ Sirius asks, as Remus reaches for it. The book has a solid leather cover of such a dark black that it is difficult to discern its title: Book of the Undead.

 

‘I stole it from Professor Dumbledore’s office,’ Hermione says, wincing. ‘After – after. Not when it was still his office.’

 

Sirius starts laughing and leans back in his chair, tipping it up on two legs. ‘Don’t think you have to apologise to us about stealing things from a teacher’s office.’

 

‘Is this about the horcrux?’ Remus asks, flipping through the pages but not really absorbing them. His imagines his brain as an overly saturated sponge. Leaking.

 

‘Yes,’ Hermione says. ‘I stole a few others as well, but that one’s the best by far.’ She pulls out a sheet of parchment covered in her neat, dense handwriting. ‘This is where I’ve been keeping track of the horcruxes. We have the locket-‘

 

Sirius lets his chair down with a crash. ‘Horcruxes?’ he repeats. ‘Horcruxes?’

 

Hermione looks up from the parchment, startled. ‘Yes?’

 

Remus, in shock, gently places the book onto the table. ‘There’s more than one?’ he asks, very quietly. Hermione looks stricken. ‘The ring?’ Remus asks, suddenly stricken himself, picturing Albus’s hand, twisted and dark. ‘Was the ring one of them?’

 

Hermione bites her lip. ‘Yes…’

 

Sirius looks between them, horror on his face. ‘The ring that Albus had?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

Remus stares at her. ‘How many more?’

 

She swallows. ‘Didn’t Harry tell you?’

 

‘He said he had a mission from Albus and that he’d been sworn to secrecy,’ Remus says.

 

Sirius adds, ‘He’s trying to decide how much to tell us.’

 

Hermione is blinking rapidly, like she’s trying not to cry. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have…’

 

‘Well,’ Remus says, with a sudden bitterness so sharp that it manifests itself as an acrid taste. The list of things Albus hadn’t prepared him for… ‘It’s not your fault. Or Harry’s. But you’d better tell us the whole thing.’

 

Hermione swallows. ‘There’s seven, we think.’

 

‘Seven?’ Sirius half-yells. ‘Seven?’ he repeats. He stands up and starts pacing, turning back to Remus after a few steps. ‘Regulus died getting one of them. One.’

 

‘And Albus nearly died getting another,’ Remus says grimly. He looks at Hermione, who is wiping her eyes furiously. ‘What are the others? Do you know?’

 

‘We know of another one that’s been destroyed,’ Hermione says in a rush, like she’s trying to calm them. ‘A diary. The first one Voldemort made.’

 

‘A diary?’ Sirius repeats.

 

‘It was – we didn’t know what it was,’ she says. ‘We thought it was possessed. I don’t think Professor Dumbledore knew at the time either.’

 

Remus puts his head down on the table. The wood feels cool and forgiving. He feels Sirius’s hot hand land on the back of his neck. ‘But the diary is destroyed?’

 

‘Yes. Harry stabbed it with a basilisk fang.’

 

‘Where did he get that?’

 

‘It’s a long story.’

 

There’s a silence. Remus can feel how tense Sirius is through his hand. Then he hears Sirius say, in a much softer voice, ‘Hermione, we would never ask you to go against Harry’s wishes. But whatever you know…’

 

‘I just don’t know what he wants to tell you,’ Hermione says, and Remus hears that she’s crying. He sits up in time to see her wiping her eyes again.

 

‘It’s fine,’ Sirius says, sliding into a seat and putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘Whatever you need to do.’

 

‘I want to tell you,’ she says, sounding bleak, ‘but Harry said that only Ron and I could know…’

 

‘Don’t worry,’ Sirius says. He looks up at Remus. ‘We know all about keeping friends’ secrets.’

 

Hermione goes to bed soon after, but Remus and Sirius do not. Remus paces around the house, then walks out to the barn. He runs into Sirius, who is doing a circuit of the perimeter, his wand drawn, a look of utmost concentration on his face. Remus practically falls into his arms, exhausted and nauseous as he is; Sirius holds him tightly, murmuring a protection spell against his ear.

 

‘Seven,’ Remus whispers.

 

‘Three are gone.’

 

‘Well…’

 

‘What?’

 

Remus presses his face into Sirius’s neck. ‘We have to talk to Kreacher. We don’t know with certainty that Regulus destroyed it.’

 

‘He said he was stealing it to destroy it.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says as gently as he can, ‘but he died stealing it.’

 

‘Did he?’

 

‘I assume…’

 

Sirius has his lips pressed into a hard line; Remus can see them out of the corner of his eye. ‘All we know is that he died. We don’t know how.’

 

Remus remembers twenty-one-year-old Sirius burning the letter from his parents asking him to attend Regulus’s funeral. Sirius’s grief over his brother had been terrible, an impenetrable cage that Remus could see into but never touch; Sirius had become much more reckless, as if his own life suddenly didn’t matter. It had broken Remus’s heart, but at twenty-one, he’d lacked the vocabulary to even talk about it, much less help Sirius work through it. Now, Remus holds him a little more tightly and says, ‘We have to ask Kreacher.’

 

‘We will,’ Sirius snaps. ‘Once Harry is here.’

 

Remus is suddenly too exhausted to fight. ‘Ok,’ he says. ‘I’m going to bed.’ He uses his last strength to touch Sirius’s lips. ‘Come with me?’

 

In bed, they lie side by side, both on their backs, holding hands. Neither seems able to sleep, so Remus starts talking, trying to articulate how he feels. Not something twenty-one-year-old Remus would ever have done. ‘You know what’s a stupid phrase?’

 

‘Hmm?’

 

‘The calm before the storm.’

 

‘What’s wrong with it?’

 

‘Well, I guess it’s fine for actually describing the weather. But at least five Order members have described right now as that to me and I just…’

 

Sirius laughs without joy. ‘Just three weeks ago, we lost our leader,’ he says. ‘Doesn’t seem calm to me.’ He raises their hands, kisses Remus’s knuckles. ‘You’re a saint for dealing with everyone.’

 

‘It’s a lull,’ Remus says. He shifts closer, so that his arm presses against Sirius’s. Sirius cradles their hands on his chest.

 

‘I suppose so.’

 

‘But it’s not calm.’ Remus has been turning a few phrases over his head all day, and he tries one of them out now. ‘It’s purgatory. It’s not calming. It’s not a good place. It’s waiting.’

 

‘Waiting for the resurrection of ghouls,’ Sirius says quietly. ‘For all the old crowd to show themselves openly. There was a mass break out from Azkaban over a year ago, and no one has done anything about it. Soon, they’ll be back in public life.’

 

‘Regulus was a hero,’ Remus says. ‘I misjudged him.’

 

There’s silence from Sirius for so long that Remus rolls onto his side to look at him. Tears are running down from the corners of his eyes, which are tightly shut. Remus leans forward and kisses them away from the eye nearest him. ‘I misjudged him too,’ Sirius says finally. ‘I used to worry – did he know how much I loved him? For the last two weeks I’ve been worrying – why didn’t he ask me for help?’

 

Remus thinks back to Regulus: handsome, but not quite as handsome as his brother. It had been strange for Remus to see him and interact with him – sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he’d thought he was Sirius. He remembers Regulus during those days he’d stayed with them as being a live wire overlaid with an extremely conscious veneer of haughty aristocracy; it had been obvious to Remus just how close Regulus was to coming apart at the seams, but then, he knows Sirius, who has never had a seam he hasn’t burst through at one point or another. Remus had blamed Sirius’s family for most of that, and had been hard on Regulus, harder than a nineteen-year-old warranted maybe. ‘I know he loved you,’ he says now. ‘We talked about it.’

 

Sirius swallows and exhales, opening his eyes and blinking. ‘Why didn’t he talk to me? To us? We could have helped.’

 

‘Probably the same reason Harry won’t,’ Remus suggests. ‘Some loyalty somewhere else combined with a desire to protect you.’

 

They lie in silence for several minutes. Remus wonders if this is what insomnia feels like; sleepless nights aren’t something he’s used to. Then Sirius says, very quietly, ‘I should be the one to go with them, if they need it.’

 

‘What?’

 

‘To find the other horcruxes,’ Sirius says. He turns his head to look at Remus. ‘The Order needs you here. If they need someone else…’

 

Remus is surprised by how viscerally he does not want Sirius to go. He’s gotten used to always having him around again. He doesn’t say a word, just presses himself more tightly to him and waits for morning.

 

***

Hermione knocks on their door very early. At some point, they both must have fallen asleep, because she startles them awake and both have their wands drawn before their eyes are fully opened; then Remus, his head still pounding, flops backwards onto the pillow and Sirius retrieves his robe and leaves the room. A few moments later he returns and says, ‘Hermione owled Harry. He told her to tell us everything.’

 

In the kitchen, Hermione lays out what they know about horcruxes, and, by extension, Tom Riddle.

 

‘So we’re certain that the diary and the ring are destroyed,’ she concludes. ‘The locket… we’re not sure. Harry says the locket he has is just a normal locket.’

 

‘I think it’s my mother’s,’ Sirius says quietly.

 

Hermione looks up at him. ‘Is this very weird for you?’

 

Sirius nods emphatically.

 

‘Any idea where to look for the others?’ Remus asks. He has a piece of parchment before him and is taking notes. ‘Or what they might be?’ He looks down at his notes again. ‘Tom Riddle,’ he murmurs. ‘A Halfblood.’

 

‘Just like Harry,’ Sirius says. He looks at Remus. ‘And you.’

 

‘And me.’ Remus hasn’t thought too much about that aspect of his life; he thinks if he hadn’t been a werewolf, it would have had much greater importance.

 

‘We think the others are all artefacts belonging to the Hogwarts founders. Well, the locket we know was Slytherin’s. But the ones we’re missing.’

 

Remus frowns. ‘That’s not seven.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Hermione says, sighing. ‘I know. We’re working on it. We just know he had an intention to create seven.’

 

‘Maybe we should tally murders,’ Sirius suggests, making an exaggeratedly grim face.

 

‘We know the ring was his uncle, the locket… not sure. The diary was Moaning Myrtle.’

 

‘Oh god, really?’ Remus says, startled.

 

Hermione nods. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Really sad.’

 

‘We weren’t very nice to her,’ Sirius says, looking stricken.

 

‘No,’ Remus agrees, remembering the four of them throwing her out of various rooms they wanted to use for mischief.

 

‘James did flash her that time, though,’ Sirius continues, and then looks even more stricken.

 

‘Sorry,’ he and Remus say at the same time to Hermione.

 

She bursts into laughter. ‘It’s funny because it’s Harry’s dad.’

 

‘Believe me, it amazes me every day,’ Sirius says, looking mortified.

 

‘We should think on this,’ Remus says, pushing himself to his feet – he’s just seen movement in the garden, and would rather not meet Dedalus Diggle in a dressing gown. ‘We’ll speak with Kreacher once Harry is here. Until then… there’s plenty of other things to be done.’

 

***

The full moon comes; they spend it in their hidden workshop on the island.

 

Sirius has never stayed through the transformation before; though he’s asked, Remus has always said no. Now, feeling ill in his body, heart, and soul, Remus does not turn him away, and Sirius-as-Padfoot curls around him as the first tremors come. Remus has taken wolfsbane and would know Padfoot anywhere with or without it; somehow Padfoot holds him down as he shakes and fights the instinct to claw and bite at his lupine limbs and body. In the morning, Remus wakes naked, the black dog still against him, the scent of dog fur all around them. Remus breathes that scent deeply as the nausea of the transformation slows. Padfoot waits until Remus seems better, then transforms back into Sirius. It is summer and the nights are mercifully short. They lie together, in the cool den of the outbuilding, while the sun rises in the sky. Slowly, ever-so-slowly, Remus turns into Sirius’s arms, kisses his way across his body, and coaxes their bodies together, until Sirius is riding him, his body glistening with sweat in the sun-dappled room. Remus feels like he is flying, his hands gripping Sirius’s thighs, his eyes unable to look at anything but the shifting patterns of light overlaid on the man above him. Sirius comes with a gasp, doubling over and raking his short, bitten fingernails down Remus’s chest. Remus lets him ride it out, then, with a few more rolling thrusts, lets go of himself. He never feels more perfectly in control of his body than when it is a way to pleasure Sirius.

 

‘We should do that every time,’ he murmurs, cradling his lover against his chest.

 

‘Fuck yes,’ Sirius replies. They drowse in each others’ arms for several minutes.

 

Sometime later: ‘Another full moon down,’ Remus whispers.

 

Sirius presses his face into Remus’s neck and says nothing.

 

***

Sirius surprises himself by insisting that they go in person to speak with Petunia and Vernon Dursley.

 

‘Why are we doing this again?’ Remus asks, leaning over the kitchen table and frowning, as Sirius writes them the letter requesting a meeting.

 

And Sirius, grimly, says, ‘I know what it’s like to have a complicated relationship with family.’

 

They meet at Privet Drive, dressed as Muggles. A younger version of Sirius – like, a year ago – would have come dressed in his most flamboyant robes, but now he arrives dedicated to getting this over with in the most efficient way possible. They have to convince the Dursleys to go into hiding or else they will be Death Eater targets the second Harry turns seventeen. Whatever they have been to Harry, whatever they have done, Sirius knows that Harry will never forgive himself if something happens to them.

 

‘We’re here for Harry,’ he says to Remus as they approach the house. Remus nods emphatically.

 

Petunia Dursley greets them at the door. Sirius searches her face for some mannerism, some placement of feature, anything that would connect her to Lily. Maybe it’s there, in the little line between her eyebrows.

 

‘Petunia,’ Remus says, ‘this is Harry’s other godfather, Sirius.’

 

She blinks at him a few times. ‘I remember you from the wedding,’ she says, startled. ‘All the girls were losing their heads over you.’

 

He feels, rather than sees, Remus roll his eyes. ‘Common problem.’

 

‘Come in,’ Petunia says, opening the door wide.

 

Into the hallway, past the staircase and cupboard under it, past the sitting room and into the kitchen. The house is exceptionally neat and clean, almost sterile; Sirius entertains a brief fantasy of being a muddy dog tearing through it but cannot really imagine it.

 

‘Where’s Harry?’ he asks.

 

‘Upstairs,’ Petunia says. ‘Would you…?’

 

Sirius has already turned and is on his way up. He finds himself in another hallway and knocks on the only closed door that has signs of life behind it.

 

‘Harry?’

 

The door opens and Harry flings himself into Sirius’s embrace. Sirius hugs him tightly and Harry says, ‘I was so worried you wouldn’t come.’

 

Sirius frowns. ‘Why?’

 

‘Anything could happen,’ Harry says, looking a little embarrassed. Sirius follows him into the room and looks around at it – mounds of unused and broken stuff are in one corner, and he steps towards them, confused.

 

‘It all belongs to Dudley,’ Harry says. ‘My cousin. His room doesn’t have, well, room.’

 

Sirius examines a few of the things and looks back at Harry. ‘You ready to leave?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

Sirius smiles. ‘Ten more days,’ he says. ‘Then you’ll never have to come to this place again.’

 

Harry nods and plops backwards onto his bed. ‘I’m going stir crazy.’ He looks up at Sirius. ‘You know all about that.’

 

‘Especially in the family home,’ Sirius agrees. ‘Anything we can bring you? Anything we can do to make the wait better?’

 

‘Just keep writing to me,’ Harry says. ‘Light at the end of the tunnel, all that.’

 

‘Do you want to be part of this conversation?’

 

Harry shakes his head. ‘I trust you and Remus.’

 

Sirius returns downstairs and find Remus seated on one side of the table and Vernon and Petunia on the other.

 

‘My husband,’ Petunia says, motioning to Vernon, who half-stands as Sirius enters.

 

‘My fiancé,’ Remus says, and Sirius is certain that he’s the only one who hears a little underlying snap in the comment. He loves it. Remus came for battle.

 

Sirius shakes Vernon’s hand; Vernon seems to be trying to crush his knuckles in his beefy fist. Sirius has a brief moment of despair at the existence of a certain kind of straight man, and lets it happen impassively, not betraying that it is even a mite uncomfortable. Vernon lets go, looking a little disappointed, and Sirius sits beside Remus.

 

‘I was just saying,’ Remus says, looking at Sirius, ‘that they have to leave this house.’

 

‘And I was just saying-‘ Vernon starts, and Remus holds up a hand.

 

‘Of course it is your choice,’ he says, ‘but we would like to assist you. Voldemort will not hesitate to murder the people who kept him from James and Lily’s son – and do it gruesomely, at that.’

 

Vernon looks stunned, Petunia resigned.

 

‘Why does he want Harry so much?’ she asks softly. ‘What is it about him?’

 

‘There was a prophecy,’ Remus says, ‘about the one to defeat Voldemort. He interpreted the prophecy to mean Harry, and he continues to interpret it that way.’

 

‘Why Harry, though?’ Vernon asks, and it is clear that he cannot fathom the idea that his nephew might be important. Sirius grits his teeth and lets Remus do the talking lest he say something he regrets.

 

‘Harry’s parents defied Voldemort three times,’ Remus says. ‘That was a condition of the prophecy – that the parents of whoever would defeat him would have done that.’

 

‘Lily,’ Petunia says, ‘defied him? Three times?’

 

Sirius can’t help himself. ‘Your sister was brave. Didn’t you know?’

 

Petunia’s mouth is pressed together tightly, and Sirius sees a flash of her: Lily, trying not to cry. ‘It’s hard to think of your little sister as brave,’ she says unexpectedly, and Regulus’s face appears unbidden in his head.

 

‘She was,’ Remus says, perhaps sensing that Sirius is about to flounder. ‘And as a result, Voldemort marked her son when he was still a child, and has been pursuing him ever since. And he will not hesitate to hurt you in retaliation for your protection.’

 

‘Which we didn’t ask to give,’ Vernon says, angrily.

 

‘No,’ Sirius says, anger recovering him, ‘don’t worry, we’d never mistake you for a man who’d willingly look after his orphaned and near-infant nephew.’

 

Vernon starts to say something, but Petunia says, ‘What do we have to do?’

 

Remus lays it out for them: they have to leave the house, and Surrey. The Order has arranged for them to go into hiding. When the war is over, the Order will use magic to reset memories and put them back into their lives.

 

‘And how long will the “war” be going on?’ Vernon asks, sarcastic.

 

Remus looks off to the side. ‘I don’t know.’

 

‘Of course you don’t.’

 

‘But I promise you, if you listen to us, you and your family will be safe for as long as we can protect them.’

 

‘And why should I trust you?’

 

‘Just trust them, Vernon,’ Petunia says, sounding deeply weary. ‘Trust them and maybe our lives can return to normal in not too long.’

 

Vernon is clearly unaccustomed to his wife disagreeing with him. There’s more bluster and posturing, but they come to an arrangement. They arrive before any of the other Order members the night before Harry’s birthday and see them on their way with Hestia Jones. Harry’s cousin says goodbye to Harry like there’s something there, and Sirius is viscerally reminded of Regulus again. He’s so happy for Harry that Dudley spoke with him, even when Petunia and Vernon will not.

 

***

Harry’s rescue does not go to plan.

 

Remus hits the ground in front of the Burrow so hard that his broomstick shatters; he doesn’t bother to mend it as he sprints to the door, instead throwing it aside for the useless pile of sticks it has become. His heart is pounding hard enough to feel like it will burst out of his chest. Molly opens the door, terrified, and he yells at her, equally terrified if not more so, to maintain the passwords. She manages it, and he storms inside, followed by his partner, Charlie, spinning in a circle –

 

Harry is there.

 

Sirius is not.

 

Harry rushes to him, and Remus hugs him tightly.

 

‘What happened?’ Harry asks, sounding shaken where his head is pressed against Remus’s shoulder.

 

‘They knew,’ Remus says, very grim. ‘Someone told them, they knew, they figured it out.’ He releases Harry and says, ‘You used Expelliarmus.’

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘You can’t do that,’ Remus says, trying to contain himself. Shouting at Harry will help nothing, Harry is right here, Sirius will be here soon, he’s certain of it, that’s all he needs, just them, he does not think of the shape he saw falling in the night, Sirius will be back, he’d know, he’d have to know if it was Sirius. ‘You can’t use Expelliarmus.’

 

‘What should I use?’

 

‘Anything else.’ Remus stalks to the window and looks out at the black night. He’s aware that he’s close to shouting, and that everyone in the room is watching him. ‘That’s how they knew. That’s how they knew it was you.’

 

‘A Stunning spell would have killed him,’ Harry says, voice quiet but defiant. ‘He would have fallen five hundred feet. I won’t – I won’t do that.’

 

‘Your choice,’ Remus says. He turns away from the window. ‘But if you insist upon using Expelliarmus, they will know that it is you.’

 

Harry’s jaw is set; Remus recognises Lily’s stubbornness in his face and gives up. He steps back to him and puts his hand on his shoulder, trying to apologise. ‘I’m so glad you’re all right, Harry. You scared me.’ Harry looks suddenly like he’s going to cry. Remus thinks of how young he is and pulls him into another tight hug. Standing like that, he looks at Molly. ‘Roll call.’

 

Voice shaking, she tells him who is back. Not enough, not enough, but at least Ron and Hermione are here. Kingsley and Tonks arrive, then Bill and Fleur. Hagrid is nursing a wound, as is one of the Weasley twins; Arthur was with the other one, and Sirius with Moody. Those pairs are the last two out. They wait, he and Molly, until they see a streak into the garden; without hesitation or care for protocol, they run to it. Arthur and his son are there, both looking deeply shaken but physically well. Remus has a flash of disappointment that he stamps down, hard. He turns to pace and sees another streak, this one wobbling, and then crashing what looks like a quarter mile away.

 

‘Keep Harry here,’ Remus says to Molly, very grimly, and turns to run for it; Tonks is suddenly beside him, her face white, her mouth set.

 

They Apparate to where the crash seems to have been, near a thick copse of trees that are half-downed; together, they push through the low branches until they find a clearing crackling with small, recent fires.

 

In the centre of it, holding Moody’s body, is Sirius. He looks up as Tonks makes an involuntary cry and Remus sees from his face that Moody is dead.

 

‘I had to get him,’ Sirius says, voice monotone. ‘They would have made him an Inferi.’

 

Tonks drops to her knees beside him and doubles over, crying. Remus remembers that Moody was her mentor in the Auror programme. He knows that Sirius knew him too, when he was an Auror-in-training. And he’d been fighting alongside him for a year. He kneels down in the soil gently on the other side of Sirius and puts his hand on his arm.

 

‘We’re not safe out here,’ he says. ‘We have to go to the Burrow.’

 

Tonks sits up, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes to stop herself from crying. ‘What should we do with – with him?’

 

‘I’ll transfigure him,’ Sirius says. He looks at Tonks. ‘What would he like to be, do you think?’

 

Remus swallows around the lump in his throat. Tonks says, her voice shaking, ‘What a beautiful idea. A shell, I think. Something protective.’

 

Sirius nods, draws out his wand, and does the deed; Tonks lifts it reverently and places it protectively into her robe. Remus dowses the fires and they walk back to the house together, Remus holding Sirius’s hand tightly.

 

Inside the shimmer of the protection around the Burrow, Sirius envelops Harry in a hug as Remus delivers the news about Moody. Kingsley puts his arm around Tonks, who is weeping silently.

 

‘How did they know?’ Arthur asks Remus, later, when everyone has gone home but he and Sirius.

 

Remus looks at Sirius, who is seated on the couch beside Harry, a blank look on his face as he stares into the fire. Sirius flicks his gaze up to meet Remus’s, curls his lip, and then returns to the fire. ‘Severus,’ Remus says. ‘It must have been Severus.’

 

‘How?’ Molly asks. She has one arm around Fred.

 

‘This was Albus’s plan,’ Remus says. ‘He spoke to Kingsley and me about it before he died.’ He looks at them, assembled before him, needing answers from him. His adrenaline from earlier is gone, replaced by a barren space where he knows emotions should be. ‘He must have also spoken with Severus.’

 

‘How could he,’ Molly exhales.

 

Ginny, on her other side, puts her arm around her mother. ‘How many other secrets does he know?’ she asks.

 

‘Probably a lot,’ Remus says heavily. ‘We won’t use any more of Albus’s plans.’

 

***

Remus thinks that he has never approached this house in sunlight; no matter the rest of the day, the moment he arrives at Grimmauld Place, the clouds will close in, the sky will start to drip, and the feeling of foreboding will intensify until he thinks he might drown in it.

 

So he waits outside in a stinging rain for Sirius, Harry, Ron, and Hermione to arrive, having gotten there a few minutes early himself after meeting with the small cadre of London werewolves he’s recruited to work for the Order.

 

Harry can move freely now, though of course they must be cautious not to be spotted. The four of them arrive in a glamour, and Remus is pleased to be startled by them. Sirius’s look is unusually unreadable as he unlocks the door. Remus touches his arm: I’m here if you need me. And Sirius looks back at him, expression suddenly clear as Occlumency: I always need you.

 

A ghostly apparition of Albus Dumbledore rushes at them, fierce and frightening, but dispels as soon as it sees Harry. The portrait, of course, starts to scream. Remus doesn’t bother with politeness and stuns it so sharply that the canvas sizzles. Sirius smiles, darkly, and says, ‘I need a moment to find Kreacher. Meet me in the upstairs sitting room.’

 

‘I forgot how miserable this place is,’ Ron mutters, once Sirius has descended out of sight towards the kitchen.

 

‘I can’t believe we lived here,’ Hermione whispers, looking around at it.

 

‘It’s fallen into disrepair again,’ Remus says. ‘We had it at a much better state.’ He looks at the three teenagers. ‘Come on.’

 

Just a few days ago, Remus had received a letter from Sirius’s cousin Bellatrix. Sirius had seen it, unfortunately. The letter had been so dripping with vitriol that it had burned his hands and attempted to scorch the words ‘filthy Halfblood werewolf’ and ‘defiler of the House of Black’ into his arm.

 

‘They wouldn’t be half bad tattoos,’ Remus had said, trying to make Sirius feel better. By Sirius’s look, it had not worked.

 

Now, in the sitting room, he throws open the long curtains and then opens the window. Cool, wet air blows in, but at least it is fresh, or rather, at least it is from the outside world, smelling as it does of pavement and exhaust. He loathes this place for what it did to Sirius, and keeping it shut up can get fucked now. Hermione catches his eye and lays down a protective spell.

 

The door from the hallway swings open and Kreacher steps inside, an unhappy expression on his face; Sirius is behind him. Sirius appears, to Remus’s eye, like he has been crying. Kreacher takes one look at Remus and starts to back up, running into Sirius’s legs. Sirius’s hand descends onto his shoulder and keeps him moving into the room.

 

‘Hello, Kreacher,’ Hermione says in a soft, kind voice. She crouches down to his level like she’s speaking to a frightened child. ‘How have you been?’

 

Kreacher ignores her, eyes roving between Remus, Hermione, and Harry, as if each is a fresh horror.

 

‘Kreacher,’ Sirius says, voice deathly quiet but the command in it clear, ‘you will treat everyone in this room with as much respect as if they were a full-blooded member of the Black family. Do you understand?’

 

‘Don’t make him do it,’ Hermione says. ‘He can make up his own mind.’

 

Sirius sighs. ‘Do as you wish, Kreacher,’ he says, ‘but please, tell us Regulus’s story.’

 

Kreacher gives him a look that Remus has never seen the elf give him – Remus thinks it might just be compassion, buried underneath several thick layers of loathing. Sirius strides to an armchair and sits in it, slumped, one leg across an arm. The chair adjusts slightly to take his form and Sirius slumps more deeply into it. Remus remembers another reason why he hates this house – it reminds him of Sirius the scion, Sirius who never fully stopped being a Black, and can be cruel, entitled, imperious, as if on a whim granted to him by nature. Remus never feels less like he knows this man than in this house, than when he’s behaving like this, because even after all these years, he still cannot ever imagine what it is like.

 

Haltingly, Kreacher tells his story: of Master Regulus asking him to help the Dark Lord, of what he had to do; of Master Regulus’s compassion and kindness in promising Kreacher that he would never have to do anything for the Dark Lord again (here Sirius puts a hand over his eyes that he does not remove for the rest of the story); of Regulus’s questions –

 

‘What, specifically, was he asking you?’ Remus asks. He has sat down in front of Sirius’s chair and is gripping his leg tightly.

 

‘Master Regulus asked Kreacher what the Dark Lord’s locket felt like,’ Kreacher says, shuddering, whether at the memory of the feeling or at being forced to tell it, Remus doesn’t know.

 

‘And…?’

 

‘The locket didn’t want to hold what it was holding,’ Kreacher says in his slow voice. ‘It was angry. It wasn’t made for that purpose.’

 

‘The horcrux,’ Hermione breathes. ‘Of course Slytherin’s locket wouldn’t want to hold it. It wouldn’t want to be bent to anything’s will.’

 

Kreacher continues his story: Regulus leaving home for a bit, and then coming to him one night, ‘disturbed in his mind’, demanding that Kreacher take him to the cave.

 

‘Wait, where did he go when he left home?’ Harry asks.

 

‘Researching, I suspect,’ Hermione says.

 

‘He came to us,’ Remus says. ‘To Sirius, I should say, but we lived together.’ He leans his head against Sirius’s knee. Sirius has not said a word, but Remus can feel his shuddering breaths. ‘You’re right, Hermione, he must have been researching.’

 

‘Did he talk to you at all?’ Ron asks.

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘Not about anything substantial,’ he says. ‘He told Sirius he was quitting the Death Eaters, that he needed a place to hide out for a bit. That’s really it.’ He looks at Kreacher. ‘So you went to the cave again.’

 

Kreacher starts crying, horribly. Hermione reaches for him and he jumps back like he’s been burned; she jumps back as well, tears in her eyes, saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

 

‘Go on, Kreacher,’ Sirius says from behind his hand.

 

‘Master Regulus wouldn’t let Kreacher drink the burning potion,’ Kreacher says shakily. ‘Master Regulus told Kreacher to replace the locket with his and then to destroy the Dark Lord’s. Master Regulus made Kreacher swear never to tell Master or Mistress Black.’ Kreacher starts to wail, a horrible, keening sound. Hermione is sobbing, Ron sitting with his head in his hands.

 

Harry is looking at Remus.

 

‘Destroy the horcrux,’ he mouths. Remus nods, once.

 

‘Kreacher,’ Sirius says, voice breaking on the first syllable. ‘Finish the story. Please.’

 

‘Master Regulus was so brave,’ Kreacher gasps. ‘Master Regulus drank the burning potion. Then the things in the water, they – they – they dragged him under.’

 

Sirius goes very still. Remus turns his head and presses it into Sirius’s knee.

 

‘Take a moment, Kreacher,’ Harry says. ‘Let me get you some water.’ Kreacher backs away from Harry, almost running into Remus before leaping away from him too. ‘Kreacher,’ Harry says, and then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the non-Horcrux locket. ‘You should have this.’

 

Kreacher’s eyes go wider than normal. ‘Master Regulus’s locket,’ he whispers.

 

‘Take it,’ Harry says, holding it out. Kreacher snatches it from his palm and stands, rotating it between his fingers, his eyes spilling with tears.

 

‘Master Regulus’s locket,’ he repeats.

 

‘Kreacher,’ Remus says, desperate to have a moment alone to comfort Sirius. ‘I have just one more question for you.’

 

Kreacher does not look up at him. ‘What does the werewolf want now?’ he asks, but the question seems to have less venom than usual.

 

‘Did you destroy the other locket?’

 

Kreacher goes still and flicks his huge eyes to Remus’s face, then flicks them down again and begins muttering to himself. ‘Werewolf is asking another question, greedy werewolf, always-‘

 

‘Kreacher,’ Sirius says, sitting up and leaning forward. His eyes are very red. ‘Tell Remus what happened to the other locket. Regulus told you to destroy it.’

 

Kreacher collapses to the floor. For a second, Remus thinks he’s had a stroke, and reaches for him, but the house elf starts banging his head into the wooden panels. Sirius springs forward and drags him up by his filthy garment. ‘Kreacher,’ he says, ‘stop punishing yourself and answer Remus’s question.’ Kreacher starts to say something else and Sirius snarls, hot fury in his voice, ‘You will be respectful of Remus, and everyone else in this room. Do you understand me?’

 

‘You broke your mother’s heart, cavorting with Dark creatures and Halfbloods and-,’ Kreacher bawls at him.

 

‘I don’t care,’ Sirius says. ‘I didn’t care then and I certainly don’t care now that she’s been dead fifteen years. Tell Remus what happened to the locket.’

 

Kreacher abruptly stops fighting Sirius and starts sobbing again. Remus still has a hand on Sirius’s calf. ‘Don’t,’ he says to Sirius. ‘You ask him, it’s killing him to have to answer me.’

 

‘He’ll respect my partner,’ Sirius snaps, ‘or I’ll release him from the service of the House of Black forever.’

 

Kreacher freezes and looks up at Sirius, goggle-eyed. He seems stunned into obedience. ‘Kreacher couldn’t destroy it,’ he says in a whisper. ‘Kreacher tried so many things. But it wouldn’t break. Even though Master Regulus gave Kreacher this order,’ he starts to cry again, ‘Kreacher couldn’t break it.’

 

‘Where is it now?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘Kreacher doesn’t know.’

 

Sirius bends down to him. ‘In this house?’ Kreacher shakes his head. ‘Then go,’ Sirius says, eyes glittering, ‘and retrieve it, or whomever it was that took it.’ Kreacher blinks up at him. ‘Now.’ With a resentful look and a pop, the house elf vanishes.

 

The room is silent for a moment. Then:

 

‘Sirius, are you ok?’ Harry asks.

 

Sirius exhales sharply and flops back into the armchair, tipping his head up and closing his eyes. ‘I will be,’ he says. ‘It’s all rather a shock though.’

 

‘What if Kreacher brings back someone who we don’t want him to?’ Remus asks suddenly. ‘What if we’ve just sent him after Voldemort himself?’

 

‘Voldemort wouldn’t have it,’ Harry says. ‘He never found the locket Regulus left.’

 

‘Of course,’ Remus says. ‘Sorry. This is all doing my head in.’

 

‘Your brother was really brave,’ Hermione says, tremulously.

 

Sirius, without opening his eyes, says, ‘I wish he’d told me what he doing.’

 

‘It sounds like he wanted to protect your family. Swearing Kreacher to secrecy with your parents and all that.’

 

Kreacher returns to Sirius several days later, with Mundungus Fletcher in tow, who, embarrassed, tells him the tale of stealing the locket and being forced to give it to a short Ministry witch in exchange for not being fined for selling illegal goods.

 

‘Umbridge,’ Hermione gasps when Sirius relates Mundungus’s description to them. ‘It has to be her.’

 

‘We’ll have to get it from her,’ Harry says grimly.

 

‘After the wedding,’ Ron says. ‘We will.’

 

Sirius frowns at them. ‘Aren’t you returning to Hogwarts not long after that?’

 

Remus says nothing. He has an inkling that they are not planning to return.

 

***

The day before the wedding, they are all at the Burrow, somehow having been co-opted into helping with preparations. Remus is seated at the kitchen table, working on correspondence and resting, having just made it through another moon, and so he is the first to see the Minister approaching, walking beside Kingsley.

 

‘Company,’ Remus calls, and Sirius and Arthur sprint into the kitchen, wands drawn.

 

‘What’s the bloody Minister for Magic doing here?’ Arthur asks, sounding stunned.

 

‘Nothing good, I assume,’ Sirius replies darkly.

 

Scrimgeour knocks on the kitchen door; Arthur answers it and leads him in; Kingsley follows, making brief eye contact with Remus: Sorry.

 

‘I need to speak with Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger,’ Scrimgeour says to Arthur, ignoring Remus and Sirius. ‘It’s a legal matter.’

 

Arthur frowns. ‘Are they in trouble, sir?’

 

‘No.’

 

‘Come with me,’ Arthur says, and, glancing back, ‘Sirius, would you put the kettle on?’

 

Sirius does not look like a man keen to put any kettles on, but he does so, and immediately camps at the doorway, staring out like a dog who’s caught sight of a rabbit.

 

‘Are you well, Kingsley?’ Remus asks in a low voice. Scrimgeour’s personal guard has not accompanied him into the sitting room.

 

‘Yes,’ Kingsley replies. ‘This is a strange lull.’

 

‘It’s too quiet,’ Remus agrees.

 

‘Shh,’ Sirius says from the doorway, as Molly enters the kitchen and joins him.

 

‘Scrimgeour’s here to talk with the kids?’ she mouths, and Sirius nods.

 

Scrimgeour speaks with them for a long time, alone in the sitting room; Sirius and Molly’s attempts to listen in are soon joined by Fred and George, who present them with some Extendable Ears.

 

‘Albus left them each something in his will,’ Sirius says to Remus. Remus has an eye-socket destroying headache and very little interest in thinking, so he nods and writes that information down on a small piece of parchment for later.

 

‘He’s coming,’ Molly hisses, grabbing the Ears and stuffing them into her pocket. Everyone in the kitchen starts Looking Conspicuously Busy despite there being limited tasks available, so that Sirius winds up sharpening Remus’s quill and Fred is forced to mend an apron.

 

Scrimgeour enters the kitchen, followed by the other three; the angry tension between them is palpable.

 

‘Remus is leading the Order now,’ Harry says, and Remus wants to say, no fuck he hates werewolves shut up but he summons a smile that he hopes doesn’t have too many canines in it and pushes himself to his feet. Sirius is at his side in an instant, practically bristling. Remus assumes that everyone can see Sirius’s canines, and not because he’s smiling.

 

‘We’re on the same side,’ Scrimgeour says, angrily, barely glancing at Remus before looking back at Harry.

 

‘No we’re not,’ Hermione blurts out, and then looks startled at herself.

 

‘We’re all trying to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,’ Scrimgeour replies through gritted teeth.

 

Remus watches Hermione, ready to step in – but she has it. ‘You’re fighting to restore the status quo,’ she says. ‘You want to go back to a world where, where, house elves and goblins and Dark creatures and, and people who aren’t even Purebloods are second class citizens. We’re doing something more important here.’

 

‘Excellently said, Hermione,’ Sirius says. He looks at Scrimgeour. ‘Until you can offer us that, we’re not on the same side.’

 

Scrimgeour starts to say something, clearly thinks better of it, and says instead, ‘Divided, we won’t survive this.’

 

‘Some of us barely survived the old regime,’ Remus says, done with a conversation he’s barely been a part of. ‘I wouldn’t have, if people in your government had had their way.’

 

‘Get out,’ Sirius suggests, walking Scrimgeour briskly towards the door. ‘Talk to us when you have something real to offer us. Until then, you keep working to defeat Voldemort, and we’ll keep working to defeat the things that made him powerful.’

 

***

‘You were magnificent,’ Sirius yells at Hermione over the band. Remus is sitting beside him, gently drunk, leaning against his arm with their fingers intertwined.

 

‘It’s so annoying, I always start to cry when I get angry,’ Hermione calls back to Sirius. ‘I was so furious with him. Trying to recruit us to represent the Ministry? What on earth was he thinking?’

 

‘You know what he was thinking,’ Sirius says darkly.

 

‘Well,’ Hermione replies, ‘there was this amazing feminist, Audre Lorde. She said you can’t dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools.’

 

‘Hear, hear,’ Remus says, sitting up enough to clink his nearly empty wine glass against hers.

 

The wedding swirls around them, dancers in full swing. Ron and Harry – who is in disguise as a Weasley cousin – are having some kind of earnest conversation with tiny old Elphias Doge; Remus returns his head to Sirius’s shoulder and keeps an eye on them. He assumes it’s about Albus, and about the excerpts from Rita Skeeter’s biography of him that have been leaking all month. Doge adores Albus.

 

Viktor Krum comes over and speaks with Hermione for a minute; she nods and smiles, then says, ‘In a few minutes.’ He makes a short bow to Sirius and Remus and disappears into the crowd.

 

‘Who’s that?’ Sirius asks Hermione, grinning.

 

‘My ex,’ she replies, grinning back conspiratorially. ‘He’s really sweet, but a bit of a boring conversationalist.’

 

‘Handsome,’ Sirius says, squinting after him.

 

‘Bit young for you, don’t you think?’ Remus asks, not really annoyed.

 

‘I’m making an objective assessment.’ Sirius kisses the top of his head. ‘You have to drink more. Molly said we could plan our wedding through our hangovers.’

 

‘Don’t worry,’ Remus says. ‘I think I’ll be quite able to achieve that state as I am.’

 

Ron appears, Harry in tow. ‘Was that Viktor?’ Ron asks Hermione, frowning.

 

‘Yes,’ she says, standing up. ‘Come on you two, let’s go dance.’

 

Ron and Hermione head towards the dance floor; Harry lingers for a moment, grinning at his godparents. ‘You all right?’ he asks. ‘You look drunk.’

 

‘So yes,’ Sirius says, ‘then sounds like we are all right.’

 

Harry laughs and affectionately puts his hand on Sirius’s shoulder.

 

‘Go on,’ Remus says. ‘Have fun.’

 

‘I am,’ Harry protests, and then he follows his friends.

 

Sirius waits a moment before pulling Remus closer and pressing his face into his neck. ‘I can’t wait to get you home,’ he murmurs against Remus’s ear.

 

Remus shivers involuntarily. ‘Why, because you’re tired?’  

 

‘Tired of having to be appropriate around you in public.’

 

Remus turns his head and presses his lips to Sirius’s, lightly, chastely. ‘You know you’re going to have to behave at our wedding, right?’

 

‘Mmm,’ Sirius groans. ‘Kiss me some more to take my mind off it.’

 

‘Sirius Black, I’m not snogging you in the middle of someone else’s wedding.’

 

‘You snogged me at James and Lily’s wedding.’

 

‘In the toilets.’

 

‘And behind that rose bush.’

 

‘I had deep regrets about that. Thorns everywhere.’

 

There’s a sudden crackle of pale energy. Remus and Sirius are on their feet in a second, wands drawn, as Kingsley’s lynx Patronus falls from the ceiling, blinks around at the room, and then, in his deep voice, announces:

 

‘The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.’

Chapter 26: Autumn of What Would Have Been Harry's Seventh Year

Notes:

Remember last time, when I said this was the second part of the chapter? Well, this is the second part of the chapter... but there's a third part. Should be posted quite soon as it is almost entirely done, but I had a 20,000 word + chapter and I had to split it.

Me, plotting this many months ago: Ok all this stuff will go by quickly
Me, writing this the past few months: Wow Deathly Hallows has a lot of PLOT fuck

Thank you as always for reading, kudosing, and commenting!

The moor is a series of dark waves as Sirius waits for Remus to complete the protective spell he is casting. Remus is essentially a fugitive now, a werewolf in public life who the new leadership at the Ministry wants gone. Protective spells to alert them of unfriendly wizards approaching have become a constant for them both; tonight, it is Remus’s turn, but tomorrow it will be Sirius’s. Idly, Sirius reads the English Heritage sign that tells the history of the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy. There is no moon tonight, only a sky full of billions of stars cartwheeling overhead. Remus joins him and Sirius follows in his footsteps, picking carefully over stones in the path, until they level out and the shadows of low stone buildings rise around them.

 

‘The church, right?’ Sirius murmurs, and he sees Remus’s outline nod. The church has a low tower crumbling on one side. There’s a porch for an entrance, set near the end of one long side. There is no physical door remaining, but someone has created a magical one that Sirius can just catch shimmering if he looks at it from the sides of his eyes. Remus dispenses with it in a moment by drawing his hand back, his ring glinting on his finger, and making a slicing motion.

 

‘Remus,’ says a rasping man’s voice, warm with pleasure, though tension underlies it.

 

‘You brought a human,’ says a woman with an equally ravaged voice. Sirius is suddenly grateful that Remus seems to have kept his vocal cords mostly intact despite all these years of transforming.

 

‘I did,’ Remus says. ‘Come now, let’s put up the wards. Then I’ll explain everything.’

 

***

As they are getting ready to leave for the meeting at Wharram Percy, Remus finds Sirius in the kitchen and announces, ‘I want to call you my husband.’

 

Sirius is in the process of eating several day-old pasta out of the fridge – what a glamorous life they lead, where they never have time to make themselves food, let alone sit down and eat it – and thus has a mouthful of tomato sauce and slippery noodles. ‘All right,’ he garbles. He swallows and waves his hand with the ring. ‘You asked me before, though, remember?’

 

‘Yes, prat,’ Remus says. He steps close and looks at the noodles. ‘Are those still good?’

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘They smell ok…’

 

‘Mm,’ Remus says, putting several degrees of scepticism into a single consonant sound. ‘I mean tonight, at the meeting. I want to call you my husband.’

 

Sirius puts the pasta away, contemplating this as he licks the fork clean. They haven’t done anything official because Harry isn’t here. Where Harry is gives Sirius heart palpitations every day, but they have Kreacher keeping an eye on the kids and he knows that if something happened to him, they – along with the rest of the wizarding world – would hear via Voldemort in an instant.

 

‘What do you think?’ Remus asks, putting a hand on Sirius’s arm. ‘I’m going to be introducing you to a lot of people. Husband is – it’s better. Than fiancé.’

 

Sirius nods and ducks his head to kiss the back of Remus’s hand. ‘I agree.’ If it feels a little superstitious, he’s not going to say it. He doesn’t want either of them to die before they’re married, but he knows it’s a strong possibility that they will. He tugs Remus into his arms and kisses him, tenderly, just in case this is the last time. Just like he did last time.

 

***

There’s over a dozen shadowy figures in the church, seated, crouched, or standing – there are no pews, and, indeed, no cover at all over the nave. English Heritage has added a newish timbered roof over the transept and altar. Sirius peeks into the tower but can’t see high enough in the darkness to tell if it is covered or not. He shivers.

 

Sirius is nervous.

 

He wants these people to see him as an ally, but he knows that the distance between them is both great and unbridgeable. He doesn’t want to say anything that would reveal unintentional prejudice. He doesn’t want to patronise. He hasn’t felt this anxious about meeting someone since he’d had to meet Remus’s extended family the Christmas after they’d left school.

 

‘Listen, everyone,’ Remus says, authority in his voice. Sirius turns away from the tower and Remus gestures to him to join him. A murmur goes up as Sirius steps into the small light Remus is casting in one of his palms. ‘This is my husband,’ Remus says, looking at Sirius with glittering eyes before turning back to face the others. Sirius’s stomach swoops; it will be all right, because Remus is here. ‘Yes,’ Remus continues, ‘he’s a human. But he’s also an Animagus who can spend a full moon with us if he needs to.’

 

The murmuring intensifies. Sirius looks at them all, trying to make out their faces in the flickering shadows. They look uniformly old before their time. Remus appears to be one of the most youthful among them, although Sirius knows that he has been going through the transformations longer than most. He hopes that his own efforts have something to do with it.

 

‘Now,’ Remus says, ‘we know that you all have offered to join the Order of the Phoenix. Joseph,’ Remus gestures to the werewolf who’d greeted them at the door, ‘has vouched for you, said that you’re not loyal to Greyback.’ There’s nodding now, agreement. ‘Thank you,’ Remus says fervently. ‘We really thank you.’ He looks to Sirius, who nods quickly and smiles, trying to convey to them how welcome they are.

 

‘When we heard that the Order had a werewolf as their leader…’ Joseph says. ‘And that it was you! Well, how could we resist?’

 

Remus smiles at him and says, ‘Thank you, my friend. Truly.’ He runs through the kinds of dangers they might face and invites anyone who would like to leave to do so, with no judgment. No one takes him up on it, and Sirius watches him smile more.

 

‘What about a full moon protocol?’ a small woman with hair like Hermione’s asks. She has a musical Nigerian accent. ‘We won’t be able to go back to the den.’

 

‘No,’ Remus agrees, ‘you won’t. But Sirius and I have a place for you to go. We will also provide free wolfsbane.’

 

A startled noise rises from the crowd. Wolfsbane contains two expensive ingredients that are well beyond the incomes of most werewolves, especially in these times, when the Ministry has made it illegal for Dark Creatures to work.

 

‘It’s inhumane to make us go without,’ Remus says, very firmly. He and Sirius hold the opinion that it is a deliberate policy of the current Ministry to try to impoverish werewolves and prevent them from accessing the potion they need. Then, if they break out and kill or maim someone, well, all’s the more good for anti-werewolf sentiment. In the weeks since Scrimgeour’s death and the Death Eater’s coup, several laws have been introduced by Minister Dolores Umbridge targeting werewolves and other Dark Creatures. Sirius secretly wonders if it is because of Remus – they’ve made no secret that he’s the head of the Order and his werewolf status has been known to the Ministry since Snape revealed it at Hogwarts. They are making it more difficult for his – husband – Sirius smiles – to exist in public life. Hence the meeting in this church – the village is protected by very old magic, its church even more so, an abandoned place of worship that has been reclaimed by nature for centuries, lying as it does over an Anglo-Saxon tree temple, which in turn is over a Roman sanctuary, and, below that, in the deepest vestiges of the earth, a pagan altar. Nature magic like this thrills to werewolves and, to a lesser extent, to Animagi who have put in the work to connect to it. Sirius and Remus have plotted hundreds of sanctuaries like this in the landscape to use as escape routes or safe places, but few are large enough to accommodate so many.

 

‘Thank you,’ he hears Remus say again, and he refocuses – people are volunteering their services, making suggestions. He reaches into his pocket and draws out the small bag of keys which will give them access to the underground space they’ve made for full moons. Remus passes them out and the meeting breaks up, some people leaving quickly, others lingering, talking to each other, a few clearly wanting to talk to Remus, who is speaking with Joseph and the small Nigerian woman.

 

‘Sirius,’ he says, reaching for Sirius’s hand. Sirius moves to join him. ‘I want you to meet Joseph and Bim. They’ve been instrumental in this.’

 

‘You escaped from Azkaban,’ says Bim, smiling at Sirius. ‘Monstrous place, that.’

 

Sirius isn’t sure what to say to that, but she continues, ‘Remus knows me from a long time ago because I was studying magical prison reform at UCL.’

 

‘Bim is a recent werewolf,’ Remus explains. ‘Greyback.’

 

‘I’m…’ Sirius is unsure what to say. Sorry? Is that patronising? ‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’

 

She shrugs. ‘It is what it is. I think I was targeted for my work, and I don’t regret that.’ She smiles sardonically. ‘And you know, I’ve been calling for getting Dementors out of Azkaban for twenty years. They finally listened to me!’

 

Sirius laughs, startled. ‘Must have been your influence.’

 

‘And Joseph,’ Remus says, ‘well, he’s been an excellent resource in the London werewolf den.’

 

‘I’d appreciate it if you’d just call me your friend,’ Joseph says playfully, extending his hand to Sirius. ‘Lovely to finally meet the mystery man who’s kept Remus from joining the den all these years.’

 

Sirius glances at Remus; is that what he’s done? He shakes Joseph’s hand warmly and says, ‘Any friend of Remus’s is mine as well.’

 

‘Let’s get dinner,’ Remus says to the three of them, glancing over at the people waiting to speak with him. ‘Sirius, will you figure that out?’ He leaves them and moves towards the others.

 

‘So,’ Sirius says, grinning at Joseph and Bim, ‘let’s get dinner.’

 

Bim bursts into raucous laughter. ‘Helpful, isn’t he?’ 

 

They decide on Whitby; it’s close-ish and it’s a nice enough night that everyone wants to sit along the water. They’re in no danger in a place unlikely to be frequented by Ministry officials. They eat fish and chips and watch boats lit with strings of fairy lights ply the River Esk. Remus sits beside Sirius, talking animatedly, looking happier than Sirius has seen him since Fleur and Bill’s wedding.

 

‘It’s so good to have you all meet,’ he says. ‘The two halves of my life.’

 

‘We’re luckier than most werewolves to have been trained as wizards before we were bitten,’ Joseph says to Sirius. ‘A lot never got the training because they were bitten too young.’

 

‘We need to change that,’ Sirius says fiercely, and the other three laugh, and smile, and he wonders if he’s gotten it wrong. Remus might be happy to have these two halves together, but Sirius feels isolated in the face of their shared experience. This is something about Remus that he’ll never fully know. A wave of melancholy washes over him and lingers through the rest of dinner.

 

After Bim and Joseph say their goodbyes and Apparate – carefully – Remus turns to Sirius and takes his hand.

 

‘Fancy a walk along the beach?’ he asks. ‘It’s such a nice night, especially for October.’

 

It truly is, and after years of Dementor-darkness too. Sirius can’t say no. They walk up the pier and past the bandstand, onto the wide beach. The tide is out, so the beach extends into the distance, its end unseen in the dark, although they can hear the sea somewhere not too far. The cliff rises behind them as they walk, hand in hand, their eyes adjusting to the very dim light from the lights of houses and hotels perched atop it. They are alone despite the fine evening.

 

‘That went well, I think?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees. ‘We’ve added a lot of good fighters, and we’ve done some good for them too.’

 

‘They looked rough,’ Sirius says cautiously. ‘I wasn’t expecting Umbridge’s laws to have had such an effect so fast.’

 

‘Most of them have been underemployed for years,’ Remus says. ‘Sure, the laws are stricter now – but they haven’t allowed full working rights in what, almost two and a half years?’

 

‘I guess us paying them is illegal,’ Sirius realises. ‘Drat.’

 

‘Terrible,’ Remus says, shaking his head. ‘Us, breaking the law?’

 

‘The bigoted, unjust law? The one that keeps people who could be doing a lot of good from having the chance?’ Remus looks at him, smiling, and Sirius adds quickly, ‘Don’t thank me for getting that. That isn’t something I should be thanked for thinking.’

 

‘Can I thank you for other things?’

 

‘If this is about my dick –‘

 

Remus rolls his eyes and kisses him. ‘Shut up.’

 

‘So it was. And you’re mad that I guessed it.’

 

‘Do you ever shut up?’

 

‘Not when you ask me to.’

 

‘Don’t make me re-enact that movie scene.’

 

Sirius leans back, frowning. ‘Which one?’

 

‘The one with the beach.’

 

‘And the killer birds?’ Sirius’s grasp of movies is not strong.

 

‘The what?’ Whereas Remus used to watch them with his mum after full moons.

 

‘Isn’t there a movie with a beach and killer birds?’

 

‘I was thinking of the one where two people wind up making love in the sand,’ Remus says, voice dipping as he nuzzles up to Sirius’s neck.

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, somewhat stupidly, because he’s thinking with the aforementioned organ now and what little movie knowledge he possesses has flown out of his mind – much like a flock of killer birds. He puts his hands on both sides of Remus’s face and kisses him. ‘Tell me my lines.’ Remus’s hands are drifting down his back, pressing up under his jumper, stroking his skin. ‘What kind of movie are we in?’

 

‘Hmm,’ Remus says, now sucking on his earlobe. ‘I’m thinking a World War II romance.’ He runs his tongue up the curve of Sirius’s ear and Sirius presses his hardening cock into Remus’s hip.

 

‘Perfect,’ he says, a little breathless. ‘You’ll be the RAF pilot who’s just been shot down. You were bombing Berlin. I was on the beach and I saw you crash.’

 

‘My plane,’ Remus gasps, in a pretty good imitation of a faux-old-timey movie accent. ‘The Germans shot it down!’

 

‘Germans,’ Sirius gasps, in his own imitation of the accent, which is not nearly as good in his opinion. ‘You were lucky to make it here!’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees, now fluttering his eyes exaggeratedly at Sirius. ‘So lucky to have crash landed on this beach with you… you…’

 

‘Fisherman,’ Sirius says quickly, putting a dramatic hand over Remus’s heart. ‘I was… fishing. And also spotting planes. When I saw you, an actual angel, fall from the sky.’

 

‘I could have landed anywhere,’ Remus says, sliding his hands down the back of Sirius’s trousers and cupping his ass. ‘On any beach in the world. But I landed here with you.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius agrees, ‘any beach within flight range of Berlin.’ He runs his hands down Remus’s sides, up under his clothing, feeling his chest carefully. ‘Did you sustain any injuries? Are you burned?’

 

‘Please check,’ Remus says, before dissolving into laughter, pressing his face into Sirius’s neck.

 

Sirius, manfully attempting to maintain a stiff upper lip, says, ‘Let me just remove your clothes.’

 

‘Oh my,’ Remus manages to gasp, ‘are you a fisherman and a plane spotter and a doctor?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, very solemnly. ‘And I say, if Hitler has harmed one hair on your body, then I’ll go kill him myself.’

 

Remus is now laughing so hard he’s nearly vibrating, but he’s laughing and kissing Sirius, who kisses him back, putting some passion into it. ‘Imagine the movie version of our lives,’ Remus says in his normal voice, looking at Sirius from under his lashes. ‘Someone deadly handsome, playing you.’ He kisses Sirius again. ‘They’ll be filming him on this beach and instead of Hitler, he’ll be threatening Voldemort-‘

 

There’s a low whump as the air is suddenly charged with magic.

 

Remus and Sirius freeze. ‘Fuck,’ Sirius says, as Remus says, sounding stunned, ‘They finally put a trace on it.’

 

‘Yes we did,’ says Bellatrix, alarmingly near. Now Sirius and Remus have their wands out, their backs to each other, pure instinct at this point. Sirius sees his cousin, standing on the beach not ten feet away, her wand raised. ‘Darling cousin,’ she calls in a sickly-sweet voice. ‘Every time I see the two of you, I’m shocked all over again.’

 

‘Don’t,’ Remus mutters to Sirius. ‘There’ll be others. Keep an eye out.’

 

‘Shocked at our devilish good looks?’ Sirius yells at her. His heart is pounding wildly.

 

‘Shocked that you would choose that,’ she gestures at Remus with her wand, leaving a sizzling line in the air where it moves, ‘to end the family line.’

 

Sirius laughs, wildly. ‘What’s your husband’s name? Rudolph the Red-Dicked Reindeer? I never can remember, he looks like a badger fucked-‘

 

‘Sirius, for fuck’s sake,’ Remus says quietly, as Bellatrix aims at them with something red – Cruciatus, if Sirius had to guess. They both shield, but she’s lazy with it, firing a few more but barely moving her wand arm. The cat toying with its prey.

 

‘Who else is here?’ Remus calls to her.

 

‘Sirius, be a dear and remind your beast that I don’t speak to werewolves?’ Another red flash, this one faster; Remus’s shield rebounds slightly and Sirius can smell the ozone. He bolsters it with his own shield charm. He’s furious enough that he’s going to get sloppy if he’s not careful.

 

‘There must be more,’ Remus says. ‘They know that people who say his name are high value targets. They wouldn’t just send out Bellatrix.’

 

‘On the cliff,’ Sirius realises as he says it, catching the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

 

‘Cover me,’ Remus says, and draws back his wand, swooping it in a tight circle at his chest as the Death Eater on the cliff makes a dive at them. Whoever it is is suddenly caught as if by enormous pincers; Remus pulls his wand back to his shoulder and makes a sharp, short, pressing motion with his hand, sending the Death Eater flying straight out to sea, zooming over the water, dwindling rapidly in size. ‘Hopefully he can’t swim,’ Remus mutters, as Sirius holds tightly to his shield. Bellatrix shrieks and runs at them; Sirius spins in place, drawing up a column of sand and flinging it at her hard enough to strip away skin; she disappears.

 

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Remus says in a pleasant-enough voice. ‘I have a feeling she’ll be-‘

 

She drops between them, wand at the ready and aimed at Remus. He nearly takes a Killing Curse to the face, but Sirius, grimly ready, delivers a spell that smacks it to the side just in time. It rebounds and shatters the edge of the cliff. With a sudden startling physical violence, the land above it starts to slide. Sirius yells and shoves Bellatrix forward as the cliff’s collapse proceeds, taking with it what appears to be a large Victorian house that rips off the top of the cliff with a horrific metal tearing sound. Remus’s hand closes on Sirius’s and he Apparates.

 

They are in a field covered in low, earthen mounds. Sirius sees a shape in the distance and realises: it is the crumbling church tower. They are in Wharram Percy again. Remus starts running towards it – ‘She’ll follow us!’ and Sirius chases after him, tripping and stumbling over the uneven ground in the dark. He hears the sound of Bellatrix Apparating as he falls through the empty church doorway. Remus flings out an arm and the magical barrier flies inward from every edge of the doorframe, a silvery translucent gateway that clangs like a church bell as it seals in the centre. Remus grabs Sirius’s shoulder and drags him backwards into the main part of the church. Inside the stone walls, the place thrums with so much magical power that the hair on Sirius’s neck and arms tingles. He touches a wall and it seethes and crackles, the stone seeming to writhe.

 

‘It’s not her,’ Remus says suddenly. He’s standing alert at a window and now he spins around and stares at Sirius, eyes wide. ‘It’s not Bellatrix.’

 

‘Is it him?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘It’s a giantess.’

 

There’s a horrible noise, the scraping of stone and metal and cracking of wood like firecrackers. The newly built roof over the altar suddenly has a gaping hole in it, and a hand with fingers the size of Sirius’s torso is reaching down into it.

 

‘Where is Bellatrix?’ Sirius demands. ‘She won’t have left. She’s trying to draw us out. She’s-‘

 

‘Clever, cousin,’ she says from just outside the doorway’s magical barrier. ‘Let me in.’

 

Remus draws his hands together, holding his wand between them. Sirius knows this piece of nature magic: the tree. There’s a rumble, and then overhead a shadow swings as the largest tree on the hillside behind the church rips out its roots and stretches forward, blocking the fingers of the giantess from hitting them. The branch that absorbs the blow shudders and cracks. Sirius grabs for Remus as the tree drops several heavy branches down in front of Bellatrix, imprisoning her temporarily. It won’t be able to kill her, but if it can prevent her from following them for just a few seconds, she’ll lose the trace – she’s screaming – it’s Sirius’s turn to Apparate, and he drops them into the crypt of St Paul’s, all stillness and lying dust and old bones – they wait beside a magnificent tomb, feeling the dead waiting too, for something much more distant – Bellatrix does not appear. They Apparate again, once more to be safe, to a tiny island near Skye where there’s a hidden shrine to the trees. Remus kneels before it, paying his respects, while Sirius stands with his hand on Remus’s shoulder.

 

‘I’m sorry,’ Remus whispers, ‘about that beautiful tree.’ He sounds shattered. Sirius is furious: at Bellatrix, at the war, at their ruined night, just when Remus had been happy.

 

‘Let’s go home,’ he says. He wants to get Remus back to their safe haven; he knows, logically, that they would have known if Bellatrix had followed them to St Paul’s, that she doesn’t know they’re here, but he still feels twitchy and exposed even in this dense thicket. ‘Remus. Let’s go.’

 

Remus pushes himself to his feet. ‘I have to go back to Whitby,’ he says quietly. ‘That house on the cliffside –‘

 

‘That’s the Ministry’s job,’ Sirius snaps.

 

‘You think they’ll do it?’ Remus asks. He sounds utterly hopeless.

 

‘What can we do?’

 

‘See if everyone is all right, see if we can help modify memories…’

 

‘Moony,’ Sirius says, taking Remus’s hands. ‘There’s nothing we can do. It’s all over.’

 

‘But if the Muggles-‘

 

‘That’s how I know the Ministry will do it,’ Sirius says. ‘They’re more invested in secrecy than ever.’

 

‘Or they’ll kill any witnesses.’

 

‘And if you go there, and the Ministry is there, they could arrest you.’

 

Remus rolls his eyes. ‘And put me where? Azkaban? There’s no guards.’

 

‘Remus,’ Sirius says, suddenly panicked, ‘don’t. They’ll turn you over to-‘

 

‘Don’t say his name,’ Remus says quickly.

 

‘Remus,’ he’s near tears now, stupidly, ‘I won’t let you go to Azkaban, I don’t care if there’s no Dementors-‘

 

‘Padfoot, love, I’m sorry,’ Remus says, and Sirius can tell that he understands. ‘I was being flippant and I shouldn’t have been.’

 

‘Please,’ Sirius says. ‘Let’s go home.’ He can see that Remus is still undecided, so he adds, ‘Or you go home, and I’ll go. No one’s out to arrest me.’

 

Remus sighs. ‘Will you just – just go check. But be careful, Sirius, please.’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, infinitely relieved. ‘You go home. I’ll be there very soon.’

 

It doesn’t take long; he finds the Muggle police guarding a cordoned-off area and plays a concerned tourist well enough to find out that the homeowners had been out to dinner and that cliffside erosion is a real concern of the Environmental Agency, who are sending a representative to do an assessment first thing in the morning. There’s no sign that anyone from the Ministry has been there – but, luckily, no sign that they needed to be. Sirius blesses Muggles for their explanations and bureaucracy and Apparates carefully and in several steps to the valley, then walks quickly home through the dark.

 

Remus is waiting for him in the garden, wrapped in a wool blanket and shivering. He envelops Sirius in the blanket and holds onto him while Sirius tells him what he learned.

 

‘Thank you.’

 

‘You were right to have one of us check,’ Sirius says, a little apology. ‘I’m glad I did.’

 

Inside, Remus slams down two teacups – they’re both too full of adrenaline to sleep, despite it being well after midnight – and says, ‘I don’t know how you ever dealt with being a fugitive. I’m ready to tear my hair out and it’s been, what, two months?’

 

Sirius pushes himself up onto the counter, crossing his legs, and smiles joylessly. ‘I’d like to say you get used to it, but…’ He raises his eyebrows at Remus. ‘At least you like spending time in your parents’ house.’

 

Remus laughs, genuinely Sirius thinks. Point one to him. But Remus’s smile slides off his face in an instant and he says, ‘I’ve got some bad news.’

 

Sirius goes cold. ‘What?’

 

‘Andromeda and Ted had to flee.’

 

‘Who did you hear it from? Tonks?’

 

Remus nods. ‘She’s in the map room,’ he says. ‘She thinks they’ll make their way here in the next few days, but they’re moving around a lot to keep from being tracked.’

 

Sirius pushes his hair out of his eyes. ‘What happened to them?’

 

Remus sighs. ‘It seems that the rumours we’ve been hearing are true. The Death Eaters are starting to employ people to find Halfbloods and Muggleborns. Tonks thinks they’re being offered bounties.’

 

‘Fuck,’ Sirius says, putting his head in his hands. Remus puts a cup of tea beside him wordlessly and he picks it up, cupping his hands around its smooth ceramic body for warmth. ‘What can we do?’

 

‘I’m not sure,’ Remus says. ‘I’m anxious to speak with them when they arrive.’

 

‘I bet Bellatrix targeted them first,’ Sirius mutters.

 

‘She’s, uh.’ Sirius looks up and Remus is grinning. ‘She’s really something. She really hates me.’

 

‘Honour of the family and all that,’ Sirius says wearily. ‘It’s my fault.’

 

‘I wouldn’t call it your fault,’ Remus says. ‘Anyway, it’s nice to have a nemesis, I suppose. Gives me a reason to get up in the morning. But she’s very good at wandwork.’

 

‘She’s fast,’ Sirius says. ‘I mean, you know, she almost killed me a year and a half ago.’

 

‘How could I forget,’ Remus says with a sardonic smile. ‘But she’s also so powerful. Those Cruciatus curses she was just firing off – I’ve never used Cruciatus but I have used Imperius and it took a tremendous amount of effort for me to use that spell even once.’

 

‘She’s had a lot of practice,’ Sirius says. He remembers Remus using Imperius on a particularly dozy Death Eater who had been targeting Lily; Remus ultimately managed to convince him to walk into a pantry and lock himself there. Afterwards, Remus had fretted for days over his use of an Unforgivable, no matter how many times Sirius and Lily had pointed out that he’d saved Lily’s life. ‘I think she also has, well, the strength of her convictions.’

 

In bed early that morning, with Remus sleeping beside him, breathing heavily against his shoulder, Sirius thinks: it wasn’t always like this.

 

That melancholy from before is back, but it’s become more generalised. It’s unspoken between them that Halloween, and its attendant anniversary, is coming in just a few days.

 

Ted and Andromeda had made it to headquarters an hour ago. They’re currently sleeping in the guest room. ‘You’re family,’ Remus had insisted when they’d made moves to go to the barn. Andromeda is shaken, Ted resigned. They’re the first refugees, but with Kreacher reporting that the kids haven’t even managed to acquire the horcrux yet, let alone destroy it, Sirius knows there will be more.

 

All the lives wasted, the werewolves scrambling just to feed themselves, the people killed, the people who are now living their lives in fear – it feels hopeless. It’s all potential lost, time spent on fighting or just surviving that should have been spent on achieving great things – or on living, without fear, happy.

 

He rolls over, pulls Remus more tightly against himself, and thinks, Still, all we can do is go forward.

 

The cottage and barn become a refugee camp quickly; most of the Order members lose their homes and are forced into hiding. Some go to the Burrow, which has strong protections that Albus put in place years ago so Harry could visit it at holidays, but most wind up here, at Order headquarters, and even those who are at the Burrow spend most of their time here as well. Remus tells them that Harry, Ron, and Hermione are on a mission and that their job is to buy them more time, but plenty of other missions arise too.

 

One that begins to occupy a tremendous amount of time and manpower comes to their attention in mid-October, when Arthur bursts into the cottage and informs them that the Ministry has stopped modifying Muggle memories.

 

‘They’re just – they’re just – they’re disappearing them,’ he says, horrified. ‘Some they kill. Some they take – somewhere.’ A whole host of malevolent thoughts blooms in Sirius’s mind: to feed that snake of Voldemort’s, to do experiments upon, to give Bellatrix something to toy with when she’s bored…

 

‘After there’s an attack or magical incident, you mean?’ Remus asks, staring at Arthur over the edge of the Daily Prophet.

 

Arthur nods and swallows. ‘We’ve got to do something.’

 

Remus puts down the paper. Sirius wants to scream, stop asking him for all the answers. Remus looks at him, perhaps sensing it, and quirks his lower lip – a classic Remus-acknowledges-but-can’t-commiserate-right-now expression – before saying, ‘Well, we’ll see if we can send some of our people out to catch them before the Ministry does.’ He raises his eyebrows at Arthur. ‘Can you find out how they know when to modify memories?’

 

‘Oh yes,’ Arthur says. ‘That’s related to my office. It must come through our secretary, he passes on incidents related to objects to us, and other incidents to the Aurors.’

 

‘Perfect,’ Remus says. ‘See if you can convince him to give you all of the incidents.’

 

Arthur has worked with the man for two decades, and convinces him of it easily. He seems to be no fan of the remaining Aurors, having been friends with Kingsley, Tonks, and Moody. At the next Order meeting, they go over it: Arthur will communicate with Molly, who will pass it on to the Order – hopefully no one will find it strange if Arthur is owling his wife a bit more than he usually does.

 

‘Yes, but won’t it be rather suspicious when we beat the Ministry to an incident?’ Sirius asks witheringly. This plan strikes him as needlessly risky, not to mention the part where he’s constantly irritated by having so many people invading their home.

 

‘Indeed,’ Remus says. He smiles at Sirius, mischievous, which is the last emotion Sirius expected here. ‘We shall have to treat it like the Enigma.’

 

‘What’s that?’ Andromeda asks.

 

‘It was the device that German Muggles used to encrypt their communications during the Second World War,’ Ted says. ‘But I’m not sure how it follows…?’ He looks at Remus expectantly.

 

‘The Allies decoded the encryption fairly early on in the war,’ Remus explains. Sirius can see him warming to a lecture and can’t decide if he loves him or hates him more. ‘And they used it to decode Nazi military orders. But they had a dilemma – if they were obviously showing up before a planned attack, then the Nazis would know that they had broken their code. So they had to make it seem like they were discovering these planned attacks through some other means – sending over reconnaissance aircraft to be deliberately seen by the enemy, that kind of thing.’

 

‘So what’s our version of that?’ Arthur asks.

 

Remus looks at Sirius, his facial expression a dare to string along the prank. ‘The map,’ Sirius suggests. ‘We make them believe that we can see everything happening with it.’ He pauses, thinking, and adds, ‘We’ll have to get them to intercept something from us that discusses its properties. I’ll fake a letter.’ He raises his eyebrows at Remus: well?

 

‘That’s a good idea,’ Remus says.

 

‘You’re determined to do this?’ Sirius asks. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him – they might be thinking it, but he’s noticed recently that only he ever questions Remus on anything more than logistics in meetings now.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says. ‘It’s what the Order is for. We’re doing what the Ministry won’t do. And it’s a good reminder of what we’re fighting for.’

 

‘How did you know all that about Muggle history?’ Arthur asks Remus after the meeting, when he and Molly have hung back to ask for any news of Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

 

‘My mother was a Muggle,’ Remus says, and Sirius can’t help but notice that Remus’s hands are resting on the counter that she always leaned against when hosting people in her kitchen. ‘I was much closer to her side of the family than my father’s.’ He smiles. ‘And I went to Muggle primary school, since we didn’t think I’d be able to go to Hogwarts.’ He reaches out with his wand and taps the teapot. Sirius reaches for it; he loves the taste of Remus’s conjured tea.

 

‘Any news?’ Molly asks. Arthur and Molly haven’t been told about the horcruxes – Harry’s request – so Sirius and Remus have to be vague. They haven’t heard anything since the kids’ break-in at the Ministry last week, which the Prophet had covered in the most sensational and inflammatory manner possible, including suggesting that Harry had help from Dark Creatures and calling for a ban on Muggleborns like Hermione being able to use wands without a special license.

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘All we know is that they were successful in what they were attempting at the Ministry.’

 

‘And they rescued that family,’ Sirius adds. ‘The woman who was being put on trial and her husband. They sent them our way and we sent them on to France.’ That had been a strange adventure – Sirius had accompanied Ted Tonks in a hired Muggle car to the docks at Dover, putting the terrified couple and their children onto a Muggle ferry with one of Fleur’s friends, who was going to take them to her own parents’ house in the Languedoc. Fleur’s Beauxbatons connections have proved invaluable in evacuating people from the country.

 

‘Ok,’ Molly says softly. She and Arthur exchange a helpless look. Sirius reaches for the firewhisky under the sink and offers them each a dram. Molly and Arthur are nothing like James and Lily, but Sirius is unendingly grateful for their friendship through this shared, slow motion grief anyway.

 

***

Sirius gets better at modifying memories, not a skill he’s ever particularly practised. It’s difficult for him to come up with plausible scenarios about what Muggles might have been doing when the tube car they were in crumples like a tin can with magic or they witness someone flying on a broomstick, throwing daggers of ice at their family on the street. He tries to be as compassionate as he can, but he often resorts to just figuring out where the nearest A&E is, fully wiping any memories of the last few hours, and then sending the Muggle on their way to hospital.

 

Then extremely early one morning, very near to Halloween, a message comes into Order headquarters: there’s been a very large magical signal over a council estate. Sirius is next on the rota. He dresses quietly, quickly, trying not to wake Remus, who has just been through a moon. Remus does not stir, and, despite how crowded their cottage/headquarters has become, Sirius goes out into the darkness without seeing anyone else.

 

It is a wild night, and apparently so across Britain, because Sirius leaves the safety of the cottage boundary in gale force winds and arrives on the residential street in Hull where the incident has occurred in roughly the same, now with added icy rain. He pulls his cloak tightly around himself and walks down the centre of the street, looking for signs of violence. If there was any fire, the rain has put it out, but magical explosions don’t always have fire as a secondary signature.

 

He walks up and down the street twice before he resorts to looking for magical traces, and then he finds it immediately, in a lot he’d passed by and believed abandoned. Massive quantities of ivy and ferns explode outward from it – a strange signature for Death Eaters, who usually don’t perform any magic that leads to an abundance of life – but as soon as he approaches and one of the plants hisses he thinks, resignedly, oh, all right.

 

Green arms grasp and bite at him as he presses through, protected by a shield charm, though some of the nettles manage to crawl under it and wend into his clothing, scraping his skin and leaving a stinging rash. He’s not sure if there is a centre or if he’ll just come out the other side into someone’s back garden but the plants seem to grow denser, and more aggressive, if he pushes in one direction, so he heads that way.

 

Then he hears a baby crying.

 

Memories of Halloween 1981 are never far from the surface for Sirius, especially not in the autumn, and the sound transports him instantly to that night, specifically to the first sound he’d heard when he’d touched down the wheels of his motorcycle: Harry, screaming, not any of the cries Sirius had known – hungry, want mum or dad, fell and hurt something – but much, much worse.

 

This baby is crying like that.

 

He pushes forward, ignoring the stinging and cutting, ignoring that his feet seem to have become slippery inside his shoes, until he shoves his way through the plants and finds the remains of a building.

 

It has completely collapsed inward on itself, leaving behind a pile of moss and fungus, with several malevolent, huge mushrooms erupted from its surface. The baby is crying from somewhere inside of there. Sirius has to let down his shield charm to blast through it and does so without a thought. He sees the parents first – they are dead. And there, protected by an armchair flipped onto its side, is a crying child – a little older than he’d originally thought, maybe a bit over a year old (just like Harry was), dressed in pink pyjamas that are covered in soot and mud. Sirius stops.

 

This seems like a trap.

 

Very, very much like a trap.

 

The little girl looks up at him, her eyes enormous with fear. Fuck it, he thinks, and lunges forward, grabbing her as he immediately Apparates. He’ll have to come back later, he’ll have to do something about this building that some asshole has transformed into a malevolent jungle, but for now, he holds onto the girl very tightly, anticipating an ambush at any moment. They arrive in the St Paul’s crypt. Something about being inside of London’s most magical space makes Sirius feel safe. London is his city, always has been, since he was a little boy running away from home and exploring it every other day.

 

The little girl is staring at him, apparently so astonished that she has forgotten to cry. Sirius brushes her matted hair away from her forehead and asks, ‘Are you ok?’ Her face starts to crumple again, so he conjures a little heatless flame to distract her while he waits. Her eyes go wide and she starts putting her hand into it, seemingly fascinated by the way it passes easily through it. Sirius wonders if he’s teaching her some terrible lesson about normal fire.

 

After a minute, when no one else appears, he Apparates again, this time to the magical boundary, presses his way inside, and runs with her to the cottage. He bursts through the door and finds nearly twelve people sitting and standing in the front room, clearly interrupted in the middle of a heated discussion.

 

They all now are staring at him.

 

‘Where’s Remus?’ he demands.

 

‘Sirius,’ says Dean Thomas, sounding deeply unnerved, ‘where did that baby come from?’

 

‘Where is Remus?’ he repeats.

 

‘Out,’ says Tonks in a voice that Sirius thinks is trying to sound placating. ‘A mission. Not sure where. We can look at the map…’ She starts to step forward, arms out, as if wanting to take the baby from him. He backs into the door. He gave Harry to Hagrid and Hagrid gave Harry to Albus who gave him to the Dursleys – that had been a mistake. He’s not going to –

 

‘Sirius,’ Molly says, suddenly appearing beside him and putting a hand gently on his arm. ‘Come on, let’s take her into the kitchen.’

 

He follows her, not looking at anyone else. She shuts the kitchen door and turns to him.

 

He’s slowly becoming aware that he’s wildly cut and bruised and his hair is completely tangled and pulled free from its tie. ‘This is why people think I’m crazy, isn’t it?’ he asks Molly grimly.

 

‘Because you saved a baby?’ Molly says, very kindly. ‘Let me –‘

 

Sirius shakes his head and holds the baby more tightly. He says, despite all appearances, not sure who exactly he’s lying to, ‘I know what I’m doing.’

 

‘Don’t crush her,’ Molly says, but she smiles. ‘She’s not crying, anyway. I’ll warm some milk.’

 

Sirius sits down at the table with the girl on his lap. She is indeed not crying. She’s grasped a lock of his hair in one of her chubby hands and is tugging on it. It hurts. The weight of the early morning is all starting to fall on him now. Details are blending together, so that details from Godric’s Hollow supersede ones from just an hour before. Had the girl’s father been wearing glasses? He thinks so. James’s glasses had come off, they were on the floor beside him, one lens crushed, like someone had stepped on it…

 

Molly sits down across from him and pushes a cup of tea towards him. She has another cup full of milk; as he watches, feeling dull, unable to really understand what she’s doing, she dips the corner of a clean tea towel into the cup and offers it to him. ‘We don’t have a bottle and I don’t know how she is with drinking from anything else,’ she says, apologetically. ‘She can suck on this though.’

 

Sirius takes the cloth from her and shows it to the little girl, who happily puts it in her mouth. ‘Molly,’ he says, feeling out of control, ‘I kidnapped a baby.’

 

‘Where are her parents?’ Molly asks softly. Sirius shakes his head, unable to say it. He’d been unable to tell Hagrid too. About James and Lily. Molly puts a hand over her mouth. ‘Death Eaters?’

 

‘It felt like a trap,’ Sirius whispers. He wants Remus to be there desperately. Remus would understand without explanation.

 

‘Why?’

 

Sirius hesitates. The little girl takes another dip of the milk from him, cooing. He thinks, she already doesn’t remember, and hopes it’s true. ‘It felt like a trap set up for me.’ He takes a deep, shaky breath. ‘Molly, I had to take her. I couldn’t leave her. But what if she’s – what if she leads them to us?’

 

‘Sirius,’ Molly says, very kindly, ‘why would this be a trap for you? Who could have known that you’d respond to it? The message came from Arthur’s secretary, and there was no way to know where in the rota we would be to send someone out.’

 

‘I don’t know,’ Sirius admits. ‘I’m crazy, Molly, I feel, just, so paranoid and panicked and…’

 

‘I don’t think you’re crazy,’ Molly says, very firmly.

 

‘Everyone else does.’

 

‘They’re not in here talking to you.’ She looks into his eyes. ‘Sirius, if her parents are dead, you did the right thing. It’s miserable weather out there. She could have gotten exposure, she could have easily died before someone found her.’

 

Sirius needs Remus to be here to talk about this, and he isn’t. A dam breaks inside of him. He says, not sure if each word will make it out of his mouth, continuously surprised when one follows another, ‘The night James and Lily died, I was the first one there.’ He stares down at the table. He once pressed Remus against it, the first day they kissed. He didn’t have any idea then of the other kinds of things it would witness. ‘I had a terrible feeling all that day. I left Remus at home and went to check on Peter. He wasn’t at home and I knew immediately. I went to James and Lily’s, the whole way there knowing what I’d find, but not really knowing. I mean, I could say in my head that I knew but – it was nothing like seeing it.’ His voice is shaking; he tries to swallow the shake away but it doesn’t work. ‘I got there and I heard Harry and it wasn’t – I used to watch him a lot, and spend a lot of time with him, and I knew all his cries, but I’d never heard this one. It was so clearly wrong.’ He finally is able to look up at Molly to see if she understands. She’s looking at him, tears rolling silently down her cheeks. The baby is drowsing against his shoulder now; Molly reaches for his free hand and grasps it where it rests on the table. He squeezes hers back, holding on for dear life. ‘I held him forever, it felt like. With James and Lily there.’ He swallows again and grips her hand more tightly still. ‘Hagrid came and said Albus wanted Harry. I gave him up. Albus gave him to those awful people, Molly, I gave him up and-‘

 

The kitchen door flies open and Remus enters, white faced and soaking wet. ‘Sirius,’ he says, and Molly lets go of his hand so he can reach for Remus’s. Remus wraps him in his arms, lets Sirius press his face into his stomach, close to sobbing against Remus’s drenched robes. Remus has one hand in Sirius’s hair and with the other soothes the little girl so she stays asleep. Sirius suspects he’s using the same spell on them both.

 

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Molly says, suddenly, fiercely, though she sounds nasal from crying. ‘Sirius, you can’t blame yourself for Albus taking Harry.’

 

‘I should have been there for him,’ Sirius says, and Remus’s hand clenches in his hair. ‘I didn’t know what – what they’d be like. I thought Albus might give him to Remus, I thought he’d at least ensure any family he went to was all right, but Harry was my responsibility and I gave him up and I couldn’t leave her there, I’m so sorry if it was a trap...’

 

‘If it is, we’ll deal with it when it comes,’ Remus says. His voice is shaking too. ‘Let me take her to Muggle child services. She shouldn’t be here with us.’

 

Sirius clings onto him with his free arm and tries not to crush her. He remembers Harry as a baby so strongly that it feels like time has no meaning at all. ‘Ok,’ he whispers, letting Remus reach down and take her into his arms.

 

She awakens and stares up at him and he bobbles her playfully, smiling and saying, ‘I’m going to take you somewhere nice.’ He looks not at Sirius, but at Molly. ‘Stay with him,’ he says, all playfulness gone. ‘I’ll be back very soon.’ Once upon a time, Sirius would have thought, he thinks I need to be taken care of; now he hears the compassion in the request and meets Remus’s eyes. ‘You did the right thing,’ Remus says, and then he leaves. Sirius slumps into his seat, utterly drained. He feels like he ought to be embarrassed, but he can’t really be arsed.

 

‘Maybe it was a trap,’ Molly says very quietly. ‘It seems like – it seems like something Bellatrix would do to you.’ Sirius looks up at her and raises his eyebrows. ‘Andromeda told me about how she’s been after you two,’ she says.

 

‘You were right though,’ Sirius says. ‘How would anyone know I would be the one…’ His brain grinds back into gear, very reluctantly. He taps the cup of tea with his wand and watches steam rise from it as it warms. ‘A spy?’ he asks.

 

Molly shakes her head. ‘I don’t know.’

 

Sirius takes a sip of the tea. Whether psychosomatic or not, he can feel its warmth and chemicals spreading out through his body, wiping away the cobwebs of memory, clarifying what had happened. ‘Imperius curse, maybe.’ He gives her a bleak look. ‘Fuck.’

 

She nods, biting her lip. ‘Do you want some eggs?’

 

He cocks his head at her, then can’t help but smile. ‘Eat, it’ll make you feel better?’

 

‘I was going to say we all turn into our parents,’ Molly says, smiling back, ‘but that seems spectacularly wrong in your case.’

 

Sirius barks a single laugh. ‘Maybe. My mother’s mental health was…’

 

‘Oh shush,’ Molly says. ‘I’m making eggs.’

 

‘Thanks.’ He hesitates. ‘You don’t have to wait here with me, you know.’

 

‘It’s better than being out there.’

 

He can hear that whatever the discussion is, it’s being continued with great passion. ‘What are they arguing about?’

 

‘They think that with all these people staying here, the cottage is going to be compromised as a headquarters.’

 

‘We made Grimmauld work.’

 

Molly nods. ‘We did,’ she agrees. ‘But there were fewer of us, and most of us didn’t live there full time.’

 

Sirius and Remus have been carefully avoiding this discussion. The cottage means a lot to both of them, and losing it is difficult to contemplate. ‘What do you think?’

 

Molly shakes her head. ‘I think no matter how much we argue about it, it’s not going to come to a good solution. We’ll eventually be found out.’ She looks directly at him. ‘Severus knows where it is, for example.’

 

‘Yeah,’ Sirius agrees. ‘So does Peter.’

 

Molly shrugs. ‘So. Seems like a lot of pointless arguing.’ She turns to the stove.

 

Sirius sits, sipping his tea, dwelling. Where is Remus? Is the little girl all right? Why isn’t Remus back yet? Will they take good care of her, whoever they are? Is Remus all right? Did something happen?

 

‘Sirius,’ Molly says, handing him a plate of two very nice-looking eggs on toast that his mind hadn’t even bothered to alert him was being toasted, ‘I’m going to pry right now, so just tell me to shut up if you don’t want to talk about it.’

 

Sirius gives her an exaggeratedly cautious look. There’s a lightness in her tone that he senses is warning of an incoming conversational shift – she wants to take his mind off the present. Little does she know that he can worry in mono and stereo – and however many other channels his brain needs to operate to keep one of them on a full-time schedule of concern. ‘All right…’

 

‘Are you and Remus thinking about having children?’

 

Sirius wants to guffaw. He and Remus have never been big on relationship discussions but the idea of having the luxury of such a notion… the stable future it implies…

 

‘It’s just,’ Molly says, perhaps sensing some of his thought process, ‘you were so good with the baby. Completely natural with her. You reminded me of Arthur!’

 

Sirius finds it hard to believe that anything about him could ever remind her of Arthur, but he’s touched all the same. He quite likes children. There’s just – there’s no way. ‘We haven’t discussed it.’

 

‘Not the same thing,’ Molly says, and smiles at whatever his face does in reaction. ‘Listen, please tell me to stop if you don’t want to talk about it.’

 

‘No,’ Sirius says. ‘I…’ He hesitates, and then admits something to her that he’s only recently grown up enough to admit to himself. ‘When James and Lily had Harry, I was jealous of them. They could get married, they could have a baby…’ Molly’s face is so sympathetic that it urges him on, ‘It was stupid and selfish of me. I tried to make up for it by being perfect with Harry. And I really loved getting to take care of him.’ He smiles at her. ‘The first time they left him with me – James was taking the piss, saying I was going to drop him off my motorcycle, or leave him on a pub floor somewhere. But Lily didn’t say a word about it, she just handed him to me, kissed him goodbye, and walked out the door.’

 

Molly is smiling back at him, big and genuine. ‘You know, Sirius, I have to apologise to you. We used to fight so much about how best to take care of him…’ She shakes her head. ‘I kept thinking you’d have no idea what to do, and you’d been out of his life for so long – but you understood him in a way I never will. You knew what he needed. It didn’t matter how long you’d been gone, or how little time you got to spend together.’

 

Sirius takes a deep breath. Rather than get emotional, he says, ‘I’m sorry, too, Molly. I can be – I can be a difficult person. I know it. You only had his best interests at heart.’

 

She waves a hand. ‘Water under the bridge.’

 

Sirius glances out the window, hoping he’ll see Remus’s return, but he sees nothing except rain pelting the thick glass. ‘We’ve got Harry, anyway,’ he says and gives her a little smile.

 

Remus returns a few minutes later, entering via the exterior kitchen door and looking extremely grim. Sirius starts to rise and Remus holds up a hand. ‘Does anyone adhere to the passcodes anymore?’ he asks, and it is unclear if he’s angry or resigned. ‘Padfoot?’

 

‘Of course I do, Moony,’ Sirius says, though secretly he’s certain that he would instantly know a false Remus with no problem.

 

‘Ron lost two points on his final exam in your class,’ Molly says quickly, ‘and Ginny got full marks.’

 

Remus nods and pulls out a chair, then slumps into it and puts a hand to the bridge of his nose. Sirius thinks, headache again and reaches for the box of Neurofen but Remus waves him off. ‘She’s going to be well taken care of,’ he says. ‘I went by the council estate, though, and I’m very concerned with what I’ve found.’

 

‘What?’ Sirius asks, heart starting to pound.

 

Remus reaches into his robes and withdraws the burnt remains of an envelope, placing it on the table ‘She left this for you. Bellatrix. It lit on fire when I touched it.’

 

Sirius flips it over and can just make out his name. ‘What did it say?’

 

‘That we’ve been very clever, but she’s cleverer. She says she knows our movements, and that she knew you would be the one to come.’

 

‘And she left a baby with murdered parents in a ruined house for me,’ Sirius says, managing to read the last line of the ruined letter, which says, ‘Happy Halloween’. ‘What a delight she is. How thoughtful.’ He stops, frozen by the thought: ‘It’s my fault that she did that, it’s-‘

 

‘She would have found some other excuse to commit mayhem,’ Remus snaps. ‘How does she know our movements? Are we compromised? Is it a spy? Nothing can get in the boundary that we haven’t approved, not even a rat, not even that particular rat…’

 

‘The rota’s only available here, right?’ Molly asks, sounding frightened. ‘So it has to be someone here.’

 

‘We’re not going to do a rota anymore,’ Remus says. ‘I’ll do all the assigning myself. That’s step one.’

 

‘In the middle of the night?’ Sirius demands. ‘Remus-‘

 

‘Wake me up, I don’t bloody care, I’m not going to send anyone out to be toyed with by that – that-‘

 

‘But if they’re here,’ Molly interjects, ‘then we need to stop using this as headquarters. And we don’t – we don’t know who we can tell, if we tell everyone there’s a new headquarters, they’ll just move on to that one…’

 

‘Last time there was a spy,’ Sirius says very quietly, ‘we tried to eliminate who it could be.’

 

‘It didn’t work,’ Remus snaps.

 

‘No,’ Sirius says, ‘but we got very close.’

 

‘Sirius, you mentioned the Imperius curse,’ Molly says suddenly. ‘Earlier, remember?’

 

‘Yes…’

 

‘I don’t know the magic of Unforgivable Curses very well but is there some way to – some way to tell? Because someone under Imperius would know their passcode, but they might have some other tell, and imagine if it’s just that.’ She looks between them, beseechingly. ‘I can’t imagine that anyone here would betray us wittingly.’

 

Remus looks at Sirius. ‘Do you remember anything from Auror training…?’

 

Sirius shakes his head, thinking hard. ‘A good Imperius curse is supposed to be impossible to detect,’ he says. ‘Remember in the last war, there were people who were compromised for months. People who went to work every day, had family lives…’

 

‘Kingsley or Tonks might know more,’ Remus says. He nods at Molly. ‘It’s a good idea.’ He leans forward and picks up the tea towel Sirius had been dipping in milk for the girl. ‘Sirius, you’re got blood on your forehead. From those horrid plants, I assume?’

 

Sirius nods. ‘Don’t use that, though,’ he says, standing up. ‘I’ll go wash off in the bath.’

 

The best he can do in the bath is stand in front of the mirror and stare at himself, occasionally wiping at his face. He has a very nasty cut just back from his hairline, concealed by his hair, which has always been thickest at the top, above the temples. It is caked with blood and when he looks at his hand after touching it, there are tiny fragments of leaves that still have razor sharp edges. He eventually sits down on the floor, leans his back against the wall, and shuts his eyes.

 

***

Halloween passes in a blur of attacks and missions, which is for the best given Sirius’s emotional state – he doesn’t want any time to think.

 

Remus, Sirius, and Molly speak with Tonks and Kingsley, who know of no magical way to detect the Imperius Curse, but vow to keep an eye out for the known signs that someone is not acting of their own volition. They agree to tell no one else – they don’t want to start a panic. Sirius and Remus privately agree to keep an eye out for spies as well, but they see nothing. Remus starts gently convincing people to leave the cottage. ‘We can’t keep this a safe place for headquarters if everyone lives here long term,’ he says, very reasonably, and people start to go.

 

Sirius wakes alone on 3 November, his birthday. He steps out of his bedroom, wrapping himself in his dressing gown and feeling ancient. Thirty-eight. Fuck. It’s been nineteen years since he looked forward to a birthday; must he really endure one every 365 days? He uses the toilet and looks at himself in the mirror over the sink, cataloguing the lines at the sides of his mouth and eyes. He’s got several strands of grey hair buried within the black too. Not to mention the twinge in his lower back. Fuck. He can’t believe he escaped prison for this.

 

He manages to avoid whomever is around for Order business and steps into the kitchen, which is full of delicious smells. Remus is at the hob. He breaks into an enormous smile when he sees Sirius. ‘Happy birthday!’

 

‘Oh fuck off,’ Sirius grumbles, but he allows Remus to fold him in a hug and sniffs discreetly at his hair – it smells of bacon. ‘This reminds me of Christmas last year. Are you going to make me go on a death hike again?’

 

‘I’ve told everyone not to come by unless it’s an emergency,’ Remus says, a little quirk in his voice. ‘I thought we might have some breakfast – and then maybe some more breakfast in bed.’

 

Sirius tightens his grip on Remus’s waist. ‘You got rid of everyone,’ he says. ‘You got me the perfect gift.’

 

‘It wasn’t exactly difficult to tell what you wanted,’ Remus says sweetly, kissing Sirius’s nose. ‘You’ve been telegraphing hatred toward anyone who so much as sits on the sofa.’

 

‘This is our house,’ Sirius replies, equally sweet, ‘and you are mine, and everyone else can fuck off.’

 

‘Well they have done,’ Remus says. ‘For today.’

 

Several minutes later, the implications of this statement sink in, just as Sirius is in the middle of eating a bite of the afore-smelled delicious bacon. ‘Wait. Moony.’

 

‘Hmm?’

 

‘You told everyone to fuck off for my birthday?’ Remus nods and slight hysteria overtakes Sirius. ‘You know that every member of the bloody Order now thinks we’re having a bedroom holiday?’

 

‘So?’ Remus asks, shrugging. ‘What, were they supposed to think we don’t fuck?’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘I mean, they’ve seen you, do they think I’m a saint?’

 

‘What does that mean?’

 

‘That you’re gorgeous. And I share a bed with you.’

 

‘I don’t particularly want them to think about that, no.’ Sirius squints at him. ‘You’re the most private man in the world, and suddenly you don’t care if all of our closest friends and colleagues are thinking about our sex life?’

 

‘I used to be very private, it’s true,’ Remus says. ‘Then Severus told everyone about my lycanthropy, two years later he told everyone about our relationship, and for months I haven’t been able to move in my own house without running into someone who I’d really rather was still just an acquaintance. If everyone wants to occupy some of their mental real estate with thinking about the fact that I’ve somehow not only landed but permanently snagged the most attractive man in Britain, they’re welcome to it.’

 

‘Most attractive man in Britain,’ Sirius snorts, remembering his face in the mirror. ‘I think you’re confusing me with you?’

 

‘Not sure where the baseless flattery is going…’

 

‘You can act as modest as you want, but I’ve heard multiple women refer to you as a silver fox.’

 

‘Fox? That’s just insulting.’

 

Sirius rolls his eyes. Remus is grinning. Sirius wants this forever: banter in the kitchen, the cottage to themselves, the day stretching ahead of them with nowhere to go but their bedroom. ‘So if something happens, if someone needs you – because let’s be clear, you’re the one they’ll need-‘

 

‘Tonks will get in touch.’

 

‘You made Tonks do this?!’

 

‘She offered!’

 

Sirius starts laughing and can’t seem to stop for the rest of the morning, not even when he’s got Remus under him in the bed, not even when Remus tells him to stop laughing or he’ll make him, not even when Sirius has Remus’s cock in his mouth, not even when they’re exhausted and lying tangled in sweaty sheets, and they both keep saying nonsense things to each other. At one point they get into an extended punning session involving spell names, and Sirius laughs so hard that tears are coming out of his eyes, because these puns are just terrible and he loves Remus so much.

 

‘Are you crying?’ Remus asks, all mock horror.

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, rolling his eyes. ‘This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever cried over.’

 

‘Hmm,’ Remus says, kissing his face. ‘Is that true?’

 

‘I’m afraid to ask what the other contenders are.’

 

‘One time you cried because James tore up a picture of a dog that you drew.’

 

Sirius winces. ‘Stop it right now. It was good art. He ruined it.’

 

‘Oh, and who can forget you crying over how all the girls in second year were trying to kiss you under the mistletoe.’

 

‘They were very pushy!’

 

‘And I’m sure I’ve seen Padfoot crying about thunder.’

 

‘Thunder is terrifying. You have canine ears. You know what I mean.’

 

Late in the afternoon, they summon the strength for a walk, and sit in companionable silence on a hill overlooking the valley with a bottle of red. The cottage is somewhere down there, lost in murky magic. The valley is gorgeous and lush and green, its hill walls massive arms to encircle them. Home. Sirius leans back against Remus as they slowly pass the bottle back and forth, one of Remus’s arms wrapped around his chest.

 

‘We did this, you know,’ Remus says into the stillness of the day. Grey clouds hang overhead, obscuring the higher hills; it is not yet wet, but the air feels heavy, expectant of a downpour.

 

‘Did what?’ Sirius, tipsily drowsy, leans his head back and presses his face into the side of Remus’s neck.

 

‘We built this life,’ Remus says. He turns his head and Sirius can feel him looking down at him. ‘You and I, together.’ Remus pauses and Sirius waits. ‘Thirty-eight isn’t old,’ he finally says, ‘but it’s old enough to be able to see the emerging structure, overlaid on the foundation of what we’ve built here. We started building it, what, half our lives ago? And – and I think we shouldn’t disparage the work we’ve done, in spite of everything.’  

 

‘I would never,’ Sirius says softly, reaching up to kiss Remus’s wine-darkened mouth, ‘disparage what we’ve done together.’

Chapter 27: Sirius’s birthday, Nineteen Years Ago &, Briefly, Autumn of What Would Have Been Harry's Seventh Year

Notes:

Warning: explicit sex in this chapter. Rather a lot of it.

Also I know I have a ton of comments I need to reply to - I love you all! Thank you! I will do it soon!

Sirius decides, extravagantly, that they will go to Venice for his nineteenth birthday. When Remus protests that while he loves Sirius very much, there’s just no way he can take time out from his studies (code for: there’s no way he can afford this), Sirius ignores him, and buys him an international Floo ticket at some expense that Remus imagines as large enough to incur a life debt. The fact that Sirius seems unphased by it throws off Remus’s equilibrium further.

 

Then he discovers that werewolves require extra permission to leave the country. Without telling Sirius, he goes to the Ministry and registers; they send letters to Italy and he is denied; he goes to his university and invents a reason for going: needing to use an archive there, resources only to be found in Venice, etc.; his supervisor kindly writes him a letter without asking why he’s suddenly interested in Italian archives; and finally he receives approval only two days before he would have had to admit all this to Sirius and force him to cancel the ticket, probably losing a lot of money.

 

Eighteen-year-old Remus is full of miserable shame over the entire situation. Discriminatory actions of the state will make him alternately incandescently angry and resigned later in life, but right now, he blames himself, and chooses instead to hide it all from Sirius, lest he wake up one morning and realise what an inconvenient monster is in bed beside him.

 

Somehow in all this frantic preparation, Remus hasn’t realised that the holiday is only for Sirius and him; he’s assumed all along that James and Peter will also be going, as they have never gone anywhere without each other. The night before, as he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor looking at his meagre luggage in the sitting room of the flat they all share, Peter wanders in and asks, ‘Looking forward to your holiday?’

 

Remus blinks up at him. ‘Aren’t you?’

 

‘My holiday from Sirius ignoring the washing up? Yeah, it’s going to be excellent.’

 

‘Are you not coming?’

 

Peter gives Remus a bemused look. ‘On your romantic holiday in Venice?’

 

Remus, slightly aghast, realises that he hasn’t planned for this at all. ‘It’s romantic?’

 

‘It’s just you two, so I assume…’ Peter squints at him and then plunks down, leaning his back against the couch. ‘I think Sirius feels some pressure to not be romantic in the flat,’ he says, which Remus thinks is true. But Remus isn’t here all that often – he’s matriculated at Oxford, and stays there during most weeks as the residency requirements of the university demand, only coming to the flat at weekends or for notable events because of the restrictions on using the Floo Network due to Death Eater attacks. When Remus does come, he and Sirius have an undiscussed agreement that around James and Peter, they are essentially just friends – friends who will disappear into Sirius’s bedroom and put up several strong silencing charms at night, but friends nevertheless. This arrangement works well for Remus, who is a private enough person that he can’t imagine being affectionate in front of anyone else with Sirius. He says as much now.

 

‘Well, we are more friends than anything,’ he points out. ‘We were friends first and I imagine that when we break up, we’ll go on being friends.’

 

Peter cocks his head. ‘I’m not sure Sirius feels that way.’

 

‘Oh,’ Remus says, ‘I’m sure Sirius will be very dramatic about it for a bit, but things will smooth out as soon as he finds someone else.’

 

Peter gives him a strange look that makes Remus feel unnerved; the look seems to indicate that Peter thinks Remus is a complete idiot. ‘I guess it might seem different from the inside…’ he says, sounding extremely doubtful about Remus’s reading of future Sirius. ‘Anyway… you seem like you’re not too interested in this.’

 

Remus is stressed about the border crossing, stressed about the money that he’ll surely have to spend on meals and tourist attractions, and most of all, stressed about disappointing Sirius. If it’s just the two of them, then if he gets sent back to the UK when the Italians see his visa, it will ruin Sirius’s holiday. ‘It’s going to be expensive,’ he admits to Peter, because that is a point they can both understand.

 

‘Yeah,’ Peter agrees. ‘But Sirius will pay for everything.’

 

‘But I don’t want him to.’

 

‘Don’t want to feel beholden?’

 

‘Pretty much.’

 

‘Yeah mate…’ Peter shrugs. ‘Unfortunately he’s always going to be loads posher than the rest of us, so might as well let it happen.’ Remus makes an unhappy noise and Peter adds, ‘I don’t think he cares at all.’

 

‘That’s the most annoying part.’

 

Peter laughs. ‘That’s why I’m not sleeping with him.’

 

‘Yes, just that reason,’ Remus says, squinting at Peter.

 

‘The only one.’

 

‘Not the lack of breasts.’

 

‘Right.’

 

In Sirius’s bedroom, James is sitting cross-legged on the bed, intently studying a motorcycle catalogue while Sirius packs. ‘I reckon you should get this one,’ he says, turning the catalogue around so Sirius can see its glossy pages. ‘A Triumph Bonneville.’

 

Sirius squints at the page. ‘Yes,’ he says enthusiastically, taking in its sleek lines. He’s not sure why he loves Muggle vehicles so much but something about them has always fascinated him. Rebellion something something, probably, he’s not going to look too deeply into it.

 

‘So,’ James says, altogether much too casual; he pauses, and Sirius raises his eyebrows at him.

 

‘Spit it out, Prongs. You’ve got a burning statement to make.’

 

‘I was thinking,’ James says, looking down at the magazine, uh oh, this must be something quite important, the eye contact avoidance is a crucial clue…

 

‘Yes?’

 

‘I’m going to ask Lily to marry me.’

 

Sirius experiences a wide range of emotions, most of them not something he wants to share with anyone. Shock: they’re young. James and Lily have only been together for a few months. Concern: are they rushing into it because of the war? Jealousy: Lily is going to command even more of James’s attention than she already does, especially if they’re wedding planning.

 

Envy: James can ask Lily to marry him.

 

He hopes his face doesn’t show any of those and says, ‘That’s great.’

 

‘You think it’s too soon.’

 

Sirius shrugs and looks down at his pile of shirts. ‘You’ve been in love with her for ages.’

 

‘Think she’ll say yes?’

 

James’s face is earnest, open. Sirius reckons that it’s probably good for their friendship that James doesn’t always pick up on the nuances of Sirius’s feelings.

 

‘Honestly?’ He thinks, because he loves James, and he wants him to be happy. ‘Yes, I think she will.’

 

James lets out a big rush of air and collapses backward onto Sirius’s pillows. ‘That’s a weight off.’

 

In classic James fashion, he actually means this: Sirius’s take on what Lily might say is worth enough to have made him happy. Sirius loves him a lot. ‘You should ask her though,’ he suggests. ‘Don’t just let me speak for her.’

 

‘Sure, sure,’ James says. ‘When you get back from your holiday, will you come ring shopping with me?’ He sits up. ‘It’s going to be torture. I need you there, mate.’

 

Sirius grins. ‘That does sound like torture,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

 

‘And,’ James adds, picking up the magazine again, ‘you should get a ring for Remus.’

 

Sirius stops folding clothes and looks at James, who is now studying a page of text about engines with what appears to be deep concentration. ‘Why would I do that?’

 

‘Look,’ James says, immediately putting down the magazine. ‘I don’t want to do this alone.’

 

‘Get married? Isn’t that by definition not alone ever again?’

 

‘I don’t want to do it without you.’

 

‘I’ll be your best man.’

 

‘Obviously.’

 

‘So I will be right there.’

 

James whines, ‘But you won’t be married.’

 

And Sirius, exasperated, snaps, ‘I won’t ever be married, James. It’s illegal.’

 

James rolls his eyes. ‘Like enchanting a Muggle motorcycle to fly illegal? Like becoming an unregistered Animagus at fifteen illegal?’

 

 ‘This is different, James.’

 

‘I’ll officiate.’

 

‘James…’

 

‘You scared he’d say no?’

 

Sirius hesitates too long – James can be perceptive when he wants to be. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

 

‘You are such a bad liar,’ James says. ‘He’d say yes.’

 

‘You’re a bad liar too,’ Sirius points out. And, more quietly: ‘I very much doubt that he would.’

 

‘You’re taking him on holiday to Venice!’

 

‘Moony isn’t impressed by money.’

 

‘It’s all kind of Brideshead, isn’t it?’ James realises. ‘Remus matriculates at Oxford, you’re the rich boyfriend taking him to Venice.’

 

‘What?’ Sirius frowns at James. ‘When did you read that book?’

 

‘You left it lying around my house summer of sixth year.’

 

‘Remus’s mum gave it to me.’ Sirius pauses, pondering that. ‘Oh god, she knew.’

 

‘Remus’s mum absolutely knew,’ James confirms. Sirius can’t decide if he’s mortified or resigned. Remus’s parents are extremely supportive of their relationship. ‘And,’ James adds, ‘she is going to be so happy when I marry you two off.’

 

Sirius sighs, suffering deeply. ‘I just wanted to take him somewhere romantic. I forgot all about that book.’

 

‘Look,’ James says, clearly thinking he is being mollifying, ‘see how your holiday goes. We’ll discuss when you get back.’

 

***

Venice is just as gorgeous as Sirius remembered, all slanting shades of grey light on red-orange-ochre buildings, fog reflecting off the green water, ancient splendour gently crumbling. Remus seems stunned by all of it, strangely giddy after they exit the international Floo station, his eyes enormous as he looks around at everything.

 

‘Is this your first time in Italy?’ Sirius asks, absolutely delighted by his boyfriend’s reaction.

 

‘It’s my first time outside of Britain,’ Remus confesses. He still feels like one of the blue-robed immigration officials is going to chase him out into the street and take his passport, but the beauty of the city is mesmerising.

 

They are staying in a Palazzo that Sirius knows of via a friend of his recently late uncle Alphard. The entryway is all marble tiles and doorways, their apartment in it the penthouse, with a low, wood-timbered ceiling, and a small balcony overlooking the warren of red tile roofs that make up the highest level of the city. St Mark’s Campanile is in the distance; there’s paintings on the walls, several bookshelves full of mysterious antiquarian volumes, and, against one wall of the apartment, a single large bed.

 

‘I want to go up the tower,’ Remus says, startling himself with how much he wants it. ‘I want to see the view from up there.’

 

Sirius puts a hand on his back. ‘We will.’

 

It is the first time they have ever had a space all to themselves, and they luxuriate in it, spending the first hour of their holiday in the bed before they talk each other into needing to go out to see the city. They have four days, and they spend the first two wandering every street they can, constantly lost, coming upon hidden bridges and waterways that lead them on to ever more wondrous secret places. They drink a lot of espresso and wine and loiter in tiny bookstores; they see fabulous art and what feels like a hundred churches.

 

On the third morning, Remus wakes to strange, watery light. They’ve had two days of cold, clear sunshine, and it confuses him that it is so grey. Sirius is reading beside him, naked, his skin hot along Remus’s own naked body, his hand not holding the book resting on Remus’s back.

 

‘Is it raining?’ Remus murmurs, pressing a kiss to Sirius’s side.

 

‘Pouring,’ Sirius confirms. He slides a bookmark into his book and lays it aside, snuggling down into the duvet and pulling Remus into his arms. ‘What shall we do?’ he asks, pressing his cock into Remus’s thigh.

 

‘I know,’ Remus says, brightly, and slides underneath the duvet, reaching for him.

 

A little later, bathed and dressed, they emerge into the city with a plan to stay in the vicinity of the Palazzo. They have not yet explored the Piazza San Marco, and they wind up in a café along its border, set behind a Gothic arcade. They talk there for several hours, watching the tide rise slowly outside the window, tables and chairs floating, anchored in place by thin chains. They discuss their respective work, Remus’s degree and Sirius’s Auror training, and Remus is reminded all over again how passionate and articulate Sirius can be. Sirius speaks fluent Italian with the waiter – Remus had known Sirius knew French, but apparently he’s mastered most of the Romance languages, product of some private tutor he and Regulus had had as a child who brought them to Florence regularly. Remus wants to swoon every time Sirius opens his mouth and another language pours out, especially today, with Sirius’s features seeming sharper than usual, his eyes bluer, his hair at its most perfect. Remus has never felt so in love. He longs to reach across the table and hold Sirius’s hand in the café, but instead he presses their legs together and leans on his elbows, giving Sirius every iota of his attention.

 

Sirius, for his part, has had James’s suggestion ringing in his ears since they parted, and now, as Remus’s hair curls wildly around his head from the rain and he makes one clever observation after another, he’s struggling to keep the words inside of himself. He wants this man to be his forever and can’t believe that he’s his even for a few minutes.

 

The rain doesn’t let up, so they cross the Piazza and enter the museum in the Doge’s Palace. It’s not particularly crowded, but still a little steamy as the tourists inside of it try to dry themselves. Remus notes that a particular painting bears some resemblance to Sirius, and Sirius strikes a similar pose. Sirius suggests that a carving of a snarling lion reminds him of Remus, who immediately channels his own inner predator and reveals his canines. They are off, imitating everything in sight, laughing hysterically at their own antics, docents and American tour groups be damned.

 

As Sirius arranges his face into its most startled expression, mimicking a painted angel who has just seen the Annunciation, a handsome young British man approaches Remus.

 

‘Are you free this evening?’ he asks, pressing a small flyer into Remus’s hands. ‘Just, you two seem like you’d be fun. Palazzo Leone, tonight, after ten pm. Massive party.’

 

‘Thanks,’ Remus says, startled, flipping over the flyer. All it gives is the address and the time. Sirius looks after the man, a bit jealous at how Remus had regarded him. ‘Might be interesting,’ Remus suggests.

 

Sirius shrugs. ‘I don’t want to spend time with anyone but you,’ he says, truthfully and a bit peevishly.

 

‘That’s all right then,’ Remus says, sliding the flyer into his pocket to dispose of later. ‘It’s your birthday, we’ll do whatever you like.’

 

They have dinner for Sirius’s birthday – Remus has borrowed thirty pounds from his parents for this express purpose, waving Sirius away when he tries to pay – at a tiny restaurant where the owner takes a fancy to them and starts giving them different wines to try. Neither are particularly accustomed to drinking wine, and it is not until Sirius stands to go to the toilet and almost pitches over that they realise just how drunk they’ve gotten.

 

‘In for a knut, in for a galleon,’ Remus suggests, and the owner brings them some more. They close the place down, ultimately sitting with the owner’s family, whose daughters are trying to teach Remus Italian while Sirius doubles over with laughter. Out in the street, they step into a light, cold mist. Remus reaches into his pocket for his hat and comes up with the flyer for the party.

 

‘Oops,’ he says. Sirius plucks it out of his hand while Remus goes hunting for the hat again.

 

‘Should we go?’ Sirius asks, suddenly stricken with doubt that Remus is having a good time.

 

‘I don’t know,’ Remus says, shrugging. ‘It could be fun. But you said you didn’t want to see anyone but me.’

 

Sirius hesitates. He doesn’t really want to go, but he wants Remus to enjoy himself, and he thinks, drunkenly, that Remus wants to go. ‘Let’s see what it’s like,’ he suggests.

 

Somehow, they find the Palazzo Leone. Another handsome man accepts their flyer at the door and they are ushered into a world of expat debauchery. Loud music thumps off the walls, there are drinks and drugs everywhere, the smell of smoke heavy in the air. Sirius opens a door looking for a toilet and finds a small orgy; Remus and he collapse in giggles in the hallway.

 

‘Those people,’ Sirius says, goggle-eyed, ‘were all… they were all…’

 

Remus can’t stop laughing. They find a bar and Sirius somehow comes away from it with shots of ouzo; Remus nearly gags into a potted plant and sends him back to the bar to get them something that tastes better. When Sirius returns, Remus is very clearly being chatted up by another man.

 

Remus is doing much more leaning against the wall than standing; the man who approaches him is certainly handsome but no Sirius so Remus has zero investment in the conversation and flirts back, harmlessly to his mind. Suddenly Sirius is at his side, and even though he’s in human form, Remus can tell that his hackles are raised.

 

‘Who’s this?’ Sirius demands.

 

‘Brendan,’ the man says in a posh Northern Irish accent. ‘And you are…?’

 

‘This is Sirius,’ Remus says, a beat too late…

 

…as Brendan continues, cattily, ‘…unrequitedly in love with Remus?’

 

Remus realises what is happening and says, coolly, ‘Actually, he’s my boyfriend,’ putting an arm around Sirius’s shoulders and clamping a hand onto his upper arm to prevent violence.

 

Sirius’s stomach dips. He’s not sure he’s ever heard Remus call him that to another person, not even James and Peter. On top of everything he’s had to drink, it’s intoxicating.

 

‘That’s far more interesting,’ Brendan says, recovering quickly. ‘Would you two care to join me upstairs? There’s some other boys you might like, too.’

 

‘We’ll think about it,’ Remus says, intrigued. ‘Where upstairs?’

 

‘Fourth floor, second door on the left,’ Brendan says, and then he leans in and kisses Remus on the mouth, slowly, sensually, with full tongue, before leaving with a little wave.

 

Remus, still barely able to stand upright, blinks several times, tasting his lips. Brendan had tasted like wine.

 

‘Remus,’ Sirius says. He’s hurt and upset. He’s considering hexing Brendan’s lips together. But. Remus hadn’t exactly said no. ‘Do you want to go upstairs?’

 

Remus feels frozen, and unable to do anything except keep licking his lips. If he’s honest, yes, he does want to go upstairs. He wants to see what it’s like. He has a fleeting vision of getting to watch Sirius with someone else – with someone pretty, someone worthy of how gorgeous Sirius is. To see Sirius’s mouth on someone else’s – well, the thought is making him hard.

 

He is too drunk to make good choices and he is so, so randy.

 

He considers owling Peter and James and asking them what to do.

 

‘You do want to,’ Sirius says, very quietly, and Remus knows in that second that he’s making the wrong choice.

 

‘I don’t,’ he says, truthfully. He doesn’t want to hurt Sirius more than he doesn’t want to miss out on a Venetian orgy. It’s a tough thing to realise. It feels big and important. He tries to express it: ‘It’d be great. But. You don’t want to. And, that’s more great.’

 

Sirius is completely panicking. Remus wants to have sex with other people? Is Sirius just really, really bad at sex? Why would Remus want to have sex with other people if that is not the case? What is Sirius doing wrong? Is it possible to improve, or is he just so miserable at it that Remus is completely over him? Is Remus going to break up with him? ‘More great?’ he asks, a little hysterical.

 

‘I want,’ Remus clarifies, ‘what you want. More than I want what I want.’

 

‘But you want other people.’

 

‘I want sex,’ Remus says, honestly. ‘For example, can we go to an empty room and I suck you off? Is that a possibility right now?’

 

Sirius is too unhappy to be intrigued. He latches on to the most confusing thing Remus has said. ‘For example?’

 

‘Just as a suggestion!’

 

‘But why would you want to go upstairs and… and…’

 

‘I just thought,’ Remus says, regretting the last few minutes to the depths of his soul, ‘that it would be amazing to see you kiss someone. To get to watch you and appreciate you from afar.’

 

Sirius does not understand. ‘But wouldn’t you be sad that I wasn’t kissing you?’

 

‘But you’d be kissing me later,’ Remus says. ‘You’d be kissing me at the end of the night. I’d just get to,’ he swallows, aware of how perverted this sounds, ‘watch.’

 

Sirius does not want to see Remus kiss anyone else, ever. He says, flatly, ‘Take me home and we’ll do it in front of a mirror.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says, partly to end the argument, and partly because yes.

 

The streets of Venice are a maze in the sober daytime; now they are a drunken labyrinth of walls, people, canals without bridges. It does not help their navigation that they keep ducking into dark corners to press each other against walls and snog. The third time they think they’ve found their way and instead find themselves yet again at the Rialto Bridge, Sirius, now barely able to walk in a normal manner due to his hard-on, latches onto an idea.

 

‘Gondola,’ he informs Remus.

 

‘Gondola?’

 

Sirius drags him to the line of gondolas awaiting late night passengers and calls out to the nearest gondolier, giving him their address. They clamber aboard and sit side by side as far from him as possible. The night is cold, and wet, and he indicates a pile of blankets to them. They smell like wet dog as Sirius unfolds them and lays them across their laps. The smell is mortifyingly comforting to Remus. Sirius’s hand lands on Remus’s cock and Remus hisses as the gondolier pushes off, humming.

 

Sirius’s hand is quite insistent. Remus, gazing out the side of the boat in a drunken attempt to keep things looking casually heterosexual, thinks, hysterically, Am I going to come on a gondola?

 

But then the gondola stops. They both look up in confusion; their Palazzo is directly in front of them. They’ve travelled approximately two minutes.

 

‘Whoops,’ says Sirius, and together they fold the blanket, scrambling to get out of the boat.

 

Sirius fumbles with his wallet; Remus is completely out of lira and cannot help. Sirius finally hands over something that makes the gondolier look shocked and say, ‘Grazie,’ a little too enthusiastically.

 

Remus frowns, wondering what just happened, but Sirius grabs his arm and says, ‘Inside?’

 

Into the marble hallway of the Palazzo, Sirius barely able to say the spell that opens the door, and then into the stairwell, where Remus grabs him and shoves him into a wall. Kissing has moved from art into imperative, Sirius’s mouth on Remus all the way up four flights of stairs like the world will end if his tongue isn’t touching Remus’s body. Sirius keeps saying little phrases, like, ‘Only one for me,’ and ‘Never want to see you with someone else,’ and ‘I’ll do anything for you.’ Remus has never been so turned on in his life. For all that the three of them have taken the piss from emotionally wild Sirius for nearly a decade, Remus secretly loves it. He wonders, fleetingly, as Sirius is ripping his shirt out of his trousers, if that isn’t a tad unhealthy. Then Sirius’s hands start in on the buttons at his fly and he shoves it out of his mind. 

 

They stagger through the doorway of their flat, Remus practically tripping out of his unbuttoned trousers. Sirius drops to his knees and rips off Remus’s shoes, then the trousers, and his pants too; Remus drags him to his feet and starts furiously undressing him. They collapse naked onto the bed, Remus on top, Sirius crawling backwards up it as Remus puts his mouth every place he can.

 

‘Fuck me,’ Sirius moans, head thrown back, the sheets clenched in his fists.

 

Remus goes still.

 

They’ve never discussed this.

 

There’s always been an unspoken sense between them that this is – well, it’s definitely gay – but they’re also mates – mates who are in love with each other – but if they’re just sucking cock then it’s not, like, the most gay thing possible.

 

‘Fuck me,’ Sirius repeats, softly now.

 

Chest: heaving.

 

Eyes: pleading.

 

Remus runs his hand down Sirius’s face. Both are slick with rain and sweat. Sirius loves him. Remus shoves his fingers into Sirius’s mouth and Sirius whines, sucking them in, arching his back. Sirius loves him. He feels Sirius’s tongue, wet and hot and muscular and his.

 

He loves Sirius. That is the most gay thing possible, regardless of what they do with their bodies.

 

Bodies get broken. Might as well use them for all the pleasure they can.

 

Remus for once feels out of control and revels in it; Sirius is a chaos agent trapped inside the fittest body he’s ever seen, a body that he alone is allowed to touch like this. It’s a marvel of skin stretched over bone and muscle, a thousand years of poisoned genetics somehow birthing a monumental form. Remus wants to ruin that marble perfection and reveal the man underneath it, so he pushes him onto his stomach and conjures a bottle of lube. He’s not going to pretend that he hasn’t thought about this, as taboo as it feels. He grabs Sirius’s hips and drags him back – Sirius sort of helps – so that he winds up on his hands and knees, his bum open and taut and gorgeous. The muscles in Sirius’s back ripple, doggy style they call it, wolf style more like, as Remus slicks himself with the viscous lube, his fist light around his rock hard cock. He dips his fingers into the bottle again. He’s read about this, in forbidden books. He knows it’s not going to be the most pleasurable thing possible for Sirius. He tries to help, smearing lube everywhere. Sirius collapses forward, his head on his folded arms, his arse now almost comically in the air. Remus drapes over him, one hand on his cock, guiding it, the other down on the bed. Sirius is shaking, making strange noises, burning hot.

 

‘I’ve wanted this,’ he gasps, ‘for so, so long. I’ve imagined this.’

 

‘Sirius,’ Remus breathes in his ear, finding the right place, he thinks, and starting to press forward, as slow as he can manage, ‘why didn’t you just ask?’

 

‘What if I asked and you didn’t love me anymore?’ Sirius asks, voice very small. And then he tenses and starts breathing raggedly. ‘Oh, Remus, oh, Moony…’

 

‘I love you,’ Remus says, trying to be as gentle as possible despite the fact that he’s skewering Sirius on a cock so hard it ought to be legally declared a deadly weapon. He adds, hysterically, ‘Can’t you tell?’

 

Sirius wheeze-laughs, his whole body shuddering. He’s so tight that Remus isn’t sure he can actually, like, get in there.

 

‘Relax,’ he suggests. ‘Breathe.’

 

‘Breathe?’ Sirius gasps. He’s so good at incredulity that he conveys the maximum extent of every syllable.

 

Remus takes away the hand on his cock and presses it to Sirius’s face, seeking his lips, finding his teeth. ‘Bite.’ Sirius makes a strange noise and Remus rolls his eyes. ‘Yes, I’m a fucking werewolf. But guess what, darling? You’re fucking a werewolf.’

 

‘I think,’ Sirius mumbles, ‘that I’m being fucked by a werewolf. Small distinction, maybe, but crucial.’

 

‘Then fuck me next,’ Remus says carelessly, emphasizing the ‘fuck’ because it feels good to be filthy.

 

Sirius twists his neck and gives him a look, perhaps gauging if he means it. Remus does. Sirius’s eyes flutter and darken, his pupils enormous. ‘I don’t want to hurt your hand,’ he whispers.

 

‘This is going to hurt you,’ Remus says honestly. ‘Share that pain with me. I want to feel it for you. I want to help you through it.’

 

‘I love you.’

 

‘Bite,’ Remus orders. Sirius does, and that seems to relax the rest of him, at least enough for Remus to fully press inside of his body. He has to stay there, throbbing, because if he moves at all he’s going to come. ‘You are so fucking tight,’ he moans, and Sirius makes a little sob noise against his hand. Remus knows, abstractly, that his hand is probably in a lot of pain. Sirius has sharp canines. He can’t feel any of them. He manages to collect himself and draws back a fraction. Sirius inhales sharply; Remus slides forward and Sirius bites harder. ‘Does it hurt?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius mumbles, ‘but don’t stop.’

 

‘I don’t want to-‘

 

Sirius pushes himself up onto his elbows again, letting Remus’s hand fall. Only he could be imperious at this moment. He says, ‘I’ll tell you if I want you to stop.’

 

Remus falls into a rhythm, but it’s erratic, because if he loses concentration for a second, he’s certain that he’s going to come so hard he’ll black out and hit his head on the wall. Sirius presses into him every time he slides forward, and gasps every time he pulls back even the smallest amount, so that they wind up with Remus just trying to shove himself forward, inside of Sirius as far as he can be, and Sirius pressed face first into the pillow, his hands clawing at the edges of the bed, gasping, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop,’ until –

 

‘I have to,’ Remus says, vision narrowing, toes curled so tightly his feet are cramped, ‘I’m going to –‘

 

‘Want to feel you coming inside me,’ Sirius says, and Remus is nothing if not a gentleman, so he obliges.

 

Afterwards, everything seems strangely grey for a few moments. Remus is lying on top of Sirius, having collapsed there, his cock still partially inside of him; his hands are over Sirius’s on the edge of the bed, their fingers intertwined tightly enough that he’s losing feeling.

 

‘You are,’ Remus murmurs in his ear, not even sure what he’s going to say, just feeling the words jostling against the inside of his mouth, ‘the most exquisite thing.’

 

‘I love you so much,’ Sirius whispers.

 

‘I love you too,’ Remus says, and kisses his neck before pressing his hands to the mattress and pushing himself up. Leaving Sirius’s body feels like a loss, and the world outside is cold. ‘Are you?’ Remus murmurs, reaching for Sirius’s cock.

 

‘I’m,’ Sirius says, rolling over to put his arms around Remus, ‘just perfect. Let’s sleep.’ They drag the destroyed bedsheets around themselves and curl up together. Remus is suddenly overcome with exhaustion. He puts his face into Sirius’s hair and is asleep in an instant.

 

***

Sirius wakes up and knows in an instant that he is going to vomit. He tries to roll out of bed rather than stand – maybe if he crawls to the toilet, it’ll be ok – and almost cries out with pain.

 

Oh right.

 

Last night.

 

The pain of walking distracts him enough that he is able to shut and latch the door to the toilet before vomiting up what appears to be several bottles of wine. He presses his forehead to the seat and lets it cool his throbbing head. He’s a sticky mess in a particular region that he’d really rather not contemplate. Everything is too bright and too loud. He wants water.

 

He manages to crawl his way into the tub and turns the taps to scalding, then lies against the icy porcelain, shivering until he’s submerged. Even reaching forward to twist the tap off hurts.

 

Hysteria is bubbling up inside of him. Luckily, he remembers all of last night in exquisite detail. They’d crossed a Rubicon – or a Grand Canal, choose your Italian waterway – last night, at least Sirius thinks so. He’s consumed with an urge to write to James and tell him that he’s not a virgin anymore. James knows that he once had very mediocre sex with a Ravenclaw girl, so Sirius is sure that his filthy imagination will figure out what exactly Sirius means. If the water wasn’t so nice, and the thought of moving didn’t make him want to die, he definitely would go find quill and parchment.

 

The sex had been both different and better than whatever he’d had in his head beforehand. He’d never have imagined the intimacy of it, the way that it had felt to know that Remus was literally inside of his body. To feel Remus coming inside of his body. He can’t imagine how anyone can do this casually. He can’t imagine doing it with anyone else, ever. He decides to keep that to himself, because he doesn’t think Remus feels that way about him.

 

There’s a light knock on the door, and Remus opens it. Sirius’s first, completely unbidden thought is: angel. Remus is wrapped in a dressing gown and his hair is an utter disaster and he’s standing in pale light. Botticelli would have painted this tableau; Rosso would have made it mischievous.

 

Remus smiles when he sees Sirius. ‘Good morning.’

 

‘Oh no,’ Sirius croaks. ‘You’re not hungover at all, are you?’

 

Remus’s mouth vibrates with his attempt to look sombre. ‘I have a bit of a headache.’

 

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Fucking werewolf metabolism.

 

Remus steps into the room, shuts the door, and drops his dressing gown. He’s utterly naked and half hard. ‘Will the bath fit two?’

 

Remus must be an angel, because Sirius’s cock, miraculously, decides it’s interested enough in the situation to take over his verbal function. ‘Absolutely.’

 

A lot of water splashes onto the floor, but Remus winds up in the tub behind Sirius, and tugs him onto his lap. Sirius thinks he might die of sex if Remus does anything else, but he wants it badly enough to grind against him. ‘Are you…?’ Remus murmurs, one hand sliding down the length of Sirius’s sudden erection.

 

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ Sirius admits.

 

‘Mm,’ Remus hums in his ear, ‘but surely I can do this?’ His hand slides upward, tugs, his thumb circling the head of Sirius’s cock. Sirius whines and presses himself against Remus, caught between the hardness under him and the strong hand around him. Remus shifts so that he’s not stabbing Sirius, just rubbing against him, and then he does the slowest, most teasing work with his hand, until Sirius begs him for release.

 

Afterwards, Remus magics away the water and replaces it with clean, hot water. Sirius lies with his head leaning back on Remus’s shoulder, tracing circles on Remus’s hand where it lies against his chest. ‘When is our ticket home?’ Remus asks.

 

Sirius groans. ‘Never? No, I think four in the afternoon.’ He can tell Remus is thinking about how to say something. ‘Why do you ask?’

 

‘I didn’t get to go up the Campanile,’ Remus says. ‘I’d really like to. So maybe I’ll go do that now.’

 

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, remembering. That’s really going to put an end to his plan to lie in bed feeling ill all day. ‘Yes, let’s go.’

 

‘Do you want to?’ Remus asks, and Sirius can hear that Remus wants him to come. That’s enough for him.

 

Standing remains a mistake. Sirius is sore in ways and places he had not known possible. He vomits again, luckily while Remus is out of earshot, and stands swaying over the sink, trying to make himself look less pasty and miserable, for long enough that Remus comes in – gorgeous, not to mention the very definition of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed – and asks him if he’s ready.

 

‘You look so handsome,’ Remus says to him, before immediately blushing, which is a very un-Remus thing to say, and Sirius can’t tell if he’s lying to make Sirius hurry up or sincere.

 

Sirius considers vomiting again into a canal on their walk over, but the pain in other parts of his body conquers the nausea and they make it to the base of the tower without incident. ‘Do you want any breakfast?’ Remus chirps, looking at a cart with pastries doing roaring trade to tourist groups that appear mainly composed of screaming children. Sirius is not sure he’s ever been this hungover. He shakes his head as gently as he can and glances in a shop window. His skin looks mermaid-green. Then he notices that Remus has stopped and is also looking intently in the shop window. He manages to focus his eyes on whatever Remus is looking at – a book. He squints at the title: Werewolves of the World. Remus’s face is entranced.

 

Sirius steps into the shop without a word to Remus and asks the shopkeeper in Italian if he can see the book. By the time the bell on the door clangs and Remus appears, Sirius already has it open in his hands and is flipping through the pages. Werewolf books are a tricky proposition, as they are often exceedingly biased and almost never written by an actual werewolf. Sirius knows because he’s been through every one at Hogwarts. This one, though, seems interesting…

 

‘It’s interviews,’ Remus says quietly in his ear, ‘with werewolves all over the world. In all different cultures. It’s been out of print for ages, I’ve never even seen a copy…’

 

Sirius asks the shopkeeper how many florins, the Italian magical currency. He knows Remus doesn’t speak Italian, so hopefully he can just buy him this nice thing without argument. Remus always argues with him about spending money, and if it is possible for Sirius to dislike a thing about Remus, that is it. Sirius has money not because he’s better than Remus but because he was born into a miserable family that, by the way, hates Dark Creatures to the point of actual murder. Spending some money one of his bigoted ancestors probably earned by extorting vampires or hunting giants on a book to make his Dark Creature boyfriend happy makes Sirius happy. The book is many florins, which makes his coin purse lighter. He can feel how enormous Remus’s eyes are as he counts them out, so he tries to hurry the process. The shopkeeper wraps the book in brown paper and then places it in a plastic bag, saying that it might rain later. Sirius smiles and thanks him, and then they are back out on the street and he presents Remus with the book.

 

‘Thanks for coming with me to Venice,’ he says lightly. Remus doesn’t do well with romantic pronouncements. Sirius has been counting and the amount of times he’d said ‘I love you’ last night sums to be more than he’s said during the rest of their now almost six month relationship. ‘I hope it’s been a good time.’

 

‘Padfoot,’ Remus says, staring down at the book in his hands. The truth is that Remus doesn’t know how to express what this all means to him. The depth of his feeling for Sirius terrifies him. He’d awoken this morning alone in bed and had lain there for several minutes going over his conversation with Peter before they’d left, thinking what a fool he is. ‘When we break up,’ who the fuck says that? Someone who’s trying not to admit how much this means to him, that’s who. ‘Padfoot,’ he says again, realising he’s suddenly close to tears for no reason at all. ‘Thank you for inviting me. It’s been,’ he struggles for a word, thinks of the art, and the history, and the architecture, and how none of it would matter if Sirius wasn’t here with him. ‘It’s been transcendent.’

 

They walk together to the Campanile, a massive tower that looms over the rest of St Mark’s Square. Remus holds the door for Sirius and buys him a ticket while his hangover resurges without the distraction of making Remus happy. He breathes through his mouth and tries to limit sudden movement in his field of vision. As they step into the lift, he realises, with horror, that he absolutely should have vomited into the canal. Sweat is prickling his hairline and he feels cold and clammy as the lift operator shuts them inside and begins some touristy patter about the history of the tower. The lift starts to rise, slowly, stately, not in any hurry at all. Sirius feels Remus’s hand on his arm; they make eye contact and he can tell that Remus, bless him, knows exactly what’s going through his head. Remus quickly extracts his book from the bag and tucks it under one arm, hands Sirius the bag, and with his wand makes sparks fly out of the panel of buttons next to the doorman just as Sirius empties the contents of his stomach into the bag. Everyone shouts and directs their attention to the panel, which the operator is now frantically inspecting. Sirius ties the bag shut and leans back against the cool metal wall of the lift, feeling immediately better. He rolls his head against the wall and finds Remus looking at him. Remus mouths, ‘All right?’ and he nods, infinitely grateful.

 

They arrive at the top, the operator apologizing profusely for the panel, which seems to be in perfect functioning order. Sirius carefully drops the bag into a bin near the gift shop and makes a beeline for a window, seeking fresh air.

 

The tower platform is square, with four narrow, arched windows on either side. Sirius finds his way to the least crowded one, on the side furthest from the lift, and looks out towards the Lido. He puts his hands out the window and lets them dangle over the edge, wrists resting against the rough stone. He’s finally starting to feel his hangover lift. The water and sky are grey, the red rooftops a thin horizon line between them. A hand grazes his back and Remus joins him, leaning far out over the edge of the windowsill and making Sirius’s hands sweat with nerves. Sirius is intensely aware of Remus’s body: the powerful veins in the back of his hands, the flush at his neck and cheeks in the cold wind, his mess of curly hair. Underneath all those clothes – the layers of wool coat and cardigan and collared shirt – there’s something that only Sirius knows, and it makes him lightheaded with love and lust. Remus looks at the view for a moment, and then back at him, a serious look on his face, before he sees Sirius studying him, and smiles with one side of his mouth. A secret between the two of them.

 

‘How are you feeling?’

 

‘All right.’

 

‘Really?’ Remus grins.

 

‘Your perfect good health isn’t helping,’ Sirius says, fluttering his eyelashes.

 

Remus, shocking him, reaches for his hand and touches it, trailing his fingers down Sirius’s. Sirius shivers and leans against the wall. ‘I wish,’ Remus says, a wistful tone in his voice that Sirius swears he’s never heard.

 

‘What?’ Sirius asks into the hanging silence, heart pounding. Is Remus about to express some regret? Does he wish they’d stayed at the party last night? Wish they hadn’t –

 

‘I wish we could run away together.’

 

Sirius’s heart stutters, then restarts, beating much harder. He looks down at their just-touching hands and says, ‘Moony.’

 

‘Stay here for a bit more,’ Remus says quietly. ‘Until it gets too cold. Then we’ll go south, down to Rome, to – to wherever you go to get a ferry. We’ll go to Tunisia. Morocco. Ride camels in the desert, stay in a tent. When it gets too hot, go somewhere else. Just the two of us.’

 

It’s the most romantic thing Sirius has ever heard, and for a second he wants it so much that he can’t breathe. ‘You’d hate it,’ he says lightly. ‘You’d be bored in a few days.’

 

‘Not with you,’ Remus says. He’s stopped stroking Sirius’s fingers and is grasping Sirius’s hand now, staring out at the world beyond the Campanile. Then he smiles, seeming to come back to himself, and looks at Sirius, grinning again. ‘We’d drink strange foreign coffee and talk about everything and walk around beautiful places and,’ here his voice dips into a lower octave, ‘we’d go to bed whenever we wanted.’

 

Sirius is vaguely aware that he’s leaning so hard against the stone it’s hurting his hipbones. ‘Let’s do it,’ he says, but he’d heard that shift to the conditional and he already knows the answer. He tries to prolong the fantasy: ‘We’ll see all the famous places. Find the Seven Wonders of the Magical World. Uncover ancient spells no one’s seen for millennia.’ Remus is smiling at him ‘When you’re sleeping, I’ll write a book about you,’ he adds, surprising himself as he says it.

 

‘A book about me?’ Remus asks. He’s leaning very close to Sirius here in this public space, but it doesn’t feel like they can help it.

 

‘You deserve to have books written about you,’ Sirius says, helpless to stop the words coming out of his mouth. ‘I want to be the one to do it first.’

 

Remus laughs and looks down at their hands. He’s actually blushing. ‘Oh, Padfoot.’ He looks up at him, and his gaze is dazzling. ‘I never want anyone else to do it.’ Remus pauses, deliberately seeks out Sirius’s eyes, and says what he’s been meaning to say all day, something that he thinks he’s known for a long time but hasn’t quite been able to express: ‘I don’t want anyone but you.’

 

A buzzer goes off behind them and they jump away from each other. ‘Time’s up,’ the lift operator calls, as the lift doors open, ready to take them away from this place. Things feel peaceful between them. Sirius watches Remus eat a leisurely lunch in a little cafe, listening to him talk animatedly and sipping San Pellegrino; then they retire to the apartment and lie in bed for a while, not doing much, mostly just kissing naked underneath the duvet, until it is time to go.

 

The Italian magical border is quick and easy, and they step through the Floo system, one at a time, then to the window at British magical immigration.

 

‘You go first,’ Remus says, giving Sirius a little push on the arm. For hours now, he’s been dreading the border.

 

Sirius goes through immediately, just a quick glance-and-stamp by the agent. He turns and waits for Remus, who has just walked into a Situation.

 

Remus can tell by the look on the agent’s face as she opens his passport and sees the werewolf mark that he’s in trouble. She shuts the passport and calls for a supervisor, who tracks down Remus’s file. Remus is standing very still, sweating in his many layers. He does not look at Sirius.

 

‘You were there for research purposes?’ the supervisor asks. He sounds sceptical.

 

‘Yes, sir. To use some archives.’

 

‘The supervisor has pulled out the letter from Oxford and is squinting at it. ‘What’s the degree you’re reading for?’

 

Remus tells him, and answers all of his other questions. He continues to not want to look at Sirius. Sirius, for his part, is confused about what is happening but can see from Remus’s posture that it is not good. He’s considering storming back across the barrier and using his family name to clear up the situation, when he sees Remus reach down into his rucksack and pull out several scrolls of parchment.

 

‘All of this,’ Remus is saying in response to their demands that he show them his research. ‘There was so much material, I just made facsimiles of a lot of it and I’ll have to read over it later.’

 

The agent opens a scroll and frowns at it. ‘You read Italian?’ she asks.

 

‘A bit yes,’ Remus says, now approaching the manic state of disclosure, where he can’t seem to stop embellishing whatever story he’s told to get out of whatever terrible situation he’s in. ‘Getting better all the time.’

 

The agent turns it to him and says, ‘What does this say then?’

 

‘That one?’ Remus asks, looking at it blindly, unable through his anxiety to even make out words on the page. He prays that she has no knowledge of the language. ‘It’s a record of magical events at the Doge’s palace in the 1600s.’

 

‘Fine,’ the supervisor says abruptly, waving a hand. ‘Let him through.’ He pushes the parchment rolls back to Remus, letting several of them fall onto the floor and scatter. Remus scrambles to gather them as the agent stamps his passport. He tries not to snatch it from her and run, instead thanking her in his kindest voice and walking across the border.

 

‘What the fuck?’ Sirius demands. ‘What was that all about? What are those scrolls?’ He’s upset by how upset he can tell Remus is. ‘Are you all right?’

 

‘I’m just going to use the toilet,’ Remus says. Alone and with the door locked, he vomits from nerves, then bends over the sink, shutting his eyes. He wants to cry, but what’s the use in it? He rinses out his mouth and exits, almost running over Sirius, who has been standing directly outside the door. Sirius looks deeply upset.

 

‘Are you all right?’

 

Remus nods. ‘Yeah.’ He emphatically does not want to talk about it, but it seems very unlikely that Sirius will let this go.

 

‘What was that all about?’

 

‘My status,’ Remus says, mad at himself for having a shaking voice.

 

‘Status?’

 

Sirius truly does seem to forget that Remus is a werewolf most of the time. Remus isn’t sure if it’s endearing or infuriating, though he frequently lands on the latter. ‘My lycanthropy.’

 

‘Why would they know that?’

 

‘Sirius,’ Remus says, more angrily than he’d intended, ‘I had to disclose it to get a passport. Of course. It’s in all my medical records. They crosscheck those things.’

 

Sirius looks devastated. ‘Why should that be a factor?’

 

‘Because why should another country let me in when they think I’m a danger?’

 

‘Well they did,’ Sirius says. ‘Maybe Italy’s better than here.’

 

‘I lied to them,’ Remus says quietly. ‘I got a letter from my academic supervisor saying I was doing archival research.’

 

Sirius sighs. ‘So the scrolls…?’

 

‘Just Italian records from the library at Oxford.’ Remus shrugs. ‘I figured I’d have to show proof to someone. Just wasn’t quite expecting it to be trying to enter the country I’m a citizen of.’ They are standing in a narrow, deserted hallway at the Ministry. Remus wants to get out of the building and away from its registries and files and bureaucrats eager to stamp ‘unwanted’ on his life. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

 

Sirius is uncharacteristically silent as they walk to the fireplaces that will transport them to the magical waystation of their choice. Remus can feel him brooding, but he’s burning enough with his own shame that he can’t focus on whatever Sirius is doing. He steps to the fireplace that will take him to Paddington – from there he’ll take a train on to Oxford – and drops a Knut into the box, receiving a handful of Floo Powder. Sirius does the same.

 

‘I’m coming to Paddington with you,’ Sirius announces. It’s not the closest one to his flat – that would be Kings Cross – but Remus is dreading their parting, so he nods and steps into the fireplace, calling out his destination clearly.

 

They leave behind the magical station and emerge into the vast train hall. It is a cold November evening and Muggle travellers bustle around them. Remus doesn’t know how to say goodbye and stands looking at Sirius dumbly in the midst of the station’s chaos.

 

‘Just stay the night with me,’ Sirius pleads suddenly. ‘Take the early train.’

 

Remus looks at him, his eyes moving between Sirius’s, then his mouth, then his eyes again. ‘Let me look at the timetable,’ he says, buying time. They examine the posters until they find it: the 6:28 am from Paddington.

 

‘That’s very early,’ Remus says. Sirius doesn’t think that Remus will do it. He leans against the poster and gives him an imploring look. He doesn’t know what that does to Remus, who finds himself hopeless to resist it, hopelessly in love with this man and this moment. It is a terrible idea to do this; he’ll be exhausted; he’ll hate himself in the morning.

 

But not as much as he loves Sirius.

 

‘All right,’ he assents. ‘Let’s go home.’

 

‘Home,’ Sirius echoes, a word he’s never heard Remus call the shared flat. He feels like flying through the station. He has no sense of anyone else, even though it is crowded and they have to dodge and dart their way around it, down to the opening to the Underground. They stand packed in a tube car full of evening commuters and Sirius knows nothing except the way that Remus’s arm is pressed against his. The train stops in the tunnel and abruptly goes dark, not an unheard-of occurrence. As people grumble around them, Remus presses in closer, and then his lips find Sirius’s, daring in the blackness, just for a second, a hot breath on his mouth, a little nip of tongue. The lights come on and Remus is already looking away, down the length of the car, but he’s smiling.

 

Back in the flat, James greets them like the cat who’s drunk the cream, clearly intending to only see Sirius and get the full debrief of their holiday in all its gory detail. Sirius loves James for how readily he has accepted this relationship and how much he loves gossip, but right now he just wants Remus, alone in his room.

 

‘I’m going to put my bag down,’ Remus says, giving Sirius a smile that looks full of secrets, and disappearing into his room.

 

James raises his eyebrows at Sirius. ‘Did you have a good time?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, and follows Remus.

 

Later that night, as they lie in bed, Sirius keeps thinking of Remus saying, ‘I don’t want anyone but you.’ He nuzzles in against Remus’s neck and asks, ‘Did you mean it?’

 

‘Hmm?’ Remus murmurs, turning lazily to touch his face. ‘Mean what?’

 

‘You don’t want anyone but me?’

 

Remus looks embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it.’

 

‘Not even,’ Sirius asks, just to be sure, ‘handsome boys who approach you at parties?’

 

Remus snorts. ‘He was a miserable kisser, and not particularly handsome next to you.’

 

All too soon, Remus is leaving his bed in darkness, on his way to the train. Sirius offers to go with him, but Remus waves him off before bending down and kissing him so tenderly that Sirius swears he can feel it for the rest of the day.

 

James opens the door approximately thirty seconds after Remus has left and plunks down on Sirius’s duvet. ‘So?’ he demands. ‘Tell me everything.’

 

‘Had Moony actually closed the front door before you came in here?’ Sirius mutters, but he’s grinning. Absurdly, soppily in love, he does tell him everything – after all, he’s heard a lot about Lily – with James’s interjections bolstering his own thinking.

 

‘The prat kissed him?’ James practically shrieks during Sirius’s description of the party. ‘In front of you? After he called you his boyfriend?’

 

‘I should have hexed his mouth shut.’

 

‘You should have lit him on fire.’

 

Sirius stumbles over the sex a bit, trying to explain to James why this feels like such a big deal without giving him every detail. James is laddish about it, which makes Sirius feel so much better that he winds up sharing more than he ever meant to.

 

As for Remus…

 

Back in Oxford until Christmas, he finds himself missing Sirius like he suspects he would an organ, and not one of those useless ones like his appendix, but one of the really serious ones, the liver at least. He finds that he has become intensely aware of Sirius’s daily routines, fully imagining him going about the motions of his day whenever he has a moment for reflection. Morning, Sirius is in the bath, he’s combing his hair that way he does so the fringe hangs just so… Ten in the morning, he’s having his tea… and on and on. The missing does not seem to abate, or even ebb and flow, but stays, like a runner’s cramp, ever present underneath the surface of his day.

 

And then one day in early December, he’s giving a talk in front of his department that he has worked on for months, and he’s really proud of it, but afterwards, a distinguished professor – someone he has really looked up to – makes a comment about werewolves and it’s just one stupid comment but he starts drinking too much of the free wine at the reception and feels like he’s falling down a spiral of unhappiness. By the time he exits the department, he’s drunk and all he wants is Sirius. Impulsively – uncharacteristically – he scrawls a note to his boyfriend and goes to the train station. He spends most of his last Muggle pounds on the ticket, agonizing as he counts them out – but – fuck it. He already sent the owl.

 

Stepping off the train in London woozily he looks up the platform towards where he knows there’s an M&S and decides to stop by there for something to drink on the tube on his way to the flat. He’s now at the point in a night of ruinous drinking where he wants to drink more, damn the consequences –

 

Then he sees Sirius, standing on the end of the platform, looking up at the giant board listing train times. The whole world goes rather soft at its edges, with this man at the centre of it, a punk rock Mr Darcy in his short leather jacket covered in zippers, clearly hastily pulled on over the high-collared shirt he normally wears under his heavy Auror robes. Remus gravitates towards him, M&S drinks selection forgotten. Sirius finally sees him and hurries to him, wrapping one arm around his shoulder in what Remus knows is intended to look like a friendly gesture.

 

‘Sirius,’ he says, trying to focus on his face.

 

‘Are you all right?’ Sirius asks. He looks tired and worried. ‘You said you had a bad day.’

 

‘It was bad ‘til now,’ Remus says, and wonders just what the social penalty would be for kissing Sirius here. ‘Can we go home?’

 

‘Of course,’ Sirius says, squeezing his shoulder.

 

‘I didn’t expect you to come,’ Remus adds. ‘I thought I’d just see you at home. ‘

 

‘I got your owl at work,’ Sirius says. ‘I wanted to see you as soon as possible.’

 

Remus, suddenly worried, says, ‘You work too much.’

 

Sirius laughs, once, his bark of a laugh that absolutely slays Remus, especially now. ‘You owled me at six this morning and said you’d been up and working on your lecture for over an hour.’

 

Remus makes a face, remembering his lecture and all that had come after it. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’ Sirius hesitates; Remus can tell he wants the full story. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he says. ‘I just… right now, I don’t want to think about it.’

 

‘Ok,’ Sirius says, though he doesn’t sound happy about it.

 

‘Sirius,’ Remus says, earnestly, ‘I haven’t seen you in six weeks. And I’m so happy you’re here.’

 

Sirius squints at him. ‘You’re really drunk.’

 

Remus ponders that as Sirius steers him to the tube. ‘I can still say I’m happy to see you!’ he manages to blurt indignantly as they mind the gap between the train and the platform. Sirius’s mouth twitches; he pushes Remus into a seat by the shoulders and keeps one hand resting there, the other clasping a bar as he stands over him, leaning his forehead on the bar and smiling down at him beatifically.

 

‘Thanks for coming,’ he says softly. ‘I’ve missed you.’

 

***

After Remus’s unscheduled weekend appearance, James convinces Sirius to at least accompany him to find a ring for Lily. Deep in a shop underneath Diagon Alley, Sirius finds something he knew – if he’d been honest with himself – that he would: The Ring. It gleams with that dull weight that pure gold with strengthening spells has. In his hand, it is perfectly weighted, its surface appearing smooth but secretly inscribed with dozens of protective spells. James has already chosen a ring for Lily and is haggling with the shopkeeper, but the attentive woman must see the look on Sirius’s face from across the room, because suddenly she’s at his side. It’s incredibly expensive. He pays it without question, not making eye contact with James. The fact that it’s a ring for a man and he makes no attempt to try it on is not discussed – either she doesn’t care or she’s fleecing him wildly and really doesn’t care. James has a shit-eating grin all the way back to the flat, and once they’re inside, he launches into his plan for a joint proposal on New Year’s Eve. Somehow Sirius gets caught up in it, somehow he forgets that Peter and Emmeline will be there too, and he agrees. James is going to Lily’s parents’ for Christmas, Sirius to Remus’s, and then they are all back together and the scheme can commence.

 

Remus’s family is fantastic, and as always seem to accept them as a couple with no qualms. Remus is even physically affectionate in front of them, keeping Sirius’s hand in his own as often as he can. On Christmas Eve, Remus feigns sleepiness early, practically drags Sirius into his bedroom, and, Silencing Charms heavily laid down, boldly asks Sirius to fuck him.

 

The next morning Sirius is awakened by the sound of a telephone. They are spooning, his face in Remus’s warm neck, their hands held tightly in front of Remus’s chest. Remus does not stir until Sirius sits up; he has heard Remus’s mum speaking into the phone and heard their names mentioned. Then she’s knocking on the door, and they shuffle sleepily into the kitchen, and, their ears pressed together on the receiver, Sirius still marvelling at this strange Muggle machine that allows voices to travel so far via wires, they listen as James and Lily announce their engagement.

 

‘I couldn’t wait, mate,’ James says after the first breathless congratulations. ‘I know I told you – we – I – had a plan – but I couldn’t wait.’ He adds, ‘Sorry,’ and Remus frowns at Sirius, but Sirius just reassures him that of course he understands. He’s been carrying the ring around but when he gets back to London, he puts it into a box deep in his drawer and tries not to think about it.

 

It mostly works.

***

Sirius wakes up to a buzzing sound, like a hundred angry bees next to his ear. He rolls over and sees his wand.

 

Glowing. Vibrating.

 

Remus jerks awake and sits up, eyes enormous as he looks at Sirius. ‘The barrier.’

 

Sirius nods, once, grabs his wand, and says, ‘Tonks is in the barn,’ before tearing out of the bedroom.

 

He stops for a second in the map room – the cottage on its parchment is surrounded by red – and then sprints through the kitchen, shoving his feet into wellies, maybe his, maybe Remus’s, no idea, he’s through the door, into a steady rain and very faint dawn light, slipping on the muddy path.

 

The barrier around the cottage shimmers with a grey-green light. It is supposed to be invisible. As Sirius watches, hands press against it, pushing it inward, close enough in some places to almost touch the fence post, feeling their way towards it, as if they know there is a solid thing there…

 

He runs into the barn, throwing mud everywhere –

 

‘Tonks!’

 

She flings back the duvet and jumps out of the bed. ‘My wand –‘

 

‘Someone’s trying to breach the barrier,’ Sirius pants. ‘We’re surrounded.’

 

Tonks bends over, starts lacing her boots. ‘Where’s Remus?’

 

‘Putting down more spells?’

 

Together they race back through the rain and into the kitchen, past the scarred old wood table where Sirius kissed Remus for the first time roughly a thousand years ago, and into the main part of the cottage, where Remus, wild-eyed in a dressing gown, is holding a jumbled handful of things.

 

‘Bag!’ he yells at Sirius, who conjures one and holds it open so Remus can shove everything inside. He sees the map disappear into it–

 

‘Wait, we need to see how many are out there!’

 

‘A lot,’ Remus says, very grim. He spins on the spot, arms now empty, as Sirius seals the bag and stuffs it into the pocket of his pyjama trousers.

 

‘Remus-‘

 

Remus says, without looking at him, ‘You two get out of here.’

 

‘What?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘Ok,’ Tonks says. ‘Meet at the rendezvous?’

 

Remus nods. His jaw is clenched. Sirius says, ‘I’m not leaving you.’

 

‘Yes, you are,’ Remus replies. ‘We have to scatter.’

 

‘Ok,’ Tonks says. ‘Absolutely.

 

Sirius starts, ‘Remus, I’m not-‘

 

Remus draws his wand, obviously not listening, as a booming voice starts speaking inside their heads – or maybe just through the barrier –

 

‘I know that this is the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.’

 

The voice is terrible, like an Imperius curse that hurts, and Sirius fights against his own instincts to crawl underneath the furniture.

 

‘Go,’ Remus yells at him.

 

‘Remus-‘

 

Tonks reaches for his hand – he thinks she wants the bag, reaches into his pocket to give it to her – but her hand clenches around his, so tightly that it’s painful, and a fraction of a second later he understands what is about to happen.

 

‘No-‘

 

She yanks, and they spin forward into the swirl of Apparition.

Chapter 28: Homeless

Notes:

It's been a while! I've had a lot of this languishing in a Word doc for some time and there's more to come but this seemed like a good break point in what was becoming an unruly, long chapter. We're very close to the end here. I'm guessing 3-4 more chapters based on my outline. If you're still reading, thank you so much, I appreciate YOU. <3 all of my readers.

I also want to say... real world events are influencing things in this story quite a bit, as they have been throughout, and do in so many written works (I could write 1000s of words about how Order of the Phoenix is very clearly a post-9/11 book) . I'm sorry this chapter is bleak. Thanks again for sticking with me and with this story.

A Death Eater follows them through Apparition space; Sirius can’t see who it is, only their silvery mask.

 

‘Let go of me,’ he yells at Tonks. ‘There’s only one!’

 

‘You’ll be splinched,’ she yells back, and they hit the ground. The Death Eater materialises a second later. She releases Sirius and they both step and turn; Russian roulette with a fifty/fifty chance on who the Death Eater follows, and, indeed, it is Sirius, he can see them behind him again, and he daren’t fire off spells because they could spin out of Apparition space and hit anyone –

 

But the Death Eater has no such qualms, and shoots Killing Spell after Killing Spell in his direction. Sirius lands, hard, on the beach.

 

He is in Pembrokeshire, in one of the coves with high cliffs walling it off from the rolling hills of the interior. The Death Eater lands behind him. Dolohov. Sirius knows his swagger. They dodge and dart along the beach, wet sand sucking at Sirius’s feet, making him slow, but he’s furious, and his spells are covering a wide area – he’s always fought like this, angry and wild, whereas Remus is all cold precision, he could drop a stunning spell that would fall from space to land on a bee –

 

Remus.

 

Fear is an ice bath, like the sea that is lapping at his shoes now, for he has lured the Death Eater backwards to the water. He ducks, falls to his knees, sees Dolohov’s triumphant twitch of his arm, hears, ‘Avada-‘

 

His own stunning spell sends Dolohov backwards, twenty feet along the edge of the surf. Sirius falls forward, onto his hands, and kneels in the water for just a moment. His hair has come loose from the messy ponytail he sleeps in and it falls around his face. With a wet hand, he shoves it back and forces himself to his feet. He walks along the beach until he comes to Dolohov, who is trapped, eyes wide open behind his mask. Sirius kicks the mask off, feels his foot connect with Dolohov’s jaw underneath it, feels viciously triumphant.

 

‘Fuck you,’ he yells at him. Water swamps him and Dolohov gasps and sputters. Sirius knows that the sea will do his job for him if he leaves him like this. He knows he could drag him up the beach and leave him tied to a rock, let the birds come for him. Dolohov is clearly terrified. Sirius hates this power he has. If he leaves Dolohov alive, he’ll come for the Order. This is a war. He’s caused death before, but he’s loath to do it again.

 

He crouches down and says, very clearly, ‘Who came with you?’

 

Dolohov’s eyes are confused. Another wave rolls in and he goes under; when it recedes, panic is back on his face.

 

‘Who,’ Sirius repeats, ‘came with you to the cottage? Who was in your party? Was Bellatrix there?’

 

There’s a flicker. Yes, Sirius thinks. Bellatrix will have gone after Remus, just like her letter, dripping with unhinged vitriol. Fuck her, fuck Dolohov, fuck this. He kicks Dolohov viciously so that he rolls a little up the beach and leaves him. Somewhere in the melee, he’d lost the ability to Apparate – that kind of spell is silent and can cover a wide area, unlike the Killing Curse – and he needs to get off this beach and find a way to find Remus now.

 

There’s no escaping it without scaling the cliffs – not on land, anyway. He transforms into Padfoot and runs into the waves, starting to swim as soon as he’s beyond the breakers. The water is frigid, but it’s much better as a dog than it would be as a human, and he’s a stronger swimmer this way too. He swims far enough out to skirt the sharp cliff edges and then lets the icy current take him around until he finds another beach.

 

Bedraggled, he staggers onto the sand and shakes, over and over again, trying to get the stinging water off his body. Then he gallops up the beach until he finds a path up to the cliff’s edge. As a dog, he doesn’t note the rolling green of southwest Wales spread out before him, but instead the scents of the winter grasses and the loamy soil and the metallic edge of snow coming on the air. He hunkers down out of the wind and sniffs until he locates a town. Then he trots off in that direction, shivering with every step.

 

The town is dingy and socked in by fog. Padfoot crouches in the cemetery, in the lee of the little village church, until the pub on the lone street opens and then he transforms back into his human form and goes inside. The barman gives him a startled look – it is very early, and he is still damp and wearing a dressing gown – but Sirius casts a glamour and the man’s eyes slide away as soon as he’s pushed a pint of bitter down the bar to him. Sirius holds the pint tightly and tries to think. He still can’t Apparate. He has no idea where Remus is, or for that matter where Tonks is. He remembers that he has the map in a small bag balled up in his dressing gown pocket. Leaving his pint for a moment, he goes into the toilet and takes it out, trying to examine it for Remus’s name, but he can’t find him. There’s a gaping black hole – literally a char mark through the parchment -where the cottage was. Numb, he returns to his pint and sits staring at it for what feels like hours.

 

‘Sirius?’

 

Tonks’ hand is suddenly on his shoulder. He spins wildly and stares at her. ‘Tonks?’

 

‘Thank Merlin I found you,’ she exhales. She looks exhausted and perhaps even wetter than he was when he came into the pub.

 

‘He put an Anti-Apparition Hex on me,’ he says.

 

‘I figured. Listen –‘

 

‘Have you heard from Remus?’

 

She shakes her head. ‘No, listen, Sirius…’

 

He braces himself. ‘What?’

 

‘It’s Harry and Hermione.’

 

***

 

Sirius turns his pint glass into an illegal Portkey to Godric’s Hollow because fuck legality, it’s the fastest way to get there. But even then, they arrive too late: Bathilda Bagshot’s house is a pile of matchsticks getting slowly buried under a layer of new snow. Tonks shivers miserably beside him as they search methodically through the wreckage.

 

Sirius hates this fucking town.

 

They find the long-dead remains of Bathilda and a monstrous snakeskin, but no sign of the two teenagers. Sirius leaves Tonks somewhere near what was the upstairs bedroom and stalks to the graveyard. Remus had told him about the memorial, but he’s never actually been. Now he stands in the snow and stares at the white monolith, its face inscribed with their names, and with a message: ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’

 

No, he thinks. For the last enemy is grief.

 

Tonks is giving him a wide berth, though she really needn’t have. Tears won’t come. He thinks, of course, of Regulus, buried in an onyx tomb in the Black family vault. James and Lily came to Harry the night of the Triwizard Tournament. They are no more locked beneath this marble prison than the wind, the sky, the sea. They are dissipated amongst the stars until needed. They are inside his soul, and Remus’s, and most of all Harry’s. He closes his eyes. I’d know if Remus was gone because he’d come to me.

 

His Apparition skills finally return sometime around then. Tonks takes him to Shell Cottage, where Bill and Fleur live. She’s treating him like glass. He wonders dully what she’s seeing in his face. Kingsley greets them at the door and talks and talks but Sirius doesn’t hear a word of it. Fleur offers him a bedroom and once he’s locked himself inside, he transforms into Padfoot and crawls underneath the bed. He doesn’t sleep.

 

In the hour before dawn, exhausted, he leaves the house and walks down to the sea. It has snowed overnight and a thin skein of frost clings to the sand like foam from the waves. He listens to the calm water and watches the sky lighten to a dull grey. His desolation is the sky: as vast, as colourless. He walks far down the beach until he rounds a bend and is out of sight of the cottage, and then he kneels and presses his palms into the sand. Locational magic: he is reaching into the earth to try to feel the imprint of Remus’s feet elsewhere upon it. Eroded edges of shells press against his fingers, but he continues to reach, down, as far as he can go, into the endless depths of the sand: how deep is a beach? An ocean? The well inside of him? Deeper than he can know, deep enough to seem an abyss to a mortal man.

 

And then he feels it: an edge. It’s visceral enough that he thinks it is in the sand for a second. He’s sunk in up to his elbows. Then he realises that it is inside of himself. He probes it, gently, fearful of its disappearing, but though it curves inward, it doesn’t shy away. And then as suddenly as turning on a light, he knows he can do it.

 

He summons his Patronus. The ethereal black dog steps away from his body and stands beside him, head up and ears alert.

 

‘Padfoot,’ Sirius whispers. The dog’s ears perk forward and his tail wags, sweeping trailing plasma arcs in the still air. ‘Help me,’ Sirius says, more confident. ‘Find Remus. Tell him I – tell him I love him. And then return and tell me where he is.’

 

The dog steps forward, presses his nose to Sirius’s shoulder, and then disappears.

 

***

His Patronus does not return. Sirius waits for nearly an hour, until the sky is fully light, and then returns to Shell Cottage, unsure how to interpret these events. Surely if Remus was dead, Padfoot would have come back almost instantly. So he must still be searching. But where could he be that a Patronus couldn’t find?

 

The cottage is packed with nearly twenty people – the last members of the Order. Molly sees Sirius and wraps her arms around him in a silent hug. He holds on to her a second longer than he would have normally, and when they break apart her eyes are wet. Sirius shakes his head – he can’t talk about this. Not yet.

 

‘Without Remus…’ Kingsley is saying as Sirius enters the kitchen. He trails off.

 

‘He’s not dead,’ Sirius says, surprising himself with how wry he sounds. ‘He’s missing. If he was dead, I’d know.’

 

‘He’s incapacitated,’ Ted Tonks says, exasperated. ‘The Order’s mission has failed. We’re scattered to the winds.’

 

‘And yet, we’re all here,’ Sirius says, drily.

 

‘We can’t stay here,’ says Tonks. She gives Sirius a look that he suspects is meant to be sympathetic. ‘They’ll find us. They’ll put Bill and Fleur in danger.’

 

‘We have to split up.’

 

‘It’s every wizard and witch for themselves, now.’

 

Sirius realises that people seem to be looking to him guidance. As if he’s the bearer of Remus’s spirit. Desperate times, indeed. He almost snorts. He doesn’t want the role and he knows they don’t want him to have it either. ‘If you think that,’ he says to the room at large, ‘then do what you must. I intend to fight.’

 

‘What do you think Remus would want?’ Tonks asks him directly.

 

Sirius hesitates. She, of all people, deserves a real answer, not something flippant. ‘To help the most people.’

 

‘How?’ Molly asks. Sirius isn’t sure if she even meant to vocalise it; she looks startled when everyone looks at her. ‘It’s just… it seems so hopeless to fight now. They’re powerful everywhere. We can win small battles, but they control so much…’ She swallows and continues. ‘They’re coming for anyone not Pureblood, and they’ll be coming for us blood traitors next, Sirius.’

 

Sirius’s mind is churning, and then suddenly it stops, fixated on something. A solution. A real, concrete thing they can do. ‘What if we arranged for people to get out?’ he asks.

 

‘Get out?’ Arthur asks.

 

‘Out of Britain,’ Sirius says. He looks at Fleur and her friends, who are all standing by the Aga. ‘Could we do that? Help people escape?’

 

Fleur purses her lips. ‘Yes, I tink we can do zat.’

 

***

Remus wakes in semi-darkness. He rolls over and retches, a smooth, single motion, well-accustomed. Whomever has put him here – he’s on a couch in a semi-dark room – has provided him with a rubbish bin in the right place.

 

Werewolves.

 

There’s something at his feet, too. It glows and shimmers in the low light. As Remus eases back onto the couch, it seems to flow up his body, pressing itself against his right side. There’s the faintest warmth that radiates from it.

 

‘Padfoot,’ he whispers, startled.

 

‘I love you,’ the Patronus says in Sirius’s voice. ‘Where are you?’

 

‘I don’t know,’ Remus mouths. No sound comes out, even though he intends it to. He’s so weak and everything aches. Morning after a bad full moon? But this ache is different. He feels slow and stupid. The Cruciatus Curse. He remembers: Bellatrix, in the flaming ruins of the cottage. His parents’ things, his and Sirius’s things, all gone in the green heat of Fiendfyre.

 

They’re just things. He shuts his eyes and repeats it, just things, just things, just things. His hands are warm where Padfoot is. Just things just things just

 

The door opens and there is Bim. ‘Remus? Are you awake?’

 

He nods, barely. His left hand is wrapped in bandages and he is slowly becoming aware of its throbbing. ‘What happened?’ he croaks. He knows a lot of it but he wants to hear it from someone else.

 

Bim winces. ‘Are you all right with this creature?’ she asks, gesturing at Sirius’s Patronus. ‘We couldn’t disperse it. It’s so fierce looking… we were worried…’ She trails off, presumably seeing something in Remus’s face. ‘It’s from Sirius?’

 

Remus nods, his right hand clenched where the thick fur of the neck should be, almost as if the Patronus has solid form, almost as if he can touch it, touch him. Almost. ‘His Patronus.’

 

Bim sighs. ‘We weren’t sure,’ she says. ‘We thought it might be Greyback.’ She conjures a chair and sits. ‘Your cottage is gone. You’re in the den now.’

 

‘London?’

 

She looks to the side. ‘Yes. The only one we’ve got left.’

 

‘Greyback took the others?’

 

‘Or destroyed them. There’s been a purge, these last few days.’

 

Remus exhales. ‘How many…?’

 

‘People survived. They’re just scattered. There’s fifteen of us here. Only Joseph and I know about you, though. Who you are, I mean. There’s an enormous bounty on your head and the Snatchers are everywhere.’

 

‘How long have I been unconscious?’

 

‘Five days, give or take.’

 

Remus curses. ‘That’s a long time, Bim.’

 

‘Yeah,’ she agrees. ‘And you don’t look healed all the way to me either.’

 

Remus swallows. ‘And how did you find me?’

 

‘You called us,’ she says. ‘Bellatrix Lestrange was cursing you to death and you triggered our signal.’

 

Remus remembers, suddenly, finding the coin in his pocket through the depths of the Cruciatus Curse. Hermione’s idea – the coins for communication – that he’d modified to give locational information. The werewolves had been his contacts of last resort. He must have blacked out after that though, because he doesn’t remember them arriving.

 

‘She’d set fire to the place,’ Bim says, watching his face carefully. ‘Fiendfyre. She’d left you to die in it. There was nothing we could do except grab you and get you out of there.’

 

‘I understand,’ Remus says. ‘Thank you.’

 

‘We’re not sure –‘ Bim hesitates.

 

‘What?’

 

‘We think she tried to curse your ring off. But it wouldn’t budge. Your hand – hopefully it’s healing.’

 

Remus feels his left hand throb again. He sees Bellatrix screaming, unhinged, when she saw his ring. A shame on the Black family, of course, a werewolf married into it. Not that she’d bothered to check with him how he felt about being a part of that family either. She’d tried to curse the ring off and then she’d stomped on his hand. The ring had protected him from some of it but not all of it, it seems. ‘Is the ring all right?’ he asks, suddenly panicked.

 

‘It wouldn’t come off, I’ll tell you that,’ Bim says, bemused. ‘We tried because your hand was swollen. We couldn’t touch it with magic or bolt cutters.’

 

‘Bloody in-laws,’ he manages, and though Bim smiles, he longs for it to be Sirius hearing this joke, because Sirius would have roared.

 

After she leaves, Remus collapses. He lies with his head turned into the pale side of the Patronus so that he is within its warmth, surrounded by glowing opalescence. He thinks of them all – werewolves, the Order, Harry, Ron, and Hermione – these people he feels responsible for, almost fatherly to – and he starts to cry. He couldn’t hold them together. He couldn’t protect them from any of the ugliness that he’s always known existed in the world but that they hadn’t known, not the way he has. He knows that thought is ridiculous even as he has it, even as it destroys him to feel it, and he cannot stop crying, sobbing now as he turns into the side of the couch and buries his face into the cushions, which reek of canine and charity shop and rubbish bin.

 

The Patronus dips forward, fully enveloping him, and then fades into nothingness. Remus understands that it is going to communicate his state to Sirius, wherever he is. He understands that the Patronus means Sirius is well enough, but he aches for him anyway. Exhausted, he falls into a dreamless sleep.

 

Sometime later – there’s no way to tell passage of time in the room – he awakens to a burning sensation on his chest. He reaches into his shirt collar – god he’s sticky and sweaty and disgusting – and removes the two pound coin that hangs on a chain, which Hermione gave to him solemnly the day before Bill and Fleur’s wedding. It is glowing and hot now. Tiny words that he squints to read have appeared on its face, replacing the Latin surrounding Elizabeth II’s head:

 

‘Have sword of Gryffindor. Destroyed locket horcrux. Who is doe Patronus?’

Chapter 29: Together, Alone and Alone Together

Notes:

Happy slightly belated holidays to my readers. Thank you for sticking with the story, reading, kudosing, and commenting. There are two chapters left.

Oh, and fuck transphobia.

It is a Wednesday night and Lily and Remus are waiting.

 

Lily sits by the fire with her hands cupped around a cup of tea. A generous portion of firewhisky is in it. Remus is lying on the couch, a cup of the same drink on the table at his side. Harry is asleep in the next room, his breathing magically magnified so that they can hear it in the background, a steady rhythm underneath their conversation. Harry is a year and a month, but tonight James is gone, which can make him fussy.

 

They have been talking and drinking for hours – too many hours. James and Sirius should have been back ages ago, their cheeks flushed from the night air, their hair mussed, their voices full of stories. Remus is slightly tipsy, but not enough to really matter.

 

There’s a noise outside and Lily rises to look, then sinks back into her chair. She’s limping a bit, having sustained a twisted ankle trying to get out of the way of some Death Eaters two nights ago.

 

‘I think it’s a fox in the bins,’ she says lightly. ‘Can’t you do something about that?’

 

Remus is forty-eight hours removed from the last full moon and feels like he’s been beaten with sacks of fruit. It’s better than yesterday, when he’d felt like they were sacks of rocks, but it’s not great. ‘I’ll take it up at the next canine council meeting,’ he says, testing the warmth of his tea. Stone cold. Whisky skein clouds the surface. He takes a sip, grimaces, and swallows. ‘It’s not like you couldn’t write a strongly worded letter.’

 

‘I don’t think they’d care,’ Lily says. She uses her wand to add wood to the fire. Despite it being early September, a draught is making the room winter cold. Rain clattering on the curtain-drawn windows underlies the soft sounds of Harry’s breath. ‘We’d know, right?’ she asks, for what must be the third or fourth time. ‘We’d know.’

 

‘We’d know,’ Remus echoes. He’s not sure he would, really. There’d been a time when he’d have been certain of it but now all the fear and suspicion of the Order’s spy problem weighs heavy on their relationship. His body aches for Sirius but it doesn’t abate fully even when he’s inside of him.

 

‘Remus,’ Lily says. He looks up at her, startled out of a reverie of drink and dark thoughts.

 

‘What?’

 

‘Tell me truly,’ she says, leaning forward on her knees sharply enough that he sees the slosh of the tea on the rim of her cup.

 

‘All right…’ He’s unnerved.

 

‘Has Sirius ever cried during sex?’

 

Startled, he coughs a laugh that scrapes his ribs. The corners of her mouth turn up and then she starts to giggle. ‘That’s what you want to know?’

 

‘So that’s a yes, then. No instant denial.’

 

Remus flaps his mouth like a fish and fights to keep the memory off his face. ‘We have good sex,’ he tries, lamely.

 

‘So good he cries.’

 

‘Not every time. Not even most of the time.’ Lily starts giggling harder. ‘Come on now, I assume James does.’

 

‘James?’ she shrieks. ‘Why’s that?’

 

‘Sheer astonishment that he’s got you, I suppose.’

 

Lily snorts. ‘You think James does because he and Sirius are practically twins.’

 

‘Strange twins,’ Remus says. ‘The one good looking, the other James.’

 

She tosses a pillow, gently, at his head. ‘Rude.’

 

‘You brought it up.’

 

‘I don’t want to die not knowing.’

 

‘It’s been keeping you up at night?’

 

There’s another sound outside and Lily is on her feet in a snap, pulling aside the curtain and peering out. Remus’s fingers clench around his wand.

 

‘Nothing?’ he asks lightly.

 

‘Albus thinks we’re going to have to go into hiding,’ Lily says softly, letting the curtain fall and regaining her seat. ‘Soon, he thinks.’

 

‘You’ve been lucky,’ Remus says. The thought comes to him almost instantly. ‘Three times you and James have escaped him.’

 

‘I know,’ Lily says. She sits back down, looking over Remus’s head. ‘But I don’t want to hide. Albus says it’s for Harry’s sake, but it feels wrong, even with Harry. We should stay and fight, alongside you and Sirius and Peter…’ Her voice trails off. ‘I know we have to do the right thing for our son. But what if the right thing is us defeating him ourselves?’

 

Remus doesn’t know what to say. People do this to him all the time: they think he’s got some great advice to offer. They confess things to him. They seek his counsel. They say he’s a good listener. He wishes they didn’t, not even Lily, who he loves like a sister. He doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say.

 

‘I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent, obviously,’ he says now, fumbling his way towards whatever he can. ‘But I know I like having you around. I know your fighting skills and your brain are worth more than just having you sit protected somewhere.’

 

Lily gives him a tentative look. ‘Remus,’ she says, and he knows that whatever she’s going to say is going to be hard. ‘Do you think Albus is wrong?’

 

‘No,’ he says quickly. He’s not prepared to face it. ‘We have to trust him.’

 

She hesitates. ‘Sirius thinks he’s wrong.’

 

‘About what?’ Remus snaps, and she looks startled at his tone. ‘Sorry, just, about what?’ he asks, trying to sound more normal.

 

‘Sirius thinks we should be allowed to tell others what we’re doing. He doesn’t think secret missions are a good way to protect us from the spy.’

 

Remus sighs. ‘Dog with a bone,’ he mutters.

 

***

The thing about the tension in their relationship is, well, it’s not something he really wants to discuss with Lily.

 

The mortal terror means that they’re either fighting or fucking, sometimes at the same time, and Remus would be lying if it wasn’t fulfilling a need he’s ashamed to have. When he isn’t in a place of cold, calm terror on a mission, he’s coming apart at the seams, remembering past missions, worrying about people on current missions, thinking of the dead, wondering when Sirius’s time will come. When they are in the same place, they get needy. So it goes:

 

Remus comes home, bleeding from a shallow cut over one eye. Sirius follows him into the bath and demands to know why he’s hours late while they jostle for position with wands and thick healing lotion. Sirius’s fingers are gentle against Remus’s brow even as they’re fighting, his touch so deft and expert at this healing dance they’ve been doing for years – Sirius pressing against Remus’s desire to be self-sufficient, even before they were lovers, just taking up space the way a dog does, oblivious to boundaries. Remus loves him so much for it.

 

Remus lets his hands graze Sirius’s back. Sirius stiffens and relief floods through Remus like a drug.

 

‘I have to go,’ Sirius warns, but his mouth is already close enough to Remus’s ear to burn, his tongue hot and wet down the curve as he moves to suck in his earlobe. Remus slides one hand down Sirius’s back and under the waistband of his trousers. With the other, he undoes the buttons at his fly and lets them fall, spinning Sirius – who is already turning – so that he’s leaning over the sink. Remus watches Sirius’s hands grip the porcelain edges as he fucks him. The veins stand out over the knuckles and Remus knows he’s going too hard, too fast, his hand around Sirius’s cock too tight, but Sirius takes every thrust and stroke with a ragged gasp, his entire body so tense that Remus suddenly feels claustrophobic: in this room, in this relationship… As Remus comes, Sirius hunches further, taking it all, and then he’s coming too, all over the sink – some gets on the mirror – Remus thinks I’ll have to clean that – and Sirius is already standing, already pulling away, still panting a little with his hair stuck to his forehead from sweat. ‘I have to go.’

 

‘I love you.’

 

Sirius pauses, one hand on the doorknob, the other holding up his trousers, blinking rapidly in a way Remus knows means he’s holding something back. ‘I love you, too.’ He leans to kiss Remus, buttoning up as he does, and then he’s gone. Remus slides down the side of the tub and sits, head in his hands, shaking with the comedown.

 

And again:

 

They have a screaming row about where Remus has been. Sirius demands to know why he comes in so many mornings bedraggled and exhausted, and Remus, who is both of those things very much, can’t seem to do anything but respond mechanically that he can’t tell him a thing – Dumbledore’s orders.

 

Finally, Sirius demands, ‘Are you fucking someone else?’ His voice breaks on the curse.

 

Remus stands hollow, stunned, for a beat too long. ‘When exactly do you think I have time to meet other people?’ he asks, deathly calm, arch, the exact voice that will destroy Sirius. He can’t seem to stop himself. The idea is so fucking absurd. He’s trying to recruit werewolves and other Dark Creatures. He’s getting thrown through walls and hexed until he bleeds and this is what Sirius thinks he’s doing? Fuck him, and fuck Dumbledore for not letting him say it. Fuck the war. Just – fuck this.

 

Sirius is crying now, silent, one hand over his eyes and his shoulders heaving. ‘Where are you going then?’ he asks, his voice broken all over now, jagged edges on every syllable. ‘Please. Tell me.’

 

Remus leans very close and takes Sirius’s hand away from his eyes. ‘I. Can’t. We have orders, Sirius.’ He’s still a good soldier, then. Dumbledore has given him so much. He has to trust him on this too. ‘What if you were the spy?’

 

Tears are pooling on Sirius’s eyelids and running down his face in red streaks. Remus sees his words register, sees Sirius’s emotions shift like a murmuration, desperation to something much, much worse. Months later, Remus will return to that shift and think, I should have known. Thirteen years later, he’ll be playing it over and over again in his head lying in his bed at Hogwarts, wondering if he ever could have known anything at all.

 

‘What if I were the spy?’ Sirius repeats, his voice dull. ‘That’s your excuse?’ He’s stopped crying and he turns away, walking across the room to look out the window over smoky London. ‘Fuck you.’

 

‘I wish you would,’ Remus mutters, reflexively, stupidly, but they wind up in bed anyhow, clinging onto each other.

 

That’s the time Sirius cries. ‘Please,’ he begs. ‘Please be mine.’

 

‘Of course I am,’ Remus snaps.

 

Usually reassurances work with Sirius but this time he turns his face away and says, ‘Not exactly the setting for honesty, is it?’ and when they’re done he cleans up silently and then walks out the door and doesn’t return for two days.

 

But Remus doesn’t really think he’s the spy – does he? Everything is so mind numbing and frantic and exhausting that his brain doesn’t function properly. Sometimes after the full moon he winds up so tired that he has the opposite of lucid dreams – so realistic feeling that he can’t tell if he dreamed them or not upon waking. Did he imagine that glance Sirius gave a Death Eater when they captured him, the one who escaped later that night? The way Sirius flinched when Alice Longbottom was talking about Bellatrix Lestrange?

 

In September, Lily gives him the idea that he should take Sirius on a date. ‘Nothing related to any of this,’ she says softly, waving a hand around the cramped and hot attic room in Diagon Alley where they’re helping prepare magical weapons. ‘Just go out for a drink. Go see a film, get dinner, stroll around a park.’

 

‘Be a Muggle,’ Remus says, one eyebrow raised.

 

‘Yes, exactly.’

 

‘What do you think?’ he asks Sirius, on the one night a week later that they are both home. ‘Let’s go out.’

 

Sirius hesitates, then breaks into a rare smile. ‘Let me change.’

 

Lily’s suggestions were all well and good, but Remus doesn’t want to talk. He’s fairly certain that if they do, they’ll break up, and it’s not a possibility he’s willing to accept. Instead, they go to a gay disco and Remus takes every opportunity to demonstrate to Sirius that he’s the only one that interests him. It is a rare happy night that year; indeed, it is the last happy night they have for – well – a very long time.

 

***

Sirius checks the address against the parchment Arthur had given him this morning and looks around the street. It’s an unremarkable lane in Rotherham, twin rows of red brick semi-detacheds as far as the eye can see, and there’s not a soul out on this dull grey Tuesday except a mangy tabby. He walks up a damp path made of the same red brick and knocks on the door of 112A. The curtain at the sidelight twitches, he hears a shifting of locks both Muggle and magical, and then the door opens a smidge.

 

‘Artemisia Caswell?’ he asks the door crack, because he can’t see anything inside; the house is quite dark.

 

‘Who are you?’ Her voice is shaky, and younger than he’d expected.

 

‘I’m with the Order of the Phoenix. I have intelligence that you may be in some danger from the Snatchers.’

 

There’s a long pause. She takes a deep breath that sounds like a sob. Sirius is getting increasingly nervous about being out on her stoop. Arthur can only acquire these lists from his contact in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement the morning of, and Sirius has had two instances where he wasn’t the first one there.

 

‘Are you all –‘

 

‘Come in.’ She opens the door just barely wide enough to permit him to pass. Gripping his wand in his pocket, he steps into a dark hallway strewn with shoes. She shuts the door and casts a locking charm, then throws a heavy bolt. ‘Follow me.’

 

They go together into a kitchen lit only by a single candle. In the shadows, Sirius can see that Artemisia is in her thirties or forties, with a pale face framed by heavy blonde hair. She has her wand pointed at him. Her hand is shaking violently. ‘What did you have to tell me?’ she asks.

 

‘I have information from the Ministry that you are going to be brought in and put before the Wizengamot for your blood status.’

 

‘Why would they do that?’ she asks. Sirius can’t tell who she’s trying to convince.

 

‘I don’t know your personal history,’ he explains. ‘I just have this list of people they are looking for, acquired by a source at the Ministry.’

 

‘My father’s family,’ she says, indicating something on the wall – Sirius squints and sees a moving photograph, but he can’t make out any detail – ‘they’re wizards back to, oh, centuries. Back and back.’

 

‘Unfortunately they are moving on Halfbloods,’ Sirius says, as gently as he can.

 

‘I didn’t say I was one,’ she snaps.

 

Sirius blinks at her. ‘Listen –‘

 

‘Aren’t you Sirius Black?’ she asks suddenly. Her knuckles on her wand are very white.

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘What are you doing here?’

 

‘I’m with the Order of the Phoenix. I’m trying to help you.’

 

‘You’re not.’

 

‘Listen, we have somewhere we can take you where you can be safe.’

 

‘I don’t need to go anywhere.’ A wheedling tone has entered her voice. ‘I’m sure the Ministry would love to see you.’

 

Sirius sighs. He’d feel threatened if it wasn’t all so tedious. ‘You’re not going to be able to bargain with them. They’ll arrest us both.’

 

‘They have no reason to arrest me,’ she says. ‘I’m a – a good witch. I went to Hogwarts. My father’s family…’

 

‘Artemisia – ‘

 

‘Witch Caswell,’ she snaps.

 

‘Fine,’ Sirius snaps back. ‘But listen to me. No matter who your father was, your family connections are not good enough for them. Turning me in will not be good enough for them either. You’re on this list and you’ll be in Azkaban by nightfall if you don’t come with me.’

 

She makes a sudden movement and Sirius disarms her wordlessly. Her wand flies into his hand and she collapses backward against the cabinets. She’s not hurt – his spell had been gentle as – but she sinks down to the ground, sobbing. ‘Please,’ she gasps. ‘Please tell them. I’m a good witch. Please.’

 

‘Come with me,’ Sirius repeats. ‘We have a safe place for you to go. The Order will protect you.’

 

‘I can tell on other people,’ she says, not looking at him. ‘I know people who have falsified their family histories – omitted a Mudblood…’

 

Sirius gives up on her. The Order is very much a finite resource now. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says curtly. He tosses her wand onto the table. ‘Get out while you still can. They will not care who else’s life you can ruin.’ He turns away from her and starts down the hallway.

 

‘Where are you going?’ she calls after him tremulously. ‘Wait! Please!’ But he’s already stepping into the turn, Apparating to the next name on the list.

 

So it goes. Three families warned; one agrees to come with him. They travel together the Muggle way, by car. Tonks drives. Sirius is in the back, wedged between the silently weeping father who cradles his youngest on his lap and the stoic grandmother who lived through the previous war and stares out the window at the blurred grey walls of the motorway. The other father is up front, their two older children sitting on his lap, one on each knee. Tonks has the radio on quietly and Sirius can hear the jovial tone of the afternoon host as he announces a contest winner.

 

At the Hull Ferry Terminal, Sirius gives them the information about Fleur’s contact who will be meeting them in Rotterdam. The one man is still crying, and his husband, whose arms are full of children, comforts him by leaning a shoulder against his back. Sirius aches at the sight of it, and offers to hold one of the children. The man wipes his eyes and shakes his head, looking to the side to give his husband a wavering smile.

 

Tonks touches his elbow. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she says, nodding her head to one side. Sirius senses the movement at the edges of his vision as she does so, and grips his wand in his pocket.

 

‘Let’s see them onto the ferry,’ he replies. He doesn’t know what’s approaching yet. He thinks, Fuck me, it’s cold in here.

 

‘Go on,’ Tonks says, shooing them up the ramp. ‘They’re departing.’ There are announcements overhead, though Sirius isn’t sure what they’re saying. There’s suddenly a hideous buzzing in his ears – his blood is pounding there, drowning out other sounds –

 

‘Dementors,’ he breathes, as he sees the shadows slip into the room. ‘Tonks.’

 

‘Fuck me,’ she whispers. Sirius manages to focus well enough to see the family boarding. The grandmother looks back and he sees her see them too. She looks down, seeking out him and Tonks on the dock, and her eyes hold nothing but compassion. Then she turns and steps through the doorway, and a sailor swings it shut behind her.

 

‘Are they going to make it?’ Sirius asks. His voice seems to be coming from his chest. He’s not sure he’s speaking aloud.

 

‘They’re here for us,’ Tonks replies. ‘Come. Now.’

 

Sirius follows her through the crowd, which is starting to shrink back from the walls. The Muggles who surround them won’t see the Dementors but it’s clear they can feel them. A young woman near one is staring, catatonic, where it’s face would be as it leans close…

 

Tonks’ Patronus kicks it in the head with its long leg. Sirius hadn’t even known she was performing the spell but he can see her now, grim-faced with concentration. She’s dragging him. He knows he’s being useless but Dementors – well they fuck him up more than anyone else –

 

‘Can you Apparate?’ she demands, yanking him by the arm around a corner and into a market. A butcher is weeping desperately over a red slab of meat; his customer has sunk to the floor and is pressing his scarf into his mouth as if trying to stop himself from screaming.

 

‘No,’ Sirius says. ‘You go.’

 

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

 

‘Go,’ he says, as forcefully as he can, throwing her arm off. ‘I can handle myself.’

 

‘I’m not leaving – ‘ Something in his face tells her he means it. ‘Sirius –‘

 

‘Go while you can still Apparate,’ he says. ‘I promise you, I can get myself out of this.’

 

She hesitates, then nods. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ she whispers, and Apparates with a soft pop that causes the nearest Dementor, who has just glided through the butcher’s wall, to turn directly towards Sirius.

 

Calmly, he lays down his spells. He has a wand now. He’s not helpless. He’s a wizard, and one who escaped Azkaban for fuck’s sake. He can do this. Protection, warmth, protection. The Dementors are drawing in close now. The memories are there, the same ones as in Azkaban, as if they’d never gone away – Remus’s face in a fight, Remus’s face after the full moon. James’s face, still, on the floor. Lily’s face. Wet with tears from her crying son. He reaches into the memories and feels the force of his love for these people. It is warm, and then it is palpable. His Patronus leaps from his wand like a fox onto prey and kicks itself through the nearest Dementor’s wraith form.

 

The walls close in, there’s a massive flash of light, and Sirius collapses.

 

***

There is a dingy, abandoned place in the eastern reaches of London, a warren of buildings, below and above ground, that make up the final inner sanctum of Britain’s werewolves. There are maybe thirty of them left, the others all recruited or murdered by Voldemort’s people. Some still come and go – Bim and Joseph among them – but all agree that there are Snatchers watching and waiting who won’t hesitate to attack. There is only one werewolf they will take alive: Remus Lupin.

 

He has been healing for months, slowly venturing from the couch in the deepest part of the den up as far as the uneven roof that overlooks warehouses and fields bombed decades ago into emptiness, and, far off in the distance, the Thames Barrier. The other werewolves treat him with a level of respect that makes him deeply uncomfortable. He’s convinced that it’s tied to his ability to move within the human wizarding world, a privilege that he believes he deserves no credit for. He can write letters to Sirius infrequently because sending them is a danger to them both – the slightest misstep and they will be traced. Sirius cannot visit the den because he is not a werewolf – no matter how much respect the others afford him, this is their implacable law, and as much as Remus longs for Sirius, he would never ask them to break it. And as much as he does long – and as much as he knows Sirius does too – there’s a peacefulness between them that they share in their letters.

 

‘I need you, but I know you are mine, even when you’re far away from me,’ Sirius writes to him.

 

And Remus writes, ‘There’s no secrets between us now. I feel that you’re closer to me now than you’ve ever been.’

 

Sirius’s reply, dashed off, before he boards a train for Watlington: ‘Any Death Eaters tracking our correspondence are presumably vomiting. XXXXXXXX’

 

Finally, a week after the first full moon of spring, Remus thinks he is almost healed enough to return to the Order and the fight. He is on the roof, standing in a meditative posture and looking toward the river, when Sirius’s Patronus comes. Without a thought, Remus Apparates, landing hard in the interior of a large, well-lit building that smells faintly of stale food, surrounded by Dementors. In the second of liminal Apparition space, he’d prepared his spell, and at the sight of Sirius crumpled on the ground, a creature leaning over him with its scabby, twisted hands outstretched, Remus’s Patronus leaps from his wand with devastating effect. Dementors scatter before its blinding light.

 

Remus crouches. ‘Sirius,’ he rasps, yanking him into his arms even as he’s stepping and turning into space. Sirius mumbles something, and then his body wraps around Remus, his big hands strong against Remus’s back, his face pressed into Remus’s neck in the instant that they spin. Remus’s body thrills to him and he almost splinches. They collapse onto a dirt path.  

 

‘Remus,’ Sirius gasps, slumping against him, breath hitching. ‘Remus, how did you –‘

 

‘Your Patronus,’ Remus says, close to tears.

 

Sirius raises a shaking hand and touches his face gently. ‘Where are we?’

 

‘An island off Skye.’

 

‘We’re safe?’

 

‘If we walk a bit. There’s a safehouse here.’

 

‘Whose?’

 

‘Ours. Werewolves.’

 

Sirius strokes his hand down Remus’s face. His voice is trembling. ‘Moony.’

 

‘Come on,’ Remus says, taking his hand and pulling him.

 

The house is dark and shuttered. Remus finds the key hidden where he knew he would and lets them in the garden door. Inside, it is endearingly cosy, with soft, mismatched furniture and fixtures that are decades old. A damp chill clings to every surface. Sirius hovers over him as Remus expertly lights a coal fire in the grate. He feels strangely reluctant to touch Sirius – the anticipation of the last few months is so overwhelming –

 

‘Moony,’ Sirius whispers. Remus can hear that he feels it too. A dam breaks and he turns and nearly collapses into Sirius’s arms. They cling, as if clutching a rock rising from a stormswept sea. Remus’s face is in Sirius’s hair. He’s drawing in his scent in shuddering gasps. Sirius’s fingers on his back are painfully sharp.

 

They strip their clothes off and curl around each other, flesh on flesh, wrapped in their cloaks on a rickety floral divan. Sometime in the night it starts to rain, and Remus wakes to find Sirius watching him sleep with his hand cupped around his jawline.

 

‘Padfoot,’ he murmurs, sleepsoft. Sirius smiles. The rain hammers the window above them as Sirius presses into him, their bodies hot where they’ve been touching, and cold at the extremities. Sirius sweeps a hand down Remus’s side and Remus flinches involuntarily – ‘That’s cold!’ – Sirius is laughing, handsome and untamed – Remus runs his own icy hands down Sirius’s back and elicits a howl followed by more laughter. Other parts of their bodies are hot to touch, and they find their way together so easily and naturally that Sirius makes a silly joke about magnets. Then he’s clutching at Remus, fingers wrapped around his ass as he pulls him in more tightly, and Remus is gasping because he’s not going to last long, not like this, after all this time and with Sirius fully laid out beneath him moaning and so warm and so tight. They come together.

 

Afterwards, Remus lies atop Sirius, head pressed to the hollow just below his collarbone, stroking his index finger across his chest. Their sweat is cooling, their bodies becoming chill. Other thoughts are intruding too – responsibilities and dangers. Neither can really sleep. Remus runs a boiling hot bath and they curl around each other in it, drifting in and out of consciousness, their wands lying against each other on the porcelain sink by the bath.

 

Bim’s Patronus comes in the morning. ‘There’s grave news from London,’ the ebony wolf says. ‘Fenrir and his gang have overrun the den. You got out just in time, Remus.’ As Remus watches in horror, the Patronus fades to smoke, saying solemnly, ‘Nowhere is safe.’

 

Tonks’ Patronus comes too, circling round and round them both before disappearing without a word. They leave the house and walk down the path to a ferry; this takes them to Skye, where they can take another ferry. They travel the Muggle way, two men who sit with their sides touching and their hands tightly clenched across hours of coaches and trains and grimy stations. The landscape they pass is heavy, grey. At every stop, a greasy rain clings to their faces. Their joined hands are the only point of light Remus can see.

 

They return to the slumped cottage on the little island. It’s the only place they can think of that might hold even a tiny bit of safety for them. For a few dreamlike weeks, it does.  

 

They don’t know it, but while they are here, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are captured by Snatchers, tortured at Malfoy Manner, saved by Dobby, and travel to Shell Cottage, where they hatch a plan with the goblin Griphook to break into Gringotts and steal a horcrux from the Lestrange vault.

 

One night early on, Remus dreams of a ship, its deck heaving with rats as it rolls and bucks in a stormy sea, and wakes when a monstrous wave sends all the rats overboard with a terrible squealing. He sits up, sweating, and Sirius opens his eyes instantly and reaches for his wand.

 

‘Did you dream it too?’ he asks, eyes glittering in the dark.

 

‘I think,’ Remus says, putting a hand over his pounding chest, ‘I think Wormtail is dead.’ He doesn’t know why he says Peter’s pet name.

 

‘So do I,’ Sirius says quietly. Remus lies down again and spoons Sirius, holding him tightly around his stomach. He’s drifting when he feels Sirius crying.

 

‘Padfoot,’ he murmurs, voice breaking.

 

‘We’re the last ones,’ Sirius whispers. ‘We’re the last ones.’

 

‘But at least,’ Remus says, because he’s been here before, ‘we have each other this time.’

 

During the lengthening days, they practice spells. They both believe a final battle will come, though neither believes they will win it. Fatalism makes them fantastical.

 

‘I quit the Aurors over Unspeakable Curses,’ Sirius says.

 

‘Quit?’ Remus asks with deep affection, one eyebrow raised. ‘Is that so?’

 

‘I wouldn’t use them,’ Sirius says.

 

‘Or arrest Dark Creatures.’

 

‘I’m not about to use them now,’ Sirius ploughs onward, in his dogged way. ‘I’m going to do something else to keep these fuckers at bay.’

 

So they work on a super binding spell that requires an unlocking rather than just the passage of time. They invent another spell to destroy wands in their users’ hands.

 

‘What will we do with all these Death Eaters whose wands we’re destroying and whose bodies we’re binding?’ Remus asks, sweating from the exertion of having destroyed twenty ash switches in a row.

 

‘I don’t know,’ Sirius admits. He’s panting. ‘But not Azkaban.’ He looks down at the ground. ‘I’ll never send someone there.’

 

‘No,’ Remus says gently. ‘No Azkaban. No Dementors. It’s too cruel, even for Death Eaters.’

 

‘For anyone,’ Sirius agrees. ‘No more prisons.’ He laughs sharply. ‘We’ll rehabilitate them all.’

 

‘I didn’t want you in prison,’ Remus admits. ‘Not even when I thought you were guilty. I used to think –‘ He stops, embarrassed. Those dark thoughts inhabit another lifetime.

 

‘Tell me,’ Sirius says quietly.

 

Remus hesitates, then finally says, ‘I thought that when I was old, I’d find a way into Azkaban.’ He looks out to the sea, which is rising up to touch the sun. ‘I’d get inside and I’d – I’d ask you if you were sorry. But no matter what you said, my plan was to put you out of your misery.’ He swallows. ‘And then, I assumed, the guards would take care of me too.’

 

‘Merciful Moony,’ Sirius says, his voice tender. ‘Thank you.’

 

‘I didn’t want to do it,’ Remus tries to explain. ‘It was just – I felt so powerless. It was the only way I knew to stop your suffering.’ He looks down at his hands, dirt under the fingernails and veins tense from clutching his wand. ‘I still feel powerless.’

 

‘I don’t,’ Sirius says. Remus looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. ‘It might sound silly and trite,’ Sirius says, ‘in fact, it might even be silly and trite, but I’ve got the power to choose who I love.’ He steps close and wraps his arms around Remus, pushing his face into his neck. ‘Every day I choose you. And that’s true power, I think.’

 

Remus puts one hand around the back of Sirius’s neck and presses as close to him as he can. ‘I love you too,’ he murmurs.

 

But that night he’s still mulling over it, and Sirius knows it. ‘We aren’t powerless,’ he says, pushing a bowl of tomato soup Remus’s way.

 

‘I want to end violence,’ Remus says. He’s thinking of every time someone has been aggressive towards him because he’s poor, or a werewolf, or queer. ‘I want to have the power to change Wizarding society so that everyone’s intrinsic rights are honoured. I want to remake the Ministry, to change prejudices, to undo centuries of old money and power networks…’

 

Sirius sighs. ‘Remus…’

 

‘The problem,’ Remus says, even though he knows Sirius knows it, because he’s on a rant now and he can’t stop himself, ‘is that if we do defeat – you know, the people we’re actively fighting – we’re still going to have the whole shit Wizarding world to deal with, and they’ll be able to point to the Death Eaters and say, “oh, well, we’re not actually murdering people, so we’re pretty good” while they’re busy mistreating their house elves and saying they like the enslavement!’

 

‘I know,’ Sirius says. ‘I promise. But we have to do this first.’

 

‘We have to defeat big, active evil with a society that’s already engaged in minor, everyday evil?’

 

‘I’m afraid so.’ Sirius sits. ‘But you know, if we do defeat them – if we are the ones who do it – we will have some clout, I think. Heroes of the Order of the Phoenix, right? The only ones who could stop the terror? We’ll be able to say that we should get rid of prison, that we recognize the full rights of Dark Creatures –‘

 

A great weariness settles over Remus. ‘Do you think so?’

 

‘We’ll be fighting for some of it til we’re dead,’ Sirius says. ‘I think that. I know you, and I know me, and we won’t give up, but I also know how much the old families are going to want to hold on to their power and their money and it’s going to be much harder to change that than stop some singular crazy evil bastard. I mean,’ Sirius sighs again, ‘he’s got nothing if he’s not backed by that power and wealth. And the Wizarding World is small enough that we’re going to have to deal with them when – not if – he’s gone.’ He purses his lips. ‘So, no prison,’ he says, and then he grins, ‘but reparations? Straight out of the Lestrange family vault? That sounds lovely. And very, very just.’ He stops speaking and an abstracted look crosses his face. He puts a hand into his pocket and draws out a small, round mirror. ‘Harry?’

 

‘What on earth?’ Remus says, shocked. ‘Isn’t that James’s?’

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says, staring down at it. ‘Harry, are you there?’ His eyebrows are scrunched together, worry in every line of his face. ‘I found them in my old room and gave mine to Harry and kept James’s for myself. But we never use them because we’ve no idea if they’re safe.’

 

There’s a scratching noise and then Harry’s voice emanates from it, faint but clear. ‘Sirius, Remus. You’ve got to get to Hogwarts. He’s coming.’

Chapter 30: The Day After Remus and Sirius Reunited (Special Short Chapter)

Notes:

Hey friends times are hard out there and I wanted to write a short update as a little gift to you during this terrible time. I love you all, stay safe. The big chapter will be out soon! Enjoy this fluff, a little moment I don't think I've described before for these two.

Remus can’t sleep. It’s forty-eight hours after a full moon and he’s wide awake, sinking into the divots in the ancient cushions on his parents’ couch.

Forty-eight hours ago he’d been employed at Hogwarts as a professor; forty-eight hours ago, he’d been staring at the Marauder’s Map in his office, his eyes fixed on a single name: ‘Peter Pettigrew’. And then another, cutting across the map at shocking speed: ‘Sirius Black’.

Sirius Black. The source of his current wakefulness. The man who may or may not be sleeping in his bedroom after creeping in the door in dog form two hours ago, accepting a bath, a haircut, and a bowl of broth and noodles. Remus hadn’t known what to do with him, and thus had offered him too much, or possibly too little, culminating in giving him his bed. Remus knows what he’d wanted to do: lie down on the floor, scream, cry, and wrap himself around Sirius’s body and cling onto him while doing all three.

Sirius had had almost nothing to say throughout, though he’d wept silently while Remus tried as gently as he could to detangle, and then eventually just cut off and clean up his filthy hair.

Is Sirius sleeping? Is Sirius still there? He presses his hand to his face and can still smell Sirius’s hair on his fingers. He’s here. He’s real. He’s really here.

Remus can’t sleep.

Eventually he pushes the blanket off his legs and stands up. Fuck, he’s sore. His ankles or maybe that’s his Achilles tendons creak painfully as he walks, as silently as he can, down the hallway towards the bedroom.

Sirius has the door wide open and the light on; he’s sitting up in bed with the thick duvet drawn up to his neck and one spindly arm extended, holding a book. He’s wearing Remus’s pyjamas and Remus can see the fabric hanging off his forearm. The sight of him is like a lightning strike very close on a dark night.

Sirius, who has clearly heard his approach, looks over his book and raises his eyebrows at him.

Winded, Remus slumps against the doorframe as nonchalantly as he can. ‘How’s the book?’ he asks. It’s one of his textbooks, NEWT level.

‘Oh,’ Sirius says, his voice hoarse, ‘you know. Just revising for the exam.’

Remus laughs. ‘Let me know if you have any questions, of course.’

Sirius carefully closes the book and looks at Remus. His face is expectant: what are you going to tell me? There’s some wariness there too: have you changed your mind and turned me in? Is the Ministry on its way?

‘Um,’ Remus says. Sirius’s face. He’s so gaunt that his cheeks are drawn in and the circles under his eyes are purple – but Remus will be damned if the sight of him isn’t twisting his stomach. He bites his lip. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘You couldn’t sleep?’ Sirius repeats.

‘I could not,’ Remus confirms. He realises, belatedly, that Sirius is referencing the past; Sirius remembers that Remus usually can sleep for England. That winds Remus again. He pauses. ‘It’s… I…’ He frowns. Why couldn’t he sleep? ‘You know when you’re falling asleep and you have that feeling like you’re falling and you jerk awake?’

Sirius nods.

‘It was like that,’ Remus says. ‘Except instead of feeling like I was falling, I felt like I must have dreamed everything that’s happened. I felt like if I woke up, I’d come in here and you’d be… I don’t know, not here. Not vanished, just, had never been here.’ He puts a hand to his head and rubs his hair. His scalp aches. ‘I needed to come make sure that wasn’t the case.’

Sirius reaches to his side and places the book onto the nightstand, then holds out his arm and gestures: come here. ‘I don’t think I can sleep either,’ he says, voice gravelly. ‘Sit. Let’s talk.’  He swallows. ‘Please.’

Remus longs to crawl into the bed beside him and press his face into Sirius’s neck. Thirteen years and thousands of miles and Sirius still makes electricity crackle down his spine. It’s not even sexual – or if it is, it’s sexual and, sexual plus everything else. It’s a need so deep Remus can’t articulate it. ‘Hang on,’ he says, to buy himself time. ‘I want a glass of water. Do you…’

Sirius’s entire face lights up. ‘A glass of water,’ he says, wondrously. ‘Yes, please.’

In the kitchen, Remus’s hands are shaking so hard that he sloshes water everywhere. He has to set the glasses down and take several deep breaths. His reflection in the window above the sink is wild eyed, hair mussed, glisten of sweat on brow. He presses his glass to his forehead. Maybe he’s feverish. He puts the glasses down on the counter, grips the cool basin of the sink with both hands, and bends at the waist, pressing his forehead down onto the side of the countertop.

Back in the bedroom, and Sirius is now just a thin, pale face with a nest of unevenly shorn hair pressed against the headboard, the duvet covering everything else. The arm emerges like a white ghost, the sleeve falling away up past the elbow as he reaches for the water. Remus manages to hold it steady enough to give it to him without drenching the bed. Sirius holds it with both hands and drinks in greedy little sips, over and over again, unmistakably like a dog lapping at a puddle. Remus sets his glass down on the nightstand beside him and is confronted by a question: does he pull back the duvet or sit on top of it?

For the latter: it is late June, and really quite warm. He is wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown already and does not feel comfortable removing either at this particular moment. For the former: Sirius is under the duvet, and sliding under it would both preserve his heat and put Remus closer to him.

‘Remus?’

‘Hm?’ Remus puts his hand on the corner and tugs it back.

‘Before you – I have to ask you something.’

Remus sits on the side of the bed, dropping the duvet and looking at him. Sirius’s eyes search his face for a long moment and Remus’s heart feels like it’s beating completely out of rhythm. How can Sirius be here? Sirius, innocent, away from Azkaban, here, in Remus’s bed? ‘Anything,’ he offers, realising a second too late that he sounds as winded as he feels.

Sirius swallows. ‘Is this – am I – is there someone else this side of the bed belongs to?’ He grimaces. The expression is so familiar that Remus’s throat swells.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Hm,’ Sirius says. He looks down and frowns. ‘Yes, I think it does, rather.’

Without thinking, Remus says, ‘Why?’

Sirius continues to look down at the duvet. ‘If I were – if I were them – I wouldn’t want me in this bed with you.’

‘Well there’s no one,’ Remus says quickly.

Sirius looks up at him. His eyes are dark and unreadable. It’s like seeing a map of what you thought was familiar territory and realising it’s something else; Remus is disoriented and instantly sad. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It’s –‘ Remus pauses. ‘I mean, I was teaching at Hogwarts. It’s not exactly the romance zone.’

‘I wanted you to be happy,’ Sirius says, startling Remus with how plaintive he sounds. ‘I didn’t want you to be alone.’

‘I’m happy,’ Remus counters, which is patently absurd. He’s thirty-four years old, very recently fired, and was until ten minutes ago sleeping on the couch in the house that used to belong to his parents. ‘I’m fine,’ he amends. ‘I’ve had a – a very interesting decade or so.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Sirius says.

Remus swings his legs up onto the bed. ‘I’ve lived lots of different places,’ he says.

‘I thought you were teaching at Hogwarts.’

‘Only this year. Albus asked me to come because of you. Well, because of Harry. To protect him from you.’

‘What were you doing before then?’

‘Before that I was living in Mexico City. I’d been there a few years. Bogota before that, and northern Japan, and…’ Remus reaches back into memory, really far back now, to the awful years closer to James and Lily’s deaths. ‘Before that Lahore, and Cairo, and in the Caucuses before that…’

‘Wow,’ Sirius says softly. ‘Were you a professor in those places too?’

Remus realises that Sirius has no idea he’d quit his PhD programme, and no idea that Remus is really quite a failure in life, drifting between cities doing whatever work a Dark Creature can, never wanting to face the horror of being truly known by anyone or anywhere. Nothing occupies a grieving mind like constantly forcing it to learn new landscapes and languages and that had been Remus’s escape. But the last time Sirius had seen him, things had been very different…

For the first time in years, he feels that hot surge of embarrassment. ‘No,’ he says. He hates to puncture the bubble; best to do it quickly and cleanly. ‘I left London right after – after everything. I never went back to finish my thesis.’

Sirius doesn’t say anything for so long that Remus, who has been sitting on the side of the bed facing forward, turns to look at him. Sirius’s expression is devastated. ‘It’s my fault,’ he says when he sees Remus looking at him. ‘I – I –‘

‘It was my choice,’ Remus says firmly. ‘I promise. I’m not unhappy with the path I chose. I’ve been fine.’ It is – not a lie. He’s here. He’s alive. He’s sitting in bed next to the only man he’s ever loved and he’s not naïve enough to tell himself that he’ll ever be over him. He stands and reaches for the duvet. ‘I promise you.’ He can’t bring himself to say his name yet. He will. Soon. He gets under it and realises that he’s going to die before dawn if he’s under this and in his dressing gown. He manages to wriggle out of it and toss it onto the floor while Sirius somehow keeps the duvet pulled up to his neck, his head turned so that his cheek is resting against the headboard facing Remus.

Haltingly, Remus tells him more of it. For years afterwards Sirius will ask him at random times to fill in a gap in what he knows of his life and Remus will oblige. Sirius will always watch him as he does now, carefully enraptured, like he wants to soak it all in but is scared to really feel it. Remus doesn’t blame him; he’s scared to ask the same in kind. Tonight, they talk at least an hour, until both have slid down the headboard and are heavy lidded, turned on their sides toward each other but not touching.

‘I might,’ Sirius murmurs, ‘I might have bad dreams. I do. A lot. Just – I don’t know.’ He smiles, lopsided against the pillow. ‘Shove me off the side.’

‘I won’t,’ Remus says, far more tenderly than he’d intended. They’re deliberately keeping the mood light but exhaustion is making him even more emotional. He reaches his hand out, feeling carefully for Sirius’s arm, until he finds his wrist. Sirius freezes and he drops it instantly.

‘No,’ Sirius says. ‘Really. I’m sorry.’

‘I should have asked,’ Remus says, mortified. He’s too familiar with this shadow of Sirius.

‘Really,’ Sirius repeats. ‘I’m just – not used to touch.’ He slides his hand forward along the mattress until his fingers graze Remus’s. ‘Thank you,’ he says, leaving his fingers there, the pads of his fingers just resting against the sides of Remus’s.

‘It’ll take time,’ Remus whispers. He’s not sure what he means. Recovery? They both know that trauma doesn’t just fade. ‘Let me give you time.’

Sirius’s fingers slide under Remus’s hand, then between his, weaving them together so, so slowly. It is heartbreaking and deeply erotic. Remus shifts an inch closer, but no more for now. For the first time in years he believes in hope.

Chapter 31: Hogwarts

Summary:

It was always going to go back to Hogwarts.

Notes:

Thanks so much for sticking with me through the telling of this story. I promised I would finish it and here it is. As always, I appreciate any comments and kudos. Love to you all.

Traffic on the Avenue Oaxaca is an unrelenting line of cars, buses, and bicycles, a cacophony that the heavy metal door of the Cibeles Café silences as soon as Remus pushes it shut. Inside, the place is a stylish oasis, with a bar covered in hanging plants and widely spaced out paintings mounted on very white walls. The urban magical community is far left of its ruling government and every piece of art in the café references it.

 

It is a grey day. Cold for Mexico City, so feels like the height of summer in London. Even though Remus hasn’t been there in twelve years, he still judges all weather and all world cities by it.

 

Alicia is at their usual table in the darkest corner, wearing sunglasses, a leather jacket, and a cap emblazoned with the logo of los Diablos Rojos, Mexico City’s baseball team. An enormous silver belt buckle bearing a hissing rattlesnake peeks out from under her jacket. Alicia works for the police and pays Remus a nice sum for helping her monitor various Dark Creatures in the city. She’s also a cihuateteo. The only identifier of that right now is her mass of curly black hair, barely contained by the cap and spilling down her back in an unruly cascade. Remus wants to show her picture to a few dour European vampires he knows and say, ‘This is how you pass.’

 

‘What’s up?’ she asks him. She always speaks English to him. Most people in the city do; he suspects his skin color and obvious foreignness give them an opportunity to practice. She pushes a cup his direction. ‘I got you coffee.’

 

‘Thanks.’ He sits and pulls out a small notepad. ‘Here’s all the notes I have on the meeting last night.’ 

 

She slides it across the table and starts reading, her lips pursed. She questions him for several minutes, businesslike, probing. Remus appreciates her style, even if he withholds some of the most damning details. He’s pulling for a few of the city’s werewolves.

 

There’s a TV on the counter showing the magical news of the day and his eyes keep sliding over to it out of curiosity; Britain never had a wizarding TV station and his flat here doesn’t have a TV, so he rarely sees it. The movement on the screen is mesmeric.

 

‘Hey, Remus. Hey! Remus!’

 

He blinks. ‘Sorry, what?’

 

‘I’m going to make a call,’ she says. ‘You keep watching that story about the flying carpets, all right?’ She grins at him as she stands. Her teeth are something else in the richest sense of the phrase.

 

‘Ahora, las noticias internationales,’ the presenter says, and then Remus’s mind goes completely blank.

 

On the screen, there’s a photo of a prisoner. Remus manages to catch, ‘El infame prisionero, Sirius Black, ha escapado’ and then his head fills up with angry bees.

 

He doesn’t remember how he gets to his flat, or if he said goodbye to Alicia. There’s an eagle waiting for him that seems to have aggressively beaked the latch on his shower window. Silently, it extends its leg, which is tied to a letter.

 

It’s Albus. He’s offering Remus a job. The cover for it will be another job: a one year contract, non-renewable, to be Hogwarts Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

 

*********************************************************

The train is a horror, Harry’s face is a horror, the dining hall is a horror, McGonagall’s kind words and looks are a horror… Remus is clinging on by his fingernails by the time the interminable welcome feast reaches a point where he can slip away unnoticed and make it to his room.

 

Oh, also, the corridors are a horror.

 

He shuts the door on the small flat off the Defence classroom and looks at the tiny bed in dismay. Maybe professors are supposed to be celibate and it’s easier to give them this than to have Dumbledore explain it in the orientation. He tears off his robe and sinks onto the bed, pulling the dull grey duvet around himself.

 

He can’t do this. At all.

 

Every single place is a memory of four bright eyed boys. Remus doesn’t even have to close his eyes to see them; they’re superimposed over whatever he looks at, more solid than the real students sitting at the Gryffindor table. And Harry… he looks so much like James. Why hadn’t anyone told him? Albus could have warned him… and then to have Lily’s green eyes staring back at him, like its seventeen years ago and he’s in a prefect’s meeting…

 

He falls asleep twisted in his sheets. The journey from Mexico was long and then he’d had the full moon to contend with, locked up in the cellar beneath his childhood home, the only place he could think to go. When he wakes, he showers, re-bandages a few minor wounds, and dresses, carefully avoiding looking in the mirror. His old face and grey hair don’t belong here.

 

It’s just for a year, he tells himself. Not even. Just until June. Just until they re-capture Sirius, hopefully as far away from here as possible. The Dementors are furious and the Ministry has all their resources dedicated to finding him. It’s a politically difficult situation for Fudge and he won’t allow it to go on too long. Remus repeats every excuse and justification he can think of all the way down the corridor to the Great Hall. Out of habit, he almost sits at the Gryffindor table, veering left at the last moment and making his way up to the teacher’s table, where McGonagall already has a seat waiting for him. She is, unfailingly, kind. She requests that he call her Minerva. They talk about lesson plans and the students and new requirements for the O.W.L.s.

 

Minute by minute, he survives, and finds that for every minute that passes, it accumulates to push the next one along, until, like an avalanche sliding down a slope, he comes to believe that this, too, shall pass.

 

************************************************************

After he’s dismissed his third years, Remus stands in the empty classroom, nearly vibrating with fury. He’s going to murder Severus.

 

He’d thought about his boggart lesson very carefully. Curriculum standards call for the creature to be introduced in third year, though he’s always felt that it’s a strange time. It’s difficult to explain to a class of thirteen and fourteen year olds – perhaps the most impressionable time in a life – that they are going to interact with a shapeshifter who manifests itself as their greatest fear, when in fact the boggart does no such thing. It shows phobias that represent flashes of something more. Of course Remus isn’t afraid of the moon itself, but of what the moon represents to him – loss of control. This was why he’d had Harry avoid the creature: he hadn’t wanted Voldemort – one of the only real, manifestable fears that he’d assumed any of the students had – to suddenly appear in the classroom. The boggart has to assume a physical form. How could it become loneliness, or depression, or grief? So instead it becomes representations of those things: things that creep and crawl, things that won’t stay dead…

 

Remus remembers Alice and Frank with painful clarity. They weren’t ever particular friends of his, but they had been prefects too, and there had been a certain kinship between them. Remus had already left Britain when the Lestranges attacked them, but he’d heard all about it from mutual acquaintances. The last victims of the First War.

 

Their son had been – is – nearly the same age as Harry, just a few weeks older, Remus thinks. Neville seems to be a sweet boy, but sheltered, and an easy mark for bullies with his pudgy face and obvious low self-regard. Remus wants to enfold him and protect him the way he longs to do for every bullied child.

 

Now he’s cursing himself and Severus in equal quantities. He flies down the corridor in the direction of the staff room and loathes his own idiocy in choosing to teach the lesson the way he had. All of these children will have had someone in the war. Any one of them could have manifested something terrible… not just Harry…

 

And that Neville’s boggart – poor Neville, worse than orphaned, with parents permanently in St Mungo’s – would manifest itself as a teacher? Someone entrusted with his care? Remus slams the staff room door open and whips his head back and forth, seeking his target.

 

Minerva looks up from the Prophet and Sybill drops the biscuit that was on its way to her mouth.

 

‘Where’s Severus?’ Remus asks as pleasantly as he can. His voice drips with knives.

 

Minerva raises her eyebrows and transfigures her paper into a steaming cup of tea, which she holds out to him. ‘Sit down,’ she invites. ‘I know Severus was going to keep his Advanced Potions class a little long this morning.’

 

Remus sits. Sybill makes some mumbled excuse and scurries out of the room. The tea is nice – McGonagall seems partial to Earl Grey with quite a lot of bergamot – but Remus refuses to be calmed.

 

‘Did you know Neville Longbottom is terrified of Severus?’ he demands.

 

‘Yes,’ Minerva says with a sigh. ‘A lot of the students are.’

 

‘Funny how a former Death Eater is still torturing the poor boy,’ Remus snaps.

 

‘Remus,’ Minerva says, and there’s a warning in her voice. He remembers it very well from their school years. ‘The war is over. Severus has earned Albus’s trust.’

 

Remus snorts and considers slamming down his tea cup and marching to the Headmaster’s office. In his anger, he thinks, If it’s over, why do I feel like a ghost?

 

Then the door swings open and Severus glides in, doing his typical impression of an overgrown bat. Minerva sighs, stands, and leaves. Severus ignores Remus so pointedly that Remus knows he’s already heard about it. Classic Hogwarts. But Remus isn’t a student anymore, nor an awkward teen.

 

‘Severus,’ he begins.

 

‘The more things change,’ Severus snaps, and Remus senses how upset the other man is. He’s nearly out of breath as he speaks. ‘The first day of classes and I’m already being bullied by you again.’

 

‘You’ve scared a boy who lost his parents in the war so badly that you’re his worst fear,’ Remus snarls. ‘I’m not bullying you. I’m trying to protect him.’

 

‘Protect him from what?’ Severus demands. ‘A difficult course? It’s not my fault if he can’t keep up with the material –‘

 

‘Isn’t it? Aren’t you meant to be teaching him? Surely his failures are on your inability to teach?’

 

Severus has made a cup of tea during this exchange and now he raises it and takes a sip. Like Remus, he makes it the Muggle way, something Remus never knew. It suggests a Muggle parent, probably his mother. Remus files that away as extremely interesting. Severus’s hand has a slight tremor and a tiny drop rolls down the side of the cup. ‘My inability?’ he asks, very quietly. ‘Then again, I forgot, you were such a mediocre student at Potions that you had to rely on James Potter and-‘ there’s the tiniest hesitation – ‘Sirius Black for help.’

 

Sirius’s name on Severus’s tongue is a knife in the gut. Remus thinks, for the very first time, that Severus was a Death Eater too, and therefore that he might have known long before Remus did that Sirius was the traitor. It devastates him in the purest sense of the word: his entire body feels overwhelmed. He manages to shove it away, but knows that the pause while he collects himself is too long, and that Severus knows he has landed a killing blow. Indeed, the other man’s hand is steady now, and he has a tiny smile.

 

‘I was always very bad at Potions, yes,’ Remus says. ‘To me, and maybe to Neville, it’s the most challenging subject. But Professor Slughorn never terrified me. No matter my scores, he continued to teach me, even to NEWT level.’ With effort, he forces himself to sit in the chair Minerva just vacated and unclench his fists, crossing his hands on his lap. ‘It wasn’t my intention to bully you, Severus. I transfigured the boggart to comfort Neville. I hope you can understand why I would feel sympathy for the boy. I knew his parents, after all.’

 

Severus shrugs. ‘It’s what I expected when Albus said he was hiring you.’ He takes another measured sip of his tea and adds, ‘Of course, you’re not even really here to be a teacher, are you? More to prevent Sirius Black from murdering Potter?’

 

Remus squints at him. He’s certain there’s a trap here. ‘I am here on a teaching contract…’

 

‘Certainly. But a one year contract. Presumably one that could be terminated should something… happen with Black.’

 

Remus raises an eyebrow. ‘You think I’d aid him?’ He can’t say his name. ‘In hurting James and Lily’s son?’

 

Severus shrugs again. ‘I don’t know what… someone like you might do.’

 

A werewolf. Remus doesn’t remember any of what happened that night Sirius told Severus to follow them to the Shrieking Shack, but the event does have a mythical significance in his mind: Sirius’s first betrayal. He knows Severus is trying to twist the knife as hard as he can and he’s doing a fantastic job of it for someone who he hasn’t seen since school. He thinks: how can he turn this boggart into a joke?

 

‘This reminds me, Severus,’ he says. ‘I’m crap at Potions, as discussed. Of course you’re concerned for the safety of the school. Would you be so kind as to brew me my monthly Wolfsbane?’

 

Severus blinks. Remus sees how much he loathes the idea and wonders for a second if Severus hates him enough to poison him. But – no – Severus would hate appearing to have made a bad potion more. ‘I’m touched,’ he says, voice making it clear that he is anything but. ‘Of course I will.’

 

‘Thank you,’ Remus says. There’s one expensive headache out of the way. He stands, transfigures his teacup into a butterfly, and opens the window of the staffroom, setting it free. ‘Have a good rest of your day.’ Just like that he opens the door as if he’s free too and walks to his next class.

 

************************************************************

It’s strange, what’s left of your mind after twelve years in Azkaban.

 

Sirius is perfectly cogent about some things. He’d found his way to Lily’s sister’s house and seen Harry as easily as if he’d had a black cab and the Knowledge. He makes his way north with the same ease, sleeping outside when he likes and feeling the air through his fur and the scent of rain coming for miles through his incredibly sensitive nose.

 

When he’s human he can’t smell a thing and it makes him weep like he’s lost everything all over again.

 

He should amend that first thought: he’s perfectly cogent when he’s a dog. He’ll stay that way as much as he can, then.

 

This is why he smells Hogwarts before he sees it: mouldering stone and the spice-hint of powerful, deeply old magic. The first time he’d transfigured he’d thought he was smelling a Christmas pudding. Later he learns to pick out things that are like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg but not quite, because human tongues could never name smells this powerful and canines don’t bother with such precise language when they could just put up their noses and sniff.

 

Now, the smell of Hogwarts overwhelms him. He is trotting towards it and then he is on the ground, in a way that if he’d gone through official channels to become an Animagus he would know the term for – sometimes something will happen that activates the human mind so much that the animal mind can’t respond adequately to it. Usually it results in just a few seconds of unconsciousness, or, if the shock is quite large, a spontaneous return to human form.

 

As a result, Sirius finds himself human, screaming in pain and writhing on the ground, still out of sight of the castle. It takes him several moments to understand why his entire soul hurts like it’s trying to flee his body. Then he screams more. Eventually, he gets hoarse. He rolls onto his stomach and presses himself onto all fours. His limbs are wiry with muscle, his bones sharply outlined. He transforms back into the dog and runs more.

 

He sees the Dementors at the gates and gives them a wide berth. Their scent is a fresh grave. Holding to the edges of the forest, he trots down the road towards Hogsmeade, making a last minute veer through dense undergrowth. The Shack rises out of the trees. Reluctantly, he transfigures to human and rips one of the boards off that is covering up a window. He wraps his arm in his threadbare prison robe and punches out the glass, then hauls himself up and through it, only cutting himself a little, and transfigures again immediately.

 

The scents in here are overwhelming as a dog, each one coded with broad emotion:

 

Stag – Grief. Loyalty. Love.

Rat – Rage. Pity. Love. 

Werewolf – Love. Love. Love.

All of them – Loss.

 

Sirius transfigures back into a human and limps his way up the stairs. There’s a bed there, an old four poster. There’s a lot of memories that go with that one. They’re are all jumbled up right now, held back by the dam he built in Azkaban but springing leaks everywhere. He’s running out of proverbial Dutch boys to try to plug them. He lies down on the bed as a human, cautious as can be. It’s as surprisingly comfortable as it was the summer morning he was last in it, the summer morning that –

 

He slams the door of that thought shut. He doesn’t think about anything even close to it aside from the werewolf scent for months. He’s got a rat to catch.

 

***

It is easy at first for Remus to feel overly familiar with Harry – after all, he really does look very much like his father – but he’s so different in character from either of his parents that he quickly becomes a very distinct presence in Remus’s life. James and Lily had both grown up as adored children in generally happy households and Harry very clearly has not. Remus isn’t prepared for how much Harry needs a kind adult in his life. He’d briefly entertained the idea of trying to parent him himself – for three minutes, before he’d remembered that he’s a werewolf – right after James and Lily had died, but Albus had assured him that he was better off with family. Remus remembers Lily’s sister very vaguely as being unpleasant at the Potters’ wedding but he’d just assumed that Albus would, well, have kept his word. Instead, neglect radiates off the boy.

 

‘What are they like?’ he asks Minerva. ‘The Dursleys.’

 

Her face says it all. ‘They seem to have adequately delivered him to us, that’s about all I can say.’

 

They circle the topic a bit more. Remus understands that Minerva is unwilling to disclose much about her student out of compassion and doesn’t press – but he appreciates it when he’s standing to go and she says, ‘By the way, they wouldn’t sign to allow Harry to visit Hogsmeade.’

 

‘What?’ Remus asks, confused. ‘If they’re neglectful, why would they care?’

 

‘If I had to speculate,’ Minerva says, lips pursed, ‘I’d say that they’re being deliberately withholding.’

 

Remus gets more and more furious throughout the day, thinking of how loved Harry had been as a baby – his adoring parents, and Remus and Peter, and of course a godfather who had seemed so devoted – in fact, he’d heard from Rubeus that on that terrible night he’d found Sirius holding Harry in the wreckage of the house in Godric’s Hollow –

 

And he thinks about how it would have felt to be thirteen and told he couldn’t go to Hogsmeade with his best friends. He’d have died. Well, he’d have snuck out anyway – and surely James’s son will too –

 

Remus realises that that’s the worst possible outcome with Sirius Black on the loose. He invites Harry to tea.

 

Harry is lovely, and clever, and clearly hates Severus – possibly the most James-like attribute he has – and Remus finds that he likes him very much not just as the Potters’ son, but as himself. When Harry asks him about how he made the Dementor on the train back away, Remus knows he’s in trouble. Harry’s determined face spurs such a protective instinct that he can barely restrain himself from telling the boy all about his parents. Of course he’ll teach him. He’ll teach him anything he asks.

 

***

Sirius had escaped Azkaban frantic with thoughts of Peter plotting Harry’s death, but once he is safely ensconced in the Shrieking Shack, he has time to think, and he realises that this is going to be a much more difficult task than he’d previously assumed. Peter is posing as a rat, belonging to a human child, who sleeps in the Gryffindor dormitory. He’s somehow going to have to break into that dormitory without being caught – into the heart of the castle, really, even another house would have been easier to deal with from that perspective – and kidnap the rat. Well, or just get his teeth into him and give him a shake…

 

Luckily he has a near-eidetic memory for maps. He remembers the passageways, the tunnels, the hidden corridors. He gets inside Hogwarts multiple times. He befriends a bandy-legged ginger cat who brings him all manner of wrong dead rodents and, one day, a list of passwords into Gryffindor Tower.

 

On Halloween, he manages to get into the Tower – but the rat is gone and the school gets put on high alert. When he returns a week later, he has no chance of getting upstairs, even as a black dog who can blend into shadows. Teachers are patrolling the halls. He almost gets caught, on the seventh floor, before a door he hadn’t noticed appears and he throws himself through it. Inside is a room he recognises from his first year, though rather changed. When he’d been eleven, being taunted by his older cousins, there’d been his favourite books and a cosy armchair and a small, warm fire. Now there’s still the fire, but the other things are gone, replaced by a bowl of water, a bowl of kibble, and a truly sumptuous dog bed. He curls up and sleeps for hours.

 

When he wakes, he sidles out the door – which kindly has developed a paddle handle so he can open it without transfiguring – and starts trying to sneak his way through the corridor. He’s nearly out of the castle when he encounters an olfactory memory so powerful that it almost forces him to transfigure.

 

Remus Lupin walks around the corner, older – much older – but still impossibly handsome, with his now salt-and-pepper hair falling over his eyes and a thinking frown on his face. He’s holding a book and flipping through it as he walks. Sirius slinks back into the shadows behind a statue, making himself as small as he can, and Remus passes. Sirius stares after his patched robes long after he’s turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

 

After that, he starts spying when he can on Remus. He sees him at various Quidditch matches and walking around the grounds. He takes care to always stay downwind. He quickly surmises that Remus is a teacher, and, from the few interactions he’s close enough to observe, a beloved one at that. It thaws something inside of him to know that Remus achieved one of his dreams.

 

Slowly, he finds that he can think about him without being a dog - that ache in his chest grounds him to his humanity. For years he’s been driven by the need to take his revenge on Peter but now there’s an opposing force stronger than hatred. Somewhere between his feelings for Remus and Peter, a small blossom unfurls its petals into hope for the future, and planning how he might care for his godson. When Harry’s broom is destroyed in the disastrous Quidditch match, he’s so moved that he contacts Gringotts via owl – they’ve always been wonderfully discreet – and sends Harry the finest broomstick he can. It feels like the least he can do, but he thinks of it as a start.

 

***

Remus walks back to his office, slams the door, and sits at his desk, clutching the stained and filthy sheet of parchment.

 

The map.

 

Filch had taken it off James and Sirius late in their seventh year – not on an epic adventure or anything, just some stupid bad luck – and they’d never seen it again. It had been a wrench, but they’d left school only a few weeks later and, quite frankly, he’d forgotten the whole thing as he had so many other of their teenage exploits.

 

He touches his wand to it and it recognises him instantly: ‘Mr Moony,’ James’s blocky handwriting greets him. Remus pores over it, remembering every inch of it, and the literal blood, sweat, tears, and hexes that had gone into making it. The first corridors they mapped, Gryffindor Tower, the night he’d copped off with Mary in order to map the girls’ rooms (‘Oh, and what’s just upstairs here?’ he’d asked as she’d been pawing at his robes, trying to sneak a peek towards the top of the tower. ‘Any interesting places to, uh, to do this?’), disappearing under James’s invisibility cloak… All of it. Every memory he’s been trying to suppress for months comes roaring back and instead of trying to shove them away he lets himself drown in them. He takes the map to bed with him that night and pores over it for hours, wondering at how strange it is to see unfamiliar names along its familiar corridors. There’s a few new smudges and stains, too. He asks it questions over and over again to see the handwriting in his friends’ familiar hands, to interact with the tiniest flicker of their personalities still embedded in the vellum.

 

That night he lies in bed, tortured by thoughts of Sirius walking through his door. After hours imagining whatever conversation they could have, he finds himself pleading with the Sirius in his imagination, ‘Please tell me how we can make this right. I never stopped loving you. Please.’ Sirius says nothing, and he falls into a black sleep, and refuses to entertain the thought in the nights afterward.  

 

The night of Buckbeak’s execution, Remus carries the map with him everywhere, checking it constantly to see where Harry might be.

 

And then he sees a name: Peter Pettigrew. And another name: Sirius Black.

 

Everything that was dead is alive again.

 

A door opens inside him that is so old he’d forgotten it was a door, rather than a wall covered in a bookshelf laden with dozens of heavy books. Without thinking, he drops the map on his desk and runs out the door, towards the reality of those names.

 

***

 

Almost four years later, they Apparate to the outskirts of Hogsmeade and stand, breathing in the cool summer air. Wood smoke is the predominant scent, at least with noses only slightly assisted by canine senses, but there’s something else there. Something dark.

 

‘I assume the whole town is crawling with Death Eaters,’ Remus says conversationally.

 

‘Fuck ‘em,’ Sirius replies, and saunters into town. A caterwauling charm goes off instantly, and they draw their wands, but no one comes except Aberforth Dumbledore, who looks exasperated as ever when he sees them.

 

‘Get inside,’ he snaps, gesturing to the weather-beaten door of his pub. ‘I hate those damned things.’

 

Inside is dark enough that Sirius slams his thigh into a table edge and sees stars. ‘Good to see you too, Aberforth,’ he says, voice strangled.

 

‘Glad to hear you weren’t the traitor,’ Aberforth growls. He’s holding a polishing rag, which strikes Sirius as absurd.

 

‘Thanks.’

 

They stand awkwardly for a moment before Remus puts his hand on Sirius’s upper arm and says, ‘Er, there’s a door to Hogwarts here?’ and points.

 

Sirius sees Aberforth take in the placement of Remus’s hand and sees the twitch in his eyebrows. Then he squints. ‘How did you know about the door?’

 

Sirius barks a laugh. ‘Really long story.’

 

‘It always was with you lot,’ Aberforth says, sounding infinitely weary. He turns to a painting of a young girl and gestures towards her; silently the portrait swings open and Sirius stares into darkness. The passage to Hogwarts. It was always going to end this way, going back to the damned school one way or another. He takes Remus’s hand and starts forward, but Remus doesn’t move.

 

‘Aberforth.’

 

Remus hesitates; Sirius can feel it in his hand. He knows Remus doesn’t want to impose, but now’s not the time. ‘Come with us,’ he says for his husband. ‘You were always good in a fight.’

 

‘I still hate this,’Aberforth announces, not looking at them, but instead at the door. ‘After all these years, it’s just more children killing children.’

 

Sirius’s stomach lurches as Remus says, softly, ‘I know.’

 

Aberforth looks back at him and frowns. ‘So?’

 

‘I hate it too,’ Remus says. ‘But if you come with us now – I truly believe we can end this thing. For – for a generation.’

 

Aberforth snorts. ‘Optimist,’ he says, but he stumps over to the bar and throws the rag behind it. ‘Well?’ he demands. ‘Lead on.’

 

They go through the dark passage, as fast as they can, stumbling over their feet with wands raised ahead of them. They had taken a few minutes to reply to Harry’s message, frantically sending owls to whoever they could think of: old colleagues, Order members who hadn’t been to meetings in years, witches and wizards who had even seemed mildly sympathetic to the cause – ‘Get to Hogwarts NOW, we can stop him’ they wrote, over and over again, parchment torn frantically and ink blotting – until Sirius was musing about a Dementor who had always walked on the opposite side of the hallway from his cell thus granting him a small mercy and Remus said, gently, ‘I think that’s all we can muster.’ They’d looked at each other, simultaneously said, ‘Let’s go,’ and then Remus had pulled Sirius into his arms and held him for just a second before saying, ‘Let’s really go.’

 

So when they burst into the room full of sound and light at the end of the passage, it is already hot with people. Everyone is greeting them – the remaining members of the Order, Joseph and Bim with a small group of werewolves, even Fleur’s Continental Contingent.

 

Harry is there, talking seriously with Ginny. When he sees them enter, his eyes widen. ‘I have to talk with my godparents,’ he says, crossing the room. Sirius catches him in a hug so tight that Harry makes a little wheezing noise, but he’s hugging Sirius back, saying, ‘I’m so glad you got the message,’ as Sirius says, ‘We tried to find more to come…’ Remus’s hand is there too, on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry turns and hugs him as well.

 

‘Thank you,’ they say together to each other, and Harry smiles. Sirius’s heart breaks. Their godson isn’t a child anymore.

 

There’s a commotion to the side and they turn to see Ginny fighting with her parents, begging with them to let her fight. Furious tears are leaking from her eyes. Sirius looks at Harry quickly – he’s no idiot about what’s been going on between the two of them – and sees that Harry is tight-lipped with worry.

 

‘She’s going to fight,’ Sirius says gently.

 

‘I don’t want anyone to get hurt on my account,’ Harry replies, sounding so stricken and bleak that Sirius puts his arm around his shoulders and presses the sides of their heads together.

 

‘Harry…’

 

‘I know, I know,’ Harry says, as together they watch Remus step into the fray, hands raised in appeasement. Then, with a hint of a smile, ‘Look, Remus is going to solve it.’

 

‘Let Ginny stay in this room,’ Remus is saying. ‘We need someone to monitor it. This is the only way in and out of the castle.’

 

Ginny looks at Harry across the room and Sirius squeezes his shoulder more tightly. ‘This isn’t just your fight,’ he says. ‘Everyone here has a stake in it.’

 

Harry swallows audibly. ‘I have to go find Ron and Hermione,’ he says in a low voice. ‘We’ve got to take care of the remaining horcruxes.’

 

‘What’s left?’

 

‘The cup we stole from Gringotts, something of Ravenclaw’s we still have to find, and the snake.’

 

‘How can I help?’

 

Harry shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I’m making it up as I go.’ He pauses. ‘It’s like… I’m inside of his head now, Sirius.’

 

Sirius’s heart goes cold. ‘What do you mean?’

 

‘I can see what he’s seeing,’ Harry says, his voice steady but his eyes jumping around on Sirius’s face. Remus is approaching and Harry looks up at him. ‘Sometimes. When he’s feeling a particularly strong emotion.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I can see and feel what he’s going to do next.’

 

Remus and Sirius’s eyes meet. ‘Just tell us what we need to do,’ Sirius says quietly.

 

‘Buy us time,’ Harry says, desperate. ‘I’m sorry but that’s what we need. I know it’s – I know it’s not great.’

 

Remus remembers Albus telling him essentially the same thing. He feels strangely calm. He squeezes Harry’s arm. ‘We’ll do it. Sirius, we need to go talk with the teachers and the Order. Let’s get a battle plan in place.’

 

The halls are chaos. Students are pouring out of every corner, frantic, terrified, confused, all streaming towards the Great Hall. They are swept along in the crowd, towering over most of them. They round a corner and see several suits of armour run past them, feathered helmets streaming. Sirius and Remus raise their eyebrows at each other, bemused.

 

‘Did you know they could do that?’ Sirius calls across the din.

 

‘No, but I’m quite pleased they can.’

 

The Great Hall is, somehow, even more cacophonous. Minerva is standing at the front and several other Order members are seated at the High Table, heads bent in consultation. Remus and Sirius cross to them.

 

Kingsley stands and holds out his hand; Remus grasps it tightly across the massive table. ‘We’re working out a battle plan,’ Kingsley says. ‘But we’d love some guidance.’

 

‘Tell me what you’ve got,’ Remus says, leaning over with his hands pressed to the table’s smooth wooden surface. He thinks of goblets of wine, plates of delicious food, all the things this table is used to holding. His hands flex and feel the memories in it. Its depth of age is dizzying. Sirius’s hand presses to his back suddenly, steadying him.

 

‘We don’t know what’s going to happen,’ Kingsley replies. ‘Is there going to be an actual army? Spells? Dark Creatures?’ He hesitates. ‘No offence meant of course.’

 

‘None taken,’ Remus says grimly. He thinks for a second, then says, ‘There’s the three towers: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Astronomy. Let’s get people up there to get the high ground and tell us what they are seeing. Use patronuses liberally to communicate.’

 

‘What does Harry need?’ Tonks asks, looking at Sirius directly.

 

‘Time,’ Sirius says. ‘We need to give him time.’

 

‘To find… him?’

 

‘He has to do something first,’ Remus says. ‘Something Albus said was necessary.’

 

The massive stone walls seem to contract. Sirius grabs for Remus’s arm as a cold voice erupts from them: ‘I know that you are preparing to fight.’ Students start screaming. Remus turns to stare at Sirius, the horror in his face mirrored in Sirius’s own. Mercilessly, the voice presses on: ‘Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood.’ There is a long pause, and more screams. Sirius and Remus stare at one another for what feels like an eternity. Then: ‘Give me Harry Potter and none shall be harmed.’

 

‘No,’ Sirius breathes.

 

‘Give me Harry Potter and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight.’

 

Sirius spins, in a frenzy to find his godson, in time to see the crowd of students parting. A pale-faced, dark haired girl is shrieking and pointing at someone in the middle –

 

‘There he is!’ she’s saying, and Sirius sees Harry, his face utterly bemused. Sirius strides towards him, Remus a half step behind, but there are many others in front of them also stepping forward while the girl looks more and more terrified.

 

‘You can leave first,’ Minerva says in a clear, ringing voice, and points her towards an exit. Suddenly the students are moving, not an organized mass but pure chaos, heading in every direction at once like hot electrons. Sirius loses Harry for a second and panics, then finds him again by the Gryffindor table.

 

‘Have you seen Ron and Hermione?’ he’s asking Arthur, who is shaking his head.

 

‘Harry,’ Sirius says. Harry turns to him and Sirius clutches his arms. ‘If anyone tries to turn you in I’ll – I’ll – ‘

 

‘No one is turning him in, Sirius,’ Minerva says very close to his ear. Sirius jumps. ‘Is there a plan from the Order?’

 

Remus gestures for the others, who have all followed them down towards Harry. ‘Where’s Severus?’ he asks Minerva.

 

She arches an eyebrow. ‘We duelled. He ran. The last I saw of him, he was a great bat flapping his way into the Forest.’

 

‘Sirius,’ Harry says very quietly, turning Sirius’s attention away from the Remus. ‘I’ve got to go find Ron and Hermione.’

 

‘Ok,’ Sirius says. He pulls Harry in for one more hug. Harry holds onto him tightly, both shaking with nervous energy. ‘Harry,’ Sirius says into the hair above his ear, ‘I love you. Remus loves you. You’re our godson. James and Lily would be so, so proud of you. Please be careful.’

 

Harry makes a noise against his shoulder and says, ‘I love you too. Both of you.’ He draws back and his eyes are very bright. ‘You be careful too.’

 

‘Go,’ Sirius says, certain that if he doesn’t push him away now, he’ll drag him bodily off to the dungeons and lock him up until Voldemort has destroyed every stone in the castle. Harry backs away and then turns and runs through the main doors.

 

‘Sirius,’ Arthur says softly. Sirius manages to turn, blinking tears out of his eyes, and nods at the other man.

 

Arthur puts a hand on his arm. His face is bleak. ‘Did you hear Remus’s plan?’

 

Sirius swallows hard and shakes his head. He forces himself to snap to the present. Remus is talking battle stations. They’re finally going to get the pure fight they never got in the First War.

 

***

Remus knows that it is irrational, but he cannot let Sirius out of his sight. Harry is already gone to god knows where and he can’t take not knowing where both of them are. ‘We’ll take Gryffindor Tower,’ he tells everyone, and they nod, and disperse just as he said. He looks at his watch. Twenty minutes to midnight.

 

He and Sirius ascend to Gryffindor House through hordes of fleeing students and various parts of the castle that are dismantling themselves to ready for a fight. Remus’s teeth seem to be chattering uncontrollably even though it’s a warm night. His hand is tight in Sirius’s, the smooth metal of Sirius’s ring rubbing against his fingers as they half walk, half run.

 

It’s not like this is his first fight, but he’s terrified. The children rushing around him don’t help. He wants them all gone to safety as quickly as possible. They find the Fat Lady’s portrait swung wide. She shrieks when she sees Sirius and Remus shushes her. Sirius blushes and apologises about the whole ‘knife incident’ whilst curious Gryffindors stream out through the opening. By the time they step inside, the place is nearly deserted, just a few final stragglers holding whatever they can carry and running towards the door.

 

They stand together in the common room, both staring desolately at different corners of their past. Then Remus notices a little girl trying unsuccessfully to hide behind a plush armchair and says, gently, ‘Are you all right? You need to get out of here.’

 

She stands up, shaking, thrusting her wand at him. ‘Are you a Death Eater?’

 

‘No,’ Remus says as kindly as he can. ‘But they will be coming, and soon. You have to leave.’

 

‘I can’t lift my trunk.’

 

‘Leave it,’ Sirius says. ‘You can’t take it with you. You’ll get it back later.’

 

Tears streaming down her face, she turns and runs through the portrait. Remus presses his forehead into Sirius’s shoulder and takes a deep breath.

 

‘Come on, my love,’ Sirius says. ‘Up the stairs we go.’ He touches Remus’s face with the hand that isn’t holding his. ‘Maybe we’ll even have a moment for a nostalgic kiss.’

 

But once they’re in the narrow spiral staircase, all they do is grimly climb. Together, they shove open the heavy wooden trapdoor at the top and pull themselves onto the stone beside the crenelated parapet. Remus looks across to the Astronomy Tower and waves to Tonks, who sees them and points towards the Forbidden Forest just as Sirius gasps, ‘Fucking hell.’

 

Remus looks, but it takes him a moment to understand. The Forest is heaving with creatures – human, Dark, and unidentified – all just beyond Hogwarts’ gates, a mass of moving wand tips and torches, restless, terrifying. They extend beyond Remus’s sight.

 

‘There’s so many of them,’ Sirius whispers. ‘How did he get so many?’

 

Remus shakes his head. He thinks, I should have been recruiting from beyond just werewolves. He wonders if Greyback is down there, if Severus is, if Voldemort himself is or if he’s hidden somewhere, biding his time. The latter seems more likely. They’ll have to fight through hell to get to the devil.

 

Tonks’ Patronus appears. ‘I’m sending warnings,’ it whispers, before disappearing in a wisp. She’s sent out so many that even their noncorporeal forms are wavering.

 

‘I told Harry we love him,’ Sirius says. Remus manages to look away from the edge of the Forest. His husband is leaning back against the rough stone wall, arms crossed over his chest. He’s looking at Remus very steadily.

 

Remus swallows. ‘Thank you for telling him.’

 

‘I love you.’

 

Remus swallows again. ‘I know we didn’t get that ceremony,’ he says. ‘But it is the privilege of my life to be your husband.’

 

Sirius inclines his head to one side. ‘And I, yours.’

 

‘Hold me?’ Remus asks, and Sirius opens his arms. Remus buries his face in Sirius’s neck but holds up his arm to check his watch. It is three minutes to midnight. ‘Whatever happens,’ he says, and squeezes Sirius’s arms. ‘Whatever happens.’

 

Sirius strokes his hair. ‘I miss James.’

 

‘Me too.’

 

‘And Lily.’

 

‘God, me too.’

 

Sirius hesitates. ‘And Peter.’

 

‘I know. Me too.’

 

‘I hope Harry found Ron and Hermione.’

 

‘I hope they found the horcruxes.’

 

They keep standing that way, arms around each other, Sirius facing the Forest and Remus facing the rest of the castle. Remus can see Tonks, and, distantly, Kingsley and Arthur on the Ravenclaw tower. He looks at his watch again and watches the seconds tick down: 7, 6, 5, 4…

 

‘Here they come,’ Sirius says.

 

They release each other and draw their wands. ‘Water?’ Sirius asks.

 

‘I think so,’ Remus agrees. Together they twist their wand arms, catching the water in the lake just so, spinning up a whirlwind and waiting. The first wave of Voldemort’s army has just crashed against the Hogwarts gates, which are glowing molten hot. Small brushfires start to break out at their sides and as the metal heats and bends each spike splits into many others that point at wild angles towards anyone trying to climb over them or pry them apart to crawl through. For a few moments, it seems they will hold. Then a giant foot emerges from the Forest and stamps down, once, twice, destroying the stone wall to the side of the gate. Smaller creatures swarm the hole like ants on an apple core.

 

‘Now?’ Sirius asks quietly, and Remus, concentrating hard enough that beads of sweat are running down his face, nods. Together they spin the whirlwind away from the lake and sweep it across the lawn, to the first wave. Dark shapes get tossed like toys in its wake, and, as their ability to hold the water together wanes, they move their wands in unison, dragging its disintegrating form back into the lake along with whatever and whoever is caught in its wake.

 

‘Nicely done!’ Kingsley’s Patronus says beside them, ‘now what can we do about those giants?’

 

Remus glances to the side to see Tonks crouch down, wand out, as there’s an eruption of liquid from the Astronomy Tower. The scent is pure, hot oil. ‘That’s impressive,’ he murmurs, and Sirius nods. They watch for a moment as it hits the ground – the first of Voldemort’s forces have reached the castle walls – and hisses and steams. There’s muffled screaming from below. Sirius raises his wand and the ground at the base of the tower heaves, throwing burning oil and stones into the crowd. Remus turns his gaze further afield, to the giants now gleefully destroying the edge of the grounds. One has uprooted a massive tree and is using it to bludgeon the gates further. Another is striding towards the castle wall where Tonks’s oil continues to pour.

 

‘Um,’ Remus says, and he sends a Patronus to her: ‘Stop! They’re going to try to knock down the tower!’ The oil ceases almost immediately but the giant continues on, reaching for the walls. Their surface suddenly shudders, and a thin line of magic appears, golden against the night.

 

‘The castle’s defences,’ Sirius says, wonderingly. The light is luminous and its beauty against this backdrop makes his eyes well. He swirls his wand and a sinkhole opens beneath the giant’s feet, but it fights its way back up out of the hole almost instantly. Sirius grunts with effort – ‘The ground’s too stony’ – and lowers his wand.

 

‘What do you think the castle is doing?’ Remus asks, staring down and tapping his hand against the parapet edge. He transfigures a stone and attempts to throw it through the defence; it explodes into dust when it hits the golden line, which shimmers more brightly with the force of the hit.

 

Sirius shakes his head. ‘I have no idea. Not fucking around, I suppose.’

 

‘No,’ Remus agrees. He tosses another rock and it explodes too.

 

Tonks’s Patronus says, ‘What are you thinking?’

 

And then Fleur’s Patronus is at his side. ‘Get down to the front doors. They’re constructing something to get through.’

 

Remus’s heart stops. He knows that it makes sense for someone to stay in the Tower. He looks at Sirius, who looks back at him, helpless.

 

‘I’ve got to go,’ he says.

 

‘I know,’ Sirius says. ‘Be – be careful.’

 

‘I’ll see you soon,’ Remus says, and runs.

 

Down the stairs, past the dormitories where they were boys, out through the portrait hole and down more stairs, all the massive staircases shifting around as if burning nervous energy, stranding him twice before he gets fed up and runs to another corridor where there’s a faster way down to the ground floor. He emerges behind the High Table and sprints the length of the hall, pausing for a second to look up at the sky, which is the same golden hue as the defences and pitch black beyond. There are no stars and no moon. Remus wonders for a second if they’ve been transported somewhere and then feels the shudder of the walls. The entire castle seems to cry out, grinding stone on stone, and dust rains down on his head from the rafters high above. He rushes between the long Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, kicks open the doors, and almost slams into Fleur. Tight-lipped, she points at the massive doors of the high-arched entryway.

 

They are tremendous oaken slabs, long and rectangular except at their tops where they are carved into quarter circles that meet at the centre and together form a hemisphere. Oaks of that size haven’t been seen in Britain since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The iron fittings weigh as much as a carriage, the hinges the length of Remus’s forearms. Now both wood and iron are shuddering and bucking like lathered horses, golden tinged magic bathing the entire scene in eerie light. Several members of the Order are crouched or standing, wands drawn, staring resolutely at the doors. Fear etches harsh lines in every face.

 

‘What are they doing?’ Remus demands of Fleur.

 

She shakes her head. ‘A battering ram?’

 

‘Something is making the magic contract where it touches,’ Bill says. ‘I can’t say what.’

 

Remus swears and draws his wand. He steps towards the doors, meaning to run his hands along them and understand how to bolster them with his own magic, which feels pathetically small at the moment, but the heat radiating off them is almost too intense to contemplate several metres distant. He ducks his head and holds up his hands, just as the doors shatter open, and he is thrown into darkness.

 

***

Sirius hears Tonks scream as the tower lurches violently beneath his feet. He slams into the parapet with his shoulder and moans in pain, staggering upright and staring around wildly. Gryffindor Tower is on the southern part of the castle, while the front doors are on its west, so he can’t see what just happened. ‘Tonks!’ he yells, voice ragged. He sees Kingsley and Arthur both disappear from the top of Ravenclaw.

 

Tonks’s Patronus appears at his side. ‘They’ve taken out the front door. They’re in the castle.’

 

Sirius pelts through the trapdoor and down the stairs. They have to buy time, they have to buy time, they have to buy time… He shoves open the door of the sixth year boy’s room and runs to look out the window, stepping over discarded clothes and around a trunk, trying to see the courtyard. He unlatches the window and leans out as far as he dares. His worst fears are confirmed: flashes of wand light and screams float up to him. As he watches, someone in a dark robe lets off a spell that ignites one of the older trees that line the cloisters; it catches as if soaked in petrol. ‘Fuck,’ he says, ‘fuck, fuck,’ turning and running out of the room and down, down into the common room and through the portrait hole.

 

‘Sirius!’ the Fat Lady shrieks after him. ‘Sirius what shall we do?’

 

‘Run!’ he yells at her, and as he runs himself his peripheral vision starts picking up on chaos in the paintings on the walls: women, children, goblins, dogs, all assortment of creatures are running the opposite direction to him, some trying to haul whatever two-dimensional objects they treasure, some losing their heads and shoving into corner frames, bunching up and wailing, their voices tinny to Sirius’s ears.

 

He bursts into the centre of the castle and looks down the grand staircase at the wreckage of the door. People are running and fighting, throwing curses over their shoulders. His wand is tight in his hand as he slams his foot down on the stairs and rotates his wrist just so, severing a rope holding a chandelier. It falls onto a masked figure in a massive spray of broken glass and hot wax.

 

Chaos reigns. They haven’t the numbers to sustain the fight inside the castle and he knows it. He ducks into a narrow hallway near a back set of stairs and pulls out the mirror in his pocket. ‘Harry,’ he says urgently. ‘Harry, are you there?’

 

‘I’m here,’ Harry says, and it is really him, not just on the mirror, running around the corner with Ron and Hermione in tow. He’s holding a twisted piece of metal and all three of them look singed. ‘Ravenclaw’s diadem,’ he says, thrusting the metal towards Sirius, who steps back, startled. ‘Destroyed by Fiendfyre.’

 

Sirius feels a deep foreboding even looking at the dead thing. ‘The goblet…?’

 

‘Hermione stabbed it with a basilisk fang.’

 

‘Where did she get… oh never mind.’ Sirius grips Harry’s arm. ‘Are you all right?’

 

‘I think so,’ Harry says. ‘We’ve just got the snake left.’ He looks directly into Sirius’s eyes. ‘He’s in the Shrieking Shack, with the snake. He just sent Lucius Malfoy to get Snape, he wants to talk to him.’

 

Sirius looks back into his eyes, searching. ‘You… saw all this?’

 

Harry nods. ‘We have to go there.’

 

Their eyes burn into each other. Sirius’s heart hurts. ‘It’s chaos in the castle,’ he says quietly. ‘They’ve breached the walls.’ Harry’s eyes flicker; Sirius can see it hurts him too. Hogwarts was always home for so many lost children. He touches Harry’s arm. ‘Let me get you out to the grounds.’

 

‘Harry,’ Hermione says. She’s been peeking around the edge of the hallway. ‘I think we might need to find another way to go…’

 

Sirius visualises where they are in the castle. ‘Come with me.’ Together they go up a back set of stairs and emerge into a wider corridor, with one side open, looking down over a bannister upon the ground floor. Suddenly Percy, Fred, and George appear below them, backing away from something – a group of Death Eaters. Sirius recognises Pius Thicknesse, the Minister for Magic, as Ron sprints for the stairs at the end of the corridor. Sirius realises that he’s running for his brothers as Harry and Hermione apparently realise the same thing. Harry pelts after Ron but Hermione steps to the bannister and raises her wand.

 

Whatever she meant to do, it is too late. There’s an explosion and when the smoke clears it is clear that Fred Weasley is dead. Sirius’s first thought is Harry – he looks for him and sees him pressed back against the wall, eyes wide and face white with shock – and his second is Molly. He runs to Harry as the living brothers converge over the dead. Harry looks at him wide eyed.

 

‘Fred,’ he says, very softly. Sirius nods. Hermione walks slowly down the stairs to stand by them, tears running down her soot-streaked face.

 

‘We’ve still got to go, Harry,’ she says, voice breaking.

 

Harry looks past Sirius towards Ron. ‘I want to fight,’ he says, quietly, ‘but you’re right.’

 

‘You are,’ Sirius agrees. He can hear Percy wailing. He thinks of Regulus. ‘If you go through that door,’ he says, pointing with some effort past the Weasleys, ‘you’ll be able to go out of the castle by the greenhouses. Can you find your way from there?’

 

Hermione nods, and tugs Harry forward. Ron has backed away from his brothers, face set, and joins them. His eyes meet Sirius’s and Sirius draws his wand and nods. He’ll protect George and Percy.

 

Together, they manage to move Fred’s body, hiding it in an alcove. Sirius always forgets how heavy the dead can be. Then they are interrupted by a fresh wave of Death Eaters. Sirius has no mental capacity to think, only to cast spell after spell, not understanding the layout of the battle or where his fellows are. In a moment of brief respite, he sends a Patronus to Remus, but there’s no reply.

 

***

 

‘Remus! Remus!’

 

Someone is shaking him, and a woman’s voice is screaming, and another woman is crying…

 

He opens his eyes to double vision and instant regret. He closes them again and counts to five. Everything is pain – especially his wand arm. That’s not good. He opens his eyes again.

 

Fleur is the one shaking him, bent over in a pile of rubble and massive splinters. Remus sits up, shakily. His wand arm is broken in multiple places. He can see the yellow-white of the bone tips below his elbow and the pulp of the muscle and fat around it.

 

Tonks suddenly appears and crouches beside Fleur. ‘We thought you were dead,’ she says, sobbing.

 

Remus shakes his head and looks at his arm again. Fuck. He is bleeding rather a lot.

 

‘Should I get Madam Pomfrey?’ Fleur asks, sounding panicked.

 

‘No,’ Remus says faintly. ‘Is Bill here?’

 

‘I’m here,’ he says, also appearing beside him.

 

‘Where are the Death Eaters?’ Remus asks, remembering everything all of a sudden.

 

‘Inside,’ Bill says grimly. ‘Luckily they all went past and missed you. You got thrown back into a classroom.’

 

Remus nods woozily. Blood loss and approaching pain are a bad combination. ‘Bill, put your hand here, would you?’ He touches his upper arm, above the break.

 

Bill nods and reaches forward. ‘What are you doing?’ Fleur asks. Tonks has stood and is wiping her eyes harshly, almost angrily.

 

‘Werewolf healing,’ Remus says softly, and reaches inside himself, to the place he hasn’t gone as a human since that terrible night in the Department of Mysteries. He remembers holding Sirius’s body and clinging to his soul with every ounce of ability and skill he could muster. He doesn’t have to try so hard now because it’s his own body, and it’s easy enough to bind the bones together, reknit the flesh around them, and seal it over with skin. It hurts like fuck though, and will for a while he knows. Bill’s hand on his arm is tight, but does not waver.

 

‘That’s bloody impressive,’ Bill says when he’s done. Fleur’s perfect skin looks slightly grey. Together they help Remus stand. Tonks is keeping watch, her wand drawn.

 

‘Can you fight?’ she asks without looking at him.

 

‘Yes,’ Remus says.

 

‘Good.’

 

‘What are we to do now that zey are in ze castle?’ Fleur asks.

 

‘Get every one of them that we can,’ Remus says. The pain in his arm focuses him. He tries a spell and it sparks and fizzles. He tries another: stronger, better.

 

The four of them move together into the ruined entryway, entering a pitched battle. Remus has a glimpse of Fleur’s Veela side emerging as she suddenly lashes forward with her wand, hair flying, before he and Tonks are separated from Bill and Fleur by Dolohov and two other Death Eaters he does not recognise.

 

They’re powerful, particularly Dolohov. Tonks sends one of the other Death Eaters spinning into a wall and then very neatly boxes them into it with the stone debris littering the floor, so that the last glimpse Remus gets is of a raised hand desperately trying to claw at the air as she slams the last stone in with finality. Remus senses that Tonks is fucking furious. He can’t say he blames her. The other unknown Death Eater is very fond of a slicing spell so hot and sharp that it is singeing the edges of Remus’s repeated shield charms. He takes a moment, shuts down his fear, and studies. The Death Eater’s movements are fast but the slicing motion requires a long draw back of the wand, rather like a cricketer readying to bowl. He waits until the Death Eater is at the apex of this movement and swipes in a horizontal arc, rending the air in front of him with a jet of water so powerful that the Death Eater slams backwards against the new wall Tonks has constructed. Remus spins his wand in a repeated circle, like winding up a bail of twine, and the Death Eater spins in midair, winding up in magical cords, before Remus lets go of him, fully bound, and lets him fall several feet to the floor with a sickening thud.

 

For a second it is just Dolohov, and just Remus and Tonks, fighting back to back, but others keep entering the fray from the sides, and there are giants stamping in walls and suits of armour streaming past and everywhere people are screaming and crying. Someone has started a fire and Remus can hear it crackling; then he almost steps backwards into one of its smouldering edges and has to stamp on the edge of his robe. As he’s putting that out, he hears Tonks scream. He lunges forward with a stunning spell just as Dolohov slices at her with the Killing Curse. Dolohov slams into the ground and Tonks ducks, gasping. She looks at Remus, wide-eyed, mouths, ‘Thank you,’ and stands just as he bends down to smack out another small flame on the hem of his robe.

 

He hears the Killing Curse intended for him go over his head, a Doppler effect like a distant bell on a cold, clear morning. Tonks crumples forward and he catches her, then spins around purely from instinct, looking for the source. The second Killing Curse hits Tonks’s lifeless body and Remus sees Bellatrix Lestrange standing in the doorway, teeth bared. She raises her wand to issue the curse a third time – the magical effort required is something Remus cannot even imagine possessing, and indeed her wand tip is issuing a faint line of green smoke – when the walls contract again. She instantly freezes, head up like a deer that’s caught sent of a hunter.

 

The hateful, high voice says, ‘You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery.’ Remus stares at Bellatrix, knows she can see him, and spits onto Dolohov’s stunned body. She grits her teeth but does nothing. Remus’s whole body is shaking with fury and grief. He clutches Tonks to his chest as Voldemort continues: ‘Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.’

 

There is a long pause. Bellatrix looks back at Remus. ‘I must rejoin my master,’ she calls. ‘But after that, I am coming for you.’ She turns and disappears.

 

Shaking, he kneels, laying Tonks down as gently as he can, arranging her limbs, stroking her hair back from her face. Even in death, it is still bubblegum pink.

 

Then Voldemort resumes, the sound like a boot heel crushing into Remus’s chest: ‘I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour.’

 

Remus presses his head down to Tonks’s silent chest and sobs. He needs to find Sirius and Harry but he cannot seem to make himself stand. People move around him, shadows in his peripheral vision, but all he can focus on is her body, soft and still warm, smelling faintly of acrid ozone and underneath that sweat. Tonks, his dear friend, loyal until the end, a light in the darkness of that year in Grimmauld Place, his husband’s best family member, killed by a curse meant for him…

 

***

 

Sirius hears Voldemort’s words from the thick of battle too. The Death Eaters around him seem to melt away into the walls as Voldemort turns his words to Harry. Harry is smart, Sirius knows, but will he walk into a trap because he doesn’t want to harm anyone else?

 

He helps George and Percy bear their brother into the Great Hall, but at the entrance he suddenly realises what he is about to see and the possibilities therein and almost cannot walk through the doors. Then he hears Molly’s wail and he forces himself through, for her. Together, they lay Fred down beside the Gryffindor table. Sirius touches Molly’s shoulder and then leaves the family to their grief.

 

He wanders the rows of the dead, with every step alone certain that he will soon be seeing the face he most dreads, until he comes to another that he hadn’t even thought to dread but that makes him bend over with pain.

 

Tonks.

 

Sitting beside her, his head in his hands, one arm of his robe completely soaked through and dripping blood, is Remus. Sirius drops to his knees and throws his arms around him.

 

‘Moony,’ he gasps, touching his face. ‘Moony.’

 

‘Padfoot,’ Remus rasps, and buries his face in his chest. They collapse to the side, backs against the stone wall, Sirius cradling Remus’s upper body. ‘Oh I’m so glad you’re here.’

 

‘Me too,’ Sirius breathes. ‘What happened to Tonks?’

 

Remus shuts his eyes long enough that Sirius starts to say, ‘You don’t have to-‘

 

‘Bellatrix, of course. A Killing Curse meant for me.’

 

Sirius is stunned into silence. Finally he asks, ‘How did she miss you?’

 

‘I bent over at the wrong time.’

 

Sirius feels the blood, cold and sticky, from Remus’s robe starting to seep through his own. ‘What happened…?’

 

‘Broke my arm,’ Remus murmurs. ‘Healed it.’

 

‘Sirius? Remus?’

 

Sirius looks up, startled, and sees Harry. Their godson looks utterly shellshocked. Sirius presses himself up against the side of the wall and grabs him in a rough hug. ‘Oh thank god.’

 

Remus gets up more slowly. He can see from Harry’s face that there’s something wrong, then almost laughs at the absurdity of the thought – because no fucking shit something is wrong. ‘What’s happened? Where are Ron and Hermione?’

 

‘With the Weasleys,’ Harry says. He suddenly sees Tonks. ‘Oh no…’ He looks at Sirius and Remus. ‘I never wanted this to happen.’

 

‘Of course you didn’t,’ Remus says grimly. ‘None of us did.’

 

‘Listen,’ Harry says, ‘I…can we go somewhere else?’ His eyes are roaming around the Great Hall.

 

‘Yes,’ Sirius says immediately. He looks at Remus. ‘I don’t think we’re needed here?’

 

Remus shakes his head. ‘I think now’s the time to be with family,’ he says gently.

 

Harry leads them out of the Hall, past the ruined entryway and the massive staircase. He seems to have somewhere in mind. ‘I have to look at something,’ he says. ‘I think you should probably come too.’

 

Sirius and Remus glance at each other, worry on both their faces, and follow their godson along the corridors to the entryway to the Headmaster’s office. Harry turns to look at them and holds up a tiny vial full of silvery liquid. ‘I have to use the Headmaster’s Pensieve,’ he says.

 

‘Whose is that?’ Sirius asks, frowning. Remus’s mind instantly goes to Voldemort and he’s repulsed by the thought of seeing even a second of his memories.

 

‘Snape’s,’ Harry says. ‘Voldemort had Nagini bite him and left him for dead. I went to him and he told me to take this.’

 

This is… a lot to comprehend. Remus’s eyes shoot to Sirius’s, who seems to be struggling with how to feel about Snape’s death. ‘His memories?’ Remus asks, more to buy time than clarify. ‘But why…?’

 

Harry shakes his head and shrugs. ‘Professor Dumbledore trusted him until the end. Maybe this will explain it.’

 

‘Yes,’ Remus agrees, remembering the last time they spoke. ‘All right. Do you know the password?’

 

They go up into the Headmaster’s office, so recently vacated by Severus. Harry knows exactly where the Pensieve is. Together the three of them plunge down into the silvery liquid to witness the past as Severus remembers it.

 

***

 

The sight of Lily is the first shock. Sirius grabs Remus’s hand and they do not let go until the end, past the Hogwarts Express and Sirius’s own young self, cringingly arrogant to his eyes, through youthful cruelties and Lily, already good at an age when the others are struggling to form moral cores, and on to adulthood and Severus’s terrible actions, his redemption, his final promise to Albus. They’d both known, of course, that he’d had a thing for Lily, but she’d chosen James and they hadn’t thought much about it thereafter. When Severus begs for Lily to be spared despite James and Harry, Sirius has to look away, angrily expelling air through his nostrils. Remus is resigned to it: the dredging of the awful past, of every regret and mistake. But when they come to Albus extracting the promise from Severus to kill him, Remus’s heart goes cold. He cannot imagine what this feels like for Severus, though the torment on Severus’s face gives him an idea.

 

When they step out of the memory, the three of them look at each other. Then Remus crosses the room and collapses into one of the plush armchairs before the Headmaster’s desk.

 

‘Well,’ Sirius says, pacing. ‘Well. That was… something.’

 

Harry is staring off into the distance, and Remus sees James in the expression: a latter James, a First War James, haunted by the thought of what his son will one day have to do.

 

Harry looks up at the two of them. ‘What time is it?’

 

‘I don’t know,’ Remus says heavily. His brain can’t seem to press through the turgid waters within it to form anything coherent from what they’ve seen. ‘Probably nearly an hour gone.’ He pushes himself to his feet. ‘We should go downstairs, Sirius. Get a plan ready.’

 

Sirius meets his eyes. They don’t have the numbers and they both know it. And who among them can duel Voldemort? He nods. ‘Yes, let’s.’

 

The three of them walk down the stairs together, and Sirius and Remus turn towards the Great Hall, but somewhere along the way Harry disappears, so that when they arrive in the castle entryway, he’s no longer behind them. Sirius turns in a panic, but Remus has had an idea of what might be about to happen.

 

‘He’s gone to face him,’ he says quietly.

 

Sirius puts a hand over his eyes for a moment. ‘I know.’ He draws the hand away and takes a deep breath. ‘James wouldn’t have let us stop him either.’

 

‘No,’ Remus says. He reaches for his husband and holds him as tightly as he can while they both cry.

 

***

Neville finds them some time later, when they are in the Great Hall helping with what healing they can. ‘Harry told me something,’ he says in his broad voice, crouching down before Remus, who is holding Lavender Brown’s hand. Fenrir Greyback has done a great deal of damage to her and he is not sure if he can help her survive it. He turns away from her, still holding her hand, and forces himself to focus on Neville.

 

‘What did he say?’

 

‘He told me that we have to kill Voldemort’s snake.’

 

Remus frowns. He thinks, but does not say, the final horcrux. ‘Good to know,’ he says.

 

Neville nods. ‘I think the more people I tell, the better chance we have of getting it done, right?’

 

Remus nods numbly.

 

‘Where is Harry?’

 

Remus’s heart lurches. ‘I’m not sure, Neville. Sorry.’

 

Neville presses himself up with his hands on his knees and says, ‘No mind at all. I’ll find him.’

 

Remus sits, still holding the girl’s hand, thinking of how he’d kill for a sandwich, and then, thinking of killing. Dark magic is easier, in that regard. Bellatrix can commit murder and mayhem all she wants while wizards who wish to keep their souls intact have to get creative. There’s still a Death Eater trapped in a wall somewhere, unable to Apparate due to being on Hogwarts grounds. Remus remembers when Sirius was training to be an Auror, a lifetime ago, and Auror leadership under Scrimgeour had introduced the idea that they might need to use Unforgiveable Curses. Sirius had hated the idea.

 

Remus feels the walls contract again. Fear makes him go cold. Sirius is suddenly at his side, hand clenched on his shoulder, as they hear the voice for the third time:

 

‘Harry Potter is dead.’ Sirius’s fingers are digging into him. Remus reaches up and puts his hand over Sirius’s. He can’t process this as Voldemort continues, inexorably, ‘He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you laid down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.’

 

Without really thinking about it, they stand, and move towards the forecourt, the voice growing louder as they walk with most of the other survivors. ‘The battle is won. You have lost half your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you and the Boy Who Lived in finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist – man, woman, or child – will be slaughtered as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle now. Kneel before me and you shall be spared.’

 

Outside is cold after the warm interior of the Great Hall. Remus senses that they are being controlled by a powerful Imperius Curse, but his mind is fighting it. He looks at Sirius and sees that he knows it too. He’s trying so hard to understand what that means…

 

‘Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters, will live and be forgiven and you will join me in the new world we shall build together.’

 

In the grey light of pre-dawn, Remus sees Voldemort in person for only the third time in his life, though he is looking much worse for the wear than the last time he’d seen him, when he’d still retained some vestiges of Tom Riddle. He wears a massive snake around his shoulders, and his robes are as grey as his face, whispering at his feet. He is surrounded by Death Eaters, Bellatrix close at his side, and Fenrir Greyback there too, and so many others that Remus is saddened to see while so many members of the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore’s Army lie unmoving in the Hall behind them.

 

Hagrid is there too, huge, and sobbing, and cradling something.

 

Sirius realises that the limp thing in Hagrid’s arms is Harry. He feels Remus go completely still against him aside from a clenching of his hand. Around him, he hears others cry out, or gasp, or murmur – but – ‘I don’t believe it,’ he breathes in Remus’s direction. In his peripheral vision, he senses his husband incline his head slightly, put his nose into Sirius’s hair.

 

‘Sirius…’

 

‘I don’t believe it,’ Sirius repeats, as quietly as he can. ‘He’s – he’s faking it.’

 

Remus swallows. ‘For our sake, I hope you’re right.’

 

Sirius won’t believe otherwise – to believe otherwise would be – he won’t. This isn’t like James. This is absolutely not at all like James. Harry possesses that ineffable gift that was Lily’s dying power and there is no universe in which he is dead now, here, like this.

 

‘You see?’ Voldemort says, gesturing at Hagrid. ‘Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now deluded ones? He was nothing ever but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice him.’

 

Ron’s voice from the crowd, fierce as he yells: ‘He beat you.’

 

His voice gives the others strength and they yell and jeer until Voldemort performs his spell once more… but Sirius can feel its edges, can feel the flat weight of Imperius pressing down on his brain but if he just works a rhetorical finger to one side, he can just – get it – right there – underneath –

 

Voldemort is shrieking, ‘He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, killed while trying to save himself!’

 

There’s a commotion in the crowd and then Neville Longbottom shoves his way forward. Voldemort lazily disarms him, throwing his wand aside and laughing. ‘And who is this? Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?’

 

Bellatrix steps forward, barely keeping a shit-eating grin off her face. ‘It is Neville Longbottom my lord… son of the Aurors, remember?’

 

The anger at his cousin gets Sirius’s fingers fully under that lid and prying it up. Voldemort is having some kind of conversation with Neville – if Sirius can just – he hears Neville shout, ‘I’ll join you when hell freezes over. Dumbledore’s Army!’ and things break free a bit, he can raise his voice with the rest of the crowd, and a silencing charm a moment later flatly does not work. Voldemort summons something floppy out of the castle –

 

‘The Sorting Hat,’ Remus whispers. ‘That’s a powerful magical object…’

 

Voldemort is ranting about something or other, Sirius catches something about Hogwarts, and Slytherin, and thinks idly that it’s rather pathetic that you can be one of the most powerful wizards in the world and still be upset about your old school’s colours – but he’s not really paying attention. Instead he’s watching Harry because he could swear he saw his eyes twitch.

 

‘Oh no,’ Remus gasps, and Sirius’s eyes are drawn back to Neville, who has disappeared underneath the hat and is struggling. ‘No, no,’ Remus murmurs, and the hat bursts into flames. The crowd is crying out now, horrified. Remus manages to draw his wand, whatever Voldemort’s spell of control was now thoroughly broken, as others draw theirs as well. There’s a tremendous uproar and Remus sees hundreds of people running up the grounds towards the castle – they appear to be friendly – there’s an incursion of giants – centaurs are appearing over the walls –

 

Sirius grabs Remus’s arm and breathes, ‘Harry’s gone!’

 

‘What?’ Remus starts to look just as Neville shoves the hat off his body and draws from its depths a massive silver broadsword with a ruby-studded handle. He steps forward neatly, like he was born to handle medieval weapons, and slices off Nagini’s head.

 

‘Harry!’ Hagrid yells suddenly. ‘Where’s Harry?’

 

The chaos that has been threatening for several minutes finally unleashes. Sirius and Remus automatically move back to back to fight but there’s so much going on that Remus can’t get his wand on anyone. Sirius yells, ‘We have to find Harry!’

 

Remus agrees, but, ‘How?’

 

The crowd is heaving, and somehow they are carried along through it into the Great Hall. Voldemort is there, fighting, terrifyingly powerful. Remus and Sirius rush forward to engage him alongside Kingsley, Arthur, Bill, and Fleur.

 

‘If you want to look for Harry, go!’ Remus yells at Sirius. ‘I don’t know how much good any of us can do here!’

 

Sirius hesitates, never one to run from a fight, before Arthur yells at him, ‘If Harry is still alive… he might be our last chance Sirius!’

 

Sirius turns and races out of the Great Hall. He has no idea where to look – Dumbledore’s office, again, maybe? He’s fighting with half his mind, frantically trying to think where Harry might be with his other. Death Eaters are everywhere. One pins him for a second and suddenly Kreacher appears, holds out his hands, and shields him from the Killing Curse. The Curse rebounds and the Death Eater falls to the floor, stone dead.

 

Sirius sees, bouncing on Kreacher’s concave chest, Regulus’s locket. ‘For Master Regulus,’ Kreacher says. Their eyes meet for a second and then Sirius tears off a strip of his robe and hands it to him.

 

‘Get out of here,’ he says, not realising that he’s started crying until Kreacher has Apparated with a soft pop. He shoves himself to his feet and hears a scream and runs after it, up the stairs towards the Astronomy Tower.

 

***

Remus misses Molly ending Bellatrix because he’s too busy fighting Voldemort, sweat pouring down his face, throwing spell after spell as hard and as fast as he can and still, intellectually being able to know how much they’re losing. But suddenly Voldemort shrieks like a harpy, then looks very, very confused. It’s a strange expression to see on his flattened face. People behind him are screaming in jubilation. For a fleeting second, Remus thinks Sirius must have found Harry – he chances a look – and sees Harry, alone, James’s invisibility cloak pooled at his feet. Harry stalks forward, wand raised.

 

‘Get back,’ he says quietly to Remus and Arthur. He raises his voice. ‘I don’t want anyone else to try to help. It’s got to be like this. It’s got to be me.’  

 

Remus swallows hard. He looks at James and Lily’s son, their godson, and sees the man he has become. He trusts him.

 

He gives a curt nod at Arthur and together they and the other three step away from Voldemort. Harry and he begin to circle each other. Remus stays guarded, ready to step in if god forbid Harry should fall. He wonders where Sirius is…

 

***

Sirius finds three Death Eaters torturing a Hogwarts student he doesn’t recognise. Three on one, he tries and fails to thinks breezily, three on one, can’t be that bad, but of course it is. He fights for what feels like hours but in reality is probably two minutes. The student flees down the stairs in the middle of it. Sirius dispatches the last one by a spell that would have earned him a T in Transfiguration, but it turns out that it doesn’t really matter how nice something looks when it is effective.

 

Sirius’s legs can no longer support him. He collapses against the wall. All of the adrenaline that has been surging through his body for hours is exhausted. For several seconds he can do nothing but gasp.

 

Then he hears it.

 

A dragging sound. On the stairs. Someone breathing very heavily, panting even.

 

A wind wheezes up the stairs and a smell comes with it: canine. Musky and sweat-soaked. Nothing good. Sirius grabs for the windowsill above his head and hauls himself to his feet just as Fenrir Greyback rounds the corner.

 

***

 

When Harry shouts, ‘Expelliarmus!’ just as Voldemort screams, ‘Avada Kedavra!’ Remus closes his eyes involuntarily.

 

He hears a thud, and then Molly’s voice says, quietly, ‘You can look, Remus,’ just as the Hall erupts in noise. He opens his eyes to see Voldemort’s strangely small, crumpled corpse and then sees Harry, standing, alone, the red light of sunrise illuminating him. He looks exhausted.

 

Remus helps him down from the table and then releases him to Ron and Hermione. He looks around the room and realises that Sirius is not there. His body goes cold. He runs out of the Great Hall but stops when he hears Harry’s plaintive voice behind him.

 

‘Remus? Where’s Sirius?’

 

Remus turns back to him. Harry is alone, his face pinched with worry. Remus thinks, it is too much. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says quietly, trying not to give away the full body panic he can feel clawing inside of him. ‘I was just going to look for him. He went looking for you after you put on the Invisibility Cloak.’

 

‘Let’s go,’ Harry says, grim.

 

***

 

Sirius thinks he’s ready for Greyback, but the man moves with incredible speed. Sirius has a flash of how terrifying it must have been to be a child, just outside his home, thinking he was about to meet a friendly dog. It galvanises him to fight, slashing his wand wildly, all his magical power channelled through it and erupting in wild bursts. Greyback duels in a strangely heavy way, each of his spells strong enough to shatter the stones that comprise the Tower. Sirius backs up the stairs, slipping a little on the dust and gravel underfoot, still throwing off spell after spell. They emerge into the sunrise and Greyback lunges for him, teeth bared, but Sirius fights him off with a shield charm that makes him stumble back against the wall.

 

Greyback grins. ‘You’re Remus Lupin’s lover, aren’t you?’

 

Fuck me, Sirius thinks, how many Death Eaters have a personal vendetta against my husband? ‘Husband, thanks,’ he says, slashing his wand across and down, shoving Greyback back again with fire.

 

‘I didn’t get an invitation,’ Greyback snarls.

 

‘Are you trying to banter with me?’ Sirius demands. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

 

Greyback rushes him, head down, and Sirius kicks him to the side, staggering at his weight. Greyback spits teeth and blood, then grins again, his face a horror. ‘Don’t you want to share everything with him?’

 

Sirius ignores him, concentrating on circling him, angling him just so. He keeps his wand out in front of himself as if in protection, but a steady stream of magic is issuing from it, drilling away at the stones on the wall behind Greyback. He just has to keep him at bay… just a little bit more… there’ll only be one chance at this…

 

The floor is becoming jagged with broken stones from Greyback’s spells rebounding off Sirius’s shield charm, but the charm holds. Greyback is clearly getting impatient, making bigger and bigger swipes. Suddenly he raises his arms and the shards of the floor fly up and pelt Sirius’s shield until it collapses. The shield deflects most of it but he can feel dozens of tiny cuts as they slice through his robes on his arms, chest, and legs. And now his shield is down – he darts forward and slams himself bodily into the massive werewolf, who must weigh five more stone than he does – but Greyback is clearly not expecting such a physical attack from a Pureblood wizard, and staggers. Sirius transfigures into a dog and pummels him again, this time behind the knees. Greyback collapses backwards into the wall as Sirius darts forward – Greyback grabs for him – Sirius the dog evades him but is dangerously close to the edge of the wall, and Greyback is flailing, knocking weakened stones this way and that. Sirius transfigures back into a human and tries to hit him with a Stunning Spell whilst simultaneously scrambling backward from the edge.

 

Greyback screams, ‘A wizard will never cage me,’ and – either through the force of physics or his own will – pitches backward off the side of the tower.

 

Instinctively, Sirius hunches his shoulders, and a second later he hears the sickening crunch. Shaking, he stands, looking out over the crumbled parapet, and thinks to yell a moment later, ‘I don’t need relationship advice from you.’ It sounds ridiculous. He collapses back against the broken stones and lies there, bleeding freely from dozens of lacerations.

 

Sirius might have laid there all day if Remus’s wolf Patronus had not appeared at his side. It nuzzles his face gently. ‘Where are you?’ it whispers.

 

‘Astronomy Tower,’ Sirius manages. He rolls over onto his hands and presses himself to his feet. In the end, he crawls down the stairs and tumbles as gently as he can onto the floor at its base just as Remus and Harry round the corner. His heart is suddenly much too large for his body, especially thudding like this. They’re alive, if a bit dirty and bloodied.

 

‘Sirius!’ He’s not sure who calls his name in that panicked tone, but suddenly Remus is at one side and Harry is at the other, both touching him.

 

‘What happened?’ Harry asks.

 

‘What’s all this blood?’ Remus demands, his hands on Sirius’s robes sticky with it.

 

‘Greyback,’ Sirius starts.

 

Remus goes white. ‘Did he bite you?’

 

‘No,’ Sirius says. ‘He’s dead. I just,’ he pushes himself into a seated position. ‘I could use some extra blood, though. Got cut with lots of little rocks.’ He puts a hand on Harry’s face. ‘You’re alive.’

 

Harry smiles, and then the smile turns into a grin. ‘We’re all alive.’

 

‘And Voldemort is dead,’ Remus says. He’s running his wand down Sirius’s arm, delicately healing everything he can.

 

Sirius twitches. ‘That itches,’ he says. ‘Wait. He’s – he’s dead? You sure? Because I’ve heard that before.’

 

‘He’s dead,’ Harry says solemnly. ‘And – again, I want to reiterate – we’re all alive.’

 

‘We’re alive,’ Remus says, mouth curling as he fights not to cry.

 

Together they help Sirius stand and walk slowly to the Great Hall in companionable, pensive silence. Ron and Hermione are waiting for them at the doors.

 

‘You don’t want to go in there,’ Ron says. ‘Everyone’s looking for you.’

 

‘A true friend,’ Remus murmurs.

 

‘Go,’ Sirius says, giving Harry a little push towards his best friends. ‘We’ll wait for you.’ He glances back at Remus, then smiles at Harry. ‘And whenever you’re ready, we’ll go home.’

Notes:

Sirius and Remus will return in... THE EPILOGUE

Chapter 32: Epilogue

Sirius had said, ‘We’ll go home,’ but that had proved a bit more complicated than it seemed. They spend the first few weeks after the battle inhabiting a limited number of rooms in Grimmauld Place while Sirius combs through properties for sale.

 

Mostly, they relax. There are funerals – seemingly endless funerals – of which Harry attends only a few. Remus feels obligated to attend them all, and Sirius feels obligated to go with him. But after that, they listen to a lot of Quidditch on the wireless, play long games of wizarding chess that seem to stretch across weeks, and take rambling walks. On fine days, they take the Muggle train down to Brighton and go to the beach, eating ice lollies and enchanting seagulls to stop stealing food as confused Muggles wonder why they’re suddenly able to eat their fish and chips unaccosted. Sirius discovers he needs reading glasses and, after a brief crisis, acquires an absurdly expensive Italian pair that look so good Remus can barely look at him – after all they are sharing a home with Harry now, but once he leaves for school...

 

And then there is the matter of home. Sirius comes up with a list of possibilities and they tour them, asking as many strange questions of the estate agents as they can think of:

 

Remus: ‘My hobby is antique fires…’

 

Agent, nodding seriously: ‘Go on…’

 

Remus: ‘So I need a fireplace capable of handling the power of a, say, an 1810 roarer…’

 

Agent, starting to look concerned: ‘Well, this property does date to the late 1700s…’

 

Or…

 

Sirius: ‘Our son likes collecting larger lizards, so we need walls and ceilings that can bear a good deal of weight.’

 

They settle on a terrace house in Walworth, with a good-sized private garden, and spend Harry’s birthday in brutal heat and humidity schlepping their few belongings south. Harry, along with Ron and Hermione, is going to return to Hogwarts in the autumn to finish his seventh year.

 

‘It’ll be nice to be there and, you know, not thinking about Voldemort,’ he says.

 

Remus nods approvingly. ‘And you do need to get your N.E.W.T.s for any career you’ll want in the future.’

 

Sirius and Harry look at each other, eyebrows raised. Sirius says, ‘You think Harry is going to have trouble with people knowing his magical qualifications?’

 

Remus laughs. ‘It’ll streamline the application process.’ He doesn’t add, it’ll give him a chance to be a little carefree for the first time in his life. He knows Sirius knows it.

 

Harry is no longer thinking of becoming an Auror – ‘I mean, you could be a really good one, like Tonks was, but you might have a boss who makes you do bad things…’ He seems content to not have any plans for the future just yet.

 

Minerva comes to visit them and looks around the house, lips pursed.

 

‘You don’t like it?’ Sirius asks. It is a bit of a tip.

 

‘No, it’s very nice,’ she says. She looks back at him. ‘Too nice. I was hoping I could persuade you two to come back to Hogwarts.’

 

Sirius blinks in confusion. ‘What would you want me for?’

 

‘I was hoping Remus could teach Defence, and you could take my place as Transfiguration master, now that I’m Headmistress.’

 

Sirius is beyond touched. ‘You think I could teach Transfiguration?’

 

Minerva laughs. ‘Sirius, you have been better at it than I since you were a fifth year. And that’s not even counting the unregistered Animagus.’ She pauses. ‘Though we will need to get you registered, you know. Just for propriety’s sake.’

 

Sirius had been thinking of trying to get his old job back at the British Museum, or at least something like it. But a year of teaching… and Harry would be at the school too…

 

She sees it in his face and smiles. ‘I don’t expect either of you to be there forever,’ she says gently. ‘But I thought you might like more time with your godson.’

 

‘We’ll think about it,’ Sirius says. ‘Put me down as a definitely maybe.’

 

‘Let me know soon,’ she replies, all business again. ‘As otherwise I shall have to engage an inferior professor.’

 

Sirius wants to talk about it, but when they sit down for their lunch, Harry says, ‘So, when are you going to actually get married?’

 

‘Um,’ Sirius says, a bit blankly.

 

‘We should do it before I go back to school,’ Harry adds.

 

‘Well,’ Sirius says, ‘I think we have to give a certain amount of notice with the local register…’

 

‘Oh,’ Remus says breezily, ‘I did that ages ago.’

 

Sirius looks at Remus, who is calmly eating and averting his gaze. ‘Ages ago?’

 

‘Fleur reminded me. She wrote me a letter about it, in fact.’

 

‘So we could get married at any time?’

 

Remus nods. Harry grins. ‘Let’s do it tomorrow,’ he says.

 

‘Ok,’ Remus agrees.

 

‘Ok?’ Sirius repeats. ‘That’s it?’

 

‘I mean, it’s just a piece of paper, when you think of it,’ Remus says.

 

Sirius rolls his eyes. ‘Well then. Why not.’ He hesitates. ‘I’ll need dress robes, though.’

 

‘Don’t you already own some?’

 

‘Our cottage got destroyed, Moony. Remember?’

 

‘Oh, hm, yes. I’d forgotten they were there.’

 

‘We’ll get some in the morning,’ Harry says, soothingly.

 

Sirius is nervous, and takes a walk to think about it. It is an event he’s been waiting nearly half his life for, after all. He takes to the streets, like he did when he was a younger man. In Borough Market he acquires a takeaway latte and then wends his way along the back lanes a few blocks from the river until he comes to the Tate Modern. The museum is relatively new and he hasn’t been inside it yet. He decides to scope it out with the idea of taking Remus there for a surprise night out soon. Inside, he finds himself at the Magical entry desk, as Muggles stream behind him down the ramp towards the massive exhibition in the Turbine Hall. The space is enormous but feels more inviting than alienating.

 

The witch at the desk has long, curly hair, large glasses, and cute rainbow-shaped earrings in bright acrylic. ‘Here’s a map,’ she says, handing him a shimmering, changing piece of parchment.

 

‘Oh this is quite well done,’ Sirius says, studying its movement. He follows a radiating arrow along a wall and through a magical barrier. The space opens up into a second massive exhibition hall with floor to ceiling windows that look out onto an upside-down view of London. The floor is a shimmering blue with three-dimensional white clouds that travel around his feet and, when touched, seem to be made of cotton candy. Sirius grins at being disorientated and walks along the sky.

 

In a small gallery that he stumbles upon hours later, he finds himself standing before a flashing neon light that says: ‘Is Love Enough?’

 

Sirius hesitates. He thinks of all the people he’s loved in his life and the home he’s about to return to. He thinks about tomorrow. He touches his wand to the wall and the neon letters transform into, ‘Yes.’

 

The next morning Remus tells Harry and Sirius to go and find whatever it is that they want to wear to the wedding. ‘I’ve just got stuck in to this book,’ he says, gesturing to some thick new academic text on werewolf rights. ‘And I already own plenty of clothes. I’ll meet you at the Registry Office at two o’clock.’

 

As soon as they are gone, Remus puts the book away – he’s barely comprehended a sentence all morning – and goes into their bedroom. There’s a long mirror on the back of the door. He looks at himself in it, all grey hair and lines around the corners of his eyes and the edges of his mouth, and grimaces. Then he heads out towards a bespoke robe makers that he knows Sirius won’t have chosen.

 

There are several people he wishes were walking beside him, but the one he misses the most is James. James would have been utterly brilliant at helping him shop for wedding clothes. Maybe it’s sad and strange, but he imagines him there, what he would say, his brilliant laugh and quick smile. It’s a comfort. He misses his parents too, and wishes desperately that they could be here to see him so happy.

 

Meanwhile, Sirius and Harry go to the magical counter at a boutique off Sloane’s Square that is so posh Harry hadn’t even known such a place could exist. They drink champagne and each have two wizards catering to their every whim.

 

Finally, after a great deal of tailoring spells and many different colours and styles of robes, they look at each other in the mirror side by side.

 

‘Do I look like my dad?’ Harry asks, a rare tentative note in his voice.

 

Sirius looks at him. He realises he hasn’t thought of Harry being too much like James in a long time. ‘Quite a bit, yes,’ he says carefully. ‘And like your mum too.’

 

Harry smiles, brilliantly. ‘Do you think we’re ready?’

 

Sirius scrutinises himself in the several mirrors that float around them. He does look quite good, if he’s allowed to think that about himself. ‘Yes.’

 

When they arrive at the register office, Molly Weasley is waiting outside, dressed in what she wore to Bill and Fleur’s wedding. ‘Hello!’ she calls. She looks a little older and more careworn but is beaming from ear to ear. ‘Remus owled and said you needed a second witness.’

 

‘Molly,’ Sirius says, stooping and hugging her tightly, his throat already constricted. ‘I hope you’ve brought handkerchiefs. I’m already a mess.’

 

Harry pushes one into his hand and gives Molly a hug as well. ‘Thank you for coming.’

 

‘I’m so flattered to be invited!’ She looks between them. ‘You two look incredible. Come inside. Remus was just freshening up in the loo.’

 

Indeed Remus is there, splashing water onto his face and taking deep breaths. He’s not nervous to get married – it really is just a piece of paper – but he’s very likely to start bawling the second he sees Sirius and he’d really rather not. He hears Molly's voice downstairs and straightens up, collects himself, and exits the toilets.

 

The Registry Office is beautifully decorated with white flowers. The room they’re to be married in has tall windows with floor length red drapes that are drawn back, looking out on an artfully overgrown garden with a small fountain in the middle. A great proliferation of birds perch on its edges, fastidiously cleaning their feathers and wetting their beaks; Remus watches them until he hears the door open, and hears Molly and Harry, but not Sirius. He stays looking out the window, throat hurting with unshed tears, until he feels two warm, familiar hands on his upper arms.

 

‘Hello Moony,’ Sirius says softly in his ear. ‘Ready?’

 

Remus shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then opens them to focus on their image reflected in the glass: Sirius’s hands on his arms, his warm smile, his blue eyes and hair that falls perfectly still, and himself, Sirius’s complement in every way both seen and unseen.

 

He reaches up and puts his hands overs Sirius’s so that their rings overlay one another, protective bands that bind them. ‘I’m ready, Padfoot.’

Notes:

I am orphaning this work because I know it means a lot to a lot of people but I have no desire to be associated with this media property any longer. Support for Harry Potter creates real harm for real people in the real world - people like me, a person who is transmasc/nonbinary. If you enjoy reading this, please please please do not spend any money that would ever go to JK Rowling. Do not buy HP merch. Do not visit HP theme parks. Do not support HP shows. If you do so, you are directly funding transphobia.

Death and taxes to all billionaires forever. They shouldn't exist, and that includes you, Joanne.