Chapter Text
Murder was a strange career. It hadn’t been Remus’s first choice. He had watched his dad throughout his childhood, leaving in the middle of the night to see a body across the city, talking to reporters about missing children, crying into his mother’s shoulder when the victim was especially young or hurt in ways too hard to discuss. He had never wanted to follow in Lyall’s footsteps, choosing instead to start law school – hoping for a more normal life.
But plans changed. His father went out on a routine arrest and never came home, bleeding out in an unmonitored hallway. The investigation, if you could call it that, was closed without an arrest. The man had run away too quickly, they said. He disappeared, they said. They’d get him one day. Remus had so many questions that went unanswered. Why were the security cameras off? Why did they have no backup? Why was his father, a high-ranking detective, even at the arrest of a random drug dealer?
So he dropped out of law school before his second semester. He aced his training and became a police officer. He spent ten years rising through the ranks until he became one of the youngest DIs in the city. He made a career in murder and was good at it, taking the toughest cases and solving them faster than his peers.
And he still had no answers about his father.
Remus groaned at the sound of his phone ringing. He had just gotten back into bed, a cup of coffee in hand, and had been hoping to spend the morning relaxing for once. He specifically woke up earlier so he could have a lie-in before work.
He groaned again when he saw the caller ID – James Potter. It was work-related, then. He stood up as he answered, abandoning his coffee to get dressed.
“What?”
“Good morning, sunshine,” James replied with a laugh. “We have a weird one. Homicide victim found in a hotel room this morning. I’ve already sent you the address.”
“Anything more you want to share before I get there?”
James hesitated.
“It’s a bit hard to describe, honestly. Better if you see for yourself. You’ll be here soon?”
Remus checked the address before answering.
“Give me half an hour. I need to grab something to eat, then I’ll head your way.”
“See you then.”
Now dressed, Remus headed to the kitchen with his coffee. He decanted his coffee into a travel mug and grabbed his overnight oats from the fridge, thanking his past self for the foresight to make breakfast in advance. He ate quickly and filled the bowl with water before heading out.
In ten minutes flat, he was pulling out of the parking garage, praying to any god listening that it wouldn’t be as bad as James made it seem, and he’d be home for dinner. He could use a break, honestly. Somehow, though, he didn’t believe he’d be getting one any time soon.
*
Weird didn’t really do the scene justice.
The victim, a young adult woman, was lying on the bed, on top of the sheets. There were no obvious signs of trauma, no blood or bruising on her neck, but she was pale and cold – poisoned if he had to guess. Her hands were resting on her stomach, holding a dead rose. And the real kicker – a small sewing pin stabbed in between each knuckle, red embroidery thread twisted around the top of each pin, connecting them. The spool of thread, still attached, lay by her right side.
It was an eerie scene, for sure. But, even more so, it was a familiar scene – to Remus, at least. He was sure if he had to check, the thread would be red no. 122, scarlet. Whoever did this had an eye for detail.
Remus stood from where he had been crouched near the body and turned to his colleague.
“You ever read crime thrillers, James?”
James frowned.
“No, Remus,” he responded. “I like to take breaks, on occasion. You should try it some time.”
Remus smirked.
“That’s not why I’m asking, but thanks,” he replied. “Just that if you did read crime thrillers, you’d probably recognise this scene. It’s plagiarised from a novel – Deadly Ever After.”
James looked between Remus and the body, narrowing his eyes.
“Why’s it called that?” he asked. “I don’t get it.”
“The book centres around a serial killer who uses fairy tales to inspire his crimes, hence the title,” Remus explained. “This scene mimics the first kill and the cover image – Sleeping Beauty.”
“I still don’t get it.”
Remus sighed and started pointing to different aspects of the scene.
“The rose is for the classic imagery of the sleeping princess, as she’s usually holding a rose. The pins and embroidery thread are for the spinning wheel. It’s not a perfect recreation of the story, but it’s a perfect recreation of the book.”
James nodded and wrote something down.
“Does this mean we should be looking for more bodies? You said it’s a serial killer, right?”
“I don’t know,” Remus answered honestly. “The novel’s a good starting point, but we shouldn’t narrow things down too much or start trying to predict anything. It could lead nowhere.”
“Fair enough,” James replied. “Who’s the author? We should probably call them in for an interview, just as a starting point.”
Remus grimaced before replying.
“Sirius Black.”
*
It wasn’t that Remus hated Sirius Black. He had never met the man, and he absolutely devoured his books over the years. He just wasn’t a fan of the persona, the charm. Black had won The Prophet’s Most Eligible Bachelor award twice since he published his first novel four years ago. He was a billionaire playboy with a chiselled jaw, grey eyes, and long, glossy black curls. He was arrogant, but he had the looks and the talent to justify it. Remus respected him as an author, but that was as far as it went. If he had met the man, he’d probably find him irritating at the very least. Theoretically.
Remus was pretty sure he hadn’t murdered anyone. If he had, he wouldn’t take it directly from his own book, but it was still a good lead. There had to be a reason someone copied his book, and he might know something helpful. So he called Peter and got him to set up the interview. Hopefully, Lily would be done with the autopsy by the time Black arrived, and Remus could avoid the whole ordeal by simply being elsewhere while he was interviewed.
He arrived at the Met and was immediately sent to McGonagall’s office by a rather flustered Peter. Luck was clearly not on his side today.
Sure enough, he opened the door to find his usually stern boss leaning against her desk and smiling at the man sitting in front of her. She looked up as the door opened and her companion stood to greet him. Sirius Black, in all his glory.
He was taller than Remus expected, almost Remus’s height. He was also dressed more casually, wearing ripped black jeans and a t-shirt that had seen better days under a leather jacket. He wasn’t sure why he expected something more formal. The only picture of the author he had seen were on the inside covers of his books, where it made sense that he’d be more dressed up. He still struggled to reconcile the image he had in his head with the man in front of him.
“You must be the detective who wanted to interview me,” Black said, offering his hand to shake. “Remus Lupin, right? I’m Sirius Black.”
“I know.” Remus immediately cringed. “Sorry, let me try that again. Yes, I’m Detective Lupin. Thank you for coming in, Mr Black. We just have a few questions about a murder that took place last night.”
“Please call me Sirius,” he said. “Minnie already filled me in over the phone about the murder. I’m happy to help wherever I can.”
Remus raised his eyebrows at McGonagall when he heard the nickname. She shook her head but cleared her throat and stood up fully.
“Sirius’s uncle, Alphard, was a friend of mine,” she explained. “He’s practically my godson. I called him as soon as Peter let me know about the connection between your case and his book. He has offered us full access to his apartment building’s security system, so we can look into his alibi for the murder, but I don’t think that will be necessary. I don’t think anyone here is accusing you of murder, Sirius. We need to look into whether the link to your book means anything, and whether that has an impact on you, but otherwise it’s business as usual.”
“That’s perfect, Minnie,” Black replied. “Like I said, I’m here to help in whatever way I can.”
“Thank you.” She turned back to Remus. “Sirius is going to be consulting on this case until it’s solved. We spoke about it, and I think it will be easiest if he sticks around, so he can answer any questions about his life as they come up and maybe offer a new perspective on everything. He’ll be working mostly with you, Lupin, as lead detective, so please look after him while he’s with us.”
“Of course, sir,” he answered before looking back at the other man. “Mr Black, if you’d follow me to my desk, I’d like to ask you a few questions, so we can start looking into any leads.”
“Lead the way, Lupin,” Black answered easily. “But, genuinely, call me Sirius. Mr Black is my father, and he’s much less charismatic, I can promise you that.”
With that, Sirius strolled through the doorway and waited a few feet away for the detective. Remus sighed, and turned to meet him, pulling McGonagall’s door closed behind him. It was going to be a long case.
Notes:
Come find me on tumblr @up-to-some-good for updates on this fic!
Chapter title from The Albatross by Taylor Swift
Chapter 2: if you want it done
Summary:
Progress is made on the case, and Sirius starts to win over Detective Lupin. Also, old friends reunite in unexpected places.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Detective Lupin was an interesting man. To Sirius, at least. He was used to charming people with one smile, having men and women alike laughing with him and hanging off his words within minutes. Lupin was different.
He wasn’t Sirius’s usual type – in fans or in men. His fans tended to be young women, early twenties, who enjoyed true crime podcasts to a concerning degree. His romantic partners tended to be tall, dark, and handsome types, with tattoos and sharp grins to match Sirius’s own – not that there had been many in the past few years. Lupin was tall, sure, about an inch or two taller than Sirius himself, and handsome in his own way, but he was a bit lanky, with floppy golden curls and a smattering of freckles and small scars on his face.
At first, he had seemed a bit starstruck by Sirius, stumbling a bit over his introduction after spending his first few moments in the room staring at him unashamedly. After that, he just seemed annoyed. Maybe it was the early morning getting to him, as it was barely 8am by the time they met, or maybe it was something else entirely, but it had Sirius intrigued.
Sirius had been bored for months. His most recent novel had been in final edits and formatting, and he had been busy with promotional events for a while. Then the book had launched and become an instant bestseller, leading to more book signings and interviews until the fuss died down. Then it was just him, an advance on his next novel, and a blank word document staring at him for a month. His agent was counting on him to write another bestseller, no matter how long it took. He had already produced four crime thrillers and amassed a loyal fanbase, how hard could a fifth be?
Very hard, as it turned out. Normally, he would already have three new ideas, notebooks filled with sketches of grisly murders and new, interesting characters. He’d be calling on his friends to pick which idea they liked the best and setting up a drawing board in the living room to properly plot everything out, much to his brother’s chagrin. Instead, he had spent the month considering whether he should adopt a puppy (a firm no from Reg) and redecorating the apartment for the third time since they moved in.
He wanted something new. He had written four novels with no relation to each other. No running theme or overarching plot, no characters who grew and changed from one book to the next. Four books that stood for themselves and ended on their own. He didn’t want to write another. He wanted to write a series – something gritty and dark, with a character that you didn’t always agree with even if they were ultimately working for the greater good. He wanted characters you could sink your teeth into and mysteries that didn’t just end after 80 000 words but stayed with you long after they were solved.
And then Minerva McGonagall called.
There was a murder in London, ripped directly from the pages of his first book, and they needed to ask him some questions. He leapt at the chance to help. Maybe he just needed to get out a bit, stop staring at his office door and his brother’s irritated expression, and inspiration would find him.
“Mr Black, are you listening to me?” Lupin interrupted his thoughts.
Sirius shook his head and looked up at the detective.
“Sorry, no, got distracted,” he replied. “What were you saying?”
Lupin sighed. “I was asking you if you had any fans we should look into – anyone who’s sent you letters with concerning content or threats? If these murders are linked to you somehow, it may be a good place for us to start.”
“I’ll be honest, I don’t have a clue. I stopped reading fan mail when a woman sent me a vile of her blood ‘as a keepsake’.” He shuddered at the memory. “I have a PO box which my agent monitors. She sends me anything she thinks I might like, reports anything overly concerning to the police, and keeps anything creepy but not too concerning just in case. She checks it about once a month, I’d say. I can give her a call, if you’d like. We can sort through this month’s pile together and look for leads.”
Lupin ran a hand through his hair and wrote something down.
“Please do,” he said. “I’ll call James to help you sort through it and look into anything she’s previously reported, while I go chat to our ME and start looking into the victim’s life.”
“Counteroffer,” Sirius responded. “You and I go and collect everything from Marlene and sort it together while your colleagues chat to the ME and look into the victim’s life. You know, since McGonagall told you to look after me while I’m here.”
“Fine, okay, whatever,” Lupin replied. “But we’ll need to get coffee on the way out if I’m going to survive the day. I’ll go chat to James; you call Marla. I’ll meet you back here in ten.”
With that, he stood up and started heading towards the door to the conference room they’d claimed for their interview.
“Marlene.”
Lupin stopped and turned back to Sirius briefly, frowning at the interruption.
“My agent’s name is Marlene, not Marla,” he said with a grin. “And if we’re getting coffee, it better not be from Starbucks. I’m buying.”
As Lupin turned back around, Sirius swore he could almost see a smile.
*
Marlene wasn’t even there when they arrived. She was in a meeting with another author, Lockhart, so her assistant handed off two paper boxes of letters for them to sort through. Sirius left a small note with her assistant to thank her and call her a traitor for working with other writers before they left, knowing she’d need a laugh after seeing Lockhart.
They dropped the boxes in Lupin’s car and Sirius dragged the detective to the small coffee shop around the corner despite the other man’s grumbling. They needed coffee to work, and Sirius refused to drink anything but proper Italian coffee, so it was Café Dolci or his apartment where he had a decent espresso machine.
Lupin complained the whole way back, saying the stop had been a waste of time when there was a perfectly good coffee pot in the station and the service was too slow and the customers too loud. He shut up after one sip of his cappuccino, which Sirius noted with a satisfied smirk. The shop was a bit out the way, hidden down a side street away from any main routes, but it was worth it for a real cappuccino, especially if you were already in the area.
They dumped the boxes in the same conference room and started sorting through letters, each taking one box and pulling out a pile of letters. Within minutes, the door swung open, and a familiar face stepped in, already talking.
“McG said I could find you in here. I just got back from Lily and she’s still working on the autopsy, but her preliminary findings say the victim was definitely poisoned – good call there. She’s waiting for the tox screen to figure out what poison exactly but couldn’t find any other injuries. Needles were put into the knuckles post-mortem, so no torture,” James said quickly. “On the victim’s identity, we found her wallet in the hotel dumpster. Her name’s Elaine Ackerman. We’re looking for next of kin now. She was 19, working as a waitress in a diner near the hotel.”
“Prongs?” Sirius said when he finally paused.
James snapped his head up and looked at Sirius with wide eyes.
“Padfoot?” he said incredulously. “Holy shit, it’s been ages! I didn’t even think you were still in London. How are you?”
Sirius got up and pulled him into a hug.
“I’m good,” he answered. “Never left London, just went into hiding with Alphard when I left my parents’ house and lost touch with everyone. How are you, though? And your parents?”
“I’m great,” James replied. “They’re great. You’ll have to join me for lunch some time and see them. They’ll be over the moon to see you. Bring Alphard, it’ll be a party.”
Sirius smiled a bit sadly.
“Alphard’s gone, died around the time I finished uni, but I may have another Black sheep to bring instead. We’ll talk. There’s a lot to catch up on.”
At that point, Lupin cleared his throat and they both turned to him, having forgotten he was in the room.’
“You two know each other?” he asked.
“We went to school together,” James answered. “We were best friends until he disappeared halfway through year 11.”
He turned back to Sirius.
“I was hoping I’d see you when Remus tied the case and your book together. Are you staying on to help us out?”
“McGonagall asked him to consult, since he knows his books and fans better than anyone,” Lupin answered. “Speaking of the case, what were you saying about Elaine, James?”
“What? Oh, right.” James looked back down at his notebook. “Elaine Ackerman, 19, dropped out of university in her first year. She was working as a waitress near the hotel. We haven’t interviewed anyone yet, just looked at her social media and basic records, but she doesn’t look like she has any enemies or anything. Seems like a good kid. Probably a victim of opportunity.”
“Well, that’s not good,” Sirius replied.
“Why?”
“It’s unlikely you’d set up such an elaborate murder for a random stranger,” he continued. “Unless you were planning a few. Seems like they may be following my book more closely than you thought.”
Lupin nodded in agreement.
“Keep looking into Elaine,” he told James. “And get Pete to help you. The more we know, the better. Mr Black and I are sorting through his fan mail now. We’ll let you know about any leads.”
James gave him a mock salute and left the room again, leaving Sirius and Remus to their work. They spent the rest of the day sorting through the letters, noting down any names to look into further and setting aside anything interesting. Around midday, James came in to take Sirius out for lunch, where they spent an hour catching up before returning to work. Sirius also got to meet Peter, the last detective on their team, who confirmed Elaine was a good kid with no enemies after speaking to her mother. It was a good day, despite the work, and Sirius found himself settling into the team quite well.
He also spent the day trying to get to know Lupin, asking him questions about himself and receiving one-word answers when he deigned to answer at all. Eventually, he gave up on the questions and decided to just chat idly about the letters, throwing out small comments and reading out particularly funny lines when he found them. He struggled to stay quiet, which Lupin seemed to accept. After a few hours of this, Lupin seemed to be warming to him a bit, offering his own funny lines and smiling at Sirius’s jokes.
As the day wound down, Sirius was reaching the end of his box. He had three letters left when he finally pulled one that may be a real lead.
“Lupin, listen to this,” he said urgently.
“Black, come on,” Lupin replied. “I know some of these are funny, but it’s nearly the end of the day. Can’t we just finish this?”
“No, it’s not a fun one. Just listen:
Sirius, clearly my letters aren’t getting through to you. You don’t see me. You don’t even know I exist. But it won’t be this way for long, not if I have anything to say about it.
You’ll see me soon, my dear. And you’ll never ignore me again. It will be impossible, unmistakeable.
Count the days, Sirius Black. Soon, you’ll know my name.”
Remus took a minute to process the words before reaching to grab the letter from Sirius and reading it for himself.
“I recognise this handwriting,” he muttered. “I have one from this person too. Thought they were just a creep, but this one’s a bit more sinister.”
He looked up at Sirius.
“Is there a return address? Or a name, maybe?” he asked.
Sirius checked the envelope quickly.
“No name, which is fair. If I was writing that, I wouldn’t sign it either,” he said. “But there’s an address on the back. Near the hotel, if I’m not mistaken.”
Remus double-checked and grinned.
“No, you’re not mistaken,” he said. “Well, I think we can stop there, then. This will give us a good starting point for tomorrow, at least. We’ll go talk to this guy tomorrow. At the very least, we can scare him into not sending you any more letters.”
“I don’t know, though. It feels pretty good to get all this attention,” Sirius joked. “I mean, someone killing for you – isn’t that the dream?”
Remus shook his head, a small smile on his lips.
“Somehow, I disagree,” he replied. “You alright to get home, Mr Black?”
“Yeah, all good. See you tomorrow, Detective Lupin.”
“See you tomorrow. Wear something nice.” Lupin got up and walked towards the door, pausing briefly on his way out to turn to Sirius and hold up the letter. “You know, for your admirer.”
Sirius laughed as the detective left. This was what he needed; he knew it. Now, he just needed to make it last a bit longer, longer than it would take to solve one murder so he could finish his book.
Within twelve hours, he got his wish – a second body was found.
Notes:
Come find me on tumblr @up-to-some-good for updates on this fic (and maybe future snippets)
Chapter title from De Selby Part 2 by Hozier
Chapter 3: i know that it's delicate
Summary:
A new victim, a stalker, and Lily Evans.
Notes:
CW: obsessive behaviour, general creepiness, mentions of stalking and harassment.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
McGonagall made the connection with the second victim, having read Black’s books herself. The body was found by the cleaning staff of the hotel. She was again lying on a made bed, still no external evidence of her cause of death, again ripped from the pages of Black’s book down to every detail. Bright red lipstick painted on, a black candy apple held in her hands with one bite taken out, and shattered glass surrounding her body – contained in a neat outline to mimic the glass coffin in the Disney film.
They had their second victim – Snow White. Black arrived shortly after Lily did and immediately handed Remus a coffee from the same café they had stopped at the previous day. Remus was loathe to admit it, but he was almost grateful for the author’s presence, especially since he brought caffeine with him.
“We’re probably looking at a second poisoning,” Lily said. “I won’t know for certain until after the autopsy, but there’s no other obvious cause of death.”
Remus nodded.
“Do we know what poison was used on the first victim?”
“It’s a nerve toxin, commonly called ‘the Draught of Living Death’,” Lily replied. “It paralyses the victim almost instantly, and they die soon after. It’s pretty easy to make, too, if you know what you’re doing and can find the right herbs to mix together.”
“It’s like the modern-day equivalent of a potion,” Black added. “Terrifying stuff. I researched it for the book, and every website that spoke about it had pictures of the plants you need to make it and the exact area you can find them. The information’s a bit too accessible, if you ask me.”
Lily raised an eyebrow at his interruption.
“And you are?”
Sirius offered his hand to her to shake.
“Sirius Black, author and consultant on this case. The murderer is plagiarising my novels, so it’s only fair that I get to help.”
“That’s not why you get to help,” Remus interrupted. “You’re here in case we need extra expertise on the novels, and to ensure your protection if it’s some sort of crazed fan of your books.” He turned to Lily. “McGonagall brought him in and asked me to look after him.”
Lily nodded and turned back to Black.
“Dr Lily Evans, medical examiner.” She shook his hand. “Unsure what expertise you can offer on scene, but glad to have you if McGonagall is. Double glad if you keep supplying Remus with coffee. God knows he’s annoying when not caffeinated.”
“Love you too, Lils,” Remus responded sarcastically. “Do you need us to hang out at all, or are you good with James and Pete? Mr Black and I have a stalker to interview before we can even start looking into Snow White, here.”
“Go ahead. Potter has already started canvassing for witnesses and trying to find an ID. I’ll see you later when my preliminary findings are in.”
“Fantastic. I’ll tell James to leave you to your work,” Remus replied as he started walking out. “No flirting when we have a serial to catch.”
He left the room to the sound of Lily’s laughter, Black close on his heels. They briefly spoke to James and Pete, promising to meet up and go over everything, before climbing into Remus’s car and heading towards the address they’d found on the previous days’ letter. Curiously, Remus noted as he took his final sip of coffee, no one else seemed to be holding a takeout cup from the café. Maybe they’d finished their coffee already. Surely Sirius hadn’t crossed the city on his way to the scene to by only Remus and himself coffee.
Right?
*
The stalker’s apartment block was dingy. That was the only word for it. The whole building looked like it needed a deep clean and a fresh layer of paint, as well as pest control and new windows. And new windowpanes in places. And bricks in others. Not to mention the fire damage, what looked like mould on the ceiling, water damage in the lobby and what sounded like very large rats. Perhaps a fire was the best solution.
The elevator was broken, so Remus took to the stairs with Black trailing behind him, talking him through what they’d found on the resident on their way to the sixth floor.
“So, the guy’s name is Michael Price. He’s in his thirties, works as a night security guard in a mall not far from here, though he hasn’t had that job for too long. He moves jobs a lot, usually casual gigs that earn enough to live here but not much else. He has a criminal record, all minor infractions, as well as a restraining order against him from an ex-girlfriend for harassment. Just be careful, okay? He doesn’t have a record for anything violent, but that doesn’t mean he’s never been violent before. People don’t report things, so there’s no way to be sure that it hasn’t happened.”
Black smirked slightly at Remus but nodded easily.
“I got it, Lupin. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before, so no need to worry about me. Let’s just get this over with, okay?”
Remus nodded back as they reached the sixth-floor landing and started heading towards apartment 12. He knocked loudly a few times, identifying himself as police, and double-checked that Black was still behind him.
The door cracked open, revealing a short man with messy hair, wearing a dressing gown.
“Can I help you, officer?” he asked blearily, clearly having just woken up.
“Michael Price?” The man nodded. “My name’s Detective Lupin, and this is Mr Sirius Black, who is helping us with an investigation. We’re here to as about some letters you sent to Mr Black recently. Can we come in?”
At Black’s name, Price’s eyes widened. He peered behind Remus to see Black giving him a polite smile and wave and he quickly opened the door.
“Please, come in,” he replied hastily. “Can I get you anything to drink? Water? Tea? Wine? I recently got a bottle of Chardonnay from the Aquilano vineyard. I know that’s your favourite, Mr Black.”
“Um, yeah,” Black responded. “Not sure how you knew that, but it is my favourite. I won’t have any now, though, thanks. A bit early for wine, don’t you think?”
Black still had a smile on his face, but Remus noticed his shift in tone and took a step closer to the author, ensuring he was still slightly in front of the other man, so he was between Mr Price and Black. Sirius’s posture had also changed, his stiff back and clasped hands betraying his discomfort with the situation. Remus took over the conversation.
“Mr Price, we need to ask you about the threatening letters you’ve sent to Mr Black recently,” he said, calmly. “Can you explain what you meant when you wrote that Mr Black would ‘never ignore you again’ and your actions would be ‘unmistakeable’?”
“I –” Price started, still looking past Remus to Black. “Well, you know. I just wanted him to notice me. My letters weren’t doing anything, so I decided I needed to do something more drastic.”
“More drastic like murdering to innocent women?”
Price startled and raised his eyebrows, finally looking at Remus instead of the author.
“Murder? No,” he answered. “Definitely not. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I simply had a gift to give Sirius. I was going to leave it at his apartment this weekend.”
“A gift?”
“You know where I live?”
Sirius and Remus spoke at the same time in drastically different tones, Sirius sounding shocked while Remus kept his tone measured.
“Well,” Price continued, excitably. “Since you’re here now, I can give it to you in person! Follow me. It’s just in the next room.”
Remus stayed a step in front of Black as they followed Price into his bedroom. The man kept muttering to himself as he led them through the house, telling them not to mind the mess and asking himself where he had left whatever he was looking for it.
The detective gasped as they entered the bedroom. The room was a veritable shrine to Black – a massive portrait on the wall of Sirius’s face which Remus recognised from the back of his books, a bookshelf which contained various editions of only Sirius’s books, a few odd newspaper clippings about Sirius stuck on the wall next to his magazine cover from winning Most Eligible Bachelor, and, possibly most concerningly, a strand of long black hair preserved in a photo frame on Price’s nightstand.
Black didn’t react at all, strangely. Remus turned briefly to check on him to find the man leaning casually against the doorway, seemingly unphased by everything. Remus was even more stunned by this. Had it been him instead of Sirius, he would already be on his way to the police station to report Price and looking up plane tickets to the most remote location possible.
“Here it is!” Price called out, drawing Remus out of his thoughts.
He pushed past the detective and handed a small jewellery box to Black excitedly. Remus briefly reached over to take the box, but Black held up a hand to stop him and opened it himself.
“What is this?” Black pulled the necklace out of the box. It was silver with a small pendant shaped like a potion bottle, filled with a dark liquid.
“It’s my blood!” Price exclaimed. “So you can always have a piece of me with you!”
Black swallowed and gently placed the necklace back in the box.
“Um, wow,” he replied. “I’m speechless, truly.”
Price beamed. Remus almost arrested him on the spot.
“Michael,” Black continued. “As much as I appreciate…this, we are here on official police business and need to ask you a few questions. Can you tell me where you were the past two nights? And if you have anything to back that up?”
“I was at work,” Price answered easily. “All night every night for the past few days. My boss can show you my timecards, and my coworkers were with me the whole time.”
“That’s great,” Black responded before turning back to Remus. “Do you have any other questions, Lupin? Or are you all sorted?”
The author’s eyes were wide as he looked at Remus. He flicked his eyes briefly back to the living room, trying to communicate something to the detective without alerting Price of his intentions.
“I think that’s all,” Remus replied. “We should probably head to the morgue anyway. We’ll contact you if we need anything else, Mr Price.”
Price didn’t turn back to Remus as he nodded in response, seemingly mesmerised by Sirius’s presence in his flat all over again. Remus pushed back between them and set a gentle hand on the author’s shoulder, steering him towards the front door as they both called awkward goodbyes to Price. The second they made it out the door and back to the stairs, Black let out a breath Remus didn’t realise he had been holding.
“Well,” Black said, jokingly. “I need to move. Possibly to a different country.”
“I can go back and arrest him, you know,” Remus replied. “He’s clearly been following you for a while. I’m pretty sure he’d confess to stalking if we brought him in for questioning. He’s not exactly ashamed of it all.”
Sirius shook his head with some kind of resignation.
“We don’t have any evidence he’s done anything wrong, Lupin. He’s a creep, but that’s not a crime,” he said tiredly. “He’s not the first stalker I’ve encountered and I’m sure he won’t be the last. I’ll call my attorney, get her to file a restraining order just in case, and put him on the no-entry list at my apartment building. It’ll be fine.”
Remus didn’t have a response to that. He knew, theoretically, that Black had likely encountered stalkers before, but knowing it and seeing his calm reaction were two entirely different things. A part of him still wanted to go back to Price’s apartment and arrest the man, taking all his Sirius Black paraphernalia as evidence, or even just yell at the guy a little and maybe scare him straight. He didn’t seem to be a danger to anyone other than himself, if the vial of blood was anything to go by, but Remus still shuddered to imagine what he would do now that he’d actually met the object of his affections.
They descended the rest of the stairs and made it to Remus’s car in silence. Sirius pulled his phone out and started typing frantically as he got into the passenger seat.
“Well, that was a dead end.” Remus broke the quiet. “He’s clearly not our guy if he was at work the past two nights. Shall we head over to Lily and see if she’s got any preliminary findings? If we hurry, we can make it back in time for you to have lunch with James again.”
Black looked up at him with a small smile.
“Sounds great, but I should probably head home and sort everything out with my lawyer and security. The sooner I can give Amelia this ‘gift’ as evidence and ensure that creep doesn’t go to my home, the better.”
“I can drop you off?” Remus offered.
Black nodded gratefully and gave him the address and leaned back in his seat as Remus started driving, falling silent once again. For all his pretences, Remus could tell Price had thrown him off. He had never seen him so silent before. He didn’t like it.
*
If Lily was surprised to see Remus without his tagalong, she didn’t show it. As always, she got right down to business, handing him the final autopsy report for their first victim, Elaine Anderson or ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ and letting them know where they were on ‘Snow White.’
They still had no ID, not idea who she was or who they should be informing about the death. The knew she was young, just like Elaine, and had no obvious health problems prior to her murder. There were burns on her fingertips, showing the candy apple had been placed in her hands while it was still hot. Remus hoped her lack of defensive wounds meant she hadn’t felt anything, that her death had been peaceful if untimely.
When she was finished with her report, Lily took her gloves off and leaned against the counter, looking at her friend expectantly.
“So?” she asked.
“So what?”
“Sirius Black, Remus,” she clarified. “Tell me everything.”
“There’s not much to tell, Lils. He’s just a consultant on the case. That’s it.”
Lily raised an eyebrow.
“See, I’d believe you, but I know you better than that,” she replied. “You’ve had a crush on Black since his first book came out, and that was before you ever saw his face. So tell me about him. What’s he like? Is he as charming as he is in interviews? Arrogant? I know you have thoughts, Rem.”
“He’s –”
Remus stared at the ceiling, trying to pull his words together. How was he supposed to explain Sirius Black to anyone, let alone his closest friend and confidante?
“He’s different,” he settled on. “He knows he’s smart and talented, and he’s not afraid of it, but he’s also surprisingly kind and funny. We interviewed his stalker this morning, and he was so calm and kind to the guy where I’d be running for the hills. He talks a lot, about nothing and everything, but we seem to be on the same wavelength a lot of the time. He’s not what I expected.”
Lily smiled.
“You like him, then?”
“Mostly,” Remus answered. “I could do without having to babysit him while looking for a serial killer. He’s okay company, but I find myself thinking more about him than the case, and that’s not good for anybody.”
His phone buzzed with a text from James, asking him when he’d be back at the office to discuss everything. The day was getting away from him and he needed to focus on the case.
“I’ve got to get back,” he told Lily. “We can chat more on Friday. Movies at your place this week?”
She nodded.
“No worries. Just keep me updated, okay?”
He gave her a brief hug before leaving her lab, promising to bring snacks and gossip with him when he saw her for their regular movie night. By then, with any luck, Sirius Black would be part of the past – a fun story to tell at parties rather than a distraction from his work. He had too many problems to solve for distractions, even if they were good conversationalists.
Notes:
Chapter title from Delicate by Taylor Swift. Fun fact: if you put the chapter title songs together, you can listen to my truly chaotic writing playlist for this fic. Each song serves a purpose. In my head, at least.
Find me on tumblr @-up-to-some-good
Chapter 4: only fools fall for you
Summary:
Dead ends and progress.
Notes:
CW: mentions of suicide. It's not graphic by any means, but please proceed with caution.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Police work was more boring than Sirius expected. After the first two days on the case, the leads were slow going.
They started with the crime scenes; with any evidence they had. There was trace evidence on both victims’ skin where the killer had touched their faces and forgotten to wipe it away. There were a few traces of blood on the glass in the second scene as well. They had DNA, but no matches anywhere in the system. If they could find a suspect, they could match it.
So they turned to the victims’ lives.
Elaine Ackerman, their first victim, was painstakingly average. In normal circumstances, it would be meaningless, but in a murder investigation it just made everything harder. She had no enemies, no one envious of her, no money to kill her over, nothing. She seemed sweet, kind, well-liked.
Their second victim was identified by DNA evidence as Josephine Abrahams. She was 23, a recent graduate from the University of London, working at a smoothie bar at a gym while she worked out what she wanted to do next, according to her mother. She, too, was a seemingly lovely person, no enemies to be found, not even a jealous ex.
They tried to find links between them, anywhere their paths may have crossed, but even that was a dead end. They lived in different areas, had different friends, existed in entirely different circles. Elaine was part of a running group with her high school friends, Josephine worked out at the gym she worked at. Elaine went out frequently to the pub, Josephine didn’t even drink. The closest they got was one of Elaine’s friends knowing someone who used to have a membership at Josephine’s gym, but that was a stretch at best.
They had no choice but to conclude that both women were victims of opportunity, completely unrelated to each other and the perpetrator. So they focused on Sirius’s books and tried to find leads there.
They found nothing.
He had one other stalker who he had reported previously, but she had been arrested for assaulting someone and was currently in jail. Most of his fans were just that: fans of his books. They enjoyed crime thrillers and that was it. A couple of people were a bit more obsessive, but none of them were threatening him and no one had a criminal record or any red flags for serial murder. Sirius almost brought up his biological family, but they would never have read his books, and they’d far sooner have him assassinated than take out their anger on random twenty-somethings.
It was all dead ends.
By the end of the eighth day with no leads, it was just him and Lupin in the office, staring at their board, trying to find something they’d missed. Peter had left at the end of the workday, citing the need to feed his cat and the desire to be in a place that wasn’t work for one night. James stayed long enough to eat takeout with them, throwing out increasingly more ludicrous theories with Sirius until Lupin asked him to go home. They lapsed into silence when he left, each falling into their own thoughts as an hour passed.
“We’re missing something,” Sirius said eventually. “Something crucial.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Lupin replied. “But what? We’ve looked at it from every angle, looked at every piece of evidence. What could we possibly be missing?”
Sirius paused, staring at the board again. He looked between the photos of the victims, trying to reconcile their smiling faces with the crime scene photos of their dead bodies. There was so much blank space on the board, so many theories that hadn’t panned out and so much information they didn’t have.
“The third body,” he concluded. “That’s what we’re missing.”
“What do you mean?”
“The novel included three murders,” Sirius pointed out. “First. Sleeping Beauty, poisoned, with the needles and the rose as the staging. Second, Snow White, also poisoned, with the glass and the apple. Finally, Rapunzel, blunt force trauma, thrown from the roof with her hair cut post-mortem. It marked the devolution of the killer, going from the much more careful means of poisoning to blunt force trauma.”
Lupin nodded along as he spoke, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“We got two bodies in quick succession – Josephine was found only a day after Elaine. If they were copying my book, there should have been another body, and we should have found it by now. So where is she? Where’s the third body?”
“Maybe there isn’t one,” Lupin reasoned. “Maybe he only committed two murders.”
“But why?” Sirius continued. “Why copy my book if you’re only going to commit two murders? Why kill two strangers and then just stop?”
“You think there’s a third body.”
“I think Josephine is the third body,” Sirius replied. “Think about it: we assumed Elaine was the first victim because her murder matched the first death in my book, but what if she wasn’t? What if she was the second, and we just haven’t connected the first to the case yet.”
“Why copy your book, then? Why go to such lengths to match the details in these two cases but start with something else?”
“I don’t know. My latest book came out recently, though. It’s been in the media a lot, so maybe that’s where they got the idea,” he responded. “Maybe it’s an evolution. They killed someone else, a different way, then evolved into the elaborate scenes we’ve seen.”
“They could have been inspired by your book when they first read it,” Lupin continued. “But too scared to act on it for some reason.”
“They kill someone accidentally, maybe in the spur of the moment. They enjoy it, they want to do more, so they find two victims of opportunity and try something more elaborate.”
“And they don’t have to worry about planning it, because you already did it for them. But the next one has to be all them – they’ve moved on from blunt force to poisoning, so there’s a pause between victims.”
Sirius nodded excitedly.
“It makes perfect sense. I couldn’t write it better if I tried.”
“How do we prove it?” Lupin said. “It’s a good story, but that’s all it is – barely even a theory. We need proof. And we can’t wait around for another body to drop.”
“We don’t have to,” Sirius replied. “If I’m right, we already have another body. We have to find the first victim.”
*
Lily was not pleased when they called her. In retrospect, it probably could have waited until the morning, but they were both overcaffeinated and overexcited, so they weren’t really thinking about unimportant things like business hours. She refused to meet them at the lab immediately. Instead, she told them to look for death records for the past two weeks and highlight any cases they thought may fit their ‘wild theory’ (her words), and she would check for matching DNA at a more reasonable hour.
It was good they called her, despite her anger, because in their half-asleep state they had forgotten that they could do the research themselves. They pulled up the recent death records and got started.
There were several files to go through, more than Sirius had expected, but they could filter through them quite quickly based on what they knew. Both victims were young and female, so any men or older women could be excluded immediately. They were left with far fewer files, and one in particular stood out.
Amanda Becker, age 20, died one day before Elaine’s body was found. Her death was ruled a suicide when she was found at the bottom of a skyscraper early one morning, no one having witnessed the fall itself. She had blunt force trauma to the back of her head and had died when she hit the ground.
Her hair was cut short.
Lupin and Sirius looked into her immediately. Her social media was open, full of pictures of her and her friends and family. Amanda had long hair in every single picture, including a picture posted the day she died. So why was her body found sporting a short bob?
Then there was the rest of it, the lack of red flags for suicidality, the mother questioning the cause of death. It wasn’t enough to tie it to the other cases yet, but if they could find DNA, they may have their first victim.
Lupin emailed the file to Lily immediately, asking her to take a second look and see if there was any DNA evidence. There wasn’t anything more they could do in the meantime besides wait, so Lupin offered to drive Sirius home.
It was a quiet drive, for the most part. Lupin turned on the music in his car, playing some classic rock quietly as they drove through the darkened streets.
“I googled you, you know.” Sirius broke the quiet. “That first day, after I went home. I sat up all night, reading articles about the great Detective Inspector Remus Lupin.”
Lupin smirked.
“And,” he prompted. “What did you learn?”
“You’re good at what you do,” Sirius answered. “So good that you became the youngest DI at the Met. You take on tough cases and solve them most of the time, but you avoid the media like the plague and let James or McG do the talking when necessary. Quiet, brooding, smart. That’s what I got from it all.”
He paused, not sure how to phrase the next part, but Lupin took over.
“I’m sure you also learnt about my dad?” he asked.
Sirius nodded, though Lupin wasn’t looking his way.
“Lyall Lupin, murdered in what should have been a routine arrest, survived by his son and wife,” Sirius said. “I’m sorry. He seemed like a good man.”
Lupin nodded in acknowledgement but didn’t speak. After a pause, he cleared his throat, seemingly deciding to change the subject.
“For the record, I did not google you.” Lupin turned to him briefly to smile. “Didn’t see the need, considering I’ve read all your books and seen you interviewed on TV more than I’d like to admit.”
“You’re missing out, Lupin,” Sirius replied. “You’ll never get the full story from those interviews.”
Lupin looked at him again, pulling the car to a stop outside his apartment block.
“Don’t worry, I figured that out for myself. You’re far more interesting in person.” Lupin offered him a small wink. “Far more annoying too.”
“Well, at least it balances out,” Sirius replied with a laugh. “Thanks for the lift, Lupin. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow. Hopefully with some good news from Lily.”
Sirius got out the car as Lupin spoke, making sure to grab his bag and dig out his keys as he went.
“Hey, Sirius?” Lupin called out to him as he stepped out of the car.
Sirius turned immediately, smiling at the other man as he rolled down the window to finish their conversation.
“Yes, Remus?”
Lupin grinned broadly.
“Don’t forget my coffee.”
Sirius laughed as Remus pulled away before heading towards his building. Finally, they were getting somewhere.
Notes:
Chapter title from Fools by Troye Sivan.
I hope you're enjoying this fic! Leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts so far :)
Chapter 5: i'm so inspired by you
Summary:
A resolution and a partnership.
Notes:
Do me a favour and pretend it's Thursday? Thanks.
CW for talks of suicide.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Amanda Becker was 20 years old when she died. She was, by all measures, a happy person. She was busy working towards her nursing degree, had a good part-time job at a small deli near her house, and was surrounded by friends and family. She had a stable boyfriend, a good apartment, and a bright future ahead of herself.
They found her body at the bottom of a skyscraper, dead the second she hit the pavement. It was ruled a suicide almost immediately, no further investigation needed.
Except that she wasn’t suicidal. Not by her friends’ stories, nor her family’s.
Thankfully, the body hadn’t been collected by the funeral home just yet. They still had time to take a second look, and her mother jumped at the chance to get answers when Remus called her. She didn’t think it was suicide either and she wanted justice for her daughter.
The autopsy was vastly different from the other two victims. Both of them had died from poison with no defensive wounds anywhere, leading to the conclusion that they had been surprised and subdued by their attacker. Amanda had skin under her fingernails, a sign she fought back, and two separate wounds on the back of her head. The first killed her. The second happened when she hit the ground.
The DNA was a match to the other two samples. They had their first victim.
Before Lily had even come back to them with the results, Sirius and Remus had dug into Amanda’s life, trying desperately to find a suspect. They reached out to her family, her friends, interviewed anyone who had a moment to talk on the phone, and compiled a list. They narrowed it down to two suspects:
First, her boyfriend – Andrew Phillips. They seemed happy for the most part, but her friends reported several fights in the past few weeks. He wanted her to move in with him, she wanted to keep him to live alone first. He had no criminal record, no history of violence or any red flags that Remus usually looked for, but Sirius insisted he was a suspect. None of Amanda’s friends and family liked him, all saying something felt off about the relationship. He was a bit controlling, picked fights over small things, and she had pulled away since they started dating. Remus pointed out that a toxic relationship didn’t always mean murder, but Sirius argued for the story behind it all. He fit the bill perfectly. After all, wasn’t it always the boyfriend?
Second was Remus’s favourite option, the estranged brother – Luke Becker. He was a troubled kid, born to teen parents ten years before Amanda came into the picture. He had struggled a lot, by no fault of his own, and had ended up on the streets when his parents would no longer fund his drug addiction. His sister had been sending him half her paycheque for several months, trying to help him get back on his feet, but had not sent the money this month. He had a few drug-related charges in his history and a few assaults too. He was smart and impulsive, and he had motive since she cut him off. Sirius disagreed. He had cleaned himself up recently, had a few job interviews lined up, and had even spoken to his parents recently. Why would he jeopardise all that to kill the person who had helped him?
They had enough to bring in both for questioning, but no evidence to arrest either. Neither man had an alibi. They were sitting in interrogation rooms now, both visible from the observation room. Becker stared intently at the floor, his leg shaking and his fingers tapping. Phillips seemed mostly calm, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling.
“We need to pick one,” James said. “It has to be one of them, right? So we pick one and just question him until he breaks and gives us something.”
“If we pick the wrong one, he’ll have nothing to give us,” Remus pointed out. “We have to pick the right one from the get-go, and it’s impossible. Until we can get a warrant for DNA, or consent for a sample, there’s nothing tying either of them to the case.”
Silence fell over them again. They kept staring at the two suspects, waiting for some sort of signal from either of them.
“Ask them about the book,” Sirius said eventually.
Remus hummed, prompting him to continue.
“Whoever did it copied my book, so ask them about Deadly Ever After. Maybe they’ll let something slip, something we can use to pick one.”
“Worth a shot,” James agreed easily. “I’ll take Becker. Remus, you take Phillips.”
“Sure, whatever. May as well try something.”
He dumped out his coffee before he went into the room. He’d gotten a cup from the break room today after finishing his first cup from Sirius, and it was truly terrible. He wasn’t sure how he had drunk it for so long. He was ruined, it seemed, for normal coffee. Only the fancy shit Sirius brought would do. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when the case ended and Sirius left.
Phillips looked over when he walked in, quirking in an eyebrow. Remus didn’t think he was a murderer, not really, but he had disliked the guy the second walked in.
“You like to read, Andrew?” he asked as he sat down.
Phillips looked surprised but took it in his stride.
“Sure,” he replied. “I read a bit.”
“What kind of books do you read?”
“I don’t know, some classics, a few biographies. I like historical fiction on occasion.”
“Any crime thrillers?”
Phillips paused for a second.
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said cautiously. “That was more Mandy’s thing, though.”
Remus nodded and pretended to write something down, doodling a flower in his notebook. He didn’t need notes, these interview rooms were constantly monitored and recorded, but he liked to make suspects nervous where he could.
“Any authors she liked in particular?” he asked after a minute.
“Yeah, definitely, yeah,” Phillips stuttered. “She had her favourites for sure. She liked Gillian Flynn, uh, James Patterson, and –”
“Sirius Black?” Remus interrupted.
“For sure,” Phillips said.
“He’s a good writer,” Remus said. “I love his books, which is high praise considering I normally hate crime books for all their inaccuracies. You ever read any of them?”
“Yeah, I’ve read them. I think everyone has,” Phillips replied. “What does this have to do with Mandy’s death?”
“You know you’re the only one who calls her that?” Remus changed the subject, ignoring his question. “Everyone we’ve spoken to calls her Amanda, even her parents. Her social media is all Amanda too. You’re the only one who calls her Mandy. Why is that?”
“Maybe because I was her boyfriend? I don’t know! Why does it matter?” Phillips snapped.
“It doesn’t, really,” Remus answered easily. “Just curious. I wonder how she would’ve signed the suicide note, if she had written one. I’m willing to bet she’d sign it Amanda, but I guess we’ll never know.”
Phillips didn’t respond. Remus let the silence lie for a moment. Phillips was unsettled, stressed. He was more emotive than he had been in their last interview and Remus was starting to think Sirius was right about this. Maybe it was always the boyfriend. But they needed something solid.
“She fought back, you know?” he said after a while.
“What?”
“We found skin under her fingernails in the second autopsy,” Remus said. “So we know she fought her killer before she died, likely scratched his arms as he grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, cracking her skull. They missed it in the first autopsy, the idiots, but we found it. She fought back.”
As he spoke, Phillips shifted uncomfortably. Unconsciously, he grabbed his left arm with his right hand, protecting the skin from view even though it was hidden beneath his sleeve.
Remus moved quickly, barely giving the other man a chance to react before he yanked his sleeve up and revealed the healing scratches on his arms, scabbed over in some places where she had broken the skin.
“You can’t do that!” Phillips yelled. “That’s assault!”
“No,” Remus replied. “That’s probable cause. I’ll be back for a DNA sample as soon as I get my warrant.”
The DNA was a match to all three bodies. The story came out quickly after that. Phillips confessed, hoping for a plea deal.
He had booked a hotel for the night, wanting to celebrate his anniversary with Amanda and finally convince her to move in with him. She had said no again and told him to stop asking. It had escalated quickly into a fight, mostly him yelling at her and her trying to leave. He grabbed her to pull her back into the room, she resisted, he grabbed her harder and slammed her backwards into a wall, hard enough to kill her.
He had panicked for a moment, thinking about his career. He was halfway through medical school and would never be able to practice after this, even if he got a light sentence. He didn’t seem to care about the person he had just killed, only his own life.
The news was on in their hotel room, talking about Sirius’s latest book. He had read Deadly Ever After recently, so it sparked an idea. He cut Amanda’s hair and threw her off the balcony, then cleaned up the room before paying cash and leaving, disposing of her hair once he got home.
The next day, he met Elaine at the diner where she worked. He followed her home and pulled her into an alley, killing her with poison. He set up the scene at the hotel to match Sirius’s book and made sure to avoid cameras. He did the same with Josephine.
He killed two people to cover up his initial crime, staged their elaborate scenes to throw people off the trail. It wasn’t enough that Amanda’s death had been ruled a suicide. He wanted to throw suspicion far away from him, even if they linked the cases.
He explained all of this so calmly, as if it was the only logical solution. It was eerie, how easily he spoke of murder, how nonchalant he was as he confessed to murdering two strangers to hide his guilt.
The case was solved, but he got a plea deal. He’d likely be out on good behaviour eventually, and Remus had no doubt that he’d kill again. No one killed three people that easily and then just stopped. But only time would tell.
With the case finished, it was time for Sirius to leave. He disappeared into McGonagall’s office for a long time as Remus, James and Peter sorted out paperwork for the case, presumably saying goodbye. Weirdly, Remus found himself thinking he was going to miss the man. It was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of, someone other than James and Peter, who seemed to finish his thoughts. Even if that someone was a talkative author with no police experience.
Eventually, Sirius reappeared next to his desk as Remus signed off his last document.
“Here to say goodbye?” he asked.
“Not quite yet,” Sirius answered. “Care to join me for dinner, Lupin? As a thank you for the past few days.”
“Only if you’re paying.”
Sirius grinned.
“Deal.”
*
They ended up at a small Italian place on Sirius’s recommendation. It was a family-run business, the kind of hole-in-the-wall place you’d miss if you didn’t already know it was there. It was decently busy, but not overwhelming, and the atmosphere was calm and comfortable with the low light from candles and gentle jazz music playing over the speakers.
The conversation flowed easily over delicious food and wine. Sirius spoke about all the places he’d visited for his book tours, his favourite places to visit and his schooldays with James. Remus spoke about his cases, funny stories from training, and his family. By his third glass of wine, he found himself talking about his dad, something he didn’t do often.
“It just bugs me, you know?” he was saying. “It’s a weird case, and no one seems to be able to answer my questions.”
Sirius nodded but didn’t interrupt.
“He was a senior detective, working on homicides with an open case, so why was he sent to arrest some random drug dealer? The apartment building had cameras in the hallways because they’d had some robberies, but that specific hallway wasn’t covered for some reason, and no one can explain why. The guy beat up his partner, knocked him unconscious, and stabbed my dad eight times. Why didn’t my dad step in to help Pettigrew? Why weren’t the two of them able to overwhelm him? And why the hell would you stab someone eight times instead of just making a run for it as quickly as possible?”
“Pettigrew?” Sirius asked. “Isn’t that Peter’s surname?”
“Yeah,” Remus confirmed. “His dad and mine were partners for years. He says he doesn’t remember what happened that day. Not surprising, considering the beating he took, but still weird.”
“And the guy just disappeared after? No trace of him since?”
“Nothing,” Remus replied. “Greyback ran, and no one has caught a glimpse of him in a decade. And no one can explain how this random drug dealer had the resources to vanish like that. I just don’t get it.”
“It’s definitely suspicious,” Sirius affirmed. “You’ve been working on it since you joined the force?”
“Before that, even. I used to have a board up in my flat, drove my roommates up the wall until I moved out on my own. Never got anywhere with it.”
“You ever get anyone else in on it?”
“What do you mean?”
Sirius leaned forwards a little, putting his empty wine glass down.
“Have you ever asked for help?” he asked. “From James or anyone?”
“No,” Remus said quickly. “It’s my dad, my problem. I wouldn’t want to burden anyone else.”
Sirius nodded.
“I get that, I do. Can I suggest something, though?”
“Go ahead.”
“Ask Lily to take a look at it,” Sirius said. “She’s your best friend, so I’m sure she already knows about the case, and I doubt she’d mind looking at the autopsy report. And she’s good, one of the best at what she does. If there’s something you’ve missed in the autopsy, she’ll be able to tell you. It might give you a new lead.”
“It also might not,” Remus pointed out.
Sirius shrugged. “And then nothing changes, right? But you never know. Just think about it.”
“I will,” Remus promised. “But enough about me and my sad backstory, what about you? What’s next for the great Sirius Black.”
Sirius grinned.
“Well, it’s time for me to start my next book,” he replied. “I actually started last night, thanks to you. I’ve spent the past few months glaring at a word document with nothing on it, but since our case together, I’ve finally gotten something down and started plotting some ideas.”
“Oh? Anything you can share, since I got you started?” Remus grinned back.
“It’s going to be the first in a series, all centred around one detective, John Wolfe, and his charismatic partner, a crime writer by the name of Cyrus White.”
“You’re kidding.”
Remus glared at the author, who ignored him to catch the eye of their waiter and ask for the bill.
“Only partially,” Sirius replied eventually, still grinning. “The Cyrus White part was just to see your face. I could never write a self-insert, especially not that egregiously, but the part about John Wolfe and the series? All true. My agent approved it and everything.”
“Do I at least get a dedication? For my pain and suffering as your direct inspiration.”
“Better,” Sirius declared. “You get me. I spoke to Minnie today, and she’s agreed to let me stay on as a consultant. I’ll be shadowing you on your cases while I write for the next while, to lend some authenticity to the books and the character.”
Remus didn’t speak for a while, processing in shock as Sirius paid the bill with a smile and started to gather up his coat to leave.
“Are you serious right now?” he stammered eventually.
Sirius smiled at him easily as he stood up and pulled on his coat.
“I think you’ll find that I’m always Sirius,” he answered with a wink. “See you in the morning, Lupin. I’ll be the guy bringing you coffee.”
With that, he headed out the door, leaving Remus to gather his wits and belongings before heading home for the night.
This was going to be interesting.
Notes:
I think this is my favourite chapter so far! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Chapter title from The Longest Time by Billy Joel.
Chapter 6: to keep it for you, in sweetness
Summary:
Something about fathers and their children...
Notes:
A slightly shorter one today, but I hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sirius was running late. He had been working with Remus for around three weeks now, solving two cases and leaving a third unsolved when they ran out of leads, and he had been on time every single day. It was a point of pride, a small habit ingrained in him from his harsh childhood that he didn’t resent. He was never late.
Today he was running late.
It had really started the night before. He and Remus had gone to dinner, their new tradition after wrapping up a case, and Sirius had gotten home late after getting carried away talking to the other man. He then stayed up even later, plotting his novel and starting to sketch some character ideas, before finally going to bed around 2am, hoping to get at least four hours of sleep before her had to be up to see his brother off and get ready for work.
He forgot to set his alarm. He had shaken Regulus awake at 6.30, thirty minutes later than usual, and handed him a cup of black coffee with profuse apologies for the lack of milk in the house. (Why Reg hadn’t complained yesterday when they were on the last bottle was beyond Sirius, but it was too late to bring that up now.) Breakfast ended up being dry cereal with whatever fruit they could find, Sirius promising to stop at a shop on his way home and Regulus asking what he was supposed to do for lunch, considering they only had one slice of bread left and nothing but mayonnaise to put on it. It had been a busy few weeks and something had to give. Clearly, it was the grocery shopping that had taken the hit.
It was now 7am, and both brothers were running late. Reg was somewhere upstairs, putting on his uniform and packing his bag, and Sirius was trying to find his wallet so he could give his brother money for lunch, cursing the invention of Apple Pay for negating the need for his wallet day-to-day. He wasn’t even dressed yet, still running around in an old hoodie and pyjama pants, when there was a knock on the door.
“For the love of God’s almighty fuck, what is it now?” Sirius muttered under his breath, heading towards the door. “Can nothing go to plan today? When I find whoever cursed us, I’m gonna –”
He stopped abruptly as he yanked open the door to find Remus on the other side, holding two takeaway coffees and looking flustered.
“Um, morning,” the detective said. “I’m guessing you didn’t get my message?”
“I’ll be honest, I don’t even know where my phone is right now,” Sirius answered.
“Right, well we have an urgent case near here, so I texted you and said I’d come pick you up to save time.”
“Right.”
“Yes.”
Sirius didn’t respond for a moment, still processing the detective’s presence at his apartment.
“I just need like ten minutes to find my fucking wallet and get dressed, then we can go,” he said eventually. “You can wait –”
“Sirius!” his brother’s voice came from the stairs. “I found your wallet, but you have like £5 and an ancient gift card for a place I don’t even recognise. Can I just take your card and promise not to spend too much?”
Sirius sighed and leaned his head on the door before turning to Remus and gesturing for him to come inside.
“Remus, this is my little brother, Regulus, who was supposed to leave for school ten minutes ago.” He turned to his brother, grabbing his wallet. “Reg, this is Detective Remus Lupin, who I’ve been working with for the past few weeks.”
“Yeah, cool,” Reg responded dismissively, not even looking at Remus. “Can I take your card? I need to get going if I’m going to make it on time.”
“Yes, fine. Just don’t spend too much and don’t lose it.” Sirius pulled Regulus in and kissed his forehead before pushing him towards the door, card in hand. “Have a good day. I’ll see you later, hopefully with food for dinner.”
His brother waved to both of him before he left, slamming the door behind him. Sirius let out a sigh before turning back to Remus.
“I apologise for him. I promise I raised him with manners, but he’s fifteen and had a shitty morning, so you’ll have to forgive his rudeness.”
Remus frowned a little at Sirius’s words but didn’t ask any questions, choosing instead to take a seat on the couch with his coffee.
“It’s no problem,” he said. “But we really do have to get going, so you best go get dressed. I’ll wait here.”
Sirius nodded and grabbed the other takeaway cup before heading upstairs, still wondering who had cursed him and how he could get revenge.
*
The drive over to the crime scene was thankfully short. Neither man seemed to know how to start a conversation, Remus clearly still wondering what Sirius’s situation was with his brother, and Sirius trying to figure out how to explain it all to the man who was quickly becoming a good friend.
As a rule, Sirius didn’t talk about Regulus. James knew, having come over for dinner a few times since reconnecting, but almost no one else did. Sirius worked hard to keep the whole thing out of the media when he petitioned for custody six years ago, and the courts were thankfully understanding. He didn’t like to talk about it with anyone except his therapist and he didn’t want the media getting hold of it and publishing stories about Regulus while he was still a kid.
He didn’t think Remus would go running to the media or anything, but he knew he would have questions, and Sirius didn’t know that he'd have answers.
The scene was really close to Sirius’s building, so he didn’t have to dwell on it for long. They came to a small, open-plan apartment on the second floor, and found James and Peter already there, watching the crime scene techs finish their work. A distraught man was sitting in the living area, his head in his hands. A woman was sitting next to him, much calmer, with her arm around his shoulders.
Something was missing. Sirius took a minute to realise what, before looking around again for a glimpse of red hair. Lily was nowhere to be seen. There was no body.
“Where’s the body?” Sirius asked James as the man pulled him into a hug.
“There isn’t one.” James released him and watched as Remus walked away with Peter to introduce himself to the couple. “It’s a kidnapping. The dad woke up this morning and realised he had slept straight through. He went to check on the baby, and she was gone. The mom works nights across the city, so she wasn’t here. She arrived about five minutes before you and Remus did to find cops everywhere and her kid gone.”
“Shit,” Sirius said. “Doesn’t look like he’s handling it well.”
James gave him a knowing look as he stared at the father’s tearful face, now looking up and talking to Remus.
“Would you be handling this well?” he said.
Sirius didn’t have a chance to respond before Remus and Peter were back. Remus nodded towards the door and they followed him to the hallway, where the parents wouldn’t hear their discussion.
“Alright,” Remus started. “We all know the statistics. We need to find the kid fast. The first 24 hours are crucial.”
Everyone nodded and hummed in agreement. Sirius looked back through the open door and spotted the parents again, the father now crying into his wife’s chest as she stared unseeingly at the wall. He made a note to text Reg and make sure he got to school safely.
“We also need to look into both parents,” Remus continued. “Mrs Taylor says she was at work, so it should be easy to clear her. I think we should make some calls about her husband, though. I have a feeling something’s weird here.”
“What?” Sirius exclaimed. “You think the father did this? Just look at him, Remus, he’s distraught. No way he planned this.”
Remus sighed. “Statistically speaking, a child is more likely to be harmed by someone they know. He has no alibi, Sirius. He could be distraught because of the guilt, or it could all be an act. We need to look into him before we start looking outside the house.”
“Didn’t you just say that the first 24 hours are crucial?” Sirius argued. “Surely, it would be a better use of time to follow both directions, rather than focusing on the father immediately for no reason.”
“You’re not looking at this objectively. It’s highly likely that –”
“I’m with Sirius,” James interjected. “We shouldn’t focus on one suspect this early. Let’s split up and look into both theories. We can meet up later and decide which way we’re going, okay?”
“Fine,” Remus conceded. “But I’m not going on a wild goose chase. You two can pursue the stranger danger angle. Peter and I will look at the family. Okay?”
“Perfect,” Sirius agreed immediately. “But I’ll expect an apology once we prove I’m right. He’s innocent, Remus.”
“I’ll take that bet,” the detective responded. “I’m telling you, Sirius, I have a gut feeling.”
Notes:
Chapter title from Robin by Taylor Swift.
Leave me a comment or come chat to me on tumblr @up-to-some-good to let me know your thoughts :)
Chapter 7: what caused the wound? how large the teeth?
Summary:
Remus and Peter work together on the newest case.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sirius Black was many things. He was a talented writer, incredibly handsome, surprisingly funny. He was a good friend, Remus was find out, and apparently a father – or at least legal guardian – to a teenager. He was very smart and seemed to have a knack for solving crimes and seeing things Remus missed.
He was wrong this time.
Remus knew it. He had a gut feeling about this one. The father, Jack Taylor, had something to do with it.
It wasn’t just the statistics, though they did point towards the family being involved somehow. It was the way the father acted, utterly distraught despite not noticing his baby had been absent all night. It was the mother’s unblinking eyes as her husband sobbed, a much more typical reaction to the shock in Remus’s experience.
It was his intuition and his experience, screaming at him that this father had done something terrible, and Sirius was just blinded by the tears and the pain.
Now he just had to prove it.
He and Peter started by heading down to the building’s lobby to ask for security tapes, if any were available. If Jack had left the apartment at any point during the night, they needed to know about it. They also called his wife’s work, who confirmed she had been there all night and seemingly acting normal. So Carla was innocent, then. That left her husband as the likely culprit.
Peter wanted to go back and watch the tapes immediately, but Remus wanted to stay back. The crime scene techs were still busy, and the parents had headed to the station to wait for news while the police worked, and he wanted to have a look around the place before they went back.
Peter agreed easily. What a lovely change, to work with a partner so easily persuaded. Sirius wasn’t like that. In the past few weeks, Remus had learned the author had a tendency to argue about next steps and wasn’t easily dissuaded from wild goose chases.
The apartment was small, but largely clean. It wasn’t sterile or overly neat. There were signs of people living there, small piles of clutter on the end tables and unwashed dishes in the sink, but it was overall tidy, much like Remus’s own home.
The fridge had a few photos of the baby, a smiling toddler with curly hair and bright eyes. Remus made sure to ask for a copy of one of those pictures for the media, knowing the girl’s bright smile would attract attention and hopefully get people to call in tips. There were also a few schedules held up by magnets – Carla’s work schedule, a day plan denoting baby Jenna’s routine, and a general calendar with upcoming appointments written in red. Jack’s schedule was missing. Curious.
Jenna’s room was well-organised too. Small baskets of medicine and supplies on top of the dresser, all carefully labelled, and clothes neatly folded and waiting to be packed away. The curtains were closed and the crib was made up, a blanket lying where the baby should have been.
Remus rechecked the window locks, knowing the crime scene people had already looked at them, but they were all solid. The windows were tightly shut, no sign of forced entry. No mess was apparent, no struggle, but that was typical of a child so young. If she had been taken, she likely would have been asleep at the time and wouldn’t have noticed being moved. Especially if she knew the culprit.
If something worse had happened…Remus didn’t want to think about it. There was no trace evidence anywhere in the apartment, so he didn’t have to think about it yet.
He walked back out to the living room, peaking into the master bedroom to confirm his suspicions before he left – Carla’s side was neat, her side of the bed still made, clothes all put away. Jack’s was a mess – clothes on the floor, coffee rings on the nightstand, rumpled sheets from his more recent night of sleep.
The living room windows were also secure, no sign of tampering or forced entry, no fingerprints anywhere but the internal lock. The front door was perfectly fine, the lock unscratched from picking, no external damaging. Jack claimed he’d set the chain before he slept, ensuring it could only be opened from the inside.
If anyone came in last night, they were let in by Jack. Another point for Remus. No one would be letting a stranger in in the middle of the night, and if he had, he would have already told them.
Satisfied with his walkthrough, Remus called Peter. They left together; Peter having arranged with the building manager to get the security tapes sent over as soon as possible.
Peter was one of Remus’s oldest friends, possibly the oldest. Their fathers had been partners right up until Lyall’s death and their mothers had leaned on each other throughout the kids’ childhood whenever their husbands weren’t there. Remus had spent many holidays with Peter and his sister, Hope and Rebecca chatting while the kids played and they all waited for Lyall and Mark to return. They had spent Christmas and Easter together for several years running, with and without the fathers. Peter and Remus had been as thick as thieves when they were kids.
They grew apart when Remus went to uni, Peter taking a gap year to figure out what he wanted to do. Then Lyall had been killed and Mark had nearly been too. Remus dropped out and started training. Peter spent another year at home, helping his dad recover and adjust to retirement. For a while, Remus had resented Peter for still having a father to look after. He got over it, but their friendship had never gotten back to where it was when they were kids. Not really.
“How’s your mum doing?” Remus asked as they started driving back. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”
“She’s good, yeah,” Peter replied easily. “Dad’s been pushing himself too hard and driving her crazy, but she’s used to him by now, I think. And Tabby’s there, now, to help out.”
Mark Pettigrew had gotten sick about a year ago. Cancer, already spreading, though Remus didn’t know more details. He had refused most treatment, only taking what was necessary to give him a little longer with his family. Peter’s sister, Tabitha, had moved back home to help her mother, though really it was just to have another person to tell Mark to slow down, take it easy. He was never one for relaxation.
“How is he? Your dad.”
Peter paused.
“Not great. We think he’ll be going soon. Mum said the last scan was bad. I’ve already warned McGonagall that I’ll be taking time off soon.”
“I’m sorry, Pete. That’s shit.”
“I think we both know it could be worse,” Peter replied with a small smile. “How’s the case going? Any breaks?”
They didn’t talk about it often, but Peter knew Remus was still trying to solve their dads’ attack. Peter himself had given up years ago, his father never wanting to talk about it, but he understood better than anyone.
Remus sighed. “Nothing new, really. Sirius suggested I ask Lily to look at the autopsy, which I ended up doing last week. She hasn’t come back to me yet, but I’m not holding my breath.”
“You talked to Sirius about it?”
“He’s…something else,” Remus tried to explain. “Normally, I can barely talk to my mum about it all, but it comes easy with Sirius. Not sure why.”
“It’s the eyes,” Peter said simply. “He’s got those big grey eyes with the long lashes. Completely irresistible. Last week I spent an hour telling him about the time I mistook a stranger for a mannequin and screamed when he moved, and I have no idea why. He literally didn’t even ask.”
Remus burst out laughing.
“Must be the eyes,” Remus answered. “For sure.”
“It’s that or witchcraft, Re, and you know I don’t believe in that shit.”
“Only ghosts who hide your keys, right Pete?”
“My flat is haunted, and I will prove it to you, Remus. One day.”
“Of course you will.”
They got to the station around the same time as James and Sirius were heading out. The other two had apparently been sitting with the Taylors, asking about recent people in the apartment, electricians and the like, and were now leaving to talk to the TV repairman who had been there two weeks ago – arguably the thinnest lead Remus had heard.
By the end of the day, Sirius and James were back with nothing, and Remus and Peter were similarly stumped. They had scoured the security footage from the time Carla left for work until the cops started arriving, but the apartment door hadn’t opened once.
Whatever happened to Jenna Taylor, it had happened in that apartment, and they had no evidence.
Notes:
Bit of a filler chapter today. Next week will have more Sirius and more plot.
Hope you're enjoying the fic so far. Leave me a comment and let me know what your thoughts are or find me on tumblr @up-to-some-good
Chapter title from In The Woods Somewhere by Hozier
Chapter 8: all that i did to try to undo it
Summary:
Sirius's story
Notes:
TRIGGER WARNING: TALKS OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT
Please look after yourselves. I will put a summary in the end notes for anyone who wants to skip this chapter. You can basically skip from where Sirius says "Regulus moved in with me when he was nine" until the end. You won't miss anything case-related, and it is heavy.
I don't normally do such an exposition-y chapter, where a character shares their traumatic backstory in a big lore dump, but I wanted to establish Sirius's background and relationship with Regulus in a clear way and, with Sirius being an author, storytelling is one of the ways he communicates. I tried not to make it too graphic, but it is heavy and hard to read. Look after yourself, please.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dead ends. That’s where everything in this case lead. Sirius and James had spent all day running around the city, chasing ghosts and finding dead ends. They had done their due diligence, looked into all of the serviceman the parents mentioned had visited the apartment recently, going back weeks, before finally finding what felt like a lead in the TV repairman. He had a solid alibi and barely remembered going to the Taylor’s apartment.
They spoke to the neighbours, to the building manager, to the street vendor on the block. No one saw anyone suspicious entering or leaving the building that night, not even a delivery driver.
Eventually they went back to the station, only to find Peter and Remus scouring security footage for suspicious activity. They watched it together, the four of them, and collectively groaned when they reached the police arriving with no evidence of anyone entering or leaving the apartment. A whole day of work was gone, and they had nothing.
James was the first to head out. He muttered a vague excuse about having dinner plans to Remus and Peter, but Sirius knew from their texts that a certain redhead had invited him out for a date after three years of working together and pining, and James was terrified to screw it up. He knew their plans were only at 7pm, but James left at 5pm sharp, probably to give himself enough time to panic before he met Lily at the restaurant.
Peter left next. He had cats to feed and, in his words, “could only stare at the blank board for so long before going mad.”
Neither Sirius nor Remus left. The office emptied slowly, McGonagall calling out a goodbye before turning out the last few lights besides the lamp on Remus’s desk, leaving them in near darkness.
Regulus was already home, had already unpacked the groceries Sirius had had delivered, had brushed off his brother’s apologies for another late night. He was 15 and plenty responsible enough to be okay for one night, but Sirius still felt guilty any time he wasn’t home.
He couldn’t bring himself to leave, though. Not with Jenna’s baby pictures staring at him from the board and Jack’s sobs echoing in his mind. He kept going over it in his head, around and around, trying to find a suspect, someone to pin it on.
Remus was doing the same thing.
They didn’t talk for a long time, both sitting and staring at the board as the darkness seemed to surround them.
“Don’t you need to get home?” Remus said eventually. “It’s getting late, and you promised your brother you’d see him for dinner.”
“I had groceries delivered when he got home from school,” Sirius replied. “And ordered him takeout from his favourite place for dinner. He’s fine. Probably prefers it when I’m out, anyway, since he likes to work in the quiet and I am…the opposite.”
He paused, thinking of his brother, alone in the flat, likely playing some Mozart on the record player while he did his homework before going to bed on time.
“I’ve left him for a night before, though I try not to make a habit of it,” he continued. “God knows he’s had enough neglectful parenting in his lifetime, I try not to add to it, but he’s told me about a million times he’s okay on his own when I need to work.”
Remus didn’t respond for a moment. He took a breath, like he was about to say something, but seemed to think better of it and pulled out his phone instead.
“We should eat something,” the detective said, changing the subject. “Indian okay?”
Sirius nodded and Remus put in the order before falling silent again.
“You can ask about him, you know. I’ve pried at your personal life plenty, only fair you get to do the same,” Sirius spoke again.
“I don’t really know what to ask,” Remus admitted. “And I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about it.”
“I don’t, really. But it’s better than silently staring at the board and hoping the answer will manifest out of thin air.”
“I still think the father did it.”
“He can’t have,” Sirius argued. “He didn’t enter or leave the apartment all night, and he was wearing his smart watch to bed. I checked the data. He’s either the calmest murderer on earth and managed to kill his child and hide the body without spiking his heartrate, or he really was asleep.”
“Alright, I’ll concede that point,” Remus replied. “But no one entered the apartment either, so it’s not like anyone else went in and took her. He was the only one home.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m stuck on too.”
The food arrived soon after they fell to silence again. Remus went to fetch it and handed Sirius his food when he came back, all of Sirius’s favourites from their shared favourite place.
“So, Regulus,” Remus said, after a few mouthfuls of curry. “What’s the story there?”
“You want to talk about it now?”
“Like you said, better than going in circles on the case. Does everyone in your family have a terribly obnoxious name, or did you two just get lucky?”
Sirius barked a laugh.
“It’s a family tradition,” he replied. “Almost everyone is named for a star or constellation. My dad’s Orion, his brothers were Alphard and Cygnus, their father was Arcturus. Even my cousins, Bellatrix and Andromeda got star names, though the third sister, Narcissa managed to escape somehow.”
He paused to smirk at the detective.
“You don’t really have a leg to stand on when it comes to names, Detective Wolf Wolf, the second.”
Remus smiled back.
“You got me there.”
“Regulus moved in with me when he was nine,” Sirius said, getting to the point as soon as possible. “I ran away from home when I was sixteen, going to live with our Uncle Alphard. Reg had just turned two. He didn’t even remember me, really, which I thought was for the best.”
“Why’d you run away?” Remus interrupted.
“I’m getting there, Moony, just give me a minute.”
Remus scowled at the nickname but didn’t speak.
“No talking during story time,” Sirius continued. “Our parents were abusive. Orion was largely absent, to the point of neglect in many cases, but I preferred it that way. Walburga, my mother, was emotionally abusive. She would insult me, threaten me and yell at me, then spend the next week acting like nothing happened. Nothing I did was ever good enough, I was never good enough. I met James’s parents in high school and realised how parents were supposed to act, that you aren’t supposed to fear their reaction to something as small as dropping a glass or getting a slightly bad mark.
I started acting out, she became worse, more critical, angrier. She would ignore me for weeks at a time, not even bothering to call me for meals, and locking the fridge so I couldn’t help myself. It got worse and I kept trying to get a rise out of her. It was better for a while when she fell pregnant and after Reg was born. The baby needed her attention, so she just ignored me completely. I started dating someone at school, keeping it all under wraps, and things were not terrible for a while.
It didn’t last. My boyfriend and I broke up and it was nasty. There was yelling and fighting for weeks until the winter break started, and we could go home and get some space. I got home and found both my parents home, which was never a good sign. My ex sent them an anonymous text about our relationship, including photos of us together.
It was bad. First it was just Walburga yelling, and me yelling back, then Orion stepped in. He beat the shit out of me and threw me out – literally – with nothing but the clothes I was wearing and a now-cracked phone.”
“Holy shit, Sirius.”
Sirius gave Remus a wry smile before continuing
“I called my uncle, Alphard, the only family member I knew I could trust, and he picked me up. He took me in, got me treated for my injuries, and got me through the rest of school, though I had to move to a different school since my parents were on the board at my old one.
I was okay, eventually. Alphard sent me to a really good therapist, and I worked through all my trauma and headed off to uni to do a creative writing degree with my head in a good place and my uncle behind me.”
“Thank God for Alphard,” Remus commented. “I’m glad you had him.”
“Me too,” Sirius said before falling silent for a minute to give Remus a moment to process. “He died a few months before I graduated uni. He left me everything he had, essentially setting me up for life, so I started writing.
I published my first novel a year later, dedicated to Alphard, and it was a success, much to my surprise. I was doing all these interviews and shit and then one day I got an email from my parents’ butler’s email address. He was reaching out on behalf of my brother, asking for my help. The man had never liked me, but he knew I was someone he could call on, so he did.
I managed to meet Reg and his nanny in a park a few weeks later, and things were bad. He was underweight and terrified of everything. I petitioned for custody immediately, hiring the best lawyer I could find, and started documenting everything.
It was a full year of legal battles before I won. I had to give my hospital records from when I ran away and testify about my own experiences just to prove my parents weren’t fit, and all of this while I was racing a deadline for my second book. I still hate that book. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever written.”
Remus laughed.
“I actually like that one,” he argued. “It’s favourite.”
“Everyone likes that one,” Sirius responded. “It’s inescapable. But it’s the worst one and it’s not even close.”
Remus smiled again.
“So you took Regulus in?”
“Yep,” Sirius answered. “Gave him the full Alphard treatment: the best therapist I could find, new school, new life. He’s doing well, top of his class in every subject except English, good friends, not afraid to be a teenage asshole. I’m proud of him.”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself too.”
Sirius scoffed.
“For what?” he said. “I built a life on someone else’s money and didn’t even think about my little brother until someone reached out to me. I didn’t ask Alphard to go back for him, didn’t ever look back once I was out.”
“You fought for him,” Remus answered easily. “You were a kid when you left, but the second you had the money and power to fight back, you did. And you won. At, what, twenty-three? You took in a nine year old kid you barely knew and gave him a safe home where he could thrive. That’s incredible, Sirius.”
“It’s what any older brother would do, Moony,” Sirius replied.
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
They fell into quiet again. It was a lot to absorb, Sirius knew. He had never told the story in full like that. Everyone in his life knew parts of it, enough that he only had to fill in gaps. James and the Potters knew him as a kid, knew what his home life had been like, and had been worried when he didn’t come back after winter break. McGonagall had been friends with Alphard and had stepped up as a pseudo-godparent when Sirius moved in with him, still calling Sirius every now and again for a catchup. Even Marlene, his agent, knew parts from her involvement in the legal battle, which was largely managing the media.
But Sirius had never had to tell the story from start to finish, and he was a bit overwhelmed by it all. He wondered if Remus felt the same when he spoke about his dad, about the murder and the mystery. It wasn’t the same, of course, but they both had their stories to tell, and wasn’t that Sirius’s whole job, as an author?
He had already offered to help Remus where he could with Lyall’s case, but in that moment, he made a vow to himself. He would find the ending to Remus’s story, no matter the cost.
Notes:
Chapter title from Family Line by Conan Gray
The cliffnotes of Sirius's story:
- Walburga and Orion were not good parents, emotionally and verbally abusive as well as neglectful
- At 16, Sirius was kicked out when they found out he was gay, leaving a 2yo Regulus behind
- Alphard took Sirius in, got him in therapy and in a new school
- Alphard died when Sirius was graduating uni, left Sirius everything. He published his first book and dedicated it to Alphard
- The Black's butler contacted Sirius and let him know Reg, now 8, was not in a good situation
- After a year of legal battles, Sirius won custody of a 9yo Regulus and has been raising him ever since
Chapter 9: you got nothing to regret
Summary:
Solving the latest case
Notes:
CW: PPD and general mental health struggles
The case is overall a heavy one, though it ultimately ends happily for the child. If you need to skip this one, you will not miss much in terms of overall plot, and I will leave a summary in the end notes. I'd skip the entirety of Carla's interview, from the third * to where Remus says "Thank you for telling us."
Please let me know if I should add any CWs or information in the beginning/end notes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was after three coffees and half a banana for breakfast (Sirius got the other half) that Remus found himself back at the Taylor apartment. He and Sirius fell asleep at his desk the previous night after Sirius’s story. They left before anyone got to the office to get to the crime scene and try to start fresh.
Remus had never felt less fresh.
The parents were not there, staying at a hotel so the police could come and go freely while investigating. The crime scene was untouched and strangely eerie in the early morning, the first streams of sunlight coming into the room and falling on Sirius’s face.
“Okay,” Sirius said. “Play this out for me. What happened the night Jenna went missing?”
Remus cleared his throat and pulled out his notebook.
“Jack got home late, having had drinks with his colleagues after work. He got home at around 7.30pm, and Carla told him the baby was already asleep. She then left for work. He claims he went to bed and spent some time on social media before going to sleep around 8pm. At 6am, his alarm went off and he realised he hadn’t been woken by Jenna all night, so he went to check on her. She wasn’t there. He called the cops. Carla got home around 6.30 to find him freaking out and cops already on the way.”
“Does he normally go to bed that early?” Sirius asked.
Remus nodded. “Carla said everything was routine, down to him arriving home late. She usually put Jenna to bed, and he went to sleep as early as possible to get as much sleep as possible while still tending to her.”
“And his watch data supports that,” Sirius replied. “Okay, so what could have happened while he was asleep?”
“Well, no one entered the apartment through the front door,” Remus continued. “Pete and I checked the security cameras. And all the windows were closed from the inside and have no evidence of tampering.”
“Not to mention we’re on the second floor, and there’s no balcony access.”
“Exactly. So no one came in all night,” Remus finished. “It was just Jack and Jenna here all night.”
“What’s your theory, Moony?”
“He hurt her, maybe accidentally,” Remus answered immediately. “Maybe not. She died and he didn’t know what to do, so he hid the body, cleaned up, and called the police. He moved her later, when the place wasn’t swarmed with cops, and made up the entire kidnapping to cover his tracks.”
Sirius shook his head.
“Doesn’t work,” he replied. “No trace evidence of anything and he didn’t leave with any bags. Someone would have stopped him. The guys guarding the scene also said no one’s been back since the crime scene techs finished up yesterday, so by your theory, the body would still be hidden somewhere.”
“You just don’t want to believe it’s the father.”
“That too,” Sirius agreed. “The story’s off if it’s him. And I saw him that morning. You can’t fake that kind of devastation.”
Remus rolled his eyes.
“There’s no story here, Sirius,” he said. “This is real life, and we can’t always wrap it up neatly. It’s messy and full of grey areas.”
“I am aware of that, Lupin,” Sirius snapped back. “But there’s still no evidence against him.”
“I’ll concede on that point, but I don’t know who else it could be.”
Sirius paced around the apartment, stalking the length of the room and back.
“We would have seen someone carrying her out on the camera,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “You can’t get in through the windows, the door chain was on. So how did they get her out of here without being seen on camera all night…?”
He drifted off and turned back to Remus, who stared back at him expectantly.
“Did you watch the security tapes for the entire day, or just the evening?” Sirius asked.
“Just the night. She went missing between 7.30pm and 6am, so we didn’t see the need to watch it.”
“What if she was taken before that?” Sirius asked. “What if someone came in during the day and that’s why there’s no evidence of them entering or leaving during the night?”
“Carla was home all day, Sirius,” Remus answered. “And she put Jenna to bed. Surely, she would have noticed the missing child way earlier if that was the case.”
“What if she lied?” Sirius continued. “You’ve thought it was one of the parents all this time, why not the mom? You said it yourself; Jack didn’t check on Jenna before he went to sleep. What if she was already gone? Carla knew his routine, so she knew he wouldn’t notice until later, when she was already at work, giving her an alibi.”
“There’s still no trace evidence,” Remus interjected.
“So she didn’t hurt or kill her,” Sirius said. “At least not here. We need to check the security footage for the day before, see if anything’s off.”
“Worth a shot, I guess.”
*
And so Remus found himself staring at his computer for the second day in a row, zooming through the footage with Sirius at his side. In the meantime, James and Peter went to the hotel to call in the parents for second interviews, on the off chance they found anything.
Most of the footage was nothing useful; Jack leaving for work, other neighbours doing the same, and a couple of people picking up their mail and going back inside.
“There!” Sirius pointed at a woman on the screen, heading to the Taylors’ apartment.
Remus rewound the video and put it back at normal speed. They watched closely as the woman walked up to the Taylors’ apartment and knocked on the door. Carla opened the door and pulled her into the apartment quickly.
They sped through the next part to find where the woman left. About half an hour later in the video, she did, now carrying a large duffel bag that she hadn’t had previously. The next movement at the apartment was Jack arriving home that evening.
“The baby was in the bag,” Sirius said.
“We have no proof of that.”
“But it makes sense! Come on, Moony, throw me a bone. She arrived emptied handed and left with a giant bag, then we get called for a missing baby. The baby was in the bag.”
“Yes, fine, okay,” Remus conceded. “It’s very likely. But we still don’t know who she is, or where she took the baby, or even what state Jenna was in when she was put in the bag. We need to talk to Carla and get the full story.”
“Excellent timing,” a voice came from behind them.
They both turned to look at Peter, who smiled at them.
“I’ve just dropped Mrs Taylor off in the interrogation room,” he continued. “She’s all yours.”
*
When Remus first met Carla Taylor, he had been somewhat impressed by her composure. She had comforted her husband as he sobbed into her chest and answered all of their questions with only a slight quiver in her voice. Remus had then seen her staring into space and attributed it to shock, a reaction he was unfortunately very familiar with.
Now, meeting her again, she just seemed tired. She didn’t look up as they came into the room with the file and their notes, didn’t so much as glance their way. She just kept staring tiredly at the wall.
Remus pulled up a chair, letting Sirius fall into the chair on his right before clearing his throat and getting started.
“Mrs Taylor, thank you for coming in today. We have a few things we need to ask you about your daughter’s case, if you can help us.”
She didn’t react, so Remus just kept going, hoping she was listening.
“We reviewed the security footage for the day your daughter went missing and saw a woman entering your apartment and leaving with a large duffel bag. Can you tell us who that was and what she was there for?”
Carla closed her eyes and took a deep breath before turning to Remus.
“Do you have any children, detective?” she asked.
Remus startled a little at the changed subject but decided to let her take the lead.
“I don’t, no.”
“And you, Mr Black?”
Sirius looked at Remus, checking if he could answer. Before going in, the detective had warned him carefully not to say anything or interrupt so as to ensure proper procedure. Remus inclined his head, giving the other man the go ahead to reply. He wanted to see where this was going.
“Kind of,” Sirius answered. “I’m raising my younger brother.”
“Do you have a partner? Someone else in the home to help?” she asked.
“No,” Sirius replied. “It’s just me.”
She nodded.
“Then you’d understand,” she said. “What it’s like to be a single parent.”
Neither man moved, giving her the space to talk.
“I was never sure about having children,” she continued with a humourless laugh. “Jack wanted a whole army, but I didn’t know if I could handle it. When I fell pregnant with Jenna, we decided to go forward with it, become parents. I regret it every day.”
She paused before going on.
“Don’t get me wrong, Jenna was a lovely baby. I loved her with every piece of my being, but something changed with Jack when she was born, and it ruined everything. Or maybe nothing changed, and I just hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s like he forgot how to be an adult all of a sudden. Dishes were piling up in the sink, coffee mugs gathering dust all over the house, more dirty laundry than clean. On top of all that, we had a screaming baby he couldn’t seem to hear. I was drowning. I went back to work after my maternity leave, and it just got worse. I spent all day cleaning up and looking after Jenna, and he’d come home later and later, until I could just barely get to work on time. I haven’t slept properly in months. I think it would have been easier without him, I think. Less mess to clean up, at least.”
Sirius reached forward and squeezed her hand when she paused, silently encouraging her to continue.
“I decided I couldn’t do it anymore,” she said eventually. “Maybe that was terrible of me, maybe I’m the worst mother in existence, but I just need to sleep. I couldn’t just disappear, couldn’t trust Jack to look after Jenna, and I couldn’t leave him and take the baby with me, because I’d still have to look after her and ignore my needs. Jack would never agree to give her up either, so I did the only thing I thought would work – I made the baby disappear.”
She looked at Remus.
“The woman was my sister.” She answered his question. “She can’t have children but always wanted one. She’s moving abroad in a few days, starting fresh. She agreed to take Jenna with her for now, raise her for a while, and we’d figure out the rest. Not the best idea, I know, but I needed a lifeline, and my sister was offering one. Jenna is fine, safe, happy, and I may be selfish, but I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Thank you for telling us,” Remus said after a while.
Carla just nodded before going back to staring at the wall. The two men got up and left the room in silence, meeting James outside the door.
“Peter has gone with a few officers to arrest the sister and get the baby,” he said. “I’ll get Carla into a holding cell and get all the paperwork sorted. You two go home, get some rest. This was a rough one.”
They didn’t speak, except to thank James for sorting it all out. Remus led the way to his car, knowing Sirius wouldn’t turn down a ride home if it was offered. They drove back to Sirius’s flat in silence, letting Carla’s words sit between them.
Soon, Jack would be reunited with his daughter, and he would finally be able to go home and move on with his life, but Jenna would have to grow up without a mother and God knows what kind of father. Carla would go to jail, probably, though Remus hoped psychiatric treatment would be offered instead. The sister, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know, really.
They pulled up outside Sirius’s apartment in what felt like no time at all.
“I don’t know that I have it in me to go out for celebratory dinner after that one,” Remus said quietly.
“Me neither,” Sirius replied in the same tone, not daring to break the atmosphere.
“I also don’t know that I have the energy to answer your questions about my job,” Remus continued. “No matter how much I enjoy seeing your writing brain at work.”
Sirius smiled a little at that.
“My writing brain is taking the night off, I think” he responded. “But if you’d like to share a sombre bottle of wine with me, you’re welcome to join me inside.”
Remus didn’t have to think about it for long, remembering his brief glance of Sirius’s apartment the previous morning, picturing the comfy couches and large fireplace spreading warmth as they shared a quiet drink.
“Sound lovely.”
Notes:
Summary:
Carla, the mother of the missing child, was struggling seriously with PPD and a lack of support from her husband, and decided to 'get rid' of her daughter by allowing her sister to take her during the day. She confesses this all freely, the daughter is reunited with her dad, and both women are arrested.I tried to address this topic with sensitivity and nuance, but as someone who has never experienced it, I can only hope I did it justice. I wanted to include it because of the prevalence of this kind of story in society in general.
PPD and general mental health struggles following having a baby are very common, especially where one's partner is not supportive. If you are going through something like this, please reach out to mental health support systems in your area, or talk to your family and friends and ask for help.
Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.
Chapter title from Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift
Chapter 10: do you see something I can't?
Summary:
Sirius and Remus talk over wine.
Notes:
Please leave me a comment if you are reading/enjoying this fic! I've been struggling with motivation recently as life has gotten chaotic, and comments really help with that :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Regulus made himself scarce after dinner, leaving Sirius and Remus alone in the living room, a glass of wine in each of their hands and a fire crackling merrily behind them. He claimed he had homework to finish, but Sirius knew his brother well enough after years of looking after him to know that Regulus had finished his homework hours ago, and was likely just trying to give Sirius and Remus a chance to talk about something deeper than the surface-level conversation they all had over dinner.
Sirius was grateful for the opportunity, really, but he didn’t know where to start with Remus. Usually, conversation flowed between them easily, with Sirius teasing the detective gently and Remus rolling his eyes but humouring him anyway. Tonight, they sat in silence.
Remus stood up after a while, walking towards the bookshelves acting as a barrier between Sirius’s office space and the living-room, and stopping in front of the corkboard Sirius had erected in front of the shelves.
The board was full of notes and sketches in Sirius’s handwriting, his next novel slowly coming together in scribbled sticky notes and ripped pages from his notebook. Regulus called it his murderboard, an appropriate name given the subject nature of his writing. Remus perused slowly, reading the notes in line with the plot, moving left to right before coming to the empty corner at the bottom of the board where the ending should’ve been.
“You’ve got a lot down,” he commented. “I didn’t realise you were actually taking notes at our dinners. Thought it was all a ruse to get me to open up.”
Sirius smirked.
“How do you know it isn’t?” he answered. “For all you know, I could’ve set that up just to lure you into a false sense of security.”
“If that’s the case, you should work on your schemes,” Remus replied. “It’s a bit weak, considering you haven’t even got the ending yet.”
“Oi, I’m getting there. You have to trust the process, Moony. It’ll all come together.”
“Sirius, there are detailed sketches of the main character’s dog and entire scenes drafted here. Are you really telling me the ending was less important than those?”
Sirius smiled as the other man sat down across from him again and topped up their wine.
“First of all, there is nothing more important than a dog,” he answered. “And secondly, it’s less about importance and more about inspiration. The real answer is that I don’t know how it ends yet. I have to give it more time.”
Remus shook his head and took a deep drink from his glass.
“I could never write like that,” he said. “I’d need the entire plot complete before I could even start thinking about characters or drafting random scenes. It’s honestly a miracle we can work together at all, given how differently our brains work.”
“It’s just about balance, Moony,” Sirius replied. “Opposites attract and all that. Works for James and Lily, apparently. Works for you and me too. I’m the chaos to your calm.”
“And I need the chaos?”
“Everyone needs a little chaos. Otherwise life would be boring.”
Remus snorted at that but made no further comment.
“On a vaguely related note, I think I owe you an apology for how I handled this case.”
“Oh?”
Sirius sighed and drained his wine glass.
“I think we both agree that I am not the most logical person on my best days, that I lean towards creativity more than rationality, but I really let it get in the way this time. I was so focused on proving the father innocent that I completely ignored your points on how uncommon stranger abductions are. We may have found that baby much faster if I had listened to you in the first place.”
“Or not.”
Sirius frowned at the other man. Remus just shrugged before continuing.
“Sure, if you had listened to me, we may have found her faster, but we may not have. I was focused on the father, never even considered the mother as a suspect until you brought it up. Maybe if I had listened to you about the father’s innocence, we would have solved it faster. Or maybe not. There’s no way to know.”
“I’m still sorry,” Sirius tried again. “It’s hard for me, taking cases involving fathers and their children in distress. I always see myself and Reg, remember how desperate I was for him to be safe, how hard I fought for him. It makes it hard to be objective.”
“It’s really okay, Sirius. God knows I could use that perspective sometimes,” Remus replied. “After my dad’s death, I became incredibly cynical. I’m suspicious of everyone and everything, and it clouds my judgement sometimes. I see the worst in everyone all the time, even you, so it helps to have someone like you around – someone who remembers to look for the good. And after everything you’ve been through, it’s frankly amazing that you aren’t as bad as me. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I don’t know how I’d survive if I didn’t,” Sirius answered quietly.
The fell silent again. Remus reached for the last of the wine, distributing it evenly between them so they each have about half a glass of wine and gently clinking his glass against Sirius’s as a silent salute.
When the detective emptied his glass, he cleared his throat. Sirius looked at him expectantly.
“Lily sent me a message today,” Remus started. “She managed to look at my dad’s case this week.”
“You asked her to look at it?”
Sirius was surprised, despite sending it to Lily being his suggestion. Remus was a stubborn man and notoriously private about his private life, especially his father’s case. In the few weeks they’ve worked together, he had only brought it up in passing, except for that first dinner, and he never answered any follow up questions when Sirius had asked.
Remus nodded slowly.
“I thought about it for ages after you suggested it,” he said honestly. “Went back and forth about a million times before eventually deciding to ask her. The worst she can find is nothing, after all.”
“What did she say about it?”
“Nothing yet. She wants to talk tomorrow at the morgue.”
“She thinks she found something,” Sirius replied. It wasn’t a question.
Remus nodded again and stared down at his hands.
“Will you come with me?” he asked after a pause. “To see her, I mean.”
“Of course, Remus. If you want me there, I’ll be there.”
“If it weren’t for you, I never would have asked her to look at it. I would still have no leads, nowhere to go from here.” Remus looked up at Sirius suddenly, gold eyes wide and intense. “I think I need you on this, Sirius. I don’t think I can solve it without you. Will you help me?”
“Absolutely,” Sirius responded immediately. “I’ll help anyway I can, Remus. Chaos and calm, right?”
“Chaos and calm.”
Notes:
Chapter title from Save Me by Noah Kahan
Chapter 11: I've seen enough now to know that this is special
Summary:
New case, new perspectives.
Notes:
Perspective swap! I think it should be clear, but just in case - the first half is from Lily's POV and it swaps to James's POV after the asterisk. We'll be back to Sirius/Remus alternating in a couple of chapters, but I wanted to introduce some outside thoughts on their relationship.
CW for mentions of domestic violence, but blink and you'll miss it.
Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts on this chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Lily had met Remus in their first week at university. They were both shopping in the second hand bookstore for textbooks and accidentally knocked into each other. They laughed it off and Lily invited him for coffee, to make up for it, having already decided to befriend the first person she spoke to on campus since she had no friends in the area. In another life, they would have made an adorable couple and told the story of their cliché meeting to their grandchildren.
As it stood, they were just friends, best friends. Lily had been there for every important moment since. She had been there as they found themselves in the first year of uni. She stood at Remus’s side at his dad’s funeral. She supported him when he decided to drop out and become a cop. She still spoke to his mother regularly, exchanging recipes and crochet patterns with the older woman.
Remus had been there for her too. He cheered louder than her family at her graduation and got her home safely from every uni party that got too wild. He was there when she had a pregnancy scare after a one night stand and joked that he’d marry her and raise the kid if she wanted to keep it and please her parents.
They didn’t have secrets. They had some boundaries, but not many. It took a lot for either of them to surprise the other.
Which is why she wasn’t surprised when he showed up at the morgue with Sirius Black in tow.
She had called him the night before and asked him to meet her in the morning. She had information to share about his father’s case and wanted to discuss it.
Of course, she knew it was only at Sirius’s suggestion that he decided to give her the case file – an action that had surprised her after years of Remus refusing help on his father’s case. She knew Remus was talking to Sirius about his father, at least occasionally, and she knew Sirius would be invested based on his obsessive nature on other cases.
She had also seen Remus the past few weeks, since Sirius had joined their little team. He was calmer, brighter. He listened to the author more than any of the other detectives and tended to look for his approval when proposing a theory or telling a joke. He didn’t like Sirius himself to see, but she caught him laughing at Sirius’s jokes several times, and even smiling when Sirius tried to convince Peter a ghost was the culprit on a murder a few weeks back.
So it wasn’t surprising that Remus brought Sirius with him. They were becoming a package deal. It would be more surprising if he hadn’t brought the author.
She gave them both a small smile as they came into her office and quietly thanked Sirius for the coffee as they sat down and got settled.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” she started. “I would’ve come to your place, Remus, but my car’s being repaired this week, and I got a ride with Mary to the office, so this was easier.”
“No worries, Lil,” Remus replied easily. “It’s not like it was too out of the way to get here.”
“Just remind me to give you the files before you leave for your board at home. I made copies of everything for you because I know you have a board somewhere out of sight for this.”
Remus blushed a little as Sirius chuckled.
“It’s not that bad,” Remus defended himself. “It only covers a portion of the wall in my office, barely even has anything on it. Sirius’s is way worse and it’s not even for a real murder!”
“I’d like to see you try write 80 000 words without a giant board of planning,” Sirius argued. “All that information is relevant to the plot.”
“Your main character’s coffee order is relevant to the plot?”
“It could be! You don’t know!”
“Boys,” Lily interrupted. “We have a real cold case to solve here. Can we focus?”
They both turned back to her immediately.
“Yes, sorry,” Remus replied. “You mentioned files and copies earlier? Does that mean you found something?”
“I did,” Lily confirmed. “But I don’t know how much it will help you right now.”
“Any piece of the puzzle helps, Lils.”
She took a deep breath and nodded before pulling out a file and passing it to Remus.
“This is a murder I worked on last year,” she explained. “Civil rights attorney, murdered in an alley. It’s unsolved. The detective said it must have been a mugging gone wrong, low odds of ever finding the perpetrator. Trace evidence was contaminated because of the location, no witnesses, no camera. No answers.”
She caught Remus’s eye as she spoke, he nodded for her to continue.
“She was stabbed eight times. That’s not what caught my eye, though.” She paused. “The first stab wound was the one the killed her – it pierced her heart. She bled out in minutes. The other wounds are shallower and hit no major arteries – non-lethal. Your dad’s murder followed the same pattern, down to the location of all eight stab wounds. The first wound was precise and lethal. The rest, in my opinion, were just to make it look random, to cover up the real nature of the crime, but the person who did it is too precise – they used the exact same spots every time.”
“Every time?” Sirius interjected. “Don’t you mean both times?”
She opened her desk drawer and pulled out the stack of photocopies, passing it to Remus.
“I found twenty cases, including your dad and the attorney, that follow this pattern. All in the London area, all unsolved. Most of them are before your dad, spanning about five years, but the last two took place in the last year. Your dad’s is the only one with a suspect named, the rest have all gone cold without much investigation. I’m sure they’re all by the same person.”
“Greyback killed all these people? Why?” Remus asked, paging through the papers.
Lily leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know. What I do know is that he was definitely more than just a random drug dealer, and something bigger is at play here. A serial killer left in the open at least, but my gut says there’s something else connecting the victims beyond their killer.”
“Holy shit,” Sirius muttered.
“Lily, thank you so much,” Remus said. “This is more than I’ve had to go on for years. Really, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she replied. “This is barely the tip of the iceberg, I fear. You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“But you found the fucking iceberg,” he responded. “I should’ve asked you to look at this years ago.”
“I may not have made the connection years ago. I only got a related case last year, so I wouldn’t have known there was a pattern to be found. I’m just glad I found something. I now leave it in your capable hands.”
Remus smiled and nodded before returning to the files, looking over the pages he hadn’t handed to Sirius yet, eyes flickering all over the page as he tried to take in the information. She could tell he wanted to head home immediately – to start researching the other victims and figuring out the connection between them. But it was a Monday morning, and they all had work to do, new crimes to solve.
As if on cue, Remus and Lily’s phones both buzzed. They both looked down at their texts as Sirius looked between them, trying to glean answers from their faces.
“Murder called in in Shoreditch,” Remus explained eventually. “James doesn’t have any details yet, but he’s on his way now. Peter will meet us all there too.”
“Same case here,” Lily added. “Details are unclear from my side too. Weirdly, the call was for a domestic disturbance, not a body reported. I wonder what happened.”
“Guess we’ll find out soon,” Sirius replied.
Both men stood up, gathering their papers and putting on jackets.
“Do you need a lift, Lils?” Remus asked. “You’ll have to fight Sirius for the front seat, but I’ve got space if you want to come with us.”
“I’m alright, thanks. Ja – someone already offered to get me there, and I’ll ride with the body on the way back.”
Remus nodded easily and turned to the door, not catching her slip-up, but Sirius grinned at her widely before leaving, waiting for Remus to be out of earshot before he spoke.
“Tell James I say hi,” he said with a wink before speedwalking out the door to catch up with Remus.
Okay. Maybe she had one secret from Remus. But it wouldn’t be that way for long.
*
The first thing noticed when James arrived at the crime scene was that something was missing. Namely, the body.
The second thing he noticed was the tension in the room. The crime scene was a small apartment and standing on either end of the room, clearly angry with each other, was a man and a woman. Sirius and Remus were standing with the man, interviewing him and occasionally throwing glances at the woman, who seemed to be being held back from the man by two cops.
Lily took a walk around the apartment as soon as they arrived, muttering under her breath about wasted department resources and prank phone calls. She came back quickly, having few rooms to look in, and informed James that there was nothing for her to do here, as there was no body to be examined. He found someone to drive her back to her office and made his way over to Sirius and Remus.
“What do we have?” he asked Remus.
“Mr Williams here was fighting with his girlfriend and –”
“Not my girlfriend,” the man corrected. “Girlfriend’s sister.”
“Right, sorry.” Remus continued, “He was fighting with his girlfriend’s sister, Ms Hughes over there, and one of the neighbours called in a domestic dispute.”
“So, why are we here?” James asked. “Didn’t the call say there was a murder?”
“He killed my sister!” Hughes yelled from across the room. “I know he did it! I know he killed Noelle!”
“She called in the murder,” Sirius added. “She hadn’t heard from her sister in a few days, so she came over to check on her and found her boyfriend here instead. They got into an argument, and she called the police and reported her sister’s murder.”
“For the record,” Williams interrupted. “I didn’t touch Noelle. Her sister’s just an insane bitch.”
Remus closed his eyes and took a deep breath before pulling James and Sirius aside to discuss the case in private.
“What we actually have is a missing person,” he explained. “Ms Hughes is insistent that Noelle is dead, but we have no body and no evidence showing that. Neither of them has heard from her in a few days, though, and she hasn’t been at work either, so something is up.”
“Why does the sister think it’s murder?” James inquired.
“There’s a history,” Sirius said. “Unexplained bruises, isolation tactics, the usual signs. She’s been worried about her sister for a while, and this confirms her worst fears. I can’t blame her, if I’m honest. It would be my first thought too.”
“Same here,” Remus added.
“Well,” James said. “We have to find her either way, and there’s always a possibility with missing people that they end up dead, so let’s test it. I’ll fill Peter in, and we’ll look into if she went missing on her own volition or potential kidnappings, and you two take the death angle. The best we can do is hope her sister is wrong, but in the mean time we have to explore all options.”
“Good idea,” Remus responded. “Keep us in the loop on your progress?”
“Of course, and you do the same.”
Remus nodded and headed over to the sister for a second interview.
Please be alive. James thought to himself. Just this once, please be alive.
Notes:
Chapter title from Be Careful With Yourself by Julia Jacklin
Chapter 12: no better version of me i could pretend to be tonight
Summary:
Dead ends. The case continues.
Notes:
A shorter chapter today with James POV continued. We'll be back to Sirius/Remus next chapter, but I had to give a longer moment to James, because he's the best.
There's some texts in this chapter too. I think it should be clear, but just in case: James is in bold and Sirius is in italics.Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
What no one tells you about police work, what no one puts on TV, is that it’s a lot of staring at screens and making phone calls. James found that out when he initially joined the force, fresh out of uni and hoping for a beautiful and fulfilling career.
His first year on the job was largely spent on the streets, handing out parking tickets and patrolling his assigned neighbourhood. He made the best of it, as was his nature. He befriended the baristas at the coffee shop on the corner and made sure to keep a small bag of dog treats on him for whenever he saw a cute puppy out on a walk. By the time he moved on, he was well-liked in the area and actually missed it sometimes. He still went to the coffee shop on occasion, whenever he had a moment to pop by.
As a detective, he spent most of his time researching, making requests for data, and writing reports. Of course, there were arrests and crime scenes and field work, but the majority of the time, he and Peter stayed in the office while Remus – and now Sirius – handled interviewing witnesses and other field tasks.
It could be boring, the waiting for information or phone calls, but James prided himself at making the best of any situation, and it was always satisfying when the pieces of the puzzle came together. Not everything was an easy solve, but at least sometimes there were enough pieces that fit together to guide them in the right direction.
Not in this case.
They had gotten Noelle’s phone and bank records in record time, and Peter had spoken to her manager about her work, but nothing was adding up.
Noelle had quit her job the previous week out of nowhere. Her manager said it was strange, as she was well-liked by coworkers and clients alike and hadn’t said anything about a new opportunity or moving away. Usually, that would point to someone leaving of their own volition, deciding to abandon their life and disappear.
But there was nothing else pointing that way. No tickets bought to travel anywhere, no notice to her landlord that she was leaving, no big withdrawals from her account. No account activity at all, for that matter. Not a single transaction in the past few days.
Her phone was dead too. No outgoing calls or messages for two days previous, when she had spoken to her sister last. No available location data, so they couldn’t use the phone to track her either, not unless she made a call.
Those two things pointed to something sinister happening – to someone hurting her. James didn’t like to think about it, but it was looking more and more like that was the case. Until they found a body, though, or some evidence of a crime, they had to treat her like she was just missing.
And who knew? Maybe she was. For all they knew, she dumped her phone and ran. Maybe she had some cash stowed away and didn’t need her account. Maybe maybe maybe.
James’s phone buzzed on the desk and he grabbed it quickly, hoping for some good news from Remus or a distraction from Lily.
Instead, he was greeted by a text from Sirius – a picture of a dog sleeping under its owner’s chair in a café, captioned only with three exclamation marks. He liked the picture and typed out a text to his friend.
James:
Any progress from your investigation? Pete and I have nothing promising.
Sirius:
Nothing. Neighbours haven’t heard any fights, boyfriend’s boss is unconcerned and has him on camera showing up on time, and no evidence of cleanup in the flat.
James:
Shit.
Reconnecting with Sirius had been a pleasant surprise. James hadn’t ever expected to see him again, after he disappeared back in school, and had resigned himself to being proud of his friend from afar as he heard about his success.
They had continued like no time had passed since Sirius started working with the team. They were constantly texting, went out for drinks whenever they could, and Sirius had even joined James for family lunch with his parents, even bringing Regulus.
The Regulus situation was fascinating to James. Sirius had been staunchly against parenting as a teen, saying he’d never have kids, not even wanting to raise Andromeda’s kid if the worst happened. But then there was Regulus. Sirius had always adored his brother, stood between his brother and his parents. He treated all of Regulus’s wounds, taught his brother to read before he got to school, and dragged him around proudly to show off to his friends.
James wasn’t surprised that Sirius fought for him, he was surprised at how good at parenting Sirius had turned out to be. He had had dinner at the Black brothers’ place several times and had watched Sirius make sure his brother ate enough, helped him with his English lit homework, double-checked if he needed anything for school. The kid was fifteen, and always acted annoyed by his brother’s fussing, but James had caught him smiling whenever Sirius’s back was turned. Despite everything, Regulus was doing well and, above everything else, that was what made James proudest of Sirius.
His phone buzzed again, drawing him out of his thoughts.
Sirius:
Heading back now. Remus is refusing to stop for coffee :(
I’m gonna by a better machine for the station istg. I cannot stand that shit you make there
James:
Snob. Orion would be proud.
Sirius:
YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW
I have worked very hard to disappoint my father, I will not have you dismissing that.
James:
My apologies, I forgot how hard you’ve worked
What’s the plan for when you get back if we have no leads?
Sirius:
Idfk. Maybe Remus has some ideas
“Stare at the wall and hope it gives us answers” – Remus
James:
I’ll get a head start. See you soon x
Notes:
Chapter title from Jackie and Wilson by Hozier
Lewis653 on Chapter 1 Mon 02 Jun 2025 03:58PM UTC
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up_to_some_good on Chapter 5 Mon 01 Sep 2025 04:17PM UTC
Last Edited Mon 01 Sep 2025 04:17PM UTC
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