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It all began because of Sirius’s insomnia. He had been a restless sleeper his entire life, angering his parents and exhausting his nannies. They’d all resorted to locking charms and silencing hexes before he could talk, and the nights had always been long and lonely for Sirius Black.
But it wasn’t so bad in the castle. No one punished him for his inability to rest, and the room was peaceful and calm at night. He’d gotten to know the sounds of each of his friends’ sleep, and hearing them like clockwork night after night made him feel like everything was under control. The reliability was a comfort whenever he felt like he might crawl out of his skin with restlessness.
James and Peter slept like bricks, Peter’s nose softly whistling with each and every breath. Because of this, it was possible to pinpoint the precise moment that he had fallen asleep or woken, and therefore Sirius always knew when he was faking. James grumbled in his sleep, with an occasional grunting snore. It woke Sirius, once in a while, but not often enough to throw a silencing charm his way. He didn’t want to be like that, anyway. Later, it would become a relief that at least one of them could sleep soundly.
Remus and Sirius were light sleepers, but while Sirius’s nights were fitful, often ending in tangles of sheets hanging to the floor, Remus was utterly still and silent. Except when he wasn’t. He had nightmares. And there were often nights, just before and after the full moon, when his rest was punctuated by soft moans of pain, or groans of nameless anxieties. Then, the contrast to his normal sleeping patterns stood out to Sirius as if neon lights were flashing above the boy’s bed. They might have read: “He’s suffering, do something.”
He wasn’t sure when it had started. In first year, probably, when Remus had still been shy and mysterious, and would only ever say “sorry” for having woken Sirius, telling him he was okay and to go back to sleep. In those early days, Sirius hadn’t gotten out of bed, had just sent curious whispers through the space between them. But then there had come the nights when he could have sworn he heard Remus crying, a few times before or after he’d taken ill and spent a night or two in the hospital wing. He’d ignored it at first, out of respect for his friend’s dignity, but by early second year it had hurt too badly to listen, and he’d come to sit on the floor with his back against Remus’s mattress. He never spoke, but after a few minutes, Remus would roll over in his direction and mutter his “sorry”s, and then once, something shifted. A nervous whisper. “Please don’t tell the others.” It was their secret.
He couldn’t remember when he’d first crawled in with Remus. It had to have been a nightmare. Remus would have mumbled dark things in his sleep, or cried out with fear or self-loathing, and Sirius would have wanted to stop it for him, to wake him from the torture first, and then reassure him that he was safe in his bed, that he wasn’t hurting anyone, and that nothing was going to hurt him. Sometimes Remus would shake or whimper, and Sirius couldn’t possibly leave him like that, so he’d lay with him, just so Remus wouldn’t feel alone, of course. Sometimes, he stroked his hair, just once or twice.
“Sirius?” Remus had whispered one time, in fourth year.
“Yes?” Sirius had asked.
“Could you … maybe … not?”
“Not…?” Sirius had echoed, having just sat up, thinking he should go back to his own bed now that Remus’s breathing had slowed to normal. His heart thudded. Remus wanted him to stop doing this. Of course. He’d been stupid. That was fine. Obviously it was fine, he’d only ever wanted to help, and if Remus didn’t want—
“Could you maybe not go?” It had been a tight, hoarse whisper, and sounded like it might have cost Remus something to say it.
Sirius had let out a breath. “Of course, Moony. Anything you want.” He had settled back under the blankets, lying on his side so they were face to face when Remus drifted off.
A few months later, Sirius had reached out a hand for the first time, to work the sore muscles in Remus’s neck, and Remus hadn’t stopped him. Soon after that, in the darkest hour of a frigid winter night, Remus had pulled Sirius to him, had wrapped an arm around his waist the moment he’d slipped between the sheets, and had breathed shakily against Sirius’s chest as he’d slowly stopped trembling.
It was something they never spoke about in the daylight. It was as if the sun rose each day and simply erased the facts of what they did in the dark. But of course, that was just something they each told themselves, while deep down they wondered if they should feel ashamed. It was not normal what they were doing, holding each other in the middle of the night when they weren’t…they didn’t…
They should stop.
They couldn’t stop.
Neither one said it, but by fifth year, they stopped pretending to forget, in the daytime. Now, they remembered, on purpose. One’s eyes would catch the other’s, and he would look away, cheeks burning pink.
That was the year when Sirius started finding himself in Remus’s bed even when his friend’s sleep was calm, no nightmares or pain keeping him awake, and they both knew for sure then: what they were doing was wrong. It was weird, it was shameful. Were they poofs? Were they just like that flamboyant kid in Ravenclaw who’d gotten bloodied up the old fashioned way by two Slytherins just before the previous Christmas? Or the one above them in Gryffindor who, rumor had it, had been followed from somewhere dirty and secret by a group of Muggles and ended up in St. Mungo’s for three weeks the summer after he’d finished Hogwarts?
They were freaks. It was so dangerous. It was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Remus actually pushed things first, hand straying one night to the other boy’s hip, his eyes wide and questioning. Sirius sucked in a breath, but didn’t pull away. He didn't pull away.
Three nights later, Sirius slid a hand below Remus’s waist and Remus moaned, and after that there were no more boundaries, not between their hands and their need, anyway, though it wasn’t until later that spring when Sirius dared to close the space between their mouths one time, just to see, just to try…
It was all over, then, the moment that they kissed. There could be no more denial, though they tried. Voices raised in their empty dorm room, they confronted it all out loud for the first time, why it was wrong, why it wasn’t, why they should stop, why they didn’t have to.
Secrets were becoming dangerous then, and theirs was so heavy. Theirs was filthy.
But they were weak, and times were terrible. After a while, there didn’t seem to be enough love to go around anymore, and they were so tired of hiding theirs. Somewhere along the way, they had become each other’s everything, and maybe they were still freaks, but the ones who finally knew - James and Peter and Lily - pretended like they weren’t, and sometimes they believed it.
And then, they were gone, and Remus was alone, the pain of loss and betrayal nearly eating him alive until there was nothing left of him but torn and wasted scraps.
He didn’t know how to mourn in this new world, where nothing felt real. The war was over, and the few who were left, the comrades who had once felt like brothers and sisters, went on with their lives, and pretended like they hadn’t known.
It was taken as discretion, a kindness in those days. They pretended not to know, but how could they not, with the way their gazes had always met across the meeting table, flames in their eyes?
When it began the second time, the roles were reversed. They had both been hollowed out, were faded shadows of the men — kids — they had been, once upon a time. But Sirius needed him, so Remus drew himself up, fit the broken pieces of himself back together, and it worked, because the hope and the relief were like glue, and he was almost whole again.
It started again in another bed, so many miles away from the first, in his ramshackle cabin that had never really felt like home, but Sirius did. Sirius was his home, and he was back, and Remus was determined to unravel all the wrongs that had tied them both up in the knots they had become.
It didn’t take as long as it might have. They both knew now that time was an illusion. It was never really there until it was past, and at some point it ran out. They had so much of it to make up for. So what started carefully as nothing more than the humbly offered comfort of Remus's presence, turned quickly into shared breath in the night, and then more. Then everything.
“I love you, I love you, I love you…”
It was so much easier than it could have been, because none of the things that had once made it a bad idea could possibly make any difference anymore. They were grown men. Times had changed, a little, and they just didn’t have the energy to care this time. All Remus had to do now was bring Sirius back to life.
But the universe never had been able to leave well enough alone. Not for them.
They would not have the gift of another chance. A third time was simply too much for the fates to deliver, though in the very worst moments, Remus numbed it all by telling himself that maybe they still had eternity. Someday. It was sometimes easier, sometimes harder, to believe himself, staring at the bottom of an empty glass.
He had never been sure how he’d managed to survive it — how he’d outrun himself and his desperate temptations to end the pain — the first time around, but the only thing that saved him the second time was the understanding that Sirius and James would never forgive him if he did that to Harry. There might be no acceptance in the afterlife, and the hope that he might have them again someday was the only thing that kept him going.
And then, one day, there was her.
He didn’t love her, and yet he did. She would never be Sirius, but no one ever could be, and he was so, so alone. But she was a lifeline, somehow, because she’d been there, she’d seen, and she knew, and she wanted him anyway. There would never be another man in Remus’s life, but there could be her, because it wasn’t the same, and he just couldn’t bear the loneliness any longer. He could only hope and pray that Sirius would forgive him, because he had to stay alive for Harry, and he wasn’t strong enough on his own anymore. Too much of him had shriveled up and drifted away, right through the veil, where it had been wrapped around Sirius, holding all of his rattling fragments together.
Sirius had deserved nothing less from him, and he'd wanted to give him everything, but now he was coming apart. The little that was left of him was dry and splintering, and though there was a definite sort of numbness in it all, she managed to keep him in one piece, almost. It was just enough.
Then came Teddy. And Remus was like two different people, the one who belonged there, and the one who belonged here, and Remus knew it was both his penance and reward for all the mistakes he’d made and for all he’d had to live without. And he would have stayed, for them. For Teddy, and for her too, because they deserved that, and he wanted to, he really did. But they would only ever have half of him. The other half was already gone, and had never really been there with them at all.
In the end, it was out of his hands. But his two warring halves had never stopped fighting each other, and if he’d had a moment to stop and consider it, he wouldn’t have been sure. Had some small part of him faltered when the curse had come his way? Had he tried his hardest, had he really?
It turned out that even in the very last moments, in that suspended fleeting space between life and death, guilt could still swallow a man whole.
There was nothingness then, and there was everything. His soul was free.
A fluttering wisp of air against his fingers became a hand, and he was pulled onward. From that touch flowed peace and joy, forgiveness and grace, and he felt more alive than he'd ever been on earth. He knew that warmth for what it was -- a once in a lifetime love that had still been there all along, just beyond the shadows. Because the ones who love us never really leave us. They just wait, calling to us, just behind the veil.