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Chapter Text

Sirius sits alone at the Gryffindor table for breakfast.

He’s never alone for long.

People find him. If he were only slightly more arrogant, he’d chalk it up to his good looks, his dazzling personality. Really, he’s just shiny. He’s new, and that’s enough to make him interesting… for now. He leans into it, letting people approach him, not settling down too quickly with any one group.

It doesn’t take long for him to decide where he wants to be, to decide who he wishes would approach him. It takes two weeks, but James Potter finally does.

James sits on the bench across from Sirius with a heavy, easy flop. He piles food onto the plate in front of him without hesitating, hardly glancing up to see if he’s welcome. Sirius greets him with a mild nod, easy. Like they’re already friends. Casual, normal.

Sirius goes to take a bite of his porridge, but his spoon shakes a bit in his grip. He stirs it instead, waits for James to make the first move.

James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin — every other interaction in this castle has just been practice. He’s gotten rather good at first impressions.

“So,” James says, loud over the growing din as the table fills around them. “Did you get sorted into Gryffindor? Legitimately?”

Sirius shoves his bowl away and reaches for some toast instead. He shrugs. “If you’d call the opinions of some old hat ‘legitimate.’ ”

James stares at Sirius, and there’s a real appraisal hidden somewhere beneath all the ease. “Why’d you leave Beauxbatons, then?” James smirks over his pastry. “Was it the smell?”

Ridiculous — excellent. “Ah, there’s nose-blocking charms for that.” James laughs but doesn’t speak again, so Sirius gives a real answer. “Dunno. I was causing trouble, apparently. Reflects poorly on the Noble and Ancient family name.” He tries to distance himself from the rest of his family where he can. The Black Sisters only graduated in the last five years. He knows what people think when they hear Black. “They seem to think Hogwarts might straighten me out.”

And it’ll have to. He really can’t afford to start any fires here.

“If they should be so lucky,” James says lightly.

“If I should be so unlucky,” Sirius says. James finally cracks a real smile, and he waves at something over Sirius’ shoulder. Sirius turns to look, just in time to see two more blokes splitting off at the head of the table. Peter sits beside Sirius while Remus sits next to James.

There’s a round of introductions, unnecessary but thoughtful. Sirius lets his eyes linger on Remus, who meets his gaze only briefly.

“Your English is really good, you know,” Peter says into the silent chewing. 

Sirius laughs through his nose as he swallows. “Thank you. Being English helps a bit.” It’s a mild joke, but Peter’s ears go pink. James huffs out a laugh, and Sirius turns to check Remus for a reaction, and he’s pleased to receive a small smile.

Remus seems the most elusive of the bunch, existing always somewhere in Sirius’ periphery, but never quite within reach. Sirius has been looking for an excuse to talk to him.

Sirius turns his attention back to Peter when he starts to speak again. “That does explain the accent. Do you sound English in French? Say something in French.”

Sirius tries not to wrinkle his nose. It’s not an uncommon request, he just doesn’t love speaking French. Anyway, there’s not much point when no one can understand him. He’ll just have to translate anyway, and it’s all tedious and awkward. He’s made a habit of saying ridiculous things to amuse himself and then padding the translation.

He shoots Remus a glance out of the corner of his eye, then looks back to Peter. “Ton ami a toutes sortes de cicatrices sur sa face. J’étais curieux… s’il en a plus autrepart.” The words themselves are innocuous enough. He won’t say it quite so provocatively when they can understand him.

I was wondering if your friend has scars elsewhere, since he has all sorts on his face. But when Sirius says it, there’s a certain innuendo in the elsewhere. It sounds a lot more like Right now, I’m picturing your friend naked.

And it’s not such a bad picture. Not bad at all.

James leans in an inch as Peter bounces in his seat. “What does that-“

It’s only once Peter cuts himself off that Sirius realizes Remus is looking at him. It doesn’t take more than a glance for Sirius to realize he’s been caught. 

“It’s a bit rude to comment on people’s looks.” Remus says it tightly, but without any real heat. He pauses for a second while Sirius’ heart decides whether it should jump out of his chest or stop beating altogether. Oh, so much for making a good first impression… Only Remus keeps staring, and his tone is still light. Careful, intentional, but light. “If you were as tough as you think you are, you might have a few scars yourself.”

Sirius leans forward, elbows on the table, heart hammering against his ribs. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Remus’ head tilts just slightly, just barely, and then he’s looking away. He shakes his head, but there’s an insolent bit of tension around his mouth that Sirius likes. Sirius pulls back, sits properly in his seat and turns to James. “How about you,” he says lightly. “Any cool scars?”

Sirius, himself, has any number of scars, but the best scars come with stories, with adventures. James seems like someone with stories.

And James is quick to rise to a challenge, humming as he thinks, smirking like he already has answers. “Knocked off my broom in the middle of a match last year — Quidditch. Broke my leg.” He pulls a foot up on the bench beside him, pointing to his thigh but unable to roll his trousers high enough. “Anyway, bone came right through the skin. Bled like mad, absolute mess.” James drops his leg back down, kicking Remus on the way, who just shoves him off.

James grins as Sirius winces sympathetically. “Wouldn’t have scarred if he’d gone to the hospital wing, but he tried to finish the match.” Peter looks almost as proud as James when he says it.

Tried. Sirius blows out a disbelieving breath. “You did not climb back on your broom with an open fracture,” Sirius says. “Not possible.” 

“No, worse, I did some very rudimentary healing magic. Made things ten times worse, naturally, but I managed to score twice before I passed out.”

Everyone laughs except Remus, who just rolls his eyes like he’s heard the story too many times. 

Something does tend to have to go rather wrong for wizards to leave with big scars. Sirius shoots another covert glance at Remus, who’s chatting with a girl now, Dorcas. “And you-?” Sirius asks Peter. 

Peter has lots of small scars and shows them off excitedly. “Mandrake bite,” he points to the back of his hand. “In fourth year, look at this-“ he jerks the neck of his shirt to show a series of spatter marks on his neck. “Snivellus slipped something into my Pepper-Up potion, boom, sprayed all up my front. And not a word from Slughorn, naturally,” he gripes. 

“Slughorn hates him,” James adds with a sympathetic wince. “Blown up too many cauldrons.”

Sirius makes a mental note of the name Snivellus, then circles back to the first scar. “Why on earth would you be handling Mandrakes with their adult teeth?” Aren’t they supposed to be dangerous?

There’s a pregnant pause, and Sirius almost wonders if he’s just stumbled onto something he ought not to have noticed, but James sends him a conspiratorial look. “What, Black? You think you’re the only one who’s ever caused any trouble?”

Sirius has heard some delightful rumours of exactly the type of trouble that this group has been known to make, that’s why he wants in so badly. “You two and the Prefect ?” he taunts instead. “Oh, I bet you break all sorts of rules.”

Remus’ eyes flick over to Sirius’ so fast he might have missed it if he weren’t waiting, watching. Gotcha, he thinks even though Remus is already looking away. 

James meets Sirius’ eyes, and there’s a mutual challenge. 

—

Sirius loves Hogwarts and all of its wonderful confusion. Beauxbatons was so… Straightforward. The school prided itself on clarity, efficiency, put-togetherness. Boredom, boredom, boredom. 

Hogwarts, however, is a constant disaster. Chaos and fun. The stairs move; the portraits curse at you if you stare at them the wrong way. Ghosts give you the wrong directions to class. The castle seems to be built brimming with secrets, which Sirius begs to uncover. 

He’s snuck out of his dorm again, wandering the halls aimlessly. He’ll get detention if he’s caught, but he hasn’t been caught so far. Not in two weeks.

He’s picked out the sounds of distant footsteps twice tonight already and changed his course, and he’s found a few good places to hide. He wants to find the entrance to the Hufflepuff dorms, find the girl who’d offered to give him a muggle tattoo. Maybe the Ravenclaw entrance, although he imagines that one might be a bit too intellectual for him to figure out on his own. Still there was a girl in Ravenclaw, too.

He hears footsteps again and changes his course, moves into an alcove that disguises itself as a solid stone wall until he’s passed straight through it. 

He holds his breath as the steps come down his corridor. He shuffles further back, silent, but the footsteps outside start to slow as they get closer. His back hits a real wall, and his heart hammers against the cold stone. The footsteps stop, and so does time. Just for a second. 

He hears a sigh, and then a figure steps through the stone. Fuck.

It’s impossible to see who’s standing in front of him, just the silhouette of someone tall and narrow. The voice though, he recognizes Remus’ voice easily, a voice he’s been straining to catch snippets of for weeks. “You’re mad if you think you know the castle better than the people who’ve been here for years,” he says. Sirius is being scolded — he does know that — but he can’t seem to mind.

That’s twice today that he’ll have spoken to Remus (if he ignores the fact that it’s after midnight).

“You should give me a tour then,” Sirius says, trying to lean casually against the wall. “A thorough one.”

“I should give you detention,” Remus mumbles unconvincingly. He leans on the wall opposite Sirius, arms crossed over his chest. Light from the torches doesn’t come through the faux-stone well, but there’s a line of gold that traces a tendon on Remus’ neck. “For being out of bed.”

“You’re not in bed,” Sirius counters weakly, too distracted to think of a better response. It’s a ridiculous argument, but Sirius wants to prolong the conversation more than he wants to seem smart. “I find it a bit odd, you’d have me punished for doing the same thing as you. I’m just walking around.”

Remus’ shadow shakes its head. “I’m on duty. Anyway, it’s not my fault you’re rubbish at it. Don’t get caught, easy as that.” There’s a smirk in Remus' voice, a pause, then his head tilts suddenly. Like a dog. “Stay here, shut up, do you understand me?”

Sirius does a double-take at the drastically changed tone, but nods dumbly. Remus steps out through the wall but doesn’t walk away. Sirius finally hears what Remus heard a half a minute earlier: approaching footsteps.

“Severus. You’re not meant to be patrolling this area of the castle. Are you leaving your station unattended for a reason?” Remus’ voice is clipped. The answering voice is oily and nasal, terribly snide.

“I heard there was someone roaming the halls, thought you might need some… assistance,” the voice suggests in a drawl, like talking slower might give him more authority. It does not. Severus, Remus had called him. Snivellus, Sirius guesses. 

“I’ll keep an eye out, thank you for the warning, Severus.” Remus’ tone sounds the opposite of grateful, and the whole interaction feels charged. “Do you have any other helpful information for me?” It’s impossible to not hear the sarcasm in his tone, but Severus seems to ignore it.

“I heard it was the new boy, the Black. Peeves said-“

“Snape, are you mad? Taking advice from Peeves, leaving your station? You’re going to go back and find the dungeons ransacked, and you’re going to have to tell your Head of House that you were taken in by the most notorious liar in the castle. Honestly, Severus, are you-“

Remus’ speech must work, because footsteps hurry away from them heavily. Sirius waits for Remus to come back into the alcove or walk away, but he just hears the sound of rustling paper. A pause. More rustling, and then Remus does come through. “You’ll want to take the long route back to Gryffindor Tower,” he says, speaking softer now, an edge of tiredness creeping into his voice. “If you don’t want to be caught a second time, that is.” 

“Well, if I’m wanting to not get caught, I might take the faster route,” Sirius mumbles, starting to step toward the exit. Remus surprises him by catching his arm but Sirius doesn’t pull away. Would it be terribly obvious if he flexed?

“When people move around in the castle, I know about it,” he says, quieter yet. A whisper of his breath catches the shell of Sirius’ ear. Sirius feels a wonderful little thrill wash through him. “But take whatever route you feel is prudent.”

Remus drops his arm and walks out briskly, and Sirius has to take a minute to catch his breath before he can start to make his way to Gryffindor’s portrait hole again. He takes the long way. 

Chapter Text

Peter invites Sirius to join him at a chess club meeting, which Sirius agrees to easily. He’s never been any good at chess, but he and Regulus have had more than their fair share of games back at Grimmauld Place. Sirius rarely wins, especially once an opponent realizes that he’s trying to protect all his pieces equally when he should be doing a better job of making sacrifices to defend his king. Peter picks up on this instantly, and he has Sirius cornered in minutes. 

Everyone cheers, Sirius included. They shake hands, and someone else falls excitedly into Sirius’ empty chair. 

“You’re very decisive,” Sirius praises honestly, setting up a chair to be able to watch Peter’s next match. “Quick, smart, brutal.” Pete’s next match is against Dorcas, and she lasts much longer than Sirius did. They each have only a fraction of their pieces remaining on the board when Peter sacrifices his last rook, but takes the game. 

Sirius picks Peter’s brain for a long time after the meeting, finds him a surprisingly clever bloke. “How on earth did you learn so much about chess? Is there a class here that I failed to notice?”

Peter smiles and shakes his head, ears reddening. “Just my mum. If you think I’m brutal, she’s bloody cutthroat. Doesn’t believe in taking it easy on kids, but you learn.”

They make their way to the portrait hole and catch the portrait as it’s swinging closed behind a group of younger girls, sliding in easily. “You any good with astrology?” Sirius asks Peter as they drop their bags by a table without having to consult on the decision. 

“Not in the slightest, no,” Peter answers pleasantly. 

Sirius laughs, pulling out the corresponding textbook and a slightly crumpled roll of parchment. “Ah, shall we fail this assignment together then?”

“Oh, most certainly.”

—

Sirius spends very little time in his dormitory. He knows that dormitories are typically shared between as many male or female students as there are in that house that year, usually between four and six. As far as he knows, he’s the only person in a single-person room, at least in Gryffindor. At first it makes him feel special, but very quickly, he begins to develop a sense of isolation that weighs quite heavily on him. In response, he socializes as much as possible outside of his room, only really going back to it to sleep. 

He gets a tattoo from that Hufflepuff girl, and it’s horrid and wonky, but he loves it all the more for that. He’s desecrated his most noble and sacred pure-blood body, and it’s a wonderful feeling. And when he snogs her on her roommate’s bed, that’s a wonderful feeling too. 

That night, Sirius lets his body be passed around the Gryffindor common room as he shows off the burning patch of skin on his hip. Annette had gone over and over the design, pushing ink into his skin with a needle, hands wandering a bit on his waist and abdomen when they took breaks. The skin around the tattoo is bruising up quite nicely. The crudely drawn, wobbly-lined lion is celebrated by everyone, even as he’s told multiple times what a stupid idea it was. 

It doesn’t feel stupid at all. It feels just right.

—

“When’s the next full moon?” Sirius asks, looking up at Pete and James who sit across the little table from him. Astronomy. They’ve taken to inviting him to study with them from time to time. They actually looked pleased today when he invited himself along. 

“Next Tuesday,” James says at the same time as Pete says, “The sixteenth.”

That’s the day after Regulus’ birthday, Sirius notes. He feels a dull pang at the realization. They’ve never spent a birthday apart before. He wonders if he should send him a note, a gift. If Regulus would find that welcome. If their mother would even allow anything with Sirius’ name on it to make it to Regulus. Probably a wasted effort. 

He realizes that Peter’s talking, telling Sirius that he’s already finished that part of the assignment, and that’s why he remembers the date of the next full moon. Sirius is too focused on Regulus to listen all that carefully. “Hogsmeade,” Sirius says when Peter’s finished. “Any places to buy good gifts there?” He wants to send something to Regulus. Let his mother burn it if she wants, but he’ll have done his best. 

“For Annette?” James asks a bit slyly. Sirius rolls his eyes.

“Brother’s birthday,” Sirius answers, feeling a bit prickly, hoping they don’t ask why his brother hasn’t come to Hogwarts with him. 

“Oh, there's loads. Younger, older?” Sirius sets his quill down, surprised by the excited look on James’ face. “I love presents,” James says. “Love shopping for people. Come with us to Hogsmeade this weekend, I’ll show you all the best spots.”

“Yeah?” Something a bit dreaded becomes exciting. “Younger,” he answers belatedly. “Still in France, so.”

“Well, you’ve left it a bit late, haven’t you?” Peter mumbles into his parchment, no real disdain in his voice. “If you’ve still gotta get an owl to him. It’s not even a Hogsmeade weekend this week!”

Sirius feels his mood dip. Right. Those weekends are pre-scheduled here, and not all that often. “Oh.” He says simply. He’ll have to just send a letter then, promise to get something to him a bit later. That probably won’t help Regulus’ feeling of being left behind, forgotten, abandoned. “I forgot until now.”

James kicks Sirius’ shin from under the table and Sirius’ head jerks up, seeing a devious little smile on James' face. “We’ll get you to Hogsmeade.”

—

James is finding it impossible to get on the Quidditch pitch with all four house teams trying to get more training hours this year. He seems ecstatic to discover that Sirius flies. James drags Sirius almost immediately outside to appraise his broom-handling.

“I’ve never played Quidditch, mind you,” Sirius warns. “My parents found it ‘vulgar’ and ‘uncivilized’,” he says, irony shining clear through his voice. 

“And right they are!” James skips once they’ve reached the grass and whispers a password into the lock on a shed by the pitch. 

“Ever brought someone down here for a shag?” Sirius asks, peering around James to see a decent amount of space. James splutters a laugh as he walks in. He grabs two brooms and tosses one to Sirius. 

“No! Course not. Why would you want to do that?” They close up the shed and walk away, past the pitch which is currently in use. On the other side of the castle there’s a decent-sized empty space, although Sirius notes a conspicuous Whomping Willow that they’ll want to steer clear of. 

“I’m the only one in Gryffindor with a single room. Figured privacy’s hard to come by here. Are you just… Pulling your hangings closed and hoping no one walks in? A silencing charm? It’s a bit crude, but I suppose it’s better than nothing…”

James just laughs easily but doesn’t elaborate. “You’ll be using my old broom, by the way, but it’s still in half-decent shape. Doesn’t have the same steering and altitude control as the newer ones, but it’s a good broom. I’ve got a few things we can throw around, even a bat and a snitch if you want to try your hand at some drills. But if your family’s so opposed to Quidditch, we could also just-“

“If my family’s so opposed, then it’s imperative that I learn to play,” Sirius corrects easily, and James laughs. 

And they play. 

They draw out a perimeter with their wands so that the Bludgers don’t find students who are easier targets on the ground, and they play. James has Sirius running drills with him, mostly, but they also just chase each other around and enjoy the wind, the speed. There’s a freedom to flying that Sirius has never been able to replicate. Even when he was trapped within the confines of the grounds of his parents’ estate, it still felt like freedom. At Hogwarts, away from it all, with a smiling friend (who keeps trying to hit him with things), it might be the closest thing to real freedom that he’s ever felt. 
 
“So,” he prompts as they start to pack up under the setting sun. “What’s the Whomping Willow hiding, do you know?”

James loses his grip on the Bludger he’s been trying to wrangle into its case, but looks at Sirius and not the ball. “What?”

Sirius ducks when the Bludger comes at him, then shrugs. “They’re not naturally occurring here, and there’s only the one, anyway. It was planted. Why else would there be a defensive object on the grounds unless it’s defending something?”

He’d had an aunt with a Whomper in her garden, a whole panic room underneath. Of course, it was mostly used to store Dark Artifacts from the ministry, who raided her house every few years, but they never checked under the tree. They never so much as approached it. 

“Our headmaster’s a bit of a nutter,” James mumbles, crouching, waiting for the Bludger to round on him, arms loose at his sides, ready. The Bludger slams into his chest, but Sirius turns to stare at the tree some more, curious. He hears some scrambling from James, then the click of the lock. 

Sirius tries to imagine…. “There’ll be something under that tree,” Sirius assures James. “It’ll have been put there for a reason.”

He can feel James’ eyes burning into the side of his head, and then James sighs. “Can you keep a secret?”

Sirius’ eyes snap to James. “Definitely.”

James nods. He bites his lip as he thinks, but Sirius doesn’t rush him. “We’ve found a few secret passages out of the castle in the past few years. That’s how we’re taking you to Hogsmeade, which-“

“There’s a passage under the Willow?” Sirius asks excitedly. 

James’ voice is level; his gaze begs Sirius to listen. “There was. My fault it caved in actually. We snuck out, not a big deal, were gone all day. Record levels of rain. There was some flooding and we thought we were trapped inside, had to blast our way out. Whole thing's collapsed now. I think they’d have the tree taken down too by now if they could manage it, but it’s a protected species once you’ve planted it. So. Now it just swats at owls.”

James shrugs passively, but he’s staring at Sirius like he’s gauging his reaction. Sirius huffs, a bit put out. “You’ve ruined a perfectly good secret tunnel? Bloody wasteful, that is.” James laughs like he’s relieved and Sirius laughs with him. It’s a shame to lose such a lovely escape route when Sirius gets so claustrophobic, but it’s hardly James’ fault. Well, it is, but if they thought they were trapped, what else was there to do? “At least there’s other paths,” Sirius mumbles. 

“And they’re all secret, so I will be blindfolding you,” James warns.  

“Could be fun. Long as Pete’s there to hold my hand: I don’t like the dark,” he jokes. 

“Remus can hold your hand. Pete has tutoring.” They collect their brooms and end their perimeter spells, then head back across the lawn. “I’ll be leading the way, naturally.”

“Remus?” Sirius asks surprised. “The Prefect will be sneaking off with us? Out of bounds?” 

His stomach does a nervous little flip. Peter and James: Sirius feels like he’s in the process of winning them over. Remus is another issue entirely. Sirius has tried a few times to include Remus into existing conversations with him and Peter, him and Marlene, but Remus won’t bite, won’t do anything more than give a vague nod or polite smile. Sirius could try to talk to him alone — he will eventually — but he doesn’t have an angle yet, an in. Well… he supposes this could be an in. 

He imagines Remus holding his hand, dragging him through the dark. It’s a strange image that doesn’t sit right with him. 

“The Prefect…” James smirks to himself. “Oh yes, he’ll be there. He wants to make sure I’m not spilling all our secrets to a stranger. Very sceptical guy, he is. His idea to blindfold you, hope you’re not opposed.”

His stomach does that thing again. It’s not quite as funny of a thought as Peter blindfolding him. “Not opposed.” They make it to the shed. Sirius stays a few steps back while James unlocks it, then hands off the brooms. “Blindfold seems extreme, but I trust your judgement. His, less. Don’t think he’s too keen on me. You’ll have to make sure he doesn’t walk me right out a top-floor window.” 

“He likes you,” James says easily. 

“He spits in my food when I’m not looking, I know it.” Sirius lies, crossing his arms over his chest. 

James laughs. “No, that’s been me. Remus likes you, really. Well, okay, no. Pete and I decided we wanted to adopt you without thinking to consult him, and he’s a bit stung, that’s all. He’ll come around.”

“You’re adopting me? Like a stray dog?” Sirius asks, switching the case of Quidditch gear to his other hand, pretending not to be elated at the thought. 

“No, more like a sad little orphan.” James seems to realize how close his words cut because he changes the subject a bit, voice soft but words coming out fast. “Remus has a cousin at Beauxbatons. Pete and I wrote her and asked about you. We- uh,” he laughs awkwardly, like he’s stalling for time while he decides what to say. “She had all nice things to say, actually.”

“Well, take them with a grain of salt, I shagged a lot of girls there. She might have reason to remember me fondly.”

He’s deflecting and he knows it. It’s a nice thought though, that there are people at his old school who remember him in a positive light. Blood purity has been on the rise in France lately in a devastating capacity, and Sirius being so open about his own politics made him a bit of an outcast, and he’d liked it that way. Anyone who allied themselves with anti-muggle or -muggleborn groups even in their silence was an enemy to him. He wanted to be an outcast. 

He wanted to feel completely separate from everything his family wanted for him, including the ‘connections’ that Blacks are always trying to make amongst ‘likeminded people’. It was terribly lonely, and he relished it. 

He was punishing himself. He can admit that now. He’s been trying not to do that so much here. Fresh start and all. 

“What was her name? The cousin,” Sirius asks eventually. He can’t imagine anyone who would speak fondly of him. 

“Estella, she’s younger than we are by a few years.”

They make it to the stairs, exchanging a daunted look after so much flying, but start their ascent. 

Estella. Estella Lupin, or maybe Estella something-else. The name isn’t familiar at all. He wonders what he might have ever said or done that could have won over someone he’s never even heard of. 

Chapter Text

Sirius rubs his new tattoo with a finger dipped under his waistband, hissing. He has his trousers unbuttoned, his pants pulled higher than he normally would, trying to keep anything tight from touching the irritated skin. 

After being crouched over a broom half the night yesterday, his fragile skin is rubbed a bit raw from where the belt on his jeans had sat. It’s red and puffy and awful, burning. He thinks he could have chosen the placement for his tattoo a bit more mindfully. He notes that for the next one. 

“Whatever it is you’re doing, please stop.” 

Sirius starts at the voice. His study partner is off in the toilets now, but anyway, this voice is distinctly male. “And good to see you too, Lupin,” Sirius greets. He’s decided to strip Remus of first-name privileges for now. Remus is at a nearby table, a bit red-cheeked. “What am I doing wrong, anyway, Prefect?” He leaves a teasing hostility in his voice, a challenge. Remus can choose whether he wants to rise to it. Sirius is happy that the other boy initiated a conversation at all. 

“I promise I have no idea exactly what you’re doing, but it looks like you’re touching yourself under the table, and since we’re in the library, and not the privacy of your bedroom-“

Sirius laughs too loudly. He probably draws unwanted attention with the sound, but he doesn’t look away from Lupin. “Oh, piss off. You know I’m not fondling myself under the table. D’you want some attention or something? You could just ask.”

Sirius shakes his head, smiling, enjoying himself, enjoying the awkward outraged look on Remus’ face. “I don’t care whether you’re literally touching yourself: having your hands in your pants is a bit much for a public setting, don’t you think, Sirius?”

Sirius delights at hearing his name. He reinstates Remus’ first-name privileges, just because he likes to say it. “I’m hardly elbow deep, Remus. It’s just my tattoo that’s been bothering me. D’you wanna see it?”

Without waiting for Remus to answer, he hops the few seats over and sits down, slouching deeply so he can pull his boxers down a few inches, revealing the roaring lion. 

“I do not want to see!” Remus has his hands out, head turned away, cheeks still vibrantly red. The delightful flush in his cheeks makes Sirius laugh even louder. 

“Oh, don’t be shy, Remus. It’s just on my hip,” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows. “I got it just this week, look-“

“Oh god, you didn’t get it here?” Remus gasps, lowering his hands a bit to look at Sirius’ face. “From Annette? With the sewing needle? You didn’t-”

Sirius nods excitedly. “That’s how muggles get tattoos,” he tells him.

“That’s how muggles get infections,” Remus says. He lets his eyes drop very briefly to Sirius’ hip before snapping them away again. “And you’ve got one! Oh, I’ll be speaking to her head of house, she’s been told-“ Remus’ eyes drop again to Sirius’ hip. They seem to catch there for a long second, then he shakes his head and looks away sharply. “You’ll be needing some potions for that,” Remus says, staring down at the table. 

“I don’t know how to make them,” Sirius says with a frown, trying not to feel embarrassed. He’d thought the tattoo was getting red from the chafing. He hadn’t ever even considered it might be infected. Now that he knows, it feels like it’s burning even worse. 

“Of course you don’t,” Remus says, rolling his eyes. “You’ll want to go see Madam Pomfrey.” Sirius stares at him blankly. “In the hospital wing.”

He doesn’t know where that is! He hardly knows where his classes are most days. He knows the Gryffindor corner of the castle somewhat well, but the rest of it…

“Remember when you said you’d give me a tour?” Sirius teases.

“I don’t think I ever agreed to that,” Remus mumbles. 

“Sure you did.” Sirius pops out of his seat, ignoring the dull throb when his elastic waistband shifts with him, drags over his hip. “Said it’d be thorough, too.” In the spirit of decency, Sirius reluctantly re-buttons his trousers, wincing. When Sirius looks back up, he catches Remus looking around. Suddenly, he’s sure Remus is about to outsource the job, and he hates the idea. He wants… he wants Remus to come with him, not someone else. “Remus, I don’t know where that is, and this hurts. Will you take me? Please?”

He gives Remus his most compelling stare. Okay, so they’re his ‘fuck me’ eyes, it’s his lowest, softest voice, but he doesn’t have a lot of tools at his disposal, and he knows very well what normally works for him. The waist on his trousers is cutting into the burning skin, making it throb, and Sirius is a bit panicky with it. It’s embarrassing. He wants Remus, someone he knows. Vaguely. He doesn’t really know anyone.

Remus doesn’t say anything for a moment, then he’s shoving books into his messenger bag, shaking his head like he can’t believe he’s doing it. “Thank you,” Sirius whispers, maybe the first time he’s said something genuine today. 

“Just- shut up.” Remus’ tone his harsh, but his cheeks are still the slightest bit pink, and Sirius fights off a tiny smile.

They walk out of the library together, Sirius not even bothering to grab his stuff. He’ll get it on his way back to the dorms later. Remus has long strides that are hard to match, and he keeps his eyes facing firmly forward, never once looking over at Sirius. No one says a word.

Sirius has a hard time deciphering if this is actually progress, or if Remus is resenting him now more than ever. Maybe this was the wrong move.

“If you come back from Hufflepuff one of these days with a pierced ear, I’ll let it fall off,” Remus gripes as they climb a set of stairs Sirius has never seen before. 

“You don’t have some sort of obligation as a Prefect?” Sirius asks, just to keep Remus talking. 

“Oh, there are other Prefects, teachers. You’ll know the way to the hospital wing if you’re paying attention. If you let your own ears rot off your head, that’s hardly on me.” They reach a door at the top of the stairs and Remus gestures vaguely. “Well, here we are. Walk on in.” Sirius peers through the window, trying to see if the healer looks busy. Remus just leans around him and turns the handle. “Poppy, I’ve brought you a gift,” he calls in a much sweeter voice than Sirius has ever heard him use. 

“Remus, dear, it’s a bit early for me to be seeing you this m- oh, my gift is a student. Hello, love, what have you done to yourself then?” A young woman comes around the beds, smiling but apprehensive. 

“Another tattoo infection, would you believe it?” Remus is leaned against the door jam, chatting with this woman like they’re friends. “I’ll be speaking to Professor Sprout about it later today, don’t worry.”

Pomfrey just harrumphs and crosses the room, riffles through a cupboard. 

“How often are you here,” Sirius whispers out of the corner of his mouth. 

“Every time someone in my house does something catastrophically stupid, so, say, twice a week,” Lupin quips with a one-shouldered shrug. He’s got that ironic little twist to his mouth again, the one that isn’t quite a smirk, something sardonic and contained. Sirius smiles at his feet. 

Pomfrey turns around with a few phials, then looks curiously at the two boys in her doorway. “Well do come in, dear. Pick a bed, they’re all clean. Are you a Black?” There’s hesitation in her tone that Sirius doesn’t like, but he knows that Bellatrix only just graduated here, and they’ve always been told that they could be siblings based on looks alone. He wishes he looked more like Andromeda. He doesn't know her well anymore — maybe she's a nightmare, too — but she can't be as awful as her sisters if she at least managed to get herself disowned. 

“You’ve met my cousin then,” Sirius says in as joking a tone as he can manage. He climbs into the closest bed, sitting with his legs folded in front of him, feeling his hip throb again at being crunched over. “I promise, I’m not nearly as much of a handful.” He shoots Remus a look as he says it, like he’s saying despite what some people may think. Remus just rolls his eyes.

“Well, I can’t say I knew her well,” Madam Pomfrey says with admirable diplomacy. “A student who’s careful and lucky hardly needs to pass through the hospital wing in all their time here. Now. Where’s this tattoo?”

The door closes with a soft sound, and Sirius knows Remus has left. Feeling a bit embarrassed again, he lays down and pulls up his shirt, then lowers his trousers a few inches. 

—

By the time Sirius makes it out of the hospital wing, the library is closed. He considers trying to sneak in, but what’s the point? He’s not doing any homework at this hour. He’ll collect his stuff another time. 

In the Gryffindor common room, Peter and James are playing Wizard Chess. Apart from them, the common room is largely empty. They both look up when he comes through the portrait hole. 

“How’s the tat?” James calls as Sirius crosses the large room. Remus must have told them. 

“A bit mangled,” Sirius admits, flopping down next to Peter on a loveseat. 

“It survived?” Peter’s arm bumps a knight as he turns quickly to gape at Sirius, and Sirius watches as the knight tries to strike him back with his sword. “Mine got clean removed — how’d you manage that?”

“You had one too?” Sirius looks between Peter and James for confirmation. 

“Both of us,” James says, nodding. “Tried to get Remus one too, but he wasn’t into it. Then we both ended up in the hospital wing… You can imagine how smug he was.”

Sirius huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “Haven’t got to imagine, have I? He’s the one who dragged me off to Pomfrey today. Though, Annette was experimenting with a new ink, and look-“ He slouches down again and drags down his trousers and pants, showing the angry pink outline of a roaring lion. The scar’s even cooler than the tattoo had been. “Whole thing bubbled up like mad, looked like my skin was gonna slide right off, but it’s quite-“

“It’s fantastic!” Peter says, leaning his head a bit too close to the tattoo for comfort, but the praise is nice. 

“Aw, why didn’t ours do that?” James whines, body stretched over the table. 

“Sexy, right?” Sirius doesn’t fully put himself right as he sits up, wanting to leave the scar out and visible. “I bet Annette could do it again, really, if-“

“Are you joking? Are you dim? You just-“ Remus drops the book that he was buried in a few seats over, stands up to snap at his friends. 

Remus’ snappy voice is cut off by a pacifying James. “We’re not going to do it, Moony, come on! We learned our lesson. We’re getting real muggle tattoos when we’re muggle-legal, and you’re getting one too: that’s the deal, and we’re sticking to it. But come on, come look at this, it’s- Aw come back!”

Remus is half way up the steps to the boys dormitories by now, and James pouts. “Ah, well,” James mumbles, pushing the chess pieces into a small sack. Peter leaves the cleanup to James and follows Remus upstairs, yawning. 

“He hates me,” Sirius reiterates from last night. “You and Pete are done with your game?”

“Eh, it wasn’t much of a game. We were just waiting up for you. Oh, and apparently your books are in your room? Anyway, night Black.” He leans in and whispers conspiratorially. “Don’t forget, Hogsmeade tomorrow. Bright and early.”

Sirius returns his grin. “Bright and early.”

Chapter Text

Sirius is up early, too jittery to do anything but get dressed and started with the day. 

He dresses in muggle clothes, with his favourite leather jacket thrown overtop to combat the growing chill in the air. It fits more snuggly than it used to, to the point now where he can hardly bring his arms out in front of him with his increasingly widening shoulders, but he hasn't been able to bring himself to replace it yet. It’s perfectly faded and distressed in all the right places, and tapers in nicely at his waist. He looks too good. He feels good. He feels bouncy, like a dog nipping at the leash before he can even be clipped in, and he has too much energy for his sad single room. 

He’s careful as he descends the stairs, cognizant of the fact that everyone else is still asleep. He hears quiet voices as he gets to the bottom, and against his feeble better judgement, he pauses and listens. 

Even standing so close, he still has to strain for the whispers. “I know you guys like him, that’s not the problem. It’s not a question of ‘like’, it’s a question of trust, and I can’t trust him, so why bother? You can be friendly, you guys can even be friends, but I don’t know why you’re so set on bringing me into it when I can’t-“

“You can be his friend!” James interrupts. His voice is exasperated, like they’ve been over this a thousand times. 

“I don’t want to be!” Remus’ voice holds an edge of exasperation, but there’s so much more there. “I’m coming today because you asked me to, but in the future, James, don’t ask. I’m not changing my mind.”

Sirius muses. It’s about him, all this. Remus doesn’t want to be his friend… that’s hardly new. It's still shocking to hear it said aloud, somehow, the idea that someone is willing to fight to  not  be in his life. Why Remus would think Sirius so untrustworthy, Sirius doesn’t know. Maybe Remus is muggle born. If Sirius were muggle born, he wouldn’t be quick to befriend any Blacks either, even if they claimed to not be like the rest of his family. And Potter is an old wizarding name, so James might not have to worry like Remus would. 

Who knows, right? There wouldn't be much Sirius could do about any of that, unfortunately. Is Remus allowed to just hate him on principal, refuse to get to know him better than what he expects from Sirius based on rumours about him, based on his family? That doesn't seem fair.

Yet... All those scars on his face, magically inflicted. Was Remus the victim of a bashing? It- it makes some twisted sort of sense. The scars are years old, but not ancient. 

Merlin, did it happen at Hogwarts? No one at Hogwarts seems to pay much attention to Remus’ scars… is that because they know he won’t talk, or because they know how he got them already?

Bellatrix has been known… Sirius’ mother has always been very vocal about the trouble Bellatrix got herself into at school, a glittering sort of reverie in her eyes. What if Remus is one of the Blacks’ innumerable victims?

Sirius and Bellatrix have always been told they could be siblings based on looks alone.

He hates the idea. He can’t stand it, he pushes back against it, banishes it from his head. He has no reason to think that. No reason at all. Plenty... there are plenty of other explanations, surely.

Sirius waits a few minutes on the stairs, feeling seven years old, suddenly: eavesdropping, trying to figure out if things were  bad  in the kitchen, trying to hear if his name comes up through all the shouting.

Still, he’s up. They’re waiting for him. There’s nothing to do except move forward with the day as planned, mood much lower than it was moments prior. He backs up a few paces as quietly as he can, then descends the stairs with obvious clunking steps. 

“You’re up!” James greets, pleased if subdued. 

“Breakfast?” Sirius asks, joining the other two as they stand and make their way out. He tries to choose a light tone that doesn't clash too heavily with Remus' somber expression. He needs to pretend not to have heard what they were saying, but he doesn't want to be completely tone-deaf either. He's certainly not bouncing anymore.

“Nah, we’ll eat there. There’s a pub and the barmaid’s  goooorgeous . We’ll be introducing you to Rosmerta for sure.” 

Sirius walks next to James, but when James steps away from the group to open the portrait, he comes back around on Sirius’ other side, leaving Sirius in the middle. “Remus,” Sirius greets brightly, doing his best to act like someone who hasn’t just overheard how unwelcome they are. He's not sure there's much point in playing too nicely with Remus anymore, but he'll be civil. For James. 

“We should get the blindfold on him,” Remus says over Sirius’ head. 

“It’s not going to look a bit suspicious, walking around with one of us blindfolded?” Sirius asks, but he stops walking when Remus does.

“We won’t be seen, so it hardly matters how it looks,” Remus says tightly. Sirius shrugs. 

James hands Sirius a good-sized scrap of fabric with the order to tie it over his eyes. Unconcerned, Sirius does. “Smells nice,” he mumbles, resisting the urge to cover his nose too. He ignores the way James is clearly laughing at him, more focused on trying to get a good knot without pulling his hair into it. After a moment or two, he feels his hands batted away.

“You’re impossible,” Remus whispers, but his fingers are quick and gentle, and then the heat at Sirius’ back disappears. Sirius stands still, waiting, and then hears a huff. “Well, come on then.”

“Come where, Remus? I can’t see.”

After a short pause that feels like ages, a hand lands on Sirius' back, large and warm between his shoulder blades. He hopes that his racing heart is misconstrued as excitement or nerves at being blindfolded and led around by near strangers. He hopes that Remus doesn’t notice it at all, really. 

They’ve taken dozens of turns and stairs before Sirius gives up on getting his heart rate under control. He’ll blame the exertion. He trips occasionally with the fast pace and the blindfold, the unfamiliar stone floors, but the strong hand in his back is something to catch himself against. 

“Taking the scenic route, are we?” Sirius asks after it feels like they’ve been walking around the castle for ages, long enough that Remus’ breaths are harsher behind Sirius, or maybe he can just hear them better when he’s so focused on orienting himself without the use of his eyes. He hears the rustling of paper often and wonders if they’re using a map or some list of instructions. He frowns at that. Shouldn’t they know where they’re going by now?

No one answers him, and they walk another few steps before the hand on his back becomes a fist in his shirt, and then he’s being jerked backward, struggling to find his footing when he can’t quite tell where his body is in space. He falls into Remus’ chest, but Remus catches him, his free hand wrapping around Sirius’ torso, heart beating into Sirius’ back, a single breath against his neck before quickly stabilizing him and stepping back, just a hand on Sirius’ shoulder while Sirius' heart beats so hard he could almost be sick. 

Sirius doesn’t catch much in his panic, just the brief press of a chest to his back and more of that smell. He wonders if the fabric tied around his face came from a shirt of Remus’. “What was that about?” His voice sounds unlike him in his own ears.

“Start walking,” Remus hisses in his ear. Sirius complies. Remus steers him from his shoulder now, and his grip tightens again after only a few steps. “There are stairs here, down, and they’re steep.”

No one comments on how slowly Sirius takes the stairs, feeling each step out with the toe of his boot, cursing that they’re so uneven. A bit of a stale, earthy smell greets him, and he realizes this is it. Another rustle of parchment. The ground levels out.  

It’s a tight squeeze for three bodies, and they walk in a line. “He can take the blindfold off now, Moony, come on,” James says after Sirius stumbles a bit in the dark, and Remus seems to agree. The blindfold is pulled wordlessly from Sirius’ head, not that visibility is much better without it. 

“He should put it back on when we come back, though,” Remus says. 

“Course I will,” Sirius snaps. “Defeats the whole purpose if you only blindfold me one way.”

Remus doesn’t acknowledge him, just speaks to James over his head again. “When we’re getting to and from both ends of the passageway, James. The one in Hogsmeade too, so he can’t go backward-“

“Whatever you want, Rems,” James says in front of Sirius, the wand light bobs as he throws his hands up in some sort of surrender. “Sirius is a good sport, and he seems to trust us.” There’s a pointedness to the way James says the last line that’s probably meant to go over Sirius’ head, and it likely would have if he didn’t already know that Remus absolutely doesn’t trust him. 

Sirius is surprised by the comment nonetheless. He’d never decided to trust anyone, but this is a lot of trust that he’s putting into James and Remus now. He finds that even though the thought makes him nervous, he’s still inclined to trust them. 

It’s not a short walk to Hogsmeade, and the awkwardly shaped tunnel doesn’t shorten the journey, but James keeps a steady flow of conversation, a monologue really. He runs through the various shops there, which shop owners they can and cannot trust to keep their mouths shut when they pass through on non-Hogwarts-sanctioned trips. Remus doesn’t say much. Sirius tries to ignore Remus’ mood and focus instead on James, on fun. 

“And I know that there are all sorts of sweets that are only ever found in Hogsmeade, so you’ll want to get him some samples. Zonkos might have- Well, Zonkos has lots of great stuff, but it’s a bit… conspicuous, so I don’t know how bold your brother is, so… Ah! Here we are. Moons, if you want him blindfolded, now’s the time. I’m gonna pop out under the cloak and make sure-“

“James!” Remus snaps, and James rounds on him, face hard to read in the wonky wand light, but his posture is inflated and annoyed. 

“I have an invisibility cloak,” James says boldly.  Cool . “It’s  mine . I haven’t told anyone about it except my friends because it’s only useful when people don’t know how to look for you, but I do tell my friends. Do keep it a secret, won’t you, Sirius?”

Sirius knows that James is really talking to Remus, not him, but the silence is heavy. “I won’t tell anyone,” he says eventually since no one else is talking. 

“Cover him up then!”

Remus steps up behind him again, and it’s quick again, a sharp tug to make sure the knot will hold. A hair gets tied into the knot this time and pulls sharply when Remus tightens it, but Sirius stays quiet. The silence is terrible when James has left, a creaking, more steps, quiet. 

It’s worsened by the fact that Sirius can be seen, but he can’t see. Is Remus looking at him? How, specifically? Is he angry, resigned? Probably. Sirius hears him huff and shift. A moment later the creaking repeats. “Walk forward with your hands in front of you, and then climb, Sirius,” James whispers loudly. When Sirius is on level ground again, he feels something thrown over him, and then there are two hands on his back. “I’m behind you, you’re under the cloak, let’s move.”

James’ two hands steer Sirius much more easily than Remus’ one had. More pressure on the right, Sirius turns right. More on the left, it’s as easy as that. 

He sniffs a few times as they walk, clearly indoors. The place smells like sweets. They’re in a sweetshop. Still, he walks until they’re outside, lets himself be spun about, then the cloak and blindfold are pulled off. Sirius blinks and squints in the harsh light, brings his hands up in front of his eyes. When he can properly see, he finds them in an alley.  

“Quaint,” he mumbles. “If this is our first stop, we might skip to the second.”

“James, come out too, I’m not-“ Remus hesitates. “James?”

Sirius looks around, still squinting a bit. He can’t see anything, not even a ripple in the air or a distortion on the ground. That cloak must be a real quality piece. “James,” he says too. He and Remus both hurry to the edge of the alley, looking into High Street, but James is nowhere to be seen. “What’s that about?” Sirius asks. 

Remus walks back into the alley, peers around again, then sighs. “He’s run off. Hilarious.” He turns eventually to face Sirius. “Alright. Are you in on this too then since he wants us to bond so badly?”

“Me?” Sirius laughs, but Remus is staring at him completely seriously. His laugh takes on a slightly bitter edge. “Right, yeah. I’ve been plotting all week on how I can get you alone hoping I’d be able to persuade you to properly hate me, because your open contempt for me’s been feeling like a bit of a tease.” Sirius kicks a pebble with his shoe, feeling more and more wound up as he keeps talking. “I thought, hey, I’m getting fairly close with Peter and James, how can I best ensure that their closest friend absolutely despis-“

“Okay- alright. It was just James,” Remus mumbles. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, looking a bit hunched, but Sirius is still fed up. 

“Whatever, Remus. It’s- We’ll split up. Do whatever you have to do, meet me back here in a few hours so we can go back to school, unless you’re so miserable in my company that you’d leave me here. I’m sure you’d rather do that than show me how to get back to the school, myself.” Sirius starts to walk away in a huff, not knowing where he’s going. It doesn’t matter, he can read. All the shops have signs. He remembers vaguely which stores James said to stay away from. He’ll figure it out. It’s fine. “Maybe James’ll come back for me, or maybe I should have known better than to follow people who’re-“ Sirius is still rambling as he walks away. He knows Remus is following him, but he doesn’t acknowledge him, doesn’t face him, lets his rant peter out. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. 

Sirius takes a turn at random, and Remus keeps following, hands still in his pockets. “Go away,” Sirius snaps, annoyed with the miserable mood. He’d rather be miserable alone than have Remus hovering around looking guilty but unrepentant. Remus might regret that he has upset Sirius, but he still doesn’t trust him, doesn’t want to be associated with him. Fine, then leave.

“What does your brother like?” Remus asks quietly. Sirius speeds up, not that he could ever out-speed-walk someone as tall as Remus. 

“Shut up.” Sirius turns again, grabbing the handle of the first door he sees. 

Remus’ hand lands on the door, flat. “Not here, please,” Remus says in a suddenly urgent voice. Sirius means to say something snide, but he makes the mistake of turning to face Remus, and his gaze is imploring. “The owner will tell Dumbledore, Sirius, not here. You’re not that upset with me that you’ll get us in this kind of trouble.”

Sirius is that upset. And he’s that proud and vindictive, that quick to rise to a challenge, but… 

He drops his hand from the doorknob, walks a bit further and leans against the brick wall of another building. He finds a vaguely comfortable way of arranging himself, leans his head back, closes his eyes. Fine. He’ll just stay here until James comes back. 

He hears Remus pacing in front of him, but for once he finds it easy to stand still. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, why he cares so much about what Remus thinks, but he feels overwhelmed by it. He hates that Remus hates him. He hates his family for being so openly hateful and dangerous that good people won’t give him a chance, because he knows Remus  is  good. He's been watching him, and James and Peter too, since he got here. 

He doesn’t want to buy his stupid brother a present. 

“Let’s just go,” Sirius croaks. “You never wanted to come here. Fine. Just. Take me back.”

Remus’ boots stop crunching along the ground, but Sirius doesn’t open his eyes. If there’s an edge of frustration to Remus’ voice, his tone is still gentle. “We’ll go to Honeydukes, get him a few treats to try, then Zonkos has these-“

“Let’s just go back to Honeydukes, and take the path-“ Sirius interrupts. He realizes his mistake at once, but it’s too late to correct himself. 

“How did you know-“

“The smell. Can we- I won’t tell anyone about your precious secret tunnels, and you can cover my eyes back at the castle. You can Confund or Obliviate me for all I care, just…” He peels his eyes open, stares at Remus with his head still all the way leaned back on the wall. Remus looks pinched, but Sirius can’t bring himself to care. “This was pointless. Let’s just-“

“It’s not pointless to get your brother a birthday gift,” Remus mutters. He shoves both of his hands into his face for a minute before dragging them through his hair. “Come on,” he says dully. He nods in the direction they’d come from, like he’s saying ‘let’s just go back’.

“You don’t know my family,” Sirius mutters, but he pushes himself off the wall. Maybe there's an edge of spiteful irony to his voice: clearly Remus does know his family, but he doesn't realize how they're treating Sirius lately. “There was never a chance he was even going to-“

Remus drags a hand through his hair again, then gestures vaguely with it. “Sirius, you wanted to get him something. We’re here. I have a headache. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to argue about this. I’ll take you to a few stores, then we’ll head back. You can get him something terrible if you’d like, one of those awful hats with a stuffed bird on it or something.”

The image of Reg wearing one of those obnoxious hats, a stuffed eagle or vulture on top like terrible old women are always wearing… Sirius laughs out loud in spite of himself. When he catches Remus staring, he schools his face. Remus looks away.

They’re walking together now, Remus leading them back toward the main road. No one talks. Everyone’s still miserable, but they keep moving forward. 

—

In the first two shops, they don’t talk at all. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier. He gets used to it. In a way, it makes sense to shop for Regulus when the mood is so strange and off. 

“Does he look like you? Your brother?” Remus asks softly as they look at nice quills at Scrivenshaft’s. Sirius wonders at a peacock quill, thinking it might just be stupid and eccentric enough for Reg to laugh at it, start using it ironically, then end up loving it. 

Sirius smiles to himself, enjoying the mental image of Reg with such a ridiculous quill, the way Reg would defend the stupid quill to death if he liked it. “My family’s quite inbred,” Sirius mumbles without much thought. “Not that much gene variety.”

Remus slaps a hand over his mouth as he laughs, looking a bit guilty as he stares at Sirius through delightfully squinted eyes. “Oh god, tell me you’re joking.”

“I’d never joke about my dearest auntie mums and uncle dad.” Sirius decides to buy the quill, adds it to his little pile as he watches Remus throw his head back from the corner of his eyes, feeling oddly proud of himself. He lets himself look for just a moment while Remus is distracted, but in the full thirty seconds that he has, Sirius’ eyes don’t get much further than his neck, long, thin. Adam’s apple jutting out sharply, the muscles that contract when he laughs. Sirius forces himself to walk away, and he pays without looking back at Remus. 

“He’s taller than me,” Sirius says as they’re leaving the shop. Remus is still vaguely smiling, so Sirius chats. “By like two inches, and he won’t shut up about it. Calls me son ‘ petit  frère’, thinks that’s funny. Dunno. His nose is rounder, where mine has a bump. And his hair’s short. But other than that…” He shrugs. He doesn’t look at Remus, just frowns at the sidewalk in front of them. Thinking about Regulus is complicated. Missing Regulus is complicated. They were never friends, rarely even allies in recent years, but Sirius has a heavy sense of alone-ness now that they’re properly estranged that he never felt when- when they were still brothers. He doesn’t even like him, but he misses him. 

“I always wanted siblings,” Remus muses. He grabs the door to another building, a larger one here, but doesn’t go inside. Sirius realizes belatedly that he’s holding the door for him. 

“Uh, thank you,” Sirius mumbles, peering around as a distraction. It’s a tavern, or maybe a restaurant. It’s not nice, but it seems pleasant. He spots James sitting at the bar, flirting shamelessly with a somewhat older barmaid who smiles and laughs. The barmaid looks up at the newcomers, and James follows her gaze, smiling even wider at his friends. 

“Remus! Sirius! I must have lost you earlier,” James calls in an obvious lie, waving for them to come and join him. “My friends and I are going to take a table, could you get us some more drinks when you’re free? And chips, too.” James smiles easily at the witch, leaves a neat pile of coins on the bar and gestures again for the boys to come sit with him.  

Remus and Sirius walk to a back corner table, not speaking, not looking at one another. If they were friends, Sirius would be sending him amused or annoyed looks, mumbling about Potter’s arrogance. He doesn’t though because they’re not friends, so they just walk. 

“You ditched us,” Sirius mutters, a bit of resentment slipping into his tone as he slides into a wooden chair. 

“Just got swept away in the crowd,” James corrects. “Been looking for you lot all day.”

Swept away. In a crowd. In the empty alley. Sirius just stares at James, almost tempted to laugh at such an obvious lie, but instead he just shrugs it off. Remus doesn’t comment either. 

“Excuse me,” Remus mumbles, slipping off to what must be the bathroom. He moves so quickly that he almost bumps Rosmerta and her tray of drinks, but they manage to swerve at the last minute. Madam Rosmerta sets the brimming pint glasses down with a small smile, then dances off to help someone else who’s just come in. 

“Why did you do that, James?” Sirius asks, feeling braver with Remus gone. 

James drinks deeply from his glass, obviously buying time. Sirius waits, not touching his drink, not letting himself be bought or distracted. James sets his glass down eventually with a satisfied breath and a foam moustache, then meets Sirius’ eyes. James stares. Sirius stares. James cracks first with a sigh, wipes his mouth. “I want all my friends to like each other. I figured some time together might help. It did, didn’t it?”

No, Sirius thinks immediately, but he doesn’t say that. Maybe. Maybe they didn’t talk much, but the silences weren’t terrible. Maybe they can be people who don’t talk but still tolerate each other for the sake of their mutual friends. That’s not what James wants to hear, though. It’s not really what Sirius wants to say, but it might be close to the truth. 

Sirius settles on shrugging, which makes James groan. Sirius takes a careful sip from his Butterbeer, finding it’s just what he needs, and ends up downing a third of the pint before he can stop himself. 

“If it’s my family he has a problem with, he’ll either come around or he won’t, but there’s not much I can do.” Sirius takes another small sip, lets the carbonation soak into his tongue. 

James looks up at him sharply but doesn’t say anything, probably because Sirius is right. They drink silently until Remus comes back. Sirius notices the wet handprints on Remus’ thighs, a tiny and mundane and somehow incredibly endearing detail. He tries to focus on whatever James is saying.

Chapter Text

James drags Sirius along with him to Quidditch training on Sunday even though the team is full. Gideon Prewett in the year above them is the captain, but when James says he wants Sirius on his team next year, and that for now he can act as a reserve, Gideon actually congratulates James on being so forward-thinking. 

Sirius watches the interaction in awe. James challenges Gideon’s authority, makes demands of him, implies like it’s undeniable that he’ll be captain next year, and Gideon just slaps him on the back. “This is better for drills, really, since we can do groups of four or two now. Good thinking, mate. It’s Sirius, yeah? From Beauxbatons? He does speak English, doesn’t he?”

Sirius is a competent flyer, but he’s grateful to have a full year to train before he’s expected to play any real Quidditch. He’ll either end up being a Chaser or a Beater, and both of those positions really need to understand the intricacies of the game, the plays, develop a rapport with other players. As well as Sirius might fly, he feels inept on the pitch. Still, with James beaming and encouraging, he’s sure he can figure it out. James explains anything Sirius doesn’t understand without judgement, and he feels emboldened to ask more questions, push himself further. Watching James interact with everyone, with Sirius, with the game, he can understand why James is so sure he’ll be captain. It couldn’t be anyone else. 

—

James and Remus always pair up together on days where Slughorn has them making particularly complex potions, and Sirius doesn’t expect that to change just because he's sort of part of the group now, especially while Remus still hates him. He pairs with some of the first Gryffindor girls he met when he got here. There are three of them, Lily, Mary and Dorcas, and they all take turns with Sirius. He likes to think it’s because they’re all fighting over him, but it’s probably so that no one of the girls is constantly left behind while the other two go off together. 

Today is Sirius’ first time working with Lily. She was the Prefect who showed him around in his first days here. She’s always been lovely, but it’s the way she looks at Sirius that makes him a bit hesitant around her. He’ll crack a joke and she’ll smile indulgently, but there’s a keenness to her eyes that makes him feel a bit too seen, and then she just looks away. He’s been avoiding her since James and Peter finally adopted him. 

“You’ll want to cut those thinner,” she comments mildly, checking in for the umpteenth time on what Sirius is doing. He lets her because she’s supposed to be some sort of potions prodigy, but he resents being seen as incompetent. 

“I like my toad’s liver with some curves, is that so wrong?” he jokes mildly, but runs his knife through the centre of all his previous slices, cutting them in half. “Better?” He asks. 

“Oh, no. Half that size, even.” She peers over him in the process of expertly pulling her long hair away from her face, tying it neatly behind her.

He rolls his eyes a bit but goes back to work. “The unrealistic expectations we set for our toads’ livers these days,” he mumbles, slicing the liver thinner still. He peeks up between slices, finding her smiling again, biting her lip, still not laughing. Closer, though. “Alright, there. Now we can add them…? Do you want me to add them?”

With her gentlest, most unpatronizing-patronizing shrug she says, “I can add them.” 

Sirius just shakes his head. “Yeah go for it. And then… stir clockwise once, counter-clockwise twice, then we don’t touch for three minutes, exactly.” He nods as he reads the instructions, rereads them to be sure. “Anything you want to do differently about that?”

She shakes her head. “We’re not meant to use magic for the time… Do you have a watch?” Sirius bears his scrawny wrists, empty. Of course, no one wears a watch until they’re of age, not really. Technically, he is almost of age, but the watch he would have inherited is an heirloom, and apparently he hasn’t ‘earned’ it either way. Whatever, it’s ugly. Lily wrinkles her nose. “We’ll have to just estimate it. I’ll count.”

Sirius watches her add the ingredients, which she sprinkles carefully and evenly whereas Sirius would have just dumped them off of the edge of his cutting board. “Three minutes… That’s one  Royal Orleans . Exactly three minutes. Come on, you can’t count at the right pace, can you? I can do that. Tell me when to start.” He doesn’t really care as much about being helpful as he does about amusing himself, but this is good for everyone. 

Lily stares at him, then shakes her head, only almost smiling. She stirs, stirs, then says “Now.”

He starts the record in his head. He hasn't listened to this song in months, and may never again unless he can find a way to get himself some muggle money for a new record player and start replacing all the vinyls that got left behind when he was pulled so suddenly from Beauxbatons. He's never been huge on Zeppelin, but he'd only ever been able to smuggle himself about fifteen records, and this was one of them. A bit of guitar, then the words. He’s sure he still remembers it. 

“One time love, take care how you use it,” he whispers, wriggling in his seat with the beat, tapping the rhythm out on his legs. “Try to make it last all night. And if you take your pick, take care how you use it-“ 

Lily laughs, just quiet, and Sirius just keeps on whispering, picking up his tongs to sing into them, accidentally flicking some liver-water onto himself, but laughing through the next verse anyway. He likes that Lily’s listening, watching, so he serenades her. He doesn't take much care to be quiet. He hears the guitar in his head when he teases Lily for blushing. “Don’t get any ideas, Lily, I’m-“ words! Oops, he misses the first line of the next verse. He jumps in in the second. “Out at a hotel in the quarter, our friends check in to pass the night,“ Lily whispers the next line and Sirius gasps, keeping his drumming on his knee. “You know the words!” he cries delightedly. Not enough wizards ever try to expand their music taste into muggle territory. He loves her. 

They giggle their way through the rest of the song, Sirius having to interrupt a few times with a cry of “Not yet: guitar!” or else “too fast!” There’s also a small speed bump where the line ‘New Orleans Queens… sure know how to  schmooze  it’ makes them both laugh so hard that Sirius is only mostly sure he collects himself in time. 

Slughorn actually comes around to check in on them when they’re both laughing and trying to keep mumbling through the words anyway, but Lily waves him off urgently with a “Not now, Professor, he’s counting!” which Slughorn takes in stride with a belly-shaking laugh. He just keeps walking, now moving to where James and Remus are working behind them (and struggling badly based on the smell).  

“When I step out, strut down with my sugar… They’d better not talk like Barry White- Contain yourself Red, I’m focused!” Lily absolutely cannot contain herself. Apparently she likes the idea of Sirius strutting his sugar… who wouldn’t? “Try to make it last all night… This is the last chorus, woman, pay attention! You’re almost- Sometimes it’s hard to feel it biteee.”

When he stops whisper-singing, Lily stands anxiously, a pinch of powder in her hands, hesitating over the cauldron. He holds up a finger with one hand, still drumming with the other, and the tension feels so thick, the anticipation…”Still a little more guitar,” he mumbles, and then it’s done. “Now!”

She sprinkles immediately, and a thick fog wanders up from the cauldron, an almost opaque white with maybe the slightest greying hue. “That’s… That’s really good, right?” he asks. 

“That’s exceptional, Sirius!” She tackles him into a hug, which he reciprocates, surprised, laughing. Over her shoulder, he catches the eye of a dark-haired Slytherin who glowers at Sirius from under a curtain of stringy hair. Lily pulls back, still laughing. “I genuinely could not have done that- You were fantastic! Sirius, that was just right.” She’s really grinning now, really laughing, and Sirius knows how so many blokes here are so clearly besotted with her. She’s a bit undeniable like this. 

He leans back in his seat, lets her do the bottling for them, turns around to check on his friends when she’s handing off their potion to Slughorn, but both James and Remus are too busy scowling into their terribly-wrong potion to notice him. He turns away eventually, not wanting to interrupt if they’re trying to track their three minutes. 

Actually, he desperately wants to interrupt if that’s what they’re doing. That potion is not coming on either way, and it would be fun, and he’s in such a good mood already, but he refrains. They look a bit too frustrated to be able to enjoy any perfectly healthy tomfoolery. 

Instead, he turns to Lily and interrogates her on Zeppelin, which she clearly knows at least somewhat, then on Bowie, on anyone he can think of, and she laughs, knowing them all. “Well, I’m from a family of muggles, Sirius, I do know a bit of muggle music. This is hardly underground, what you listen to.”

He accosts her for recommendations, then, and she seems happy to indulge him. By the end of the lesson, his potions textbook has a haphazardly scrawled list on its back cover, and he’s giddy with it all.

He tries to walk with James to the Great Hall, but James cuts away from him, slips through the crowd without a word in another direction, ignoring him as Sirius calls out. Sirius shakes his head, frowning, and turns to a surprisingly tight-lipped Remus. “D’you know what that was about?” 

Remus shrugs one shoulder. “You probably don’t want to be spending too much time with Lily,” he says instead of answering. 

Sirius’ head snaps over to Remus so quickly he could get whiplash from it. Still, he can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “Because she has muggle parents?” He asks, already knowing the answer. “Well, if I’m lucky she might care as much about my family as I care about hers, but clearly not everyone is so open-minded. If you think-“

It's one thing for Remus to not want to trust Sirius, to have his own (possibly well-founded) distrust, but he could at least have the decency to keep it to himself. Why would Sirius be talking muggle music with Lily if he thought muggles and muggle things were so far beneath him?

Remus is trying to say something back, and Sirius is still on his own tirade, and he can't hear either of them in the jumble of their increasingly loud voices.

“What is going on here?” An imperial voice cuts through Sirius’ rant. 

“Professor McGonagall, I didn’t-“

Sirius interrupts Remus, still shaking in anger. “He thinks I shouldn’t be allowed near muggleborns! He’s had a problem with me since the moment he heard my name.” This is too far. This is too much. They're making a scene now, and everyone can hear them. Everyone's going to be talking about Sirius, Sirius  Black . Just like the rest of his family, just like they thought. He's not even going to get a chance.

“Remus, is this true?” She asks, tall already, looking even more imposing in her floor-length robes and hard stare. Sirius fights the urge to shrink. Remus, although taller than her, seems to be sharing his struggle. 

“I, Professor. I think there’s been a misunderstanding, I didn’t-“

Remus is staring, pleading (lying), but Sirius won’t have it. “I misunderstood you? So when you said it would be for the best if I stayed away from Evans, you meant… what?”

Remus stares around. A crowd of students who’d been heading in the same direction as them has stayed to watch, Lily among them, frowning. Sirius feels another throb of anger at her being here, seeing this, seeing how people see him. They’d had such a fun time in class, and Remus has to do this?

“I didn’t- I…” Remus looks around again. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have said that. That was inappropriate.”

The apology doesn’t soothe Sirius at all, especially when it confirms what Sirius has only been able to suspect. “May I go, Professor?” Sirius asks, already starting to turn on his heel. 

He skips lunch, a brilliant idea for someone who’s already in a bad mood and hungry, but he can’t stand the idea of everyone looking at him, reflecting on the argument they’ve just overheard, speculating on it. Wondering if Sirius really is like his family. The distrust Remus has openly shown him now might catch on, and there’s nothing he can do about that. 

So he walks. He’s not sure where he’s going, but it’s not night, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about getting caught. He sees stairs, climbs them. They go way up, like the Gryffindor Tower’s steps. He ends up high in a tower. He intends to climb to the top, but can’t find the energy. He’s getting hungrier as he climbs. He finds a window that opens, one with a stone sill that he can sit in if he jumps. He opens the window as a courtesy and searches his bag for the ever-present half-forgotten pack of cigarettes. He lights one with his wand, leans his head back and smokes. Maybe that'll suppress his hunger for a little while, or at least quell the full-body shakes that come with this kind of anger.

He stays in his corner far longer than the cigarette’s lifespan. He just leans his head back against stone and tries not to think. Time passes. The sun has fallen low enough in the sky to shine directly into his eyes when he hears footsteps for the first time. 

“Can we talk?” Remus asks. 

Sirius knows he’s cornered, so he just huffs and lights another cigarette. He's not even sure about hopping down from the window when he would land on the uneven stairs. That feels like a good way of taking a tumble. Maybe he just lives up here now. 

“Sirius-“

“Are you going to tell me not to smoke?” Sirius demands, not really caring about anything else Remus might say. He takes a long pull from the fag while he waits for an answer, holds the smoke in his lungs longer than he might if he knew he’d be allowed another.

“No,” Remus says. “Can we talk?”

“Do whatever you want.”

Sirius had had to jump a bit to get into his perch, but it leaves him the same height as Remus, who leans against the opposite edge of the window on one of the higher steps. Sirius lets out a breath, slowly, enjoying the way the smoke clouds in front of him. When Remus doesn’t start speaking Sirius reluctantly turns his head to look at him in the spirit of getting this over with. 

Remus seems to take the eye contact as permission. “James has been in love with Lily since- since he saw her in first year, probably. He was so jealous in Potions... He couldn’t think, he couldn’t speak- he could barely breathe. The way you were laughing and talking, the way it looked so easy, he was jealous. It’s never been like that with them, and he was scared you might be interested in her, and- That’s what I was trying to tell you. You might not want to spend too much time with her, if you want James to see you as a friend and not a- a challenger? You asked what was wrong with him, and- I could hardly explain that to McGonagall with Lily standing right there, could I? You’ve made me look like a right prick.”

Remus shakes his head. Sirius notices how tired he looks, the bags under his eyes deeper than Sirius has ever noticed them. While Sirius is taking this in, Remus huffs and plucks the fag from Sirius’ hand, taking a long drag himself. 

Sirius finds himself weirdly hypnotized by the movement. The way Remus’ lips wrap- the- the way his eyes flutter- the, wow, the way the smoke curls out past his lips. 

Remus’ eyes open again and he starts to hand the cigarette back to Sirius. “Keep it.” The words fall out before Sirius can even process them. Remus takes another grateful pull. 

“They say these things’ll kill ya,” Remus mumbles ironically. He sounds half-dead already. 

“They might,” Sirius says, still watching. He shakes himself, forces his eyes back out the window, into the blinding sun. “So, you’re trying to convince me that you don’t have anything against me? Maybe James fancies her, but that’s not-“ He wants to look at Remus, see his reaction, but he forces his eyes to stay outside, to scan across the grass, the forest. No distractions. “You have an issue with me. And it’s not about James, and it’s not about Lily. It’s me. So, what? You’re going to try and convince me I’ve been flirting with someone you like too?”

“No,” Remus says quietly. “You-“ he laughs blandly. “It’s not like that.”

Sirius turns back to Remus in time to watch him snub out the cigarette on the wall, then vanish the bud wordlessly with a flick of his wand. “It’s like something though,” Sirius insists. "Because clearly you hate me."

“I don't... Listen. I don't hate you. Fine, yeah, it's something, but it’s  my  something. And I don’t want to share it with you, and I don't have to. You know. Privacy. Boundaries. Whatever.” Remus says it like it’s nothing, but he seems tense. Sirius sighs. 

He'd rather know, obviously. If that were an option. If Remus' problem really isn't with Sirius' family, maybe it's something Sirius could actually fix, and then they'd be fine. But if that's not an option, they need to come to some sort of compromise, because this isn't working.

“Well, I don’t care if you have secrets if they don’t affect me, but they’re affecting me. You can’t stand to be around me. You leave conversations when I join them, and we have mutual friends, and if they have to choose between me and you, they’ll choose you, and that’s rubbish for me.”

Looking at Remus, the troubled frown between his eyebrows, the way he clearly has a million thoughts racing through his head, it stresses Sirius out. He wishes he hadn’t given his cig away, but he doesn’t want to pull out another. It’s hard to get muggle money, so he has to ration his muggle indulgences. So he watches, waits, starts to shiver a bit from the cold stone against his back. 

“I will stop making my secrets your problem then,” Remus says slowly. 

“That easy?” Sirius sends a doubtful look to Remus, who shrugs and stares at his feet. 

“But, Sirius, you have to not try to figure them out.”

“Your secrets?” 

Remus nods, still not meeting Sirius’ gaze. “If I do things that make you wonder about me, you look the other way. You don’t ask questions, nothing. That’s- that’s the only way to do this.”

Sirius finds that he doesn’t hate the idea. He likes Remus, he’s liked Remus since before he’d ever spoken to him, before he’d even seen how nice he was to look at, liked him just from the way people talked about him. And against his better judgement, against all of Remus’ best efforts, clearly, Sirius still likes him now.  Is there anything dangerous or illegal about his secrets?  Sirius should ask at least that much, but that’s not in the spirit of this discussion. This is the part where Sirius either agrees, or he doesn’t. And... He trusts Remus. 

It all feels very heavy, very intense. He tries to lighten the mood when he answers. “I think it’s very sexy that you have secrets,” Sirius teases, trying to make Remus look at him. Remus doesn’t. “And scars,” Sirius adds. Remus looks up, then, but only for a second, going pink when Sirius is already watching him, catches him looking. 

Maybe none of this would bother Sirius so much if he didn't find Remus so incredibly charming. The way Remus frowns at his feet like he can't even understand whether Sirius is flirting with him, can't even fathom that he might be. 

Maybe this isn't the moment for Sirius to be flirting.

“I’m serious,” Remus emphasizes. 

“No, I’m Sirius.” It’s a dumb joke, his favourite dumb joke, and Remus doesn’t laugh. Sirius can’t see his face, but in his head Remus is smiling. “I don’t need to know your secrets. I won’t try. Can we be friends now? Close acquaintances?”

Remus is biting down on a smile when he looks over at Sirius again. Huffing, he agrees. “Acquaintances.”

Well, it's a start. “Good. Now, help me down. I’ve been stuck up here for an hour.” 

Chapter Text

At breakfast on Tuesday, Sirius can’t stop himself from looking over at Remus. 

If he thought Remus looked haggard yesterday, today he looks close to death. “Did you sleep at all last night?” he asks in a mumble. 

“Shh,” is Remus’ only response. Sirius pouts but eats without any further comment. He notices that Remus doesn’t eat. 

When Remus stands shakily with everyone else, Sirius doesn’t say anything. In his head, he’s asking a million questions. ‘What are your symptoms?’ ‘When did it start?’ ‘Should you skip class?’ ‘Do you want to head back to the dormitory?’ ‘Do you want to go to the hospital wing?’ And more, so much more. So much that he’s restless, edgy, but he stays quiet. Peter and James stay quiet. Even their normal bickering and banter is soft-spoken, subdued. 

They walk together to Charms, and Remus doesn’t take any notes, just sets his head on the desk, closes his eyes. Even when Flitwick encourages them to partner up, move around, Remus pairs with Peter, but only Peter does any actual magic. 

“You’re not worried about Remus?” Sirius asks James. He’s spent the past hour trying to find something to say that isn’t invasive but still might make himself feel better. 

James stares at Sirius thoughtfully, carefully, then answers. “No. I’m not worried. He’ll be alright.”

Sirius nods. He’ll be alright. 

—

When Remus isn’t in Transfiguration, Sirius is almost relieved. He imagines Remus in the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey fussing over him the way she fussed over Sirius’ infection. In the privacy of the toilets, Sirius checks the lion-shaped scar on his hip, reminding himself that Pomfrey is perfectly capable. He reminds himself that James isn’t worried. He’ll be alright. 

No Remus at dinner, no Remus in the library or the common room. When Peter pops into his room to grab another few rolls of parchment, Sirius tries not to look, but he looks. No Remus. 

He sleeps restlessly if at all. He paces his bedroom, then goes downstairs to pace the common room. He knows no one else will be down there in the middle of the night, but he pokes at the fire, lets the flames and the warmth soothe his brain. There’s no reason for it to help, but it does a bit. He sits there for hours on the hearth, his quilt wrapped around his shoulders. 

As the sun rises, the portrait hole swings open, then closed. Sirius squints into the darkness but doesn’t see anyone. Someone clearly didn’t close it tight earlier. The draught must have grabbed it. That’s one issue with being up in one of the castle’s tallest towers, although there’s something romantic about the view. Sirius turns back to the fire. He turns a log just to see the glowing embers on its belly, feeling the burn on his hand from how far in he has to reach with his poker. 

Eventually, he decides it’s late enough to go visit the hospital wing. He tries to remember the way, starting from a completely different area in the castle. He’s not sure he takes the fastest route, but it gets him there nonetheless. 

The door is locked, maybe unsurprisingly, but there’s a small window at the top, and he peers through it to see Madam Pomfrey bustling around. She’s brewing potions on one side of the room, then disappears behind a drape on the other side, and this relaxes Sirius. He watches her move back and forth, back and forth. 

She’s looking after him. 

Sirius doesn’t stay long. He feels incredibly tired suddenly, so he ambles back to his room, flops face first into his bed, sleeps. 

—

Sirius feels a wreck when he pulls himself into the Great Hall for lunch, and James and Peter don’t look much better. They look like they’ve hardly slept at all. Sirius doesn’t comment.  

He has Arithmancy in the afternoon, and he brings his body to class, sets it in a chair. It might even take some notes, he wouldn’t know. He spends the evening watching James and Peter play exploding snap, not processing any of it at all. 

He sleeps a bit when he can manage it, but most of his night is spent curled around the fire again. 

—

Remus does appear at breakfast on Thursday. He still looks rather awful, but he smiles at his friends and Sirius feels an unpleasant flip in his stomach. 

Sirius knows Remus is avoiding his eyes, and he tries to back off. Privacy and boundaries or whatever. He chokes down all of his questions, just sits. He sends Remus a little smile when he finally makes eye contact for just a second. 

Finally, Sirius can breathe well enough to ask James if he wants to go flying during their mutual free period. He has the clarity of mind to notice that James, while he does agree to go flying, still isn’t really talking to him. When they’re away from overhearing ears, Sirius remembers to talk to him about Lily. 

“You know Lily doesn’t fancy me, yeah?” he asks without preamble. He tried to think of a preamble, but nothing came to mind. The best he can do is jump in. 

“Well, give her time, she’ll come around,” James snarks. Sirius peers over at him, tries to catch his eye, but James is staring at his feet. “You and her seemed to be getting on fairly well in potions the other day. I can only-“

Sirius huffs a laugh. It’s a bit forced, but it does the job, surprising James enough that he looks up. “I don’t fancy her either, James. I don’t care if she comes around.”

James turns on him. “You were flirting with her,” he accuses. 

Sirius shrugs, no point in denying that. “I was bored! She’s cute, I wanted to make her laugh. I didn’t know that you liked her. How would I? You could have just told me to back off.” Sirius grumbles the last part, feeling a bit of resentment creep in over the fight he wouldn’t have had with Remus if James had been honest with him. “So. She’s all yours. Are we good?”

James stares at Sirius for a moment. “You won’t be dragging her off into some corner for a snog? I don’t have to change the locks on the broom shed?” 

Sirius laughs, properly laughs at this. “Nope.” He feels like he could say more, like James wants him to say more, but there’s nothing else to say. 

With a strange curious pride, Sirius realizes that James, James Potter, was jealous of him.  

—

Boundaries. Privacy. Whatever.  

Sirius wants to talk to Remus, but it’s almost harder now that there are rules, real rules. He’s not sure how to follow them. Before, when he knew he was unwelcome, always just testing the water a bit, feeling out how Remus would respond, that was easy. But now he’s supposedly welcome to be sort-of friends with Remus, only he doesn’t know how. Remus isn’t seeking him out, and maybe that means that Sirius isn’t actually wanted, just tolerated. 

Well, he knows that’s the truth, but he wants to change Remus’ mind. Only, the idea of even talking to him feels like too much. How can you befriend someone you can’t even talk to? 

He watches Remus now, sitting alone in the common room, under his favourite window. He’s always there. Maybe the light’s best there, maybe it’s the view. Could Sirius ask? Is that a good conversation? It’s not. Whatever. 

Sirius is studying with Lily, potions. She won’t give him any of the answers, but she points him in the right direction for readings anyway, so he doesn’t have to spend ages flipping through his textbook or searching the library for answers, and she mostly just seems pleased to have someone to study with. “The only person who’s ever willing to study with me is Remus, and frankly even when he’s in the mood… yeah, anyway. Some company would be nice. Sit,” she’d told him when he asked if he could join her. He wonders what Lily meant before she trailed off. Even when Remus is in the mood, what?

He almost sighs. He’s trying not to think about Remus. 

He’s still thinking about what Lily said, though, about studying with Remus occasionally. James doesn’t get jealous of Remus? If he’s spent time alone with Lily? Or maybe Remus made James the same promise that Sirius has, that any time he’s with Lily, he’ll be trying to talk James up.  

“James is rather good at potions,” Sirius says, not knowing whether that’s true. He finds out quickly. 

“No, he isn’t,” Lily laughs. 

Sirius shrugs. “You could help him, then,” he suggests. 

Lily looks at him, smiling amusedly, like she knows exactly what Sirius is doing. She probably does, but he lets himself be caught, just smiles innocently. “I don’t want to help him.”

When Lily looks back down at her work, Sirius can see Remus behind her again. He’s reading from a textbook like it’s literature, not taking notes, just reading. Awful. Sirius hates that he finds that charming. He forces his eyes back down, down to the essay that he isn’t making any progress in anyway. 

“I was still in France when we did this,” Sirius grumbles. 

“Amortentia?” Lily asks, not looking up. “We didn’t make it ourselves, but I have notes on what Slughorn was saying when he introduced it… That was on the first day, though, and he introduced a few. I’m not sure he said much… that lesson was a bit of a blur, frankly. No one could focus.” She shuffles through her bag, eventually shoving a pile of crumpled parchments his way. “If you find anything good, use it.”

Sirius riffles gratefully through the pile, not making any comments on her disorganization. Any help is welcome in this moment. He finds a page entitled ‘Amortentia’ with a decent amount of jotted notes and sighs. “You’re an angel, Red. If you need any help in Charms…”

He trails off, noticing a small scribble in the margin of the page. 

“Oh, I intend to put you to work, Black. I still can’t get nonverbal magic half the time, and it’s starting to be expected everywhere. And I’ve noticed you’re always using it, so I expect lessons.”

Sirius fights down his smile, knowing he absolutely can’t let her catch on to what he’s just seen. “Then you’ll have lessons,” he mumbles. Still staring. 

There, in an untidy, light-handed scrawl, two words right next to her notes on the love potion. 

Broom polish. 

Only once he’s long given back her notes and another hour’s passed does he risk saying anything. “D’you know anything about Quidditch? You’re not a fan, are you?”

She laughs, pulling her long hair over her shoulder so that it stops falling into her face as she works. “Oh, no. Everything I know about Quidditch is against my will. People are obsessed with it here, though, haven’t you noticed?”

Sirius laughs. “Some people, yeah. For some people, it’s their whole life.”

“Exactly! It’s like an addiction. A bit embarrassing, if I’m honest…” she trails off, frowning back into her work, distracted. 

Embarrassing, right. 

For all that Lily claims not to like James. Broom polish. 

Sirius feels strangely bolstered by this. Hopeful. When he’s finished his essay (just a short essay, punitive, assigned to Sirius after he was caught making some trouble in class), he excuses himself, pulls up a seat next to Remus. 

“You look good- better. You look better. Are- how are you feeling?”

Remus looks up from his textbook, stares at Sirius. He frowns a bit as he answers. “I’m… I’m alright.”

The silence is awkward while Sirius waits to see if Remus is going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “Well, good,” Sirius says, grasping for something else to say, chiding himself for not having thought this through better. “Good, because apparition lessons start next week, yeah? It’s tough magic, so we’ll all need to be in top form for that.”

Remus’ frown only deepens. “I’m not taking them, so…”

“Course you are. Bloody useful, apparition.” Sirius dismisses him easily, but Remus just shrugs. “No! You’re not?”

“Costs twelve Galleons,” Remus says easily, like that settles it. 

“I’ll cover you,” Sirius blurts.

“Sirius,” Remus says like he’s chastising him, letting him down easy. Like they both know he’s being ridiculous. “You’re not going to do that.”

“Sure I am. I’ll pay for you to get certified too, so try not to fail on your first go,” he says lightly, like it’s already settled, but Remus looks like he wants to argue. The more Remus looks unconvinced, the more sure Sirius is. Of course Remus has to be able to Apparate. “You’ll help me if you want. Tutor me in potions-“

“I’m not that good at potions!”

“Yeah, well I’m bloody failing, so I’ll take what I can get.” His tone is short, but his answer is gentler than the ‘Shut up! Just shut up and let me do this!’ that rings in Sirius’ head. 

Let me do something for you because I want to. Because I like you. Because I don’t know how to talk to you yet, but I can do this.

Remus shakes his head. “That’s still too much. That’s more than the cost of a wand.”

Sirius brushes it off. Twelve Galleons is a lot, he knows that, but it’s also nothing. It’s nothing to him, and Apparition is so vital in the wizarding world… Remus will be starting from behind if he can’t do it. It’s so common, honestly, that it should be free to learn, but it’s not free, and it’s still vital. So he’ll pay. It’s that easy. “So you’ll help me with other classes too, I promise I need it. You’ll be my personal tutor for the year. Professor Lupin.”

“I… Sirius, no-“

Sirius waves him off. “Do you think floo powder is free? Having your house connected to the floo network, they do that for free? Petrol in your, your-“ he  gestures vaguely until he can remember the muggle word, “-your pickup, is that free? It’ll save you money in the long run, so if you’re that poor you don’t have much choice, do you?” Remus flinches a bit at being called poor, which Sirius belatedly realizes is a bit tactless. Still, Remus looks closer to caving. “Oh, come on. Let me spend my awful parents’ money on you. It would kill them, so you know I have to.” He pretends to think about it. “Or… Annette said for three Galleons, she’d pierce my ear, so if I have twelve Galleons rolling around, that means I could get-“ he counts obnoxiously on his fingers.

Remus snaps his book closed and drops it into his lap, staring disbelievingly at Sirius. “Fine! You blackmailing pillock, fine. You would too, wouldn’t you? Don’t go putting holes in yourself to spite me, fine.”

“You would love my holes,” Sirius mocks, triumphant. It feels like a symbolic win, like Remus is accepting more than just a few Galleons from Sirius.

Remus drops his head into his hands, laughing in spite of himself. Sirius did that. He made him laugh. “You’re disgusting,” Remus mumbles, muffled by his hands.  

Chapter Text

It’s inevitable, really. 

Night after night, Sirius lets himself fall asleep with his nose pressed into a scrap of fabric, formerly a blindfold, once a tee-shirt. It doesn’t smell like anything anymore, but Sirius can almost remember. It’s inevitable that he should dream of Remus.

A Remus who looks back at Sirius, looks at him like he couldn’t force himself to look away, like he would never so much as try. A Remus who pins Sirius against the wall with fingers that hold tight to Sirius’ jaw, forcing him to look back. His palm is a weight on Sirius’ throat, and Sirius’ heart hammers back against it, and all he can do is succumb. All he wants to do is succumb.

As he looks back at Remus, the dream begins to shift, to fade, to distort, and Sirius fights to stay present, to see what happens next, to feel what happens next, to chase a friction he can’t quite reach.

He’s in his bed, of course, and he’s alone, and he’s awake. It’s not enough. The memory of the dream feels too far away, and he could scream into his pillow from the almost of it all.

—

Breakfast is almost painful in its contrast. Sirius sits next to Remus, who almost seems to curl away from him. Sirius feels a nasty pit gouging itself in the depths of his stomach.

“Morning, Lupin,” Sirius greets a bit stiffly. He doesn’t quite know why he’s last-naming him. Maybe to try and force himself to put some distance between them, maybe to see if it unsettles Remus, if it gets his attention. It does, for a millisecond. Sirius receives a quick searching look that’s barely there and immediately gone.

“Good morning, Sirius,” Remus answers, and there’s a pathetic tingling in Sirius at hearing his first name. Like Remus chose not to last-name him back, like he’s going out of his way to refuse Sirius’ attempt to put distance between them. Like it’s some coded but meaningful gesture.

What’s actually happening, obviously, is that Sirius is going absolutely insane. Obsessed and delusional out of his mind.

They don’t talk while they eat, but neither joins any of the surrounding conversations either, and so somehow the thoughtful silence is theirs among all the meaningless chatter. Sirius sneaks looks at Remus when he thinks he can get away with it, the breadth of his palms, the length of his fingers, the shape of his forearms with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, stunningly casual.

Sirius notices a curious red line on the inside of Remus’ wrist when he reaches for a roll. A scar so new that it’s not even pink yet.

‘If I do anything that makes you wonder about me,’ Remus had said almost a week ago, ‘look the other way.’

And so he does. Literally. He ends their moment of silence, turns to Mary and chats, flirts, anything to make all of her attention settle on him so that he can forget about anything outside of her spotlight. She tells him she’s been watching him train with James, and he’s very good at Quidditch. He’s not very good, but he lets her tell him otherwise. He puts all of his energy into making her laugh, revels in it when he succeeds, then brings her friends into the conversation to make it all the more consuming, three spotlights, giving him a full and proper audience.

Remus doesn’t join any other conversations, doesn’t break his silence. Sirius doesn’t wonder whether Remus is listening to him talk, doesn’t wonder if the burning weight on the back of his head is Remus’ gaze.

Sirius notices Lily giving him one of her famously searching looks, but he doesn’t focus on that, suddenly remembering that he has something very exciting to share with James. Broom polish.

—

“So Slughorn had Amortentia brewing in class on your first day, right?” Sirius whispers with Remus and James’ heads bent toward him in the short minutes before Transfiguration is set to start, the class buzzing with enough other low conversations for theirs to get lost. 

James and Remus exchange a quick look. Sirius uses the time to check over his shoulder, making sure Lily is still talking with her girls. Far enough across the room and distracted. Perfect. 

James and Remus are still in some sort of silent conversation together when Sirius turns back around, then James asks slowly. “Why are you bringing this up now, Sirius?”

“Well, my essay that Slughorn assigned me after I blew up Snape’s cauldron last week — you’re welcome for that by the way, he was muttering under his breath staring straight at you like he was trying to curse you. And-“

“Ugh. Creepy git, he would too,” James mutters with a curled lip. 

“Right, well I wasn’t even at Hogwarts yet when Slughorn taught his lesson on Amortentia,” Sirius starts again, again interrupted. This time by Remus, who lets out a breath. 

“Oh, you’ll be needing someone’s notes then, yeah?” 

“Actually,-“

James shakes his head, speaking quickly. “You don’t need to know what you smelled though, do you?” Sirius opens his mouth, but James talks right over him. “Because that’s really- well it’s different for everyone, because it’s the smell of love, for them specifically.”

“Exactly!” Sirius agrees, taking the opportunity to segue, “And so when I was reading about it and not finding what I needed there, I went and asked-“ Lily. I asked Lily and you’ll never guess what I saw in the margin of her notes!

James interrupts again. “No, no, reading won’t do it,” James scrunches up his face thoughtfully, scratching his chin with his quill, leaving a line of ink that he immediately smears as he rubs a hand over his chin. Sirius opens his mouth to try again, and James just holds up a silencing hand while he thinks. James looks to Remus with a bit of a smirk, then back at Sirius with a shrug. “You’ll just have to make something up. We’ll describe ours a bit to you, and then you’ll just have to try to guess what your equivalent would be. On the bright side, it’s not like Slughorn can really know. You just have to sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

Sirius squirms in his chair. He decides he can let James tell him about this first. Everyone with half a mind has a bit of a twisted curiosity about love potions. So immoral, somehow legal, desperately revelatory, but obscure too. There’s nothing like it. People almost never talk about their own experiences with love potions either since it’s so personal. Sirius has never heard anyone talk about their experience with Amortentia in real life. The closest he’s gotten otherwise was reading that tiny scrawled memo in the margins of Lily’s notes. “Yeah, do that,” Sirius urges. 

“For me it was really fresh,” James says, nodding to himself as he remembers. He shoots Remus another look from the corner of his eye. “All sorts of- a lot of smells that have a sentimentality. These flowers that used to grow in my gran’s garden, the tea my dad’s always drinking, something grape — but like from sweets or something… and-“ his cheeks colour rather delicately, and he stammers a bit but doesn’t slow down, only lowers his voice a bit further. “And a shampoo I’ve been smelling from… wet hair across from me at breakfast most mornings since I was eleven.” James nods to Lily at the front of the class, the red in his face and neck deepening as he adds, “She doesn’t even use that shampoo anymore.” A laugh, self deprecating. “I hate that I know that.”

Sirius fights off a bit of a smirk, trying not to laugh at his utterly smitten friend, but James only blushes worse in the silence. He actually presses the back of his hands into his cheeks and neck, like he’s trying to physically cool himself down, like that might help. “Remus,” James prompts, and Sirius’ eyes flick very interestedly to Remus. 

Remus gulps. “Right. So, what we can infer from that is that not all the love that Amortentia calls to mind is romantic.” His voice comes out a bit choked at first, but levels out as he gains momentum. “Nature is a big theme, so is food and drink, sometimes. So, if you-“

“Was yours like that too then?” Sirius asks innocently, interestedly, like the words aren’t a shot of adrenaline into his chest.  

Remus nods his head a bit jerkily. “Not exactly the same, but-“

“What was different,” Sirius interrupts, has to interrupt, has to say it immediately while he’s still brave, because suddenly he needs to know. Lily’s note is long forgotten. “What did yours…”

Remus’ dark eyes flick back and forth quickly between Sirius’, then he’s looking quickly away, talking to the desk. Sirius almost wants to look around, make sure that McGonagall won’t be interrupting with starting the lesson soon, but he can’t look away from Remus. 

“Smoke, I guess, and the detergent my mum uses when she washes my clothes, um-“

“Smoke like from cigarettes or from a fire?” Sirius’ heart is beating so hard it edges on nauseating. 

With Remus staring down at the desk, his hair falls into his eyes, obscuring most of his face from this angle when he shakes his head. “I- it’s hard to tell.” He breathes out, a sharp sound, then looks back at Sirius with a tight, awkward smile. “But, yeah. Anyway. It’s things like that.”

“There was more than that, wasn’t there?” James hedges. Sirius forgot he was there, but he could kiss him now. More, he needs more. He needs everything. 

When Remus answers, he’s staring at James intensely. Which is distinctly odd. He talks slowly, intentionally. “There was something else, but it was hard to imagine what it might be. I hadn’t ever smelled it before, or not that I could remember. Obviously, since it’s Amortentia, I must have smelled it at some point, but… yeah. I suspected it was a cologne.”

Remus is still staring at James, James staring back, having another one of those silent talks they’re capable of. “Oh,” Sirius says out loud, not particularly meaning to. Both boys snap their eyes over to him. Cologne, he’d noticed Remus had said. That’s a distinctly separate word from perfume. “D’you reckon you’d recognize it if you did come across it again?” The question is small, but it feels colossal, almost too big for him to articulate. 

Remus looks at him, finally. It’s not the stare from Sirius’ dream, not the same energy, intensity, but there’s a strength to it that makes Sirius’ palms sweat. There’s something in that stare that he recognizes, something that’s better than anything he could conjure in his own imagination. “Instantly.” Remus takes another sudden deep breath like someone who’s just come out of a chokehold. “Anyway— I’m sure that’s enough for your essay then,” he mumbles, finally looking away. 

Sirius handed the essay in two hours ago. “Yeah, thanks. That’s loads.”

Pete is sweating when he bustles into class, just in time. He might notice the strange mood. If he does, he doesn’t comment. “Prongs, you’ve got ink on your chin, right here.” He taps a few times on his own chin, puffing a bit for breath. He collapses into his seat on the far side of James as McGonagall stands abruptly, the class silencing itself for her instantly. 

James rubs his chin red with his sleeve, glaring accusingly at Remus, who’d been letting him wear the ink a bit smugly throughout this whole conversation. Sirius hardly notices. He wants to smell that cologne. 

Chapter Text

James and Sirius leave the crowd of sixth years studying up on Apparition up in the Gryffindor common room, although there’s certainly more than just Gryffindors up there. Anyone in the sixth or seventh year planning on taking Apparition lessons is boning up, afraid of leaving their toes behind them this afternoon. 

Maybe it’s the fact that Sirius and James have been surrounded by magic, sometimes powerful and ancient magic, their whole lives. Maybe they’re just arrogant. Still, both of them shrug, sharing a new look they’ve discovered which wordlessly conveys ‘brooms?’

They slip out through the portrait hole.  

“We should get absolutely hammered at some point, then see how we fly,” Sirius suggests as the castle opens up onto the lawn. It’s a tremendously somber day, air heavy with humidity. He feels perfectly sunny. 

“What a stupid idea. Badly, the answer is badly,” James dismisses, grinning like a fool too. 

Sirius stares at him contemplatively. “You’re more uptight than I thought you’d be.” He doesn’t mean it as an insult, just an observation. 

“I’m fun!” James defends weakly. “I’m just not reckless, that’s all. You- you’re mad.”

Sirius laughs. “You’re fun, you’re fun,” he coos condescendingly. He does mean it though, as much as he might taunt James. Just- all the rumours of him and Remus and Peter that Sirius has heard, he expected more… well, more recklessness. He’s a bit tame. 

“Oh, piss off. I have Firewhiskey in my room. We’ll set up some cushioning charms at some point, see what happens.” James rolls his eyes but skips to the shed excitedly. 

Sirius can’t help wondering if he’s a bad influence. No, he decides. He’s a revelation. 

—

They’re most of their way through their first apparition lesson before anyone makes any progress. The greasy Slytherin disappears with a crack. His ear lands on the ground with a light slap, and everyone swings around frantically looking for his body, which is nowhere near the hoop a few feet from the bloody ear. Eventually, someone finds him, silent and curled in a ball on the floor, dark robes and hair almost disappearing into the dark corner at the back of the room. 

James and Peter muffle their laughter behind their hands. Even Remus seems to be suppressing a smile. Actually, looking around, Sirius thinks the only person who looks even slightly perturbed is Lily, who stands perched on her toes, trying to see. There’s a slightly arrested look to her, but the puff of purple smoke that reattaches the ear to the snivelling bloke seems to cure her unease. She frowns and turns back to her hoop.

Sirius does the same. He hasn’t really been trying that hard. Part of him is so sure that if he just decided to, he’d Apparate. He would just decide, and then be there, anywhere. Still, he can’t seem to make the decision. Maybe he’s more scared of splinching than he consciously knows. Maybe he’s scared of being wrong. What if it’s really hard?

Still, seeing the greasy bloke- okay, he knows it’s Snivellus. Seeing Snape, Snape of all people, get it first… He hardly knows the git, but he still hates him. If James hates him, Sirius hates him.

If no one else can get better than that, Snape will be a hero. But if someone Apparates properly, Snape’s just the guy who got himself splinched. 

As he’s steeling himself, Sirius catches James’ expression, more focused than ever before. One of them will get it. James spins. Nothing. Spins. Nothing. Screws up his face- nothing. 

Sirius takes a few measured steps forward and stands in his hoop, his target. He tries to feel this spot. Memorize the room from this position. 

He steps back, focuses, decides. 

There’s a sick, tight, encroaching sensation. A heaviness in the air, a pressure on his skin. The whole world collapsing in on itself, on himself, and he decides. He can’t breathe, can’t move, but he repeats over and over. The hoop, the hoop, the hoop. The feel of it, the sight, the hoop. 

When he lands, his feet fall out from under him and he collapses onto the stone floor, banging every protruding bone in his body. His lungs feel so empty, but he can’t pull air into them- he realizes he has to breathe out first, somehow, and does. Oh, he feels sick. 

He’s plunged face-first, ice-cold into the memory of his first side-along apparition: his mother’s nails digging into the skin of his wrist, the frightened tears he couldn’t hold back, spinning, screaming. He’d felt terribly sick after that too. 

“Sirius!” James’ shout brings him back to the world. He remembers he needs to take breaths constantly, the one wasn’t enough. He needs to breathe, all the time, forever. Merlin, that sounds exhausting. He’s breathing again. “You bloody did it!” James is dragging him out of his hoop, holding up his crumpled body, cheering, and everyone is cheering. 

As the cheering gets louder, sharper, Sirius starts to come back into himself. He pulls his eyes open, finds himself facing Remus. He smiles a bit dumbly. “I did it,” he says, words garbling a bit. His head is still flopped on James’ shoulder, but he can’t seem to want to pick it up. “Woo.” He tries to infuse it with some vigour, but satisfies himself with the ironic apathy his voice manages to deliver. The worried, frenetic look about Remus settles just a bit. Sirius smiles wider at the fact that Remus had worried at all. 

—

“We could make Amortentia, if you needed it for your essay,” James offers out of nowhere later that week. “Have you handed that in yet?”

“Oh, I did, yeah.”

James sighs. “Shame. That could have been fun. It’s a complicated potion, mind, but… can you imagine the trouble we would have stirred up?” He lays grinning to himself, catching and releasing his snitch. It’s a bit of a ridiculous hobby for a Chaser, but James seems to enjoy it.

“Mm, sure.” Sirius turns the page in the Transfiguration Today magazine he found abandoned on the coffee table, probably Remus’. He doesn’t even bother to look up at James again from his position on the floor. “And what exactly would you do with Amortentia that isn’t completely immoral?” 

James laughs and tries to catch his snitch but misses. He lets it buzz around the room, still wondering. “Break it out in a game of truth or dare?” he suggests. 

“Have someone drink it?” Sirius asks. Maybe if they knew what they were doing, and they had the option to say no, maybe that could be funny. Maybe. He’s not sure he loves the idea. It’d be funnier to make someone fall in love with Filch or something.

“No! Like on a truth, make someone tell you what they were smelling…”

James’ head lolls off the couch cushion and he stares at Sirius upside down. “Mm, I wonder who you’d ask,” Sirius teases. 

“No one in particular,” he grumbles. Sirius laughs and scoots over on the rug until their heads are side by side, despite Sirius looking into James’ chin and vice versa. 

“Oh, so you wouldn’t want to know what I saw scribbled in the margins of Lily’s notes on Amortentia, then?” Sirius asks mildly, whispering. 

James moves so quickly that he tumbles over himself and falls completely off the couch. He rights himself as quickly as he can, rubbing his head, staring demandingly at Sirius. “Tell me.” Sirius starts to open his mouth, but James is already grabbing him by both shoulders. “Sirius-“

“Broom polish,” he says quickly, before James hexes him or something. Both hands disappear from Sirius’ shoulders to slap over his own mouth. 

“Shut up! What else?” James’ hands are now a prayer in front of him. 

“That’s it. That’s all she felt the need to write down.”

James brings his hands back up to his mouth. Down. Back up. “She doesn’t even like Quidditch,” he whispers. 

“She must like a Quidditch player then,” Sirius muses ironically. 

“Do you-“ James hesitates. His shock pulls his eyes comically wide, his mouth still agape. Completely struck dumb. He quickly collapses on the floor, hands covering his face. “Not someone I have to compete against,” he grumbles. “A Quidditch player! That’s my- that’s MY ONE thing.” He rolls onto his stomach, lays very still face-down on the floor. “Oh, or you- oh, it’s you, isn’t it? Everyone off falling in love with-“

“She’d never even heard of me when she smelled it.” And Sirius would never be caught smelling like broom polish, no matter how often James drags him out flying. He takes pride in the way he smells, and broom polish is rank. “Merlin, Potter, did you consider it might be you?” Sirius would laugh if it were a bit less pathetic. James just groans. 

“She hates me,” he grumbles. 

“She likes the way you smell,” Sirius insists. 

James shrugs. “I smell great. Quality pheromones. That doesn’t mean-“

Sirius bursts out laughing. He kicks James in the thigh to liven him up, but James doesn’t even react. “Yeah, you’re divine. I can hardly control myself around you— come off it. When you’re obsessed with how someone smells, that means something. It means one very specific thing, really.” He thinks of the scrap of Remus’ shirt on his pillow, then blocks that thought out completely. 

James rolls onto his side, looks very hesitant when he opens his mouth. “I do- I do think, just sometimes… when she’s looking at me just once in a while… I do think she might be attracted to me.” He swallows, but he’s speaking again before Sirius can comment on that. “But I don’t know how to make her like me. She doesn’t. Even if- even if it’s broom polish because of me, she genuinely doesn’t like me. So. It doesn’t mean anything important. Not really.”

Sirius sighs and flops down on the floor next to James. He doesn’t have any advice on how to make someone like him. He doesn’t have a clue. 

—

Sirius is wandering around the castle at night again. He tells himself that he doesn’t have any specific reason for it. Maybe he’s feeling caged in his small single room. The common room is a big enough space sometimes. It’s close to an escape most days, but when he looks over at the portrait hole knowing he can’t step through it, he almost has to. Suddenly the common room is just as much a cell as his room upstairs, his room in Grimmauld Place. If he knew how to get to the Honeydukes Passage, he might be wandering the streets of Hogsmeade by now. Or farther than that, even. Nick a broom from the shed and just fly... He’s not sure how far he would go.

He doesn’t have any specific place he wants to be. He doesn’t particularly want to be anywhere other than Hogwarts. Frankly, he loves Hogwarts. It’s the fact that he can’t leave, though, that makes him itch. That’s part of why he was sent here, he knows. Hogwarts is one of the most secure wizarding establishments in the world, so if you’re concerned your delinquent son might try to run away to escape the burden of his family, his supposed responsibilities, it’s the perfect place for him. May as well set up a classroom in a Gringotts vault. An Azkaban cell. It’s all the same. He’s trapped. 

He hears the footsteps.

He could change course, but what’s the point? Detention is just another locked door. 

There’s an ugly sense of resignation brewing in Sirius’ stomach. He doesn’t even bother turning around when the footsteps start to come down his corridor, when the wandlight falls upon his back, has him walking into his own shadow. He comes to a stop, lets Remus catch up to him. He knows it’s Remus. He hopes it’s Remus. James had said Remus was on duty tonight. He’s in the same part of the castle where Remus found him almost a month ago, the last time he was caught out past curfew.

“If you want a detention so badly, you could just ask. Save yourself the trip,” Remus says, a half a step back from Sirius, just barely out of his line of sight. 

“Wanted a walk,” Sirius mutters. He wishes Remus would step into his peripheral vision at least. To have him standing just at Sirius’ back feels strangely vulnerable, but to turn around would give that away. He stares at the distorted shape of himself on the stone floors. 

“Bored?” Remus asks. 

“Lonely,” Sirius admits, surprising even himself. It’s the truth, and it’s easy to admit here, somehow. Not looking at anyone, just his own long shadow. It’s dark. It’s late. He’s exhausted. “Can’t stand having a room to myself.”

In Beauxbatons he’d had a private room, but so did everyone. And on nights like this, he sought out Regulus. They hardly spoke anymore, but Sirius could turn up outside his door, quilt shrugged over his shoulders, and Reg would just make room in his bed. Even in the silence, both boys awake, unmoving, he wasn’t alone. And whatever was troubling him, Reg already knew. He got kicked when he snored, shoved onto the floor if he wouldn’t get up in time, glared at for making Regulus sleep poorly, but a few days later, Sirius might just open his own door in the middle of the night to find Regulus, tired eyes, quilt over his shoulders. 

A part of Sirius might just be wandering these halls looking for his brother, but he’s not here. 

“Walk with me.” Remus’ shoulder bumps Sirius’ as he starts to walk. Without a conscious thought, Sirius does as he’s told, syncs his steps to Remus’. 

His mind catches up to him eventually. “Is this allowed?” he asks as Remus puts out his wand light without a word. Surely, Prefects aren’t meant to let other people join them on their rounds. Last time, Remus sending him away without reprimand, that was surprising enough. If someone caught them out together, wouldn’t Remus be in trouble?

Remus snorts. “Who cares?”

Sirius feels a smile creeping up on him. He looks over at Remus in disbelief, in wonder. “You’re a terrible Prefect,” he says. 

“Exactly. You’re lucky it was me who found you.”

Sirius keeps looking at Remus. Hair unkempt, falling into his eyes. Neck bent, shoulders extra hunched from his hands being shoved so deep into the pockets of his robes. Wrinkled shirt, no tie. “You’re lucky you’re not at Beauxbatons, uniform in disarray like that,” Sirius mumbles. 

“You’re in pyjamas.”

Sirius shrugs. “I’m not on duty though, am I?”

Remus laughs at the taunt. “You really are begging for detention. Do you really want me to act like a proper Prefect, Sirius?”

“Ten points from Gryffindor?” Sirius guesses. “Twenty?”

“Hm, something like that, yeah.”

They walk for a long time. The sounds of their footsteps, their breathing. Their shoulders seem like they’re bound together with a short length of elastic. They knock against each other from time to time, then hurry to put the space back between them, neither of them good at walking in a straight line. He keeps his hands tucked neatly into his own pockets, putting them safely away.

“What did your cousin say about me?” Sirius asks eventually. He feels like time is passing too quickly in the silence, like he’s wasting a rare opportunity. “From Beauxbatons? James said he wrote her a letter asking about me, and her response made him and Peter decide to ‘adopt’ me. Do you know what she said?”

Remus doesn’t say anything, making Sirius spiral a bit. Remus does this often, ignores something that Sirius says. Something completely arbitrary. Sirius imagines that sometimes he’s getting close to one of Remus’ precious secrets, and other times Remus is just enforcing that space between them. Sending up red herrings so that if Sirius were to stop and think about each time Remus ever ignored a question of his, trying to puzzle together what that must mean he was hiding, Remus would have already lain several false trails. Sirius resents it as much as he respects it. It’s exactly what he would do.

“You know what’s funny,” Remus says eventually. “I haven’t seen Estella since… um… since she was seven, I guess. Her parents, they don’t like me much. Think I’m… not good to be around children.”

“You, a bad influence?” Sirius jokes. “Nonsense. No one more by-the-book than you.” Their footsteps seem to echo a bit louder to emphasize their rule-breaking . 

Remus ducks his head. “I wouldn’t have imagined she’d even answer a letter from me, let alone from James, whom she’s certainly never heard of. Just some guy claiming to be my friend. But I’ve been in touch with her ever since. I am grateful to you for that. I get to know her now.”

Sirius wonders at that. He thinks of Andromeda. She’s older than he is, and they’d seen each other more as children, but she’s been disowned now. He’s never thought of reaching out to his cousin. His contempt for his own family has run so deep for so long. He considers it now. She must have done something right, after all, to be disowned. All of his memories of her are so entwined with his memories of Narcissa and Bellatrix, all close in age, both so terrible, but maybe… maybe he could have a bit of family too.

He doesn’t make any plans, just tucks the idea away for consideration another time. 

“It’s hard, not knowing,” Sirius says eventually. “Having family that- that you feel like you’ve missed out on.” Regulus comes to mind. Reg, who slips a little further away every day. Sirius really feels that Hogwarts will be the nail in the coffin of their relationship, the end of any last opportunity to show Regulus the error of their parents ways. Another reason Sirius was sent away, surely. It feels selfish to be away from him, although Sirius didn’t choose it. He could have avoided this if he’d had the foresight, if he’d taken his parents’ threats more seriously. He knew that he’d been pushing his luck at Beauxbatons. He’d known it was only a matter of time. He’d pushed anyway.

He feels that guilt heavily as he walks with Remus. He carries it every day as he feels more like himself these past weeks than he ever knew was possible. Selfish, as he chooses himself over his baby brother. His baby brother who never wanted to be saved. 

“I didn’t want to know,” Remus says. “For a long time, anyway. I cherished the possibility. I thought about writing to her, and then imagined the best case scenario and held onto that instead. I didn’t want to risk the disappointment. I could have reached out to her, myself. Sooner.” There’s so much pain in Remus’ voice, and Sirius wants to distract him from it, force him to pay attention to Sirius instead. He bumps their shoulders together intentionally this time. More of a brush than a bump, really. Something that lingers.

He wants to say something, although it feels like there isn’t really anything to say. “Now is good enough, right?”

Remus glances over at Sirius but doesn’t answer. He pulls away to peer behind a tapestry, and Sirius watches him go without complaint. When he comes back to Sirius, Remus brings their shoulders together again. They walk like that for a while.  

Chapter Text

Sirius loses a week in the overlap between all of his coursework, assignments in each class leaving him with no time for anything but work. Well, apart from flying drunk with James, which they do try, and they do both throw up. 

Their next apparition lesson approaches quickly, and Sirius finds himself surprisingly edgy. Mostly, he manages to convince himself it was easy once, so it’ll be easy again. Other times, he doubts. Everyone will be watching him, and he wants to keep being the one who can apparate without any training. He hates the idea of all eyes on him in the Great Hall as he tries and tries and fails and fails and everyone watches, deciding that his success once was a fluke.

He’s twirling his wand through his fingers to calm himself. The repetitive movement is easy to pour all of his attention into, especially as he focuses on not dropping his wand or not accidentally sending sparks in all directions.

A bump against his shoulder alerts him of another presence on his right. He expects James, but turns to see Remus with him, silent too, just there. Sirius had purposefully let himself drift away from the excited chatter of Peter and James, but it seems Remus came with him. Maybe he needed the quiet too. 

“You’ll get it again,” Remus says under his breath, just loud enough for Sirius to catch. The instructor waves them in, and people start to find stations.

Sirius laughs, barely. “That obvious, am I?” He looks over at Remus, and Remus is already watching him. A different kind of nervous takes over when Remus gives him a little smile, bumping his shoulder again. 

Sirius makes his way to an empty station. Remus picks the one next to him.

Their instructor runs them through a summary of his last lesson but doesn’t add anything new. The wards are down for an hour, focus very hard, aim for the hoop. 

A lot of people do watch Sirius at first, and he’s tempted to try immediately, but he doesn’t. Remus catches his eye, gives a tiny shake of his head, and Sirius understands exactly what he means. ‘Not yet. Not until you can focus.’ He’s right, obviously. Sirius isn’t settled, isn’t anything. He’d probably lose his nose or his eyebrows if he tried anything now. 

People start to look away and focus on themselves very quickly once they’ve realized that Sirius isn’t going to be doing anything. He waits longer still. He watches people try, watches his hoop. He turns and watches Remus, who seems to be doing the same thing as Sirius, just letting himself absorb the atmosphere.

Remus’ eyes are closed, and Sirius takes advantage of the rare opportunity to just look at him. All sharp lines under soft curves. Defined cheekbones, floppy hair. Jagged scars, soft lips. Clean lines of his body, baggy jumpers. Square shoulders, rounded. He’s a million bottled contradictions. It makes him very interesting to look at. Sirius could look for ages. 

He might look for ages. He’s really not sure how long has passed when he looks away, but he feels calmer. Maybe it’s just Remus’ constantly collected, confined energy that’s so calming. No one’s ever seemed more in control than Remus, even when he looks half falling apart. 

No one’s made any progress, clearly, and people still crane their necks to check on Sirius, but suddenly he doesn’t care. He looks at his hoop, thinks about his hoop, focuses, focuses, and decides. 

The sick feeling is less intense when he can anticipate it, but he still lands on his rear in his hoop. Everyone looks up at the noise, but no one claps or cheers this time, just quickly gets back to what they were doing. 

Sirius steps back into his own station. He wants to land upright this time. 

He can’t. He lands over and over again in his hoop, people around him clearly growing increasingly annoyed with the disruption, but he can’t keep his balance on the ground. When he gets bored of feeling like he’s failing, he apparates into Peter’s hoop instead. 

Peter gasps and clutches his chest when Sirius lands in front of him and falls right down again, but Sirius just pulls himself up laughing. He aims for James’ hoop next and collapses right in the centre. As James is laughing, trying to pull a massively disoriented Sirius to his feet, the screaming starts. 

He blocks it out with his head spinning for a moment, assuming someone else has just been splinched. He can’t quite care about that when he’s still remembering how to breathe, trying to figure out how he fits into his own body, but it gets closer and closer to him, and then he finally starts to pick out the words, James shaking him a bit like he should be paying more attention. 

“Do you know what happens to two people who apparate to the same place at the same time if they are not careful with their bodies, their magical cores? They can end up inside each other! Instant death! It’s no accident that you each have your own hoops to aim for, Mister Black. Make your way back to your own, and if you pull something like this again, you will not move forward with this course. Do you understand me?”

Sirius nods quickly, apologizes heartily, and hurries back to his station with his head still spinning and his feet a bit clunking and unsteady. When he’s passing Remus (who finally looks ready to try) he whispers “Don’t feel left out, I was going to do you next.” He winks for good measure, then keeps moving, but the loud crack distracts him, and Remus’ body vanishes.

Sirius swings around ignoring his spinning head and finds Remus on his other side, almost in his hoop. Remus is gasping on the floor staring mutely at his hands as they pull away from his stomach soaked red. 

Sirius is on top of him before he can think, hands pressing against the source of the bleeding, eyes searching Remus’ station, trying to figure out what he left behind, but there’s nothing there, just blood — so much blood — pouring from between Sirius’ hands. Sirius is talking, yelling maybe, but he can’t hear anything, anything but a crashing, pulsing sound. He needs to stop the bleeding. 

Yelling. Yelling starts to cut through. “Remus, Remus,” he hears himself, too, over and over. Remus’ hands cover Sirius’, and Sirius says something, something about how he’s got this, he’s going to stop the bleeding, but he catches a glimpse of Remus’ face — pale, is he too pale? — a deep crinkle between his eyebrows, his mouth moving. 

Sirius watches in horror, realizing he can’t hear, but Remus’ voice comes through once he’s watching his mouth move. “It’s okay, Sirius. Look, look, ah- Look, I’m okay. You have to let go, okay? They’re going to heal me. It happens all the time.”

Sirius can’t let go, he’s bleeding. He can’t, but he does. He’s flying. There’s a fist in his stomach. Someone is lifting him up from behind, arms around his waist. He thinks he might still be talking to Remus. His hands are soaked, soaked with blood, and Remus, he can’t see him. 

He can stop the bleeding. If they would just let him, he could stop it. He could heal him. He’s done it before. 

He’s broken free from the person holding him before he even realizes he’d been fighting, but Remus is standing. Purple smoke is already dissipating in the air around him, and he grabs Sirius’ shoulders. They’re walking out. Sirius is walking backward, still stumbling, but he doesn’t care. He’s still looking at the massive red mess in Remus’ soaked-through shirt. 

Remus shouts something over his shoulder, but Sirius can’t process it. They’re outside of the Great Hall now, and Sirius’ feet are falling out from under him again. He hits the floor with a bang that he can feel rattling his brain.

“Breathe. Sirius, Sirius, breathe.”

He hears the words, he knows them, but they slip through his mind without taking hold. Remus is in front of him, kneeling, breathing exaggeratedly. Sirius is still staring, staring at the blood. Blood on Remus’ hands as he gestures while he speaks. 

A breath gasps through his lungs, and then he’s hyperventilating, and quickly he starts to understand Remus’ gesturing. In, out. In, out. 

His panic makes room for other thoughts. He can hear again. “You almost died,” he whispers. 

“I wouldn’t have died. That’s why we take apparition lessons, Sirius. People get splinched all the time, and they get healed. Look.” He pulls his shirt, pulls and pulls until it’s untucked, then reveals his stomach. “All gone.”

There are scars there, deep scars, but nothing recent. Smears of blood over white crisscrossing gouges. “What,” he pants, “the fuck happened to you?”

Remus jerks his shirt back down. “Got splinched. Come on, time to get up.” He stands up, steps toward Sirius, holds out his hand. 

Sirius takes hold, lets himself be dragged to his feet. “I can’t go back in there,” he says. He’ll feel embarrassed later, probably, but now he’s just exhausted, overwhelmed. “I think I apparated too many times. I feel all wrong.”

“We’re going to the hospital wing.” Sirius doesn’t let go of Remus’ hand, so Remus drags him away from the Great Hall. It’s raining quite terribly, he notices. There’s a window in the distance that’s basically just grey. “I need a potion to help me make more blood, and you- I don’t know what you’ll get. Something for shock.”

Sirius swallows. Pictures keep flashing into his head. Remus bleeding on the floor. Regulus, his back in ribbons, bleeding out face down. Sirius on his back looking up at his own hands, blood. Touching his scalp, touching something where a chunk of scalp should have been. 

“I could have healed you,” he says, more to distract himself than because he cares who was the one to look after Remus. Or maybe he does care. He’ll decide later. 

“Yeah, no offence, but I wouldn’t want you pointing a wand at me in the state you were in.” Remus’ hand squeezes his. He’d forgotten that they were holding hands, but he focuses on that now. He stares down at their hands. Sirius’ are paler, Remus’ a bit bigger. Both are sticky with drying blood. “You’re hardly calm in a crisis.”

“You were calm,” Sirius says, only just realizing. “Insanely calm.” Then again, Remus has clearly sustained innumerable magical injuries over the course of his life. It’s impossible, the thought that he could be used to the pain. Sirius never got used to it. “I’m never calm, but my spells always work.”

“Do a lot of magic under pressure, do you?” Remus asks. He’s looking at Sirius in a way that’s probably too intense, too searching, but Sirius can hardly focus on that.

“More than I’d like.” He stops, forces them both to stop. He’s untucking his own shirt, compelled to share with Remus. “Look at this-“

“Sirius, if it’s your stupid tattoo again-“

Sirius laughs a bit waveringly. He pulls his shirt up further, his abdomen on the left, high, up by his ribs. “It’s not quite where yours was, but-“ he curls a bit to look at the scar, pink, bumpy, jagged. 

“Sirius,” Remus whispers, fingers not tracing the scar, but the skin next to it, like he’s worried it might still hurt at any contact. Sirius shivers but doesn’t move away. 

“So I could have healed you. I didn’t get this one quite done before I passed out, but I was bleeding quite badly… I wasn’t bleeding today. I could have healed you. Even if I was scared, I could have done it.” He’s staring into Remus’ face, begging for him to look back, needing him to know. He could have healed him. Remus’ eyes move from the scar to Sirius’ face, Sirius’ eyes. The hand ghosting over Sirius’ skin tightens into Remus holding onto him. 

“I believe you,” Remus says gently. His eyes wander over Sirius’ face for a long time before he steps back. “Hospital, Sirius, come on. I’m… lightheaded.”

Sirius nods, a bit struck dumb. He grabs Remus’ hand again before he can think about it. Immediately, he panics when he realizes what he’s done, but Remus just slides their fingers together again like it’s easy. Maybe it is easy. 

—

Sirius gets a Pepper Up potion, winces through the smoke that comes out of his ears, and is told to rest, lie down. Another potion a few minutes later, this one vaguely minty. Rest, Pomfrey urges. He does as he’s told, curling onto his side in the hospital bed, exhausted, but feeling more like himself. Remus lays in the bed beside Sirius’, taking a shot of potion every few minutes for his blood, coughing and gagging every time, but never complaining. Every time Madam Pomfrey brings him the potion, she closes the curtain between their beds, and every time she leaves, Sirius spells it open again. 

“I will confiscate your wand,” she threatens sternly, then seems to make the decision, plucking Sirius’ wand from his bed, walking away with it in hand. 

When she leaves, Sirius spells the curtain open wandlessly, finding Remus already looking over, like he was waiting for it. 

“D’you even need a wand,” Remus asks sarcastically. “Your magic is insane.”

Well, I am a pure-blood, he almost jokes, but he’s not sure whether he can say things like that and have Remus know that he’s joking, so he just shrugs. “I can do a lot without it,” he says instead. 

Remus turns on his side too, facing Sirius, and it’s too cute. His face half-smooshed against the pillow, hair all over the place. Attention entirely on Sirius. “Like what?”

Sirius thinks. Mostly things he’s had to do back home when they take his wand away in the summer. Technically he has the trace on him still, but he learned years ago that that either doesn’t work well in such a magical household, or no one actually cares. “Locking and unlocking doors. Summoning. Healing, loads of healing. Scouring, for messes. Aguamenti. It starts to get easy, wandless magic. Well, no, it’s never easy, but once you get a few spells down, you realize you can probably learn all sorts of things. It’s learning how to learn how- if you know what I mean.”

“I really don’t,” Remus says. He’s still staring at Sirius with an expression that’s hard to decipher, but Sirius wants to bask in it nonetheless. It feels almost fond.

Sirius shrugs. “It’s natural. The first magic any of us does is without a wand. I think we should be learning both, honestly. I think we should never stop using wandless magic, just because we have wands. Actually, I think the ministry wants us reliant on them because they’re in control of the distribution of wands. They’ve restricted certain population groups in the past, right? Muggle-borns for instance. They want to be in control of who has access to magic, but they can’t take away people’s magic, only snap their wands.”  

He doesn’t know where the rant comes from. A loosening of his lips from that second potion Pomfrey had him take, he suspects, but it’s true nonetheless. 

“You are a proper conspiracy theorist,” Remus points out, a delighted smile on his face. 

“I am not!” He doesn’t want to shout and bring Pomfrey back in again, so he lowers his voice. “My parents have connections in the ministry. It’s not a secret, what’s happening, and they’re doing it on purpose. All the families with generations of money piled up are purebloods because only people born into wizard families have wizard money, and generation after generation… they just keep building themselves up. Then they pay their way into the offices of people who make big decisions. Money controls everything, Remus, and only old magical families really have it, and guess what? Purebloods teach their children wandless magic, the smart ones, anyway.” Remus is still looking at him, half a smile on his face. He’s laughing at him. 

Sirius feels his blood pressure starting to rise. He wants Remus to understand. It’s so obvious. It’s everywhere. How people don’t see it, he doesn’t understand, but the ministry is corrupt. It’s being bought out a bit more every day by people who only intend to make their lives easier, themselves richer, their families more influential and important. “Seriously! Look at the legislature they’re trying to pass on werewolves! Same thing, trying to restrict wand usage around the full moon. That’s insane. Anyone who’s taken the required Defence Against the Dark Arts courses knows that werewolves can’t use their magic when they shift, and they’re only out of their own minds when they’re shifted, one night a month. Then why would they propose that legislation, Remus?” 

Remus frowns. “They’re afraid of werewolves, like anyone else in their right minds Sirius. It’s just fear. They don’t understand-“

“If they can’t understand werewolves, they shouldn’t be writing laws about them! But they can understand. They understand. 13 year olds learn enough about werewolves to be able to disprove the logic behind those laws. And if they were that scared of werewolves, they’d be doing their best to find a cure-“

“They’re researching-“

“They’re not! They don’t put any money behind it! They let project after project fail! Because it’s never been about fear. Keep your doors locked on a full moon, a few protections here and there, you’re fine. It’s not perfect but when you have money like they do, houses behind iron gates, and an actual functioning knowledge of the magical world, they’re fine. It’s muggles more than any other population group who get bit because they don’t know about werewolves in the first place. Unless a wizard goes and pisses off a werewolf specifically, they’re fine. There are so many more dangerous things in the magical world to be regulating. More people are killed or seriously injured each year by faulty and inconsistently-made cauldrons than by werewolves, dozens of times more, Remus, but no one is afraid of that, are they? These people in the ministry, they’re not afraid. It’s about blood purity. It always has been. They all want to be on top, so they need to squash down everyone beneath them. And no one is actually special, so they need to invent reasons that other people are worse than them, weaker than them, stupider than them, more dangerous than them.”

Remus shakes his head. Sirius can hardly believe it, especially the open disgust in Remus’ face. He can’t believe it. “You’re mad if you’re not afraid of werewolves.”

He can’t believe it. Remus, Peter, James… they were supposed to be different. Hogwarts was supposed to be different from Beauxbatons. He can’t believe he’s having these same arguments again, that still no one believes him.

“It’s one night a month, and everyone knows when it is! If we weren’t vilifying them all and actually providing resources for their transitions, safe places— and anyway, this is about whether the ministry should be able to take their wands-“ clacking footsteps make Sirius bite his tongue.

“Mister Black! If you’re well enough to get out of bed to tamper with that curtain, you’re well enough to go to class. Off with you, come on.” Madam Pomfrey shuffles Sirius out of bed, out the door. She pushes his wand into his hand, and then he’s standing in the hall alone. Alone and angry.

Remus wasn’t even listening.

Chapter Text

Sirius skips Arithmancy.

He has no friends in the class. He’s missed the first half. It’s boring. He’s already been excused — probably — for being in the hospital wing, so why bother? And anyway, he’s in a mood. Apparating too many times in a row left him disoriented, then seeing Remus splinched slapped him into a scattered, almost nostalgically panicked headspace, and the subsequent argument with Remus didn’t help him settle at all. He’s exhausted and bad-tempered, and his breath still tastes like that strange green potion in a way that gives him an angry headache.

He stomps through the portrait hole. Somehow he expects to find the common room empty in the middle of the day, but there’s a handful of older students lounging about, all of whom must have free periods now. He spots James and Peter, snaps without thinking. “Do you think the crusade against werewolves is fair, then?”

“No,” Peter and James reply easily, staring at Sirius, exchanging looks, probably wondering why he’s so wound up. He collapses on a couch. 

“Thank you,” he says. He doesn’t feel finished, but he rolls over and pushes his face into a throw pillow. Merlin, he feels terrible. He can feel Peter and James staring at him. He can hear the curious edge of their whispering, and he remembers that the last time they saw him and Remus things were a bit more dire. Right. It must look bad that he and Remus left together, but he’s come back alone. “He’s fine, by the way. Potions for blood. Well, he’s bloody ignorant, but he’ll live.”

“Sure… And you?” James prompts. 

“In a bit of a mood, thanks.” His tone is too harsh. He buries his face in the pillow further and stays there until he realizes he can’t breathe. He turns his head to glare at a rug instead. 

“Fly it off?” James offers. 

“Yeah.” He means to say ‘it’s raining so hard we’ll hardly be able to see three feet in front of us’, but he’s already standing up. 

“Come with, Pete. We’ll just fly, no Quidditch.”

Peter joins with a hop. Sirius sneers a bit at the ‘no Quidditch’. He wants to hit something, and a Bludger seems like his best bet. Still, he’s never seen Peter fly, so he tries to focus on the fun of that. “We’ll share the brooms? Or do we borrow one from the school?” Sirius asks. He doesn’t particularly want to share, but his own broom is… Where even is it? Did it make it back to Grimmauld Place or is it still at Beauxbatons in their broom shed?

“No, I have enough,” James says easily. 

“How many brooms do you have?” Sirius asks, turning to gape.  

“Here?” James asks. “Three. The ones you and I practice with, those are last year’s and three years ago’s. I save my good broom for games, just in case. My parents only buy me one a year, see, so I try to be careful with it.”

Peter snickers at the look on Sirius’ face. “What,” Peter mocks. “You think his parents should buy him two brooms a year? That’s a bit excessive, Sirius.”

“James,” Sirius says as level as he can manage. “You’re rich.”

James laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day. “Well, yeah. Aren’t you?”

And Sirius is. He knows James is asking that because of his name, Black, and he is. But his family’s money is meant to buy power, not toys. In everyday life, Blacks are exceptionally frugal. “I mean, yeah, but my parents don’t buy me things.”

James shrugs. What’s there to say to that, really?

“How’d you manage to convince Remus to let you pay for his Apparition lessons, by the way? I tried for weeks, and he wouldn’t let me.”

Sirius laughs in spite of himself, in spite of being annoyed with Remus, in spite of not really wanting to think about him at all. “Threatened to pierce my ear.”

“Oh, that’s diabolical.”

—

In his time thus far at Hogwarts, the morning post has had no reason to concern Sirius. Peter’s mother writes often, sometimes every day. Remus’ parents check in around once a month. James’ family, weekly, sending treats usually. Sirius reads the letters that get passed around, the Daily Prophets that hold any intrigue, and he’s content. After years of dreading the inevitable Howlers from his mother, the silence is most welcome. 

When a letter lands in Sirius’ cereal on Friday, Sirius can only stare. 

James pulls the letter out, shaking it a bit as it drips on the table, then spelling the milk from the sodden envelope. Sirius frowns at the handwriting. Sirius Black in that same curling cursive that Sirius was taught as a child, only neater, more loopy and dramatic. 

James is holding out the letter. Sirius realizes eventually that he’s meant to take it, but he can’t seem to pick up his hands.

“Do you want me to open it?” James whispers. Sirius nods. He hadn’t been expecting a response, really. Maybe Regulus is wishing Sirius a happy birthday in return. It would be just in time. His birthday is tomorrow.

There’s something awkward about announcing your birthday to strangers, so Sirius hadn’t been planning on celebrating at all. It’s a nice thought, that Regulus would remember.

James tears through the envelope, leaving ribbons of paper scattered around his plate. The note he pulls out might be the shortest letter Sirius has ever seen. Sirius leans into James, peers over his shoulder. It does not take long to read. 

Sirius

I received your letter. Do not contact me again. 

Yours colourfully, 

R. A. B.  

Right. Sirius waves the letter away wordlessly when Remus and Peter look inquisitively from the other side of the table, and they read it just as quickly. Peter lets go of his side of the parchment, but Remus continues to frown into it. Sirius watches Remus confusedly. There’s hardly much to see. 

With a heavy weight in his stomach, Sirius finally looks away. He doesn’t need the letter back. Remus can keep it if he finds it so interesting. 

“Does your brother always sign like this?” Remus asks eventually, turning the letter around like Sirius might need to see it to confirm, like he hasn’t already memorized everything written. 

“ ‘R. A. B.’ ? Not really, I wouldn’t think. I guess he’s making a point, angry or something…” He chuckles dryly, humourlessly. “My fault. I should have known better than-“

Remus shakes his head, points. “ ‘Yours colourfully’. I’ve never heard of someone signing off a letter like that. Does he normally?”

Sirius frowns. “Not… that I know of. We’ve never done much correspondence.” This is the first time they’d ever needed to. They’ve never been apart before, not since Sirius’ first year at Beauxbatons, and Regulus could barely write coherently back then.

Remus nods, stares back into the letter. “ ‘I received your letter … yours colourfully,’” Remus reads slowly. “Sirius, I think he’s saying he’s writing you using his new quill. The peacock feather quill that you sent him.”

Everyone’s leaning in toward the letter now. Peter takes it from Remus, who lets him easily. James stands as much as the bench seating allows, trying to peer into Peter’s hands. “Okay, so he’s using his quill. And?”

Remus hesitates, tilting his head like he’s almost there, like he’s still puzzling it out. “He’s writing you a letter, but he’s telling you not to write him back.” Yes, Sirius had picked up on that much, actually. “He’s acknowledging your letter openly, but not the gift. But he’s using the quill, and he wants you to know that.” No one says anything while Remus thinks, while everyone thinks. Remus peers over at Peter again, and Peter hands the letter off easily. Remus frowns into it. “When you were sending him his gift and whatnot, you said you expected your mother to interfere, right? You weren’t even sure if he’d receive any of it?”

Sirius nods. She could have arranged that Beauxbatons block any post sent by Sirius. He’s sure that she would have done so if she expected him to write, but she’s just as bad at anticipating when Sirius will rebel as he is at knowing when she’ll lash out. Clearly his package made it to Regulus. “He’ll have told Mother that I wrote him, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He’s always been a little snitch, hasn’t he?

“Do you think she’s told him not to be in contact with you?”

Sirius shrugs. “Yeah, maybe. Probably.” Definitely. “So, what? He’s saying… he’s saying just that. I shouldn’t bother contacting him again. Unless…” Sirius trails off, waiting for someone to fill him in on the rest. Clearly they think there’s something else going on.

“He’s chosen to write you. Not answering you at all would have sent a clearer message.” Remus scrubs his hands down his face, grabs the now slightly abused, still vaguely damp letter, frowning into it. 

“Does it mean anything that he’s written you in English and not French?” James asks. “Would he normally…?”

Sirius shakes his head. “We speak English at home, almost exclusively. My parents switch to French when we’re in trouble.“ Trouble is an understatement. Regulus would never speak to him in French. “He and I don’t... no. We don’t speak to each other in French.”

It’s Peter that speaks up next. “Well, if he’s pretending to be colder toward you than he actually feels, he’s protecting you from something, isn’t he?” He looks at James instead of Sirius, like he’s scared of how Sirius might react. Sirius just frowns. 

“When you said you were at Hogwarts because you’re in trouble with your family,” James prompts slowly. “How- What happens if you… if you’re in more trouble?”

Even with all the bravery he can muster, his mouth goes dry when he answers. “Disowned, disinherited, disgraced.” He chuckles hollowly when the uncomfortable silence becomes too much. “The three D’s.”

Three pinched faces stare back at Sirius. He stares at the letter in Pete’s hand just to avoid seeing the look in their eyes. 

“You’ll have to be really careful, Sirius,” Peter mumbles. “With detention, with your marks, anything they can use against you, probably.”

“Yeah,” Sirius says. His voice sounds choked and strange in his own ears. It makes sense, doesn’t it? He knew that in coming to Hogwarts, this was the last step before he was disinherited. He knew he wasn’t meant to reach out to Regulus, and he did it anyway. He knew. He knows. 

He’s never been any good at reading his mother, and knowing when he’ll be crossing the line, the last line. Even now, clearly. 

Well. 

It’s everything he’s ever wanted, isn’t it? To be officially severed from the Black family. If writing Regulus was such a dangerous move, it’s basically a game of postponing the inevitable now. It always has been though, hasn’t it? Why not now?

But he knows it’s not that simple either. He hasn’t got anywhere else to go. He thought he’d have more time. He’s sixteen. Andromeda wasn’t cut off until she was engaged to the muggleborn. She’d finished her schooling, Hogwarts and what came next. Sirius isn’t even of age. 

He’s of age tomorrow. Maybe it’s time.

He has some money of his own. As of tomorrow he’d be able to sign a lease, no? He doesn’t really know how those things work… He’d have to find out.

He’ll be completely alone, but that’s fine. It’s fine, isn’t it? That’s… that’s better, probably. 

He’s getting an earlier start. A shorter sentence. He can… It’ll be hard. It’ll be really hard at first, but sooner is better. It has to be. It’ll be better.

“Sirius,” Remus says gently. He’s watching Sirius closely from across the table, so he paints on an indifferent look.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Right on schedule, really.”

“Sirius-“

“I’ll have my letter back, thank you. And I’m gonna go. Yeah… put this in my room.”

He turns his back on three sets of eyes brimming with pity. But he’s decided now. He’s made his decision, and there’s nothing left to do. He’ll be fine. He’ll be disowned, but he’ll be fine. As of today, as of right this moment, his life has changed course. The hard part’s behind him now. It’s over. He’s decided. It’s fine.

Chapter Text

Sirius isn’t sleeping, but that’s hardly an illness.

It’s hard to skip class at Hogwarts unless you’re properly sick. Sirius isn’t.

He starts by excusing himself to the loo during lessons, staying as long as he thinks he can get away with it. Returning to class after about half an hour seems to be the limit. He’ll get a stern look, but no comment. 

He can turn up to class late occasionally, but that only shaves off a few minutes here and there, so he doesn’t bother much with this one. He’s late accidentally too often anyway. His mind is all wrong, and his grasp on his own schedule is iffy at best. Anyway, he just doesn’t care. That’s probably what’s most insidious.

He learns better on his feet than with a textbook in hand, or it feels that way lately. Information needs to be forced into his brain, grounded in action somehow. Listening to someone talk for ages without actually doing anything, his eyes glaze over, his brain can’t hold onto the words he’s hearing. He tries to take notes, but lessons move faster than he can figure out what to write down, and nothing makes sense anyway. He’s exhausted. Going to class feels like such a waste of time. 

By the end of the week, he’s learned that the best he can do is sleep in class, or else lay his head down on his desk and try to let the lesson pass him by.

Being away from Regulus with the powerful reminder that they’re both still very much under their mother’s thumb, now separated and unable to protect one another… sleeping in class is about the only place he can get any rest anyway. In a distant sort of way, Sirius worries he might wake up one day sweating and screaming, but mostly he knows that he sleeps far better when he isn’t alone, even if this is the worst possible way of arranging it. 

His friends start to worry after about a week, but he brushes them off. When his life feels like it’s collapsing out from under him, it’s hard to have any patience for James and Peter, their perfect families and girl troubles. Oh, Lily doesn’t like James back? Peter’s crush is dating women? Wow. Who fucking cares?

He has less patience for Remus. Remus and his big, sad eyes. Remus who grows increasingly grouchy and impatient when it’s clearly Sirius’ turn to be in a mood. Remus and his scars and his secrets. He tries to talk to Sirius a few times, and Sirius can’t even be excited about it. He’s just angry. Not at Remus, not specifically, but it’s easier to be upset with the people he can actually see. He has all this miserable resentment simmering inside of him, and it desperately wants to burst outward onto something real. And there Remus is, watching him with those big sad fucking eyes filled with pity and worry and we should talk about this.

Why would Sirius confide in Remus anyway? Secrecy cuts both ways.  

But Sirius doesn’t have any secrets, does he?

His friends know exactly what Sirius is going through — they helped him decode the letter. He’s been open from day one about his family situation, despite how he makes light of it, brushes it off like it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows. The big sad eyes that fall heavy on Sirius when they think he isn’t looking, they know. 

Still, Sirius doesn’t need to have secrets, not when he’s busy. Busy, busy, busy. He’s in detention most days for the little pranks he’s been playing on Snivellus. He doesn’t really know Snape well, but James hates him, and Sirius needs something to do. He sleeps in detention, too, and McGonagall doesn’t try to wake him anymore. At some point, the bags under his eyes started looking less punk-rock and more bruise-y. Because, of course, Sirius has no secrets. McGonagall knows he’s using the safety of her and her office to sleep, so she grades papers while he sits slumped in the chair across from her desk. Sometimes he misses dinner, but there’s a tray of sandwiches on the corner of her desk, and he swipes a few on his way back to Gryffindor Tower.

He suspects that she’s keeping his indiscretions a secret to the best of her abilities, downplaying the situation so that no one contacts his parents. He considers escalating the situation, forcing her hand, forcing his parents to make their final decision on him, but he doesn’t. He nods at her before he leaves in some sort of silent acknowledgement, and heads back to the Gryffindor Tower. It’s so late when he gets back that the common room is already empty, and he wonders if he was meant to have an extra long detention, or if McGonagall just didn’t want to wake him up.

He’s overheating, bundled under his quilt in front of the fire, but he likes the way the heat of the flames dries out his eyes enough that they inevitably fall closed. It’s almost like sleep. It’s restful, vaguely, anyway. He peels his sticky eyes open at the sound of the creaking portrait, the click as it closes.

Remus looks nearly as dead on his feet as Sirius feels. They take each other in silently, and questions bubble up in Sirius’ mind, about Remus’ rounds, anything, but he squashes the urge to make small talk. He wants to be alone, he reminds himself. He doesn’t want to talk to Remus. 

Remus takes a few dragging steps into the common room but not specifically toward Sirius. They stare at each other, neither making the first move, neither seeming to really want to. Sirius watches as the stairs seem to call to Remus. His body almost sways away, but his eyes hold onto Sirius. 

“Three splinchings in Apparition lessons today,” Remus says finally, still not moving toward Sirius, but turning to face him more fully. Fighting the pull to his dormitory. 

Sirius hums and turns back away, back to the fire. He hadn’t been in the right headspace to Apparate, but maybe he should have shown up, stood around and pretended to try. He’d reasoned that since he paid for the lessons, he could skip them if he felt like it. He’s not really inclined to think about whether that was the right call. “It’s dangerous to Apparate when you’re distracted,” Sirius answers slowly, pointedly. Defensive. 

“Learned that the hard way, didn’t I?” Remus’ hand twitches toward his abdomen. Sirius stares at the almost humorous look on Remus’ face for too long before he realizes that his eyes found their way back to him without Sirius’ permission. 

“Go to bed, Lupin,” Sirius says. “You look like you’re getting sick again.”

Remus’s body shifts like he’s about to walk toward Sirius, but he seems to shake himself out of that. He nods without a word and turns to the stairs. Sirius doesn’t watch him walk away but listens to his surprisingly heavy steps as he climbs the staircase. Even the way he walks seems tired. 

—

Sirius yawns at his station in potions and chats with Lily as he waits for class to start. She’s good to talk to: she keeps him awake, since he can hardly concoct a potion in his sleep. They’re brewing something today, whatever it was they took notes on last lesson. 

“Is it you and me today, Red?” He asks, knowing the answer is no. He wishes he could work with her again in general: he’d had fun last time, but he really wishes he could work with her today. She always tells him what to do, and he can’t fathom trying to follow written instructions in this state.

Lily’s head tilts ever so slightly when she looks up at Sirius, like he’s said something exceptionally out of character. “You’ll be working with James, won’t you?”

Sirius tries to give her his most openly confused look, but he can’t seem to pull his face out of the pinched scowl it’s been sitting in all week. He looks over at James’ and Remus’ station, finding only James sitting there. No Remus. Maybe he should have noticed that already. His head is screaming, throbbing, but he’s been getting better at ignoring it. Consequently, he’s ignoring a bit of everything. “Oh, yeah. I guess.” He leans in toward Lily an inch. “I’d rather work with you, though,” he says playfully. It’s flirting, it is, but it’s recreational. Harmless. It’s the only way he knows how to sound pleasant right now, when every word out of his mouth is sharp. 

“Because I do all the work,” Lily mumbles, a bit of pink in her cheeks. 

Sirius shrugs. “I like that you’re bossy. You like-“ he gives her a pointed look that says it’s pointless to argue with him, “-that I know I’m not as smart as you. I don’t fight you about how you want to do things. You don’t make me think too hard. We’re a dream team.”

Lily’s taking down the notes and instructions from the board, so she answers a bit more slowly.  “I don’t think I’m smarter than you.” She checks between her potions book and the board, seemingly noticing some inconsistency. “You’re still the only person who’s apparated properly. I lost three fingers yesterday, didn’t even leave my station. At least other people who get splinched manage to move most of their bodies.” 

Sirius doesn’t have a laugh in him, but he realizes distantly that that’s funny. “Did your fingers end up on target at least?”

Lily laughs, burying her face in her hands, bending her head to hide in her hair. “Almost,” she mumbles. 

—

Astronomy has moved on from lunar phases to star charts. Sirius, spending all his evenings in detention, spends his nights working on assignments. This means he can’t use the library (it’s always closed when he’s finally settling down to work), nor any resources provided by his peers (all asleep), so he’s at the top of the astronomy tower tonight, telescope pointed up, far above the whomping willow, squinting out at the stars. 

It’s cold; it’s cloudy. He shivers in his leather jacket, vowing to buy another one soon, one that he can wear over a jumper. This one’s gotten much too tight for that in the past year. He shivers, the full moon not quite providing enough light for him to see his star chart, so he keeps his wand lit on the floor beside him as he works. It’s slower this way, and the weather is unforgiving, but he smokes to keep himself focused and makes progress. 

He’d hoped to spend the whole night out here, finish this assignment so he can get onto the next one tomorrow. He’s falling terribly behind. It doesn’t matter, though. His willpower runs out when his cigarette falls from his trembling hands, and all he can do is stare at it on the floor as it burns itself out, leaving a small scorch mark on the stone. He bites his numb lip, tells himself he’s close, but the telescope is metal, and it leeches any last warmth and patience out of him as the winds continue to whistle and howl. He’s been so constantly sleep deprived this week that his eyes are always a bit unfocused, and forcing himself to look through the telescope at tiny, inconsequential specs of light is just... He can’t see, can’t feel, can’t stop shaking. He can’t do this. Maybe he’ll work on his Defence readings when he gets to his room, offer to swap assignments with James. 

It’s almost dawn somehow by the time he makes it back to the portrait hole, and he slips through it, closing it quickly behind him. Or, he thought he’d closed it. As he’s about to settle himself in front of the fire, he notices it still ajar, but he can’t be bothered to get up. He uses wandless magic, his fingers too cold and stiff still for him to pull his own wand from his pocket. 

The fire tingles and burns sensation back into him in a distinctly uncomfortable — but not unwelcome — way. He shivers in front of it for ages until people start to enter the common room, passing through on their way to breakfast. Sirius used to try to run back to his room before anyone could see him like this, but it doesn’t matter anymore. It never mattered. 

James and Peter find Sirius, and there’s a long chain reaction of yawns being passed around the three of them, but no one can be bothered to laugh about it. Peter nods at James. James nods back, and then they’re on either side of Sirius, dragging him up by the armpits, mumbling about breakfast. 

“Remus?” Sirius asks eventually. His voice feels painfully loud in his own ears. James and Peter keep their arms wound around Sirius, and he lets them support him. He trips over his feet as they walk, feeling completely uncoordinated, a guest in his body that doesn’t quite know where anything is. His head pounds something terrible. 

“Not hungry,” Peter says. Sirius isn’t hungry either, but he suspects if he doesn’t put some calories in his body, it won’t have any fuel to run on at all. Certainly he’s not being recharged by sleep. 

He misses Regulus. It never gets this bad when he can sleep with Regulus. He didn’t even know it could get this bad.

He fills himself with protein (in the spirit of being full for a long time) until he feels sick with it, then sticks to sugar and coffee, needing some faster-acting energy too. There are charms similar to cheering charms. Charms that can give some energy. He makes a mental note to look into those, but knows he won’t remember. He’s not in a state to remember much of anything. 

Still, he goes to class. He might have skipped it if the thought had occurred to him, but he just moves with the crowd.

Peter and James sit on either side of him in astronomy, elbowing him when his eyes start to slip shut. He elbows them back. “I’ve had three coffees, I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. I’m just… It’s bright in here.” He closes his eyes again. 

Maybe he does sleep, though. Somehow. In spite of the pounding in his head, worsened by the coffee pounding in his heart, behind his eyes. In spite of the way the air around him seems to buzz against his skin. In spite of his rotten stomach. Maybe he does sleep, or maybe his short term memory is so deplorable that the experience of being in class can’t stick in his brain. The lesson ends by the time his eyes are open again. 

Peter makes a comment about how Sirius might need to talk to Madam Pomfrey if he still isn’t sleeping. She makes sleeping draughts, he says. 

Sirius hates this. Hates being told what to do. Hates Peter. He sits next to Lily in Charms, who might seem surprised but doesn’t argue. 

“You look awful,” she says instead.

He hates her too, until he forgets to care.

Thankfully, they’re practicing a water-making spell, which Sirius has been doing for years. He asks Lily to partner with him, not worried about how Remus and James and Peter will organize doubles between the three of them. He doesn’t care. He wants to hang out with Lily, who takes his bitterness in stride. 

Technically, they don’t need to be paired up at all, but Flitwick seems to have given up on keeping the class quiet while they practice. Sirius wishes Flitwick would try a little harder.

“Aguamenti,” Lily whispers, tapping the edge of her chalice for the tenth time. For the tenth time, nothing happens, and she bites her lip. She looks like she could cry. 

“You hold your wand strangely,” Sirius comments, not lifting his head from his desk. He should help her. He can’t lift his head. 

“I do not!” She snaps, loud, so loud, chin trembling a bit now. “My grip is perfectly fine.”

“Your posture isn’t.” He closes his eyes, trying to focus on talking, on finding each individual word he wants to say in his muddled mind, pronouncing each single syllable without slurring. “You’re stiff. At your… shoulders. And you jab. With your wand. You need to. Be. Um.” He swallows. With her wand. She needs to. She needs to. “Softer.” His mouth is so dry. He can taste his breath, an unpleasant bitterness from his coffees. 

She’s quiet for a long time, long enough that he cracks open his eyes to squint at her. She’s still biting her lip. “Can you show me?” she asks on a whisper. 

Sirius closes his eyes again, suddenly feeling like he could cry too. He doesn’t know if he can do it. He doesn’t know if he can do anything. 

His fingers curl around his wand, but he doesn’t lift it off the desk. “Aguamenti,” he says, or maybe he just thinks it. He feels the thrum of magic in his wand before he notices the water soaking his sleeve. He wants the spell to stop, so it does. He’s damp up to his elbow now, dripping into his lap. There’s spells for that. He knows them. He’s done them dozens of times, wandless even. Eh.

He doesn’t hear Lily try again. There’s a few sniffs beside him, and eventually she lays her head on her desk too, and they wait out the end of the lesson in companionable misery. 

Lily stands at some point, and Sirius’ eyes find the clock on the wall. Blurry. He squints and blinks. Blurry. Blurry. Clear. He… he can’t follow where the arms on the clock are pointing. He can’t remember what it means. It can’t be two times at the same time. He can’t remember. Blurry. What time is it?

he was just looking at the clock — why doesn’t he know what time it is

“Sirius,” someone whispers. A hand on his shoulder. James. Hi, James. Please don’t touch me, James. “We’re taking you to the hospital wing.”

He’s got no fight in him. He’s a rag-doll when they pull him up, and he tries to comply. He rests his head on top of Lily’s, who must be holding him on one side. His head is on James’ shoulder a moment later, but he doesn’t remember moving it. “Jamie, I don’t feel good.”

“I know, mate. Hang in there.”

Chapter Text

Sirius wakes up aching, miserable, not in his own room. It takes him a moment to place the curtains, white, the bed underneath of him. The hospital wing. 

The curtains around his bed are drawn completely, and he spells them open with a vague gesture. He finds Remus in the bed next to his, already peering over. “You awake for real this time?” Remus asks lightly, a bit of a scratch in his voice. He reaches for a glass of water beside his own hospital bed, flinching a bit as he stretches himself. He takes a sip, then looks back to Sirius. 

“You’re sick again.” Sirius says feeling his own voice scratch too. He should get himself some water. “Whatever you’ve got, I think you gave it to me. I feel awful.”

“Oh, I hope not.” Remus smiles, barely. “Well, you look great,” he says earnestly, but the twitch in his lips gives him away. Sirius knows anyway, though. He looks a mess. No short nap in the hospital wing is reversing the fact that he’s slept fewer hours this week than he ought to in a night. 

“Fuck you,” he mumbles back. Remus’ smile broadens. 

“You’ve got potions beside you that you’re meant to take.” Remus jerks his chin at Sirius, who rolls over and finds several cups and phials of various sizes in a row beside him. He pulls himself up and plants a hand behind him to keep himself half-way upright. He knocks back the line of potions as quickly as he can manage, trying not to stop to taste or feel the effects of any of them too thoroughly. 

In the immediate aftermath, he fights off a fever, a wave of nausea, a tingling in his feet and hands, tears that stream down his face faster than he knew his eyes could even make water. He bites his tongue through it though and feels marginally better. Remus watches him take the potions, and he watches Remus back.

“You look better than when I last saw you,” Sirius notes, tears still streaming endlessly down his cheeks. He ignores that, wiping at them uselessly with the back of his prickling hand. “On the mend, then?” He lets himself collapse back into bed, almost ready to go to sleep again. He keeps his eyes on Remus though, whom he feels like he’s meant to be upset with, but he can’t remember why. 

“Further along than you, I reckon.”

It feels strange to laugh, like Sirius hasn’t done it in a while. “Well, there’s hope for me yet.”

Sirius rolls onto his side, all the better to look at Remus. He’s a bit grey in colour, but he looks lively. He’s propped up on a half-dozen pillows, reading a thick book leaned against his legs. Or, not reading it now, because he’s staring back at Sirius. Sirius feels a sudden and terrible ache in the easy but somehow tense silence. He’s struck by the thought that he’d really like to crawl into Remus’ bed and sleep there instead. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Not possible, maybe outrageous, but nice. He falls asleep pleased to know that Remus is right there next to him, working away. 

When he wakes up again, the curtains are still open. Sirius is still curled up on his side, so he watches Remus writing,  parchment slid between the pages of the book in his lap. He looks focused, intense. Sirius watches unabashed, or maybe just un-caught.

“You’re still here,” he comments mildly when he gets bored of watching, when he needs attention. When he needs Remus looking back at him. 

Remus does, even blesses him with a crinkly-eyed smile. “Well, you looked lonely. Figured, where else was I gonna go? Transfiguration?”

Sirius huffs. “Good company, I’ve been.”

“You’re not so bad.” Remus sets his quill down, lets his book fall. “You do mumble in your sleep.”

Sirius knows he talks in his sleep. Mostly, as far as he knows, he just grumbles about noise or light. Regulus used to tell Sirius what he was thinking about getting him for Christmas, seeing which option Sirius responded best to. Sirius never remembered any of it by morning, but he did always get good gifts. “Did you ask me anything? I’ve been told I’m awfully loose-lipped.”

Remus shrugs. “You certainly don’t lose your… sparkle. Madam Pomfrey was asking me about you, one point, and you told her you’d hex her if she didn’t stop ‘shouting’, which she wasn’t by the way. Think you threatened an unforgivable curse, actually.”

Sirius waves him off, trying not to smile when Remus looks so amused by him. “Who named them that, anyway? ‘Unforgivable’? Nothing’s unforgivable if you’re charismatic enough.”

“I’m not sure you’ve charmed Madam Pomfrey enough for that,” Remus says. 

“I’ve been told I’m an acquired taste,” Sirius agrees. Remus is still smiling at him. Sirius basks in it. 

“Mm, sure, sure. Takes a while, does it?”

Oh Sirius shouldn’t say it…. “Sometimes months.” That was subtle enough, wasn’t it?

Sirius watches closely for Remus’ reaction and sees his smile twitch, just barely. Remus shakes his head dismissively. “That’s most of what you said though. You don’t talk much unless someone talks to you first. A few threats, some Quidditch talk when James came by… You told me I was pretty,” Remus adds, looking away finally. 

Sirius laughs again, the smile feeling carved into his face now. Had he said that? He would, too, wouldn’t he? Frankly, he’s surprised it hasn’t slipped out of him in regular conversation yet.

“With my eyes closed, did I?” he asks. “Must’ve recognized your voice then.”

Remus looks around the room more fully now, but Sirius suspects he might be hiding a blush. Hopes. Hopes he might be blushing. 

Remus doesn’t say anything for a while. Sirius made things awkward, he realizes, but he doesn’t mind terribly. The small corner of Remus’ face that Sirius can still see is smiling, even minutes later. 

“What are you working on?” Sirius asks eventually, wanting more Remus. Wanting Remus to look at him again, talk to him. He nods to the abandoned work in Remus’ lap, parchment and textbook. 

“Oh.” Remus doesn’t sound terribly suspicious, but Sirius notices his posture quickly changes. Remus’ knees shift away so that Sirius can’t see into his lap as well. “I’m writing a letter. Well, I will be, once I’ve gotten a bit more research done.”

“A secret letter?” Sirius asks, a bit confrontational, a bit teasing. It’s only once he’s said the word ‘secret’ that he regrets asking at all. He’s not supposed to acknowledge Remus’ secrets, that’s the deal. He should have changed the subject. “Right, I-“

Remus surprises him by answering. “Not secret,” he says. “Just… more of a surprise.”

Sirius props himself up on an elbow, trying to get a better look at Remus, Remus who immediately hides his book better. “A surprise?” He notes the way Remus is hiding from him. “A surprise for me?”

“Lie down,” Remus snaps. Sirius drops down instantly, which has Remus biting his lip. “I’m not telling you, obviously.”

Sirius glares at Remus, rolls onto his other side. He forces himself to face into the curtains instead of looking back at Remus, but more to hide his ridiculous grin than even to prove his point. Remus is writing him something. Is that really true? He wonders what it is.

Remus just laughs, and Sirius falls asleep again as the scratching of a quill starts up behind him. 

—

Sirius wakes slowly, the feeling of the world around him not quite making sense. There’s a smell he doesn’t quite understand. A dull ache of a button cutting into his forearm, his nose pressed against something, warm fabric. He’s holding onto someone, he’s sure of it. Somehow, it’s not Remus, and he doesn’t understand. Who else would he be sleeping with if not Remus?

The smell isn’t right. 

He might complain out loud, he’s not awake enough to tell, but laughter filters through his foggy brain. 

He sniffs again, and he really doesn’t like the smell, too- aggressively mannish. Sharp where Remus should smell soft. He wrinkles his nose, tries to pull away. “James,” he says with a wince, realizing the body in his bed is squashing his other arm underneath it. “You need a new body wash, this is- oh, you’re giving me a headache. Geroff me, ugh.” He yanks on his numb arm a few times, and James eventually does lift himself off of it. Despite his complaints, Sirius doesn’t pull away further than that, leaving his face pressed against James’ side for a while, wondering if he could fall back asleep. He’s half way there, but the sounds of soft conversation become clearer, and the harsh soapy smell doesn’t dissipate. Eventually, Sirius pulls himself up. “What are you in my bed for?”

“Pete’s got the only chair,” James says with a shrug, completely unapologetic. 

“Sit with Remus,” Sirius says, deciding whether he should try to shove James onto the floor, but the bed has rails. 

“He didn’t want me!”

Sirius shuffles as far away from James as he can. “Well, put Remus in my bed and have his then,” he grumbles. 

James laughs, a sound that bounces around the room. “I do not smell that bad.”

“Maybe Remus just smells that good,” Peter says, and Sirius scans around looking for him, finding him on the far side of Remus’ bed. He does, Sirius wants to agree. 

James catches Sirius’ eye, tilts his head pensively, challengingly. “Does Remus smell that good then? How good? Specifically.”

”James,” Remus complains, but James just holds up a silencing hand, still looking at Sirius all too questioningly, challenging.

It’s just a silly joke, barely a taunt, but Sirius feels his cheeks going an incriminating shade of red. None of them know that he kept the scrap of fabric Remus had tied around his eyes like a blindfold, slept with it until long after the smell had faded, just trying to remember it. The things he’d done with his face buried in the cloth. None of them know. 

James is still staring, and he’s not going to let it go until he gets his laugh.

“Haven’t smelled him yet today,” Sirius jokes, trying to deflect. Put the attention on anyone but him, hope no one notices his flushed cheeks. “Once I’ve sniffed him, I’ll let you know.”

What Sirius didn’t account for was James being a competitive sod, wanting to one-up everyone. He scoops Sirius up bridal style, is half way through crossing the distance between his and Remus’ bed by the time Sirius’ wand is pressed into his chest, making him falter. “Put me down,” Sirius snaps, his sudden and intense anxiety coming off harshly in his voice. 

“In Remus’ bed, right? So you can-” James taunts. Sirius presses his wand a centimetre further into James, who flinches a bit, but his eyes are still laughing. “What are you gonna do, hex me? Really? I’d drop you right here on the floor.” The threat is all the more convincing as James is already starting to struggle with the weight of him.

James is messing with something he doesn’t understand, something Sirius doesn’t even understand, but he can’t say that, so he jabs James a bit harder with the tip of his wand, feeling a tiny shock in his palm that he hadn’t intended, but it must zap James slightly too. James’ grip on him falters enough for his feet to hit the ground. Half standing, he jerks himself away from James. The being carried, the magic, the sudden movements don’t agree with Sirius. 

He sits back in his own bed, head spinning, a terrible feeling in his guts. His headache comes back full force. He has to close his eyes to process it all, to focus on remaining upright.

Peter’s voice calls for Pomfrey. Sirius tries to pick a spot of floor to focus on, feeling like the world is swooping around him. He felt fine. He felt fine, and now it’s all awful again. Or maybe it was always awful, maybe James wouldn’t have smelled so sharp if Sirius didn’t already have a splitting headache. He doesn’t know. 

He wishes he’d hexed James, he knows that much. When Madam Pomfrey arrives, she ushers James and Pete out the door, and Sirius is nothing but grateful. “Remus, dear,” she asks over top of Sirius, checking Sirius over with her wand and hovering hands. “Are you feeling well enough to head back-“

“I’d like to stay,” he says immediately. “Another- another potion for my stomach would be good, once you’re finished with Sirius.”

Sirius throws his arm across his face. The room isn’t any brighter than it was moments ago, but the light feels overwhelming now. Madam Pomfrey is distracted from him for a moment. “Remus, dear… You haven’t… this is an awfully long time for you to be here.” There’s silence, blessed beautiful silence. 

“I know,” Remus says eventually. “It’s- it’s not that bad, but another potion would be good. Not until you’re done with- I’m just… I’m not ready to go yet.”

“I see,” she says slowly. Her hands start to hover around Sirius again, her magic feeling around invasively in his abdomen, his chest, his head. “I don’t think you need another potion, but maybe you should rest here another few hours.” Her hands linger around Sirius’ head, just prodding at first, then hitting the spot that throbs with every heartbeat. Under her hands, her magic, it gentles. A relieved sigh slips out past Sirius’ lips. “I know how hectic Gryffindor Tower can be, after all.”

“Yes, right. Thank you.” Remus shifts around audibly, presumably laying back down. 

There’s an exceptional softness to Pomfrey’s voice when she answers. “Of course, dear.”

Chapter Text

Sirius stares at his closed trunk. The row of little potions stares back at him. 

He’s meant to take one an hour before bed, but he should have been in bed hours ago, so what’s the point?

He doesn’t want to end up in the hospital wing again, obviously. He stares at the potions. They don’t burn or make him sick or anything. They taste a bit earthy, but he could just rinse his mouth with water after taking one. He resents the need to take a potion to sleep; he resents the need to sleep at all. He doesn’t want to sleep. There is peace at night, alone. There’s no future to worry about — and nearly no present because the whole world has gone to bed.

He doesn’t want to sleep through his few hours of peace: he wants to feel it.

And anyway, he doesn’t sleep well alone. Potions might let him sleep, but it’s never the same. They’ve got to be better than nothing, but… He’s fighting against something, a feeling he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to take his potions.

A rap on his door startles him out of his stare-down. He drags his eyes away from the potions and wonders whether he actually heard anything at all, but there are shadows of feet outside his door. Given the time, it can only really be one person. Everyone else would be asleep except a Prefect. It could be Lily, too, in theory. Sirius doesn’t imagine it would be her, though. Or else, that’s not who he’s hoping to see.

Sirius pulls himself over to the door and finds Remus on the other side, still dressed in his crumpled uniform, fidgeting a bit with his hands. Sirius pushes his nerves aside as much as he can. “Hey.”

It’s late. Remus has never come to his room before. Something’s probably really wrong, or-

“Hi,” Remus says. His voice is as soft as Sirius’, not urgent, maybe nervous. It settles Sirius, somehow. “I’ve just come off my rounds, but it’s late- I-“ He’s shaking his head, starting to step back. Sirius opens his door wider, stops taking up the whole doorway. Sirius steps back too, making room.

“You should come in.” He should definitely come in.

Remus hesitates but does. There’s a moment where they’re both just… standing. It’s so awkward. Sirius sits down on his bed for something to do, something that might look natural. He notices the scrap of tee-shirt he’s been sleeping with sitting conspicuously on his pillow, so he adjusts the way he’s sitting, casually shoving it under the blankets. He keeps meaning to throw that out. It’s creepy, he knows that, but he’s lost so many things that give him comfort. He already has such a hard time sleeping, and it helps. It’s something to fidget with when his mind gets away from him. It’s something here that he’s decided is his. 

Knowing that’s the only incriminating thing in his bedroom, he relaxes a bit when it’s hidden. He pulls his feet up onto the mattress, waiting for Remus to say something. 

“I saw the light from under your door when I was coming back,” Remus explains, still hesitant, still hovering near the exit. “I just thought… If now’s a good time…”

”Now’s great.” Sirius watches Remus seem to collect himself, nod to himself. “Did you want to talk about something in particular, or… Just some company?” The word company gives Sirius goosebumps, but he tries to play it off. He looks up as Remus enters the room further, finally closing the door behind himself. It’s just the two of them now, officially. With the door closed there’s an air of stillness in the room, and Sirius is suddenly aware of just how late it is. 

“I’ve felt like I just kept missing you this week,” Remus says eventually. “And- we were both sick, and you had detention most days, and… I don’t know.” There’s an armchair across from the bed that mostly collects laundry, but Remus perches on the edge of the seat like he’s trying not to squish any of the clothes. “I hoped you weren’t avoiding me, but I wasn’t sure. I think I really upset you last week, after… we talked about wandless magic and- and the ministry and stuff. I thought that was when I stopped seeing you.”

Sirius crosses his legs for something to do, somewhere to look other than Remus. He wants to say he hadn’t been avoiding Remus, but that feels like a lie. It is a lie. It’s an obvious lie. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He was upset, but he’ll get over it. That’s how it works. He gets angry, and eventually there’ll be something that makes him more angry, and all the other things will be less important. So Remus should just wait things out. 

Peter’s been annoying lately. Remus won’t have to wait long.

When he realizes Remus is waiting for an answer, Sirius blusters a bit. “Well, yeah. It’s been a bit of a hectic week. I had a lot of things going on. My brother, and my-“ my birthday, and the ensuing bout of debilitating self-pity. “Just- yeah. It was a lot. It wasn’t all you.”

”It was a bit me, though,” Remus infers. Yeah, it was a bit him, but Sirius just shrugs. “Peter said you called me ignorant.”

Peter should keep his mouth shut. And anyway, Remus was. And he was laughing at Sirius, and arguing when he could have just asked questions. Sirius could have explained better if he wasn’t immediately put on the defensive. He’d felt so miserably defeated after that conversation, but he doesn’t say that. “He’s an incurable gossip, isn’t he?” Sirius says in as neutral a tone as he can manage.

“Yeah.” Remus shifts awkwardly in the uncomfortable seat, which collects laundry specifically because it’s unfit for use as a chair. “I’ve been doing some research, though,” Remus says, maybe realizing that Sirius isn’t going to answer. “On what you were saying. About how wandless magic can be empowering. Lifesaving, sometimes. I think you’re right, that we should be learning it.”

Sirius stares at Remus, frowning. When they were talking, Sirius had been sure that Remus was mocking him. But he went away and did his own research. He came back to Sirius to tell him he believes him, agrees with him… Sirius can’t remember a time someone’s thought anything he said was that important. 

Remus stands, and Sirius realizes that that could be it. That could be the reason Remus has come by. That could have been his apology (or acknowledgement anyway) and he could be leaving now, and Sirius panics. He doesn’t want Remus to go. 

“Remus-“ he finds himself saying, pleading, but Remus isn’t leaving, just pulling something out of the back pocket of his trousers. A piece of parchment folded letter-style. When he sits back down, he takes the spot next to Sirius on his bed. 

“I wrote this for you,” Remus says, fiddling with the letter, but not unfolding it. “It’s… more of a gesture. You’ll probably want to re-write it. If you see any merit in it at all.”

Sirius looks from Remus to the letter, then to Remus again. He looks nervous. “Alright.” Sirius reaches for the letter, but Remus jerks his hand away a bit, so Sirius lets his hands fall back into his lap. 

“It’s… my thought process on it…” Remus frowns, purses his lips tightly. “It seems like since you got that letter from your brother, you’ve been dreading… dreading your parents making a decision. And I thought this could be something to look forward to. You- you’d get disowned for this, based on what you’ve said about them, so you can’t send it now. But. You seem to think you’re going to be disowned no matter what, and then you could send this, and it could be… You could feel like you were doing something.”

Sirius nods, understanding maybe half of what Remus is saying. Moreso, he understands that Remus is nervous, and Sirius doesn’t want him to be. Sirius nods. Now Remus hands him the parchment, which he unfolds excitedly. There are three separate sheets of parchment. The first one seems to be a list of quotes, sourced and referenced. He skims the quotes, all on wandless magic and its benefits. The next page is a sign-up sheet, or some sort of empty list, the title relating again to wandless magic. Students interested in learning wandless magic. The last is a letter to Professor Dumbledore. 

“You want to have lessons on wandless magic?” Sirius asks, not finished reading yet, but too excited to stop himself. 

“Not lessons,” Remus corrects. “There’d need to be ministry approval, hiring a teacher, making a curriculum. It would be ages — years — before anyone could start learning anything. And anyway, based on what you were saying about the ministry, I doubt it would get approval. But Dumbledore is rather famous for not letting the ministry interfere here, so I thought…”

Sirius skims further down in the letter. A student-led initiative, he sees. “A club? Like the chess club?”

“More like the duelling club,” Remus says. “Where people want to learn a life skill, practice something that makes them better at learning and using magic. I thought… you could lead it.”

Sirius shakes his head, trying to clear it. “I could lead it,” he echos. 

Remus shrugs. “You said only purebloods are ever taught to use wandless magic because it’s not learned at school. You have to have someone at home who knows. Um. You don’t have to do this, of course. I’m not sending this letter. It’s for you. I just… I know it probably didn’t feel like I was, but I was listening. When you- and I think sometimes we all feel powerless. There’s not much we can do about — about any of it, but we could do this. While we’re still at Hogwarts. It’s not much, but it’s got to be better than not doing anything, right? We’re here for another year and a half anyway. We may as well do something.”

Sirius sets his letter aside to look up at Remus. “We?” he asks. “You’d do it with me?”

The retreating, hesitant look on Remus’ face breaks into a smile when he sees Sirius’ own grin. “Well, I don’t know any wandless magic, so I wouldn’t be much help there, but I’m good with research. I could help you make lesson plans. And even… you could practice your teaching on me, or even James or Peter. Or all of us, if you wanted. No one would know.”

Sirius swivels where he’s sitting so that he can face Remus, who mirrors him. “I’m not much of a teacher,” Sirius says consideringly. “But you’d help me…” The idea of teaching sounds daunting, but the idea of spending nights alone with Remus working on this is almost irresistible. Maybe he could teach Remus, and they could both teach everyone else together. “And you think people would want to learn?”

Sirius knows that they should learn, but very few people want to take on extra work. It’s not fun like duelling, and it’s weaker magic than anyone is performing with a wand, so it might look pointless. He knows it’s important, but how would anyone else? Why would anyone believe him?

Remus smiles. “Everyone wants to learn to do what you’re doing. You’re the first person to get any spell, charm, anything, especially non-verbally. You were the first person to Apparate, and now you’re just working on landing on your feet better when no one else in our year has managed to get it at all, except Severus the other day. Everyone wants to know your secret.”

The word secret brings up that familiar tension between them, but Sirius isn’t thinking about that for once. 

Sirius nods. People would come.

“Not Snape,” Sirius mumbles, but he’s not really thinking about that either. “I was hoping James would get it before him. He’s gotta be-”

”Yeah, he’s not pleased.” Remus chuckles.

Sirius picks up the first page again, the one with all the quotes. He counts fifteen different books. Remus must have spent every second of his free time on this in the past week and a half. Fifteen books, and those are just the ones where he found something worth citing. “Remus, this is… this is really great.”

Remus shrugs, starts to push himself up. “I’m glad you like it.”

He’s leaving. He can’t leave. “Are you off, then?” Sirius asks, standing too. It’s as close to ‘please don’t go’ as he can say out loud. 

“It’s late.” Remus’ hand is on the doorknob, and there’s nothing else to say. “I just wanted to give you that. Before too much time had passed.”

“Right.”

“Are we alright then? You and I?”

”Yeah,” Sirius says, and he means it this time. “We’re-“ more than alright. Remus is more than alright. He’s a bit fantastic, isn’t he? “We’re alright.”

Remus pauses, turns back to Sirius. His eyes catch on something over Sirius’ shoulder. “Are you meant to be taking those potions?” Remus nods to the line of phials on his trunk. He seems to deduce the answer himself. “You haven’t taken yours tonight: you’d be asleep if you had.”

Sirius, caught, just gestures vaguely. He doesn’t have the words to describe why he can’t take his draughts. Remus nods. “It’s not too late. Take one now,” he says. 

“I’ll take one,” Sirius lies. 

“Good.” Remus doesn’t turn to the door again, just watches Sirius. Oh, he realizes. Now. Now-now. Caught in his lie again then. He huffs a dramatic sigh, like Remus is being unreasonable, silly, but they both know. 

Sirius grabs the closest phial, makes excessive eye contact as he swallows down the contents, trying to prove how easy it is. Completely not a big deal.

Something in Remus’ eyes changes, or maybe it’s the flickering of the torchlight. Remus ducks out the door before Sirius can think much of it. He wipes his mouth, lies down, fights against the strange fluttering in his stomach.

The bed crinkles beneath him, and he pulls the parchments from under him, setting them aside with another nervous flutter. 

Chapter Text

In the morning, Sirius sets Remus’ letter on his chest of drawers, propped upright next to his letter from Regulus. Regulus’ letter has been staring him down in a looming and ominous sort of way. It hurts him to see it, but it’s the only piece of Regulus he has.

This helps.

They’ve probably cleared his Beauxbatons room out by now. Where would his belongings be, then? In some French landfill, or just vanished altogether? His few mementos are gone, that’s what he knows.

He hadn’t had any photos, but he’d had posters and art, trinkets he’d never bothered to cherish. Regulus is a talented artist: a skill that was always nurtured by the Blacks because children should be — above all else — still, silent, and productive. Sirius had all sorts of paintings in oils or gouache (all stolen from Reg’s rubbish bin), sketches and posters plastered to his walls at Beauxbatons. It was obnoxious and too-loud, a horrendous way to fill the already-small space, and Sirius had never had the artistic eye to arrange the colours or proportions into a charming sort of clutter. Still, the room had felt distinctly his by the time he’d lived there five years.

In the few minutes Sirius had been afforded to pack when he’d learned of his transfer to Hogwarts earlier this year, Sirius had only managed the essentials: hygiene, clothes, textbooks. Of course, his uniform here is different, and he bought new textbooks in English, so that was moot anyway.

He wonders if his sticking charms might hold up, forcing Beauxbatons to hold onto a piece of him. 

Sirius’ Gryffindor room has never gotten to feel like home. He doesn’t have anything to decorate it with. He has his two pairs of jeans tossed over the armrest of the chair, his leather jacket draped over the back, two letters propped on his dresser next to his hair product and a small bottle of cologne that he won’t be able to replace when it runs out. Soon he won’t even be able to smell like himself. It’s stupid: it shouldn’t matter. It does though.

There are shelves on the Hogwarts walls for students to fill with trinkets and knickknacks, but Sirius doesn’t have anything for them. He’s considered trying to transfigure some teacups into- into something, but he’s never been creative.

Still, he’s been trying to drink his sleeping draughts, and he lets himself keep the phials as a reward. He sets them empty on the shelf above his bed, thinking maybe in the spring he might pick flowers for them. 

He looks at Remus’ letter and tries to make plans for the future. Maybe in the spring.

—

Sirius’ quill hovers over his parchment for a long time before he knows what he might write. The page isn’t completely empty, but the single word there feels all the more daunting. 

Andromeda

Sirius wracks his brain for anything he even knows about his cousin anymore. He wants to start his letter in a way that proves… something. 

I’m sorry I wasn’t at your wedding.

It was ages ago. He’d received an invite. It had never been an option to go, of course. He was twelve: there was never even a conversation about it in his house. Sirius didn’t learn why she was disowned until years after — his parents wouldn’t talk about it, refused to acknowledge that she’d ever existed. Sirius had seen the invitation before his mother burned it, though: neat cursive and drawings of flowers that budded and bloomed over and over again. Andromeda Black and Edward Tonks.

He stares down at the letter and almost crosses out everything he’s written. It feels so pointless. He doesn’t even know if he can trust her. He doesn’t even know her. 

But he wants to try. 

It feels surprising to realize that: he wants to try. That in mind, the words spill easily from his quill. He’s at Hogwarts, he says, like her, only he’s in Gryffindor, which probably puts him on thin ice with his parents already. It was hard at first, but he’s making friends. He hung out with the girls in his year a lot for a while, and the boys in his year are warming up to him now, so he’s spending more time with them. That’s really exciting. It looked for a while like they’d never talk to him at all. 

He’s being trained to play Quidditch next year — can she believe that? If anyone would be able to imagine how much the thought would horrify his parents, it’s her. His best friend, James, is going to be captain of the team next year, and he’s training Sirius in a few positions to ensure that no matter how tryouts go, there’ll be a spot for him on the team. He wants to be a Beater, but Chaser looks fun too. Anything but a Seeker, really, because spending the whole game flying in circles sounds terribly dull. 

He doesn’t talk to her about his classes. For the first time, he’s a bit embarrassed by his marks. They’ve really suffered from his insomnia and lack of motivation. He makes the decision as he writes her that he’ll ask Lily to study with him more often. Maybe he’ll offer to help her with those charms she was struggling with, and they can trade off like that for a while. She said she likes to have company while she studies, and Sirius does too. He does try to study with James, but they tend to distract one another, and adding in Peter makes it absolutely impossible to make any progress. 

Anyway, he shakes himself. Focus. He goes back to his letter.

He’s written about eight inches now, and that feels like a respectable amount. He asks some questions about her, too, so that the conversation isn’t completely one-way, but he almost doesn’t know enough about her to even know what to ask. What does she do for a living? How’s Edward? He hopes the effort is enough. 

He’s about to fold up the letter when he adds in a small post-script. 

Peter and James have a friend named Remus, and I think he was nervous about befriending a Black, but he’s coming around now. Which is good, because I fancy him. And I have for months. I think

He sets down his quill, hesitating. It feels so strange to admit it, but he wants to. A part of him wants to shout it from the top of the Astronomy Tower, really, but this is better. He wants to say it, and then he really wants to send the letter away so that he doesn’t have to look at it any longer, and no one in his real life will know, but he’ll have admitted it. 

And I have for months. I think he might fancy me too.

It feels like there’s so much he could say. I’ve never felt like this before, or and I feel like he sees me, like really sees me, and I didn’t even realize that no one else does. I don’t know him very well, but I’m excited for the first time in ages, and I can’t wait to know him. He could say a lot of things, but he doesn’t. That’s awful. It’s tacky and… he doesn’t want to immortalize something that sounds so ridiculous by writing it down. 

I hope he does, anyway.

There. 

That’s good. It’s good enough. He wrote Andromeda. 

—

He ducks away from breakfast early to send his letter from the owlery before his first class of the week. As he’s making his way back to class, he passes Lily. “Red!” 

Lily turns around slowly, but she smiles when she sees Sirius. “You know, I don’t let anyone else call me that,” she says as they both walk in the opposite directions of where they were going, meeting in the middle. 

Sirius shrugs. “Lily, then.”

Lily just laughs. “I really don’t mind actually. Somehow, it doesn’t sound like an insult coming from you.” Well, of course it’s not. It’s just a nickname. She has red hair, and she’s in Gryffindor, and she’s always blushing. There’s a lot of red. She stops walking in front of him, and they both shuffle sideways to tuck themselves against the wall, not that this is a particularly busy corridor. 

“I don’t have detention tomorrow.” He was meant to, but Madam Pomfrey wrote him a note when he was let out of the hospital wing, and he’s let off for a few days now. “Study with me. What are we working on?”

Lily raises her eyebrows, but she doesn’t question Sirius. She puffs out her cheeks as she thinks. “I haven’t made any progress in water-making. That or non verbal magic in general. Do you need any help with Potions?”

Desperately, but he can wait. “No, let’s start with you. We’ll work on it out by the lake?”

Lily seems to try desperately to keep her face neutral, but there’s a pout hiding somewhere under the stillness. “It’s cold outside.”

It’s not that cold. “We’ll dress warm. This way if you start any fires, no one will know.”

She wrinkles her nose but nods. “Oh, I guess. Yeah, I don’t want to be doing that in like the library or something. Private is better. I hate… I hate when everyone knows.” She has a letter in her hand, so Sirius assumes she’s on her way to the owlery. That’s where he just came from, but he nods over her shoulder, and they walk back to the owlery together. He’ll walk her. That way he doesn’t hold her up while they talk. She’s a Prefect, after all: can’t be late to class, too responsible. “I swear people watch sometimes, when you’re a mudblood. Like they’re just waiting… waiting for me to be not magic enough. And they’re right, aren’t they? I can’t bloody do it. I keep trying.”

“You shouldn’t call yourself that.” It’s bad enough that anyone else would.

Lily sighs a bit dramatically. “I know.” Sirius rolls his eyes. When they’re in the owlery, Lily doesn’t grab a bird. “They’re all thinking it anyway, though. And I hate owls,” she says. She stares around the room apprehensively.

Sirius pulls her letter out of her hand and ties it onto the first owl he sees. “You’re as magic as anyone else. You just don’t know as much yet. You didn’t grow up with it.”

 “Maybe I’m a squib. Is that possible, to be a muggleborn squib?”

Sirius urges the owl to hop onto his wrist, and he carries it to the window. It flies off easily, talons biting briefly into Sirius’ arm before disappearing altogether. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe there are people out there who would never know they aren’t regular muggles, but they can see through certain spells. They’d be able to brew and take potions, only they’ve never tried. I don’t know. Why not, I guess. You’re not one, though. You know that. Lily, tell me you know that.”

Lily shrugs. Sirius just stares at her until she looks away. “I know,” she says. “How do you know?”

They start to walk back now. “I can feel it. When you cast.”

“Can you?”

“Yeah. Or when you’re trying to do a spell, and you can’t get it. Especially when I’m right next to you, like in Charms the other day. I can basically feel it simmering under your skin, trying to get out. Just gotta figure out how to direct it.”

“Oh… That’s reassuring, actually.” Lily stares at him sideways as they walk. “Can everyone do that? Feel magic?”

“Sure, you could learn. Some people are really sensitive to it, more than others. I’m not like that, by nature. My brother is: he’ll get headaches and stuff when he’s in really magical spaces, or he’ll get really unsettled in places with no magic at all. He’s really good at duelling, because even if you cast nonverbally, he can get a feel for the type of spell you’re trying to use. You have to really distract him to even stand a chance. Cannot resist the Imperius to save his life, though, because he’s so sensitive, so it’s not all good things.”

Lily gasps. “Sirius, that’s illegal!”

Well, yeah. He knows that. Do they have to talk about all that? They were having a perfectly nice conversation. “What,” he says dismissively. “You’ve never been curious? About whether you could?”

Sirius doesn’t have to look at Lily to know that she’s staring at him. Eventually, in a small voice she says. “Well, not curious enough to break the law.” Sirius shrugs. “Can you throw it off then?”

Sirius tries not to smile, but that’s something he’s especially proud of. “Come on, Red.”

“You so can, can’t you?”

Sirius pointedly doesn’t answer. They reach a corner where they’ll need to go their separate ways, but Sirius pauses before they can separate. He and Lily should hang out more. “Sit with us at lunch,” he offers.

“Us?”

“Me, James, Pete-“

“No.”

“Lily,” Sirius whines. 

She laughs and walks away from him, throwing an “Absolutely not, no,” over her shoulder. 

“Bitch,” he mumbles under his breath, unthinking.

Lily turns back around and stomps over, and Sirius is already regretting his words before Lily shoves an accusing finger in his face. “If you’ll tell me not to call myself a mudblood, you won’t ever call me a bitch again-“

“I didn’t mean-“

“You can’t call me muggle slurs just because you’re not one. Mudblood doesn’t mean anything to me, but I’ve been a bitch my whole life.”

“Lily I won’t.” Sirius raises both of his hands in surrender. “I won’t. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t- I won’t. You’re right.” That was stupid. He knows better- That was thoughtless. There was no need- there was no need. “You’re right.”

Lily deflates quickly and takes a step back. “Good. Thank you.”

“I really didn’t mean-“

“I know.” She shakes her head. They both stare at each other — apprehensive, awkward — but they both seem to want to move on and leave that moment behind them. “See you tomorrow?” Lily offers tentatively.

Sirius lowers his hands letting out a breath. “Yeah. Nick a goblet from dinner, we’ll try water-making.”

 “Alright,” Lily says. She doesn’t turn around yet, and neither does Sirius.

“Dress warm,” he says, then adds teasingly, offering to let things go back to normal if she wants, “I’m not giving you my jacket if you get cold.”

“Oh, sod off.” 

And everything’s normal again. Oh, thank Merlin. 

“You love me.”

Lily finally does turn away. “Go to class.”

Chapter Text

Sirius did promise Lily that he would help her work on her nonverbal magic, and Sirius is nothing if not a good friend. 

He’s such a good friend, in fact, that he tells her a little white lie. After all, he has other friends too.

“So you’re teaching James the same thing then?” Lily asks, scepticism clear in her voice. She’s staring at Sirius as they walk, but he doesn’t meet her eyes, just keeps moving toward the picnic blanket James and Remus have set up under a tree by the lake. It’s hardly warm, and everyone’s bundled up, but James still beams at the sight of them. 

“Not quite,” Sirius says. James does nonverbal magic fairly competently, and Lily knows that too. Luckily, Sirius thought about this in advance. “He wanted to talk to me about Apparition, but I think they’re more related than we give them credit for. After all, Apparition is nonverbal magic as well. And since tonight is my first detention-less night in ages, I thought it was better to double-book you two than to postpone either of you any longer.”

Lily hums noncommittally. “And then, of course, Remus is here for Apparition too, not to steal your attention so that I’m forced to talk to James?”

Sirius pities James. Lily is far too smart for him. Still, Sirius does his best to distract her. “Remus is here because I like looking at him.”

Lily laughs. “And he indulges you in that, does he?” 

“Daily. He’s very generous.” Sirius lowers his voice conspiratorially (and because they’re genuinely getting close to the blanket now). “No, I’ve told him he’s there to keep James busy while I’m helping you, actually.” 

“A likely story,” Lily whispers back, rolling her eyes. 

Each of them takes a corner of the small blanket, and Sirius sits next to James. He doesn’t want to push Lily too far. She sends him a grateful (if still exasperated) look, settling herself between Sirius and Remus. 

Sirius did, of course, bring Remus to distract him and hopefully force Lily to talk to James. He’d also thought it might make James’s presence less overwhelming and seem less intentional. It’s a study group now, not just tutoring. Remus, however, turns out to be a tremendous asset on his own. He understands Sirius’ half-baked thoughts well enough to almost be an interpreter for everyone else. 

“You’ve gotta know what a spell feels like,” Sirius repeats. “You’re taking a spell and saying it more quietly like that’s a stepping stone, but it’s not. Whispering or shouting a spell, it’s the same. As far as nonverbal spells go, you’re not making any progress there. You need to feel it.”

“I don’t know what I’m meant to feel, though,” Lily complains, also repeating herself. 

They do this back and forth a few more times before Remus touches the toe of his trainer to Sirius’ calf from across the blanket, commanding Sirius’ attention easily. “What does Aguamenti feel like, Sirius?”

Sirius forces his eyes to Lily so that he can actually think of an answer. He says the first thing that comes to mind. “It feels like water. It’s a tap.” Sirius knows it’s not a useful answer, but he doesn’t know how to be more specific. 

Lily crosses her arms over her chest, but Remus nudges Sirius again. “Where does the water come from? The air? You?”

“It’s a conjuring spell,” Sirius says, frowning. Remus knows this, surely. He has a subscription to Transfiguration Today. Remus nods at Sirius, then jerks his head in Lily’s direction, and Sirius sees that it’s Lily who doesn’t know this, not Remus. He wracks his brain. “Aguamenti is a charm that uses the principles of transfiguration. That’s why it seems so much more complicated than it is. Mixed magics. You’re not… you’re not summoning water, you’re…”

Sirius gestures, implores on Remus, who just nods like Sirius is almost there. It’s James who speaks up. “You’re sort of calling it into existence.” Yes! Sirius nods at James. 

Lily stares around. “The water doesn’t exist,” she says flatly. 

“It exists. The water’s real. It’s just not… here. You need to bring it here. But not from somewhere, because that would be a summoning charm. It’s not here, and it’s not anywhere, but it’s…”
 
“It’s a concept,” James says, smacking Sirius on the leg excitedly. Sirius smacks him back. It’s a concept! “But you have to access it through your magic.” 

Sirius elbows James when he has something to say, and James gestures for him to speak. “You’ve vanished things before — think about where they go, and connect with that place.“

”I haven’t… much. Vanished things. I’m not very good at that one either.” Lily looks resolutely at Sirius when she says this, like she’s trying to ignore everyone else there.

”Oh,” James gasps dramatically. “You’re a lost cause!”

”Shut up,” Sirius says out of the corner of his mouth, watching as Lily drops her gaze to the blanket now. James is teasing, but Lily won’t find that funny. That’s exactly what she’s afraid of. “That’s alright. Can we work on that for a bit?”

James scoots farther into the centre of the blanket, closer to Lily. He pulls out his wand, waves it, conjures a flower. Lily stares apprehensively at James as he tries to give her the flower. “Take it, and then vanish it,” James orders, extending his arm further. Lily reaches slowly for the flower. 

Of all the things James might conjure, of course he made her a flower. Sirius fights off a laugh, trades a knowing look with Remus, who shakes his head. ‘It’s a lily,’ Remus mouths, and Sirius has to fake a cough to cover his laugh. 

“Vanish it?” Lily repeats, staring curiously at the flower. 

Sirius gestures in some sort of whenever you’re ready. “And really think about where it’s going, because that’s where you want to go when you conjure too, and then we’ll get to aguamenti from there. Send the flower to concept-land, and then you can look in concept land for anything you need. Within reason.”

Sirius thinks of the adults he’s seen conjure full sized chairs and tables, things with a lot of substance. It’s impressive magic that not everyone bothers to master. He’d taken a course over the winter break a few years ago (any excuse to spend as little time as possible at home for the holidays), and the final project had been to conjure a working bicycle. No one ever passed on the first try. Understanding the mechanics, remembering brakes, gears, pedals… but he’d satisfied himself in getting close enough. It had rolled anyway… slid, really. He doesn’t have the certificate, but he’d learned a lot. It’s strange looking at Lily, knowing she’s had no additional magical training at all, not even magical parents. 

Sirius doesn’t interfere while James talks lowly with Lily. She seems to set her apprehension aside enough to look openly confused, but James soldiers on. Sirius lets his eyes slide to Remus, and they exchange another amused knowing smile.

Lily vanishes the flower, then turns to Sirius. “And now…” 

Sirius shrugs. She still doesn’t seem to trust any of it, so he doesn’t move back to aguamenti, nor nonverbal magic. “Bring it back.”

After a few attempts, she does, a slightly wonky lily in her hand. “What now?”

Sirius opens his mouth to speak but closes it quickly again when James asks if he can sit next to Lily and talk to her about concept-land. “It just seems like you’ve missed out on some of the fundamentals, really. I think understanding what your magic’s doing…” James trails off, but Lily agrees. She doesn’t lose her air of reluctance, but she makes room for James to sit next to her. Sirius swaps another secretive look with Remus as he takes the spot James had been occupying. Remus sits closer than James did, though, and Sirius leans their shoulders together. Remus leans back. 

There are a few bodies approaching, but Sirius doesn’t pay them much mind. In the mild late-November weather, quite a few people have wandered out to walk around the lake. This will probably be one of the last relatively-warm, relatively-dry days they see for months.

Anyway, Sirius has little interest in anyone else right now. Not when he can see Remus out of the corner of his eyes. When James corrects Lily’s wand movement and she blushes scarlet with his hand over hers. Remus taps a finger against the back of Sirius’ hand, proving that he’s watching too. They’re probably not as subtle as they could be, but James and Lily are immersed enough not to notice.

Sirius and Remus are pressed together from shoulder to wrist, but it’s that gentle ghost of a finger over the back of his hand that sends Sirius’ heart into a frenzy.

“The muggle, the half-breed, and the blood traitors,” a voice shouts, much closer now. Everyone on the picnic blanket swivels their heads over in unison. Two students, maybe a bit younger, Slytherin-green ties around their necks. “What is this, some sort of club?”

James is already standing up. Sirius moves to do the same, but Remus’ hand grips Sirius’ thigh tight enough to confuse him.

“Oh! The Mudblood is getting tutoring. If you can’t learn the material, maybe you’re not meant to be here,” a girl’s voice this time. Ellona Something, Sirius remembers vaguely, but Remus’ grip on him tightens further, his other hand finds Sirius’ wrist. 

“Stay with me,” Remus whispers, closer than Sirius remembers. He feels Remus’ breath on his neck and falters. Louder, “James, stop.”

James is already throwing hexes, but he’s not quite in range. One of the Slytherins throws up a shield charm briefly. The second doesn’t even bother. They don’t move any closer, probably intentionally keeping themselves a safe distance back.

Lily stands just a few steps behind James, wand out too, unsure, and Sirius needs to help them. He reaches for Remus’ hand, meaning to pry it off of him, but his hand lands on top of Remus’ and just stays there. “Sirius, stay here. Let us handle this, I am begging you-“

“And the half-breed doesn’t even defend himself,” Ellona laughs. Remus’ hand twitches on Sirius’ thigh, but he doesn’t move, so neither does Sirius.

If Sirius wants to raise his wand, Remus’ other hand is still tight on his wrist. 

Still, no one is sending out hexes at the moment. Half-breed, Sirius realizes, was directed at Remus. Well, if he’s part Veela, that would certainly clear some things up. 

Of all the things Remus could say to the Slytherins, all the threats he could make as a Prefect, Sirius doesn’t expect gossip. “Ellona, does your boyfriend know you haven’t slept in your dormitory once this week?” His voice is clear and cutting, confident. He’s either telling the truth, or he’s a very compelling liar. “He probably does, right?”

Ellona’s wand fixes itself on Remus (on Sirius, really, who’s in front), but her friend’s wand drops an inch. “That is not true,” she says, a bit waveringly. “You shouldn’t tell lies.”

“Ellie,” the boy says, but Remus interrupts.

“And people shouldn’t steal from Slughorn’s office, should they?” This time the boy stiffens. 

There’s an impasse. No one completely lowers their wands, but no one has anything to say. The threat of Remus’ words is enough, only the Slytherins can’t seem to leave. They probably don’t want to turn their backs to so many drawn wands, not when James has already shown that he isn’t afraid of throwing out hexes.

“Lily, James,” Sirius says eventually. “Come sit. I wasn’t done talking.” Lily and James both turn their heads to Sirius but don’t move from where they’re standing. Lily lowers her wand completely, while James lets his drop a few inches. Sirius is sure the argument’s over now, though, so he addresses the Slytherin pair. They seem to be looking for an out, so Sirius uses his most older-brotherly voice to snap “Go away,” and they skitter off.  

James offers to walk Lily back to the castle, and she actually agrees. It’s probably safer that way — just in case. Sirius feels Remus drop his wrist, but Sirius is still holding his hand on his thigh. Sirius waits a moment with their hands stacked, expecting Remus to pull away, but he doesn’t. 

“Gossip?” He asks Remus, “That was your big plan?”

Remus’ hand squeezes Sirius’ thigh as he laughs — oh. “You said ‘go away’.”

Sirius could argue that it worked, but who cares? “Was all that true then? The cheating, the stealing? You weren’t bluffing?”

”No, it’s true. Well, I was making some inferences based on… some other things that I know.” His hand twitches on Sirius again, and Sirius tries not to react. He won’t let himself look at their hands, like that would be drawing too much attention to it and Remus might realize what he’s doing. It takes half of his focus to just keep his own hand still.

”You told me once that you always know where people are in the castle…” Sirius had been out past curfew, and Remus had known where Sirius was hiding, that Severus was approaching, and that there was something else Sirius would want to be avoiding in another corridor too on the opposite side of the floor from where he’d been patrolling. Sirius hadn’t cared to question it, but he hasn’t forgotten either.

”I don’t remember saying that,” Remus says lightly.

”You’re a horrible liar,” Sirius accuses, lying. Remus is quite convincing, actually, but Sirius remembers that conversation clearly, the first real conversation he’d had with Remus.

”Well, I try not to lie.” Remus looks over at Sirius, then back out at the lake on his other side.

”Good, so tell me the truth.”

”No,” he says simply. 

Sirius rolls his eyes. “You and your secrets. You know, I’m starting to think you just want to seem more interesting than you are.”

Remus blows out a soft breath, some sort of barely-there laugh. “My deepest, darkest secret,” Remus confides in a low voice. “Is that I’m really very boring and dreadfully insecure about it. I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

Sirius laughs but doesn’t bother answering. They could keep going through the motions of this conversation, but they don’t need to. Sirius flops back on the blanket, head bumping on a goblet they’d stolen from the Great Hall that Lily never even got the chance to fill with water. Remus reaches over him to move the goblet and stays like that for a moment, hovering over Sirius. Sirius stares up at him, and Remus shakes his head, straightening back up. 

“Are you part Veela?” Sirius asks, looking into Remus’ face. He hardly ever notices the scars anymore, but he sees them now. Part-Veelas have been attacked for it before, haven’t they? People think they’re unnatural or something, someone gets jealous. It’s not a perfect theory, but also... It would explain the way he smells, the way Sirius sometimes finds it physically impossible to look away from him. The way Remus can tell him what to do, and before Sirius thinks twice about it, he’s already complied. 

“It’s getting cold,” Remus says, but he’s still staring at Sirius. Sirius lets Remus ignore the question, just as long as he keeps looking. 

It is, and dark too. “Have my jacket,” Sirius offers. Stay here. Stay outside with me. 

Remus laughs softly, disentangling his hand from Sirius’. Sirius tries not to feel stung about it. “Sirius, that jacket barely fits you. No offence, but…”

“You’re not that much bigger than I am,” Sirius says, feigning a defensiveness that he doesn’t actually feel. And Remus isn’t much bigger than he is: they’re proportioned differently, as most people are. Sirius probably has bigger arms and thighs compared to Remus’ gangly limbs, while Remus is bigger in other ways. He’s taller, undeniably, and his chest and shoulders might be broader. Plenty of people are probably taller than Sirius, wider, but when it’s Remus it makes him nervous. A good nervous. No, he doesn’t feel defensive at all.

“I’m bigger than that jacket.” Remus’ eyes flick down to Sirius’ chest to emphasize that point. Remus’ eyes linger pleasantly too long before snapping back to Sirius’ face. “Thank you, though.” He starts to pull himself up, and reluctantly Sirius does the same. They’re out of time: it’s late, they’re done studying, it’s cold.

“I do need a new one,” Sirius mumbles. He smiles to himself as Remus spells the blanket to fold itself up, then summons it into his waiting hands. It’s the casual use of such obscure and meaningless magic (a folding charm!) that Sirius enjoys so much. It’s a finicky spell, one that Sirius has never bothered with, and Remus executed it perfectly. It’s attractive, okay? Sirius knows it, Remus probably knows it. He’s just competent all the time.

“I’ll buy a massive one so you can borrow it,” Sirius teases, pretending not to enjoy the thought. 

“You’re not gonna do that,” Remus says, bumping Sirius’ shoulder with his. Instead of fighting back, Sirius just leans into the touch, loving that this is something they do now. He can lean against Remus, and no one else does that. 

“I will. It’ll be huge. How many poor cows do you think they’d need to skin before they can cover your massive shoulders? There might not be enough cows in England, actually.”

”You’re making fun of me.” 

“I’m 100% serious,” Sirius lies. Remus just smiles as they walk, and he doesn’t even look where he’s walking, eyes on Sirius instead.

“I need several cows worth of leather? Do you have any idea how big cows actually are?” Remus shakes his head. He switches the blanket into his other hand, and their shoulders press together more firmly.

“Not as big as you, obviously. You are a mountain of a man,” Sirius says. 

Remus shrugs, sends Sirius a smile that Sirius would almost think — if he were talking to anyone but Remus Lupin — is a smirk. “Do you want me to lie to you, Sirius? Tell you how huge you are? Tell you you’re bigger than me?”

Ignoring the swooping in his stomach (or maybe throwing fuel on the fire), Sirius meets his eyes. “Oh, I think I’d really like it if you did that.”

Sirius watches Remus’ face change when he realizes what Sirius is implying. He looks away very quickly, but doesn’t even pretend to be unabashed. “You are a disgusting little man.”

Sirius gasps. “Little?” Remus just shakes his head. 

Chapter Text

“And at first it was just me, right, and then Lily got up too-“

Sirius hates that, hates that James isn’t saying and Sirius and I got up right away, but Sirius hadn’t jumped up with him. “I could have helped,” Sirius complains, sending a glare down the couch at Remus. Remus is facing forward, his thigh on top of both of Sirius’ feet, and Sirius uses that leverage to pull himself into a seated position. “And if the Prefect wasn’t in my ear begging-“

Remus blows out some exasperated breath. “I did not beg-“

“You quite literally said the words ‘I’m begging-‘“

James and Peter look back and forth between Remus and Sirius as they argue, then drop their eyes back to the floor in front of them. James is hammering a small nut with some spiked mallet in preparation for their next potions class, something Sirius hasn’t even started reading up on yet. Peter builds a card tower, glaring at James when his banging makes the floor shake. 

Remus hums. “You know, I don’t think I said that.” 

Sirius laughs at the obvious lie but doesn’t call Remus out on it. “Oh, right, of course not.” He flexes his toes under Remus’ thigh where no one could see, but he can surely feel it. Remus smiles and brushes an elbow deliberately over Sirius’ shins while he readjusts how he’s sitting.

When Remus speaks, though, there’s a surprising sternness to his voice. “What I didn’t want,” Remus says turning to face Sirius down the sofa. “What none of us wants, is for you to get disowned before you’re ready. That means no stirring up trouble with-“

James finally looks up again, gesturing with his spiked mallet. “Okay but Remus, when they’re saying things like… like-“

“But they weren’t doing magic, were they?” Sirius looks away from Remus to exchange an exasperated look with James, but Remus ignores them and keeps talking. “Look, it’s not fair that there aren’t any real consequences for the way they were acting, but hexing them is escalating the situation, and there would have been consequences for that, for us.”

“They were saying slurs!”

Remus looks pointedly from James to Peter. “Peter? With ten other people walking around the lake, none close enough to hear but completely able to see, what do you think?”

Peter looks like he’d rather do anything other than argue with James, but he backs Remus up in a small voice. “They were probably setting you up, James. You’re known to… right? And it was Lily… And it’s good! We need that! But… You were probably doing just what they wanted.” Peter looks at James, who still isn’t convinced. “James, hexing another student would get you detention for weeks, and our match against Hufflepuff is in, what, three Saturdays? You’re the best chance we’ve had at the Quidditch cup in years — it’s Gideon’s last year and he’s finally built himself a decent team: people are going to want you benched.”

“Thank you,” Remus says as James grumbles vaguely. “And Sirius, I know that you want-“

But Remus doesn’t ‘know’. He hasn’t lived this. “You don’t get it.” Sirius pulls his legs away and wraps his arms loosely around his knees. “If I’m going to be disowned anyway, why shouldn’t it be for doing something that matters? The things they were calling you and Lily…” They’re just words at the end of the day — if you look at it in a vacuum. They’re just words. They’re just words that people have died over, and people are still dying for them now, but they’re just words. Mudblood, halfbreed, your life is worth less than mine.

Sirius’ feet are cold, but he doesn’t put them back.

“Neither Lily nor I want to be the reason you stop having a family, Sirius.” Sirius starts to talk, but Remus must guess what he’s going to say anyway. “I know they’re not a good family, but you’ll leave when you’re ready, and you haven’t left yet.”

He hasn’t left yet because he’s a coward. He can be brave sometimes in the face of immediate danger, but he doesn’t know how to be brave enough to make this decision when there’s nothing terrible happening. Maybe he could have hexed a few blood purists, felt like a hero, and had an out. His parents would hear about that, and it would be a public disgrace in their minds, and they would make the decision for him. He wouldn’t have to be the one to choose. 

They’re bad parents, and they’re bad people, and he doesn’t know how to walk away from them when they might still want him. They’re the only parents he’ll ever have. He can’t trade them in for people who would know him, understand him, love him, agree with him. There aren’t other parents for him out there, so how is he supposed to walk away? How is he supposed to decide that making himself an orphan is better than having a family?

Someone else should decide that for him. Someone else has to. 

“I just didn’t want them talking to Lily like that,” Sirius mumbles.

Sirius looks at James for a reaction. He needs James to understand, to forgive him. James had gotten to be a hero, but Sirius wasn’t standing there with him. He’d let James stand alone.

James gives him a single nod, and Sirius can breathe again.

James doesn’t feel like Sirius is some sort of coward who stayed quiet. Sirius is a coward, but at least James hasn’t realized that. 

“Well, Lily’s probably happier with you than she is with me anyway.” James shakes his head, a trace of irritation in his face that’s gone as quickly as it appears, and then there’s just resignation. “That’s hardly the first time that’s happened to her. It used to be worse, really. When… there were some older Slytherins who used to dominate the school, and they basically had free rein: things were worse then.”

Sirius reads something unspoken in James’ strange pause. “My cousins among them, then? Bellatrix and Narcissa?”

James hesitates then nods. “At the heart of it. And their friends and boyfriends. No one did anything to keep them in check. It was completely different here then. When they graduated, we stepped up.”

James trades a look with Peter, then with Remus. Remus gives him a small, proud smile. “Mostly you,” he says. 

Peter looks the same as Remus, proud and admiring, and Sirius doesn’t understand. “You did? What did you do?”

James’ own smile drops fractionally, and a twitch in his jaw shows that he clenches his teeth, just briefly. “Well, first of all, there aren’t as many of them anymore. They were mostly all within a few years of each other, and they’ve left the school now, most of them. If you ask Lily, she’d say I became a bully, and maybe I am. All those kids who call themselves ‘Death Eaters’, nothing else matters to them. They don’t care about detentions, reprimands, warnings sent to their parents. Slughorn lets half of them off anyway because he doesn’t care for the paperwork. They’re not doing another program after Hogwarts, because they’ll be off serving whatever their ‘cause’ is, so they don’t need a clean record. Their parents are proud of them. There’s almost nothing that they actually respond to. The faculty’s basically powerless, since so many parents are on The Board, but if we play our cards right, McGonagall turns a blind eye to what we do too.”

Sirius nods. He likes McGonagall, and he’s suspected her a few times of keeping his own indiscretions quiet. “What do you do?”

“Whatever it takes.” James’ jaw ticks again. “Violence, and public humiliation on the worst days. I use violence as little as possible, don’t want to get in trouble. There are actual stakes where we’re involved. It’s not always fun, but people don’t get cursed in the corridors anymore.”

Peter giggles a bit, pausing with two cards in his hands, hovering over his tower. “It’s a bit fun sometimes,” he admits. “When it’s funny. When it’s Snivellus.”

“Was it that bad?” Sirius asks. That reminds him more closely of his time at Beauxbatons. He’s heard things were different here, but he never would have imagined that one group single-handedly changed the tides. 

“Last year I filled Severus’ mouth with soap, and look at this, how he got me back.” James pops up on his knees and points to his cheek. There’s a line there, so faint Sirius wouldn’t have noticed it without James pointing it out: a scar. “Wouldn’t close with any healing magic Remus or I tried, and we’re competent healers — just bled and bled and bled for days: it was dark magic. Even Pomfrey couldn’t get it at first, and it’s still scarred. And that’s just Snape: he’s pathetic compared… well, compared to most people, but compared to the rest of them. Dark magic, here, can you believe it? Opening a wound like that on another student? Because I filled his mouth with soap. And I’ve seen him use it a dozen other times, unprovoked, so sure, I’ve strung him up by his ankles a few times. Keeps him nervous. It’s safer here when he’s nervous.”

There’s an intensity about James that Sirius hasn’t seen in him before, an authority that seems larger than himself, but he wears it well. James constantly has an air of leadership about him, but rarely has Sirius seen James speak with so much purpose.

“It’s like you said,” Remus says, grabbing Sirius’ attention. “It’s all about power, isn’t it?”

“Can’t feel powerful when everyone’s laughing at you,” James agrees. 

“Like Boggarts,” Peter says. 

“Riddikulus,” Remus and Peter say together, then laugh. 

James rolls his eyes. “We have to be so much more careful than they do, though. The consequences are real for us. But once the worst of them graduated, the rest mostly fell in line. If they were still here, I don’t think there would have been anything we could have done. Snape, though? It doesn’t take much to keep him down, thankfully. Which is good, because I don’t think anyone knows more dark magic than him nowadays. Not here.”

James raises a wand to the nut in front of him, syphoning off the oil it’s started to release and moving that to a small bowl on his side. Sirius tries to process what he’s hearing. A lot of it helps contextualize some tension he’s already observed here: James’ vendetta against Severus, for instance. Sirius feels oddly proud of himself for his choice in friends. He wonders if he’s looking at James with the same gooey, admiring eyes as everyone else.

“Lily was upset with you after today, though?” Sirius asks. He would have expected that she’d be grateful to have had people standing behind her. 

James shrugs. “I get it, I do. I jump into things — it’s a habit at this point. And I’m not as… rational as I want to be when she’s involved. That was careless, today. I think she wishes I would let her choose how she wanted to react. She accused me of ‘forcing her hand’. She’d have rathered just ignore the whole thing, let it pass, but we didn’t ignore it, and so she couldn’t. She chewed me out the whole walk to the castle for it, comparing me to you the whole time, by the way. ‘Be more like Sirius,’ ‘Sirius and Remus weren’t hexing anyone-‘ thanks for that.”

Sirius laughs but sends a look to Remus that says well if I wasn’t being physically restrained- But to James he says, “You can’t do anything right for her, can you?”

Remus looks back at Sirius, a disbelieving tilt to his head that says, one hand on your thigh, that’s you completely physically restrained, is it? And- well... Sirius doesn’t have an answer for that. 

“No,” James groans. He points his wand silently at Peter’s card tower, which drops sadly in a gentle clatter. “Apparently not.”

“No!” Peter tries to catch the bottom layer of cards before it can fall, but it just collapses under his hands. “Aw. Anyway, at least you didn’t ask her out in the middle of it this time… unless?”

Sirius chuckles, assuming Peter’s joking, but James gets uncharacteristically awkward. “No,” he says quietly. “Not this time. That probably wasn’t all that funny the first time, was it?” He starts to hammer on the nut again, maybe hitting a bit harder than necessary. Peter doesn’t even glare this time, just organizes his cards to start his tower again.

Remus finally picks his book back up from where it was wedged between his leg and his armrest. He finds his page without looking at James. “No, probably not.”

No one speaks. Sirius doesn’t quite know what they’re talking about, but he knows how to read the room. Clearly this is something James doesn’t talk about.

James hammers away until the nut is more of a pulp. Any oil he should be collecting from it is cloudy, a sign of having been agitated too much. He pushes his station away with a little sigh. 

In the increasingly awkward silence, Sirius is the only person with nothing to occupy his hands, and he cracks first. He tries to get the conversation back with something inconsequential, give James an out. “What did you mean ‘strung up by the ankles’?” 

James looks up. “Like… with Snape?”

“Yeah. Not with rope, surely.” That sounds… excessive, to say the least, but who knows what Snape was doing. “Where would you even hang him from?”

James frowns. “Just… by the ankles. You’ve never…?” James’ frown turns into something sneaky. “Oh… so-“

Remus seems to notice the change in his demeanour too. “James, do you really have to-”

James just laughs, and Sirius waits bracingly. “You didn’t have that one at Beauxbatons, then?” James asks sweetly, like he’s concerned with the hole in Sirius’ education.

“Which one?” Sirius doesn’t like Jame’s smirk, his tone. It’s that same look he had on his face before he tried to put Sirius into Remus’ hospital bed. Sirius reaches subtly for his wand, but it’s not on the couch beside him. He tries to sneak his hand between the couch cushions where it’s always getting caught. He creeps his fingers inch by inch, slowly, trying not to draw attention to himself

“James-“ Remus says, seeming to read something in James’ face too. 

James’ wand is on Sirius in a flash. “Levicorpus.”

The world swoops out from under Sirius as he shoots upward and upside down, pulled — as advertised — by the ankle. Sirius is already drawing on his vague understanding of Latin, trying to imagine the counter-jinx. Levicorpus, Levi… levitate. Corpus… body.

Levitate the body, and so… Release, release the body. Something-

Everyone is laughing, Sirius too, and his shirt is falling up — down — into his face, and it’s all a bit ridiculous. Peter is almost squeaking with it and clutching his stomach, while James looks all too pleased. Oh, something-. Relach- relachio- Wrong language. Solovo… Exsolovo-

Sirius doesn’t even have his wand. He can see it if he cranes his head far enough back. It must have rolled onto the floor when he sat up. He could summon it into his hand-

“Alright, that’s enough, James. Liberacorpus.”

At Remus’ word, Sirius is dropped back down. ‘Liberate’ the body, not ‘free’ the body. Fucking semantics. 

Sirius falls quickly, but he has the mind to try to protect his neck, curling in on himself as he drops.

And what a redundancy, anyway, to have ‘corpus’ in the counterjinx. That’s just clumsy: a homemade spell if he’s ever-

He lands on the couch with a grunt, then rolls off, unbalanced. He hits the floor first and his head second, whacked right off of the corner of the glass coffee table, hard. It shatters before he can even balance himself, and he catches himself with his hands falling into the scattered glass.

The laughter cuts off. 

“Ow,” Sirius mumbles. He can barely feel the pain in his hands next to the throbbing in his head, the sticky blood that’s already soaking his hair. He blinks blood out of one eye, trying to wipe his forehead off with the back of his hands. Ow. “Thank you, Remus. This is much better.” 

James laughs outright, and Peter chokes like he’s trying not to join him, but Remus is already scrambling off of the couch to kneel in front of Sirius. “Sirius- James, fix the table. Sirius, are you alright? I’m so sorry, are you-“

Sirius winces when Remus touches his head. “Yeah, feels great.” Ow. He opens one eye to see Remus, absolutely horrified, so he tries for serious. “You’re fine, Remus. It was an accident. I’m fine.” There’s a big chunk of glass in one of his hands, and his other hand is shaking too badly to pull it out. The more he tries to focus on stilling his hand, the worse it shakes.

“That’s bleeding a lot,” Peter mumbles.

“Heads do bleed, though,” James says a bit indifferently. “You’re alright, aren’t you, Sirius?”

“Fix the fucking table, James,” Remus snaps. He takes a breath that sounds terribly shaky. “Can I heal you, Sirius, or do you want to go to Madam Pomfrey. I’ll take you, if you’d rather-”

Sirius tries again for the chunk of glass in his palm, but he only pushes it deeper in his partial-blindness and uncoordination. He groans as his hand twitches at the pain, which changes the angle of the glass yet again. “I can heal myself,” he grumbles. “If I could just get this thing-“ 

He needs to do his hands before he can do his head, and he needs to get this piece of glass out of his hand before he can-

“I know you can, Sirius. I know. Let me do it anyway.” Sirius feels fingers wrapping gently around his wrist, and he lets his hands be pulled apart. Remus extracts the glass quickly and finds a few more shards that Sirius hadn’t even felt. “Can I?”

“Yeah, fine.” It doesn’t really matter who does the healing. Very few school-aged wizards would have the same experience with healing magic as Sirius does, but he doesn’t care to argue about it with Remus. Remus will do what he can, and Sirius will let him, and he can do the rest himself when Remus is finished.

Remus whispers softly while he practices a few spells on Sirius’ hands, and Sirius winces through the pinch of pulling skin and the itch as it reforms, but it leaves him with a pleasant tingle in his palms, the feeling of Remus’ magic. “Oh,” he whispers once Remus has done his other hand. He runs a curious finger over his palms. It feels like Remus. 

Remus breathes a tiny sigh. “Your hands aren’t shaking anymore. Good. I can fetch you your wand if you want to do your head yourself, or-“

“No, do it for me. Please.” He wants more of that, more of Remus woven into his skin. He wonders if there’s a way to keep it there. It’ll probably fade as the spell takes hold. 

“Hold still.” Sirius does, keeping his eyes closed. Something in his chest jerks terribly when Remus brushes the hair off his forehead. “I’m sorry,” Remus whispers again. “I know it hurts.” He must have misread Sirius’ sudden sharp breath. 

“It’s… it’s alright.” Actually, Remus’ hand in his hair is almost worth it. He’s combing through softly now, making sure no hair is tangled into the open wound. Can’t be healing it with stuff stuck inside. Sirius keeps his eyes closed easily but controls his breathing with more effort. 

“I can fetch Madam Pomfrey,” Peter offers. “D’you reckon, Remus?”

“He’s fine,” James dismisses. 

“I am,” Sirius agrees. 

“Yes, Peter. Do that.”

“Pete,” Sirius says. “Stay. I’m fine.”

Remus finally has Sirius’ hair out of the wound — which throbs something terrible — and he starts to tap gently along Sirius’ scalp with the tip of his wand, leaving more of that wonderful Remus-y buzz behind. 

“Peter,” Remus says again. 

“I’m fine,” Sirius says again, softer. He addresses Remus this time, reassuring, trying to catch his eyes. Remus almost meets Sirius’ gaze. He’s staring at his forehead as he gently wipes the drying blood with the edge of his sleeve, apparently indifferent to how it’ll stain. Remus still doesn’t look back at Sirius when he pulls out his wand again, using a few cleaning and syphoning spells on Sirius’ hair. Sirius’ eyes droop closed as Remus’ fingers pass through his hair again, but he forces them open. He wants to watch Remus work: focused, intense. Really intense. “Remus… I’m okay.”

“Sirius,” Remus says, a surprisingly desperate edge to his voice. He’s not cleaning him up anymore, just holding his face. He looks back at Sirius now, and all Sirius can do is stare. “Please?”

Sirius folds instantly. He closes his eyes so that he can formulate an answer. It’s hard to think when Remus is looking at him like that. “Don’t fetch her, Peter. I’ll go myself. I can walk, if you’ll let me.”

Remus’ hands twitch on Sirius’ face. “Can you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll walk you.”

“Fine. Just… let me catch my breath a second, yeah?” Remus’ thumb traces Sirius’ cheek, and that doesn’t help at all. He’s not sure it’s possible to catch his breath in this position.

“Yeah.” Remus’ forehead touches Sirius’, just for a fraction of a second, and then it’s gone and his hands are gone — he’s moving away. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Chapter Text

A miracle in and of itself, Sirius has a second day without detention later in the week (he’s been taking his stupid sleeping draughts and they’re working). He wakes up moderately well-rested and stands to face his many empty potions phials along his shelf, his letter to Dumbledore on his dresser. He wonders if today might just be the day. 

Tutoring out by the lake with Lily — it wasn’t easy, but it was doable. He can teach, more or less. Especially when Remus is there knowing exactly which questions to ask. Sirius could teach. Anyway, spending time with Remus one-on-one has never sounded more necessary.

Getting dressed takes a bit longer than it normally would. He can’t help staring at the five bruises on his right thigh. They’re small. They’re pale, already starting to fade, and he can’t even feel them, even when he pressed against them desperate to feel something, but they’re there. They’re Remus’ fingerprints from where he’d grabbed Sirius earlier this week, stopping him from joining James when the two Slytherins were provoking them. Sirius has spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at them.

Sirius catches up to all three of his friends in the corridor on the way to breakfast, but he drags Remus off by the bicep without James or Pete seeming to notice or care. Sirius keeps dragging until they’re in a vaguely private corner, and Remus just lets himself be towed, watching Sirius in silent curiosity.

There’s that excited nervousness about pulling Remus, about talking to him alone, and Sirius cherishes it even as it terrifies him. He can’t wait for more of it, for uninterrupted hours instead of minutes between the two of them. He knows he’s making the right choice — all the more when he starts to let go of Remus’ bicep, slides his hand away, but Remus catches his hand, winds their fingers together. Not to help Sirius up, not to pull him around, just for its own sake. Sirius forces himself through a few shaky breaths before he speaks. 

“I think we should start tonight,” he whispers, looking around to make sure no one could overhear. They’re alone. “Me teaching you about wandless magic. It’s the first time in ages I don’t have either detention or Quidditch with James. If- if you still want to.”

”How’s your head?”

Sirius rolls his eyes but gives Remus’ hand a reassuring little squeeze. “It’s still fine, promise.”

“Good. Then yes. I want to,” Remus says. He’s smiling the tiniest of smiles, and it’s perfect. 

“Where should we-“

“My room,” Remus says immediately, and Sirius loves it. He’s never been in Remus’ room before. He’d seen a corner of it from over Peter’s shoulder once, but no one’s ever invited him inside. Generally, James, Peter and Remus don’t hang out there unless they’re explicitly wanting privacy, which clearly Remus is. Privacy, he thinks to himself with a flutter in his stomach. 

Sirius considers offering his own room, which is objectively more private, but he wants this more. He wants to sit in Remus’ bed, be surrounded by his smell and his belongings, be invited into his space. There’s an intimacy to being invited into someone’s home that Sirius desperately craves, especially when his room has never been his home. And Remus’ home. He wants to be invited into Remus. 

“Right,” Sirius says, trying to sound neutral. “Good. Good. Breakfast, then.”

Sirius starts to pull away, starts to walk toward the Great Hall again, but Remus pulls him back, just gently. “You look nervous. Are you alright?”

He is nervous, but not about wandless magic. “I’m-“ he considers lying, but he honestly doesn’t want to. There’s something about Remus that feels so completely safe and calm, and Sirius wants to tell him things. “Um, a bit nervous, yeah. It’s… new, you know?” This is new. All of this is so completely new to Sirius. 

Remus smiles and squeezes Sirius’ hand too, only to let go a second later. “Don’t be nervous. I’ll worry about everything. You - just show up.”

—

Sirius wastes the whole day stealing glances at Remus, pondering wandless magic and how to start teaching it. He was learning wandless magic at such a young age that he doesn’t remember his introduction to it. There was never a time when he didn’t understand his connection to his own magical core. He imagines it’s probably a good thing he’s teaching Remus alone before he’s stuck in front of a large group of students. Remus will help Sirius help him understand. They’ll be working together more than Sirius will be teaching him. 

He’s so buzzed on the thrill of getting Remus alone that he can barely focus, but that’s why he has to. He knows how much harder it is for him to think with Remus around, so if he wants to actually make any progress with him (and he does, almost as much as he wants the excuse to be alone with him), he needs to go in with a plan. 

In Transfiguration they’re turning cauldron cakes into cabbages. Sirius reads through the incantation a few times, skims the chapter in A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration to nail down the theory. He picks it up quickly enough, then returns to his brainstorming. There’s still a neat stack of cauldron cakes piled on the corner of his desk, so he snacks on them while he works. They’re a bit stale.

Remus — Sirius inevitably catches himself looking — is transforming his cauldron cakes into something that resembles a single brussel sprout more than a head of cabbage, a distinctly spongy quality to it. He’s one of few students that has anything even vaguely green in front of him: he’s doing well. His face is crumpled in its focus. 

Sirius smiles to himself and keeps working. 

—

In Remus’ letter, there’d been all sorts of quotes on wandless magic, and Sirius actually skips dinner to see if any of the cited books are in the library. He’s not sure what to expect, but he finds a few books he’ll need to read, and one he registers with Madam Pince right away.

There’s something vaguely violent hammering itself on the walls of Sirius’ stomach as he climbs the steps to Gryffindor Tower, and he actually presses a palm into his stomach like he’s trying to appease it. It’s good though. There’s something refreshing about being nervous: something exciting about caring this much.

He stands outside of the door for a moment, collects himself, then knocks. The door opens right away, and there’s Remus, smiling back. Sirius’ nerves calm just slightly at that smile. His excitement doesn’t. “Hi,” Sirius whispers like this is something incredibly delicate. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Remus whispers back, then louder, “Everyone’s here, so…”

“Oh.” Sirius thinks for a second, then shrugs. He’s a bit put out but still adaptable. “We can go to my room,” he offers, looking down the hall at his own closed door. He’d been excited to spend time in Remus’ room, but that was never really the point.

“No need,” Remus says, stepping back into the room, making space for Sirius to follow him. Peter and James smile broadly from one of the beds. 

Sirius swallows. “What?”

“More room here,” James says, fighting to prop himself up with a pillow Peter won’t let go of. “To practice and whatever.”

Oh. Wait. No, wait. “What?”

“Not that we think we’ll get it right away, mind,” Peter reassures him, maybe thinking that’s what made Sirius’ face drop. 

Not the fact that he’s an idiot. Oh, it’s so obvious. Remus would want everyone to learn. Of course he would, and he would expect that Sirius would want as many people to learn as possible too. And he does. Only… only he’d thought this would be just him and Remus.  

They’d talked about it, about how Sirius could teach just Remus first, or just Remus, Peter and James. Sirius had only asked Remus because he wanted to work with just Remus, but Remus had said he’d handle everything, and he’d gathered the whole group. Sirius had wanted an excuse to spend time with just Remus, but why would Remus- Right. Remus wouldn’t- 

Remus wouldn’t know that. Remus wasn’t thinking like that. Of course he wasn’t.

“Um- One sec.” Sirius mumbles something about forgetting his notes and hurries back to his room as quickly as he can, hoping no one thinks too much of the look on his face. He pushes through his own door and falls back against it, eyes closed. He tries to make his mind blank. He needs… he needs to-

It’s fine. Obviously, it’s fine.

His head bangs against the door when he collapses against it, and he bangs his head again just for its own sake. Fuck. It’s fine. He runs his hands through his hair a few times, eventually leaving them there, just on the top of his head. He has to consciously resist the urge to pull at his hair. He just needs a minute, maybe two. Let the crushing disappointment pass, and then he’ll be fine. He’ll go back to their dorm and pretend it’s everything he imagined it would be. He’ll teach wandless magic, and that’ll be enough. 

He’s being ridiculous. This doesn’t mean that Remus just hates him or something. It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a simple miscommunication, and no part of it was intentional, malicious, or even conscious.

That feels worse somehow. It feels like Sirius got to peek into Remus’ mind, and he didn’t find himself there. Maybe he was insane to think he would. Remus is in every corner of Sirius’ mind lately.

There’s a knock on the door behind him, and Sirius jumps a bit, but it’s just Remus. “Can I come in?” Just Remus. Just the last person Sirius wants to face right this second.

Sirius gives himself one more breath before he opens the door. He can hardly run out of Remus’ room, barricade himself in his own and refuse to come out, and then turn around and pretend everything’s normal, so he opens the door. He steps out of the way and lets Remus in, just to close the door again behind him and fall right back against it. 

“Sirius…” Remus watches him from a few feet back, and Sirius has to fight the urge to hide his face. He drops his hands from where they’ve crossed unconsciously over his chest, feeling a bit dramatic. He can’t quite look at Remus, so he stares out over his shoulder. He tries to focus on the darkening sky, the colours behind the clouds. Is pink skies at night good, or is that pink skies in the morning? He can’t remember. It’s pretty.

There’s a saying, he thinks, and he focuses on that. He can’t remember it, but trying is enough of a distraction. Almost enough. He tells himself he’s fine until he believes it, but meeting Remus’ carefully curious gaze sets him right back into despair. Oh he’s so stupid.  

“What’s wrong?” Remus asks, gentle, so so gentle. Sirius meets his eyes again, bites his lip like it’s the only thing keeping the truth from bursting out of him. I think I’m going to fall in love with you, and I’m scared you just only sort of like me. 

“I-“ Sirius swallows, careful. “I just… I thought it would be just you and me.” It’s true. It’s not the truth that matters, but he’s not lying. He hates the idea of lying. “So I just have to think now about how I’ll teach three people. It feels like more pressure than just one.”

Sirius thinks that’s a perfectly reasonable excuse, but Remus’ face crumples in some sort of terrible realization. Remus’ hand flies up to cover his mouth, but he drops it a second later, staring wide-eyed at Sirius. 

“You never told James and Peter, what we talked about…” Remus whispers. That’s true but not surprising, is it? “I told them, and I invited them, and I completely violated- Sirius I’m so sorry. I- I just assumed you would have told them. It never occurred to me, oh and I’ve made such a big deal about privacy, and then I’ve gone and-“

Sirius watches in increasing confusion as Remus freaks himself out. “Stop,” he snaps eventually, inserting himself before Remus can start crying or something equally insane. “I don’t care. You’re right, it didn’t have to be a secret. I trust Peter and James — I trust all of you. More than you trust me, obviously,” he mumbles the last part self-deprecatingly. He keeps talking as Remus flinches like he’s been dealt a blow. Sirius keeps talking because it’s fine. Remus doesn’t trust him, doesn’t ever intend to trust him, and he knew that coming into this, so it’s fine. It’s fine. Oh, Merlin, he’d convinced himself that Remus was, what? Remus fancied him but still couldn’t trust him at all? Sirius is… he’s insane. He doesn’t want to talk about that, and Remus looks like he might, like he might apologize and then still not confide in Sirius, which is worse, so Sirius keeps talking. “I don’t need this to be a secret from everyone, I just- I just thought it was going to be me and you. I’m just- okay? That’s all. I just- got confused.”

Remus stares at him like he’s trying to figure him out. “Are you overwhelmed? I can tell them you’re not ready yet. I can send them away.”

“No,” Sirius says. Sending them away won’t make you want me, so it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want Remus to be trapped with him. He’d thought that Remus was looking for an excuse to spend time with Sirius too, but he wasn’t. Why bother trying to get him alone if Remus doesn’t want that? Sirius isn’t some- some sort of stalker. He’s not trying to trick or manipulate Remus into liking him back. He’d just tricked himself into believing it. “Don’t send them away. They want to learn.”

“Sirius, there’s something you’re not saying.”

That’s the point, Sirius almost snaps, but the anger passes right through him, and he’s back to just feeling ashamed. Awkward. Stupid. There’s such a soft plea in Remus’ voice, in the way he stands, the open and searching way he looks at Sirius. Remus is always so sweet with Sirius. It’s hard not getting confused. Maybe he’s just sweet.

He doesn’t want to say it. He can’t say it. 

The other option, though, is to keep lying, and he hates that too. He hates the way he can feel Remus’ secrets forcing space between them. There’s nothing he can do about that, but he doesn’t want to add to the pile. He doesn’t want to fill the space between them with any more secrets.

He’s completely deflated when he says it. “I wanted to be alone with you." He shrugs like it doesn't mean anything, like it's just some passing thought he had. Worse is that Sirius still feels this horrible kind of safe with Remus. It’s such an embarrassing thing to admit, and he knows Remus will still be gentle with him, even if he doesn’t feel the same way. "I thought you wanted to be alone with me too.”

Now it's Remus' turn to flush and stutter, to be unable to make eye contact. “Oh,” he says slowly, so full of something, pity, and Sirius can’t stand it. 

“It’s fine,” he interrupts. “I don’t expect you to feel the same way.” He realizes how stupid that sounds once he hears himself say it. He corrects himself. “I mean, I thought you might, but I think I’ve misread things. Um. So we should- we should just go back.” He’s embarrassed, but it’ll pass. “We shouldn’t- I still want to be friends. I won’t pine after you, I won’t make things awkward. We can go back-“

“Sirius,” Remus whispers, barely even that, but Sirius stops like he shouted. He tries to read Remus’ face, but he’s frowning. Frowning, but he’s a step closer to Sirius, somehow. Sirius doesn’t remember him taking that step. “Just, shut up for a second. Please.” Remus doesn’t say it harshly, just shakes his head like he’s trying to make sense of his own thoughts. Sirius watches his face carefully, but he can’t make sense of it. Remus takes a steadying breath and another step toward Sirius. 

He’s standing with his toes in between Sirius’ feet now. That feels really close. Sirius’ breath catches in his throat when Remus’ eyes meet his. He’s still frowning, still confused, maybe, but there’s something else there, something that makes Sirius desperate to reach out for him, but he holds himself back. The way Remus is looking at him, Sirius could almost be sure that Remus wants to reach out for him too.

When Remus’ hands cup Sirius’ jaw, Sirius’ eyes flutter closed. Maybe he thinks Remus might kiss him, or maybe he just can’t bear to watch Remus look conflicted about this decision, whatever it is. It’s all he can do to let Remus decide, let Remus set his own pace. He truly doesn’t know what Remus wants, so the best he can do is stay very still and try not to scare him away.

Sirius lays his shaking hands against his thighs, consciously keeping them to himself. He thinks of the bruise in the shape of Remus’ hand, Remus’ hands on his face, Remus tilting his head just slightly, a breath ghosting across his lips, and Remus, Remus who bends his head to press his lips against Sirius’. 

And then Sirius can think of nothing but Remus’ lips. 

Remus pulls back before Sirius can process it all, but he doesn’t pull back far, and his hands don’t leave Sirius's face. Maybe they start to pull away, but Sirius’ hands leave Remus’ waist (he doesn’t even know how they got there) and cling to his wrists, pleading for him to let this moment last just a few seconds longer. Remus does. 

Sirius opens his eyes eventually. He needs to see Remus’ face, and it’s perfect. A high flush in his cheeks, lips slightly parted, uneven breathing and half-closed eyes, dark eyes. Sirius is almost sure that this — this moment must be love. It’s the best thing he’s ever felt, and it was hardly a kiss, and now just looking at Remus, letting himself be seen, he’s still feeling it. His heart is beating so fast he can hardly focus, and he would chase Remus’ lips if he thought he could pull himself off the door. Instead, he just watches. Just watches and tries to understand. 

“Remus, why-“ how? since when? does this mean- do you- are we- 

Remus shakes his head, maybe not meaning to interrupt, but Sirius needs to know, needs to hear anything Remus might consider saying, so he goes quiet. Remus takes a slow breath, closes his eyes. He leans his forehead against Sirius’, and Sirius watches every part of his face that he can see. His long eyelashes, the slight purse of his lips that makes Sirius go cross-eyed. “Because,” Remus says slowly, “I’ve never wanted to be your friend.” He pulls back just an inch and lets his eyes flutter open again, watching Sirius’ reaction. “I don’t want to go back.”

It’s the most wonderful ‘never’ Sirius has ever heard. “We don’t have to,” Sirius says. “We don’t have to go back.” He tilts his head up an inch but only manages to catch the corner of Remus’ lips, the angle of Sirius’ head still largely controlled by Remus’ hands on his face. They linger like that in some sort of almost-kiss until Remus pulls away.

“We’ve been gone a while,” he says. “We should- James and Peter will wonder…”

Sirius looks up at Remus, understanding something unsaid. His skin goes cold, and a sudden weight crushes him from inside his own stomach as he realizes what he’s just done. He’s just become another of Remus’ secrets. 

“Right,” Sirius says, already compartmentalizing. He can be a secret. For this, he could be any number of things. James and Peter don’t need to know. “Let’s get going.”

When Remus touches his face again, just the softest brush of knuckles against his cheek, Sirius knows he’d do anything, be anything Remus wanted. He can be a secret. 

Chapter Text

For their first ‘lesson’, Sirius mostly consults his borrowed book and has everyone talk about the way that they experience and interact with their magic. Everyone’s experience is surprisingly individual.

He can’t focus on that too much, though, because Remus is there. Remus is clearly trying to listen, learn, be excited and respectful, but all Sirius can think of is their kiss. They kissed.

They had kissed, hadn’t they? Surely he didn’t make that up- dream that up… no. No, he’ll meet Remus’ eyes over the book they’re passing around, and Remus’ tiny, knowing smile tells him everything. They might even kiss again. Sirius hopes it’s soon.

When James complains that he’s completely overloaded, brain melting out of his ears, Sirius agrees that they should call it a night. Sirius packs up his notes while everyone teases James for having a bedtime.

“I’ll help you put everything away,” Remus says, sending Sirius a private little smile that makes his stomach flip.

Sirius nods, not trusting himself to speak. They gather up the books and strewn papers, trying not to look at each other. There’s a charged silence when they’re out of the dormitory, but they don’t break it until they’re completely alone in Sirius’ room.

At the click of the door behind him, Sirius could drop everything in his arms and throw himself onto Remus, but he forces himself to slow down. He uses his closed trunk as a sorting space and takes his time putting all the loose parchments into the right order. He’s hiding from Remus, he knows that, but he wants Remus to set the pace. Sirius doesn’t quite know what Remus wants, and he’s too nervous to ask. 

“Can I sit on your bed?” Remus asks. It would be such a charmingly Remus question if Sirius weren’t so stuck in his own spinning thoughts. Sirius waves for him to go ahead.

“Our unofficial first meeting,” Sirius prompts when he can’t make any more work for himself, when he realizes Remus isn’t going to talk first. Wandless magic seems like a safe enough topic. “Do you think it went well?”

He moves to the laundry chair across from his bed and perches on it to avoid squishing any of his half-clean clothes. Remus sits on the side of the bed, and their knees almost touch. Sirius pushes his leg out a bit further so that his calf is resting against Remus’. Remus watches him with a suppressed smile.

“I think it’ll be slow at first, based on today. It’s going to be hard building a foundation for a completely new kind of magic. Today felt good though. It feels possible.”

All sorts of things feel possible after dark, alone together in Sirius' room.

Remus stretches one of his legs out and hooks his heel behind Sirius’ ankle.

They both stare down at their feet, like the sight of them slightly tangled together is somehow fascinating, and it is. They’ve both made these tiny but intentional gestures to close the gap between them and now they’re touching. Sirius' right calf rests against Remus' left, and Remus' right ankle is hooked behind Sirius' heel, and no one pulls away. It’s late and they’re alone and they’re both reaching for each other, barely. Undeniably.

The room is so full of possibility, but silence feels like the wrong lane to turn down. They should be talking. They haven’t talked about anything. “Tell me something I don’t know about you,” Sirius says. 

Remus stops staring at their entwined feet to look curiously at Sirius. “What do you mean?”

Sirius shrugs. He means anything. He wants to know something, anything, maybe everything.

“I feel like I shouldn’t ask you things. I don’t want to put you in a position where you-" Sirius drops his gaze back down to their feet, trying to think. This part, this feels important. "I know you have secrets: I know. I want to respect that. If that’s how this works. But if I can’t ask you things, you have to just tell me." He looks at Remus again, wanting to make sure he's saying the right things. Remus doesn't seem objectionable. That's good. "Tell me something.”

Remus hesitates for a long time, but as he watches Sirius, his face twists into a wistful, almost wondrous little smile. “I have a dog back home." Remus pulls his foot back toward himself a bit, but it's still hooked around Sirius, so he just takes Sirius' foot with him. He’s pulling him closer. Maybe he’s letting him in. "His name’s Albert.”

Sirius smiles. He really didn’t know that. He knows that Peter has birds, but he didn’t know about Albert. “Albert the dog,” he whispers, and now he’s smiling too. “How old is he?”

Remus tilts his head. “I got him when I was… I was nine, I think. I was sick, and my parents wanted me to have some company because nothing was really helping… and he was already four then. So, eleven. Is that right? Eleven.”

Sirius has never known anyone with dogs. He’s petted a few in the street, but he doesn’t know much about them, really. “That’s old, right?”

Remus nods. “Yeah, and his breed is meant for herding, but I think he's been run a bit ragged by now. He's too old to run around like we used to. I’m always a bit worried… I wish I could have brought him here. He really saved my life. I don’t-“ Remus sounds a bit strained and clears his throat before starting back up again. “I don’t want him to die without me, you know?” 

Sirius nods. “Yeah. Of course. Is he sick?” Sirius reaches across the space between them, and Remus is already winding their fingers together. It's not enough, but maybe it helps anyway. He doesn't want to see Remus cry. 

Remus shakes his head. He laughs a bit when he answers. “Just stiff and slow and a bit blind, now. He’s still got some time, I think. I just- I just miss him.” His hold on Sirius' hand is surprisingly tight, but he likes that. He feels important. 

”The holidays aren’t so far out,” Sirius says. “You’ll see him then.”

Remus nods, then a slow smile creeps up on his face. “You should see him with James. They’re obsessed with each other. James has never even had a dog, but Albert’s all over him. I think he’s single-handedly turned James into a dog person.”

 “James would be a dog person," Sirius muses. He's not sure whether he's a dog person, whether he's an anything-person. "James likes me and I’m a dog,” Sirius says, like that means anything. 

“Canis Major,” Remus says, surprising Sirius. “The Dog Star.”

“My Patronus too,” Sirius admits. He's never told anyone that before. It's not a secret or anything, but Patronuses can be considered really intimate and personal. Maybe that's why he wants to tell Remus. It feels like a way of explaining a part of himself.

“You cannot cast a corporeal Patronus,” Remus argues. “You’re sixteen.”

“I’m seventeen,” Sirius corrects. Remus pulls his head back an inch to stare at Sirius speculatively. 

“Your birthday passed… I didn’t know.”

There’s an apology in Remus’ voice, as though Sirius hadn’t intentionally kept his birthday a secret. It had felt weird, the idea of having a birthday without Regulus, and then weirder, the idea of telling people they ought to be celebrating him. And he’d gotten sick. Sirius shrugs. “I wasn’t really in the mood.”

”Right. Of course.” Remus says it so formally. It’s cute. Sirius laughs, which Remus ignores to adjust their hands. They're getting a bit sweaty between the two of them, especially right between their fingers, but it's not so bad. Remus flexes his fingers, then squeezes Sirius' again. “Congratulations anyway. You’re an adult.”

”Yeah, technically. I don’t feel like one.” Sirius doesn’t really want to think about that, so he reaches for the most recent abandoned conversation topic. His Patronus. He knows he can’t cast a corporeal Patronus, obviously, not just because he’s young and the magic is complicated. Really, complicated magic hasn't ever been an issue for him. Mostly, he knows it’s a spell that’s linked to a memory, someone’s happiest memory. Honestly, he’s not sure he had a happiest memory before three hours ago. “There’s a test for it, Patronuses. My parents had it done on me as a baby.”

Sirius yawns and brings both of their hands to his mouth to cover it. Remus bends forward with Sirius so that he doesn't have to let go.

Mm. He's tired.

Sirius decides that if he and Remus are ‘something’ now, they can probably lie in the same bed. He stands up just long enough to flop down beside where Remus is sitting, and Remus drops onto his back next to him. “I remember hearing that the tests aren’t always that accurate,” Sirius notes. “Since people change as they get older. I hope mine doesn’t, though. I’ve always liked the thought of being a dog. I think I feel like a dog.”

Remus tangles their hands together and tugs them to rest on his chest. He has both of his hands wrapped around one of Sirius’, and he plays absently with Sirius’ fingers.  “You really do." It's a neutral enough comment, but it feels like a compliment when Remus says it. "What kind of dog — do you know?” Remus asks, whispering now. They don’t need to whisper, but it feels intimate so Sirius whispers back. 

“I don't. I don't think I know any types of dogs at all. They said big and black, though. Like the Grim,” he jokes. Remus rolls over onto his side to look at Sirius better, like he’s trying to see if he’s joking. 

“Your name is Sirius Black. Dog Star Black. Your name is black dog and you’re a black dog. You… you are very straightforward.”

Remus looks so amused, and he’s in Sirius’ bed. And he’s laughing, and gorgeous, and Sirius leans over and kisses him. It’s a bit awkward, and he has to stretch his neck to do it, but as he starts to pull back, Remus is closing more of the distance, and then he’s rolling on top of Sirius. “Is this-” Remus asks, but Sirius is already pulling him back down. 

They kiss -- curious and gentle and somehow still incredibly urgent -- until they have to stop and catch their breath, then Remus is dead weight collapsed perfectly against Sirius’ chest. Remus crushes him in the most comforting way, like when Sirius and Reg had blanket parties when  they were children. They waited until their parents were out of the house, every single blanket they could find in all of Grimmauld Place collected in the den. They’d start by trying to build a fort, but end up in some sort of nest by the time everything collapsed on top of them, and the weight of fifteen blankets and quilts, miscellaneous pillows and throws, it was oddly comforting.

Remus is like that, only better. He’s solid and warm, alive and real, so incredibly real. Sirius can feel Remus’ racing heart against his chest, every tiny twitch of every muscle on his front, every almost unnoticeable hum in the back of his throat when Sirius’ body fits almost too perfectly against him. Sirius has a hand on Remus’ side, right in the slight dip of his waist, and the other up somewhere against Remus’ back. He traces that one a bit absently, just the tips of his fingers, and Remus hums his approval against his neck. Sirius thinks he could cast a Patronus. He knows he could.

“Tell me something else,” Sirius whispers into Remus’ hair. “Something good. Or something not good if you want, just something. Tell me something.”

Remus doesn’t pull away to speak, but his mouth is next to Sirius’ ear anyway. He thinks for a moment, not answering, just puffing warm little breaths against Sirius’ neck. Eventually, he seems to decide. “I got splinched because you winked at me,” he admits. 

Sirius can’t help laughing, and the more he laughs the more Remus pulls back and glares at him which only makes him laugh harder. Remus eventually shuts him up with a hand clasped over his mouth, and Sirius can only stare up at him with smiling eyes. Remus’ glare isn’t all that hard. Actually, he looks a bit amused, too. When Remus finally pulls his hand away, Sirius teases (entirely seriously), “You fancy me.”

Remus lays his head back down, forehead pressing into Sirius’ neck. “Yeah,” he says. 

Sirius laughs again, giddy and annoying, but the laugh cuts itself short on a yawn. Remus pulls back to look at Sirius, five chins from this angle and from the way he pulls his head back, which makes Sirius laugh again until he yawns. Again.

“You should sleep,” Remus says reluctantly. He drags his fingertips over Sirius’ cheek. The touch is so gentle it tickles, and Remus looks like the last thing he wants to do is leave.

“You should sleep with me,” Sirius mumbles before catching the innuendo. He backtracks. “Just like this. I don’t want to give you back yet.” He runs his hand over Remus’ back again. Remus probably isn't huge, but he feels vast like this, like there's just endless more Remus for Sirius' hands to explore. “Can’t I keep you a bit longer? I only just got you, after all. James and Peter have had you for years. It’s my turn.”

“I can’t,” Remus says, but he snuggles a bit further into Sirius as he says it. He plants a wet kiss on Sirius’ neck and Sirius shivers.

"I'd make it worth it," Sirius insists knowing the battle's already lost, but if arguing will keep Remus here even a minute longer... "I could be much more fun to sleep with..."

Remus traces Sirius' jaw with his nose but doesn't pull away further than that. "You're cruel," he mutters, eyes closed and eyebrows slightly pinched like he's gathering his strength.

Sirius feels so close to sleep, so close to the best sleep of his life. He kisses Remus’ hair. “You could stay until I fell asleep, then. That way only one of us would suffer.”

Remus rolls off and both of them groan at the loss, at the second of grinding friction when Remus shifts his weight that they seem to mutually decide not to acknowledge once they’ve separated. Remus turns his head to look over at Sirius. “I’d just wake you up again trying to leave.” His eyes seem to betray him by dropping to Sirius’ lips, or maybe that’s what he’s saying goodbye to. “Goodnight, Sirius.” He kisses Sirius again on the lips, then on the forehead, and Sirius throws a hand over the back of his neck before he can pull any further away. Something about this angle — Remus hovering over top of him, close, stirs something incredibly distracting in Sirius — but he tries to focus. He’d had a question.

”You don’t want to tell James and Peter right now, right?” Sirius clarifies. Remus had implied it a bit earlier, but Sirius wants to be sure that he understood correctly. “I wouldn’t mind, but if you don’t-“

Remus frowns, and Sirius hates that. He feels incredible. He wants Remus to feel good too. “Can we not tell them? Sirius, I can’t-”

”Sure.” This is new anyway. Maybe it’s better if they can figure things out themselves, without everyone else having a say in it. Frankly, it’d be weird to go announcing this to everyone when they don’t even know what it is yet. They don’t need to tell James and Peter.

”Thank you.” Remus leans in again and kisses Sirius once more, and Sirius uses his grip on Remus’ neck to steal a bit of extra time. Remus starts to melt into him as Sirius curls his fingers into his hair.

Remus turns his head away, the softest little laugh echoing right next to Sirius’ ear. “You’re a sneak,” Remus accuses. Sirius hums in agreement. With Remus’ head turned Sirius can’t kiss his lips, but he does his best. A kiss under Remus’ ear, one in his hair. Remus groans and starts to pull back again.

“Can we do this again tomorrow? Before bed again?” Sirius asks. It feels so good to lie here with Remus, and it’s easy to talk in the dark, all tangled together. This feels good. He wants to replicate this feeling as often as he can.

Remus leans in again and kisses him on the cheek, presumably so that Sirius can’t trap him again. Remus reaches behind himself to untangle Sirius’ arm as he pulls away. Sirius lets himself be pulled off with a sleepy glower, and Remus just smiles. “Definitely,” he says. Definitely.

Remus rolls out of bed and lingers in the doorway a moment, just watching Sirius with that same soft smile. Sirius watches him back through drooping eyes. “I’ll come by earlier so that we have more time, too,” Remus promises in a soft voice. “This wasn’t nearly enough time.” Sirius is too tired to talk anymore, but he agrees privately and makes some vaguely assenting noise as he watches Remus slip out the door and close it quietly behind himself. Sirius closes his eyes and manages to sleep without a potion for the first time in weeks. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Remus is gone when Sirius wakes up Saturday morning. 

It was generous of Remus in a way, letting Sirius sleep. He ran out of potions from Madam Pomfrey at some point and never bothered inquiring about more. When Remus came by his room every night and laid with him until he finally settled, Sirius didn’t need them.

He knows from the second he wakes up alone, sweating, unrested and already unwell that he was never better. He was delusional about a lot of things.

His flannel pyjama bottoms are knotted up in his tangled sheets, and he pulls them on if nothing else. There’s a stiff spot by the knee that can’t be anything but cum, and it would be hilarious — how on earth did they get cum on clothes no one was even wearing — if it didn’t make him sob. He still pulls them on, though. He doesn’t have the energy to get out of bed for something clean.

The decision to skip breakfast is easy and then it’s done and he’s still in bed. He hates everything he thinks about, so he tries not to think at all, and time passes as he stares unseeingly at the wall or the ceiling. 

“Sirius — you in there?”

Sirius lifts his head off of his pillows so he can use both ears to listen to the voices muffled by his door. James.

And Peter. ”I’m telling you, he’s off-“

“If you say in Ravenclaw one more time — listen to me — he’s not shagging Darla: he barely knows she exists.” There’s a steady pounding on the door, first one fist, then several. Sirius can’t- he can’t talk to them. Fuck, they don’t even know. Everything’s different and they have no idea anything changed at all. 

How the fuck is he going to do this? Meals, lessons, anything? They don’t even know. Even if he could pretend to be normal, could Remus? 

He couldn’t be normal faced with Remus. He.. he can’t do any of this.

”Okay, well it’s not Annette that he’s shagging this time. I was off with her the other day when you couldn’t find him. I bet Remus knows and just won’t tell us. He has to have seen something on the m-“

The voices are starting to fade away anyway, but James interrupts Peter in a surprisingly decisive tone, something bordering on harsh. ”You’re not asking Remus.”

—

And so he doesn’t go to lunch or dinner.

BANG BANG BANG

“Sirius, you in?” James, loudly. Softer, clearly addressing Peter, he says, “It’s probably better this way, though. Yanno? Him keeping it to himself? If nothing else, he hasn’t been parading it around.”

Another few fists against the door, then Peter hums. “I don’t think Remus could handle it right now, seeing Sirius off with…” Peter trails off, and it’s obvious he’s trying not to rekindle the argument they keep having about who Sirius is shagging. “I dunno. What was he thinking, anyway? Flirting with Remus like that if he was… I really thought-“

”Yeah,” James mumbles. “I thought they would too.”

—

Normally when he’s not sleeping he at least eats, but he can’t leave his room. It’s almost interesting to learn how quickly his body and mind fall apart without food or sleep. 

It’s better though, in a way. With his mind too sluggish to think. 

That’s the closest thing he has to a plan. How will he survive until the hols— they’re in two and a half weeks now, and this is probably the first time he’s ever been anxious to get home. It’s between intentional sleep deprivation and ‘accidental’ self-mutilation. He thinks he could experiment with human transfiguration and get himself stuck halfway between something and something else and be put in the hospital wing for a few days anyway. Anything that would get him closer to a week or two would need dangerously experimental or dark magic. Maybe a potions mishap, which he could definitely pull off. If there’s any potion he can competently brew, it’s one that’ll put someone in the hospital wing. Actually, he’s been told that most of his potions would have that effect.

It’s not safe. He’s not completely… 

He’s not there yet.

—

On Sunday there’s another round of banging on his door, and Sirius hardly takes notice. He doesn’t even lift his head off of his pillow to hear better. They’ll leave eventually. Poor, poor Remus, he gets the picture.

The banging is different this time, Sirius notices because it seems to go on for ages. It’s coming from lower, like they’re kicking the door. 

“Sirius I have a hag of an older sister: if you think I won’t wait out here all day making a scene until you-“

Lily. He… he doesn’t hate Lily. He doesn’t need to hide from Lily.

Sirius doesn’t stand up, but he finds his voice to answer. “You’re a witch.” Oh, his throat is dry. “You don’t need me to open doors for you.” Sirius isn’t even sure the door is locked. He’s not the last person to have used it.

”You’ll let me in,” she says sweetly. “Because you want your present.”

Sirius’ shaking thighs are threatening to fall out from under him before he makes any conscious decision to stand. He opens the door just wide enough to let Lily and her armful of miscellany squeeze in. He closes the door behind her as she pushes aside anything on his trunk and starts to unload her stacked arms. The largest item in her hands is set up on his dresser instead, and she’s very careful. He peers over her shoulder to see a portable record player and a small stack of vinyls. 

Oh, she’s wonderful.

”Eat something,” she says, tossing Sirius a muffin. He doesn’t feel hungry, nor much of anything, but he puts it away in as few bites as he can, trying not to think of how little saliva his body makes, how dry it is, how it turns into some horrendous glue as he chews. He forces himself to swallow as Lily turns around with her wand out. She conjures a small cup and fills it with a whispered aguamenti. The spell takes on the first try. 

He takes the cup and drinks. When he finds it empty, he fills it again himself without bothering to search the fuck-rumpled sheets for his wand. He should wash his sheets. He should do a lot of things.

He sinks down onto the side of his bed, exhausted by it all. Lily sets up a record. “My sister just sent me this, birthday and all that,” she says lightly over her shoulder. She must notice the state that he’s in, but she doesn’t comment. “It’s new, I think.”

Sirius’ brother isn’t sending him gifts. 

Lily throws her robes over Sirius’ laundry chair like she lives there, then pulls the vinyl out of its sleeve. He doesn’t want to think of Regulus, Regulus who sent Sirius a letter the day before his birthday and never even acknowledged it, so he prompts Lily. “Do you miss her?”

Lily can talk for ages if someone’s willing to listen. He needs her to talk right now. He needs her to let him into her mind for a while. He can’t stand it here in his own. 

Lily hums thoughtfully, and then the record’s starting up. “I do start to miss her around this time of year especially.” She nods and jerks on her tie a few times, getting it just loose enough to barely pull it over her head. It makes a mess of her hair,  but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s still thinking. “It takes a few months away from her to forget what a miserable twat she is, yanno? And then I think I just miss the idea of a sister, but it’s her that I picture in my mind when I’m lonely. Really, this is from my mother. She’ll have just had my sister sign the card.” She picks up the sleeve and stares at it, then chucks it aside with a gentle indifference. “What about you? You have a brother, right?”

It probably speaks for itself that she has to ask, but she’s being polite. “Yeah. He’s…” Regulus isn’t a miserable twat. Well, he’s miserable and… kind of a twat, but he’s alright sometimes too. They don’t get along, but he’s still been the only thing that kept Sirius alive and sane for years. “It’s complicated, I guess. Better than being alone.”

The music is ramping up, and Sirius tries to give it a chance, but it’s bouncy and awful. He tunes it out. Lily leans against the bedpost and takes her hair down, shaking it out and combing her fingers through the ends a bit while she thinks. “Complicated,” she says on a sigh. “It’s all complicated, isn’t it?” She crosses her arms and adjusts the way she’s leaning like she’s trying to get comfortable, then gives up and starts fixing her uniform shirt. First it’s untucked, then the top button’s popped as she scratches her neck under the collar like it’s been itching her all day. Sirius can’t fathom even putting on a shirt, let alone his whole uniform. And on a weekend, no less. They couldn’t pay him enough money to be a Prefect.

”Petunia and I were so close as kids, that’s what gets me. We were genuinely happy, you know? Our parents were so good at making us both feel unique and special, and then I started showing signs… And then all the ways we were ‘unique’ turned into how I was a freak, and I was broken, and she was boring and unimportant. It pitted us against each other in the end.” She drops onto the bed next to him and stares sideways at him with a shrug. “And then it wasn’t long before I was shipped off out here, so how was any of it ever going to get better, you know? Do you have a hairbrush?”

“In the bathroom.”

Lily shakes out her hair again, then gathers it over her shoulder. “Mm, I don’t think I care that much.”

”No, probably not,” Sirius agrees mildly. He brings his cup to his lips. He can’t stand the taste of water right now, even if he can feel how his body is craving it. He chugs the rest of it down in the spirit of trying, then shuffles up to the head of the bed so that he can lean his weight against the headboard. He can’t hold himself up while she talks, not if Lily’s planning to stick around. He feels weak.

Still, he doesn’t want her to leave. “Your sister,” he prompts when Lily just stares off.

”Hm? Oh, yeah. Anyway, I wonder about her, you know? I feel like we never got a real chance, the two of us. She’s awful now, but what if she wasn’t, you know? If we were both muggles or both witches, and we were both equally special. Like, she wouldn’t have to be so afraid of magic if she could use it, understand it, you know?”

Now that Sirius’ cup is empty, he can properly examine it. It’s made of parchment somehow, but it holds water. How on earth did she think of something like that?

”Magic can be frightening,” he acknowledges. Cruel and painful and dark, it’s all out there. “I can’t imagine not having it.” To know what’s out there and be completely vulnerable to it… terrifying. He remembers what it was like before he had a wand, before he was competent at all with any wandless magic but still being surrounded by it in his own house, completely at the mercy of everyone around him. He wouldn’t wish that feeling onto anyone.

Many pureblood wizards learn a bit of wandless magic, a bit of latin, a bit of magical theory. Sirius hasn’t ever met anyone who studied it like him. No, he doesn’t care much about brewing potions he’ll never take or transfiguring a ferret into a feather duster, but he’s hardly ever at anyone’s mercy anymore.

A twat, Lily’s sister may be, but she’s not wrong to be afraid. Sirius can’t even imagine how he and Regulus would have tortured one another if only one of them had magic.

Lily shifts the way she’s sitting to face Sirius, leaning her back against the bedpost. “I’ve thought about what she’d be like as a witch, what that life would look like for us. I mean, I’d like to imagine her in Gryffindor — house pride and all — but I think she’d be in Slytherin. Not in a bad way, though. She’s ambitious, but this really subtle kind. She just… she always knows just what she wants, and she’ll get it, even if it’s small. She knows exactly the life she’ll live, which neighbourhood she’ll buy a house in, how many kids she wants (one, a darling boy), where she’ll work for a few years, how she’ll stop working once she’s a mother, everything, and she’ll get it. And she’ll love it, because it’ll be exactly what she wanted. She’ll have exactly the life she wants, just by nature of knowing exactly what that is. I couldn’t be ambitious like that if I wanted to. I don’t even know where to start with what I want.”

Sirius starts peeling at his cup. He tries to unwind the paper without ripping it, but it’s a bit soggy. “Do you really think it would have helped?” He asks. “If she were a witch too?”

Lily shrugs. “Don’t you?”

The cup rips and the last droplets of water dribble onto Sirius’ stomach. He wipes absentmindedly at himself with the corner of his quilt, mostly crumpled beside him. He feels a vague gnawing of self consciousness about the motion drawing attention to the hair on his stomach, but Lily doesn’t seem to notice, just frowning at his words. “Don’t you?” she repeats.

“Eh, maybe.” Everyone’s different. He’s never even met her sister. “Didn’t for us. My brother and I are both wizards and we got sent off to school together, but it never made us friends. We stuck together at home when there was no one better around, but not once we had options.”

They’d bonded almost entirely over keeping each other safe. Sirius took the brunt of the punishment, and Regulus patched him up afterwards. Everything in between was just… killing time. There were nice moments sometimes, but you can have nice moments with strangers and coworkers too. They weren’t ever friends.

He throws the crumpled cup off to the side somewhere, indifferent to whether it lands anywhere near the bin. Lily watches the cup fall uselessly on the floor without comment. “I guess her and I never had much in common either,” she admits.

Another song starts, and the singer is better on this one anyway. A girl this time, high and sweet. It’s still shite music, though, and it’s not what Sirius wants to hear. He wants drums, bass, guitar, distortion. He wants something angry and confused, complicated if nothing else. This song’s less upbeat, but it’s still too comfortably miserable.

Lily leans her head back, eyes closed like she’s giving the song a chance. Sirius waits until she’s wrinkling her nose to interrupt. “Happy birthday, then.” He must have missed it. “Shall I sing for you?”

His deadpan tone and expressionless face must not sell the image. Lily bursts out laughing. Sirius allows himself a tiny huff of breath, the closest thing he can manage. “Please,” she says. “You think James didn’t have the whole Great Hall serenading me? He conducted with his wand and everything: obnoxious.” Rolling her eyes doesn’t take away from her private little smile. Something about the tiny amused shake of her head makes his misery sit heavier in his stomach. He closes his eyes and tries to focus on the awful music.

”Your sister hates you,” he mutters somewhere into the next song. “She’s sent this to torture you.”

Sirius summons himself an apple. He eats the whole thing while Lily nods along with the music. He chucks the core into the bin, annoyed that she doesn’t acknowledge him. She’s too pleasant, too neutral. 

“Why are you here, anyway? Don’t you have friends?”

”Accio.” Lily summons herself a muffin and peels delicately at the wrapper. Sirius ate a muffin. He doesn’t remember peeling off the paper. He hopes that means Lily did that before tossing it to him. “You know very well I do.” She stares pointedly at Sirius while she takes the first bite of her muffin, a broken-off chunk that she chews slowly like she’s giving Sirius time. He’s probably meant to apologize. She’s probably saying they both know what he’s doing, needling her. She breaks off another bite and brings it to her lips, but doesn’t stall this time, just watches Sirius with a sympathetic twist to her lips. “I saw the state Remus was in. And you haven’t been at meals. That’s why I‘m here.”

“Put two and two together, did you?” He summons himself another muffin for something to do more than because he actually feels hungry.

Lily unfolds her legs, kicking them out and tucking them under Sirius’ crumpled blankets. “They’re picking sides then, your friends? You’re hiding out in here and he’s out with them…”

Sirius swallows. “We never told them. They don’t even know there are sides.” Although, based on what he overheard through his door that hasn’t stopped them from vilifying Sirius. “I don’t think it mattered anyway. I’m new. Things are just going to go back to how they were without me.” No one would have chosen Sirius over the friend they’ve known and loved for years. He doesn’t even want them to. He doesn’t want them to hate Remus: he doesn’t even hate Remus. He just hates this, this feeling. 

He does hate Remus. Just a bit. More when he misses him.

He hates him all the time.

Lily nods as she pinches off another bite, but she answers before eating it. “You’ll sit with us again then. At lessons, meals, what-have-you, if you’re not wanting to pretend everything’s normal with them.”

A tiny fraction of the crushing weight on Sirius’ chest lifts. “Thank you.”

They eat silently for a while and somewhere along the way the music must have stopped. Lily throws her rubbish away and flips the record, then settles on the bed again. She grabs a pillow to shove behind her back this time, but sets up otherwise the same way against the bedpost.

Sirius finishes his muffin and throws the wrapper. 

“Sirius,” Lily says a bit tentatively. “You don’t have to tell me…” She kicks the blankets over to the other side of the bed and stretches her legs out again and Sirius pulls a foot back to make room for her. “You can though. What happened with Remus. If- if you needed to talk about it.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles. He’s not.. he doesn’t know whether he wants to talk about it. He’s not sure he’s processed it yet. There’s a chance that the minute he sees Remus, Sirius will blow up or break down, curse Remus or himself. He’s not sure.

”I thought you’d be good together,” Lily says. 

Yeah. He’d thought so too.

Sirius picks at the skin around his fingernails. Lily doesn’t change the subject nor does she pressure him to talk. Maybe that’s why he does. 

“I guess I’ve fancied him a bit since I got here.” That’s where it all started, isn’t it? Remus laughing at something James had said the first time Sirius walked into the Great Hall, long before Sirius ever plucked up the courage to talk to him. He was gorgeous, obviously, but he looked… he looked exactly like what Sirius wanted him to be: kind and soft, but still quick and fun. Sirius had been searching up and down the long tables for people who looked interesting on his first day, and Remus’ whole personality seemed to pour out of him in that one tiny moment, and he was lovely. As Lily was pulling him down the table to sit with her friends, Remus had caught him looking.

There’s no attempting to explain this whirlwind of a week without first mentioning the way Remus rejected Sirius over and over again, and Sirius couldn’t take a bloody hint. How obsessed must he have already been with Remus to not realize that Sirius wasn’t just having some cute game of cat and mouse with him: he was chasing Remus as he actively ran away. Remus avoided him, ended conversations with him, agreed barely to being acquaintances when Sirius had offered friends. Remus had said he had secrets and Sirius had promised not to care, and then he cared anyway.

Remus never said his secrets would hurt him. Sirius was an idiot to think they wouldn’t.

“I guess I thought… I thought he felt the same way, and I think he did a bit, but it wasn’t enough. I thought that would be enough and it wasn’t.”

Lily nods slowly. “Do you think-“ a banging on the door cuts her off, and she looks wordlessly to Sirius for directions. He shrugs and stays quiet.

The banging starts up again, and this time James’ voice comes through. Obviously, it’s James. Sirius just doesn’t have it in him to talk to anyone other than Lily.

“Sirius, I know you’re in there: I can hear your stupid muggle music. Open the door.” James bangs a few more times on the door for good measure, but he sounds more concerned than angry.

Maybe Lily hears the touch of worry in James’ voice too. She shoots Sirius an apologetic look as she stands up and pulls on the door, revealing James’ standing with a raised fist, clearly about to start hammering again. He drops his hand at the sight of Lily, then his eyes skirt around the room, landing briefly on Sirius, then right back to Lily.

Sirius realizes too late what James will see.

Lily, dishevelled: hair all tangled, pieces of her uniform strewn about in the room, shirt rumpled, untucked, and half unbuttoned. Sirius in nothing but his flannel bottoms sitting in his bed with the sheets all pushed off to one side. Soft ambient music.

”Lily?” James croaks, voice a scratching incredulous whisper. He laughs hollowly, shaking his head. He shoves a letter at Lily, still shaking his head. “This came for Sirius at breakfast. Thought I’d deliver it because I’m such a good fucking friend — are you kidding me, Sirius? This is why you’ve been so secretive- I cannot believe you.”

James stomps off, and Lily and Sirius watch him go. Slowly, Lily closes the door and turns around. She doesn’t say anything when she hands Sirius his letter, just takes up her perch on the end of his bed again. She tucks her feet up in front of her on the mattress and stares at them instead of Sirius, and neither of them talk for a while.

Sirius has no more space for dread, not at James assuming he’s been dating Lily behind his back, and not at the letter from his mother. “You read it,” he pleads, tossing the letter back at Lily. There’s a slightly blank look on her face, but she reaches for the letter nonetheless. 

Her eyebrows make a valiant effort to merge into one as she frowns at the letter. “Sirius,” she starts. “Juxpect queue too revinderuh ass… luh…”

“It’s in French,” he realizes. She holds the letter out to him again, but he just waves her off. “It’ll just be my mother telling me I’m coming home for the holidays, and I ought to be on my very best behaviour.”

“I thought you and your family-“ Lily interrupts herself with a shake of her head. “Complicated?”

“Complicated,” he agrees. 

She chucks the letter into his sheets. Another song starts up.

“Sorry about James,” Sirius says eventually. He’s not sure whether it’s important to Lily that James and her be on good terms, but that’s not looking good at the moment. Better than the odds of James being on good terms with Sirius, but not great.

“Yeah,” Lily says. “Me too.”

Chapter Text

Monday

Lily’s sitting alone in the common room by the portrait hole. She kicks out her legs in front of Sirius when he tries to walk by her. “You’re sitting with us at breakfast, right?” When she seems sure he isn’t going to run away from her, she stands, and they file through the portrait hole.

“I…” he looks down at her while they walk, and she’s watching him back keenly. They both know what he’s thinking. “I think I’m just skipping it.” He’s already running late — meaning they both are — but he could make it in time for something quick if he cared to. 

Lily doesn’t argue. “I’ll grab you something. What do you want?”

Nothing. He wants to throw up. He wants to go back to his room. He wants- it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what he wants. “Anything.”

—

Sirius sleeps through his lessons. He’s on his third mostly-sleepless night, and it’s easy. It’s easier than looking at Remus. It’s not like Remus would even look back. He’s moved away from James and Peter to sit at the front of the class, which makes him completely unavoidable. Sirius is condemned to the sight of his back.

Sirius folds his arms on his desk and hides in them.

Tuesday

Lily told him she’d grab him another muffin today, so he doesn’t expect to find her outside his door an hour before lessons. She raps quietly at first, then bangs when Sirius doesn’t answer. He drags himself to the door and props himself up against the frame, waiting for her to talk.

“I was supposed to study with the girls tonight.”

”That’s fine,” he mumbles. He can survive one night on his own. Obviously. It’s one night. He’ll be fine. He doesn’t own her. She has other friends — better friends. He can’t just expect her to drop everything-

“I invited them here.” Here, his room. Normally they study in their own room, which has four beds and plenty of floor space, or else in some other mysterious undisclosed location.

Sirius looks around his room. It’s not big, certainly not big enough for five people. It’s private, which is a luxury, and it has its single armchair, which is nice, but it’s most definitely a single room. “Right.”

“I thought I could steal a second armchair from the common room, and then do three of us in the bed, one in each chair, and that should be okay. You won’t have any walking space, but you’re hardly doing laps in here… We’re doing Potions essays — have you done yours?” He didn’t even know there was an essay due. His face must speak for itself. “Good. I’m going to go steal a chair. You- put your laundry away and make your bed.”

”Right.” He stares at his chair full of laundry. Normally it only collects a few items, but it’s overflowing by now. Laundry’s easy, or it should be. It should be. It should be. Right now it feels like a million decisions all at once, and he doesn’t remember where anything goes. He stares at his chair trying to remember, trying to remember how to decide what’s clean.

Lily sighs and comes further into the room. She starts folding clothes. “Go steal a chair then.” He goes.

—

Everyone in his room chats while they work, and Sirius works to avoid chatting. He gets his essay done.

Lily hangs around, stretched out across Sirius’ bed long after the other girls have gone, and Sirius sits in the new armchair and listens to music while Lily keeps working. She yawns every few minutes and eventually smears a line of ink across her cheek when she drops her heavy head into her hand. As she tries to wipe the ink off and stares bemusedly at her blackened palm she seems to decide it’s time to call it a night. Sirius sends her to the bathroom before the ink can stain her face and packs her bag for her while she’s gone. 

He hates that she won’t leave him alone, and he wishes he could ask her to sleep here too. He’d sleep in the chair.

Lily’s got water droplets all down her front when he hands her her bag. She’s always staring at him like that before she leaves, all searching and concerned, but he’s getting used to it. He doesn’t try to blank out his face anymore. She’s checking on him.

“I have to supervise a detention for a few hours on Wednesday, but Dorcas is going to come by-“

”Are you afraid of leaving me alone?” Sirius asks.

”Yes,” Lily says without missing a beat. 

Oh. “Okay.” He’s not going to do anything. Whatever she’s afraid of, he’s fine. Obviously he isn’t going to do anything. “What if I want to be alone?”

Lily closes her eyes heavily as she thinks. She takes a long time deciding on an answer, and Sirius is still holding her bag out in front of him. He pulls on her arm and loops the strap over her shoulder, and she nods, eyes still closed. “If you don’t want to talk, I’ll start bringing a book,” she offers. 

Wednesday

“This one’s called Sudoku, and these are word searches.” Dorcas lifts one small book then another. “Which one do you want to learn first?”

”Neither,” Sirius says honestly. He doesn’t need more books.

Dorcas plants both of her feet on the floor in front of her and stares indifferently at Sirius from the Good Chair. He sits on the stiff chair and glares back. “You’re right,” she says, voice soft, casual. “We should probably just sit here and talk about our feelings for the next two hours. Would you like to go first?”

Dorcas is not nearly as patient with him as Lily. She is here, though. Sirius wonders if Lily is calling in favours so that Dorcas will babysit him.

She has him pinned though. He can’t talk about his feelings. “The first one, then. The one that sounds like a spell.” He points to the respective book.

”Ah, good choice.” She has a passive way of looking at Sirius that doesn’t show that she’s annoyed at all, but he’s sure she is. If she wants to leave, she should just go. “Tell me, Sirius, can you count to nine?” she snarks lightly. It’s just a joke, and he’s not in the mood.

Sirius reaches over and grabs the book out of her hand thinking he can probably figure it out without her help.

There aren’t even words on the pages. Right. “Please, Dorcas,” he mutters. “Would you teach me how to count to nine so I can play the Squares Games? Please? I’m desperate. Teach me how to count to nine. I-“

”Oh my god, you’re annoying. Would you fucking shut up for ten seconds-“

“Can’t, no. Can’t count that high. Would you teach me how to count to ten so-“

She hits him with her other book. The soft laugh that pours past his lips surprises him.

Thursday

He gets a letter at breakfast Thursday and has the mind to not open it in front of everyone. It’s from Andromeda.

It’s nothing. She answers his questions. Edward goes by Ted. They have jobs and a child. They’re happy. 

The second half of the letter is much longer, responding to what he said, asking questions about him. She responds to his few anecdotes with stories of her own time at Hogwarts, back when she had to sneak around to try and steal time with Ted without her sisters suspecting, a mushroom from the forbidden Forrest that makes you float just an inch off the ground. He’s almost enjoying it until his eyes skim down to look at the picture she’s enclosed (a little girl who sticks out her tongue, crosses and uncrosses her different-coloured eyes) and sees Remus in the bottom paragraph.

It hits him square in the chest, and the letter falls right out of his hands. He’d forgotten he’d told her about Remus, something achingly vulnerable because he wasn’t sure he’d ever even hear back from her and he’d wanted to get it off his chest. He’d told her about Remus, and now she’s asking about him, and Sirius can’t answer. 

Just kidding. He never- Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’m fine, though! Everything’s fine.

He can’t answer. He doesn’t finish reading the letter, just shoves it into his trunk so he won’t have to look at it anymore.

—

Lily doesn’t ask for her record player back, and as the girls continue to congregate in his room throughout the week, they keep leaving vinyls behind. Lily starts leaving him alone more. He changes records and circles words in his little book, puts numbers into their corresponding squares — cheats when he gets bored.

Sudoku is nice. It’s boring, and he hates it, but it’s good. It’s something. It makes his brain turn off, and he races through puzzle after puzzle whenever he can’t stand to think. He fills the whole book and asks Dorcas if she has any more, which she does. He starts seeing squares when he closes his eyes, but that’s good too. He solves puzzles when he can’t sleep, pictures them in his head. It makes him less afraid to close his eyes. Sometimes he even dozes for an hour or two.

It’s more sleep than he was getting before. It’s something.

Chapter Text

There’s a fist in the back of Sirius’ robes, harsh and dragging, and for just one glorious moment his mind imagines Remus pulling him off into a secret corner to talk in hurried whispers or snog between lessons.

But it’s not Remus, and the gait is all wrong and the grip is tight and rough, and Sirius gathers his wits before he can be forced into the alcove. He leans into the movement and takes a few quick steps forward, forcing the person behind him to speed up. He pulls himself up short and uses his assailant’s momentum and a fist in their robes to pull them in front of him, and they both fall against the wall together chest-to-chest. James’ back hits the wall, and Sirius’ has a wand in his throat before he can process any of it.

It takes Sirius a surprisingly long time to process that it’s James. James. He hasn’t seen James since Sunday. James hasn’t tried to talk to him, hasn’t so much as looked at him-

“What?” Sirius asks. He doesn’t mean to sound harsh, but the contempt pours out of him anyway. “What do you want?”

James has his hands up, palms out, and he shakes them a bit like he’s trying to draw attention to the fact that he’s unarmed. Sirius searches his face, not sure what he’s looking for, then steps back. He uncurls his fist from James’ robes and puts his wand in his pocket. “What do you want?” he repeats.

James should be angry, Sirius realizes. James should be attacking him. Something’s wrong. “Is-“ Remus “Is everyone alright?”

“Are you,” James counters. 

No, but he hasn’t been alright all week and James hasn’t been hauling him off until now. It’s fine, though. If Remus is fine… Sirius takes another step back, the relief in his chest making room for resentment. “Since when do you care?”

”I don’t,” James says easily.

”Great.” Sirius starts to turn away, but James is grabbing the back of his robes again. Sirius resigns himself to being pulled back around. He consciously —  consciously — doesn’t let himself reach for his wand. His nails bite into his palms. “You do not want to push me right now, James. Let go.”

James drops his handful of Sirius’ uniform and crosses his arms over his puffed-up chest. “Tell me you’re staying here for the holidays.” Sirius can’t tell James that. Obviously, he’s going home. He shoves his clenched fists into his pockets but doesn’t touch his wand. James’ face twists into some disdainful scowl as Sirius pointedly doesn’t answer. “You’d be better off if you stayed here,” James says very slowly, like Sirius is dim.

That much is obvious, but Walburga Black said I expect you to return home, and so Sirius will be returning home. If Sirius doesn’t go home next Friday, he doesn’t ever get to go home again. “I’ll be fine.”

”But not safe,” James says. Safe. Whatever. Safe means different things to different people. Sirius will be exactly as safe as he expects to be. He’ll live. “My parents have talked about your family-“

”Oh, so you’re an expert? Tell me about my family, James. I’d love to learn.”

James runs a rough hand through his hair, then throws it up in some condescending frustration. “I think you need to learn to make a fucking choice, the right choice for once. Don’t go back there. I know you don’t want to.”

“It’s not about what I want-“

James shakes his head, jaw working overtime. “Remus said I should mind my own business-“ 

Remus said. They’re talking about Sirius… of course they are. James and Peter have been, Sirius knew that much. There’s nothing those two love more than gossip, and Sirius has been exceedingly interesting with his secret romance. Is it Annette, Darla, Lily? Can’t forget Lily. Merlin-forbid Sirius have any other friends outside of them.

Peter and James, he knew they were talking about him, but fuck. Fuck. He hates that Remus is talking about him, him and his awful fucking family. Remus Remus Remus. Fuck.

James is still talking, and Sirius can barely hear him. It’s not fucking fair. James knows nothing. He doesn’t know a bloody thing. Not about Sirius’ family, not about fucking Remus. Sirius and Remus. Nothing. 

“I have a brother to look after,” Sirius says, interrupting James and not caring. He can’t hear about what all Remus and them have talked about concerning Sirius. It’s not fair that Remus gets to talk about him like he has any fucking- like he has any right. He doesn’t have the right.

”Your brother should leave too.”

Ignorant. That’s the most ignorant thing James has ever said. “Oh, brilliant. You’ll make room for us in your bed, will you? Find a nice family to take us in? Or would you rather see us in the streets? Merlin, James, you think I’ve never thought about leaving?”

Things aren’t good there, but he can survive it — he always has. It’s easier going back to what’s familiar than trying to figure out his whole life alone at seventeen. Maybe he can grit his teeth a few more years and outlive his parents. They’ve never been completely well, and they’re not getting any younger.

He could leave. Maybe he could be brave, maybe he could try, but Reg wouldn’t. When the choice is between himself and his baby brother, he chooses his brother. He’ll always choose his brother. That’s why they have each other: they weren’t meant to do this alone. It’s too much for anyone to handle alone. Regulus couldn’t handle it alone.

James’ eyes snap to Sirius’ and he deflates. He steps back finally giving Sirius some space and leans against the wall blowing out a breath. “I have a spare room.” That’s a nice thought, and it doesn’t matter.

James is kind, but he’s fucking stupid, too stupid to even-  he has no idea.

”I don’t need a place to crash for a few nights, James. A few hot meals and some clean sheets. I need a family, and you’re not that.” James opens his mouth like he’s going to speak, but Sirius isn’t done. “I’ve barely known you a few months, and lately you can’t even look at me. How can you possibly-“

”Okay- I’m doing my best, Sirius, considering you’re shagging the girl I’ve been openly-“

Again, stupid.

”I’m not shagging Lily!” Sirius’ shout echoes in the empty corridor, and neither of them bothers to see if anyone’s overheard.

James frowns deeply, like Sirius has said something complicated that he needs to really work to decipher. In the end, James just looks annoyed and doubtful. “She was in your room.”

Sirius blows out a breath. “And?”

Hogwarts is a rumour mill, and Sirius intentionally hadn’t ever invited Lily into his room until he was too unwell to leave it. They’d both known what people would say, the assumptions they’d make, and it had all just seemed an unnecessary amount of drama. But James isn’t just people. He was supposed to be a friend. He didn’t even give Sirius a chance. 

And maybe Sirius should have jumped up and ran after him, begged for James to listen. He could have explained himself a week ago, could have asked Lily to come talk to James with him. She avoids James, but she’d have done this for Sirius. He knows she would have.

And Sirius had nothing left to give. James should have asked, and Sirius should have explained. James was too upset and Sirius was too broken, and the moment passed. It feels awkward and out of place to have the conversation now, but they’re both here. 

James shakes his head like he’s trying to force his thoughts into an order that makes sense. “And you’re dating someone, and you’re always with her, and she fancies you, and obviously you fancy her too, and so does everyone, and-“

”James,” Sirius interrupts. “No.” Where to even start with all that — he’s told James he doesn’t fancy Lily. She’s never acted like she fancied him, other than talking with him more than other blokes, but they just talk. She’s nice to talk to.

“She’s been in your room every night this week,” James argues, but he doesn’t sound sure now. He pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Who else would it be, if she’s the only one-“

Ah, well. If James had had any doubts after storming off on Sunday, it’s true that Lily’s hardly left Sirius’ room in the days since. 

”No one, James! It wouldn’t be anyone else — I got dumped. Lily decided she was on suicide watch: that’s why she’s in my room all the time.” Sirius laughs, awkward and ironic and deflecting. “She’s a friend, a better friend than you.” Maybe that’s not a fair thing to say. Maybe it’s true anyway. It feels true.

Even as Sirius clears up this misunderstanding about Lily, there’s still more that James has assumed about Sirius. In a tough situation, James isn’t on his side. Not with Lily, not with Remus. He wants to be James’ friend so badly, and James just can’t trust him. He doesn’t want to keep defending himself all the time. 

James looks completely overloaded with information. He shakes his head again, then immediately fixes his hair. "Who were you dating?" James asks eventually, eyebrows still furrowed, glasses still hanging limply from his hand. He looks strange without them. 

"That doesn't matter, does it?" It's the only thing that matters, the only thing that's ever mattered, but life goes on. James doesn't know, so clearly Remus doesn't want him to know. It's fine. it doesn't matter.

"I guess not," James says with a one-shouldered shrug. He makes a show of looking around Sirius, up and down the corridor, but it’s clear he’s just avoiding Sirius while he thinks. "I was going to try, you know. I was going to try to be friends again. I was going to try to be okay with the you and Lily thing. You guys — I mean don't go getting any ideas — it made sense. More sense than her and I ever did. She isn’t ever going to change her mind about me, so… I was going to try."

Right. Sirius imagines Lily doesn’t hate James as much as he seems to think, but that’s a different conversation. "Well, you don't have to."

"You two haven't- ever?" James does look at him now, searching, imploring. Sirius fights the urge to roll his eyes.

"Never." Nor would he. She’s Lily.

James huffs a dramatic sigh and slides a bit further down the wall. "Right," he says in probably the most neutral tone he can manage. James’ voice bleeds relief. He scrubs a hand down his face and puts his glasses on again. His eyes scan over Sirius again but seem to take him in a bit more this time. Sirius knows he’s looked better. James’ eyebrows come together in some vaguely guilty frown. "I'm sorry you and your girlfriend broke up," he says.

Yeah… it’s a nice sentiment. "Right.” That’s not an answer. He knows it’s not. He shrugs and shoves his hands a bit deeper in his pockets. “Yeah, me too."

James nods sympathetically. "You should start sitting with us again. If you want. You could. No one- I never meant to make you feel unwelcome."

"Sure you didn’t," Sirius says sarcastically. James shrugs sheepishly, another apology that he doesn't need to say. "I'm not going to do that."

James shrugs. “You don’t have to. I wouldn’t mind, though. And Peter has no one to play chess with. And Remus… you’ll have to not take his mood personally right now. He’s working through some stuff, but I know he misses you.” Sirius has to look away. He can’t look at James. He can’t pretend the words don’t knock the breath out of him. Oh, it’s so unfair. James has no clue, and Sirius has to just keep pretending. “And if you’re not… you and he could be friends again. Everyone- we’d make it work. Just… sit with us again. We’ll make it work.”

Sirius can't argue with James, not when James doesn't even know. Not when James says sorry about your girlfriend and Remus is working through some stuff — it's not about you — and he misses you. How's Sirius even meant to argue with that? James has no idea. "I like where I'm at," Sirius lies. He likes the girls- he does. He misses having his own friends. Lily’s good, and he wants his old friends back too. He misses James and Peter. He misses Remus so much his whole body hurts. It doesn’t matter.

Remus misses him.

"Right… You could though," James repeats. "If you wanted to. Even just once in a while."

"Sure, thanks."

"And I'll give you my floo. In case you do need… a hot meal and some clean sheets. You could visit."

It's a nice gesture. James is doing as much as he can, as much as he knows how. There's not much anyone can do for Sirius. "Thanks."

Chapter Text

Now that James has offered, though, Sirius can’t get the idea out of his head. James said Sirius should sit with them again, and he wants to. James said they would make it work.

James, obviously, is an idiot. Sirius wants to make it work so badly. 

He manages to talk himself down two days in a row, and on the third he just doesn’t care anymore. Why can’t he try? Worst case scenario — things are too awkward and he doesn’t do it again. At least he’ll have tried. 

Sirius gives Lily’s shoulder a squeeze when he walks by her in the Great Hall, some sort of acknowledgement. Some sort of I know what I’m doing even if he also knows it might be a bad idea. He doesn’t look back to see Lily’s reaction.

He takes the empty seat beside James with a painfully bright smile. “Morning.”

He doesn’t say more than that, not yet. He watches everyone’s reactions. James elbows him immediately, something vaguely violent but affectionate enough when paired with his chirpy “Sirius, my love!”

Peter looks tentative if apprehensive and gives a little nod. Remus’ eyes find Sirius for only a tiny moment before dropping back to his plate. As Sirius watches, Remus seems to curl in on himself, or maybe just away from Sirius, and it knocks the wind out of him. He’s not sure he should have expected any different, but it’s the first time he’s made contact with Remus in any capacity, and some part of him seems to have been desperately holding out for warmth, for welcome, for something. 

Right. Peter and James. They’ll make it work. 

He wants his friends back. 

“That letter my mother sent last week,” Sirius says into the silence. He’s the one to have disrupted the flow and the dynamic of the group by coming back unannounced so he tries to get the conversation going again. Something low-stakes. Something easy. “It was ridiculous — did you read it before bringing it by?” He addresses James and Peter mostly. They’re acknowledging him, so he leans into that.

Like old times, really. Sirius trying, trying so hard he can’t breathe, and Remus ignoring him. Perfect. Familiar. Fine.

Peter seems to see what Sirius is doing: he settles a bit in his seat and puffs out a theatrically exasperated breath. “Listen — I tried. I couldn’t get Remus to translate!” It’s normal, joking, easy.

Remus looks up at the mention of his name, and Sirius can properly take him in this time. He looks awful. He looks sick — more than sick. He looks broken. Sirius can’t — he can’t ignore him. He’s so pale that even his lips are vaguely white. 

We can try, Sirius offers. It doesn’t have to be like this. What he actually says is, “Remus!” Look, I’m being friendly. We can be friendly. “You can’t expect Peter to-“

James is already saying something about how only true friends read each other’s mail, but Remus stands up. He doesn’t even bother collecting any of his belongings when he steps over the bench and walks away.

Sirius watches him go with a sharp, jagged pain behind his ribs. James is already grabbing Sirius’ elbow, holding him back, excusing Remus — it’s not about you — and all the hurt that Sirius can hardly carry warps into something angry. He pushes James off and follows. 

Remus doesn’t run. If he had, Sirius would probably have lost him, but he takes long awkward, slightly unsteady strides until he can tap his wand against a portrait and then step through it like it was never there. It’s a portrait again before Sirius has caught up, but Sirius is lucky: a simple revelio lets the landscape disappear and a small cellar comes into view. Sirius has to jump slightly to get through the high frame, but he’s too upset to even feel awkward. 

“Sirius-“ Remus is already sliding down the stone wall like he can’t hold the weight of his own body on his unsteady legs. “I can’t. You- you should go back. I’ll be better. I’ll be better at sharing them. Please go.”

Sirius freezes a few feet away.

He would go. If Remus wanted him to go, he would go. If Remus wanted him to go and looked halfway capable of standing back up, he would go. 

Are you okay? Sirius opens his mouth. He has a million things he could say — is there anything I can do? — and what comes out is, “Fuck off.” He tears his eyes away from Remus, not that there’s much else to look at here. He can’t look at him. He can’t hurt any more than he does now, and he doesn’t want to be angry. He’s so fucking angry. “You can’t even pretend for ten seconds? What’s wrong with you? Don’t you at least owe me-“

”I can’t, Sirius. I can’t, and I do. I owe you so much more, and I can’t… I can’t be who you need me to be.” Remus drops his head back against the wall, and the changed angle of his head lets the vague torchlight catch the sheen of sweat on his forehead. His chest heaves between random words like he’s either somehow completely over-exerted from his two-minute walk, or he’s doing everything he can not to cry. 

Sirius finds himself kneeling beside Remus. He can’t help it. The more he looks, the worse Remus seems. Sirius has seen him sick a few times, and it was still nothing like this. This is killing him. His eyes are hollow and his skin looks too heavy for his body, and Sirius finds himself touching his face like he needs to feel him to know he’s still there, he’s still warm. He’s warm, exceptionally warm, and he makes a horrible straggled sound but he leans into the touch. 

It’s killing him. It’s killing them both.

How can it possibly be over if it hurts this much? If Remus doesn’t want this either, and he mustn’t. Sirius’ thumb ghosts over Remus’ cheek, dipping into the deeply carved purple pit under his eye, and Remus raises a shaking hand. Maybe he means to push Sirius away, but neither of them has the strength for that. Remus’ fingertips ghost over the back of Sirius’ hand, and then they’re gone, and Remus’ whole face is pinched and fighting for some type of composure, and Sirius knows. 

He knows and he has to hear Remus say it anyway. “You miss me.” 

It’s a question and it doesn’t need to be. It’s a statement, and Sirius needs an answer. James had said that, hadn’t he? That Remus misses him… He needs Remus to say it.

Remus’ jaw shakes when he opens his mouth, and his eyes squeeze tighter. “Yes.” The word is some horrible choked breath, and touching just Remus’ face isn’t enough. He’s not sure what could ever be enough, not if Remus looks like this.

Yes, Remus misses him, but he’s pulling Sirius’ hand away from his face. It’s not fair. It feels like Remus is taking something away from him, something that’s his.

But Remus doesn’t let go of his hand. Both of their hands end up in Remus’ lap, and Sirius doesn’t pull back, and Remus doesn’t push him away. “You miss me,” Sirius repeats. Part of him knows that, always knew that. Remus isn’t cruel. He isn’t malicious. Of course at least some part of him wanted Sirius when they were together. Some of it had to be real. Part of him imagines that a lot of it was, that Remus must have been as gone as he was, but he still can’t quite believe it. He sees that smile in the back of his mind, the one where he truly felt for the first time like Remus wasn’t holding anything back, like there were these tiny moments where Remus was just uninhibited and happy and excited about him. If Remus feels like he does, why on earth can’t they be together?

Remus doesn’t answer, but Sirius doesn’t need him to. He has a better question anyway. “So why would we break up?”

Sirius can hear the echo of Remus’ gulp in the small empty room, but Remus doesn’t look up. His hands have started to fidget a bit with Sirius’ left hand, still in Remus’ lap. His fingers trace over Sirius’ knuckles (scarred), his nail beds (chewed, scabbed), the lines of his palms. They both watch Remus’ hands as they explore. 

Remus still doesn’t answer.

Sirius isn’t letting it go. He’s not turning a blind eye anymore, not about this. This isn’t Remus’ secret: it’s both of theirs. If it’s hurting them both, it’s both of theirs. Sirius has a right to know. “Remus, why?”

Remus takes a horrible sucking breath as he shakes his head. Sirius’ hand clenches in Remus’, interrupting his gentle tracing. They both watch, watch as the scars on Sirius’ knuckles stand out bright white. Sirius can see stories in those scars — he wonders if Remus can see them too. There were years where he and Regulus could only take their anger out on each other, and they did. Sirius had left some exceptionally harsh bare-knuckled brawl with his brother, two black eyes and three broken fingers, hands bloody from returning the favour. Maybe he hit wrong; maybe the skin on his knuckles was never meant to be so abused. The scabs took ages to form, and they reopened all summer any time he was frustrated because all he could do was clench his fists.

He forces his shaking hands open, and the scars sink back into subtlety against his skin. 

Remus doesn’t answer. He should. It’s only fair, and he should, but Sirius can only stretch out one finger and urge gently at Remus’ still hands.

When Remus is tracing Sirius’ fingers again, Sirius can breathe again. 

They go on like that for a while. Remus’ breathing levels out a bit and Sirius’ heart races like he’s been sprinting.

It’s hard to look at Remus, face ducked and eyes focused on Sirius’ hand. It’s hard to feel his tentative touch, sweet almost, and still feel so hurt by him. To look at Remus, wonderful fucking Remus, and know that he’s the one who hurt Sirius like this. He still can’t process it. It doesn’t make sense. With Remus right here in front of him, with all the longing and complicated anger inside of him, all the ache swollen in the back of his throat threatening to choke him, it’s still impossible that Remus could have hurt him.

And it still hurts.

“I don’t think you meant to hurt me,” Sirius says. It’s a prompt. It’s a fine, don’t answer me. Talk to me, though. Tell me something. Fuck, tell me you didn’t mean to hurt me.

Tell me you care.

Remus’ hands go still on Sirius’, and Sirius looks up to see why. Remus is looking at him for the first time, intense and fully present, miserable. “No,” he whispers. “That’s the last thing I ever would have wanted.”

Sirius looks away from Remus to think. That… that’s a nice answer: it’s the answer Sirius wants to hear, but it doesn’t make sense. “How could you possibly not hurt me if you were always planning on leaving me?”

Remus’ hands are on Sirius’ again, and it’s probably a call for Sirius’ attention, a gentle demand that he look back. Sirius does. “I was okay with hurting me. I thought I would have you… as long as I could. A few weeks, maybe a few months, and  when you finally… moved on to the next thing, you’d be okay. I would have the rest of my life to see if I could put myself back together, and it wouldn’t matter. I thought we could try for just a little while. I didn’t think… I didn’t think I could hurt you, someone like me.”

“Someone like you,” Sirius echoes, some condescending and watery laugh falling off his lips. It’s ridiculous. It’s too insane to even entertain. Someone like Remus. Someone like Remus is the only person who could ever hurt Sirius. “You weren’t planning on breaking up with me because you expected I’d do it for you… But you still can’t be with me after school, even if you know… even if you knew I wasn’t going anywhere.” 

Sirius watches Remus carefully for a reaction, confirmation, and his screwed up face answers Sirius. Yes.

“I wouldn’t have,” Sirius says. He means to be soft and reassuring, but it comes out more resentful than he feels — more resentful than he wants to feel. “You were waiting for me to hurt you: I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have ever hurt you.” I wouldn’t have ever done this to you.

Remus’ whole chest stutters with the shaky breath he draws, and he looks at Sirius for only a second. “I know,” he whispers. “I know that now.” Remus picks up Sirius’ hand and sets it back softly on Sirius’ knees. “I’m sorry, Sirius.”

No. Sirius doesn’t want his hand back. He doesn’t want the apology. He doesn’t want Remus’ guilt and repentance. “I still want you.” Sirius whispers so the words don’t get the chance to crack in his tight throat. Remus’ head drops a little further: he’s hiding from Sirius. Sirius won’t let him.

He’s kneeling next to Remus already, knee pressed tight against Remus’ thigh. It would hardly be any different to be kneeling over top of him instead of beside him, except for taking up so much more of Remus’ line of sight, except for forcing Remus not to hide. It would hardly be any different, and Sirius knows he’s lying to himself, and he knows that Remus won’t stop him, so he throws a leg over both of Remus’.

”Sirius-“ Remus chokes out, but his hands are already on Sirius’ thighs. Sirius settles his weight on Remus’ legs, and Remus is looking at him now, and Sirius grabs his face anyway to stop him from looking away. His skin is tacky and too warm, and it doesn’t matter because it’s Remus, and Remus is looking back at him.

”Your Amortentia — tell me it wasn’t my cologne.” It’s the world’s biggest coincidence, and it can’t possibly mean anything, and Sirius wants it to. He wants it to mean something so badly. He wants it to mean that there’s something about them that’s fated, something undeniable, something too big for Remus to argue against, fight against. Something so big and powerful it takes the decision out of their hands. “That’s why James found it so funny, that’s why you breathe me in like-“

”Stop.”

”You’re holding your breath.” Sirius leans closer, proving that he isn’t going anywhere. Remus can’t refuse to breathe forever. He leans another inch closer. “Breathe.”

Remus tries to turn his head away, but Sirius still has both hands on his face. Remus finally drops his eyes closed, refusing to look at Sirius, but he does breathe. “Fine. It’s you. Of course it’s you.”

It doesn’t feel good like he wants it to. Even if it’s fate, Remus is still fighting it. Remus is still leaving him. He already left.

“I wasn’t even here yet.” Sirius drops his forehead against Remus’. Maybe they don’t need to look at each other. He wants to feel him. He lets his hands fall from Remus’ cheeks to his neck, thumbs tracing against his jaw. “You wanted me before you even knew me.” Remus’ hands tighten on his thighs — too tight, far too tight. Perfect. Sirius rolls his hips down. He already knows what he’ll feel when he does. “And I know you want me now.” Remus’ grip could leave bruises. Sirius wishes he would, but Remus’ hands are already stuttering as they slide lightly over his thighs, tentative, almost indulgent, barely restrained. Next Remus is gripping his hips, and Sirius knows Remus won’t let him move against him like that again. He wants to. Merlin, he wants to. 

And it doesn’t matter that it hurts, nor that they both look and feel like they’re dying. He’s sure that somehow if Remus would let him rock against him, he’s sure he could bring them both back to life. How is he supposed to do anything else with Remus right here? “You want me, and-“

“Sirius-“ Remus’ tone is a warning, and Sirius doesn’t care.

”Have me.”

You already own me. Have me.

“Sirius, please. I can’t…” Remus shakes his head, barely, and his breath fans over Sirius’ face. They’re so close. All he’d need to do is lean-

“I’d fix it. Whatever’s wrong, I’d fix it,” Sirius promises. He doesn’t care that he’s desperate, that he’s begging, that it’s all a bit pathetic and awful. He doesn’t care, because what if he could fix it? “You could tell me, and I’d fix it.”

”I’m wrong.” One of his hands leaves Sirius’ hips to touch his cheek, the back of his neck. Remus’ hand slides into Sirius’ hair, and Sirius’ face angles itself towards him out of habit. When their lips just barely touch, Remus drops his hand again. Another tiny shake of his head. “You can’t fix me.”

”I don’t need you fixed.”

Sirius likes them like this: Remus underneath him, his hands on Remus’ neck. Remus’ racing pulse under his palm, every contraction of his throat as he swallows, the gentle hum of magic under his fingers. 

“Sirius, you do. I’m not-“

It doesn’t matter. Remus can’t finish the sentence, and it doesn’t matter, because Sirius isn’t good either. Sirius pulls his face back so that he can watch Remus, watch his hands on his throat, watch as Remus doesn’t tell him to stop when it’s so clearly a sign of ownership. Sirius watches his hands on Remus’ face, his neck, and pretends that Remus is his. He drags a thumb down over Remus’ adam’s apple in a way that’s so distinctly intimate, possessive, that even Remus can’t pretend not to notice. He’s looking at Sirius again, eyes pinched and pained and obscenely dark. 

“I would forgive you.” Sirius can see tears starting to cloud Remus’ eyes, but he doesn’t care. “You would tell me all your secrets, and I would tell you I forgive you. For anything, Remus.” He repeats that same slow dragging movement with his thumb. Mine. “Let me forgive you.”

Remus’ swallow fights against Sirius’ palm, and his hands drop back to Sirius’ thighs, holding on like he needs something to anchor himself. Sirius adjusts his hand and feels that tiny thrum of magic again, familiar. “I don’t want you to forgive me,” Remus says, but his grip says otherwise. His imploring and desperately wanting eyes say otherwise.

Sirius curls his back and neck to be able to ghost his lips over that tiny pulse of magic at Remus’ throat. He remembers it. It all happened so fast, but he remembers it now. He knows why it feels so familiar, but it’s distorted now too. He can’t see the bruise he left on Remus’ throat a week ago, but it’s still there. Sirius had whispered magic he hardly understood into that bruise, and it won’t heal now, not on its own. He’d wanted to leave a mark on Remus, some sort of desperate and futile claim. Sirius’ magic is holding it hostage, possessive and unnatural, and Remus hasn’t healed it.

It won’t heal on its own, but a simple episkey would do the trick. Remus put a glimmer over it instead, and now Remus’ magic is layered over his. Sirius can feel it. 

On Remus’ skin they’re still together. 

Sirius needs to feel it, them — together. He needs to feel it on his lips and his teeth and his tongue, and he feels like he should be allowed. This tiny patch of skin on Remus’ neck belongs to him. 

“Sirius-“ Remus’ warning tone is undercut by the desperate bucking of his hips, and Sirius catches himself against the wall behind Remus before he can fall against him. They stare each other down like this, and Sirius feels looming with Remus panting beneath him. He waits, waits for Remus to say more, to say stop, and he doesn’t. Remus just stares back, gone. 

Sirius ducks his head again and goes right back to that spot, a nip and then the slow soothing lave of his tongue. He knows Remus wouldn’t let him kiss him, but he can do this. He needs to do this, and Remus can’t tell him to stop. 

Remus tangles his hand in Sirius’ hair and drops his head back against the wall behind him, making room for Sirius. “Sirius,” the name falls off his lips over and over, a whisper, a whimper, a plea. The fingers in his hair tighten. “You’re not being fair.”

Fair. None of this is fair. Fair is letting Remus walk away. Fair is giving up everything, and he doesn’t want to give Remus up. “I’m not trying to be.”

Remus is a horrible Prefect, and his shirt is always untucked, and it’s so easy. It’s so easy for Sirius to slide his hands up his stomach, to drag his fingertips through hair, to scrape his nails over fever-hot skin. The spaces between Remus’ ribs must have been carved for Sirius’ fingers. He can feel the bumps and valleys of scars, and he could touch a thousand bodies and pick out Remus with his eyes closed. 

If Remus wants him too, it should be easy. 

“Kiss me.” Sirius could kiss Remus, and Remus might even let him, but he needs Remus to do it. He needs Remus to choose him, not just submit to him. “Please.”

Remus’ fingers tangle tighter into Sirius’ hair, but he pulls him down into his shoulder instead of against his mouth. It’s hard to say whether Remus is hugging him or restraining him, but Sirius goes willingly. “We can’t. I can’t do this, Sirius.” He rests his head against Sirius’ for a breath, another breath so fucking indulgent it makes Sirius ache. “And I can’t be your friend.” Remus’ fingers loosen in his hair to cradle his head instead, the back of his neck, anything. “I can’t be around you.”

Opposite his own words, Remus wraps both his arms around Sirius, and Sirius copies him, urging Remus to bow his back away from the wall just enough that he can sneak his hands around, and Remus does. “You’re around me now,” Sirius counters weakly. 

Remus’ arms tighten — too much and not nearly enough. “It’s killing me, Sirius.”

Right. Of course. 

Sirius pulls back, and Remus lets him go. Sirius brushes the hair out of Remus’ eyes, then the tears off of his cheeks. They keep falling, silent, and Sirius eventually just leaves his hand there, lets the tears slide over both of them. “So, this is it then?” It’s Remus’ decision after all. They’ve talked now, properly, and nothing changed. Sirius would do anything, and there’s nothing he can do. It’s all up to Remus, isn’t it?

When Remus closes his eyes — against his own pain, against the pain in Sirius’ face — more tears fall, and they slide quickly down the tracks laid by all the ones that came before. “Yeah.”

Sirius nods. That’s it then. 

He can’t fight his own tears now, but at least Remus’ eyes are closed. “Will you tell me something else?” Sirius asks.

Tell me something. Sirius said it every night, in every silence he wanted filled. Tell me something. And he’d learned. He learned about Remus’ family, his years before Hogwarts and the ones since. How he fell in with Peter and James, the trouble they’ve caused. Albert the dog and how Remus got splinched because Sirius winked at him. “Tell me something good,” he specifies. 

Of course, nothing’s good. Right now it feels like nothing will ever be good again, and that’s why he needs it. He needs something to hold onto, something to give him the strength to stand up and walk away from Remus knowing they can’t do this again, he can’t touch him again. 

Remus’ eyes peel open and he stares at Sirius, lost and helpless and overwhelmed, and Sirius knows he’s thinking it too. Nothing’s good. 

“Even if you have to lie,” Sirius says. He has to swallow around some feeling threatening to choke him, then clear his throat before he thinks he might be able to speak again. “Something good.”

Remus nods. He reaches up to wipe at Sirius’ cheeks this time, pulling on his sleeve like he did when he was wiping blood from Sirius’ forehead, and it feels a bit like that now: Remus is the one who broke him, and it’s still Remus he wants putting him back together again. 

Only when Sirius’ cheeks are dry (and a bit scratched from the rough fabric) does Remus content himself. He brushes a hand over Sirius’ cheek only one more time. “You’re going to love so many people. You have your whole life. There will be-“ Remus’ face crumples into something horrible, but he gets it under control, and his voice barely shakes. “There will be so much love in your life.”

Right. Sure. 

Maybe. Maybe that’s how it goes. Maybe life goes on. “And you too?” He won’t cry again. He won’t- he only just stopped. He won’t.

“I’ll…” He watches Remus. He watches him make the decision to lie. “Yeah. Me too.”

”Yeah,” Sirius says it so softly and his voice cracks anyway. Now they’re both liars. “We’ll be okay.”

Chapter Text

Sirius can’t bear to feel it, and so he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel much of anything.

He flies and trains with James. When Gryffindor wins its match against Hufflepuff, Sirius cheers like he cares. He sprints down to the pitch and hoists Peter onto his shoulders, laughs and carries him to James like a trophy, laughs like his chest isn’t so tight he can barely breathe, but he keeps breathing. Time passes.

He doesn’t look for Remus. He sees him constantly, but he looks away, walks away, anything he needs to do, and Remus does the same. Sirius tries not to enter the library, and Remus must give Sirius the common room.

James and Peter drift between them, maybe knowing better than to ask. Remus does make good on his promise to share them better. He does that much.

In the lessons they share, Remus is the first to arrive and the first out the door, so Sirius is the opposite. He keeps his eyes on the floor as he walks to his empty seat and puts his head down on a desk without ever looking around. He doesn’t lift his head again until the lesson’s over, until he can be sure Remus is gone.

“Mister Black,” Professor McGonagall says as he packs up, most of the other students already filtering out. She nods for him to join her at the front of the class, but she waits until the class has cleared out to speak. He watches the last bodies leave, wondering if he ought to feel dread, if he’s in trouble. He’s usually in trouble. He spent all of Arithmancy yesterday casting subtle diffindos at Severus until he’d gotten caught half way through giving him a mullet.

Snape will brew himself a potion for hair lengthening and be back to his greasy little bob in a week. He’s fine.

He’s probably getting more detentions.

“I was under the impression you were taking potions for your sleep, is that still true?”

Of all the things he might have expected her to say, that certainly didn’t make the list.

“I was taking them,” he says slowly. “I took them all. I ran out.” He finds it hard to look at McGonagall. She’s never been anything but kind to him. In a lot of ways he feels very comfortable around her, but stern women make him squirmy. Any time she addresses him directly, he finds himself waiting for her to snap. She hasn’t, not ever. She hardly raises her voice, but Sirius still can’t look her in the eye when he thinks he’s in trouble.

She nods. Something in Sirius’ gut clenches when she raises her wand, but she just gestures somewhere off to her side. On her desk, a roll of parchment flattens itself, and a quill perks up. “I’ll send Madam Pomfrey a note to start another batch.”

She flicks her wand again, and the quill skitters along the page, a neat, cramped cursive flowing out easily behind it. “Is there anything else I can do, Sirius?” 

Sirius barely manages to keep his face straight at hearing his first name. He shakes his head quickly, not even trying to think of anything. She nods and he’s dismissed, still frowning at the interaction. Peter waits outside the door for Sirius. “Detention?” Peter asks like it could hardly be anything else, and Sirius laughs, a bit strained. 

“Errand boy,” Sirius corrects, holding up his note addressed to Madam Pomfrey. He doesn’t mention that the note is written on his behalf, but Peter doesn’t ask. They walk to the hospital wing, and Peter rants about the just-passed Quidditch match like he played in it himself, and Sirius listens. 

In the hospital wing itself, Pomfrey is bouncing back and forth between a half dozen brewing potions, and a curtain is drawn around one of the beds. He recognizes some scents from home or past Potions classes. Headaches, fever, muscle and joint pain, all mild enough. Clearly the end of term examinations have put students through their paces this year. He shrugs, leaves his note on an empty bed, and knows she’ll get to him when she has a chance. He doesn’t count on getting his potions tonight if she’s so busy, but maybe he’ll get enough to take back to Grimmauld Place with him over the holidays, that way he can sleep through as much of the ordeal as possible. 

“Do you think the muscle tonics are for the Quidditch teams?” Sirius asks Peter as they descend the stairs again. “They played too hard? It was an abnormally long match.” 

Peter looks over at Sirius, then back at his feet (he’s always tripping on the stairs). “Yeah, that would make sense. James has been moaning about his forearms since Saturday from gripping his broom so tight in the sleet.”

Sirius snickers. “Oh, I’m sure James is used to a sore wrist by now.” Peter snorts. “Speaking of Lily, she has Prefect duties almost every night this week. I’m gonna be forced to hang out with you lot again tonight, hope Remus doesn’t mind.”

Peter shrugs. “Remus has his own thing tonight. You’re good. Are we talking about this, then? The fact that you’re avoiding each other.”

They turn a corner into the Great Hall, where James is putting on some sort of show for a gaggle of first years crowding around him. “Ah, excellent question. No.” James’ wand has massive bubbles coming out the tip, and he taps them intermittently to change their colours, and the first years goggle at it.

“Right, perfect,” Peter mutters sarcastically. Sirius takes the seat across from James but isn’t tempted to interrupt his display by talking. He reaches over and pops a bubble, but there are already three more spilling out replacing it. Peter mumbles something about having already lived through one custody battle, or something like that. Sirius is more fixated on Remus having plans tonight outside of his friend group. He pops another bubble, and this one stains his hands green. Excellent.

It’s fine, though. Remus is probably just tutoring or something. He’s always helping younger students with their Defence homework, or else maybe he’ll just be in the library working on something the other boys can’t be arsed with. His schedule is notoriously unpredictable. It’s not so strange.

—

Sirius doesn’t think about it. He’s not thinking about it. 

In fact, he’s keeping quite busy. In the common room with James, they experiment with ways to charm dung bombs so that they go off on a delay, laughing as they clear out the common room in their successes and their failures. He keeps tinkering with it long after James and Peter have started passive-aggressively yawning and mumbling about how late it’s getting. It’s quite late, he notices. The library will be closed now. Interesting.

James and Peter go off to bed eventually. James ruffs up Sirius’ hair as he goes. “Go to bed soon,” James says, yawning, and Sirius promises he will. 

Just as soon as Remus comes back. He doesn’t have Prefect duties, otherwise Lily would have been free. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have come home by now. There’s no reason. 

There’s one reason. 

—

At five in the morning, Sirius calls it. Even if Remus comes back to Gryffindor now, it’s almost worse to see him sneaking back in the middle of the night. He’s stayed the night elsewhere. That’s… that’s his business. 

—

When Remus is gone a second night in a row, that’s still his business. 

It’s his business, and Sirius isn’t thinking about it.

—

When Remus walks into the Great Hall for dinner Thursday evening, limping just slightly… Sitting on opposite ends of the Gryffindor table isn’t enough. Sirius stands up and leaves before he has a chance to think about… about anything. 

“Sirius-“ someone calls, her footsteps catching up to him in the corridor. 

“Lily, I can’t,” he says without turning around, but it’s Dorcas who grabs his arm. “Oh,” he mumbles but keeps walking. 

He lets himself be steered around by the elbow. If it were Lily, he’d shake her off, but he and Dorcas aren’t actually close. She’s not Lily, and Lily’s the only person he knows how to talk to lately, so they don’t talk. They don’t talk the whole time she drags him off, even as they climb a few sets of stairs. She doesn’t say anything either and lets go of his arm when he shows that he’s coming along willingly enough. 

He’s not sure why he follows. He just has momentum, and Dorcas seems to know where she’s going. He’s outsourcing thinking, so he follows. 

“There’s nothing up here,” he grumbles once they hit the seventh floor. Where are we going is a better question than why is Remus walking funny?

Sirius has been up here before, and there’s nothing to see except a horrendous troll tapestry, but Dorcas just starts pacing in front of a blank stretch of wall. When Sirius goes to open his mouth again, she holds up a single finger and Sirius huffs. He paces too, restless. Not thinking. 

A door appears on the blank wall eventually, and Sirius gapes at Dorcas. He’s been good at finding a lot of secret doors and hiding places in the castle, but he’s never seen magic like this. He feels around for it now, observing a heavy weight to the magic that he’d never noticed before, too busy being unsettled by the staring trolls. 

Dorcas walks in easily, like she expects that Sirius will follow, and he does. It takes him a moment to understand the room he’s entering, some sort of salon. There’s one of those hair-washing sinks in a corner, and a chair in front of a mirror, a cart with muggle-looking tools. He looks between Dorcas and some of the instruments.

“You can braid my hair if you want, but I don’t think I’d wear it well,” he says, a light sarcasm the closest thing to friendliness that he can manage. He collapses on a small couch in the back. Not thinking. Not thinking. “I think I’m one of those people whose scalp is best left to the imagination.”

Dorcas hums some sort of agreement while grabbing a pair of scissors from the cart. She collapses on a beanbag chair by Sirius’ feet instead of in the salon chair. “True,” she says easily. She starts cutting off her braids somewhere by her shoulders. “We could give you a trim, if you wanted.” Sirius shuffles away from her, and she just laughs. “Maybe not.”

”I don’t think I need anything from here,” he says. He likes his hair as-is, actually. It’s too long, and it’s his and he likes it.

“No, you’re not here for Hair Day.” Hair day. “You’re just here so that you’re not down there, pouting. You had that look on your face, that one you get right before you go and do something stupid…”

Sirius grabs the tasseled pillow from beside him and hugs it into his chest. “I don’t have a face. When have I ever-“

Dorcas lowers her scissors to stare at him pointedly. “I could make you a list. Itemized.” Sirius just wrinkles his nose and shrugs. Fine, he can be a bit… impulsive. Maybe he has an impulsive face. Anyway, he’d run away from Remus this time, not toward him. That’s got to count for something. 

Dorcas finishes cutting her hair in the silence, and Sirius needs noise. “Do you reuse this?” he asks, pointing at the pile of braids on the floor. She shakes her head, so he vanishes the pile. “What is this place? Hogwarts has… a salon?”

“The room changes. It can be lots of things.” Her hands move in quick practiced motions in her hair, but she doesn’t seem to need to focus hard on it. “I come here to smoke when it’s raining,” she says, eyes drifting off somewhere. “Or when I need to be alone. Hogwarts is… it’s good. I just- I need to be alone sometimes.”

Sirius kicks off his trainers and pulls his feet up on the sofa with him. He wonders if it means something that she’s brought him here, to the place where she comes to be alone. He’s not sure what to do with that. “Everyone had singles at Beauxbatons,” he says. There were always mixed opinions on that. A lot of schools see sharing rooms as some sacred tradition, but others see it as uncivilized. Sirius thinks he wouldn’t mind sharing a room if he liked his roommates, but even that’s not guaranteed.

“Yeah… Even the library, the common room, the whole castle. There’s nowhere to get away unless you want to squat in one of those dingy corners behind an old gargoyle or a tapestry.” She wiggles a bit in her chair, slouching so that she can keep un-braiding while resting a bit on one elbow too. “I used to want to be a Prefect just so I could lock myself in the fancy bathroom.”

Sirius nods. “So… you’ve set up some hideout in the salon?” Keep talking, please.

She shrugs. “Sometimes I just ask for a hammock and some candles. It’s only a salon when I need my hair done. Christmas and all: thought I might do something festive.”

“Red and green braids?” he asks.

Dorcas hums. “Maybe something a bit less on-the-nose.” The door opens again and Marlene steps through. “You took your time,” Dorcas notes. She cranes her head up demandingly and Marlene drops a quick kiss on her lips as she cruises by.

Marlene keeps walking and starts unloading the contents of her bag onto another small cart. Dorcas keeps working on her hair with a private little quirk to her lips, and Sirius looks away a bit embarrassed. Remus. They’re cute together. They’re always cute together. He hates that. Remus who isn’t sleeping in Gryffindor Tower. “I had to grab supplies from the room,” Mar says easily. She drops down onto the floor behind Dorcas and works on the back of her head. It seems to go quickly, all things considered. “Are we sure about having Sirius here for hair day?” Mar asks on an undertone. He can absolutely hear her anyway. “They say when you braid hair it holds onto that energy…”

”Who says that?” Sirius snarks.

Marlene peers around Dorcas to stare at Sirius pointedly. “No offence, Sirius, but your energy’s been better.”

”Right, no offence.”

He rolls his eyes, but Dorcas and Marlene are both still watching him in a decidedly critical way. He glares back until he runs out of energy, and he knows they’re right anyway. He’s not being fair. He’s not. 

He only spends time with the girls when he’s miserable, and now they find him miserable. Yeah. That’s how that goes. It’s not fair to only call on them when he’s at his worst and then resent that they don’t want him around, resent that they say his energy is off. He can’t be any better, and he’s still not being fair to them. They’re good to him, maybe just for Lily’s sake, but they are. He’s a bad guest, and he’s in their home now.

He hugs his pillow a little tighter while he tries to figure out how to be pleasant. 

“Do you two both braid then?” It’s an olive branch or something. He’s trying.

Mar’s eyebrows furrow, but Dorcas rolls her eyes in a way that seems almost friendly. “Mary and Lily work on the top so I don’t have to have my arms over my head all night. I braid the rest when it gets to about here.” She gestures to somewhere around her shoulder. “It goes a lot faster with the three of us.”

“What do you do?” he asks Marlene, who pops up behind Dorcas again to look at him, then drops down out of sight.

”I entertain,” Marlene says with an ironic self-importance. Dorcas snorts, and Marlene laughs too. “I do, though. I read out loud from our textbooks sometimes, and we call it studying, or I’m in charge of music with the record player. Sometimes I bring down my guitar and we all sing.”

“Do you actually play?” Sirius asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, intrigued. Music isn’t a strictly-muggle pursuit, but where would any wizard learn to play? There aren’t programs at Hogwarts, nor were there any at Beauxbatons. Music always feels muggle in the best way possible. His muggle music has always been one of his favourite rebellions, but he’s never even thought of learning to play. It’s never really occurred to him that wizards can do that.

Mar pops up on her knees again to stare at Sirius, but she smiles this time. “Do you want to hear what I’ve been working on? I think you actually have the record I stole it from in your room right now.”

Sirius is just thinking about how he doesn’t want to send her across the castle to get her guitar when he notices one sitting in a corner. That or it just appeared there. Sirius nods.

Dorcas watches Marlene set up on a stool and start fidgeting with strings and knobs, smiling to herself. “Play the one I like next, yeah?”

Mary and Lily come through the door next, and Mary flops down next to Sirius on the couch while Lily takes up Marlene’s vacated post behind Dorcas. Mary rolls her head toward Sirius. “You left in a huff,” she notes lightly.     Teasing. “Anything you want to share with the group?”

“Oh, hush,” Lily says a bit sternly. “You know he doesn’t want that.” Softer, she says, “You’re fine, Sirius.”

Sirius frowns and tries not to feel patronized. Maybe because of that, he answers. “He’s limping now, Lily.”

The room goes still for a moment, then relaxes back into itself. “Remus was?” Mary asks from beside him. 

Is it that obvious? That he and Remus… It can’t be that obvious. “Yes.”

No one seems to have anything to say to that, which grates on Sirius a bit. Mary eventually shrugs. “Well, he’s always in the middle of some crisis, isn’t he? I’m sure he’s fine. He probably just sat studying in a bad position or something, got a cramp.”

”That or the disappearing step got him,” Dorcas says. “There’s a girl in my Divination class who broke her ankle in it last year, completely shattered. She needed Skelegrow and everything. She had to take all those awful steps with a cane for weeks.”

Sirius grunts. Of course a limp doesn’t mean anything. It just could mean things.

“What are you afraid it might be?” Lily asks. She’s giving him that stupidly observant look that she breaks out from time to time. “Do you suspect something else?”

He feels silly saying it out loud, but he does it anyway. “I’m worried he’s shagging someone.” It’s ridiculous, and it’s the only thing he can think about. “I don’t know where he’s been sleeping, but it’s not in Gryffindor Tower these past two days, and now he’s walking with a limp, bags under his eyes like he’s being kept up all night… what else am I supposed to think?”

And the way they left things last time they talked felt so… incomplete. They both wanted more. Would it be so crazy to imagine that he went to someone else for… closure? It doesn’t feel right, but it doesn’t feel crazy either. It makes sense.

Lily’s mouth actually falls open, and he wonders if this is the first time he’s ever actually managed to surprise her. A hand flies up to cover her mouth quickly, but it doesn’t muffle her little laugh. Sirius feels an angry flush creep into his cheeks. He looks pointedly away. “Oh, Sirius, no. I don’t think it’s that. He wouldn’t do that.”

Sirius laughs too, bitter more than amused.  “Why not? I considered it. Doing something reckless, finding a distraction. Getting back at him. I thought about it, and I justified that. I said to myself it’s allowed because we’re not together anymore, so why wouldn’t he?”

“So… you’re acknowledging that you’re projecting, right?” Marlene sucks her teeth, wrapped around her guitar just resting in a way that’s so casually artistic that Sirius manages to forget he’s annoyed just long enough to process his jealousy. Then he’s back to annoyed again. He’s back to miserable again.

“What, you think he was stuck in the Vanishing Step? Two nights in a row? You think that’s more likely?” If he’s ridiculous, that’s insane.

“Listen, do I think that’s what happened? No.” Dorcas stands up, gives Sirius a pointed look, then moves to the salon chair. Lily follows, and Mary stands up too. “Do I think it’s more likely than Remus going off and shagging someone? Absolutely, yes. Have you met Remus?”

”We’re acquainted,” Sirius mumbles. No one acknowledges him.

“Really, outside of his roommates, have you ever seen him have a conversation with anyone? Not being a Prefect, not helping with tutoring, not being polite to someone who spoke to him first — just walk up to someone and strike up a conversation?” Mary stares imploringly at Sirius, but he just shrugs. The answer is no, obviously, but he doesn’t want to give her that. “He’s properly antisocial. He’s pleasant, polite, but he’s never been interested in forming any type of connection with anyone. I reckon he’d never have even started speaking to James and Peter if they weren’t rooming together.”

Right. Obviously. Only, he’d let Sirius in eventually, hadn’t he? Why not someone else?

No one else is trying. He knows that. He’d have noticed that. He’s been avoiding Remus, but he would notice that. He’s being ridiculous.

Lily tilts her head consideringly at that. “Actually, I think he tried to avoid them in first year, too. Probably caved at James’… You know how James can be. I don’t think Remus even started properly talking to them until second year.”

“Really?” Even James? Peter? Sirius never considered that Remus wasn’t specifically avoiding him this year, that Remus avoided everyone. In hindsight, Sirius had made himself quite insistent. 

Marlene starts to play something soft, hitting only one string at a time, but in quick succession. Sirius’ ears perk up, and he does recognize it, but he can’t remember from which album. She doesn’t sing, and Mary talks over the soft music like she doesn’t even notice it, but it still adds to the ambiance nicely. “Oh, it was awful. Wouldn’t speak above a whisper, looked downright frightened if anyone tried to talk to him. James has really brought him out of his shell, if you could believe it.”

“So, no,” Dorcas sums up. “I don’t think he’s off seducing anyone. You know that’s not his style, come on.”

Sirius shrugs. He knows. He just needs to believe it somehow. It feels like the only thing that makes sense. Merlin, he wants to be wrong.

Chapter Text

Sirius sits on James’ bed while he packs, another rare moment in the boys’ dormitories. James keeps getting distracted.

“James. Pack one jumper. One. Do you not have any clothes at home? You’re going to need your whole trunk if you keep up like this.”

Sirius’ own rucksack is on the bed beside him, limp but as packed as he needs it to be. 

“All my good clothes are here,” James argues. He puts three more jumpers on the pile at Sirius’ feet, and Sirius throws one back at him.

Sirius just makes some abstract mocking noises while he reaches over to James’ side table. There are a few pictures there, and he looks at them. James flying, him and Peter and a Holyhead Harpy, both boys looking like they’re about to faint. Remus and James struggling to hold up a squirming dog who can’t seem to decide which of them he wants to lick.

He picks up a picture at random, anything to keep his mind busy. James and both his parents in what Sirius imagines is their living room. James’ mum has an arm around his waist, and he has one around her shoulders, and they seem to take turns giving each other a little squeeze and giggling about it. James’ dad is on his other side, the only one not looking at the camera. He watches his wife and his son with a soft little smile, sometimes reaching to ruff up James’ hair, a bit like how James is always ruffing it up himself.

“Oh, I’ll be needing that too,” James says eventually, holding out a hand for the photo. When Sirius looks up, James‘ trunk is almost full. Sirius must have zoned out. It’s a nice photo.

He gives James his picture back. Something like jealousy tries to claw its way out of his stomach, up his throat, but he swallows it down. “It’s a nice photo.” Although he’s not sure how much James needs it when he’ll be at home, there with his parents.

James nods brightly, smiling at it a moment before wrapping the frame very gently in a thick jumper and setting it on the very top of all his things. “Yeah, I like this one. I always get told I look like my mum, but I think I look like my dad there. With him smiling like that. My mum says I have his temperament, but I wish I looked a bit more like him.”

Temperament. James gets his looks from his mum and his demeanour from his dad. His easygoing, sunny nature. It’s… it’s not quite fair, is it?

Orion Black disappears, just vanishes. That’s what Sirius gets from him. He’ll be somewhere in his body, but not in his mind. You can talk to him, and he just stares right through you. He loses himself.

Walburga is unstable. Nothing ever builds with her: she’s fine, and then she’s not. Sirius… he used to be like that. He’s a bit better than he used to be.

Everyone says Sirius has his mother’s eyes.

He doesn’t feel like a Black around his family, but he feels it in himself when he’s away from them. Something about the disposition of a Black, his temperament, his temper. Sometimes he can feel generations of hatred in his blood and hot anger in his hands. His whole body shakes with something darker, and when he opens his mouth to speak he has to swallow curses, angry magic that hangs heavy, ready on his tongue. He tries to remember to swallow it back.

Sirius doesn’t want to see himself in his parents. He doesn’t want to have his father’s smile. He can’t remember the last time his father smiled.

”Maybe I’ll meet him someday, your dad,” Sirius says. “I’ll look out for it.” Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. They seem… they seem nice. “Your mother has a very kind face.” She looks… how a mother should look. Soft and safe and kind. She has a nice face.

This is probably the part where he makes a joke about shagging James’ mum, but he feels subdued. 

”You should introduce yourself today on the platform. It’ll just be my mum there, but you should say hi. I’ve told her all about you.” 

James talks about Sirius with his parents. Of course he would. 

Part of Sirius really would like to meet James’ parents. Part of him isn’t sure he’d survive it. “I’ll probably have to go in a hurry. But on the other end of the holidays when she’s dropping you off, maybe.”

Maybe.

There’s a part of Sirius that thinks he might not come back after the holidays. He’s not sure… he’s not sure why. Being pulled out of Beauxbatons without any warning messed with his head, he thinks. He almost packed his own trunk too, everything he owns, afraid of leaving anything at all at Hogwarts in case he never sees this place again.

He doesn’t have much left anyway. The jeans he’s wearing, another pair in his bag, both getting a bit short. Three tee shirts. A set of nice robes. His leather jacket. The scrap of fabric he slept with for a while. He doesn’t sleep with it anymore — it doesn’t bring him comfort like it did — but he still packs it, still can’t bear to leave it behind. A bottle of cologne down to its last dregs. Some sleeping draughts. 

He can’t pack any of his letters. If his parents saw them… a letter from a blood traitor, a letter his brother was never meant to have sent him, a letter proposing to teach wandless magic to children of all blood statuses… No. That would not go well.

“Maybe I’ll have both my parents bring me back, then, so you can meet them both. That’s if you don’t visit— I still think you should try to come by at least a few days. I think you’d like my dad.”

“Yeah.” It’s hard to imagine not liking James’ dad.

—

Sirius and Lily journey to Hogsmeade station together since they won’t be seeing one another on the train. They get there a bit early and load their belongings into their respective carriages, then dip into the Three Broomsticks and ask a bit sheepishly if Madam Rosmerta might serve them hot chocolates instead of Butterbeer. She obliges.

”I’ve picked out your Christmas present, by the way,” Lily says into the silence. 

“Yeah?” 

She takes a sip of her drink and hums. Every time she takes a sip she hums. “Yeah, so you have to get me something now.”

”I was going to get you something,” he says with a defensive glare. 

Lily takes another sip, has another hum. There really is something unbearably charming about her. “Sure you were,” she says, eyes closed while she savours. 

He was, actually. He’s already picked it out in his head, that part’s easy. He’ll need to find an excuse to get out of the house to go shopping: that’s trickier. He doesn’t bother arguing. “Can I ask you something?”

Something in his tone must give him away: Lily opens her eyes and stares at him searchingly. “Have you chosen this moment so that if you upset me, you don’t have to see me for two weeks?”

Sirius sips his own drink, hides his smile in his cup. “Maybe.”

”Yeah, sure.” She sends him a warning look, but it’s playful. “Tread lightly, Black. I’m just starting to like you.”

“Why don’t you like James?” Lily’s wonderful, and James is James, and that doesn’t mean they have to be together or be best friends, but it feels strange that they can hardly be in the same room. Part of Sirius feels like something must have happened, there must be a story in there that no one’s told him yet.

Lily huffs dramatically, then sips slowly from her drink. She forgets to hum.

”You don’t have to-“

”I resent the implication that everyone should like James, first of all. I don’t owe him that. I don’t owe him anything. I don’t need a reason.”

And that’s probably true, but she has one. The way she gets all stiff tells him she has a reason. “I wouldn’t tell him,” Sirius says. He means it too. Obviously he wouldn’t tell James. Okay — so he told James about her Amortentia, and maybe that was a bit unsavoury in hindsight. He probably shouldn’t have done that. 

Lily stares him down doubtfully, and Sirius tries to look back earnestly. “You could tell him,” she says eventually. “I’ve told him before. He’s a bully. Some people find that charming. Really, I think people are just bored, and they’d allow just about anything if it entertained them, but I don’t find it charming at all.”

Sirius finishes his drink and pushes his cup away. He knows Lily thinks James is a bully. James had said that. But really, that can’t be all of it. Sirius is a bigger bully than James by almost any standard, and she seems to like him well enough. “Because of how he treats Severus and them? Lily, you of all people-“

”I don’t care about Severus! I- I don’t, okay? James is so good at what he does with… with those types because he’s always been a bully. He humiliates people all the time. He does it to me. He does it to everyone.”

Sirius blinks. James… humiliates her. “I didn’t know that.”

Lily rolls her eyes. “You did. You do. You like it about him. You do it too, and it’s not so bad. That’s the point, isn’t it? You never cross any real lines, do anything too cruel, and so no one can even say anything about it. And… well, you I don’t mind so much. You’re still thoughtful, and it feels like you really pay attention to who you’re messing with and what’s too far, who’s watching, everything. You’re thoughtful. He’s just arrogant. He- he never stops. It’s all the time, and he’s always surrounded by people who are watching and laughing because everyone does find him so entertaining, even when it’s too far, and they just urge him on. And I know… and I don’t think he’d take it so far if people didn’t expect that from him, encourage that in him, but it’s horrible, and it’s all the time. Everything’s always a joke with him.”

James humiliates her. He would set himself on fire if he knew that. 

James is good, for the most part, at bullying people in a way that’s fun. In a way that makes a hero out of whoever he’s joking with, gives them a story worth telling. James can turn something on inside of himself and suddenly he’s the sun, and he’s casting everyone around him in this warm glow of light, of ease, of fun. But there’s a piece of what Lily’s saying too. A different side of the same stories. Especially in front of a crowd, especially in front of Lily, James gets carried away. 

“He’s done that to you?” Sirius asks. That, he can’t imagine. James bullying Lily. 

Lily takes another long pull from her drink, more hiding in her cup than anything,

”I blush easily,” Lily says eventually. “I’m fair, it happens. It’s always been like that. And there have always been people who think it’s funny to make me blush, but I blush when I’m embarrassed or uncomfortable or angry. People have tormented me my whole life for it. Anything to get a reaction. I’m used to it by now, but he’s… He wants to get a reaction so badly, and he feels so entitled to it. I’m so tired of people who think they should be allowed to talk to me however they want, treat me however they want, because it’s just a joke. It doesn’t matter how I feel, because it’s just a joke, and if I say anything I’m a bitch because it’s just a joke. And to them it’s just that. Why can’t I just take a joke, right? I don’t want to be a joke. I don’t want to be what everyone’s laughing at.” She kicks at the bottom rung of her barstool, and Sirius looks away. She’s red again, and now he’s sure that she doesn’t want him seeing that. “I don’t want to be a bitch either.”

Oh. James does do that, doesn’t he? Tries to do anything to make Lily laugh, delight in the fact that she’s blushing because at least that’s some sort of reaction. Sirius can’t even defend James against that. He would never have guessed it would affect her so deeply. 

She was blushing! I think that’s progress! Oh, James. Poor stupid James.

“I’m sorry I called you that,” he says. A bitch. It was ages ago, and he’d said it so passively, teasing. She’d gotten so upset, and he knew he shouldn’t have said it then, but the words I’ve been a bitch my whole life sound different to him now. “I don’t… I don’t think you’re a bitch.”

“I know,” she says. “I knew then, too. It’s any time I say no to him, though, isn’t it? I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but no one ever does, and I’m still a bitch. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that people think they should have the right to have their fun with me at my expense, and I think James just… even when he’s not trying, that’s how he makes me feel. I know he doesn’t want to make me feel that way, and it’s still how I feel.”

Madam Rosmerta comes by and drops a few napkins in front of Lily, who smiles awkwardly. “I don’t know if you lot have your eyes on the clock, but I reckon you have about fifteen. Do you want me to close you out?”

While Lily dabs at the corners of her eyes, Sirius keeps his eyes on the barmaid. “One more, I think, and then I’ll take the bill.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Lily offers. 

“You’ll get the next one.”

Lily nods. A laugh bubbles up unexpectedly from beside him, and Lily wipes her eyes again. “D’you know what the worst part is?” She stares up at the ceiling, then turns to face Sirius. “And this part, Sirius, you can’t tell him… but I had such a hopeless crush on him when I first came to Hogwarts. And I was so flattered by any scrap of attention, but that soured. And it all hurt so much more coming from him. And I know, Sirius, I know that he’s decent. I… sometimes I have these moments where we fall into a conversation together, and it happens so organically that for once in his life he isn’t putting on some big show, trying to get a laugh out of everyone, and he’s good. He’s kind, and he’s sweet, and then the minute I start to lower my guard, he’s shoving me in the spotlight and pointing and laughing. It’s- I get whiplash from it.”

A new mug of hot chocolate is placed in front of each of them, and Sirius counts out coins for the bill. 

Broom polish. James was her first crush.

”And I think… My issue now I think is that I expect it from him. So he gives me a flower, a lily, and I don’t see him as someone helping me study, and certainly not as a boy giving me flowers. My first thought is that he’s making fun of my name. And it’s always in front of people. And they’re always watching, laughing, whispering, so even when he’s not trying to embarrass me, he does. It’s just…” She picks up her cup, then sets it down without drinking any. “It’s just easier… avoiding him in general.”

There’s a tiny amount of reproach in Lily’s eyes when she looks over at Sirius. He does remember watching James give Lily a flower, he remembers laughing. “You know I was laughing at James, yeah?” At James being pathetically smitten and horrifically obvious. “I wasn’t laughing at your name.”

Lily shrugs. “It all feels a bit the same.”

Sirius takes a slow pull from his drink and nods. “Lily’s a nice name,” he says. “Petunia - now that’s a name I’d make fun of. Of all the flower names…” he shakes his head. He learns as he’s saying this that he doesn’t know many flower names. “She could have been… marguerite or something. That’s less awful.”

”Margaret?” Lily laughs like he’s said something ridiculous. “Why would you have her called that?”

”It’s a flower.”

”It’s definitely not. Is that French?”

“No.” Maybe. Probably not. He lifts his cup again. “If I wanted to call her something French, I’d call her pissenlit.”

Lily laughs again, now much harder than necessary. Hot chocolate pours out of her nose and she hides in her napkin, coughing and still laughing, completely red. Sirius watches and awkwardly passes her another napkin. Eventually she settles a bit. “Doesn’t en lit mean in bed?”

“Uh- yeah?”

”You’d have my sister called piss in bed?”

Sirius makes some sort of choking noise. That’s a bit of a mistranslation, and so much funnier than what he was trying to say. “I’d have her called dandelion, ‘cause she’s a fuckin’ weed.”

Lily waves the words away, still wincing and huffing hot chocolate into her napkin. “You’ve never even met her.”

Rosmerta comes over and takes both of their cups. “Alright, off with you. You’re stressing me out. Go— catch your train.”

Sirius hops down from his stool and they start to walk together. ”I don’t need to,” he says eventually. He probably won’t ever meet Lily’s sister — if he should be so lucky. “I’m on your side. No questions asked.”

Lily smiles over at him as they start to beat a path up the slushy streets. “Well… thank you. I’m on yours too, you know.”

Lily’s never been anything but on Sirius’ side, and somehow he can’t quite believe it when she says it out loud. “Why?”

Lily laughs easily, then looks over when Sirius doesn’t join her. Her eyebrows furrow a bit when she answers. “You’re my friend. You’re actually… you’re kind of my best friend.”

They stop walking to stare at each other, awkward and still confused. “Why?” She has other friends. She has all her girls… And Sirius is awful these days. He’s awful more often than he’s ever been good. 

Lily fidgets with her purse strap while she avoids looking back at Sirius, and he lets them start walking again so that there’s less obligation to look at each other. “I dunno,” Lily says, an embarrassed mumble directed more at the sidewalk than at Sirius. “I think you’re good company.”

Sirius laughs at that, a bit sad and ridiculous, but so was that statement. “I am miserable company,” he argues.

”No, you’re miserable. You’re not miserable company.” She looks sideways at Sirius, and now it’s his turn to avoid her. “You’re thoughtful, and you’re sweet, and you never make me feel like I’m annoying, or like I’m stupid, or like I’m too muggle. My life is so inconsequential next to yours. My family problems next to yours… my boy problems next to yours… and somehow you still treat me like I’m interesting and important. I know I’m not your best friend. Obviously, that’s James, but I don’t even mind. I’m just really happy you’re here.”

I’m happy you’re here. That’s… that’s a really nice thing to say. “I’m happy you’re here too. I don’t know what I’d do without you lately.”

“Good. You’re going to be really happy when I tell you my plan for the train. D’you wanna hear it?”

”Sure.” She looks all too pleased with herself. 

Her grin broadens as they reach the station, and Sirius grabs the door. When he follows her in, she stops just inside and tilts her head up like she’s waiting for Sirius to bend down, so he does. She whispers, “I’m going to step over Remus’ legs when he’s sitting all stretched out in the Prefect’s carriage, and I’m going to pretend to trip, and I’m going to kick him right in the shins.”

Sirius actually throws his head back when he laughs and grabs Lily’s shoulder like he’s worried she’ll be gone before he’s done laughing, like he needs something to steady himself against. “No, you’re not,” he says, still laughing.

Lily hums. “I might. We’ll see.”

Sirius nudges her with his elbow. “You’re not,” he says a bit more seriously but still smiling. “I still fancy him, you know. You can’t go around kicking people I fancy.”

She groans. “Can’t I, though? Just a bit?” They start walking again, but only at a meandering pace. The platform is mostly empty, but they’ll be splitting off once they actually board. Even though they’re just wandering, they reach the train quickly and stop by the doors. 

Sirius wishes he could walk her to her carriage. He wishes… 

He’s being ridiculous again. He’s looking at the train, and anxiety stabs through him, and he doesn’t want to part with Lily yet. He doesn’t want to board. He doesn’t want to go home.

And he wants to walk her to the Prefects’ Carriage. He wants to linger in the door and say goodbye, and he wants to give her a hug and see Remus over her shoulder. He wants to see Remus looking back at him, and he wants to feel safe again, just for a little while. Just before he has to go home. He wants to see Remus’ face again and make sure he remembers as much as he can, because he has this nagging, gnawing… he has this feeling. 

He has this thought in the back of his head that says ‘if I don’t come back to Hogwarts…’

He just wants to see Remus again. 

The horn blasts and Sirius shakes himself out of his thoughts, and Lily’s staring at him. “Sorry,” he mumbles, but Lily’s already dragging him into a hug. He kisses the top of her head in a way that feels automatic, and then immediately awkward, but she doesn’t seem offended. 

“Please be safe,” she says, like she was just with him in his own thoughts somehow. “Be on your side for once, yeah?”

”I’ll be… I’ll be okay.”

Chapter Text

 James Potter

”I’m not jealous,” James says again, unprompted. Peter’s looking at him all judgemental.

”Sure,” Peter says. “You’re leaving nose prints on the glass.”

James pulls back an inch from the window, and sure enough there’s a smudge from his forehead and one from his nose. He wipes it with his sleeve, trying for inconspicuous, but it only smears further. On the other side of the glass, Sirius and Lily are saying their goodbyes. “He kissed her!”

”On the head,” Peter says, watching from the opposite bench with a mild sort of interest. 

“Still,” James grumbles. 

It’s fine. He’s not jealous.

He’s not that kind of jealous. He knows… they’re friends. 

She’s seemed off lately. For… Merlin, half a year by now. She turned all her friends away, even Snivellus, and she’s only started really reconnecting with anyone since Sirius has been here. Sirius.

James had tried to reach out, cheer her up, invite her to eat with him and Peter and Remus, study with them, anything. He invited her to Quidditch training a few times, not that he thought she’d really like it much. It just seemed a nice gesture. Hogwarts is a miserable place to feel lonely. 

But she’d said no. Probably a bit because it was James asking, but more than that too. There’s something perpetually vibrant about Lily, and it dimmed. 

No one’s been able to get it back.

That’s what James is jealous of. He knows she and Sirius aren’t together, and maybe a piece of him always knew that, but still. Sirius is good for her, and James isn’t. Sirius understands her, and James doesn’t.

He adores her, and he has no idea how to talk to her, and everything he says or does makes things worse, and he can’t stop himself. He can’t think around her. And he and Sirius are like 90% the same person, and Sirius can talk to her just fine.

It’s just unfair.

“James is jealous you kissed Lily,” Peter chirps as Sirius slides into the compartment. 

“Seriously? This? Again?” Sirius leans against the door jam, glaring at James with his arms crossed over his chest, and James knows it’s unreasonable. Fucking rat, Peter.

James shifts to try and hide his face-prints behind himself. “I’m not-“

Sirius steps in and pulls the door closed behind him. “Whatever, James. Wanna see if you can taste her?”

Sirius grabs James by the face before James can process the words and plants a fat kiss on his lips. It’s a closed-mouthed, awkward thing, and neither of them closes their eyes, and Sirius is gone before James even realizes he can shove him off. He recoils belatedly and smacks the back of his head against the window behind him.

He wipes his mouth while Peter downright squeaks with his laughter.

He did not, in fact, taste her. “Thanks for that,” he spits.

His cheeks are burning, but it’s a bit funny. He wipes his mouth again and lets himself laugh too. Sirius collapses on the opposite bench next to Peter. There’s a hardness to him even when he’s joking, but it softens a tiny bit when James laughs. That hint of calmness that hung over him when he was with Lily is long gone. He taps the pocket of that too-small jacket he’s always wearing, and James knows he’s checking compulsively for his wand.

“Bit less romantic than you thought your first kiss would be,” Peter teases lightly. “Bit more man.”

James is still sputtering and hot-faced when Sirius looks up from unlacing his boots. “Was that your first?” Sirius seems to be biting back on his own laugh, but he mostly succeeds. He kicks his boots off and drums on his legs a bit, restless. “Well… how was it?”

”Life-changing.”

He’s not going to count it. He’s had more intimate kisses with his great aunt, unfortunately. Maybe fortunately. He certainly doesn’t need more intimacy with Sirius.

Sirius is doing that thing. He goes from bouncing his foot to cracking his knuckles, then bouncing his foot again, then glaring at his hands when they won’t crack a second time. 

He’s also doing that thing where he tries to piss James off to keep busy. 

Normally James takes him flying when he gets like this, or else takes him out under the invisibility cloak when it’s too late or weather-non-permitting. They’d be halfway to Hogsmeade by now if they weren’t already halfway-gone.

Maybe Sirius looks worse somehow. Wilder. “Sirius…”

“It was just a kiss, James,” Sirius snaps impatiently. He shoves his hands in his pockets, then pulls them out. “Don’t be such a priss.”

He doesn’t care about the kiss! Obviously it was just friendly with Lily, and if he does care, it’s himself he’s upset with. He doesn’t care that Sirius is close with Lily: he cares that he isn’t. The kiss in the train… That’s just Sirius being Sirius. Annoying, too far, and just funny enough to get away with it.

And Sirius is just trying to get under James’ skin, and it’s working even when James knows what he’s doing.

James tries to give him something to do, although Sirius looks like he needs to move, and that’s a bit more difficult in a moving train. “Do you want to play exploding snap?” It’s the best he can do.

”No.” Sirius tries to crack his knuckles again. He shoves his hands under his thighs and drops his head back against the wall with a thud.

“Do you want to… talk about it,” James offers a bit awkwardly. 

He knows the real issue. He thinks he knows. Sirius is going home. The letter was in French, and French means trouble and no one’s talking about it, and everyone knows. He’s not safe, and he’s going home anyway. Sirius is looking around himself almost frantically for something to latch onto, some distraction. There’s nothing else to do but wait out the train ride.

James had asked his parents if Sirius could stay with them, and they’d somewhat hesitantly said yes, but it doesn’t matter because Sirius isn’t coming. James had told him to come, and Sirius is going home anyway. 

How does someone go somewhere — knowingly go somewhere — they won’t be safe?

”Talk about what, James? The fact that Lily hates you? The fact that you’re too insecure to let anyone within an inch of you, and so you can’t go ten seconds without making a joke? Is that what you want to talk about? I don’t want to talk about me. Do you want to talk about you?”

Lily hates you. Lily hates him.

He knows that, obviously. Everyone knows that. It doesn’t feel great to hear, especially not from Sirius. Sirius is her best friend: it doesn’t feel great coming from him.

If Sirius wants to push James away, he’s making a valiant effort.

Peter shrinks beside Sirius: he knows better than anyone how deep that wound goes. Peter reaches into his bag and pulls out a book without looking, burying himself in that.

“We can talk about that,” James surprises himself by saying. He never talks about that. He never so much as thinks about it.

What’s there to say? I know she hates me. She’s always hated me, and nothing I do changes it. Nothing I do has ever been enough, and it never will be.

James is fun. That’s not the same as being worth knowing. Lily… she’s… she cares about seeing people in ways that other people don’t. She just sees people. She knows James isn’t worth knowing.

But Sirius tries to crack his knuckles again and then shakes out his hand like he’s hurting himself trying. He’s sitting in front of James hurting himself to keep distracted.

And James can handle a bit of humiliation. For one day. For Sirius. 

Because James knows he isn’t actually interesting, and Sirius is. Everyone wants to talk to Sirius, wants to know Sirius. Everyone with the slightest inclination towards men falls head over heels for Sirius after like one conversation, after… after smelling him.

And Sirius is going off somewhere where he isn’t safe. Sirius is everything James has ever wanted to be, and none of it matters. None of that will protect him. James’ issues are stupid, and they always have been.

He knows that already, that none of it really matters. This isn’t some massive and sudden revelation. James knows.

He sometimes gets this feeling of being incredibly small. Before this year, he got it mostly around Remus. Remus, whose problems are so real and urgent, so visible. James has been there with him on full moons, with him in the hospital in the days before or after. He watched Remus dislocate his hip this most recent transformation and be stuck with it like that all night, stuck. Those are the issues Remus has to face: pain, torture from his own body.

And James has emotional issues.

Remus has emotional issues too, and they manifest in his transformations. It’s always so much worse when he’s off, and he’s never been as devastated as he has been this month.

And James fancies a girl who thinks he’s a prick.

But Remus never wants to burden anyone with his life, with his reality, with his pain. He hates it when people see him like that, hates existing, hates having needs. He doesn’t want anyone to compare themselves to him, and so they try not to. James tries not to compare himself to Remus.

Sirius is messed up, and his life is so hard, and he doesn’t care who knows. He doesn’t ask people not to see it, doesn’t try to take up less space. James finds it a lot harder to not compare himself to Sirius. He feels small.

James always thought it would solve all his problems to be fitter, funnier, cooler. More. More something, more everything. Maybe that’s just because he’s never had any real problems.

He can be humiliated for a bit. All his problems are in his head, and Sirius’ are real. There’s nothing anyone can do for Sirius, but he can do this.

“We can,” James says again, because Sirius hardly seems to have heard him. Sirius picks his head up from the wall behind him to stare at James, that caged, desperate look still in his eyes. He’s a bit pathetic, and somehow still a bit frightening, and he looks scared. Sirius isn’t scared of anything. He never hides the severity of his situation at home… never, and he’s never scared.

James clears his throat, some call for more of Sirius’ attention, and Sirius focuses on him. “If you had any advice, I’d take it. For Lily… clearly you’re doing something right. Clearly I could use the help.”

“Oh.” Sirius stares some more, blinks a few times. “Yeah.” He seems to come back to himself a bit. “I can’t tell you everything,” Sirius says slowly. “Her privacy… yeah.” Sirius swallows and runs his hands through his hair. He drums on his thighs again before tucking his hands away. “I could… I think I could tell you some things.”

James nods but doesn’t push.

Sirius looks like he could lash out at any second, like his hand is ready to twitch toward his wand. He clenches and unclenches his fists, then tries again to crack his knuckles, squeezing a bit harder every time. He wants a distraction so badly, and he’s still trying to weigh Lily’s privacy. Still. He looks like he could fall apart or explode at any second, and still-

He would be so fucking good for Remus if they could just figure it out. If he saw him. If he just saw Remus. 

They’re the two best people James knows, and they might just be messed up enough to understand each other, and if Sirius would just- if he would just give Remus a chance-

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Sirius admits quietly. James shrugs. It was a bit funny. It’s a bit funny that James has kissed Sirius and Remus hasn’t. A bit morbid… a bit funny. Oh, he’ll have to tell Peter not to mention that to Remus. He would hate that.

It’s Remus’ fault too. A bit.

James has a habit of wanting to defend Remus against any and everything because he’s just so good, and he’s so hard on himself already, and he always seems one small inconvenience away from just giving up. It’s impossible to not want to protect Remus, but it’s his fault a bit too.

He keeps people at arm’s length, and then he wallows in his own loneliness. 

And James had been telling him for ages to make a move on Sirius, and he’d waited too long, and Sirius had gone and started dating someone else. James was so mad at Sirius for teasing Remus like that, but it’s a bit Remus’ fault too. 

And now it’s all awkward. Remus can’t even look at Sirius, and even now that Sirius is single again, it doesn’t look like Remus would be able to trust him. Sirius is in his own world, not over his breakup, or maybe just too freaked out about his family issues to care anymore. The timing is all off, and the energy isn’t right, and they missed their chance. 

Sirius had so obviously been flirting with Remus, and then he was dating someone else, and that’s cruel. It’s so fucking cruel to treat Remus of all people like that. But Sirius flirts with everyone, always has. Remus hardly wears his heart on his sleeve, and there really is a chance Sirius didn’t have any clue the effect he had on Remus, the fact that Remus hasn’t ever looked twice at anyone before this year.

James had been so excited to see Remus smitten for the first time ever. It was hilarious! He’d never seen Remus blush or stutter in his life! Not over a boy. Remus, watching Sirius out of the corner of his eye. Remus completely losing his train of thought when Sirius entered a room. That time they blindfolded Sirius to take him into Hogsmeade, and Remus could barely bring himself to touch Sirius’ back to steer him around, holding his breath. It was funny. It was sweet. James sent about fifteen tripping jinxes at Sirius just so that Remus would have to catch him, and it was so fucking funny.

And then it broke him. It’s not fun anymore. It feels so incredibly cruel for Sirius to have let Remus love him.

It takes everything in Remus to let anyone know him, and he would have let Sirius. James is sure he would have.

And still, Sirius doesn’t know any of that. How would he?

Sirius isn’t intentionally cruel, not when it matters. James has come around to that by now. 

And… James idolizes Remus a bit, okay? He’s so solid, strong. What he goes through month after month… it’s unthinkable. His life is unliveable, and he’s so fucking deserving. James really wanted this for him. He wanted so badly to prove to Remus that life can be good sometimes, that he deserves good things.

It felt a bit like Sirius had failed both of them.

Sirius had shown up out of nowhere, perfect for Remus and interested and trying. It was too good to be true, too perfect to not mean something. Sirius was clearly pursuing Remus, and it had felt inevitable. 

It still feels inevitable. James watches Sirius watch Remus, and he could swear he still wants him. But everything’s all messed up somehow. It was easier to blame Sirius than just… let the world be complicated and impossible. Watching Remus come so close to being happy and then falling short is impossible. Remus doesn’t deserve that. James is barely sure Remus can survive that.

Sirius… Sirius had no idea how fragile of a person he was playing with. Maybe someone should have warned him off, someone should have been protecting Remus. That was supposed to be James’ job.

It had felt like a good thing for a while. James tries not to blame himself for pushing them together. He’d thought… It had looked like it would be a good thing for a while there.

But he knows it was Remus’ fault just a bit too. If James were faced with someone he cared about that deeply and it looked even for a second like they might be interested, he wouldn’t hesitate.

If Lily ever started looking at him the way Sirius was looking at Remus…

Remus hesitated. He hesitated for weeks and life went on without him. He missed his chance.

James is done punishing Sirius for that. He’s done punishing himself for that.

“I don’t understand why you treat her like you do everyone else if you’re interested in her,” Sirius says eventually. He pulls awkwardly on his slightly ill-fitting leather jacket, then reaches for his wand. He twirls it a few times, shoots some sparks out one end, then flicks it around his fingers. That’s a good sign, James thinks. Sirius is almost always holding his wand, if not hovering with his hand right by his pocket. He only puts it down when he’s completely at ease, or else incredibly emotionally volatile. He’s trusting himself to hold it again. That’s good. “You don’t seem interested.”

In Lily?

James balks. No one’s ever accused him of being too subtle. “Everyone knows I’m interested in Lily.” Everyone knows he’s been in love with Lily… always. Everyone’s teased him about his completely transparent obsession with her his whole life. Since day one, since year one. And it’s true: it’s obvious. James has been gone his whole life. Since he saw her on the train, before she was even in Gryffindor.

James had asked the sorting hat to put him in Gryffindor because he wanted to be wherever Lily Evans was.

For years he wanted to be in Gryffindor like his dad, but if Lily had been in Ravenclaw, in Slytherin, he might have tried to follow her there too.

Sirius shrugs. He throws his feet in Peter’s lap and turns sideways in his seat to look out the window. “You’re not real with her. When all your energy is spent trying to seem interesting, everyone knows where your focus is: on yourself, on how you look. Why would she feel important when all you’re thinking about is yourself? Ask her a bloody question. Ask about her family, her lessons, her interests. If you want to seem interested, be interested. No one cares whether you’re interesting.”

Of course people care whether he’s interesting. That’s all anyone’s ever cared about.

Lessons, her family. That’s so obvious — it’s embarrassing. “None of that’s any fun! Why would she want to talk about that?”

“Because it’s her life! If she thought it was that boring, she’d live differently. And frankly, James, if you think she’s that boring, you’re not interested.” 

He doesn’t think she’s boring. He wants to know things, he does. He’s spent the last five years stowing away every tiny piece of information he can scrounge up, overhear, deduce or infer. But it’s weird… asking. “I don’t want to ask questions that make her think I’m boring… anyone can ask about her family, her… pets. How was your summer? It’s all so… mundane.” It borders on tedious, really. Everyone asks that. She’s answered all those questions a million times. Why go through it all again for James? Why would she care if he knew?

“So you do think she’s boring.” Sirius shrugs like the accusation is perfectly mild, like it’s not the worst thing you could ever accuse anyone of. “Mundane.”

”I think I’m boring! Maybe you can make a conversation about nothing interesting, but I can’t! She is wonderful and I am interested, and I don’t have anything to say to her. I don’t have anything worth saying.”

Sirius hums, unconvinced, then scoots further down. He leans his back in the corner and spreads out further with his legs thrown over Peter, Peter who pretends he isn’t eavesdropping while staring blankly into some Herbology book. Sirius closes his eyes. “If she thinks you’re boring, she’s not interested, and that’s the end of it. But you won’t trick her: she’s smarter than you are, and you’re not that good a liar. You shouldn’t want to trick her anyway. Talk to her like a normal person, be interested, let her decide if she’s interested too. No games, no gimmicks, no jokes. Merlin, James, no more jokes. Just… be a person.”

“Be a person.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

”James.” Sirius throws an arm over his eyes, and Peter stares at the legs in his lap for a while before shrugging and propping his book up against them. “Thank you for trying, but it’s not helping. I’m just… I think I’ll sleep for a while. I should get some sleep in before… I’m just going to sleep for a bit.”

Questions. Maybe he’ll try to think of some questions now, while he’s away from her, while he can think.

”Sirius?”

”Mm?”

”I can’t remember her sister’s name.”

Sirius is quiet for a long time, and James is sure he’s going to make some joke, but he just pulls his arm off of his eyes to stare over at James, then closes his eyes again. “Petunia.”

Chapter Text

Euphemia Potter

She’s early.

She’s always early, and the train is always on time.

She’s always early, and she raised a very responsible boy, and he’s always on time.

And she’s always convinced that somehow this time he’ll have missed the train. She sees him wandering empty corridors in that great big castle all alone. She can hardly think of a worse way to spend the holiday.

And, of course, being early wouldn’t change any of that, but at least she feels like she’s doing something. At least she’s not bouncing off the walls at home while Fleamont prepares the house. Her nervous energy gets under his skin, as much as he tries to hide it. He has to focus to take down the wards.

She trusts James.

She trusts that he will be on the train, and she trusts him when he says he needs them to take the wards off of the house.

For two whole weeks. Open the Floo to the public and take the wards off of the house: they may as well take the locks off the doors, but she trusts him.

She is trying very hard to trust him. He’s nearly of age now: he’ll need to start making his own decisions eventually. She wants him to have had the chance to practice that, having some authority, at home.

She looks around to distract herself. The platform is starting to fill with families now, parents and younger children. If she’d had kids when she first started trying, she’d be surrounded by her peers, but year after year she recognizes fewer and fewer faces in these crowds.

The Lupins, always speaking in hushed, hurried whispers, always so stressed. She doesn’t look at the Lupins. It’s none of her business, really.

Of course, Euphemia Potter knows that those notions on wizard-muggle interbreeding are antiquated at best. Merlin, even her own parents hardly believed in that nonsense — blood purity — but there’s something to be said about a power imbalance…

Not that it’s any of her business.

But Lyall Lupin stands stiffly next to a woman more than fifteen years his junior, and Effie can’t help wondering a bit. Sometimes. How many power imbalances can one relationship survive? Hope Lupin is a muggle in a wizard’s world — she cannot get a job in the wizarding world, have a Gringott’s vault, have any money of her own, but she’s tied to the wizarding world now, through her husband first, then her child.

Maybe they’re perfectly happy. The world works in funny ways sometimes.

Effie won’t ever know if it was intentional from Mr Lupin — not just to marry a muggle but such a young one, too. Effie doesn’t know Lyall, not more than anyone knows the parents of their son’s best friend, but it’ll always be suspicious to Effie, a woman who cannot leave.

It’s none of Effie’s business, but if she does the maths, she reckons Lyall would have been nearly twice his wife’s age when they met. Hope’s face is lined now, from stress and years, but still… she is a child next to her husband, a man closer to Effie and Monty’s own age.

Effie forces her eyes away, careful not to linger on the Pettigrews either, lest she finds herself pulled into the centre of another argument.

Really, she’s looking for some very specific faces.

Orion and Walburga Black.

Effie doesn’t know them well, not nearly as well as Fleamont used to, but she would recognize them if she saw them. She wants to see them, see that there isn’t some awful bitter hatred carved into the lines of their faces, wants to be able to tell James that she saw them and they look perfectly lovely: I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about!

Because James is so worried.

But time ticks past, and she doesn’t see Orion or Walburga in the crowd.

Sirius Black

Sirius wakes up with his head in Peter’s lap. He doesn’t remember shifting how he was sitting, but the corner of Peter’s book digs into his ear. James pulls down bags and trunks in the stopped train and starts getting everyone organized. Peter puts his book away, and Sirius sits up and gropes around for his boots. He avoids making eye contact with James when he takes his bag.

He can’t stick around for the heartfelt goodbyes, for James asking him again if he’s sure about this. Sirius hoists the strap over his shoulder and slips out of the compartment. James can’t follow him while navigating the thick crowds with his bulky trunk, and Sirius cuts through any small space he can find with as little desperate shoving as he can manage. He needs to go. He needs to go while he’s still brave, because everything inside him is screaming for him to just follow James. It would be so much easier. He would make the choice, and it would all finally be over.

He finds Kreacher in a quick scan of the crowd. He’s small, but far enough apart from all the families. He’s the only house elf on the platform. Sirius isn’t sure what he was expecting. Maybe he thought he’d see Regulus.

Maybe he hoped he’d see Regulus, and he knew it was delusional. Walburga wouldn’t let them out of the house together, not for a second. She doesn’t trust Sirius.

Nor should she.

If Regulus were on this platform, Sirius would drag him off to the Potter residence in a full-body bind. He would immobilize him, sedate him, imperius him. Anything.

He wouldn’t.

Fine, he wouldn’t. He’d want to.

He wouldn’t force a decision on him. He wants to prove to Reg that the way their parents treat them… it doesn’t have to be like that. Maybe it’s years too late to teach something like that… but he would try. He would ask him to come with Sirius to the Potters’ house. He would hope he’d say yes.

And Regulus wouldn’t come. He’s scared. He’s not ready. He’s just a kid who wants parents more than he wants to be treated well, a kid who would rather be on the dark path than out wandering alone with no direction. Sirius hasn’t been that kid in over a decade, but he understands the feeling. He knows it’s something someone has to outgrow in their own time.

Sirius spent years shielding his brother from the worst of things at home, but he’s still not sure how Regulus turned out so sheltered. He was still there. He still saw it all.

It’s time for him to realize, isn’t it? It can’t be like this forever. Sirius can’t keep doing this forever. He can’t.

Sirius recognizes James’ mother from the photo he helped James pack, soft and kind. Maybe he’d recognize her anyway: she does have all of James’ same features, although she wears them more sweetly. She has a very settled presence, but there’s something almost misty about the way she watches the train. Somehow he’s almost sure that she recognizes him too, that she’s watching him, that she’s waiting for him to stop at her side, but he keeps walking, ducks his head. He veers away from her in the crowd and circles back toward Kreacher.

Sirius holds out his arm, and Kreacher latches on.

Euphemia Potter

The train comes, and kids rush out, and Effie waits by the wide column that she and James agreed years ago would be their ‘spot’.

A boy rushes past her, and even at a glance it can’t be anyone other than Sirius Black. She only catches the corner of his face before he’s ducking away, but the dark hair and pale skin, the high, hauntingly hollow cheekbones, he’s the spitting image of his parents, of every Black, really.

Or maybe he’s too pale, his cheeks too hollow. It’s hard to tell when he’s ducking away. He doesn’t turn back.

James and Peter stumble out of the train next, and they sweep her quickly into squashing hugs. She kisses James first, then Peter, still not having to reach up to get his cheek yet, and they all stare across the platform together, Sirius and a house elf.

His parents sent a house elf to collect him.

She can’t think about any of that too long though, not when her boys in front of her look so stressed. She turns on mum in an instant. “Peter, dear, wave to your parents so they know I’m not stealing you. Now, please. Is it true that you’re not staying with us at all this year?” She stares attentively at her boys, making sure they’re alright. Peter is finally starting to put on weight again, thank Merlin. After the divorce, he could nearly fit into James’ clothes: it was frightening seeing him like that. He looks stressed, but healthier overall. James is outgrowing his robes again. She notices he’s brought a trunk and a bag. “And, James, did you just pack all your dirty clothes?”

James sends her a sheepish smile while Peter talks about how his parents are dragging him to Spain. “Both of them,” he adds very darkly. “Together.”

Oh, the poor boy. Maybe that’s the worst way to spend a holiday.

Sirius Black

“Wait.”

Kreacher slowly turns his head, massive eyes squinting at Sirius, always full of so much disdain. “Just- one second.”

Kreacher doesn’t let go of his arm, nails biting in just a bit, but they aren’t Apparating either. Sirius takes a steadying breath and casts his eyes around the room. He just- he wants to see Remus.

His desperate eyes must pass right over Remus as he scans and scans the room. He’s right there, only fifteen feet from where Kreacher and Sirius are standing. He’s taller than most people in a crowd so full of women and children, but he leans down to hug his mother tightly, and that makes him easier to overlook. Sirius stares at the top of his head. Look up. Look at me.

He needs him. Just for a second.

Euphemia Potter

“Oh, sweet boy. I’m so sorry,” Effie coos, pulling Peter into another quick squeeze. The Pettigrews… they’re really trying. After years of tug-of-war with the poor boy, they might consider… anyway. It’s not her place. “Write us, yeah? We’ll make sure you visit in the spring.”

They’re decent people, really, but it’s just no way to raise a boy. Surrounded by so much conflict and anger… It’s bad for his health.

”Thank you,” Peter says, still glowing red.

“Of course, love. Now, where’s my Remus? Not visiting this year, not even going to come say hi? It’s not like him. Monty’s bought a whole new bucket of toys for that dog he’s always bringing around, and now we’ll have…”

She follows James and Peter’s eyes across the platform to where Remus’ parents are still whispering, still all too intense, only joined by their son now, who lingers just outside of the conversation without being invited in. His mother is a small woman — normally Remus seems forced to bend and contort himself to wrap her up in a hug. Today, he melts into his mother’s arms, and as small as Hope Lupin is, she might still be the only thing holding Remus up.

Sirius Black

Look at me. Please. Just for one second. Look up.

But his second is already up. The world is already collapsing, spinning, shrinking.

Euphemia Potter

“Mum,” James says.

It shouldn’t surprise Effie by now, the way that Lyall Lupin has so little interest in his own son. Tonight, Fleamont will wrap James in a hug that picks his feet up off the floor, carrying him around the kitchen until something in his back inevitably twinges.

It’s always jarring, seeing other parents who are less excited about their childrens’ returns. Remus finally drags himself away from his mother, and he and Lyall greet each other with firm words

Over Remus’ shoulder, Effie sees a flash of Sirius again, a flash of watching, a flash of something defeated and miserable, and then he’s gone. “Hm?”

Just as Sirius’ eyes pinch closed against the house elf’s magic, Remus seems to notice him. If Remus could possibly look any worse, that does it, watching Sirius Black disappear.

Oh, what have those poor boys done to one another? “Mum!”

She shakes herself and turns back to James. “Yes, dear? Sorry?”

”Peter left.” James is watching her when she turns around, then looking behind himself to try and see what caught her attention, but Sirius Black is gone, and Remus’ parents are shuffling him away. “Are you…” James looks over his shoulder. “Did you want to stay here a while, or…?”

Euphemia laughs, pulls her son into her side and gives him another kiss on the temple. “No, no. Let’s get you home.”

Sirius Black

Gasping, Sirius finds himself back in Grimmauld Place. Dark, drab, miserable. Home.

Kreacher pulls at Sirius’ bag until he lets go, then reaches out one knobby hand expectantly. Sirius hands over his wand. There’s no saying no here. He gives over his wand.

Euphemia Potter

James squirms in his mother’s slightly crushing grip but doesn’t pull away. “Did you do it, though? The wards?”

Effie sighs. “I did.” They get his trunk on a trolley and James pushes it in front of him. He hammers excitedly on the handle and smiles broadly at her. It’s a relief to see some of the tension leave him at that, but she’s still not excited about this. She interjects quickly. “But, James, really… Wards and Floo? We can’t just do one or the other?”

James shakes his head. “I gave him our Floo like Dad said, but I’m not sure… I just… I want to be sure.” Effie frowns but doesn’t say anything. James’ voice becomes more insistent. “You should have seen him on the train, mum, he’s scared. And after what dad was saying…”

Effie’s frown only deepens. She had told Monty not to scare James with rumours and stories, none of which had ever been confirmed, but her husband had thrown her own words back in her face. ‘He needs all the information if he wants to make informed decisions’. Well, Euphemia wouldn’t consider gossip ‘information’, but Fleamont had went and told James anyway, and the poor boy looks shaken. “Now, I don’t want you taking anything your father said too seriously. People tell all sorts of stories.”

“Mum, you didn’t see him,” James insists.

“I did see him, actually, and-“

“No, you didn’t!”

Effie stares at James, stops walking for a moment. Ah, the transition from talking to his friends however he pleases to talking to a parent, she always forgets that. ”James,” she scolds halfheartedly. She’s never cared much for discipline, but he needs to watch his tone. That’s no way to speak to someone.

She watches James’ brain catch up to his tone.

“Sorry,” James mumbles, an awkward sort of earnestness as he scratches at the back of his neck. “You saw him? You don’t even know- Sorry. How do you know what he looks like?”

He’s a bit over-excited, and she misses him too much to really care. “Jamesie, Hogwarts isn’t a big school. There’s only one sixth year I didn’t recognize, and anyway he looks just like his father.” They start moving again, but they’re toward the back of the line to get out.

They could Apparate — it’d surely be faster. This will probably be one of the last times they take the long way home, actually, since James will be getting his license in June.

Really, even now they could side-along. Lots of parents do.

Euphemia hates the idea a bit, although she’d never say so out loud. It’s incredibly convenient, and she won’t do it.

She doesn’t want to put unnecessary fears into James’ mind, but every time he even writes her about his Apparition lessons, she sees him in her mind, splinched, bleeding. He just seems so young.

She looks over at James, still drumming away on the trolley, completely in his own head. He looks distinctly older than he did even in September when she last saw him. His chest seems wider again, all the Quidditch bulking him up. His face still hasn’t lost all of its roundness: a boy’s head on a man’s shoulders.

He has that same frown she’s always seeing on Monty when he’s stressed, but he seems to try to shake it off.

Sirius Black

All Sirius cares about is Regulus. He looks for him in every room he passes, and he finds him eventually in the den. Two feet planted flat on the floor, back straight, sketching in charcoal. He has a dozen similar sketches on the floor in front of him, drafting something. Some combination of a snake and a skull.

Regulus looks up at him only a second, dropping his eyes almost immediately back to his work. Sirius lets go of the terrible breath he was holding.

”Homework?” Sirius asks over Regulus’ shoulder. He leans over him to peer into his lap, seeing more of the same. Reg always spends as much of his break with tutoring for his art as he can manage, much like Sirius jammed his breaks as full as possible with extra magical training. Anything to be out of the house, anything to be distracted, anything to not have to give up his wand.

Sirius hasn’t been allowed to do that this year. His probation means he can’t leave the house, write any letters, practice any magic. Nor anything else his mother imagines might be an obstacle to his obedience.

“A commission,” Regulus corrects. “A friend of Mother’s.”

“Oh, that’s exciting.” Sirius peers down at the sketches. “Does it pay well?”

Reg laughs. “No, ‘course not. Do you have a favourite?” They both know Sirius doesn’t know anything about art, but it’s nice to pretend. It’s nice to say I care what you think.

Sirius picks a few up. There’s one with a snake, a skull crushed between its jaws. That’s cool, but the snake doesn’t really have much of a body. “I like this one,” he says, pointing with his foot. A snake coming out of the mouth of the skull, its tail wrapping elegantly around the forehead, then again around the mid-face. Is the skull eating the snake? Is the snake constricting the skull? “Lot of… narrative. The others are just pictures. This one has a story to it.”

Reg nods. He looks up from his present sketch to check on Sirius’. “I like that one too, but I don’t think he’ll go for it. Not big on the ambiguity.” He snaps and the page shoots up and into his hand. He sets it on the armrest between him and Sirius, then drops his gaze again. “Take it if you want — I’m sure your walls at Hogwarts are desperately bare. I know how you like your clutter.”

Clutter. Sirius likes his art. Regulus’ art, really. And, well, a tasteful amount of clutter.

”Can’t,” Sirius says absently. “Snakes, Slytherin. I’ll look like a house traitor. Draw me something with a lion on it and give it to me for Christmas.“ Maybe he should have had Regulus draw his tattoo. Faced with all this, Annette’s line work is exceptionally shoddy.

“I’m busy. Draw your own lion.” Ah, well. There’s that.

Euphemia Potter

James keeps stepping up onto the bottom of his trolley to be another few inches taller and looking around the busy platform, slowly emptying. The trolley rolls away from them a few times, and James catches it just before it can bump into the small family in front of them. Effie taps James’ hand. “James. That’s enough.”

He steps down reluctantly. “Are we taking the muggle way home, then? Upholding tradition?”

James always rolls his eyes at her refusal to Apparate with him (and really, the addition of that great trunk is too many variables, too much to focus on), but there’s something to be said about taking the muggle way back.

James is so exhausted after his end-of-term exams, packing up, saying his goodbyes, the journey. It’s a lot for a boy. It makes him a bit quiet and moody for the first few days he’s home, and Effie and Monty agreed years ago that it’s best to just let him recover, ride out the hormones. He’s always himself again after a few nights in his own bed.

It’s hard, though, as a parent. She misses him so desperately, and he’s right here, and she wants to bombard him with a million questions.

The muggle way home is good. James is in good spirits but bored. A sneaky muffliato keeps their conversation private from the cabbie. James chatters away the whole drive to keep himself entertained, and Effie can hear about his life without having to interrogate him.

It’s a nice tradition.

Sirius Black

“I’m going to go hide in my room. Don’t tell anyone I’m home unless they ask.” Of course, Kreacher will have already told them, but still. No need to put Sirius at the forefront of anyone’s mind. It’s best if he doesn’t advertise his presence.

Reg hums something indistinct, and Sirius goes to clap him on the shoulder as he walks off, a habit he must have picked up unconsciously from Peter and James. Regulus flinches before Sirius can touch him, and Sirius freezes.

“Just your shoulder, Regs,” he says with a lightness he doesn’t feel. Regulus’ shoulders drop slowly, and Sirius gives him a very soft pat.

Regulus nods but doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”

Chapter Text

Euphemia Potter

Monty has an atrociously complicated dinner planned, some great celebration he’s been practicing for weeks, and of course it all goes horrifically wrong. There’s a small fire, an over-boiled pot, a chicken that’s both raw and dry.

Monty Apparates into town and buys them a pizza with the last of their muggle money. They’ll need to go to Diagon and get some more at some point.

“You know,” Effie says into a comfortable silence as James pulls a fourth slice of pizza onto his plate. “I got the strangest letter from Minerva, did I tell you about that?”

“I didn’t realize you two were still in touch,” James says through a mouthful. He stops chewing to stare speculatively at his mother.

“I check in from time to time,” Effie says airily. “Sometimes she sends me updates. Like when my son is getting a lot of detentions, when it’s been almost a month since he’s said a word out loud-“ or, as was the case in this most recent letter, “-when he’s seen outside her office window, flying with another boy on the back of his broom, so unsteady he could almost-“

“Oh, mum, I swear I didn’t-“

“One might almost think he was drunk!”

James stares at Effie, apprehension clear in his eyes. He hesitates too long to even bother trying to lie, and Effie can barely keep the pretend-stern look on her face. Effie breaks first, a twitch of her lips, and James relaxes into an easy laugh. “Just tipsy,” he mumbles. Another laugh bubbles out of him when he adds, “Sirius was drunk.” Effie shakes her head and locks eyes with her husband across the table, something that says oh, if we were allowed to laugh at this… They’ll laugh about it later. They can’t give James too much encouragement — he already breaks so many rules. She thinks that’s probably good for his development, but it can’t be easy on the staff. At least Minerva always seems amused by it. “You’re not upset?” James asks. His tentative smile is infectious. Monty reaches over and messes up James’ hair affectionately.

”Wouldn’t expect anything less,” Fleamont says. James smiles privately, then looks over at Effie, still a bit hesitant.

”Mum?” he asks.

Does she love the idea of James riding his broom drunk? No. Was she doing the exact same things at his age? Of course. What’s being sixteen about if not testing your limits?

She’s been trying so hard not to hover over him so much lately, ready to warn him off, catch him if he falls. It’s time for him to start making his own choices, even his own mistakes. If the worst thing he’s doing is playing outside with his friends, he’s doing just fine.

Still, he looks a bit worried, so she tries to lighten the mood with a joke. “James- Do you know what the difference is between a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw?” James stares back, frowns, shakes his head. “Gryffindors get caught.”

He has an invisibility cloak! Disillusionment charms! For Merlin’s sake, the sun was out! She sends her husband a look that says if you ever needed any proof that he’s yours… Fleamont just beams, proud and pleased.

“Mum!” James gasps, delighted enough to set down his slice and stare at her with wide eyes. Oh, someday he’ll be old enough to hear her own Hogwarts stories. “What did you do?” But, ah, not today. 

“Oh, nothing dear. Just an old saying.”

Sirius Black

“I didn’t realize-“ Regulus pleads softly. Sirius tries not to cringe as Regulus kneels on the bed beside him, at the way everything shifts horribly with his added weight on the mattress.

”I know,” Sirius croaks.

”You shouldn’t have said-“

”I know.”

They’ve got the bleeding mostly under control now, but that last spell does something to nerves, and Sirius can’t stop shaking. His whole body is screaming, and he can feel the angry magic lingering in fracturing lines up through his limbs, his chest. His spine is the worst. Kreacher had to Apparate him into his own room: he couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk. 

“This one’s always slow,” Regulus says apologetically.

They all are. “I know.”

Euphemia Potter

Effie does not get used to the wards being down in her house. She doesn’t sleep right. She finds herself doing rounds around her house like she’s a Prefect again, checking to see if anyone’s snuck off, hidden in some dark corner. James waits anxiously by the fire, so at least she’ll know if someone Floos. 

She demands everyone sleep with their doors open so she can keep checking in. She doesn’t want to be worried. 

Seeing the boy collected by a house elf didn’t settle her nerves. Seeing him look resigned and defeated on the platform, and then suddenly desperate… she’s still a mother. Rumours about the Black Family aside, that boy isn’t well.

She’s so tired after just a few days that she almost begs James to let her put the wards back up, just for a night. Just for one proper night’s sleep. She’s on her way downstairs to have a chat with him, but when she enters the living room James isn’t there. She sees a swish of movement outside and relaxes somewhat. He’s flying. 

She realizes he’s been home for days and this is the first time she’s seen him fly.

He’s really worried. She… she doesn’t need to interrupt him if he’s found just a bit of peace. She can wait.

Effie sighs and takes up his post. James can train for hours without a break, especially with Monty out there watching, cheering him on. She puts the kettle on and sits down on the loveseat in front of the fire. She sets up with a book.

It’s an exceptionally good book. She can’t bring herself to read. 

Sirius Black

If Sirius could nip into the attic, he could nick his sleeping potions from his bag. But he can’t do that without his wand, not with the fifteen charms and hexes on the doorknob, on the hinges, on every loophole Sirius has already exploited over the last decade. 

If he could get his wand… 

It’s just sitting there in a small oblong dish on the mantle. It’s just sitting there, and he could just grab it. He could summon it into his hand from across the room. It’d be easy.

That’s the point. He’s broken a lot of rules, but he’s never grabbed his wand. He’s not sure what would happen if he reached for it, and that’s the biggest threat. There would be no punishment sufficient for that level of disobedience. 

He’d saved all of his potions from this past week to bring them here specifically so he and Reg could split them after bad nights, but he can’t even get to his bag.

It’s fine. Magically and physically exhausted, they sleep a few hours curled in Sirius’ bed.

Euphemia Potter

She always does try to read her own tea leaves. It’s always something so dire, isn’t it?

The Grim.

Always something.

Sirius Black

They have guests on the third day, very important and powerful guests.

The children are to be seen and not heard. They stand back against the wall and watch some ceremony. 

Six men and one woman have Regulus’ drawing forced into their skin. They scream and sink to their knees, howl and beg, and everyone watching laughs like it’s meant to hurt, like they want it to hurt. 

A white-haired man’s body bows as he tries to escape the pain, the comparatively gentle pressure of the wand against his wrist, and the ceremony goes on much longer with this one, almost indulgent. The Mark burns red for ages, even after the wand has left his skin.

Sirius tries to trade a horrified look with Regulus, but Regulus doesn’t look back at him. Regulus doesn’t look at anything. He stares through the whole ordeal, something terribly absent about him. 

They wear masks. They all wear masks, so Sirius doesn’t recognize his cousin until he hears her voice. 

“Will we have any Blacks joining our ranks tonight?” Bellatrix. She must be a Lestrange now, then.

Generally, women are expected not to speak here, hardly a step above children: to be seen and not heard. Bellatrix has always had a way of worming herself into spaces that weren’t meant for her. It might be admirable if she had ambitions other than to delight in the misery of others.

She’s doing it even now, watching the proceedings with shrill laughter, egging Walburga on when she knows she isn’t permitted to speak. There are very few things Walburga Black hates more than to be silenced.

They can’t say no. Sirius can only hope he’s unwelcome. Hope that their silent tolerance is enough support without being expected to prove themselves. Hope that Bellatrix or the Master of the Ceremony get bored of them so they can all go back to torturing one another. Sirius shifts slightly in front of Regulus. He’s not sure who in the room he’s trying to hide Regulus from the most. 

He does know that Regulus can’t handle the expectation, the silence, the threat. 

No. He keeps himself between Regulus and the adults, not caring that he’s being transparent, that it’s an obvious act of defiance. Sirius’ ears fill with some loud buzzing when the moment doesn’t pass, and he only catches the few words that slip through as people begin to softly whisper. Children. The Dark Lord. Willingly. 

“Sirius is of age.”

The voice comes not from Bellatrix, but from Regulus at Sirius’ back. Regulus.

No.

No isn’t a permissible answer in Grimmauld Place. 

Sirius can only watch Regulus as he feels himself dragged away. Regulus, something blank about his eyes, something missing from his tone. 

There’s something gone about him, and Sirius is alone. 

They were never meant to survive this place alone.

Euphemia Potter

Crack

By the time her head snaps up at the sound, Sirius Black is already collapsing on the floor in front of her. Pale skin, dark hair, red. 

“Your carpet- I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” He has a hand clamped over his left wrist, but blood pours through, and his hand keeps slipping, keeps losing the point of contact, failing to hold pressure. “Please don’t- don’t tell my parents.”

His voice is slurred. His arm is ruined. The entire left side of his dress robes from the chest down is black and heavy with blood. The carpet is unsalvageable. 

She’s pulling him into her lap without thinking of the shattered teacup on the floor, the way it carves a chunk out of her bare foot as she runs, without thinking at all. With one hand, she tries to get more coverage on the wound. The other hand pats her hair, her pockets, her brassiere. Wand, her wand… 

She screams for her husband. Something about get James. Something about put the wards up, now. Something. Sirius is still talking, begging. 

“You’ll be alright, dear, don’t worry about the carpet, wretched thing we inherited from my great aunt. Always meant to replace it. You’re alright.” She hardly knows what she’s saying, just that he’s bleeding, and she doesn’t have her wand. “Give me your wand.” She can see hers now, on the floor across the room where she must have dropped it to run toward Sirius, but she can’t get to it without letting go of Sirius. Blood is already pouring out past her fingers on his shredded arm, warm and sticky and fast. She can’t let go. She can’t leave him. 

She sees Fleamont check in, and then he’s gone, wand out, shouting.

“James!” She needs more hands. She needs more magic. He’s bleeding so fast. When she looks back down at Sirius, he’s visibly paler.

She wouldn’t heal with another wizard’s wand, but she can summon her own wand from the other room. Where the bloody hell is James?

Sirius’ eyes are frantic, but his wand is in his destroyed hand, so he can’t grip it well enough to resist her. He can’t do anything, really, except stare up at her with terrified and increasingly unfocused eyes, and she tries not to see James, so small in her arms now, bleeding, scared. James, crying over a nightmare. James, splinched, bleeding. He fights against her weakly, and she pries his wand out of his hand anyway, sick. “I’ll give it back, love. Accio.” Her voice shakes when she summons, but her wand flies over. It bounces off her shoulder, and she gathers it up quickly. “You have to stay still, love, please.” She gives Sirius back his wand. He can’t quite hold it, but he settles a bit in her arms when she sets it down on his chest. He stops thrashing, and he can keep pressure on his wound a bit better.

He’s still bleeding terribly, mumbling words she can hardly focus on, words he can’t quite articulate. Oh, what’s the spell for splinching? “This is why you can’t Apparate without a license,” she berates shakily. She thinks she remembers the spell, and there’s the purple smoke she remembers when she casts it, but the bleeding doesn’t stop. It doesn’t even slow. She tries over and over, but it doesn’t work. It’s not working. 

“Hey, sorry. Dad needed help, and then I was grabbing- fuck, Sirius.”

James’ voice cuts through her babbling, Sirius’ pleading, but Effie implores James to understand that she’s trying. “It’s not working, James. The spell for splinching…”

James comes into her line of sight, first aid supplies that Euphemia doesn’t recognize in his hands. He kneels in front of her and Sirius. “Then he wasn’t splinched.” James lines up bottles and packages of gauze. 

She repeats herself uselessly. James doesn’t understand. He apparated, and he’s bleeding, but the spell won’t work.

“James, I couldn’t Floo. I know you said Floo — why don’t you have any wards? I… I wasn’t by the fire. I wouldn’t have been able…” He looks back to Euphemia, pleading, but she’s still trying to make James understand. It’s not working. He’s bleeding so much. He’s been splinched, but the spell’s not working. His voice is so slurred. “I know I apparated illegally, I’ll leave. I’ll-“

“Shut up,” James says over everyone else. “Are you allergic to Dittany?” 

“No.”

James pushes Effie’s wand and hands away, and she barely lets him. Sirius’ head falls like he can’t hold it up anymore, but James keeps waving her away. “Contact St. Mungo’s, mum. He’s fine. I’ll do this.”

He is not fine.

The dittany drops seem so tiny, so uselessly insubstantial against the massiveness of the wound, but the bleeding slows. She nods. This is good. It’s good. She shifts Sirius out of her lap so that she can stand. The bleeding- this is good.

She’ll owl. No. Obviously not that, that would take days. Oh, he would die if she did that. He’s missing part of his arm. How can he be missing part…

A Patronus message… if she could remember how to do that. It has to be a splinching. What else would have done that to him? She’ll Floo. 

She’s in front of a Welcome Witch eventually, barely sure how she’s gotten there, and she stutters out everything she knows, not necessarily in the right order. She says her son is injured before she can think about repercussions, just the weak echoes of ‘please don’t tell my parents’ from a boy who was bleeding out. He’s bleeding, badly. He’s bleeding, and she couldn’t make it stop. In her terrified mind she sees James, so she says he’s her son. 

“Mrs. Potter, please,” the witch hands her a handkerchief. Euphemia wipes her hands on it before she realizes it was meant for her tears. She didn’t realize she was crying. There are red handprints on the counter where she’s been holding herself up. “Your son will be alright. We’ve sent a healer. He’ll be alright. Sit down. Next!” 

She sits. She watches as the Welcome Witch scours her handprints — Sirius’ handprints — away without a care. It takes Euphemia an embarrassingly long time to come back to herself enough to realize there are other people in the room. Another man, not much older than James. A boy in his arms. He’s burned on his thigh, just a tiny thing, but he’s just a tiny boy, and his father…

Arthur. His name is Arthur. Cedrella’s son, Effie realizes. She went to school with Cedrella, a few years behind herself. Another former Black, now a Weasley. 

Arthur Weasley’s boy snuck into a dragon enclosure in a travelling zoo, and he’s being treated for mild burns. Effie can breathe again when she sees the boy’s face, pleased and unafraid. He’s not even crying, even as he sits on his father’s hip, burned. His cheeks are streaked with tears, but his eyes are shining, pleased.

Such a tiny thing. A hand on his father’s cheek to get his attention, a tiny hand that fits itself comfortably in the hollow of his father’s cheek. The boy winces exaggeratedly at the wetness under his palm and wipes his father’s face with small and ungentle hands. The Welcome Witch offers Arthur a handkerchief, and Arthur hands it to the boy, and lets him keep rubbing.

Euphemia watches as the tiny boy is admitted. He complains of pain, but he smiles as he tells the Welcome Witch about the Ridgeback he nearly petted. They take the child away. It’s Arthur Weasley who sits with her, jittery, awkward. Strange but kind. He mumbles about his sons and his wife as he drops to his knees on the floor in front of her, and then he’s pointing his wand at one of her bare feet, whispering episkey.

She notices belatedly all the footprints she’s left on the white tile floor, a puddle where she’d stood in front of the welcome witch.

He healed her foot. Some of that blood was hers. She doesn’t remember bleeding.

Arthur starts to spell away blood from her robes and arms, still chatting all the while. Boys and messes all the time. More on the way, oh, he’d love a girl. She doesn’t know. She tries to listen. It helps a bit: maybe the words spoken softly, so mundane that her brain is forced to recalibrate, to put itself a bit right. Maybe it just helps not seeing herself soaked in Sirius’ blood. She tries to thank him, and he chats nervously while he works. The Welcome Witch is already helping someone else, and Arthur is spelling the blood off the floor and assuring everyone that he’s got it. She can’t hear him. She can hear him, but she can’t… She can’t- she tries to listen, but she just can’t hear him. She’s almost grateful when his pregnant wife ushers him away. 

Sirius doesn’t come through. They must take him the emergency route instead of through standard admittance. She can’t tell how much time passes now that the Weasley boy is gone. His talking was keeping time for her, rhythmic, and now she doesn’t know. More people pass through, but she can’t make herself care.

There’s still blood between the lines of her knuckles, under her nails. It starts to dry and flake.
 
Fleamont finds a seat next to her at some point, takes her hand without a word. She tries to pull away, saying something about blood, about getting blood on Fleamont when he’s still clean, and he just holds her tighter. James appears a bit later, showered and dressed — and somehow more settled than she’s seen him all week — and immediately ruins all that by laying on the nasty hospital floor with a quill and several rolls of parchment. She watches him write out page after page, wondering who he’s telling. His quill skirts across the page without ever hesitating. His hands are perfectly steady, completely clean, bloodless. He used to get faint at the sight of blood, and now he can dress a wound without flinching. Maybe he’ll be a healer some day.

“You’re not writing his family, are you?” She asks before she can help herself. She would hope to be the first person someone owled if James… 

But Sirius said no. Please don’t tell my parents.

“Just our friends.” 

Euphemia nods.

She wishes someone had brought her some shoes. She can’t bring herself to Floo home and get some. The floor is cold. Her feet are cold.

It feels improper to be barefoot in public. Her feet feel too dirty for the stark white floor. She wishes someone had thought to bring her some shoes. Everyone else has shoes.

“His parents should be here,” Fleamont says eventually, musing, earning an immediate glare from James and Effie. “I’m not saying I want them here,” he amends in a hurry. “I mean, they should be here, if they were looking for him. He’s injured: where else would he be but here? James, you said the healers confirmed it wasn’t a splinching injury?”

It wasn’t a splinching injury. He left that house bleeding, and no one even came to the hospital looking for him. No one’s looking for him.

He could have died, and no one... 

Euphemia drops her head onto her husband’s shoulder. She forgets to answer, but James is finishing his last letter, collecting his little pile and standing up, off to rent a few owls. “He’ll have been disowned,” James says. There’s a lot in his tone: anger, resignation, contempt. It doesn’t have any particular direction, but Effie is sure some of it’s hers. James was worried, and no one listened. “No one’s coming.”

”I’m sorry, love,” she says, and she tries to catch James’ eye. He avoids her gaze and shuffles his letters around instead, but he nods eventually, something jerky and meaningful. 

“I know.” He takes a long, slow breath, then looks at Effie with less reluctance. “Did you think to tell them we’re brothers? Or cousins? So they’ll let me visit?”

Effie breathes a sigh, finally having done something right. “His chart says Sirius Fleamont Potter.”

Chapter Text

Noise starts to wander through the thick fog in Sirius’ brain. First footsteps, then the scraping of a chair, some sort of sigh.

“It looks like we’re taking you home tomorrow.” James’ voice is tired but bright. “I found a paint colour that looks a bit like the walls in your room at Hogwarts… I thought something familiar, you know?”

Sirius can’t move. He can’t…

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he can’t even feel. His hands, his chest, his legs. He’s floating. He’s not sure he exists below his neck.

“I told Lily she should try to stay a bit later today since they’re changing your potions again, and they think you’ll wake up this time, but her parents are annoyed with how much time she’s been spending here, I guess. I don’t know. My parents are fine with it. Dad had them set up a cot for me for the first few days and everything, not that it was much better than sleeping on the floor. Well, you remember-” Sirius doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything. “Anyway, I think they’d have let me sleep here as long as I wanted if they hadn’t found me in the bed with you. Which- I was on your good side. And really- those cots- It’s inhumane.“

Sirius has a headache. It’s… The only part of his body he can feel is his head, and it hurts. Why can’t his head be numb too?

”But you haven’t missed much since lunch… I sent Peter another letter, but I still haven’t heard back from him. Lily said they’re having storms in Granada, so, you know. Owls. I don’t really care if he opens like ten letters at once, though. Better than feeling like we forgot about him. And now I’m wondering, too, if all the owls are even going to make it to him. It’s already a bit far… and-“

”James?”

”Hey!”

Sirius doesn’t have anything more to say than that, actually. Just James. He’s talking a lot. It’s… it’s a lot of words to process all at once. Really, he just needed to interrupt him, give himself a break.

“Are you properly awake? Oh, thank Merlin. Sirius, I’ve been so bored. I-“

”James, please. Shh.”

—

Sirius’ mind starts to come back to him all too quickly as the old potions wear off, and the new ones don’t make him nearly as fuzzy as he’d like. 

He’s been at Mungo’s almost a week apparently, and he doesn’t remember any of it from before today. He doesn’t even have a chance to emotionally prepare himself for what’s coming next. 

“Oh, you’re awake! Good, I need to tell you what’s been happening with Lily before we head home. Right, so I’ve been trying-“

Home. He’s half numb in his entire body, but somehow he can still feel the word scraping against his stomach, something swollen and raw. Home. He can’t go home. He doesn’t even have a home.

“So, my idea’s just been one at a time, yeah? Because I don’t want it to be overwhelming, or like too obvious of a change. What’s helped, though, is she visits you a lot. So I’ve been doing just one question, and then I leave the room. Like I don’t want to linger when she’s obviously not here to see me, right? Because sometimes people say I do that: I come on too strong. But I’m being interested, and I’m being serious, and I’m asking questions. And today — get this — she asked something back! It was just-“

”Get out.”

His head hurts. It hurts. It hurts, and he can’t- he can’t do this. 

“What?”

Home.

He can’t- and where’s his wand? Where did they put it? They can’t just take his wand. They can’t take it.

He can’t move, and he can’t- And James is watching him. Watching, and he can’t. He can’t even move. “I’m- James, stop. Stop. Get out.”

”Sirius, what’s-“

James is stepping in closer, and Sirius can’t even flinch back. He can’t do anything. He can’t move. James needs- he needs to go. Why won’t he just leave? Sirius asked him to leave, and he needs him to leave, so why won’t he- Why can’t he just listen?

James needs to leave before Sirius tries to see how much magic he can summon without his wand, without his hands. Before he starts to thrash and upsets whatever’s very clearly wrong with his heavily bandaged arm. He needs to go. “Get out, James. You’re in my room every bloody second — get out.”

He holds himself together just until the door clicks closed, and then he’s hyperventilating, gasping. It’s too much, it’s all too much, and he can’t even wipe the incriminating tears off his cheeks because he can’t lift his stupid arms, and he’s alone, and he hates it, hates being alone, and everyone left, everyone leaves, or he sends them away, and he sent James away and he wants…

It’s not fair.

And it’s all stupid, and James can stop pretending he’s- because he’s not. He’s not Sirius’ family. He’s not Sirius’ brother. He’s not.

—

No one comes to check on Sirius, and he’s not sure why he expected that anyone would. He’s not sure who he’s waiting for. He wipes the half-dried tears off his itching cheeks before realizing that he can move. 

His panic eases just slightly when he can curl and uncurl his toes. He can feel his chest move with his breaths. He can lift his right arm.

His left arm doesn’t come back to life with the rest of him. He can’t see it through the bandages, and he’s not sure he wants to. Feeling comes back more, but not the ability to move. He can make his fingers twitch, make his wrist turn one way or the other just a few millimeters, this if he’s willing to stomach the terrible ache, the burn that shoots right through to his chest and makes it hard to breathe. 

—

It’s not James’ fault. He knows that. It’s not anyone’s fault really. Sirius always knew- 

He always knew. He always… 

And James makes him laugh, and Lily distracts him, and… Sirius doesn’t have anyone who makes him feel safe. He doesn’t… he used to, and he doesn’t- He doesn’t have anywhere to go that makes him feel safe. He doesn’t have a home. 

He’ll stay at the Potters’ as long as they’ll have him, hopefully the remainder of the break, and then he’ll go back to Hogwarts. Single room, bare walls, not home. He doesn’t have a home.

And he’s alone. He doesn’t have a brother, and he doesn’t have… he doesn’t have the people he wanted to have, and he’s alone. 

He’s not meant to do it alone. He doesn’t know how.

And they left. He left.

And now he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where to go from here, how to keep going from here. He… he doesn’t know. Maybe he thought he would know.

He’s never had any control, and he was resigned to that, but this? He could be resigned to so much when he always knew where he stood. All of it, every second of horrible, it was fine, because he was prepared. He was resigned. He knew.

But he doesn’t know now. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know what to do.

—

James is back in the morning, and the hesitant way he looks at Sirius is already testing him, making him want to snap. He tries not to.

“I have all your potions here,” James says lifting his rucksack. “And I think… I think they threw out your robes. They were all covered in blood, and they had to cut you out of them when your arm- um-“ he cuts himself off.

”It’s fine,” Sirius interrupts. They’re just robes.

“Right.” James lifts the rucksack again. “Anyway, I brought you some clothes. We’re not so different in size. I thought it’d be better than what they have you in now.” 

Sirius starts to pull his thin blankets off of himself, then frowns when James doesn’t move. “Alright, well- you can leave them here. I’ll get dressed.”

”Right,” James says. He sets the bag down at Sirius’ feet and starts to dig through it. He pulls clothes out and sets them on the end of the bed too, and then re-folds them when he doesn’t seem to want to look at Sirius. “I think… Right. I can wait outside, and you can give me a shout if you need help. With… um…”

With your one arm that doesn’t work. Right. 

“Sure.”

James leaves, and he takes his rucksack with him, and Sirius shuffles out of the papery trousers they have him in. Those come off easily enough with one hand. With a bit of clumsy hopping, he pulls on a pair of boxers (trying not to think too hard about the fact that they’re James’) and then some jeans.

When he reaches the button and zip, he could probably stand to call for help, but something inside of Sirius insists that he can do it himself, that he needs to do it himself. If Sirius weren’t a bit narrower than James, he probably wouldn’t be able to navigate a button without two hands, but he has about an inch of extra fabric to work with, and the button slips through the hole eventually. 

He stares doubtfully at the shirt, then at his own chest, then his pathetically limp arm. He leaves the hospital shirt on instead of calling for help. 

Next on the pile is his wand, which he tucks into his waistband with hands that almost shake from the relief. Then a jacket, one he’s never seen on James, leather. He picks it up. It still has tags, one at the collar, one on the sleeve.

“James-“ James basically falls through the door before Sirius can get another word out. “What’s this?”

”Do you need help?” 

Sirius shakes the leather jacket, trying to get James to look at it instead of at Sirius. “What is this?”

”Oh- I’ve been really bored. I went shopping.” Sirius stares at the jacket. He can’t see the shape of it well when he can only hold it up with one hand, so he throws it on the bed and straightens it out. “I figured… well, you’ve needed a new one for a while, and you’re always wearing it, so I thought it might be sentimental or something. And I remember you were wearing yours when you left, so…”

It’s gone now. That’s what James figured. He’s probably right. It was thrown away or set on fire or something. Sirius isn’t getting it back. He’s not getting any of his stuff back. 

That’s everything then. First what he left at Beauxbatons, now what he bothered to bring home. That’s everything he owns.

”It’s brown,” Sirius finds himself saying. The leather — it’s brown. It’s a nice brown, something soft and… it’s nice. It’s a strangely comforting colour. Warm.

“I know. I know your last one was black, and Lily said she thought it might be like jewelry — they say if someone wears gold a lot, you shouldn’t get them silver, because clearly that’s not what they like — and… I’ve left the tags on. We can trade it out for a black one if you want: they did have this one in black, too. You should still try it on, though. I took ages looking for one that I thought was a similar shape to your old one, the same details. If you look at the stitching here-“ James comes up beside Sirius to point. “And the shape of the pockets, and the collar. I thought- If you look, it’s wider at the shoulders and it tapers in a bit at the waist like your old one, you know?”

Sirius tries to see what James is saying. He thinks maybe the jacket is a bit more triangle shaped than normal. Sirius thinks maybe he is a bit more triangle than rectangle shaped. He did like the way his last jacket tapered in at the waist.

Sirius hadn’t chosen his last jacket because of the way it looked, because of the stitching or the shape of the pockets. He’d bought it when he was fourteen, run off from his parents for the first time, and he’d needed muggle clothes to keep a low profile. He’d gone into the first second-hand shop he’d seen and bought a few pairs of jeans and a few tee shirts. He’d needed something warm but tough to wear, because he didn’t know how long he’d be away from home. He didn’t know where he’d be sleeping.

He’d known he wouldn’t be able to afford the jacket and cigarettes, so he’d paid for everything else, and stolen it. He’d ripped off the tags and walked out wearing it like it was his, and if anyone suspected, no one stopped him. It was cold, and he was fourteen and alone. Maybe no one would have stopped him. Maybe his situation wasn’t as secret as he pretended it was. He’d felt very clever about it at the time, tags crumpled in his pocket, cashier staring at him with squinted eyes.

He’d fallen in love with it only after years of owning it, after his parents tried to burn it, after he started feeling like himself when he put it on. After it came to Hogwarts with him when he’d left almost everything else behind. It was something that was his, and James has bought him another, and it’s his.

“James-”

“You’ll try it on at least, yeah? And then if you don’t like it, we can go look for another one together, but-“

”James, it’s perfect.”

”No! You need to at least try it on.” Sirius reaches for the jacket, running his hand down the front once before picking it up. The leather is a bit cold, and he’s surprised by how good it feels. Familiar. His. Sirius starts to pick it up, and James pulls it right out of his hand to undo the zip. Together, they manage to slide Sirius’ bad arm in first, and although they need to pop the button at the cuff to get his hand out, since he’s bandaged down to his fingers, it isn’t too tight on his dressings. “I really wanted to find one with long sleeves,” James says as he moves around to Sirius’ other side, yanking his good arm until he can pull it into the other sleeve. “Not that- I don’t care about your scar, and I’m sure no one will, but I thought you should be able to keep it to yourself, too. If you wanted. Because people do stare at scars. They can’t help it. And I know that for some people, that’s really… They’re not too long are they?”

And they are. They go right down to his palm, and it’ll probably be a bit of a nuisance — the kind of sleeves that drag on your parchment when you write, gets wet from the condensation when you’re drinking a pint — but there’s something comforting about the feeling too, about too-long sleeves. They have another button at the cuff too that looks like it could secure them at Sirius’ wrists. “They’re good.”

“And the vendor said the brown is very on-trend now with the muggles, but I was really thinking about how it would wear. I think the brown ages more nicely, and I know you wore your last one a bit ragged. Not that- I mean, it looked nice. Lived in. I just thought…”

Sirius stares down at his hands, at the brown leather against his skin. Blacks wear a lot of cool colours, jewel tones, black. Things that highlight the contrast in their features. He’s used to looking starkly white against most of his clothes, but there’s something softer about the brown, something that makes him look a bit more alive. He doesn’t feel so much like a Black. He doesn’t look so much like he’s made of marble. He likes the colour. It’s a warm colour. “James, it’s perfect. Really.”

”I know it’s perfect,” James says. “I picked it myself. Now shut up and let me talk about it. Okay- did you notice it’s lined? That part actually zips out, so that it’s not too hot in the warmer months, but you can still…”

It’s a nice brown. 

“And that pocket, the one on the inside, I did check, and it fits a wand, and it’s really secure. And I thought maybe we could take it to Madam Malkins and have her sew in a Mokeskin lining so that it’s protected, yeah?”

”Yeah.”

It reminds him of Remus. The brown. Something soft and subtle and nice. It looks like something Remus would wear, not that he thinks Remus would ever buy himself a leather jacket. Remus likes soft things, soft fabrics, big jumpers.

Remus would like the fact that it’s lined. Something soft instead of the vaguely cold, tough leather.

“And I remember you mentioning that you wanted to be able to wear a jumper underneath, so I bought it a bit bigger. And that way if you get any bulkier, and you probably will with training and all… It won’t fit quite like your last one, but I thought… a bit big is better than a bit small, right?”

”Yeah.” It would fit Remus. It’s a bit big in the shoulders and chest for Sirius, a bit long in the sleeves. Just a bit. A nice amount, something slouchy and casual, but it would look nice on someone a bit bigger, too. It would… it would look nice.

James isn’t thinking about that. James doesn’t even know about that conversation between Sirius and Remus, a month ago now, at least. Sirius had promised Remus that when he finally got himself a new jacket, he’d buy one that they could share.

He’d been joking. Mostly.

Remus would look good in this jacket. The brown would look nicer on Remus than a black. It would be more forgiving with his complexion. It would flatter his eyes. This dark soft brown really isn’t so different from the colour of Remus’ eyes.

“Tell me you like it!” 

Sirius doesn’t even have to lie. “I like it. James, really- It’s fantastic. It’s-“ Sirius can’t even understand it. James looks so excited, so happy, and Sirius just doesn’t understand. “It’s perfect, James. Whatever it cost, I’ll pay you back.”

James’ smile drops into something confused, something almost offended. “It’s a gift, Sirius.”

Sirius shakes his head. He doesn’t even know the price, but the amount of effort James clearly put into it is already unfathomable. “It’s too much.”

“No,” James says easily. “It’s not. Now, can we go home? Please? I’m starving.”

Sirius looks at James, and when that starts to feel like too much, he looks down at his palms again, the edges of his sleeves. He touches the leather at his chest, tests his pocket with the hand that moves, and somehow he settles a bit. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

“We’re going out,” James says, standing over Sirius as he sits on his little mattress on James’ floor.

He’s been hiding in here. He suspects that he might be making everyone more uncomfortable hiding than he would by actually hanging around, and he can’t help it. He can’t help wanting to disappear. He doesn’t know how to exist in this space, in this incredibly strange and new life. He might try to earn his place here, cook or clean, but even if he were up to it physically, he doesn’t know how. So he hides, tries not to impose.

James hates it. He’s so clearly bored, and he so desperately wants Sirius to be a playmate, and Sirius’ arm hurts all the time, and he can’t. He can’t go flying. He can’t rough around. He can’t do anything James wants to do.

“I’m reading. Do whatever you want.”

Sirius doesn’t like to read. He likes reading in English even less.

He learned to speak in English. The first years of his life were spent largely in English. But in preparation for a career at Beauxbatons, all of his schooling has always been done in French. He learned to read and write in French. He’s functional and sociable and literate in both languages, and yet always a bit stunted.

Reading in English is clumsy and takes more focus than he cares to give it. He can’t follow a plot as well as he would want to be able to, not when he’s trying to sound out words he’s said in conversation a thousand times, only he’s never seen them written down before.

He could learn to read more comfortably if he cared to, and in the back of his mind he’s always intended to, but he’s never bothered. Even today, he picked up Effie’s book a few times, looked at the unfortunately pornographic cover — a man with long hair, a woman with long legs, red dress, bare chest — and he’d went and written another letter to Lily.

But Sirius has seemingly infinite free time now, and he can’t do anything he wants to do, what James wants him to do, and he can only write Lily so many times. Effie’s always trying to get Fleamont or James to do a co-read with her, and neither of them are really all that interested, and Effie pretends not to mind. She describes the whole plot of a book to Fleamont instead, and he listens over a cup of coffee and nods along interestedly. When she’s positively bouncing with excitement that someone cares about one of her books, she offers to grab it for Fleamont so he can read it, and he smiles gently and says It feels like I just did, and she smiles, but it’s not the answer she was looking for.

She’d offered Sirius a book, and it feels like something that he can do for her. He desperately wants to do something for her.

It had taken him two days to read the first book she’d given him, one she’d read in the space between dinner and bed, but he’d gotten through it. She’d asked him questions like she cared about his opinion or something, and he wasn’t really sure he’d had enough of a grasp on the plot to give thorough answers, but he’d tried. Something to do for Effie, he’d tried.

After he read the first book, she came back with a whole pile the next day. Six different novels, twelve books total. She’d bought two copies of each so that Sirius could pick which one he wanted to read with her, and they could read together without having to share, and it was so sickeningly sweet. So he’s reading.

He’s trying to read.

”You’re not reading. I know you don’t read. Stop pretending you’re Remus and come out with me already. Listen— I promise I’m not going to ask you to fly again, so…”

Sirius had flown off the handle. That’s why James is so awkward, switching between demanding and apologetic. James kept trying to involve Sirius in Quidditch training, and Sirius had snapped. He’s not going to be able to play Quidditch again, so why bother?

”I do read,” Sirius lies. “I read when it’s porn.” He turns a page mildly, slightly theatrically. Not that he was even done reading it, not that he can focus with James looming over him. Maybe he’d be able to focus if it was porn.

James kicks at Sirius’ mattress. “You’re not reading porn with my mum. Get up.”

Sirius could have moved the mattress back into the guest bedroom. James still changes his dressings for him every morning and night, but he can administer his own potions and do his own exercises by now. He doesn’t need to sleep on the floor. He doesn’t need to be supervised anymore. 

And despite how he and James keep biting each other’s heads off, no one tries to move Sirius back into the room James’ parents set up for him.

”Mm, ‘course not,” Sirius says. “I bet that’s why she’s always reading in the evenings…” Poke. “That way at night she can slip off with Monty-” poke “-and put up the silencing charms-“

James grabs a fist full of the front of Sirius’ shirt (James’ shirt), and Sirius feels himself lifted slightly off the floor. ”We’re going out. Do you want to walk or be dragged?” He grabs Sirius’ book out of his hand and tosses it somewhere behind himself, then stares down at Sirius.

Sirius considers fighting him. He stares at the book, laying open and a bit crumpled under the desk, and he doesn’t want to pick it back up. He pushes at James hand, which falls away from him without much resistance. “Suppose I’ll walk, then. Where are we going?”

”Shopping. Christmas, school. Replacing whatever you left at your parents house. I need new robes.” James pulls Sirius up by his good arm, and they both wobble a bit standing on the mattress.

“I need to go to Gringott’s,” Sirius says. He knows he had some money set aside in his name from a few deaths in his family in the past decade, money he couldn’t access until he was of age. It’ll be good to see how much he has.

”Good,” James says too brightly. “I need to grab some money and do some muggle exchange.”

James strips quickly, shameless as someone who’s always had roommates. Halfway through pulling a shirt on, James seems to change his mind. He throws the shirt on the floor and turns around to dig for something else, and Sirius catches sight of the scars for the first time.

Claw marks. Like something dragged a paw or… or talons down his back. 

James is already turning back around. ”You’re lucky,” James says, muffled by the shirt he’s tangled up in. “I never know who to get gifts for, like who might get me something for Christmas. Because not everyone who’s a friend is a gift-giving-level-friend, and I’m always inclined to buy stuff for everyone, and then they get mad at me. But you-“ He finally pops his head through the neck hole and catches sight of Sirius’ face. “What?”

”Nothing.”

James never comments on Sirius’ scars. He sees them every time he helps Sirius with a shirt: the one by his ribs, the one just under his collar bone. Frankly, three parallel scars on James is hardly as interesting as Sirius’ own mess of a back. James never comments.

And what’s there to ask about, anyway? Claw marks speak for themselves. Some Care of Magical Creatures accident, or else he and Pete snuck out into the Forbidden Forest at some point despite it being prohibited — and for good reason, based on James’ back. 

Everyone has scars. Sirius has so many scars. His wrist throbs like it’s daring him to talk about it all. “Nothing,” he repeats, this time with some strength behind it.

”Right… anyway, and I was thinking about you, and how you would know who to get gifts for, because you’ve not been here all that long, and you can’t just rely on who bought you something last year or for your birthday or whatever. But I figure you can just go based off who visited you in the hospital, who wrote you and that. Because I wrote everyone I could think of when you were in Mungo’s, and some people had better answers than others.

”Lily, for instance, you have to buy her something nice. She walked out to visit you every day. Walked. And Peter was in Spain, but since he got our letters, he’s written every day, right? Whereas like Annette, for instance, I didn’t know how close you two still were, so I sent her a letter. Less than one page response! Well wishes and all, but still… Don’t get her anything.”

Sirius pulls on a pair of James’ jeans, and James doesn’t try to help him with the button or belt anymore, just lets Sirius fumble until he gets it. Sirius laughs. “You wrote Annette?” Annette whom he’s insisted over and over again that he wasn’t ever close with, and James never seems to believe him. “Did you tell the whole school? Who else did you write?”

Everyone you ever suspected me of secretly shagging, Sirius presumes. 

“Mary, Marlene, and Dorcas,” James ticks off on his fingers. “But only Marlene and Dorcas visited. Peter and Remus, obviously. Lily. I thought about writing Darla, but I’ve really never-“

Sirius pauses with one arm out of his shirt. “You wrote Remus?”

James looks almost offended by the question. “Of course.”

Sirius swallows down a swelling nervousness. “Did he write you back?”

”No,” James says. He helps Sirius tug his shirt off the rest of the way with a few easy tugs. Sirius’ stomach drops, although he’s not sure what he expected. James pulls out a random shirt from his drawer and very gently pulls Sirius’ bad arm through. “Showed up at Mungo’s as soon as he got the owl. He’s a good friend. I’m not sure what we’ll get him…”

Right. Friends. 

Only Remus had said I never wanted to be your friend. He’d said I don’t want to go back, and then they hadn’t. They hadn’t ever gone back.

I can’t be around you. It’s killing me, Sirius. Well, clearly that only applies to being around Sirius when he’s awake. He can visit Sirius while he’s sedated, but not a word since. No letters, nothing.

Sirius steps back from James, pulling his shirt over his head and forcing his other arm through without assistance, then shrugging into his jacket. “I’m not getting him a gift.”

—

Sirius comes back to the Potter House feeling better than he has in days, in weeks maybe. He feels energized. Maybe it’s the fact that they stopped at every sweets shop, every cafe, every ice cream parlour. They had ice cream twice. It’s January.

And he’s missed this, him and James. He’s missed fun.

Mrs Potter makes the boys tell her everything they bought. At first Sirius fights the urge to hide his bags behind his back, not wanting to have his purchases scrutinized, not wanting to need Mrs Potter’s approval, but when she asks them to try on all their new clothes for her, she claps for James’ new robes and Sirius’ new jeans. She makes him spin around and sit and lift his knees and test his pockets, and he wonders if this is just something she does to show that she cares.

She doesn’t complain about a single purchase. Sirius wasn’t going to show her his records, just out of habit. Muggle things, he’s used to hiding them, but James just keeps unloading Sirius’ bags for him, and it’s too late to stop him, but Effie seems intrigued. She asks to hear them, but Lily’s portable record player is still at Hogwarts.

”Well,” Effie says, staring at his little pile of records. “We’ll need to buy one of those for the house then, won’t we?”

Fleamont talks less but touches everything. He checks the seams and tags and buttons of everyone’s clothes, spends a long time reading the instructions for Lily’s watch and setting it up. James and Sirius bought Peter a chess set together, a muggle thing where every piece is also a shot glass — paired with a few handles of Firewhiskey, of course — and Fleamont measures the volume of each chess piece.

“I don’t care if you drink,” Fleamont says when he catches Sirius staring, trying to figure out what he’s doing. “I do care if you don’t know what or how much you’re drinking. Pawn’s are half-ounces. Everything else is one ounce, except the king and queen, which are one and a half.”

Effie counts the pockets in Sirius’ new rucksack and casts a charm on it to make it lighter so that it’s not so hard on his arm. 

Sirius is so overwhelmed by James’ family, and they are so, so wonderful.

“Sorry about my mum,” James says, a bit bashful as he re-wraps Sirius’ arm before bed. “She just gets excited.”

Sirius frowns at James while he thinks about how to answer that. James gets excited a bit like his mum does. Too-much, and wonderful. Pushy and too-involved, and so caring. “I like your mum. I like both your parents.”

James throws Sirius’ old dressings in the bin behind him, then looks up at Sirius with a bright smile. “I knew you would. We haven’t talked about the summer yet, but you’re definitely here for Easter Hols. I think you’ll probably be here in the summer, too. I mean, if you want. If you- I just assumed… that you’re… you’re needing a place to stay.”

James uncaps the ointment and tries to catch Sirius’ eye as he hands off the lid. Sirius sighs. James keeps trying to have these really intense conversations with him, and Sirius has been avoiding them. Avoiding thinking. 

He’s had a really good day, though, and James looks worried, and that’s not fair. Not when James has been such a good friend. “It’d be good, staying here. I like it here.” He doesn’t know how to trust it. Frankly, he doesn’t trust it at all, but he’d still rather be here than anywhere else. If James’ family will have him here another day, he’s here. Easter sounds good.

James nods and takes the cap back from Sirius, puts the ointment away. He stares at Sirius searchingly before turning away to grab fresh bandages. “You can tell me about it, you know,” James says. “If you want.”

”I know,” Sirius says. 

And Sirius doesn’t want, and James has these big scared eyes. “I think it might help if you talked about it,” James whispers.

Sirius knows it won’t. It won’t help him. But maybe this isn’t about him. He’s let James live with a lot of uncertainty lately. Maybe James deserves to know something. He looks scared. He looks a bit scared all the time lately. There has to be something he can tell James, something that’ll make him feel trusted, but something that doesn’t make Sirius ache to think about. He can tell James something.

He looks a bit desperately around the room. He can’t look at James, all soft and scared, and think about all this. His eyes land on James’ bedside table, the photo he brought back with him from Hogwarts. James and his parents in their living room, a smiling Fleamont and a giggling Effie. He pulls away from James to grab the photo.

“This is how I got here,” he says, showing James the picture like he doesn’t already know exactly what it looks like. “What I was thinking about when I Apparated. I didn’t even know if it would work. I just-“ He was scared, and he’d only had a second to make a decision, and he decided. He focused, focused on this picture, on James, on every detail he could remember about how his living room looked, and he’d decided.

He can tell James that. Not about his brother, his family, his… but he can tell James he was scared.

“This is where I wanted to be.” He turns the picture back to himself. It’s almost strange to see the room with that great Persian rug in the centre since Sirius ruined it. It was already thrown away by the time he got back from Mungo’s, and the living room that Sirius walks through every day is just hardwood. “If I was smart, I’d probably have taken myself straight to St Mungo’s, but all I was thinking was how you said I should come. If I needed a place, I should come here.”

And James must have really meant it, because there hadn’t even been wards on the house. James nods from where he kneels on Sirius’ mattress on the floor. “I’m glad you came here.”

He watches as James carefully and expertly wraps his wrist like he does every night. No hesitation in his hands, no complaint on his lips.

“Yeah,” Sirius says, choking on the word. “Me too.”

Chapter Text

Sirius does his exercises as they’re settling down for the night, but he already knows he won’t sleep. There’s a swelling ball of anxiety in his chest, a choking feeling in the back of his throat that he keeps trying to swallow down.

The lights go out. Everyone settles. He tries to sleep. He’s been sleeping well here, as well as he’s ever slept, but he can’t. He grows increasingly panicked as he can’t and he searches for the rhythmic sound of James’ snoring to ground him, to reassure his brain that he isn’t alone, but he doesn’t hear it.

“Are you awake?” Sirius whispers.

James huffs some breathy sound, a sigh or a laugh. “Yeah.”

”Me too.”

He shouldn’t have talked about it. He knew he shouldn’t have talked about it. It made James feel better, but Sirius can’t- he can’t think about all that. He can’t. He thought he’d told James something inconsequential, thought he could control himself, but he can’t. Everything’s so entangled, and he’s thinking about it.

He doesn’t want to sleep. He can’t. He wants- he wants to run away, and that doesn’t even make sense because there’s nowhere he’d want to be but here, but he can’t be here. It’s all too much.

James doesn’t answer right away, and Sirius hears shuffling above him. A light comes on, and then James’ head is looming over him, half-shadowed and distorted in the wandlight.

“We can talk,” James offers. Sirius doesn’t want to talk, something that makes Sirius dig deep when he’s trying so hard to push things down.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

“Do you wanna know a secret?” James asks into the silence.

A secret. A distraction. “Yes.” Always.

”Okay. You’ll tell me one too, yeah?”

Sirius rolls onto his side, punching his pillow a bit to get the angle right. He stares back at James. “I don’t have any secrets.”

”Mm, we’ll figure something out,” James dismisses. He pops up a little higher and points his wand at the door. “Muffliato.” The wandlight flickers as the spell takes. James tosses his lit wand behind him so that no one’s staring right into the light, then rolls back to Sirius. “I really trust you, you know,” James says lightly.

“I know.”

James showed him a few entrances to Hogsmeade. He told Sirius about his invisibility cloak, and he’s even really trying to trust Sirius around Lily, which is clearly impossible for him, but he’s still trying. Sirius knows that James trusts him, and it’s still nice to hear. It’s nice to be someone James trusts.

Sirius doesn’t always feel trustworthy. Not in ways that matter. He can keep a secret, though. He can do that right. James can trust him with that.

“I’m an Animagus.”

It’s such a ridiculous thing to say that Sirius has to stop and make sure there’s not some mistranslation in his mind, some false friend. Animagus can’t mean the same thing in English as in French.

”No,” Sirius says, shaking his head. “You’re not.” Instead of insisting, James just shrugs so casually that Sirius knows he’s not making it up. He’s not lying. “What form?”

James’ grin is ominous in the half-light, and so incredibly proud. “Stag.”

”Wow.” Strong, capable. Not a predator, but not helpless either. Social and family oriented. That tracks.

Sirius has wondered about Animagus forms before— everyone wonders what they’d be. No one wants to be a dung beetle or something largely useless like a goldfish. A stag… that’s a fantastic form to take. “That’s really illegal,” Sirius muses, no judgement in his voice, just awe. James nods. “Why?”

”Because it’s rather dangerous, I guess. It can go really wrong, and-“

”No.” Obviously he knows why it’s illegal. He laughs, and James just grins some more. “Why did you do it? Are you- there’s no way you’re registered.”

”Because it’s cool,” James says. “Because I wanted to see if I could. Because I knew it would get me into places a human could never go.”

Impossible to argue with that. Maybe James would help Sirius do the same… That could be fun. “Where have you gone?”

James’ eyes drift closed as he thinks, a small smile on his lips. ”I’ve used it to sneak around the grounds, obviously. Interact with creatures that don’t take well to humans. Wander the Forbidden Forest, just to see what’s out there. Snuck up on Filch like that once, just to see what he’d do. Run away, turns out.”

“Inside the castle?” Oh, it’s all delightfully stupid and reckless, and Sirius loves it. “You’ll have to show me at some point.”

”Mm, yeah. Not here, though. My parents… they let me get away with a lot, but…”

”Yeah.” They seem like relatively law-abiding people.

James shifts further, pulling a pillow from behind him and propping it under his shoulder while he rolls mostly onto his stomach, head still turned to Sirius. “Your turn,” James says, a devious little grin on his face.

Sirius shakes his head, trying to let James down gently. ”I definitely don’t have any secrets like that. Wish I did.”

“No?” James’ grin only spreads. “Then answer a question for me: who were you dating? Why all the secrecy? It’s been killing me, you know. I can’t stand not knowing.”

Sirius’ stomach drops. “That’s because you’re a horrible gossip,” Sirius mutters, stalling for time.

“Exactly. Was it Mary? Is that why she didn’t visit you in the hospital when Dorcas and Mar…“

He could tell James. Part of him even wants to. He doesn’t want the conversation, the explanation, the reaction, but part of him does want James to know. Wants James to stop asking about his ex-girlfriend, stop guessing and joking, because it’s not a joke. It’s not funny. It mattered. He and Remus- it mattered. It mattered to him a lot, and he wishes his friends knew.

But he’s not going to tell James. He should have the right to. He never took an oath. He’d agreed to not telling anyone right now, and that was ages ago. He hadn’t known then that Remus wanted forever, and that’s not what he agreed to. He has every right to tell James.

But Sirius won’t be a person Remus can’t trust. Even now. Especially now. “James…”

”No! You said you’d-“

”I’m not the one who wanted it to be a secret! I’d tell you. I’d have told you from the start. It’s not… It’s not about you. It’s just not my secret.”

It’s Remus, Sirius could scream. It’s your best friend, and I love him. It’s Remus and I’m so in love with him I can’t breathe. We’ve been broken up longer than we ever dated, and I still can’t breathe.

James drops his head face-down into his pillow and makes some annoyed noise. “I’m sorry,” Sirius whispers. “I would tell you.”

James groans again, but when he looks up at Sirius, there’s no resentment in his eyes. He just looks a bit sad. “I get it,” he says, some annoyed little huff to it, but still no anger. “I- It’s good that you keep people’s secrets. I would want you to.” He blows out a breath and drops his head to the pillow again, turned this time so that he can still stare at Sirius out of one eye. “It looked like it was really hard on you, is all. I just… I’ve been curious.”

”Yeah.”

James squints at him out of the one slightly squished eye. “Maybe she just wasn’t the right person,” James says.

Sirius doesn’t answer, and James seems to be waiting.

“Maybe,” Sirius mumbles. Maybe. Whatever. She.

Whatever.

“You still owe me a secret,” James says, maybe intentionally changing the subject.

Sirius still doesn’t have any secrets. None of his own.

“I’m an open book, mate. Ask away.” Just not about his romantic life.

James hums while he thinks. His eyes drift closed, and he looks on the edge of falling asleep, so Sirius lets himself roll onto his back. His eyes start to droop too.

”What about you, then? You know mine. Most illegal magic you’ve ever done. Apparating without a license aside, since I already know about that.”

“Oh.” Apparating without a license. Yeah. James would assume it’d be something like that.

”No! You’re telling me. I could get kicked out of Hogwarts. There’s no way yours is worse. You’re telling me. That or who you-“

”No, I’ll tell you.” Oh, he just doesn’t want to. “I said I would.” James… he isn’t going to understand, but… Maybe Sirius wants to tell him anyway. Maybe he doesn’t care if it scares James away. “It’s just not a good look for me, that’s all. I’ll tell you if you want to know.”

Maybe he wants to scare James away. If James would scare. James says he trusts Sirius, but… he’s turned on him before. If James is going to turn against him again, he should do it now because Sirius is getting comfortable here. If good things end, he may as well not get too attached this time.

“Is it that bad?” There’s a giddy sort of apprehension in James’ voice. Some dark excitement. Sirius just pinches his eyes closed.

“Unforgivables,” Sirius says, cutting straight to the chase. It’s not exciting; it’s not fun. He doesn’t try to make it out to be anything other than what it is.

“Curses?”

“Yes.”

”Oh.” The giddiness in James’ tone is replaced by something dull. “Which one?”

”All three.”

He leaves it there. He lets James react. He doesn’t insist on explaining himself — what would be the point? He just lets James process and keeps his eyes pinched shut to avoid having to confront his reaction.

”Were you protecting yourself?” James asks. It’s such a merciful question, such a kind thing to say. Sirius wishes he had a better answer. 

“No.”

Sirius fidgets with his covers, crunching them up into a ball by his chest and holding that tightly against himself.

Maybe it’s not that merciful of a question. Maybe James is naive to think that protecting himself was ever an option for Sirius. Was he supposed to have used them on his parents?

Maybe.

“Did you use them… not on people, surely.”

Sirius laughs some pathetic huff of breath through his nose. “I used the killing curse on bugs.” James breathes a relieved noise, probably too soon. “I think… I don’t know.” He doesn’t know what he was thinking. He’s not sure he was thinking. “I felt really sick about it after. I guess… In my head, I felt like I needed to make sure I could do it. I don’t know why.”

He’d felt really sick about it. Not at the fact that he’d killed bugs. He’s killed bugs with his hands. But doing it with magic felt different. He’d thought it might bring him comfort to know that he could. It made him really sick to know it was easy.

”Because you didn’t feel safe, Sirius. That’s why. Normal people don’t have to worry about that,” James says quietly. There’s a kindness to the way that he says it, like he’s offering something to Sirius, but Sirius doesn’t know what James is trying to give him. “You must have been really scared.”

Sirius peels his eyes open. He has to stare at James for a long time before he can be sure, but it feels like James is forgiving him. It’s a weird feeling. It’s uncomfortable. He’s not sure he likes it.

“I wasn’t scared,” Sirius says on instinct, and he means it. He doesn’t remember feeling afraid. But then, he went years without feeling much of anything, and he didn’t even notice until he started feeling everything all at once at Hogwarts. Maybe he wasn’t letting himself feel anything. “Maybe I was scared. I don’t know.”

”You don’t have to tell me anything else, Sirius,” James says. “I’m sorry you went through that. We don’t have to talk about it. I know I’ve been- I’m not trying to be pushy. That’s… I don’t think I’d want to talk about that either.”

Sirius stares at James, and he’s not sure what he wants. He might…

He doesn’t want to test James anymore. He doesn’t want to scare him away.

He might want James to keep forgiving him. There are things Sirius spent years trying to forgive himself for, and it might be good. If James wanted to forgive him too, that might be good. He doesn’t deserve it, and he doesn’t like it, and he might want it anyway.

“My brother couldn’t ever resist the Imperius,” Sirius says, and James nods but doesn’t interrupt. “For a while we did that on each other.” They’d never officially decided that they were helping each other build endurance. They were messing with each other, and it happened to help. Maybe they kept going with it because it was helping, or maybe they were just bored and used to being pitted against one another. “Got each other in lots of trouble with it too, but we both got better. I was never as bad as him, so I can shake it off completely now, but him… he’s still better than he was.”

”You were protecting him,” James insists. Sirius shrugs.

It’s complicated with Reg. It was always going to be complicated in a house like that. They had to carve out spaces for themselves just to survive, and they both took on different burdens, and they did their best. They both really did their bests, but they tortured each other too, sold each other out, lied and manipulated and cheated. The world was cruel to them, and they were cruel to each other, and they knew exactly how to be as cruel as their parents.

They tried to protect each other, too. They tried to help each other where they could.

It took a lot of energy, surviving, and they only sometimes had enough left over to help, to be fair, to be kind, to be brothers.

If Sirius had kept his head down more, the both of them could have suffered less for it. He resisted, and he caused trouble. There was always backlash, and he didn’t care.

If Regulus hadn’t tried so hard to be everything Sirius wasn’t, Sirius would never have looked so heinous in comparison. If Sirius were the son he was supposed to be, he would have never handed all the expectation down to Regulus.

Sirius tried to take the brunt of the punishment and Regulus took the expectation, and none of it was ever fair.

”The Cruciatus was with him too. There was one summer where… we both had wands. We both did it. It was… easier than it should have been. And we… It always hurts. Our parents used it on us. We both knew how much it hurt. And we did it anyway. You don’t get used to it. It never hurts any less. But I don’t know. Somehow it became… It became some sort of game between us.”

It’s wicked. It’s broken and it’s disgusting, and it was easy. They say not everyone can even do Unforgivables. You have to really mean it. You have to really want to hurt someone.

They both did it. It was easy.

And in hindsight, he can spin the narrative in any number of ways. He could say they were trying to find a way to take away its power. If they couldn’t stop the pain, they wanted to be in control of it. It was some sort of rebellion.

He could say a lot of things.

The truth is he doesn’t remember it all that well. It wasn’t that long ago. Years, but not many. They’d both had wands. Still, his memories are all… they’re all a bit fuzzy. He tried not to be present in that life, and the memories are weaker than they would be. He doesn’t remember what he was thinking. He remembers being angry.

And I’m still angry. Whenever he lets go, whenever he loses his grip on the resignation that he shields himself with, all he has left is anger.

But it doesn’t matter, does it? For all the truth that there is to any hundreds of excuses he could conjure, he was still older. Who was going to teach Regulus to do better if not him?

No one. And no one did. And now no one ever will.

James is still staring at Sirius, and somehow there isn’t some disgusted hatred in his features, and Sirius doesn’t understand it, but he doesn’t look away.

James hugs his pillow a bit tighter. “Do you think your brother was Imperiused last week? Do you think that’s why he-“

“I think…” He hesitates for a long time before he nods. “Maybe. I think he could have been.”

His mother wouldn’t have been permitted to speak, and Bellatrix could. It would have infuriated her. She could have used Regulus.

She could have seen the whole ordeal as an opportunity to make Sirius do what she’d been wanting from him all year — forcing him to prove himself to her, prove his alliance to his family. Walburga wouldn’t have been able to pledge her own allegiance to their cause. Her husband is a coward, hidden behind heavy mahogany doors in his study, and he’d have never taken any Mark, and Bellatrix was taunting Walburga. Bellatrix, still basically a child in Walburga’s mind, but now more powerful and respected than her, taunting her. That was when Regulus spoke up.

But Regulus also can’t handle the hostility. He could have spoken up on his own. He can’t handle a long silence and a hard stare. He can’t stand to be uncomfortable. Sirius has been stepping in and taking the pain that he thought Regulus wouldn’t be able to bear for years, for their whole lives, and now Regulus is weak. Sirius accidentally trained Regulus to sell him out, and he always has, and he would. He would let Sirius take the Mark if it meant he wouldn’t have to. He would expect Sirius to.

That was some strange grey area between their chosen burdens. Regulus would have expected Sirius to take the pain, the screaming, the bending breaking body, and Sirius wouldn’t have ever let his mother win. The Mark meant more than just pain. Sirius has always rejected the expectation.

The wandlight changes, then Sirius’ mattress dips, and James is pulling Sirius into his chest. James hugs him as tight as he was hugging his pillow, and Sirius can’t quite breathe. He can’t even get his arms around James because one is trapped between them and the other isn’t an arm anymore, but he lets James hug him, and he buries his face in James’ shirt.

He so desperately wants it to be true, that Regulus didn’t have a choice, that he still has a brother, but Sirius doesn’t know. He’s not sure he gets to know. He left. 

He could have taken the Mark and left after. He should have. It was stupid to leave when he did. His arm wouldn’t be butchered to the point of uselessness, and he’d have probably been able to get the Mark removed or something. He could have stayed for just another hour and saved his brother one last time.

Because he’s sure Regulus has taken the Mark by now. He’s always been the Good Son. He’s always had to be everything Sirius wasn’t. Sirius left, and he humiliated his family, and the only person left to pay for that was Regulus. He would have to be what Sirius wasn’t.

Sirius fights against James’ hold on him. He can’t stand it. The image in his mind — Regulus, screaming. Regulus, his art that was his only escape, burned into his arm as a reminder of who he belongs to, and Sirius who couldn’t save him.

It doesn’t matter whether Regulus is still who Sirius thought he was, because Sirius isn’t who he thought he was. He left.

Sirius fights against James’ hold, but his arms only tighten around him. He cries into James shirt, and James doesn’t let go. He begs James to let him go, let him leave, let him go back to his brother, and James doesn’t let him go. Not all night.

Chapter Text

They don’t have lessons on their first day back so Sirius, James, and Peter spend the day setting up the common room for a house-wide gift exchange. Mostly, people will just be giving gifts to their friends, but it’s nice to drag everyone together for it. They get permission from the Headmaster to cut down a tree in the forest, and they set it up in the centre of the room. By the time they’re ready for decorating, enough of the younger kids have gotten themselves involved, and they make chains and transfigure ornaments, and James prompts everyone to sing carols while they work.

“You’ll have to make sure I’m not busy when you give Lily her gift,” James insists for probably the fifth time.

“I know.” He adjusts the ornament he just hung so that James can’t see him rolling his eyes.

James is already handing him another when he comes a few steps down the ladder. “Are you sure you don’t want to put both of our names on Remus’? I got him two things, and one of them could be from-“

“James, stop. No.”

“Fine.” Sirius reaches a hand out behind himself, waiting for James to drop another ornament into it. “I’m out. Climb down,” James says.

Sirius does, wobbling a bit on the bottom step and forgetting that he only has one hand to catch himself with. His feet find the floor clumsily, but James catches his bicep before he can stumble any further. “Thanks,” he grumbles.

He hates being useless more than anything. James hadn’t even wanted him to help decorate the tree, that after not letting him help cut it down in the forest or carry it up the stairs.

“Yeah,” James says, stepping back already. “How is it? Your arm?”

Sirius stares down for a moment, not that he can see it under the sleeve of his jacket. “It’s fine,” he says. It’s almost exactly the same as it was a week and a half ago.

“Okay, but like…. How’s your mobility, range of motion?” James insists. “And your- uh, your exercises? Are they getting any easier?”

Sirius stares at James. They haven’t even spent a night apart yet since Sirius got back from the hospital. James knows these things. He’s watched Sirius do his exercises and stretches every night. He would see a change if there was one. Frankly, he’s never really paid attention to Sirius doing his exercises in the first place, and he could if he cared to. James has never asked about anything other than Sirius’ pain.

He’s thinking about Quidditch again, isn’t he?

Yeah, James, Sirius thinks to himself. I can close my hand by another two millimetres. I’ll be clutching that Beater’s bat again in no time.

“Madam Pomfrey has a plan for me, apparently. I don’t know what it is yet.” St Mungo’s had only had one focus: stop the damage from spreading before it paralyzed him, first his arm, and then who knew what else. They’d said it was like a burn, where the magic was still causing deep damage, even once the skin stopped seeing noticeable changes. He’s only just getting to a place where a Healer can start to see what’s reversible. “I see her tomorrow for some new potions, I think.”

He doesn’t want to tell James about his progress. He can twitch his fingers a bit further, and touch his thumb to his index and even to his middle finger if he strains for it. That feels more pathetic somehow than not making any progress at all. And anyway, if he tells James there’s progress, James’ll start asking more often, and Sirius doesn’t want to talk about it. He’ll talk about it once he’s got something to say.

“But it’s not spreading anymore, right?”

Sirius stares at James, feeling a creeping of resentment that he’s not sure what to do with. James needs to read the bloody room. And what’s with the sudden interrogation anyway? “I don’t know.”

“Good,” James says. “That’s good.”

—

The sixth years have two armchairs and a loveseat between them all, and Sirius, Lily, and Mary are on the couch.

Marlene brought out her new guitar, and it’s a muggle thing, electric. It takes all sorts of magical workarounds to make it work in the castle, but everyone’s brainstorming together, and they’ll try something, and then she’ll play something to see if it works, and people go back to passing around presents with the soft music in the background. Sirius listens to a few songs before kicking James to get his attention.

James doesn’t turn around, but he perks up, eavesdropping from his cushion on the floor.

“Red, you and me now.” Sirius pulls the gift bag from Lily’s feet and puts it on the couch between them, then starts digging in his own pockets.

“Sirius, if you didn’t have time to get me anything with everything that’s gone on for you during the break, I-“

”Shut up. I got you something. Of course I got you something.” He pulls the little wooden box out of the pocket of his jacket, then turns in his seat to face Lily fully. “Here.” 

The box is wrapped just in brown paper, a few gently casted sticking charms holding it together. Mrs Potter has all these beautiful gift wraps, but the box itself is so simple, and Sirius didn’t want it to be underwhelming when Lily’s got the paper off.

Lily weighs the box, shaking it a bit by her ear. “It’s small,” she muses.

“It’s perfectly average.”

Lily laughs, throwing her head back to do it. “Oh, hush with that. I think it’s charming.” When Lily’s distracted peeling at the paper, Sirius peeks over at James, finding the back of his neck burning scarlet.

Sirius turns back to Lily. “It’s a wizard tradition. I thought- since your parents don’t know to bring you in on it...”

Lily tucks the ripped, crumpled paper under her thigh and stares at the box. She wonders at it without opening it, tracing the carved design on the top, the clasp at the front. Simple but elegant, timeless. A bit like what’s inside. “I would get this for Christmas?” she asks, looking up at Sirius curiously. “If I were a witch?”

“For your seventeenth,” he amends, “because you’re a witch. But I missed that, so it’s Christmas now.” And he hadn’t felt bad about spending a bit more than he should have, calling it a birthday and Christmas present. He’d had a bit more money in his vault than he’d anticipated, and he’d wanted to get her something special, something that would last.

Something she could wear for years, something she could hand down if she wanted to, have a wizard tradition in her own family. If she wanted to.

She stares at the watch for a long time. James had insisted that she only wears gold, so it’s gold. Maybe Sirius should have picked it out himself since it’s his gift, but he’d been entirely overwhelmed by the display case, and James had been so excited to shop for Lily. Sirius’ thought process had mostly been If he bought her the most expensive one, that would probably be good, but James had insisted on looking at every single watch. They’d picked it out together in the end. “Sirius-“

”Do you like it?” he asks, mostly because while he can see the way her face lights up, James can only listen. James, as a person, needs a lot of feedback. A lot of praise, really.

“Oh, it’s gorgeous. Did I tell you I was needing one? For Potions. We can’t cast a tempus anymore, not with the more complicated brews where there could be magical interference...”

She doesn’t take it out of the box, just continues to stare. The gold watch sits among folds of red velvet, and it’s all very Gryffindor. He’d chosen the box with the red velvet on purpose. She’s Red.

“That’s what gave me the idea, actually.” That, and the realization that more and more students in their year, especially Slytherins, have been turning up with watches as they turned seventeen. He’d been influenced both by the fact that Lily needed one, because she’s a Potions prodigy after all, and the nagging suspicion that the trend of passing down heirlooms like this might be on the rise specifically to separate purebloods from muggleborns. People who don’t know their traditions.

Everyone here knows that she’s muggleborn, and she ought to be proud of that, of where she’s come from. But out in the real world, there’s a war, and she should be safe.

”Sirius… wow.” She traces a finger over the face of the watch. “Oh, it’s so gorgeous. Is it magic? It looks… there’s something off about it, yeah?”

“It is,” he says. There’s a whole brochure in the box, tucked between two folds of velvet, but she can read that herself whenever. “It won’t stop ticking as long as it’s on your wrist. James’ dad helped me set it up, so you don’t have to do anything but put it on. We wanted to find one that wasn’t too wizard, that way your family wasn’t all freaked out about it, since you said they’re a bit touchy about magic. But, of course, a watch you’ll never have to wind isn’t so bad either.”

Something a bit muggle and a bit magic, they’d thought. Like her.

”We?” Lily asks.

Sirius just shrugs. “Put it on.”

Lily smiles down at her watch before slowly tipping it out of its box. She fumbles it around on her wrist for a second, then huffs and holds out her arm to Sirius. “Can you- with the clasp?”

Sirius stares down at Lily’s wrist, the clasp. He can’t help laughing. “Red, I don’t have more hands than you right now.”

“Oh- I didn’t-“

Sirius just twists in his seat and reaches over himself, dragging at the back of James’ jumper. “James, help Lily with her watch, won’t you? I don’t have two hands, see.”

James stumbles to his feet as Lily stutters out some, “Oh, it’s fine. I’m- I can-“

Sirius sits back in his seat and watches. “Oh, James doesn’t mind,” he assures her.

James stops in front of Lily, a hand stretched out in front of him so so tentatively. He doesn’t try to touch. “Can I?”

Sirius watched James today. Watched as James hunted down the headmaster to demand they be allowed to cut down a tree for their common room. Watched him position himself at the helm of this whole decorating initiative, watched him talk to every person in this room at some point or another about their Christmas, about their families, about anything. But his voice shakes a little when he talks to Lily.

James waits until Lily nods, something jerky and awkward, and takes the watch out of her hand. He looks like he’s trying so hard not to brush the skin on her wrist. James — who taught Sirius how to do and undo buttons with one hand — fumbles with Lily’s clasp, and she’s holding her breath, and Sirius can only fight against a smile.

James finally fits the strap together, and then he turns Lily’s wrist around, just for a second, to look. “Perfect,” he whispers, then seems to realize he’s said that out loud. He lets go of her wrist quickly. “It’s beautiful,” he says, an almost convincing impression of someone who’s never seen the watch before.

”Yes, it is.” She smiles at her wrist, then just softly at James. “Thank you.” She nods around the room. “For all of this. It’s really nice.”

”Yeah- it’s… not everyone gets a good Christmas at home. You know?”

And Lily’s still looking at James with that tiny smile, and James basks in it. “Yeah,” she says, just quiet. 

With Lily smiling at him like that, James seems completely at a loss for words. He opens his mouth to speak and nothing comes out, so Sirius saves him with a kick in James’ side. “Alright, thank you. Go away now. Lily has a present for me, apparently.”

“You are so rude,” Lily scolds as James scutters away. Privately, Sirius disagrees. He thinks sending James away before he could embarrass himself was the most generous thing he could do. James made a good impression for once, and he should leave before he gets overwhelmed by his own nerves and ruins it. But Sirius just smiles impishly at Lily, at the fact that Lily is defending James. “You realize he did this for you, yeah?”

Eh, James did it because he’s James and he wants more Christmas, more excuses to give people presents, an excuse to be in the Forbidden Forest, to host a party in the common room. “I’m not rude. I’m very polite. Now, give me my present before I start hexing people,” he says reasonably, diplomatically. “I’ll start with Mary and Dorcas, and then I think I’ll skip to James-“

Lily kicks him in the shin. “Oh, open your stupid present then.”

He knows what it is before he even gets his hand wrapped all the way around the bottle, let alone before pulling it out of the bag. He knows based on the feel alone: cool, smooth glass, sharp corners, concave sides. He’s held this bottle every day for years. He knows.

“This isn’t available in Britain,” he says, not quite able to look yet. He knows he’s right, that she’s found him another bottle of the cologne he’s been wearing for years, the one he thought he wouldn’t be able to replace, that bottle that got stuck with everything else he owned in the attic at Grimmauld place. “I checked.”

”I know that you can’t get it here,” she says obviously. “And you wizards don’t use phones. I’ve been writing a parfumerie in France for weeks.”

“Weeks?” He hadn’t ever mentioned that he was running low, let alone that he’d lost what little he had left when he’d gone home.

Lily shrugs. “I let myself into your room to snoop,” she says without a trace of remorse, without anything but an innocent shrug. “I couldn’t think of anything to get you, and then there was your cologne, nearly empty on your dresser, and I thought, oh, that should be easy. It was not, for the record, but here we are.”

”You don’t speak French,” he says, finally pulling out the bottle. He opens it right away and takes a breath right from the top, immediately giving himself a bit of a headache and laughing anyway because it’s him.

“Well, luckily every Parisian person under the age of forty speaks some English, even if they’ll lie about it. Anyway, I bought a book. Had to translate a bit. I speak perfect French now, thank you.” 

Sirius laughs again, taking another breath, but having the presence of mind to not bury his nose in the bottle this time. It calms something in him that he didn’t even realize was unsettled.

“Yeah? Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” he asks ironically, Do you want to sleep with me tonight, that Labelle song that every English person quotes any time they want to pretend they can speak French.

“Oh,” Lily says lightly. “I think you’d need two hands for that.”

Sirius gapes dramatically, then lets his face fall into something almost neutral and shrugs. “Right you are, Red. Shall I grab James again for you-”

”Don’t you dare.”

—

Sirius realizes all at once how ungrateful he’s been since he left St Mungo’s. He slept in James’ room every night, not bothering to even drag his mattress back into the guest bedroom until he and James were packing up to leave. He’d slept every night in James’ room, and every night, he slept.

Even when he’d been sedated for some amount of days at St Mungo’s, James had slept with him. First in a cot beside him, then just crawling into his bed until the Healers kicked him out. Even when Sirius couldn’t ask for him, he was there.

And now Sirius lies in his single room, single bed, awake. He stares at the ceiling, tosses and turns. Pulls out one of the new puzzle books Dorcas bought him for Christmas and puts numbers in squares again instead of trying to sleep. The only thing keeping him from walking right across the hall into James’ room, slipping into James bed and knowing he’d sleep just fine there, is Remus.

Remus who hadn’t joined the gift exchange, claiming a headache, but Sirius knows. Everyone knows.

Sirius has seen Remus sick, and he saw him on the platform this morning. He’s fine. Physically, he’s fine. He just won’t be around Sirius. He can’t.

When Sirius is half dead and sedated, maybe Remus can be around then, but not when Sirius is fine. Not when Sirius can open his eyes. Not when Sirius could actually look back at him. Not after the worst weeks of Sirius’ life, when he would give anything to just see Remus, Remus can’t give him that. Remus wouldn’t be able to stand it.

So Sirius doesn’t sleep.

It’s not until he’s in the hospital wing the next morning that he makes another connection. As Madam Pomfrey asks him question after question, the same questions James asked him yesterday… 

James hadn’t asked about anything but Sirius’ pain before he got back to Hogwarts. James wouldn’t even know what to ask. Range of motion, mobility, James wouldn’t ever say that. But Remus would. Remus would research Sirius’ condition so that he knew what to ask. James would throw him a party, but he’d never think to do research.

James was asking for Remus. Remus who can’t be around him, can’t ask for himself, but apparently he still needs to know. Still gets to know.

So when Madam Pomfrey asks Sirius if he needs another round of sleeping potions, he says no. He’s fine. He’s sleeping really well lately.

Because Remus can’t be around him when he’s awake, but he’s clearly just fine when Sirius is sleeping. He cares so much about Sirius’ health. Remus would want him to get the best possible sleep. That way he can heal.

So Sirius can sleep in James’ bed. Problem solved. Perfect.

Chapter Text

Sirius doesn’t know where Remus goes — it doesn’t really matter. From the first night Sirius sleeps in James’ bed, Remus stops spending time in the room.

Some sort of barrier is broken on James and Peter’s end, and Sirius is in their room most nights, talking and goofing around as they settle, studying in James’ bed, trying (and almost immediately failing) to make progress in the book Effie sent with him.

Remus must stay out until the library closes, and then maybe he’s in the common room after that, or else he picks up more shifts monitoring the halls as a Prefect. Sirius doesn’t know.

Remus is gone before Sirius wakes up in the morning. At night he’s only back in the room once Sirius is already asleep.

Sirius starts to wonder after a few days whether Remus is coming back at all, if Sirius has scared him off completely. He remembers at some point in December Remus had spent a few nights elsewhere. Clearly he has somewhere else he can sleep if need be. Sirius can’t stop wondering if he might have chased Remus into someone else’s bed.

So he stays up. If Remus doesn’t come back, he’ll go looking. Maybe he’s just in the common room, passed out on a too-small couch, curled up to fit or laying with his feet dangling over an armrest.

He leaves James’ hangings open — and maybe he’s made a habit of that anyway. James closes the hangings on his side of the bed, and Sirius can’t ever make himself do the same.

He leaves the hangings open again and he waits. James’ soft snoring echoes around the room, threatening to lull Sirius into a trance, but he fights against it, blinks too hard and scrubs his knuckles into his eyes. The pouring rain and thick clouds cloak the room in an artificial darkness where only slivers of moonlight find their way through the window. Sirius has been laying here for over an hour, and he’s still not sure his eyes have adjusted to the dark.

James tosses and turns, presses his cold feet into Sirius’ calves or throws an arm over him. Sirius kicks at the clammy feet but ignores the arm. James has a terrible habit of pulling at the hairs on Sirius’ legs with his toes as he drags his freezing feet to fresher, warmer patches of skin. James straightens out for only a minute before his foot is creeping over again. Sirius kicks him and shuffles his legs further away from James. James grumbles.

Lightening flashes periodically, but it’s the rumbling thunder that makes James try to hide himself in Sirius’ back, still mostly asleep. Sirius sighs and pats the hand flopped over his stomach, the most reassuring gesture he can think of. James’ feet sneak toward his legs again, and Sirius huffs and lets James snuggle the tops of his feet into his calves. James could stand to trim his toenails. A clattering roar of thunder shakes the whole castle, and James makes a tiny whine with his whole face pressed between Sirius’ shoulder blades. “You’re not seriously afraid of rain,” Sirius complains in a whisper, not that James can actually hear him.

It’s late by the time the door creaks open. The rain hasn’t stopped, but the theatrics of the storm have died down, and Sirius has grown accustomed to the thick, heavy darkness. He pinches his eyes closed against even the vague torchlight from the hallway, and the door closes softly and quietly behind Remus.

Sirius exhales a quiet sigh.

Remus’ footsteps can be either light and quick or dragging and heavy depending on the day, but Sirius doesn’t hear either. Sirius squints through the darkness. Remus is just there, almost indistinguishable except for the shadows of his feet where a bit of light still slides under the door.

He can feel it more than see it, Remus staring at him through the dark. He wonders if Remus can really see him, or if he’s just looking off into nowhere, into the spot he knows Sirius is filling. Sirius stares back at the form he can barely see, imagines they might be watching each other. Imagines.

James’ arm tightens around him for a moment, just a second as his body twitches in his sleep, but suddenly James feels like Remus.

Sirius sucks in a sharp breath — Peter’s shampoo, James’ body wash always floating around in the air. From immediately behind him, broom polish and deodorant from James who couldn’t be arsed with a shower after training, a bit of stale earthiness from James’ still-damp Quidditch kit.

Sirius is wrapped up in everything but Remus, and still all Sirius can feel is Remus.

Remus’ eyes on him in the dark. Remus’ hands, the smell of his skin. James grunts and rolls away from Sirius, and Sirius can somehow still feel an arm draped over his hip, and then it’s a hand pressing into his stomach, Remus’ cold nose against his scalp, hot breath on his neck, Remus. Suddenly there’s so much Remus in the room, Sirius is choking on it all.

He closes his eyes. There’s no convincing Remus he was asleep, not if Remus could somehow see him staring back through the dark, but he pretends.

—

Sirius has an actual appointment with Madam Pomfrey on Saturday, not just a drop-in for more potions, and they actually make a plan for his arm. Lily’s waiting for him outside the door to the hospital wing when he’s finished, all bundled up and holding an extra knitted lump out to Sirius in offering.

They walk around the lake once she’s wrestled him into a wonky hat and mitts, Lily insisting on fresh air and healing. All week, it’s gone back and forth from endless rain to heavy snow, and the air is a terrible wet kind of cold. No one complains as they walk slowly around the lake with scarves pulled up over their noses, Sirius’ good arm thrown over Lily’s shoulders.

“It sounds like she thinks she can get you back to normal,” Lily says brightly, nudging into Sirius’ armpit with her shoulder.

What Madam Pomfrey really said was she’s optimistic that he might regain a fair amount of function. “I’ll be able to hold stuff, I think.”

”That’s just from the potions she has you taking, though! With your exercises, and she wanted to try that-“

”Lily, I don’t want to be optimistic. I don’t want to think I’ll be okay if I won’t. Some function.” He lets himself look over at her for only a second, grateful that his face is largely hidden in his scarf. “Some function is good.”

He’s sure Lily nods from beside him, but he doesn’t look over to check. He watches the lake, rippling where the surface is broken by one lazy sweeping tentacle. A thin layer of ice stretches out from the banks, almost halfway across the lake on the side that takes less sun, and the squid breaks up clumps to amuse itself.

”It won’t be long before you know for sure, though. At least there’s that,” Lily says eventually. “Some muggle injuries — people take years trying to recover. Some people spend their whole lives getting a bit better, and then a bit worse, and then a bit better, and they never know… I don’t think I could bear not knowing.”

Sirius nods. He doesn’t tell her that there are magical ailments like that, too, although of course there are. Complex magical injuries that take years to undo, layer by layer. Curse damage that erodes at the brain, anything from motor function to someone’s sense of self. Diseases like lycanthropy or vampirism, incurable, whose treatment protocols are everchanging, ever-evolving, never ending.

He could be one of those complex magical cases. The Healers he’d worked with had never seen or heard of the type of Mark that had tried to force its way into his skin, and anyway, he’d been fighting back. It was some terrible combination of his own wandless magic with the cursed magic that butchered him so badly. Healers don’t see much complex wandless magic either. Mostly, these days, wandless magic is done by children, dangerous and powerful, but uncomplicated. Once he regains some function, it could still be years of pain, of experimentation.

Sirius untangles himself from Lily when they reach an unusually thick patch of snow, something that accumulated by a bush. It’s wet snow after days of cold rain, and it packs together beautifully. He kneels to make a snowball.

“Did Madam Pomfrey say anything about whether you’d be better off sleeping alone?” Lily asks from a few feet back. It’s more of a snow-clump than a snowball, but Sirius scoops it off the ground and tests its weight in his hand. It’s great snow. Dense and damp, already soaking through his mitten. “If you throw that at me, I’ll put you in the lake.”

Sirius doesn’t turn to Lily, though. He takes aim at the tentacle some ten meters away. He puts a lot of strength behind the throw, but it goes wide. He drops back to his knees.

“Hm? No. She didn’t ask whether I sleep alone. Be a bit weird if she did, no?”

He leans forward to pull more snow toward himself but ends up overbalancing and landing on his hip. He just lets himself fall and sits in the snow, which soaks quickly through the seat of his jeans. He looks up at Lily, who shifts her weight from the balls of her feet to her heels. “I just- what if James rolled onto you or something?”

Sirius shrugs and falls back onto his elbows, then switches to just his right elbow with a hiss. The sun comes through the clouds, and his face has just one glorious moment of warmth. He closes his eyes and focuses on the heat. “What if I roll on it in my sleep? Bit the same, yeah? It’ll hurt, and then it’ll hurt a bit less and I’ll go back to sleep. Anyway, I sleep on the left side for that reason. James would have to get a bit creative for that.”

“Right… I guess.”

Sirius throws his next snowball from his seat on the ground, and he can’t put enough of his body behind the throw when he’s not upright. The snowball makes a pathetic little splash nowhere near the squid. He scoots a bit further to gather more snow then realizes Lily still isn’t talking. “Problem?” he asks. “Oh, you’re not jealous that I’m-“

”Oh, don’t be ridiculous. No one cares whether you sleep with James, least of all me. But really, Sirius…” She flops down onto the ground next to him, only to squeak and pop right up onto her feet. “Oh, it’s freezing! It’s wet! What’s wrong with you? Up! Get up before you get hypothermia on top of it all, up!”

Lily grabs at Sirius’ good arm. He could go limp to make an arse of himself, watch her struggle against the weight of him. He could pull her right back into the snow just to hear her squeak again, but in the end he lets himself be dragged. He throws his last snowball, and it might come up a bit short, only the squid seems to intentionally bat it away. Sirius grins and turns to Lily, but she just frowns at him.

He pulls his wet mitts off and tucks them in the back of his jeans, then hides his cold hands in his pockets with a shiver. “You were saying,” he prompts sheepishly, shrinking a bit under her reproachful stare.

Lily sighs and drops the pretence of being harsh. “I’m glad you’re sleeping — I am. And I promise I haven’t forgiven Remus for what he’s done to you. Even if he thinks he has a good reason, I don’t. If he thinks you’re better off... I don’t think there’s a good reason for how he’s treated you, okay?”

Sirius can’t okay her. He doesn’t want to think about it. 

About how Remus was selfish and unfair, and Sirius was naive and desperate. It’s all awful, and it had felt good anyway. It had felt good because they were both being selfish, Sirius who couldn’t take no for an answer, and Remus who clearly should have said no anyway. They were both selfish, and he doesn’t want to hear it from Lily because it was still good.

Remus was the first good thing Sirius got to feel, the first person he got to really feel safe with, the first person to make him feel excited and hopeful and alive. He doesn’t care if it wasn’t perfect. He doesn’t want Lily to hate Remus. He’s not sure if it was love… not when he doesn’t really have anything to compare it to, but he thinks he could love someone. He thinks he could let someone love him, let someone tell him they love him and maybe even believe them. He feels changed.

He doesn’t want to hear about how Remus is selfish.

And he doesn’t want to love anyone but Remus. “What’s your point, Red?”

Lily huffs and Sirius realizes he’s sped up, some unconscious effort to escape the questions he doesn’t want to answer. He slows down to the meandering pace that suits her shorter legs. Lily reaches for his arm again and pulls it around her shoulders, and he laughs at the realization that she’s been doing that to control his pace. He gives her a squeeze.

“I just… It feels a bit like you’re torturing him,” Lily says, peeking at Sirius out of the corner of her eye without really turning her head. “That’s all.”

“Remus? I’m not torturing him.” Remus is fine. He’s always fine. Sirius’ entire existence seems to torture him, and he’s fine anyway. “If he wants me out of his room, I’m sure he’ll say something. Same with Peter or James. If anyone feels like I’m overstaying…”

Lily shakes her head and looks out toward the forest. “You’re chasing him out of his own room you know.” He shrugs.

And Sirius does know that. He just doesn’t care.

—

There’s one night where Sirius wakes up alone, James off in the bathroom or something. James at least had the mind to pull the hangings mostly closed behind himself, although some of the bright moonlight slices through a gap threatening to blind Sirius anyway. Sirius pulls James’ pillow over his eyes and falls back asleep.

—

He’s supposed to see Madam Pomfrey on Monday after his lessons, but he drops by the hospital wing Sunday morning. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he’s bored and James moans about wanting to sleep in.

He figures it’s worth a try anyway. The hospital wing is always either completely dead or insanely hectic. If it’s dead, she’ll probably just check him over right then and there, and he’ll be on his way.

But he can smell some mixture of a half-dozen brewing potions before he’s even made it up the stairs, and he only bothers with a cursory glance through the small square window, confirming his suspicions. White curtains hang drawn around one bed, and Madam Pomfrey bounces around her brewing stations in the back of the room. Sirius shrugs and commends his effort anyway.

—

Sirius is in Peter’s bed this time, just doing homework. Peter and him have been studying together more since Peter got his marks back from his end-of-term evaluations. They’d been studying up until an hour ago, but Peter hurried off to chess club and Sirius stayed back. If he’d realized James would be so late coming back from Quidditch, he’d have gone off with Peter.

Still, Sirius likes it here. He has a horrible habit of wanting to crawl into other people’s spaces, lives, instead of his own. 

When the door bangs open, Sirius doesn’t say anything. He mostly just casts his eyes up, expecting to nod at James, listen vaguely while he rants about practice, about missing Sirius and desperately needing his arm to recover, but it’s not James. 

Remus enters the room with heavy, clumsy footsteps. He shoots a glance to James’ bed, clearly checking for Sirius (and Sirius knows now that he’s definitely torturing Remus). James’ bed is empty except for a blank piece of parchment, folded up and discarded atop the messy sheets. Remus’ shoulders drop in some sigh.

But Sirius is in Peter’s bed for once. 

He might have announced himself if Remus didn’t start tearing off his clothes. Once Remus starts, though, Sirius can’t do anything but watch. Remus’ robes go first, tossed off into a corner, then his tie, loosened in a practiced jerk, then torn over his head. Finally, one button at a time, his shirt.

It’s almost a grand reveal, inch by inch, the skin of his shoulders, his back.

Sirius has never seen Remus without a shirt. He’s completely struck dumb by the sight. His shoulder blades cut harshly against his skin. His spine curves perfectly, and there are two dimples at its base, one on either side. Sirius has an urgent, throbbing need to run his tongue over one of those dimples, feel the muscle at Remus’ shoulder yield under his teeth.

Sirius’ breath is stolen by the suddenness, the sheer amount of skin, the fact that it’s Remus. Remus, bare in front of him. 

He’ll blame the fact that he already has no blood left for his brain: Sirius must make some sort of sound. Remus whips around, shirt clutched in front of his scarred chest, and Sirius’ neck cricks from how quickly he turns away.

He shouldn’t have looked, should have turned away sooner, should have announced himself. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He’s still not thinking clearly.

Remus has felt more like a concept than a person lately, but he is all real now. Skin and warmth and presence, and Sirius didn’t realize how urgently, how physically that would affect him.

It doesn’t help at all that he’s overwhelmed by the memory of their last night together, but Sirius can’t help it. He remembers, too, that he’d tried to pull at Remus’ shirt, but Remus had insisted he keep it on.

Remus’ chest is as scarred as the rest of him. He has claw marks on his front to match the ones on James’ back, and Sirius thinks he might like to run his tongue over those too. Might need to.

Sirius adds his hand over his eyes, guilty, hearing Remus hurriedly pulling something on. “Sorry,” Sirius whispers, and he means it. “I’ll go,” he offers. He doesn’t make a move to stand up though, still prioritizing shielding his eyes. He shouldn’t have looked. Remus wouldn’t have wanted him to look.

“You’re sleeping with Peter now, too?” Remus croaks.

Sirius listens, doesn’t hear any more shifting. He decides it’s safe to look up. There’s not much to say to that, so he tries to answer lightly, “Well, I figured you wouldn’t want me in your bed, so…” The joke falls flat. “I’ll go,” he offers again.

“It’s fine,” Remus says, rubbing the back of his neck. He’s looking off somewhere. James’ bed, maybe.

“Is it?” Sirius watches Remus shrug. He watches him shuffle his feet, cast his gaze anywhere in the room except Sirius. There’s something invasive, probably, about watching someone who can’t seem to look back at you. Sirius knows that Remus wants to disappear, but he can’t not stare. Remus, who has a front full of scars, but none on his back. Merlin, his back. Remus doesn’t answer, so Sirius pushes. He shouldn’t push, but he pushes, and isn’t that the way it always goes? “It’s fine, Remus? It’s fine?”

Remus’ new shirt is a muggle tee, a bit small in the shoulders, a bit short in length, perfect. Unfair. Barely a shirt at all. Sirius can use his imagination for the rest.

It’s one of those shirts that should get thrown away, but then laundry isn’t done for a while, and it reemerges. That’s what it looks like. It’s too small, a bit ridiculous. The breadth of his arms and shoulders visibly strain the fabric, and there are wrinkled lines of tension around the armpit from the way it pulls. Shadows over his collarbones, the slight roundness at his chest.

“It’s fine?” He repeats when Remus doesn’t answer. What Sirius wants from this insistent questioning, though, he doesn’t even know. Maybe he’s worried Remus is telling the truth, that it’s ‘fine’. Remus is fine. He’s getting better, and it’s getting easier to be around Sirius. He’s getting over him. Maybe Sirius can’t stop inserting himself here, now, in this room this week in general because he doesn’t want to be moved on from. He can try to get over Remus, only so long as he’s sure Remus isn’t getting over him.

Maybe he isn’t trying that hard to get over Remus. Maybe he’s just waiting, convinced Remus is going to cave and change his mind. Convinced he can make Remus snap.

Maybe he can still see the way that Remus can barely tear his eyes away from him. Remus can’t tell him to leave, can’t ever say no to him, and Sirius is just waiting until Remus’ endless patience finally runs out. Remus can’t be fine.

Remus sighs and falls against the back of the door like he can’t quite hold himself upright. As he slides down just a few inches, his shirt rucks up. Just enough. A strip of stomach, a line of hair, down. Down. “What do you want me to say, Sirius? I’m exhausted. I’m going to have a kip, and you’ll either be here when I wake up, or you won’t. You’ll do whatever you want.” He shakes his head, hits his palm against his thigh a few times. It looks like he might have something to say, like he’s puffing himself up to speak, but he huffs all the air back out instead and just pushes himself off the door. He stares at Sirius for a second, and his eyes are hard, but they aren’t angry. His face is too closed off to read, but he does look exhausted.

Sirius suddenly realizes something with a horrible deep ache that scrapes against his ribs. It hadn’t occurred to him… but Remus looks so exhausted. He’s looked exhausted all week. “Are you sleeping? With me here?”

Remus frowns. “Not presently.”

Sirius fights against a smile. “No, I mean this week. You look… you do look exhausted. I just- It’s not me, is it? Me sleeping here, I’m not… keeping you up?” Sirius tries to ignore the innuendo, the way the air in the room grows ten times thicker. He didn’t mean it like that. ‘Keeping you up’. They both know… they know what he meant. Oh, why is it so hard to think with Remus looking at him like that?

Remus stares at Sirius for a moment, then turns quickly and climbs into his bed where Sirius can’t see him anymore. “Don’t worry about me, Sirius,” Remus says as he settles. That’s not much of an answer, but it’s the only one forthcoming. The hangings are pulled closed and the room goes quiet with the privacy charms Remus is surely casting.

Sirius shouldn’t stay, but he does.

He imagines Remus’ slow, even breathing while he works. He doesn’t even want to work, but he tells himself he’s in the zone, he’s getting too much done to leave, and so he stays. That’s why he has to stay. Alone with Remus while he sleeps.

He doesn’t make any progress in his essay at all. He pulls out Effie’s book and tries that.

Maybe in his head, Sirius is wondering if Remus is like him. He doesn’t sleep well alone. Maybe in his head, Sirius is keeping watch while Remus sleeps, and in his head, Remus is thankful.

He wonders if Remus is like him. Remus with scars on his face, his arms, his stomach, but none on his back.

Remus isn’t like him, though. Sirius himself has nearly no scars on his front, but enough on his back. It’s easier to catch someone with their back turned. It’s easier when you don’t have to look them in the eye. And either way, when someone is in pain, they tend to curl in on themselves to keep their internal organs safe, leaving their backs exposed. But Remus’ back is unscathed.

James’ only big scars are on his back too, like Sirius.

Sirius sees in his mind’s eye, Remus. Remus, bags carved deep under his eyes, exhausted, today. He sees Madam Pomfrey this morning, whirring about the hospital wing, bouncing between a half dozen potions with only one bed filled, first thing in the morning. Remus wasn’t in transfiguration.

He’s asleep right now because he was up all night.

Remus who has scars everywhere but on his back. Everywhere he can reach.

Chapter Text

Sirius doesn’t apologize for being late. He slams his bedroom door behind himself and rounds on Remus. “There’s no way you would think so little of me- that I would care… I don’t. I don’t care about any of it. Fuck, Remus. How bloody stupid-“

Remus freezes in Sirius’ armchair, the one Sirius stole from the common room for Lily. The book in Remus’ hands drops to his knees. He stares at Sirius with a withdrawn sort of apprehension, leaning away in his chair, putting space between himself and the shouting. “Sirius-“

”What? So you’re a werewolf - I don’t-“

”Stop.” Sirius’ teeth clack shut. He whips his head away from Remus. If he has to see his stupid face again, he’ll start shouting. Remus casts a shaky, “Muffliato,” pointing his wand to the door. There’s a heavy silence while Remus puts his wand away, broken only by a faint shuffling as he readjusts the way he’s sitting.

Sirius only stews in the silence. He can hear all too much of his own heavy breathing, the grinding of his teeth that echoes in his skull.

Sirius looks back to Remus eventually, and Remus looks away. “Alright,” Remus says, talking more to the foot of Sirius’ bed than to Sirius. “Carry on.”

And Sirius had every intention of doing just that, already sucking in another breath to start yelling, but he deflates when he’s given permission to be loud, to be mean, to be angry. He drops onto the edge of his bed, then collapses onto his back. 

In his room at Beauxbatons, he’d had posters on the ceiling. Something to look at when he couldn’t sleep. All he has to look at here is dull stone.

Remus can’t have thought so little of him. It’s not fair. It’s so far from the truth, and it should have been obvious. It’s impossible to even imagine that Sirius would have… have what? Left him? Judged him? Hated him? Sirius can’t have possibly given Remus that impression.

”Do you know why I left Beauxbatons?” Sirius asks his bare ceiling.

Remus shuffles again. Sirius kicks off his trainers but leaves his feet flat on the floor. The cold from the stone seeps quickly through his socks. He curls his toes against the chill but doesn’t bring his feet up with him on the bed.

“I know some. My cousin- I know some. You had a row with a professor.”

A row. The word is civil, unassuming. Domestic. A row. ”I set his desk on fire.”

The professor lit Sirius’ essay on fire after reading only the title — that he would get no marks for it was implied — and Sirius had been angry. The essay on werewolf misinformation had woken something up in him, something that hadn’t stirred in years, and he felt.

The whole class watched the essay burn.

And Sirius had been oddly calm. The anger was so much bigger than him that he became almost detached from it, cold, but it still consumed him, all the more dangerous cloaked in some backward apathy. And then he’d thought — oh, we’re lighting things on fire to show that we disagree with them, are we? “And a stack of textbooks.”

He’s seen the English version of that same textbook in the Hogwarts library, too. It’s a very popular read. Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don’t Deserve to Live.

He’d felt a bitter self-satisfaction when the professor had tried and failed to restore the textbooks. He wouldn’t be handing them out to the class.

He hadn’t realized it was illegal. His mother used fiend fire to burn letters, especially Howlers. She used it so casually — he didn’t know it was so hard to control. He’d been lucky that no one had gotten hurt.

Sirius props himself up on his elbows to stare at Remus. “And do you know what the row was about, Remus?”

Beauxbatons had let him transfer only because of his family’s good name. Maybe to spare themselves the indignity of announcing an expulsion.

Sirius finally catches Remus’ eyes. He watches him purse his lips, take an exceptionally long blink, but he does answer. “Yes.”

Remus can’t seem to look back at him, and Sirius doesn’t care to look away. “You could have told me the truth.”

The words come out harsher than he intended, steeped in more of that anger that gets away from him. Sirius lets himself fall onto his back again, glaring at the ceiling. He’s not perfect. He’s not even always trustworthy, but he earned this. Remus had every reason to trust him with this. He didn’t even try, didn’t even ask. If he was so worried about Sirius’ opinions on werewolves, he should have asked.

”It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Remus says. His voice comes out higher than normal, tight.

”No?” Sirius asks. If his voice is edged with a sharp irony, it’s only because he completely disagrees. He just laughs at the ridiculousness of it all. “Nothing? We wouldn’t still be together right now?”

Remus hesitates. “I…’

“Wouldn’t we?” Sirius bends his neck to peer down his own body, stare at Remus over his knees. Remus’ face is all tense and furrowed. He’s twitchy. Sirius laughs, too loud but who cares? There’s a silencing charm on the door, and it’s just all so fucking stupid. “Fuck- what? What else, Remus?” He drops his head back against the mattress. He thought he’d figured everything out. Apparently not.

“Can you sit up for a minute?”

Sirius pinches his eyes closed. He doesn’t want to. He’s avoiding looking at Remus on purpose.

He doesn’t want to start shouting again, doesn’t want to be forced to watch Remus curl quietly away from him. He pops up on an elbow, something only halfway compliant. He’s looking at Remus: that’ll have to be good enough.

His eyes catch on the book in Remus’ lap. It’s fallen closed, just rested against his knee, and Sirius can see the gaudy cover now. It’s Sirius’ book — Effie’s.

And Remus is about a fifth of the way through already. That’s how late Sirius was. That’s how long Sirius kept him waiting after being the one to demand that Remus come to his room. He huffs but sits up.

“What?” Sirius says when Remus just looks at him.

“I- can we talk about your arm for a minute?” Sirius mouth actually drops open, and then he’s laughing again.

“You won’t distract me. Stop that.”

”I’m not trying to distract you. I just- you were in the hospital just now, yeah? I just- I wish I knew what was going on.”

He says it very casually, like he’s trying to piss Sirius off. It’s inauthentic, forced, irritating. “Oh, you don’t like not knowing?” Sirius asks generously, just as inauthentic. “Not big on secrets?” His voice tilts up exaggeratedly at the ends of his sentences, and he cocks his head thoughtfully. “Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have talked to James — you can ask him. He’ll tell you anything you want to know, yeah?”

Remus doesn’t flinch, but there’s a twitch in his jaw. “James isn’t particularly thorough.”

”Right.”

And really, Sirius doesn’t have any need to keep his arm a secret. He’d wanted Remus to ask, hadn’t he?

He wants Remus to ask, to stop avoiding him in general, to be upfront about his intentions for once. He wants a lot of things from Remus. Just not as much, in this moment, as he wants him to beg.

Sirius doesn’t offer him any information, not even a real answer. He waits.

Remus has his thumb between the pages of the book, and he moves his hand toward the top corner of a page like he’s about to dog-ear it, then he stops himself. He checks the page number instead and reaches above himself to put the book back on its shelf. It tips over onto its side, and they both pretend not to notice.

Finally, Remus levels his gaze against Sirius’. “Sirius… No one knew whether you’d be able to stand again, let alone use your arm. The Healers thought the damage might spread over days or months. And James is useless. I’m not saying I have the right to know… but I’d be able to focus better.” He shifts up a bit in his seat, closer to the edge. “I can’t have this conversation until I know, Sirius. I can’t- I can’t do anything.”

Sirius watches the small frown on Remus’ face, an unguarded and incredibly soft anguish.

Sirius must forget to answer, too stuck in his own ache. “Sirius- fuck. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” He meets Sirius’ eyes again, something he hasn’t been able to do in weeks. He stares right through Sirius now. “Please tell me about your arm. I need you to tell me if you’re going to have a life after all this.”

“What happened to James? His back?”

It’s not Sirius’ most desperate question, and the scars speak for themselves, but he knows it’ll be impossible for Remus to talk about. Sirius needs him to prove that he’ll talk anyway because it’s all impossible, and Sirius needs answers. He needs Remus to prove that he isn’t bluffing, that he’ll talk.

Remus casts his eyes out the window. The days haven’t started getting longer yet, not really, but it’s still mostly light. They have all night. Remus doesn’t answer for a long time, and Sirius waits.

”Do you know about his…” Remus hesitates.

Anything, Remus had promised, but James’ Animagus is illegal, and not Remus’ secret. “He’s an Animagus. A stag.” Sirius doesn’t need Remus to prove that he’d break James’ trust. That’s not the point. “He told me.”

Remus lets out a breath and nods. “He and Peter, both. They keep me company. The wolf- he does better when he’s not alone, and he takes well to other animals. Canines, especially, but he likes the stag. I don’t do this so much,” Remus gestures to his face, the scars there, “With- when I have some company. The pain’s less, my recovery’s shorter… It’s kind of them to do that.” Remus closes his eyes, his mouth tightening. He looks off again. Sirius studies him while he waits, not pushing.

He wonders if the long scars on Remus’ face are all from the same injury, claw marks. They’re long and thin enough, but nowhere near parallel. On his face, they look like four different swipes of something, some cutting curse, but if Sirius pictures how they would land on a werewolf’s face, protruding out in the centre with a short snout… it’s much less ambiguous.

“I do my transformations in an abandoned house. James… he’d been doing it with me for more than half a year, but he didn’t have antlers at first, and then they were still growing and changing. There’s a metal bed frame, iron spindles at the head and footboard. He didn’t quite know where all of him was, and he got stuck with his antlers between the bars. He panicked, switched back into human for just a second when he couldn’t figure out how to untangle himself.” Remus’s shoulders lift in a slight shrug, and a tear falls down his cheek, slow. It hangs on the edge of his jaw for a long time before staining his shirt. “And then a second later he was a stag again, but the wolf was spooked. The smell, the magic, the suddenness, something. He lashed out.” Remus looks back at him, insistent and intense. “I tried to make them stop coming with me.”

Sirius can imagine how that conversation would go, how unproductive it would be. “They wouldn’t do that.”

Remus drops his eyes. “No. They wouldn’t.” Remus scrubs a hand down his face, surreptitiously wiping more tears from his eyes. “All James complained about was getting passed over for Quidditch captain. Ruined his season.” He shakes his head, miserable even when he huffs a laugh.

Sirius shifts to perch on the edge of the mattress, a movement that slots his legs between Remus’. Remus reaches for Sirius’ arm, and Sirius pulls away with a hard look. “Anything,” Sirius says, and Remus sucks in a breath and nods.

Sirius hands himself over.

He could unbutton his own cuff, roll up his own sleeve. He doesn’t offer to.

Remus’ hands do everything in their power to keep from even letting the fabric of Sirius’ uniform shirt graze against the angry pink skin at his wrist, and he doesn’t tell Remus it doesn’t hurt on the surface anymore, doesn’t tell him he needn’t be so gentle. Sirius likes to watch Remus being careful, the way his palms look so broad next to Sirius’ wrists. His movements are cautious but never unsure, and Remus’ eyes never leave what he’s doing, focused.

It’s the way Remus always is with him: careful, intense. It’s almost ridiculous in hindsight, every memory of Remus doting over him, panicking over a cut on his scalp or ensuring he went to the hospital wing when Apparition made him dizzy. 

Sirius wonders if all the pain is what made Remus so gentle.

Remus supports Sirius with just the tips of his fingers on the back of Sirius’ wrist, and Sirius is back to clenching his jaw. The soft fabric of Remus’ jumper grazes Sirius’ knuckles as it bunches away from Remus’ slouched body. Sirius could pinch the fabric between his thumb and index. If Sirius uncurled his fingers, he’d be touching Remus’ stomach.

They both stare at his wrist. Angry, but more stable. The skin is fresh and tight, too tight against Sirius’ tendons and muscles, and he suspects it might always have that look about it now. The skin doesn’t seem to be getting any thicker.

Remus drags his thumb over the delicate skin, and Sirius closes his eyes, tries to pinch off his throat. He’s holding his breath, and there’s nothing else to do. “Does that hurt?” Remus asks softly.

“No.”

”Good.”

Yeah. Sirius peels his eyes open but stares at his wrist instead of at Remus. Remus’ skin is darker than Sirius’, but it’s never looked more brown than it does against the bright pink. Sirius tries to breathe softly. He feels loud.

Remus moves Sirius’ hand this way and that, then his wrist, and it’s all strikingly similar to how Madam Pomfrey tested him just twenty minutes ago.

“Marlene’s been offering to teach me some guitar for ages, and Pomfrey just decided I might be able to get there.” He doesn’t quite know how to talk about his wrist, but that seems like it illustrates his progress. “Not that I’d necessarily ever be able to play well, but she thinks it could be good. Like more exercises… for dexterity.”

“That’s a lot of fine motor skills,” Remus notes, voice soft and strained. It doesn’t feel like progress. Nothing ever seems to feel like a meaningful step. Every time he finds himself improving at anything, he feels some deep despair rather than excitement. He still has an impossibly long way to go. He feels oddly resigned about it all, the idea that any of this might well be permanent. Remus looks up  “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

Sirius shrugs. “She’s really optimistic about a new protocol we’re trying out, some experimental potion. We just started it today. Something to do with reversing nerve damage. It’s not for drinking, this one — I didn’t realize.” He meets Remus’ eyes now, a tiny apology that Remus never asked for. “That’s why I was late. She made me soak my arm in it for ages.” 

He doesn’t know how long he was in the hospital wing. It had felt like forever, and based on how far Remus got in that book, Sirius must have kept him waiting over an hour. And Remus had just waited. Found himself a book.

Sirius had kept trying to subtly make Madam Pomfrey let him go early, but it looked like the potion was working, fizzing and smoking. Sirius’ arm hasn’t been able to detect much of anything for a while, not sensation, not temperature  For a while, there was nothing or there was pain. Now he feels everything. Sirius feels every tiny twitch of Remus’ grip, the way Remus’ gentle fingers disrupt the hair at the back of his arm. Remus’ hands are hot.

“She’s convinced it’s not going to spread any more?” Remus asks. He seems exceptionally focused on testing how Sirius’ fingers curl (into almost half a fist by now) and uncurl (closer to straight, anyway).

Spread? “Uh… no, they’ve got that under control.” That’s been a non-issue basically the whole time Sirius has been awake. 

There’d been almost a week of them not knowing how it might spread. He knows that. And that’s scary. It just doesn’t feel like something that happened to him. He was sedated, and then they had a plan.

At some point everyone who checked in on him at Mungo’s would have spent days and days asking for updates and getting no sure answers. James who slept in a cot beside his hospital bed, in a chair in the waiting area before that. Time would have passed impossibly slowly there. Not knowing the extent of the damage, the half-life of the magic. Not knowing whether Sirius would be able to come back to Hogwarts.

Maybe needlessly by now, Sirius adds, “I’m not going to be paralyzed or anything.”

Remus takes Sirius’ wrist with one hand, and his hand with the other, keeping them perfectly in line like he’s nursing a sprain on a child, but he’s just giving Sirius his hand back, setting it gently in his lap. The squeeze Remus gives Sirius’ hand echoes sharply somewhere in his chest. “You’re going to be okay,” Remus says, a terribly soft whisper, like he doesn’t quite believe it himself. Like he’s reluctant. Like he can’t stand to believe it.

Like any tiny bit of good news is always just seconds from being snatched away. Like nothing good ever lasts.

”Yeah,” Sirius says. He’ll be okay.

Remus’ knee bumps against the outside of Sirius’ thigh for just a second as he moves himself backward in his seat, putting that space back between them. “We were never going to be together long-term,” Remus says without forcing Sirius to prompt him. Remus crosses his arms in front of his chest, hugging himself around the ribs. “I didn’t think you wanted that anyway. I watched you date around when you first got here. If you could even call it dating.”

It’s hard to tell whether there’s a sneer in Remus’ voice, just barely, but Sirius doesn’t take offence. It wasn’t ever dating, and he’d never meant for it to be. Just something to kill time until he made any real friends. He doesn’t think that’s a particularly good or bad thing. The flirting and the snogging, it was a way of connecting with people that felt blissfully uncomplicated. Superficial or not, he needed some connection.

“That doesn’t mean I couldn’t date,” Sirius mumbles, a bit hot-faced. “I just wasn’t looking to.” His life was unravelling at the seams when he first got here. Dating: that wouldn’t have even occurred to him unless he met someone… someone a lot like Remus.

“I know. But that’s the only reason I let myself… Because you weren’t looking to date. And, frankly, Sirius, I only saw you around girls. I figured if you and I were anything, it would be short term, and it would be behind closed doors.”

Sirius huffs and pulls his ankles up in front of himself, crossing his legs on the mattress. “If you’d talked to me…” Neither of them had initiated any conversations about what they wanted. He didn’t talk either. He thought Remus would want the same. “No, Remus. That’s not what it was for me at all.”

Remus nods slowly. His hands flex into his own arms, and Sirius watches. Remus doesn’t relax his grip. “That’s what I needed it to be. Not… not what I would have wanted either.” Remus’ hands shake on his biceps with how tightly he curls his fingers, but for all that his hands are hard, his face is soft. “I- I probably should have ended things sooner.” Sooner. “I- I’m sorry for that. I- that was selfish, and-”

“Remus- you being a werewolf wouldn’t have changed anything for me.” Sirius shifts backward too, feeling unsteady perched on the edge of his yielding mattress. “It still doesn’t change anything for me.”

“It does. I-“

“It doesn’t!”

“Sirius-“ Remus interrupts, but he takes a long time before finishing his sentence. He just stares at Sirius in the meantime, like he’s trying to make up his mind. Like he still doesn’t know if he might be saying too much. “I’m leaving.”

Chapter Text

Sirius knows he’s testing Lily’s patience.

They arrive at the Three Broomsticks, and she doesn’t say anything. He orders their drinks, a Butterbeer and a shot of Firewhiskey each, and she watches him. She leans on the bar beside him, elbow to elbow, and shoots speculative looks at him out of the corner of her eye. He ignores her. She waits.

They down their shots at the bar with a wince and a shiver, then walk back to a table somewhere in the centre of the room. He’d rather somewhere more private, but it’s an official Hogsmeade weekend, and half the school is out. They sit and sip their drinks and watch the last of the tables fill up within minutes. “So, I’ve been thinking-“

“Sirius, come on.”

Sirius wrinkles his nose and sips from his pint glass. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

He’d had a whole big cry in Lily’s arms, and he’d been so overwhelmed by it all that he could hardly choke out any words, and Lily didn’t push.

She’d asked about it a few days ago, and he said he’d talk to her about it once he’d processed it all. And now he has.

Remus is leaving. What else is there to say?

He’ll die out there, on some mission for some cause they hardly understand.

Lily watches Sirius drink but doesn’t touch her own. “So you talked to Remus,” she prompts, pushing her Butterbeer forward so that she can lean her elbows on the rickety table and whisper in a voice that carries well enough to Sirius, but otherwise loses itself easily in the din of the pub. “And you learned some things?”

Sirius huffs and drops his face into his hands, then scrubs up until he’s fisting both hands in his hair. He lets go. “Barely.” Everything’s shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Even Remus doesn’t know much.

He’s a liaison, not a soldier, and that means it’s fine. He’ll be in some underground werewolf community, a pack, and those are illegal enough already, not to mention dangerous, but he’s not fighting so it’s fine. Dumbledore says it’s fine, so it’s fine.

It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous.

Remus trusts Dumbledore. He trusts a man who would recruit an eleven year old into a war — because that’s when he offered the position to Remus. When he was eleven. When, coincidentally, Remus got an unexpected letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, an offer that should never have been made to a werewolf. Eleven.

Dumbledore bought him.

”Right…” Sirius must have zoned out staring right through Lily, but her eyebrows are furrowed deeply once he starts to see her again. “How long did you talk for?”

Sirius shakes his head. “Two hours? Three?”

He doesn’t know. It was dark by the time they’d burnt themselves out. They missed dinner.

Remus could refuse to go. Obviously, Dumbledore can’t force him. No Unbreakable Vows were made. Dumbledore could out Remus as an unregistered werewolf, but he’d also risk people finding out that he’s recruiting schoolchildren into The Order of the Phoenix. He’d be sacked — he wouldn’t risk that for one measly werewolf.

Dumbledore can’t force Remus to go, but Remus will go anyway.

”Two hours of nothing? Three?” She gives Sirius a hard look over the rim of her glass, immediately undermined by the way she winces before she can take a proper sip.

“What do you want me to say, Lily? That we got back together? We didn’t. That anything changed? Does it look like anything’s changed?” And part of Sirius is even resentful that he talked to Remus. Great — now he knows. Now he gets to spend the rest of his life knowing. He doesn’t even get the peace of imagining Remus happy, healthy, safe.

Remus hadn’t wanted to burden Sirius with the truth, and that was ridiculous and stupid until Sirius knew the truth.

And he’d begged. He’d begged Remus to stay. For Sirius’ sake, for his own. For James and Peter, for his family. He’d said something exceptionally cruel about Remus’ dog, and he’d finally gotten a reaction that wasn’t restrained. It had turned to shouting, some competition over who could be the most angry at each other, at themselves, at the world.

It was the first time Sirius ever heard Remus raise his voice. For a second he’d been relieved, grateful that it’s possible to get under Remus’ skin after all, pleased that he could get a reaction.

He’d felt clever for half a second, but his body flinched away from Remus standing up so quickly, and Remus hadn’t even gotten to the end of his sentence before he sank back down again, collapsed in on himself. He’d looked so tired and broken staring up at Sirius, curling away in his chair. All of that only a day after the full moon, and Lily will still say that Remus is the selfish one. Sirius who poked and poked until Remus broke, just for the sake of feeling like he was important enough to break him.

Important... He has his answer: Remus is leaving.

”I’m sorry,” Lily says, dragging a slow finger through the condensation on the edge of her glass. The words are so earnest that Sirius searches Lily’s face, expecting some sort of irony. Lily just stares back with a small frown. “That this is all so messed up. I wish it was easier for you.” It’s not her fault, obviously. She has nothing to be sorry for.

”Yeah…” He’s not really sure how to respond to that, but he believes her, that somehow she is sorry, not because she’s done anything wrong, but because she thinks someone should be sorry, so she’ll be sorry. He drops his gaze back to his Butterbeer. He wishes it was easier, too.

Lily pulls in a slow breath. She looks away from Sirius before she speaks. “You’re not still sleeping in his room, are you?”

He reckons he could probably crawl right into Remus’ bed, and Remus still wouldn’t tell him no. Some halfhearted Sirius… but Remus would just watch him, maybe put some half a foot of space between them, all that the narrow beds really allow. He’d say we can’t do this, but what if Sirius stayed anyway? If he pushed further than that, Remus would go sleep in the common room, out in the corridors if he had to, but Sirius thinks he could pretend it was innocent, and Remus would let him. They’d wake up tangled around each other anyway, no matter how much space they put between themselves going to sleep.

He’d never gotten to wake up in Remus’ arms.

“No. Madam Pomfrey made me more sleeping draughts.” He’s not sure what would happen if he woke up wrapped around Remus. He’s thought about it. “They’re… they work well enough.” Sirius finds himself rolling his wrist under the table, one of the fifteen exercises he’s been doing since Christmas. It pinches still, the only exercise he isn’t making any real progress in now that he’s been soaking his arm in that weird pink potion every day for a week. It’s become an unconscious tick, something he doesn’t realize he’s doing until he pushes a bit too far. He flattens his palms against the table. “Can we talk about you for a while?”

“I- Fine.” She shoots a glance at Sirius’ hands, sighs. “I’ve been busy. There’s not much to say. Slughorn wants me to write an essay for extra credit, not that I need it. I found some inconsistencies in the textbook again, and it could turn into a research project.” Her words come out rushed, and she doesn’t quite look at Sirius. “He has a former student that works with some… some magazine, I guess, and… he said something about getting me published.” She spins her drink without lifting it, and she still hasn’t taken a sip.

Sirius nods. “That’s… good.” That sounds like his nightmare, but Lily likes experimental potions. It could probably be really good for her, getting some formal recognition as a witch. Maybe she’d be able to take herself a bit more seriously if she got some real validation. Through all the hesitation, she finally meets Sirius’ eyes, and a slow smile spreads over her lips.

”Yeah,” she says. “It doesn’t feel real.”

She picks up her Butterbeer like she means to take a sip, then glowers at the cup. “Do you not like Butterbeer?”

Lily shrugs. “I like it from a bottle. I always forget to specify here. I don’t like the foam.” Sirius rolls his eyes and finishes sucking the foam off of his pint and then sets it in front of her. He pulls her glass over to himself. Lily takes the drink onto her own coaster. “I’ve been working on research all week, so… not much to talk about.” Lily takes a small sip of her Butterbeer and hums under her breath, then takes down half the pint in one go.

”All week? You didn’t say anything.”

“Well — you’ve been busy.” There’s no accusation in Lily’s voice, but she’s not quite looking at him either.

“Yeah.” He was being a bad friend again. He’s never quite as good to her as he should be. It’s easier with James, who just harasses Sirius when he wants attention, who’s started dragging Sirius to Quidditch training just to make him watch from the stands, and then flying around a bit after training. James, who forces Sirius to do things, knowing it’ll be good for him specifically because he’s resistant. Sirius has a habit of isolating when he’s upset, too burnt out by his own misery to care that it only ever makes him feel worse, and Lily’s almost too respectful. She waits for him to be ready to talk to her, and he forgets that he has the option, forgets that it somehow feels good to talk to her, even when nothing feels good. “I disappear sometimes,” he admits. It’s not quite an apology, but if feels close.

“And it’s not like I didn’t have anyone to talk to, you know.” Lily finally meets his eye, a defensive shine in her own. “Stop looking all guilty. I’m not pathetic. I have other friends. I told… I told people. I was all excited, and you didn’t ask, and…”

Sirius squints at Lily, and she starts to drink again, deep gulps. Oh, she’s hiding something. Sirius gives himself a second to start sucking the foam off of the top of Lily’s pint, since she’s making her way through his so quickly, then drums his fingers on the table. “Who’d you tell, Red?”

Lily makes a choking sound and sets down her pint, reaching for a water-stained napkin that was already on the table when they got there. “Just- people.”

Sirius sees Rosmerta loading a tray with pint glasses behind the bar. He catches her eye when she looks over and makes a one more gesture and she nods. That done, Sirius pushes his pint glass toward Lily, setting her empty one aside. There’s only one person she would lie about talking to. “Speaking of James- I’ve seen you talking a few times lately. That’s different. His new strategy is working, then?”

Lily coughs into her napkin again before crumpling it up and setting it aside. She takes a drink from the glass in front of her, either soothing her throat, getting drunk enough to have this conversation, or else just stalling for time. She clears her throat again after she swallows. “What, his incessant interrogation? It’s an improvement, I’ll say that much, but really.”

Sirius counts out change and leaves it on the corner of the table so that he doesn’t hold Rosmerta up on such a busy day. He pushes the empty pint glass to sit beside his stack where she can grab it as she sweeps by, then looks up at Lily. “Really, what?” he asks. She’s blushing.

”He’s never just normal, is he?”

Sirius laughs as he watches Rosmerta weaving through the tables with several pint glasses stacked easily on a tray in one hand. She delivers them to tables, making her way to Lily and Sirius’ section with an almost hypnotic grace. She finds impossible paths through the packed tables and sloppy patrons. Soft curves and strong arms, sharp eyes. Sirius always ends up staring without meaning to. He forces his eyes back to Lily. “James, normal? No, but he’s not so bad either, is he?”

“He’s- he’s a lot.” She takes another sip from her drink, then slams the cup down and only almost manages to cover her mouth before she burps. She stares at Sirius, red, like she’s shocked that downing a Butterbeer and a half in ten minutes might give her some reflux.

Sirius belches louder just to prove that he can, and Lily leaves her mouth covered when she laughs, like she’s scared another sound might slip through. “Oh, that was awful,” she mutters, burying her head in both hands, still laughing. Sirius just takes a big gulp of his drink, burps again, pushing it out as loud as he can, and Lily glares at him from between her fingers. “You’re disgusting,” she accuses. Sirius nods, grinning.

”James,” Sirius prompts, seeing him come in through the entrance over Lily’s shoulder. Then Peter. “I think you could like him, you know. You’ve said it yourself, he’s decent.”

”Yeah,” Lily grumbles. “He- I think maybe I could get used to him. He’s really sweet with you, actually. That’s what surprised me most.” And although Sirius never told Lily that it was James who picked out her watch, she looks down at it with a little smile. “I don’t know why he- anyway. Yeah. I don’t know.”

Sirius grins and tilts his head to gesture behind her, the small group of boys at the bar, and Lily turns around in her chair only to whip back toward Sirius with a glare. Sirius looks back to Lily instead of at Remus.

”No, absolutely not.“ Lily’s hand is a vice around his wrist, and Remus has seen them now too, not that Sirius is looking. “Don’t. You are not going over there. Neither of us should be talking to any of them, alright? No.”

Sirius shakes Lily off and grabs his Butterbeer, taking a deep drink. James is scanning the room from the bar, and Sirius catches his eye before turning back to Lily. “I’m not going over there,” he assures her.

She parrots Sirius’ own words back to him. “Because nothing’s changed.”

Because James has seen Sirius sitting over here with Lily. The building’s packed: no two people can expect to have a table for four to themselves. Especially not Sirius and Lily, not if James can help it. Sirius doesn’t even need to stand up. They’ll come to him. “Exactly.”

Sirius watches James accept all three pint glasses, Peter bouncing around him with eager hands making sure none fall. Sirius watches Remus look anywhere but at him. Lily’s hand is on him again, wrapping around his bad wrist a bit too tight, and he hisses. “Sorry, sorry. Forgot.” She doesn’t drop him completely, though, moving to grab his hand instead in an equally bruising grip. “We- can we go? I- you shouldn’t, and I’m drunk. Sirius, come on.”

Sirius stares at Lily’s cup, hardly a third left, then at his own, barely down an inch. “You’ll drink both of our Butterbeers and then drag me away before I can get hardly a sip from mine? Bit rude, that.” He doesn’t know why he won’t let himself be pulled away. He thinks Lily has the right idea. He shouldn’t be around Remus.

He wants to see if Remus will come over, though.

Lily cranes her head to look behind herself, then back at Sirius. “I know you don’t care about a pint.” She looks behind herself again, and sure enough James is only ten feet away. Peter and Remus trail just behind. “Fuck, fuck- fine. Behave.”

James takes the seat beside Lily, naturally. “This place is packed. You don’t mind, do you?” He’s already sitting, and really there isn’t anywhere else to go. Peter asks a trio of girls nearby if he can take their fourth stool, and Remus is stuck hovering by the chair next to Sirius. 

“I-“

“Sit,” Sirius says, if for no other reason than to not have Remus standing just at his back out of sight, but still so firmly there. There’s an edge to his voice that he didn’t expect, a snap. He feels hot. He drinks for something to do, twists his wrist until it aches. Maybe he should have let Lily drag him away.

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispers. Sirius just shakes his head. “They insisted.”

Remus should have gone back to the castle alone, then. Remus should avoid him. He always does. Maybe he thinks he doesn’t have to anymore, now that Sirius knows. Remus doesn’t have to be careful anymore. He can do whatever he wants because Sirius knows.

James sits sideways in his chair. “Didn’t see you in any of the shops. Did you come all the way out here to drink your troubles away?” Despite having all of his attention on Lily, James includes everyone in the conversation with an easy wave. “You know we have Butterbeer in the dorm for that,” he teases.

”I- Right,” Lily stammers. “Thank you. Um…”

James digs in his front pocket for coins, leaning one of his forearms on the back of Lily’s chair as he struggles to push a hand into the front of his jeans. It’s a perfectly innocent gesture with Lily already sitting at the very edge of her seat, James nowhere near touching her. Once he’s pulled out a few knuts and a few sickles, he drops back down properly into his own chair, bringing his arm back into his own space without lingering, and it’s all so gloriously innocent as Lily stares resolutely at the table.

”Bit of fresh air, bit of Butterbeer, bit of gossip,” Sirius says lightly, touching the toe of his boot to Lily’s shin in some apology. She looks more uncomfortable than he’d expected, based on how she’d been talking about James. “Not such a bad way to spend the day.”

Lily looks briefly up at Sirius when he nudges her, then her eyes follow the movement beside her, James sliding out of his coat. “Gossip?” James asks. Lily stares too long as James shifts around, her eyes drifting back and forth from his arms to his chest as he fights a bit with the sleeve of his coat. James laughs when he finally chucks the coat onto the back of the chair behind himself. Lily drops her head for a moment, and Sirius slouches in his chair to see her pinching her eyes closed. Oh… she’s drunk. “You know we love gossip — do tell. Not got another secret girlfriend, have you?”

Remus stiffens from beside him, but Sirius tries to ignore that, ignore the tightness in his chest. Ignore the heat in his hands. He forces his fists to open up, shoves his hands in his pockets. He focuses on keeping everyone’s eyes off of Lily while she figures out how to get a handle on herself.

Sirius had gotten exceptionally drunk the first time he’d had muggle alcohol, which sits a bit different in a way he hadn’t expected. He wonders if Lily similarly never built up a tolerance for the wizard stuff. “Wouldn’t be a secret if I told you,” he says brightly. He touches his toe to her shin again, a promise that he’ll get her out of here. He doesn’t want to stay anyway. He’s not sure what he wanted, but he knows he didn’t get it. “Certainly wouldn’t be a secret if I told Peter,” he teases. “Half the school would know by morning.”

”Actually, speaking of- has Darla asked you out yet?” Peter says, stealing Sirius’ pint to take a sip. “This is half flat, ew. James, pass mine here, yeah? Anyway, I heard her saying she was planning to… Merlin, a week ago by now. Did she ever get around to it?”

Sirius waves the question away. “Oh, twice.” He likes Darla quite a bit in theory, although less in person. She’s pushy and bold — generally he encourages that. She’s a little obsessed with him, and he thinks more people ought to be. It’s fun when someone fancies you, and she’s never that pushy. A pleasant amount. But he doesn’t like worrying about whether he’s leading her on. “Wasn’t planning on saying yes,” Sirius muses. He fidgets with a crumb of lint in his pocket, running it under his nails over and over again. “Maybe I should.”

James and Peter ooh while Lily kicks him under the table. Sirius doesn’t check to see Remus’ reaction. Somehow he thinks he can feel it without having to look.

“It’s been a while since you and the last girl,” James says. He looks thoughtful, then bright. “It doesn’t have to be Darla, but maybe someone. If you felt like you were wanting to move on. If you felt ready. You could-”

”Bloke,” Sirius corrects. Lily kicks him again. Sirius takes a sip.

James’ easy smile drops. “What?”

Sirius shrugs, and he can see Remus out of the corner of  his eye, just a bit, watching him. Good.

“It’s been a while since the last bloke. Secret ex-boyfriend,” he corrects casually, like he expected they would have known. He keeps talking before anyone can react, uninterested in anyone’s shock. “But maybe I should move on.” He drums on the table in front of him, takes a deep drink from his pint glass. No one says anything while he drinks, unusual in such a large group. He makes good progress in his cup. He doesn’t like the silence. “Any recommendations?” he asks the table, letting his eyes drift around. “Who should I shag next?”

Everyone seems to think he’d shag just about anyone, clearly. They’ve all talked about it. Surely they have favourites by now. Probably not Darla, that would be cruel. Sirius looks to Peter, raising his eyebrows. Peter is bug-eyed and quiet.

”It was a bloke?” James looks over at Remus when he says it, and Sirius is sure for a second that James has finally put two and two together. But James looks crestfallen and slightly protective, and Sirius realizes that James is thinking how will Remus handle knowing that Sirius shags blokes, but not him?

Only it was him, and James is an idiot, and Remus is a prick. Sirius laughs into the uncomfortable silence. He takes down the remainder of his drink.

“It really wasn’t Annette, then?” Peter asks, his face softening. “I’ve always had a thing for her- you wouldn’t mind, then?”

Sirius slams his glass down in front of himself. “All yours, Petey. I’m thinking-“

Lily kicks him again, hard. Sirius cuts off with a yelp. “I want to go home,” she says. “Walk me.”

Sirius stares at her, and she glares back. He looks around at James, Peter… Remus. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.” 

Chapter Text

“I have to pee,” Lily complains. 

“I don’t care.”

They stomp through the snow, a dusty perfect white that’s been falling all day on top of the layer of ever-present grey slush. Lily slips in an icy puddle, and Sirius catches her elbow, then keeps hold of it. “You’re such a lightweight,” he grumbles. 

“I had a shot and then like a litre of Butterbeer!” She switches their grips so that she’s holding his arm in both hands. She’s halfway hanging off of his bad arm, but high enough up that it doesn’t hurt.

“And you wonder why you have to pee…” 

Lily snorts a laugh and leans her head on Sirius’ shoulder. She schools her face as soon as she catches herself being too nice. “I could have peed at the Three Broomsticks if you weren’t making such a scene.”

She glares at him with her clumsily knit hat falling into her eyes. She can’t adjust it with both hands wrapped around Sirius, and either she’s too unsteady to let go, or the thought just doesn’t occur to her. She rubs her head against his shoulder instead, and he shoves her off to try and tug the hat back up on the worst side (which only makes the other side more crooked). Lily squints up at him through one screwed-up eye, and both of their glares twitch under the threat of a laugh. Neither of them breaks, but Sirius drops the pretence of being annoyed with her. He stops walking long enough to fix her hat properly, then pulls her back into his side.

“What did you want me to say?” He made a scene, and it didn’t make him feel any better, but he’s not sorry either. He’s not.

Maybe he should be sorry for putting Lily in an uncomfortable position, especially when she wasn’t sober. She’d asked to leave, and he’d made her stay. They’d left eventually though. He kept her out of the spotlight. He made an arse of himself, but he doesn’t think he did anything all that terrible.

Lily makes some disdainful noise, something meaningless and loud and drunk. He feels her shrugging, but keeps his eyes squinted at the path — at where there’s meant to be a path. “I wanted to leave before they came and sat with us, didn’t I?”

This time it’s Sirius’ turn to slip. They catch themselves and curse the new snow that hides all the icy patches. Sirius grabs his wand and starts blasting snow from the path as they walk. “So you were right, fine.”

“Of course I was right. Goodness, Sirius. Are you a masochist or just an idiot?”

“Oh, both, clearly.” He shakes his head. The snowflakes are getting fatter, and he blinks them out of his eyelashes. Lily has her tongue out and her eyes closed, head still lolled against Sirius. 

—

He sends Lily away. She’s not that drunk, just somewhere past tipsy. She won’t be passing out in a puddle of her own sick, anyway. She’s fine.

And Sirius feels punishing. He feels mean.

Lily pretends she’s tough, but she isn’t, and Sirius has never wanted her to be. She’s soft in a way that he isn’t, in a way that he’s never really seen before, and it makes him feel like he can be soft sometimes too, but not now. He can’t be soft, and she can’t be tough, so he sends her away. Even that seems to hurt her feelings, and he’s so angry at her for not being tough. Not being strong enough to let him be as weak as he wants to be. He wants to hurt someone. He wants to be allowed to do something that would make him feel better, but nothing will.

Nothing’s going to make him feel better. He’s just… stuck.

He finds his records when he can’t stand the silence, then ignores whatever he puts on. He digs in his trunk for one of his stupid puzzle books but comes across a folded piece of parchment first. It takes him a while to recognize it.

He’d completely forgotten he’d ever written his cousin.

He scans through the response again, and his eyes catch on the same paragraph by the bottom as they did the first time he threw the letter away. Remus.

He sits down on the end of his bed, rereading the first part. He should answer, even something short and meaningless. He should have answered a month ago. There’s a picture floating around somewhere in the bottom of his trunk, a little girl. A baby cousin he’s never met.

It’s a bit ridiculous, the notion of writing Andromeda. They were raised together. They were partnered together all those years they took ballroom dancing in the spirit of etiquette and society, and now he doesn’t even know her. They have the same family and the same history, and she feels so completely separate from him. How is she supposed to be like him when she’s just… fine? She has a life and a home and a child. She’s someone’s wife. How is she just-

Why does she get to be fine? And he’s just supposed to write her- like he would have anything to say to someone like that.

I’d love to hear more about this ‘Remus’. If you’ve fancied him that long I’ll be over here eagerly awaiting the letter that says you’ve finally asked him out.

I don’t know much about your situation, but I remember what it was like for me. I think you’re probably braver than I ever was, even just based on the fact that you’re writing me now, getting kicked out of Beauxbatons, playing Quidditch. I was never bold like that. I don’t think I’d have ever left it all behind if I hadn’t fallen in love, and even then I barely let myself. I was so scared of loving someone that would force me to make decisions about who I was and what kind of life I wanted to live.

I’m proud of you. That’s my point, I guess. It’s scary, caring about people. Your friends and your Remus… Especially when you know it’s going to change your life. It’s a good change, I promise.

Write me again when you can, but for the love of Merlin, don’t get caught.

She signs off with love and hugs and some pink scribble that must be the child. Sirius sets the letter down beside him. He has this strange heaviness in his eyes and he wonders if he should be crying.

What’s he supposed to say, really?

Anyway, she’s misjudged him. He’s never been afraid of loving anyone.

He crosses over to his dresser. There are piles of letters on it now, most of them from when he was at Mungo’s. He could put the letters away, tucked in a box or a drawer somewhere, but he likes to see them, his little piles of people.

He doesn’t know quite where to put Andromeda.

The biggest pile is Lily, then there’s a stack from Peter, nine letters which had arrived at the Potters’ all at once two days before the end of the holidays. There’s a third pile he’s dubbed the girls, which has letters primarily from Dorcas and Marlene, but one from Mary, too. James doesn’t have a stack, since they’ve never been apart, but there’s a note that sits beside Lily’s pile:

If you wake up and I’m not here I’m just eating or something. You’re at Mungo’s and one of your arms isn’t right but there working on it. Try not to move. Shout for someone. I’ll be back soon.

James

He smiles at that one, borderline illegible.

Sirius hadn’t even noticed the note at St Mungo’s. He must have been really out of it. It had been delivered days later on a white tray labelled personal belongings of Sirius Fleamont Potter along with the tattered, stained remains of his dress robes and a pair of mismatched socks. He’d burned the clothes but kept the note and the label he’d torn off of the tray.

The letter from Walburga Black is on fire before Sirius has any conscious thought of picking it up. He douses it with a mindless aguamenti as the flames start to lick at the tips of his fingers and chucks the last sodden corner in the rubbish.

He grabs his brother’s letter but hesitates with his wand raised. Yours colourfully. Whatever that means. Maybe it hadn’t meant anything, just Reg being artistic and strange. He’d wanted to think Regulus was on his side. Maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see.

But he doesn’t burn the letter. He sets it aside, on top of Andromeda’s.

He doesn’t like looking at them. He pulls Effie’s book off of his shelf and shoves the letters between some random pages toward the end, and they nestle comfortably in there. He closes the book and finds he hardly notices the bump that they leave. Good.

He dumps the book into his rucksack where he won’t have to look at that either, another obligation he’s ignoring, another relationship he’s throwing away. He should read the bloody book. It’s not like he can’t read.

He chucks his bag onto the laundry chair and collapses onto his bed facedown.

There’s one more letter he’s ignoring.

It’s the oldest letter next to his brother’s.

Of course it is. Because these are his little piles of people, people who might love him, and Sirius thinks Remus might have been the first person other than his brother to love him. The first person to love him for free.

He breathes his own hot air back out of the mattress instead of turning his head.

He never sent that letter. He should have rewritten it in his own script, then sent it off to Dumbledore now that he’s disowned anyway. He should be fighting for a wandless magic club if it’s something he believes in. He should be trying to make his tiny little change, pretend that makes this stupid world any better.

But he feels useless. 

What difference would a wandless magic club ever really make? People hardly ever leave a room without their wands. Maybe this was delusional too, Sirius thinking that he could ever help anyone. He couldn’t help Regulus, still stuck with their parents. He can’t help Remus. No one can help Remus. Sirius is being adopted by the Potters because he’s never even been able to help himself.

He’s an idiot, and a useless one at that. Nothing matters. He could petition Dumbledore for the club. Dumbledore. He hates Dumbledore, the man who’ll take Remus away, who’ll take advantage of a child thinking he can change the world. He hates Dumbledore.

He’d had a vision of running that club with Remus, but that was just as delusional as anything else he’s thought this year. He certainly can’t do it alone. He’s a horrible teacher, impatient and inarticulate and unmotivated.

He waves his wand toward the sound of a knock on his door, turns his head but doesn’t get up. Remus stands awkwardly in the doorway, then steps inside. Of course it’s Remus.

Remus closes the door behind himself, but doesn’t enter the room any more fully than that. “What do you want?” Sirius asks, exhausted. The mattress squishing his cheek garbles him a bit.

“Darla’s a stalker,” Remus blurts.

Sirius tries to stare up at Remus, but his own brow bone is in the way, and he can’t see much above Remus’ snow-damp jumper. He rolls onto his side and drags a pillow under his head. “Darla?”

Who cares about Darla?

Sirius folds his pillow to prop his head up higher, then watches Remus. He looks uncharacteristically awkward. A different awkward, technically. He’s always awkward. Tentative and uncomfortable and restrained, but somehow desperate. Ridiculously charming in spite of it all, and sweet, and so fucking awkward.

This awkward is different. Shifty and strange.

“She follows you,” Remus says, eyes only catching on Sirius for a second.

Sirius’ hair is falling over his face, and he scrubs it aside as he thinks. “I know that.” She’s not subtle. It’s a small school anyway with only about three public spaces. She sits next to Sirius in the library. She times leaving her classes to walk next to him when she can manage it, catches his eye from the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall. She’s always around, but Sirius doesn’t take offence. He’d have no problem telling her to sod off if he wanted to, but she likes him and he likes attention. “How would you know who follows me? I thought you were avoiding me.”

He hates this Remus, this guilty Remus. He hates the Remus who hates himself, because every part of Remus is so undeniably good, except for the one that loves Sirius. That one hurts people. That one’s selfish.

”Ah,” Sirius says coolly, breaking the silence when Remus won’t. His silence was answer enough, though. “So I have a few stalkers, don’t I?”

Remus’ laugh is sharp and short. “I guess you have a type.”

Sirius pulls himself upright, twists the knife. “Oh, I like all kinds.” Sirius pretends not to notice how Remus flinches “Muggles, half-breeds, beasts and creat-“

“Are you trying to hurt me?” Remus asks on a breath.

Yes probably isn’t the right answer. It’s more complicated than that, and also it isn’t. “Do you think I’m supposed to wait until you’ve left Hogwarts? So that you don’t have to watch? That’s not for over a year.”

Remus shakes his head, eyes somewhere out the window, somewhere far. His jaw ticks over and over again as he thinks. When Sirius doesn’t get an answer fast enough, he pushes again. “If it’s not her- fuck, if it’s not you, it’ll be someone. You realize that, surely. Unless you want-”

“Do you think this is what I want, Sirius? Any of this? For me, for us? This- this life, this condition... I don’t want this.”

Maybe Sirius could see the tears shining in Remus’ eyes and give a more compassionate answer than a shrug, but fuck. And? Nobody gets what they want.

Sirius swallows. “I think if you gave yourself the choice, you’d stay. I think you want to stay.”

Remus finally looks at Sirius, finally steps away from the door. He makes some sort of may I? gesture — asking if he can sit. He’s ridiculous. Sirius just rolls his eyes in answer, and Remus sets Sirius’ bag on the second armchair, the better one.

”I’ve seen what it does to people,” Remus says softly. “Loving me. Sirius, I don’t think you’d survive it.” Sirius notices a bag in Remus’ hands, one of the paper bags they put sweets in at Honeydukes. Remus fidgets with the paper but never rips or bends it, just passes his fingers over the jagged top while he thinks. “Sirius-“

“I don’t think you’re dangerous,” Sirius says, quiet too. “You can call me ignorant, but-“

”You are ignorant. All you care about is theory, Sirius. Statistics- on- on… I’m standing in front of you, and I have hurt people. I’m not theory. I’ve hurt people. It could happen again, and-“

Sirius shakes his head. He’s not a werewolf, but he’s not that sheltered either. “I know you’ve hurt people. James-“ Sirius watches for a reaction, something from Remus that tells him he’s missing something, that Remus has secretly massacred a whole town or something, but Remus doesn’t say anything. “I know. But I also know that if you or anyone thought that would happen again, you wouldn’t be at Hogwarts. You’re still here, so don’t tell me you’re too dangerous, because you don’t even believe that.”

“No,” Remus says. “I- Sirius, it’s not just that. You should see my parents. They’re just… they’re not even people anymore. Emotionally, financially, looking for a cure when they’re just isn’t one… it’s destroyed them, and I’m not- I’m angry. I’m miserable. I’m in pain all the time. I’m unemployable. I’m not even pureblood. Every part of me will make your life worse. I can’t be anything but a burden, and it’s never going away. This life- this is all I get. You-“ Remus’ voice breaks, and he shakes his head, staring down at his knees. “You can’t fix me. I know you want to. I’d let you. But you can’t.”

Sirius folds his legs in front of himself. His throat is too tight. It’s hard to swallow. “You don’t get to choose whether or not I love you.”

Remus shrugs. “You can’t make me stay.”

No. Clearly he can’t. “Maybe I’ll join The Order.”

”No.” No, he wouldn’t. Obviously. Maybe if he’d been approached when he was a bit younger, fifteen and desperate to do something… but not now. “Sirius-“

“Maybe that’s what should happen to people like us. I’ve hurt people.” He laughs. It’s not funny, but he laughs anyway. If Remus held Sirius to the same standards he held himself to, he wouldn’t be able to look Sirius in the eye. He wouldn’t think anyone should ever love him. “I’ve caused more pain on purpose than you’ll ever-” fuck, he can’t even say it without laughing. It’s not funny. It’s so fucking serious, it’s unbelievable. “Fuck, Remus. Do you think you’re the only person in the world who’s ever hurt someone? Who’s hated himself? Do you think you’re that special?”

Remus casts his eyes out the window again, mouth pressed into a tight line. “You’re not like me.”

“I’m not?” He thinks that might be the opposite of the problem. “You don’t think I know anything about putting myself in danger in the spirit of maybe doing something good? You think I don’t know what it’s like to repent for existing? You don’t think I stayed in that house trying to spare my brother enough pain to make up for what I caused him? If I was going to be so fucking worthless, maybe I could do one good thing? And it never mattered, Remus. Do you think you’ll punish it away? This feeling? I can’t fix you, but neither can Dumbledore. You’re not going to change anything.”

Remus sets his bag of sweets on the floor and scrubs his hands down his face. “I could do something good.”

“You’ll never do enough good to change anyone’s mind about you, not when they want to hate you. You’ll still be a werewolf.”

Remus’ jaw shakes when he opens his mouth. “I know that.”

Sirius scoffs. “Do you? You’ll be angry and miserable and alone and you’ll still be a werewolf.” And Sirius must be cruel, because he keeps talking as the tears roll down Remus’ cheeks. “It’ll still hurt all the time, and you’ll be alone, and you’ll still be a werewolf. You’ll be more employable when Dumbledore’s done with you? This isn’t something you can put onto a resume. You’ll be two or five or ten years older with nothing to show for it.” And it surely won’t pay toward a retirement, and Dumbledore won’t have use for him forever. Running with a werewolf pack, multiple, probably, Remus will get hurt eventually, and he’ll be of no more use to Dumbledore then, and he’ll still be a werewolf. “You won’t get another one just because you’ll throw this life away. This is it. You’ll still be a werewolf.”

Sirius realizes his voice has been climbing louder, and he takes a breath as he tries to calm himself down. “Sirius,” Remus pleads, like he’s begging for Sirius to stop, to something.

Sirius speaks softly to a Remus that looks like he might break, just a whisper now. “You’ll still be a werewolf.”

And Remus does break.

Some horrible puddle of it’s not fair on Sirius’ floor, and Sirius falls onto the ground beside him. “Come here,” he says, already dragging at Remus’ still-damp jumper, and Remus is too weak to argue. He tumbles into Sirius’ chest, and Sirius tries to help him fall into a somewhat comfortable position in Sirius’ lap, and Remus holds onto him too tight, and Sirius lets him.

It’s not fair. It’s never been fair. It’ll never be fair.

And Remus cries, and Sirius cries, and none of it’s fair.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Remus’ hair, and Remus shakes against him. Sirius hasn’t done anything wrong this time, but he can still be sorry because it’s still not fair. “I wish things were easier for you.” Lily had said that to Sirius today, and he’d liked the sound of it. It had felt kind. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair. I know.”

Remus chokes on sobs for a long time before he can get any words out. “I don’t want this, Sirius. I don’t want to go.”

You don’t have to.

”I know.” I know. 

Chapter Text

Sirius and Remus spend a long time wound together on Sirius’ floor. The crying dies off and Sirius’ arse and legs go entirely numb. The sun goes down and they miss dinner. Remus doesn’t pull his face out of Sirius’ neck, and Sirius just leaves his own head leaned against Remus’.

When he’d started combing his hands through Remus’ hair, it was some soothing gesture, something beyond words because there wasn’t anything left to say. It’s not fair, and it’s still not fair. But Remus isn’t crying anymore, and Sirius’ hands are still in his hair, and it hurts a bit. To love and hold someone he can’t have, it hurts.

And still, it’s a long time before they find the strength to pull apart.

When Remus starts to lean away from Sirius, Sirius pulls his own hands back to himself. Remus is still sitting between Sirius’ spread legs, and Sirius’ hips are starting to cramp and ache under the strain, but he grabs a small pinch of Remus’ jumper to keep him just a minute longer. “Remus?”

Remus stares down at Sirius’ hand at his chest, then back up, eyes puffy, lips and cheeks painted red. “Yeah?”

There are a million ways to say I love you, and somehow all of them feel cruel. “I, um… I’m not going to sleep in your room anymore.”

Remus nods slowly, throat contracting as he swallows. “Okay.”

Sirius uncurls his fingers and drops the fabric at Remus’ chest. Remus’ jumper falls perfectly flat against his stomach, minus one little bump where Sirius’ fingers stretched the fabric. Sirius watches Remus awkwardly pull himself to his feet. “Okay.”

“I’ll…” Remus’ voice scratches, and he clears his throat. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Sirius bites his lip until the intense urge to confess passes. It mostly passes. “Yeah.”

—

Sirius starts learning guitar from Marlene.

There’s a scratch somewhere in the back of his mind that he can’t quite place. Something about Remus.

He sees Remus in the common room, under that window on the far wall where the light is best for reading. They don’t talk, but they don’t run away from each other either.

The strings on Marlene’s electric guitar cut exceptionally sharply into Sirius’ fingertips. He’s used to things coming to him quickly when he can be bothered with learning, but calluses take time, and the skin on the tips of his fingers bruises and curls and tears. It’s a good pain, though. A pain of progress, of trying. Mar sits in front of him with her other guitar and tells him to copy her fingers, and the learning curve suits him well despite the ache in his wrist and the clumsiness in his fingers. It doesn’t take long for him to start feeling like he’s making something more than noise. Something that could be music someday.

Sometimes, from across the room, Remus watches him play.

Sometimes Sirius watches Remus read.

Massive dusty tomes from the library, Transfiguration Today issues that get passed around the common room, small paperback novels that come in the post every Monday. Peter got him a subscription for Christmas, some book-a-week club.

Everything Remus reads, he reads the same way. Body curled in the high-backed armchair, book propped open against his knees, fingers that lift the corners of the pages far before he ever actually turns them.

Remus’ face will twitch against a smile in a novel. He’ll squint disbelievingly into a Daily Prophet. His eyebrows shoot up when he learns something, head tilting as he considers it.

Every book he touches could be revolutionary. Everything he reads consumes him.

There’s such a profound beauty in watching him enjoy even these tiny pieces of the world that Sirius almost forgets to miss him.

Remus is right there, just on the other side of the room, and Sirius could go to him.

And it’s the fact that Sirius doesn’t approach him that lets Remus keep coming back. Sirius doesn’t chase him away again.

And underneath the unbelievable charm of it all, there’s an ache.

Underneath the ache, there’s a scratch.

—

Sirius has to see Madam Pomfrey at the crack of dawn on the first Saturday of February to get one last check-up before he’s approved to go to Quidditch training for real for the first time — although absolutely no swinging a bat. Lily frets about whether Sirius is really ready to be back on the pitch as she walks him to training, and she takes up in the stands with Marlene and Dorcas to judge for themselves whether he’s competent enough to be allowed on a broom.

All that scrutiny for him to not even be allowed to play his own position.

Still, he can be a part of training again. He can fly and toss a Quaffle around with James, finally have a way to play with James again that doesn’t risk putting them in detention for a month.

They warm up just chasing each other up and down the pitch. James’ broom is only a hair faster, but he’s a stronger flyer already, and he just about flies laps around Sirius.

“I’m just saying — trade me brooms and see who wins a race,” Sirius taunts, just winding James up. James could outstrip Sirius on a first generation Comet and they both know it, and James still can’t help arguing.

“I will buy you a better broom than mine — is that what you want? I’ll buy you the best broom on the market, and then I’ll beat you in front of all three of your girlfriends, and you’ll cry,” James snaps, quiet enough that the girls in the stands probably can’t hear him. Sirius just barks a laugh.

“Well, at least I have my three girlfriends to dry my tears.”

“Fuck you.”

“Get in line — I have girlfriends for that.”

And two of Sirius’ girlfriends are girlfriends with each other, and the third is Lily, and James still stomps off in a huff. Wanker.

Gideon puts Sirius on the hoops when he hears that Sirius can’t swing a bat, and Sirius makes a bloody useless Keeper, bored and agitated, but Gideon supervises training more than he does any training himself these days, barking orders and corrections, and setting up and taking down drills, and someone has to be on the hoops. Sirius might have complained a few months ago, but now it just feels good to be able to do something. He flies, and he guards the rings, and it’s good.

James — James alone — puts 400 points past Sirius by the end of training. No one else bothers to count how thoroughly they embarrass him. Sirius hums to himself as he tosses a few Quaffles in Gideons’ direction as training comes to an end.

“I think we should get you a headband or something for when you’re playing.” James throws his broom over his shoulder as they make their way across the pitch. Sirius does the same.

Sirius turns to glare at James, who ducks only just in time to not be whacked by Sirius’ broom handle. “Why does everyone think my hair’s too long?” He turns to glare pointedly at Dorcas in the stands, who tried to convince him again to let her give him a trim just two days ago.

He’s had shorter hair! It made his face look all… pointy. He looks less hollow with hair that falls somewhere around his cheeks and jaw. He looks less like his little brother.

Dorcas sees Sirius glaring and flips him off. He snaps his teeth at her.

“I can’t have you-” James whips his head around dramatically, throwing imaginary hair out of his eyes and running his hands through his own hair until Sirius shoves his shoulder. James stumbles briefly then rights himself. “Can’t be doing that all game. And Beaters have to fly backwards all the time, too, so it’ll be right in your face. I’m just saying. Quidditch first, aesthetics second. Get a headband or I’m holding you down and making Peter shave you.”

“Peter wouldn’t dare.”

The rest of the team is already somewhere on their way to Gryffindor Tower, but James and Sirius wave to Gideon as they pass him. He doesn’t look up from stomping patches of disrupted turf back into place.

“I’m just saying. If you want to be a Beater…”

“I’m not a Beater.” James shrugs. Sirius rolls his eyes. “I’m not even technically on the team.”

The girls in the stands are packing up, too, now that training is long over and Sirius has hopefully proven that he can stay on his broom for a few hours at a time, weak wrist and all. Sirius bows and waves like they’re his biggest fans as opposed to hovering babysitters. He blows Lily a kiss.

Lily rolls her eyes, but Dorcas and Marlene have fun with the bit. They both squeal and cheer, clutching at each other like they could faint. Sirius booms a laugh as Marlene shouts something about will you sign my shirt? So, naturally, Dorcas has to one-up her. “Will you sign my chest?”

Sirius laughs and lets a terribly-pink James pull him into the changing rooms. James pouts as they change.

“You know, if you ask very nicely Dorcas might let you sign the other side,” Sirius chirps. His robes hit the floor with a wet thwack, and he’s surely five kilos lighter without them. He sighs.

“How?” James says simply. “How is it that everyone — everyone — you meet is immediately infatuated with you? You’re dousing yourself in Amortentia or-” James leans in to sniff him, then pulls back with a wince. “You could stand to douse yourself with deodorant, actually.”

Sirius sputters and sniffs himself — he doesn’t not smell like deodorant… he just also smells like someone who’s been playing Quidditch for three hours after not doing anything active in over a month. He shrugs and resolves to keep his arms at his sides until he can get up to Gryffindor for a proper shower. “No one’s obsessed with me, wanker. It’s a joke. Marlene and Dorcas? Come off it.”

Sirius pulls on a pair of jeans and shoves his kit and trainers into his duffle, vowing to remember to wash them this time.

“Well, maybe they were joking about some things, but girls never come to training! Not unless they’re on the team. So, jokes aside, how is it that you have an entourage?”

Sirius rolls his eyes and doesn’t mention that Peter watches James train all the time. Maybe if James had any friends who were girls, his entourage might consist of a few more girls.

Sirius pulls on his boots and throws his jacket over his arm so that he doesn’t stink it up. The air is chilly and damp, but he’s overheated enough not to mind.

“You know what’s interesting?” Sirius stares sideways at James as they walk back to the broom shed. “Lily said she wanted to make sure I was safe… but I didn’t see her watching me at all past the first five minutes. Wonder why she stayed for the whole thing, really.”

James doesn’t look back at Sirius as he takes both of their brooms and puts them in the otherwise full Gryffindor section.

“None of them seemed particularly interested in the game, did they?” James pouts when he says it like he genuinely doesn’t realize that’s a good thing.

James closes and locks the door, and they’re off again.

“Well, if they were interested in the game they’d probably be on the team.” Sirius’ stiff legs are already dreading the stairs, but James matches his clumsy pace. “I do remember Dorcas saying she’d watch more if we took our shirts off. Maybe you’ll try that in your match against Slytherin.”

James snorts. “Hard to tell who’s on which team.”

Sirius pauses with a frown. “Different coloured scarves?”

James snaps and points at Sirius. “There it is. What’s been missing from Quidditch: nudity and brightly coloured scarves.” They both laugh and come around to another staircase. “She scares me a bit,” James says, hoisting his duffle over his shoulder.

“Dorcas? I like her.”

James huffs and rolls his eyes. “She’s nice to you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” Dorcas has shown up for Sirius a few times now when he’s been at his worst, and she knows he’ll be mean, he’ll be sharp and rude. And she just stares at him, one quirked eyebrow, unimpressed but unoffended, too. She might be the only person he’s ever met that he doesn’t worry about offending. The flipped side of that is that she doesn’t worry about offending him either. She can be blunt, bordering on harsh, but he finds her oddly comforting for it. She is hard, but somehow still kind. He’s not even sure they’re friends, but he thinks maybe they will be someday.

Sirius stares sideways at James, shrugging. “She petrificus totalus-ed me this week.” When she finally ran out of patience for his moping, his bad energy. “Fully immobilized me, ambushed me moving around a corner, dragged me off with Mary. Look at this-” Sirius shows his painted nails. “It doesn’t come off with soap.”

James grabs one of Sirius’ hands and makes a terribly obvious face as he tries not to laugh. The hand Mary painted is a wavering dark green, and the one Dorcas did is five different pastels. It’s horrific, but at least Sirius finds some satisfaction in picking at the edges when they lift.

“Pretty,” James says, lips twitching against a grin.

“Oh, sod off. They’ll get you at some point, put you entirely in drag or something.” Sirius shivers at the image of Dorcas wielding her hair scissors, Mary with her little round brushes.

James nods. “They did that to Peter last year, fake hair and all.” He looks at Sirius out of the corner of his eye, then bites back on a laugh. “He’s wasted on us as a man.”

They pass through the common room together but part ways at the top of the stairs.

“Uh- James?”

James turns back with a hand on his doorknob, and Sirius tries not to sound nervous. It’s not a big deal. It wouldn’t even be that different.

But Sirius has meant to ask James all week, and he keeps backing out at the last second. It would be almost exactly the same, but he stares at his hands, picks at the paint on his nails while he waits for an answer, half hoping James didn’t hear him or something.

“Yeah?”

Sirius swallows. “I don’t think I should sleep in your room anymore…” And he hasn’t, even before he told Remus he wouldn’t anymore, he hasn’t. Not since he saw Remus’ scars. Still… he’s not sleeping again, and he should ask for more sleeping draughts, but he can’t. This is the best he can do for right now.

“You could sleep in mine, though,” Sirius says, switching his duffle into his right hand so that he can reach for the doorknob with his left, a quick escape. “If you wanted. We could find another mattress for the floor or something like that. Like…” Sirius shrugs. “Like at home.”

James stares at Sirius a bit too long, almost long enough for Sirius to awkwardly take the words back. “Depends,” James says eventually. “You are showering, right?”

—

Sirius rolls over to check on James on his mattress on the floor, but he can’t tell whether James is awake. He’s not snoring…

“You said you’d show me your Animagus,” Sirius says once he’s decided he can’t sleep either. James doesn’t answer right away. “James?”

“Like… now?”

Or whenever. It’s fine. If James is almost asleep, he should sleep. Sirius is just bored.

“Yeah. Now.”

Sirius spends a long minute staring at the ceiling waiting for an answer, waiting for snoring at the very least. There’s still no answer when James starts to shuffle, and Sirius rolls over to ask again, coming face to snout-

Sirius scrambles back until he’s pressed up against his wall before he processes James’ form in the dark. Huffing a shaky breath and pressing a palm into his gasping chest, Sirius lights his wand to get a better look.

“Some warning next time,” he grumbles. The deer — James — just breathes loudly through its nose, and somehow Sirius is sure James is laughing at him.

James takes small and ridiculously wobbly steps as he prances in a tight 360° on his mattress while Sirius raises his wand to fight the shadows that cut across him. He’s a bit huge… he has to manoeuvre his head strangely to not bump against the shelves on the wall above his mattress, rear bumping against Sirius’ own bed before he gets himself turned around.

James has glasses-markings around his eyes that make him look like a very intellectual deer. The fur covers the long scars on his back, but the pattern still shows.

“You’re awfully big for a girl deer, aren’t you?”

Sirius hasn’t ever seen a deer up close before. James is a bit more doggish than he expected. He’s not a dog, obviously, but Sirius still has the overwhelming urge to give him a pat on the head.

Less so when James is James again, staring back at Sirius in some terrible affront, arms crossed over his chest. “What are you calling me a girl deer for? I just got out of bed for you. I was halfway asleep and you’re poking at me now?” James lets himself drop cross-legged back into his bed but stares searchingly at Sirius from beneath him. “If you’re bored we can go do something. No need to pick fights.”

Sirius isn’t bored. He’s… something.

He gestures above his own head. “A stag should have antlers, no?”

“Not in the winter!” James drops onto his back with a huff. He rolls back to face Sirius eventually, though. “Thought I was dying the first year. I was just out running in the Forest, and I got this… This sort of compulsion, and when I shook my head- They just dropped on the ground. I still have them, shrunk down and tucked away. It happens every year. They’ll grow back in the spring again.”

“You kept your antlers?”

James grins. “Just the first set! Can you imagine having them on the wall, like in the den or something. They’d just look like décor, but they’re mine.”

Sirius wrinkles his nose. “I’m not setting foot in any flat with antlers on the walls.” It’s a flat, not some sort of shack.

That doesn’t dampen James’ smile at all. “I’ll hang them over my bed.” Sirius winces but doesn’t argue. “That’s a good compromise, right?” Sirius doesn’t answer. He’s not encouraging antlers over the bed. “What? Come on! What? What are you thinking?”

He’s thinking James will never be able to trick a single woman into his bed with antlers over it.

Sirius blows out a slow breath, not encouraging. “I’m thinking… If you had a horse Animagus and you shagged a horse in horse form, but you’re still technically a human, and a magical one… I think you’d make a centaur. Thoughts?”

“Okay, goodnight.”

“Do you think you have deer spunk when you-”

“Goodnight.”

—

He’s killing time. He’s waiting for something.

He doesn’t realize right away. He must have convinced himself he was doing a really good job of getting back out there. Being a friend again, playing Quidditch…

He sneaks Lily into Hogsmeade for the first time, ignoring how James gripes about not being the one to show her the secret passage, and Sirius doesn’t think much of it, the restlessness. The fact that he got himself as far from the castle as he could, and with one of the only people in the world who can almost make him settle, and he doesn’t think much of it. The fact that he’s running away, the fact that he’s hardly sleeping, even with James in his room. It helps. It just doesn’t help enough.

He picks out a birthday gift for Marlene and picks off the last of his flaking nail polish, then moves to the skin around his nails, chewing off chunks and not thinking about it.

And then he goes to chess club with Peter, and he doesn’t even like chess club. He hardly likes chess enough to play a match or two with Peter in the common room, let alone to watch other people play for an hour and a half, but he goes. He’s killing time.

Remus melts a little further into his armchair every day.

Sirius goes to a small Slug Club party as Lily’s guest, and Slughorn is delighted to have him there until he realizes Sirius is estranged from his family now, and then Slughorn seems to lose interest. But Lily and Sirius drink and chat and eat all the fancy food.

Remus stops making faces at his books when he reads.

Sirius goes to Quidditch training and swings a bat for the first time in two months, and his wrist aches something terrible after, but he nurses it with stretches and potions and heat, and for the first time he starts to think he might really be okay some day.

On Sunday — Sunday the tenth of February — Sirius comes back from Quidditch training with James, damp and tired and decently upbeat about it all, and he’s about to cut through the common room and hurry off to his own room to get a potion for his wrist before the cramps can set in, when his eyes scan over to Remus’ chair out of habit.

It’s the tenth of February.

Sirius sits down on his favourite couch. It’s close enough to the fire to be somewhat central, but not so close that the heat makes Marlene’s guitar fall out of tune when they play together. It’s a good couch, somewhere in the social section of the common room, always buzzing with light conversation and easy energy, something that keeps Sirius from feeling isolated even in the crowded room. A good spot in the room — the perfect spot to be able to see Remus curled up in his favourite high-backed armchair.

He’ll be in the hospital now. There’s some fourth year sitting in the chair reading a book all wrong: back straight, feet flat on the floor.

It strikes Sirius that James doesn’t have antlers. The full moon tonight.

He thinks… he thinks maybe he’d be able to breathe a bit better if James had antlers. Peter is a rat and Remus is a werewolf, and James doesn’t even have antlers.

And what the fuck is Sirius doing?

Chapter Text

It’s a bit ridiculous to worry. James and Peter have done this a dozen times at least, and Remus has been a werewolf over a decade. He has… a hundred transformations under his belt, and even if he leaves this one a bit battered, he’ll be well enough. He always is. He’s done this a hundred times.

It’s Sirius’ first, though. The first time… knowing.

And it’s unbearable. Knowing. Not knowing. Being here and not there. He thinks he could help. Part of him is sure of it. He could help. He should be an Animagus, too, and he could help.

But he can’t help, and he’s not an Animagus, and he thinks they’re in the Shrieking Shack. Based on the rumours. Based on Remus saying I do my transformations in an abandoned house.

Sirius has the incredible and unstoppable urge to do something stupid, like walk all the way to Hogsmeade and knock on the boarded up front door.

So he does something else stupid. He crosses the hall…

He was just going to steal a pillow originally. He remembers all the nights where he slept with his face buried in a scrap of torn up tee shirt, how it smelled like Remus for the first few days, how even before he loved Remus, there was something comforting about the presence of him, the smell.

He remembers all the nights when they were together and Remus laid with him until he was sleepy. Remus didn’t even stay the night, but Sirius still thinks those were the closest nights he’s gotten in his life to sleeping like a normal person does. He didn’t even dream, pulled completely under in sheets that smelled like Remus’ hair.

And tonight he’d stared down into Remus’ bed… slightly rumpled sheets, half made, a corner peeled back at the top of the covers like it was just waiting for someone to crawl in…

It’s not like Remus was using it.

Now, worse than not being able to sleep, Sirius doesn’t even want to.

—

Sirius wakes up with a hand shaking his shoulder, James’ face too close to his. He grumbles and rolls away, burying his face into more fabric that smells like Remus. He only just got to sleep. He doesn’t want to wake up yet.

“Sirius, you already missed breakfast. You have Arithmancy. Get up.”

Sirius fights to keep hold of the blankets as James yanks on them. Sirius manages to keep a good grip on just the top sheet as the thicker comforter is pulled away, and the cold cuts through him quickly. Sirius grumbles his way into a seated position until the night catches up with him. He grabs James’ arm before James can walk away. “Remus. How is he?”

James’ eyes flit from Sirius’ hand around his wrist to Sirius’ legs under just the thin top sheet. James frowns, tugs his arm lightly until Sirius lets go, then pushes his glasses up, still staring at Sirius, still frowning at Sirius in Remus’ bed.

James huffs and drops a shoulder onto the bedpost. “He’ll be in the hospital wing all day.” His eyes drop away from Sirius, then find him again. “No breaks, no scars. He’s alright.”

Sirius nods and starts to shift to the edge of the bed, setting his feet on the cold stone floor and wincing. “You and Pete?”

James shakes his head. “One of Pete’s socks got wet on the walk down — said he could still feel it in rat form. Ruined his night.”

Sirius forgets to laugh, but he stands and watches James crawl in next to Peter — his own bed having no mattress on it. Peter snores softly but shifts up to make room for James like it’s second nature.

“I want to be an Animagus, too,” Sirius says. He consciously stops himself from rolling his bad wrist. “I’m not good at things with a lot of steps. It’s more than just spellwork, yeah?”

James folds his glasses and sets them on the small table beside him. He blinks up at Sirius, clearly half asleep but doing his best to listen anyway. “It’s a whole process,” James says. “Dangerous, too.”

Sirius nods. He’d learned something about it at some point. Mandrake leaves and spells and a potion… several months and specific weather. Something. A lot of somethings. “I know.” He bites his lip and watches James’ eyelids drift closed. James blinks them back open when Sirius talks again. “I’ll need your help.”

“Yeah…” James rolls over and tucks his hands under his head. “Later. Go away now.”

—

Sirius walks to McGonagall’s classroom, walks right into a fourth year Transfiguration lesson, then realizes he was meant to be in Arithmancy. He’s late, and he’s unreasonably angry with Remus over it.

He’s upset with Remus for being a werewolf. For being sick and making Sirius worry. He’s angry at Remus for the fact that Sirius can’t help him, and that doesn’t even make sense.

And he stews in it anyway all through Arithmancy, anxious and nervous and irritable. The only thing that gets him through the lesson is keeping track of every passing second, a steady tapping of his boot that sends the metal tip of one of his laces knocking against the leg of his chair, ting, ting, ting, ting…..

He has a good internal metronome. He’s not listening to the lesson, but the tinging of his shoelace cap keeps him from floating away entirely. He thinks it might be from all the years of ballroom dancing, his brain always wanting to keep time. He likes it, having a head full of music. Ting, ting, ting, ting… He needs to get good enough at guitar that it matters — so far, his fingers aren’t strong enough for any rhythm in his mind to come through.

Ting, ting, ting, ting…

He plays a song now and he knows how it’s supposed to go. He can hear it in his head perfectly, and then he makes the right sounds on the guitar, but it’s full of starts and stops, speed-ups and slowdowns, his hands never quite on the same page as his brain, as each other — a string plucked, no sounds coming out because his other hand hadn’t fully found its place on the fretboard yet.

Ting-

Severus turns to glare at Sirius’ fidgeting feet, and Sirius bites his tongue. He presses the soles of his boots flat into the ground, picks up his quill, stares down into his blank parchment.

Sirius waits for Snape to turn around again and transfigures the back of his robes magenta. It doesn’t make him feel any better.

He wonders if he could ball up little pieces of parchment and time a sticking charm with throwing them, see if he could make them stick to Snape’s vibrantly pink back.

The lesson ends.

Sirius has a free period after that. He finds himself throwing an alohomora at the infirmary door and pushing his way to Remus, the furthest bed at the back of the room, curtains drawn.

He hovers over the bed until he can’t stand the sight of Remus anymore — bruised and battered against the perfect white sheets — then sinks onto the floor.

He wants to bang his own head off the wall, shake Remus awake and demand an apology for the ridiculous unfairness of it all. Why do you have to be sick?

He just sits instead. Sits and stares. At the smooth tiled floor, the pale walls, the surprising amount of dust on the floorboards.

It shouldn’t be dusty in here. That can’t be sterile.

The wheeled bed shifts, creaking slightly as Remus changes positions, and then a soft pained noise has Sirius springing to his feet. Remus’ eyes are pinched closed, but his face is crumpled in enough pain that Sirius knows he can’t possibly be asleep.

“Hey,” Sirius says, soft but clear. “What do you need? Pomfrey?”

Remus wrinkles his nose. “Sirius?” He peels his eyes open slowly, like they’re sticky, like they’re heavy… like it’s hard. Like it’s a lot of work to open his eyes.

Sirius puts a hand on Remus’ cheek, focus. “What do you need? What can I do?”

Remus closes his eyes again, breaths coming short and jagged. “Potions. Beside me.”

Sirius scans around, finds a tray of potions on the other side of the bed. Remus might be able to reach for it himself if he strained, but Sirius leaves a hand on his cheek like he’s saying don’t you dare try to move. “I’ll get it. There are a few. Which one?”

“How many are there?”

“Four.”

“All of them.”

Sirius starts to pull away, then doesn’t. He summons the first phial into his free hand, feeling Remus shiver under the other. “Cold? I can get you another blanket.”

“Not cold.” Remus huffs something that might just be the world’s most pathetic laugh. “I… I can feel your magic when you do that.”

Sirius bites his lip. He hates that it takes two hands to open the potion, but he pulls away and unstoppers the phial, then searches around until he finds a lever on the side of the bed that makes Remus’ top half come up. When he finally looks to Remus again, Remus’ eyes are open, resting quizzically on Sirius.

“What are you doing here?” Remus asks.

“Drink.”

Remus drinks the potion, then he settles his gaze back on Sirius, waiting for his answer. Sirius ignores him, summoning and unstoppering the next one, swapping the phials in Remus’ hand. Drink.

Remus presses his lips together, then brings the bottle to them. Sirius summons and opens the next one. They do all the potions like that, Sirius lining up the empty bottles on the small table by Remus’ head, a neat row under his wand. When Remus hands off the last phial, an unpleasant curl to his lips as he winces the potion away, he fixes his eyes on Sirius again. “Sirius.”

And the anger snaps back, some how dare you at Remus asking him questions that he doesn’t want to answer. Why are you here — Remus knows why Sirius is here. They both know why.

“When people are in the hospital, you visit them. When they’re sick, you show up. That’s what you do.”

It’s unfair, snapping at Remus. Now, of all times.

Sirius always seems to do this when Remus is half-dead, doesn’t he?

Still, Sirius glares at Remus until he can’t bear it anymore, the crumple in Remus’ features, the dullness of his skin, the sad little pout on his lips. “I did come see you in the hospital, you know,” Remus says quietly. “Or, tried. They wouldn’t let me into your room. Unstable and all that. Not family, not married. I… I did try.”

“Once,” Sirius says under his breath.

Remus swallows and folds his hands against his stomach. “If I were smart I’d have waited until you were stable. I proved my dad right with that one. That I… wasn’t thinking, wasn’t being smart about… Well, he said about my condition, but I wasn’t being smart about yours really. I know protocols about when a patient is allowed visitors. I wasn’t thinking.”

Sirius shifts to lean a hip against the bed. He can’t quite read Remus’ face, his tone. His words… Why could he only visit once? “Your dad…? What… what does your condition have to do with mine?”

Remus gives a tiny shake to his head, but he looks thoughtful more than dismissive, so Sirius doesn’t push yet.

“It’s not… I’m a bit-” he gestures vaguely to his own face. “Conspicuous. To someone who knows what they’re looking for. Someone who knows werewolf inflicted injuries, scars. The texture is… singular. A Healer would know what I am at a glance. I’m not meant to be anywhere near a hospital. Risk of being found out, being registered. You know how bad that could be for me, the laws they’re trying to pass right now. And, obviously Healers are meant to have privacy rules, protocols, but it only takes one wrong person knowing. They could tip off the Registry anonymously. They could make some passing comment to a friend or a spouse… It doesn’t matter that it’d be illegal if they told on me because it would still… It would still get me registered. So… I guess I proved I was being… reckless.”

Sirius’ stomach drops at the thought. “Maybe that was a bit… shortsighted.”

Remus shrugs, a small lift of just one shoulder that still seems to take more energy than he has to give. “A bit.”

Sirius sits just on the edge of Remus’ bed, half of his arse, feet still flat on the floor. “I wish you’d visited when I was at James’.”

Remus winces as he shifts his legs to make room for Sirius. “Grounded,” he says on a grunt.

“Because you tried to see me?”

Remus closes his eyes. “And then my dad saw…” He clears his throat and runs his knuckles over his neck, over that spot where Sirius had left a bruise forever ago, whispered magic into it so that it wouldn’t heal on its own. “I’m not seventeen, so… I couldn’t reapply the glimmer over the hols.” Remus drops his hand back into the sheets. “Proved I was…” Remus’ eyes are still closed, but Sirius could swear Remus is rolling them anyway. “Unrestrained. I-”

“It’s gone.”

Sirius almost doesn’t believe it, won’t believe it, but there’s a mole by Remus’ jaw that Sirius hasn’t seen in months. The glimmer that used to cover the love bite must have covered the mole up too, only he can see it now. “The… on your neck. You healed it?”

“No,” Remus says. He meets Sirius’ eyes for one incredibly intense second, then looks away again. “My dad… found it offensive.” Sirius watches Remus swallow. The light is hitting his throat just right for it to be a whole production every time the muscles tense, cartilage and tendons dragging inward. His adam’s apple sinks and then draws back up. “I… but yeah… it’s gone now.”

And the part of Sirius’ brain that must be completely clinically insane almost offers to put it back. He doesn’t say that. Obviously.

“I almost didn’t come back,” Remus muses quietly. “After the hols.”

The words are a punch in the stomach, but Sirius manages to keep his reaction small, one quick breath, nothing more.

He can barely wrap his head around Remus leaving in over a year. That Remus might have just disappeared without even a goodbye, without any warning…

No.

Remus wouldn’t do that. Not to himself, his friends… he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to Sirius. He wouldn’t just disappear without a word. He’s lying.

Remus doesn’t expand on his statement, and Sirius can’t stand to wait. “You didn’t want to come back?” Sirius asks, tight. The twitch in Remus’ jaw is almost imperceptible, but it tells Sirius everything somehow. “Your dad didn’t want you to come back.”

Remus’ hand creeps up toward his throat again but doesn’t make it there before it falls back into the sheets, gesture aborted.

Reckless. Unrestrained. Sirius can’t think of any words that are less accurate descriptions of Remus’ character.

It’s so far from the truth. It’s the opposite of the truth. Careful and controlled, calm… That’s everything Sirius loves about Remus. That he is soft-spoken and gentle, sweet with Sirius when no one else has ever been, would ever think to be. That he is so incredibly contained and steady when Sirius feels wild and explosive.

“He doesn’t trust you,” Sirius says. Remus’ father must not know him at all, must not see him at all. It’s not hard to guess what someone like that would see. “Because you’re a werewolf?”

Remus shrugs. “He doesn’t trust me because I’m not him. But… a bit of that, yeah. It’s easier to blame me than himself… for what I am. I can’t ever be like him.”

And Sirius hasn’t met Remus’ father, but he can’t help thinking Thank Merlin for that.

“Yeah, well,” Sirius blows out a breath, lets it puff up his cheeks before fanning out somewhere in front of him. “Who wants to be just like their parents, anyway?”

Remus gives Sirius a small smile. “Maybe James.”

“His parents are psychotic, and he is just like them.” Sirius rolls his eyes, then looks back to Remus. It’s a subdued sort of humour between them, genuine, but tense and quiet. Sirius lets it pass. “You’re here now. You came back. Did your father change his mind?”

There’s a conspicuous tick in Remus’ jaw, a twitch at his temple. “No. He did not.”

Sirius’ stomach sinks. Careful, carefully, he asks, “Are you in trouble?”

Remus laughs. “I’d imagine… yeah. I didn’t tell him I was leaving. He’s not really the Howler type, so I won’t really know until I get home again. I haven’t heard from him.” He shakes his head. “I think I might stay here until the summer, see if he cools off, but… yeah.”

Sirius’ stomach turns at the laugh, the easy, careless… and slightly apprehensive laugh. “Are you safe?”

The ease slides off of Remus’ face, slipping into something that looks dangerously close to real worry, and Sirius’ heart might just stop beating in his chest.

“Sirius-” Remus says it imploringly, and Sirius keeps searching his face, searching for scars that he must have misunderstood, scars that aren’t from the wolf at all, but- “Sirius, yes. It’s- It’s not like yours. I’m okay. Just… gonna be a bit of a miserable summer, but I’m okay.”

Sirius pinches his eyes closed. “You’ll be safe there?”

“Yes.”

Sirius lets out a shaking breath. “Okay.”

He takes a long time trying to collect himself, trying to breathe right so that his heart can stop racing. He drops a hand into the sheets beside him but doesn’t realize he’s reaching out until his fingers are curled tight around Remus’ wrist. It’s still hard to breathe through all the pressure in his chest, short little gasps that leave him in aching pants, but he tries to slow them down, breathe. “Okay,” he says.

Remus’ wrist fights against Sirius’ hold on him, and Sirius almost refuses to let Remus pull away. All Remus does, though, is flip his wrist until he can wrap his own fingers back around Sirius.

That’s actually an old form of a handshake, two men gripping each other’s forearms, tight and quick. It would be considered formal and severe, but this is different. Sirius’ grip is too tight, and Remus checks to see which of Sirius’ arms he’s holding — his unscarred one — before matching his grip.

Tight is good. Too tight is better. Grounding. Forcing Sirius into his body and out of his head, he squeezes Remus tighter, and Remus mirrors him again. Sirius lets out another shaky breath. “Okay,” he repeats.

“Sorry,” Remus whispers. “I… I wasn’t thinking. I could have been clearer.”

Sirius drops his eyes to the floor, other hand fumbling until it can wrap around Remus’ hand against Sirius’ wrist. “It’s not you.” He takes another fortifying breath, then straightens up again. “I- uh… I didn’t know that would happen.”

Remus nods, and neither of them let go. Remus pulses his grip on Sirius, like he knows Sirius needs more input, more something.

“I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Sirius says eventually, eyes on his forearm. Remus’ hand around him, Sirius’ other hand on top of Remus’. “With… the mark on your throat. You should have healed it. I wouldn’t have…” Sirius lies, knows he’s lying but tries to force the words into a truth by saying them out loud. “I wouldn’t have been offended.” He looks up at Remus, finds Remus’ eyes already on him. Remus is looking more alert, potions starting to help. “I wasn’t thinking about how your parents would react.” He laughs awkwardly. “I guess I wasn’t thinking much of anything.”

Anything except mine.

Remus shrugs, something that almost pulls Sirius into him by just a millimetre. “I’d have healed it if I wanted to.”

It’s unbelievably unfair, that Remus can say things that sound a lot like I’d have kept a piece of you on my skin foreverwhile simultaneously pulling his hand away from Sirius.

Sirius lets Remus pull away, but he doesn’t break his stare. “Would you have wanted to? Eventually?”

Remus doesn’t answer right away, never answers as quickly as Sirius’ mind would like, but he’s thoughtful. Always thoughtful. “I don’t know if it matters now,” Remus says. “It’s gone. So.” He shrugs.

“Answer me.”

There’s a tiny click of teeth as Remus closes his mouth, a tiny flex in his jaw. “No,” he says, soft. “I wouldn’t have healed it.”

Sirius nods and pulls away, moves across the room and collects the stiff wooden chair from beside another empty bed. He stands with his hands on the back until he can relax his facial expression into something neutral.

He carries the chair over to Remus’ bed.

It’s not working. The whole distance thing, avoiding each other. Or trying to, as well as either of them can seem to manage. It’s not working for Remus either. He’s not getting over Sirius at all.

And he wouldn’t have healed Sirius’ mark eventually.

He doesn’t anticipate ever getting over Sirius.

Sirius only bothers to look up at Remus once he’s plunked himself into the chair. Remus: downcast eyes, air punched out of his lungs, both hands pressing into his stomach like he’s fighting a wave of nausea. Sirius realizes belatedly what it must have looked like, seeing him walk away.

It’s sickening, that Remus can feel so disposable.

Someone lied to him and told him he was worthless, and he believed them. Sirius could set the whole fucking world on fire.

Sirius clenches his fists and his jaw until he’s sure he can keep his mouth shut. He uncurls his hands and wraps them around the arms of his chair, kicks his feet up onto the end of the mattress, leans his head back.

”Sirius?” Remus’ voice is tremblingly tentative.

”Hm?”

”What are you doing?”

He’s staying, that’s what he’s doing. He has a free right now, and he’s staying here.

The whole fucking world has been cruel to Remus, and Sirius doesn’t have enough grovel in him to make up for it. For a boy that was a werewolf longer than he ever got to be a person, a boy who isn’t safe from prejudice anywhere in the world, not even in his own home. Sirius can’t make up for any of that.

The first person to have ever seen any value in Remus would have been Dumbledore, wouldn’t it? And Remus wants to be worth something so badly that he’d let Dumbledore throw him away too if he promises it’s for a good cause.

Sirius takes a steadying breath, then slouches a little further in his chair and crosses his ankles, feeling one foot come to rest against Remus’ calf and leaving it there. Remus doesn’t pull away, so Sirius presses in further, feet tight against Remus. Sirius doesn’t open his eyes to answer. “I have a free.”

“Right.”

Sirius adjusts his back where the chair’s cutting in, then huffs and looks over at Remus, finding him watching. Sirius raises his eyebrows. “You, I’m guessing, didn’t sleep at all last night. Sleep.”

Remus lets out a small shaky breath, then shrugs. He folds his fingers together in his lap. “Um… sure. Or… anyway, I’ll just rest awhile. You should take a bed if you need to. Pomfrey won’t mind.”

Sirius cracks his eyes to assess Remus as well as he can without raising his head. “I’m staying here.”

Remus looks like he could argue, but he nods. “I’ll wake you in time for your next lesson if you want.”

“You really won’t sleep?” He can’t tell if Remus is just pretending to be tough, trying to be chivalrous.

“That one potion makes me jittery. It’ll pass in an hour or so, but I’m just… I’ll rest for now. You don’t need to entertain me. Sleep if you’re tired. I’ll wake you.”

Sirius considers it, then pulls himself upright. “You were reading that book in my room, yeah?” Sirius digs in his bag, sure he’d dumped the book in the bottom of it at some point. He shows it to Remus: the gaudy cover should be hard to forget. “This one? I saw you check which page you were on.”

Remus’ mouth tightens fractionally in that classically Remus not-smile. Imperceptible if you don’t know him, entirely obvious to Sirius.

“I think I’ve read about ten books since then. I hardly remember it.”

“Perfect,” Sirius says, tossing the book so that it lands in Remus’ lap. “You can start at the beginning again, get the full effect.” In a moment of absolute brilliance, Sirius pulls his chair up closer to Remus’ bed and folds his arms against the mattress, drops his head into them and smiles. “You can read to me, actually, that way James’ mum won’t disown me for being illiterate.”

The bed shifts and Sirius knows Remus is grabbing the book. Sirius smiles into his elbow.

“She’ll disown you for that?”

Sirius nods and yawns into his arm. “That’s how I’m paying rent there. I’m Book Club.”

Remus laughs. “But you can’t read?”

“Not four hundred pages. Can you?” Sirius asks like he doesn’t know the answer, like Remus hasn’t read four hundred pages three times this week.

Remus’ only answer comes in the form of flipping pages, a gentle slide of paper on paper, then a pause. A breath.

“It was the summer of 1747, the driest one in decades. No amount of magic could keep the oppressive heat from creeping up through cracks in the old carriage, but Maibilee knew…”

Remus has a nice voice for reading. He has a nice voice.

Chapter Text

Why is someone touching Sirius’ feet?

“Stop that,” he grumbles, kicking at the hand. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, nor really pulling his feet away, just kicking out again when someone grabs him. “Stop.”

The hand does disappear, but that doesn’t mean Remus lets Sirius sleep.

“You have Transfiguration in like three minutes, Sirius. Don’t make me be the reason you get another detention. You have to get up.”

Sirius grumbles and lifts his head an inch, rubbing the back of his scalp to soothe an ache he doesn’t understand.

There’s a dent in his scalp from the back of the wooden chair. A dent.

“Fine, I’m up,” Sirius says, eyes still closed.

“You said that five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, well. I mean it this time.” He doesn’t even remember five minutes ago. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. For a long time, he just sat and listened to Remus’ steady reading and slowly turned pages, words floating by him, sometimes making a picture in his head, a woman on a journey, bandits… sometimes just the music of Remus’ voice, not processing any words at all. And now he has to go to Transfiguration. He’s tired.

Sirius hears shifting and ignores it until he feels a hand wrap around his wrist. “Sirius.”

Sirius’ eyes spring open, finding Remus leaning over him. Remus out of bed leaning over him. “Lie down! You’re sick. What’s wrong with you?”

Remus just laughs, gives a little tug again on Sirius’ arm, and Sirius stands up just so he can push Remus back into his hospital bed. Remus sits on the edge and stares up at Sirius, mouth twisted up in the corner as he tries not to smile.

“I’m too sick to be out of bed but not too sick for you to push me around?” Remus rolls his eyes, still smiling up at Sirius.

“If you hadn’t gotten out of bed-”

“Then you would not have gotten out of that chair. You’re going to be late. Go.”

Sirius narrows his eyes at Remus. “Or what? Going to drag me across the castle dressed for death? You’re in hospital clothes — I know you won’t let yourself be seen like that. You don’t have any threats for me.”

Remus pushes out a leg and hooks a strap of Sirius’ rucksack over one of his socked feet. He lifts the bag until he can grab the strap with his hand. “I’m not going to threaten you. I’m going to bribe you.” He points behind himself to the bedside table where his wand was resting when Sirius came in, now accompanied by a plate with half a sandwich on it. “You slept through lunch.”

Sirius tries not to look, but he feels his nostrils flare. It smells like Black Forest ham. “Half a sandwich,” Sirius grumbles. He normally eats two sandwiches.

Remus holds Sirius’ bag out, and Sirius takes it and tosses the strap over his shoulder. “And half my orange slices, too.” He gropes around in the bed until he finds Effie’s book under a lump of sheets. “And your book. Now, go.”

Sirius waves the book off, reaching for an orange slice instead. “Finish it if you want to. I’m not reading it. Actually, tell me about it when you’re done.” Sirius throws a peel back on the plate, starving now that he’s smelled food. He takes down the next orange slice, tosses the peel, then grabs for the sandwich. “That way I can pretend I read it for James’ mum. Mm, this is fantastic. How much time do I have?”

Remus’ eyes flick to the clock. He winces. “Almost a minute.”

—

“You weren’t at lunch,” James mumbles out of the corner of his mouth while McGonagall writes on the board.

“Fell asleep,” Sirius says, low, talking more to the desk than to James. He doesn’t say fell asleep halfway into Remus’ bed, because frankly he does know that trying to crawl into Remus’ sheets twice in one day is excessive.

“I’m dead tired,” James says. “Wake me if she starts looking suspicious?” He nods to McGonagall.

Sirius turns to James — half asleep already, head resting on his parchment at an angle that twists his glasses crooked on his face — and is struck by an incredible bout of affection. James who hates to stay up past midnight, who pulls all-nighters every month for Remus.

James going into the most important Quidditch match of the year on next to no sleep. James who became an Animagus, who has deep scars carved down his back and never stopped loving Remus for it.

Lily said that she’s been seeing James differently lately in part because of how he’s taken care of Sirius following his own injury. She has no idea that James is practiced in all this. James who never stops taking care of the people around him.

“I’ll duplicate my notes for you,” Sirius says, voice suddenly thick and scratchy. “Sleep.”

—

Sirius walks between Lily and Peter down to the Quidditch Pitch, a duo who he’s never seen together before, and he’s surprised by how easily they talk.

Peter has a subtle talent for sneaking James into the conversation. He talks about his budgies back at his dad’s house, and turns to Lily and says, “I think James mentioned you have a cat, yeah? Big ugly orange thing?”

And it’s subtle, the insinuation that James talks about her, that James knows about her, but Peter doesn’t make it into anything either. Let’s the comment float away, let’s Lily decide what to do with it.

“Munch, yeah,” she says. “Hideous. Ugliest cat you’ve ever seen. I almost brought him here, actually, but he’s more of a family cat than mine. Not that my sister actually likes him, mind, but she’d never let me take him away. I’m getting another one as soon as I have my own flat, though.”

They find seats in the stands. Sirius, without much to contribute on the topic of pets, wonders about Remus’ dog. 11 years old… he wonders whether Remus will have to leave Albert behind when he leaves, or whether Albert will still be around in a year and a half anyway. Some dogs live a long time, but those are usually the smaller ones, right? Sirius doesn’t know much about dogs. His parents never agreed with the concept of pets.

He thinks he’d have liked to have had a dog.

Albert’s big, and Remus didn’t seem to think he had a lot of years left in him. He wonders if Remus will get another dog, if he can have a dog with whatever Dumbledore has him doing. Sirius would hope so, if it helps with his transformations. If James and Peter won’t be able to help Remus wherever he ends up…

Sirius comes back to himself with Lily laughing beside him, seated in the middle now between Sirius and Peter. “You know,” she says. “I imagined it’d be Sirius talking my ear off about Quidditch. Why don’t you play?”

Peter shrugs. “More of an intellectual pursuit. It’s too fast-paced for me in action, but I like the theory. It takes a specific kind of brains to make all those decisions in the heat of the moment, Bludgers coming at you, people flying all around.”

And since Peter doesn’t specifically credit James with being so very brilliant, Lily can nod. “I guess it would, yeah. I wouldn’t be able to do that. Lot of pressure.” She elbows Sirius. “Only one more match after this one, then you’re on the team.”

The energy in the stands is starting to sink into Sirius, and there’s an anxiety to the buzz of it all, but a good kind. He imagines himself walking out onto the pitch, absorbing the crowd from there, ready to perform. It’s a good anxious. Adrenaline.

“Only one more Gryffindor match,” Sirius corrects. “Like three more matches across all Houses. Still. Yeah.” He shrugs and pointedly doesn’t look at Lily or Peter. “I mean, I know I won’t ever be James, but it’s still fun.”

Lily rolls her eyes but strains toward the pitch, scanning. “He’s not that good, is he?”

Peter leans around Lily, throwing Sirius a wink behind her back. “Did you hear about Divination? Third time this week someone’s tried to keep him off the pitch.”

Sirius laughs. “No, what happened? Someone trying to wind him up again so he puts himself in detention?”

“Someone put something in his tea! I swapped his cup with Dung’s when no one was looking — colour seemed off. He’s been in the hospital wing ever since. Probably Dung who spiked him, though. He never sits with us.”

Everyone stands as the teams march onto the pitch, and they make a great show of cheering, not because any of it really matters but because it’s fun to be involved. As the captains shake hands, Peter leans in. “This is going to be brutal,” he whispers. “Mulciber looks about ready to tear Gideon’s arm off.”

At a whistle, they fly off.

And it’s brutal.

It’s a Slytherin-dominated atmosphere, Slughorn refereeing, heavy but still quick on his broom. Severus at the podium, slow and mild commentary as the teams batter one another. Slughorn misses calls on fouls, and the game gets dirtier with every passing second. The Gryffindor team can barely hold onto the Quaffle amidst all the attacks. Beaters swinging their bats out when there’s no Bludger around, just for the sake of almost hitting a Chaser, making James or Emmeline throw themselves out of the way, missing the opportunity to interfere on a play or completely dropping the Quaffle in their haste.

In the stands, Peter, Lily, and Sirius spend an hour inching closer to the edge of their seats, arms tangled together, nearly silent except for Peter’s steady commentary on the grey areas of illegality being exploited.

There’s no grey area, however, when Gideon takes a Beater’s Bat to the wrist, a shattering scream that sends him plummeting toward the pitch, and then silence. The whole school and faculty watching, standing, silent.

The air breaks abruptly into soft whispers as he disappears on a stretcher, then a terrible cheering from just the Slytherin section.

Gryffindor is down by three hundred points and now has no Keeper.

James calls for a timeout and flies straight to McGonagall. Snape’s voice drawls overhead. “If Potter thinks he can postpone the remainder of the game after the precedent that was set in ‘69-“

James points into the crowd, points suspiciously close to Sirius, and Sirius starts running, cutting through the stands.

There aren’t meant to be substitutions in a match unless it’s been going on for ages. A team can have 8 players or 30, but only seven of them will see the pitch in a game.

Still, James is waving him over, so Sirius runs.

“Gryffindor is hoping to play a reserve… Sirius Black, transfer from Beauxbatons, has apparently been training with the Gryffindor team for some months now.” Snape’s voice bleeds disdain. “Recently recovering from some catastrophicinjuries of his own… he’ll be subbing in for Keeper if they’ll allow it, although the rules do clearly state…”

Keeper.

Sirius nabs Gideon’s gloves and broom, and James heads him off on the pitch with a set of scarlet robes. “Hope that arm’s good and healed,” James whispers as the legality of a substitution is debated loudly at the announcer’s podium. Since Gideon’s injury resulted from such an egregious and violent foul, a substitution will be permitted.

“Good as it’s getting. Any advice?” The robes are dirty from Gideon’s fall, but Sirius shucks his jacket and pulls them on.

James blows out a breath. “With how skilled you are as a Keeper? Maybe try catching the Snitch.”

“Helpful as ever,” Sirius mumbles, kicking off.

“That was a joke. Don’t do that. That’s illegal.” James flies after him, shouting until Sirius slows a bit, and then they’re flying together. James huffs a stressed breath “Just… We’ll play lots of defence. They’ll try to draw you out, but don’t go for it. They can fly faster forward than you can fly backward. Don’t come more than ten feet off the hoops.”

“Alright.”

Sirius pulls on his gloves and flies out to his position.

Everyone does their best. The Slytherins, luckily, seem a bit thrown. They must have planned all their offensive tactics around Gideon’s playbook, because they hesitate around Sirius. Slughorn starts to make some less forgiving calls.

Slytherin are better scorers than Sirius is equipped for, and the Gryffindor Chasers do end up playing a lot of defence. Emmeline hardly ever flies past the midpoint of the pitch so that she can interfere quickly if Slytherin gets possession, hopefully keeping the Quaffle far from Sirius, but that doesn’t allow her to score.

James and Charlotte do though. Ten points at a time.

Sirius bounces around in front of the rings, trying to stay decently central, and trying not to get too bored. How Keepers and Seekers stay motivated when they only get a few seconds of action every few minutes or longer is beyond him, but the adrenaline of the watching crowd keeps him buzzed. The Gryffindors start chants when his energy dips, and he encourages it. He ducks what he thinks is an abnormal amount of Bludgers coming his way, but manages to block a few Quaffles, too. Not all of them.

Gryffindor is down by 210 when the Snitch is finally caught with a bracing wince, everyone standing to see if the tiny red-robed Seeker collides with Frank Longbottom’s massive form in her haste. Frank drops his bat and catches the girl, and she raises a fist.

It’s a loss, but it’s enough. It’s enough to keep them in the running for the Quidditch Cup.

The Slytherins rile up the crowd, players flying through the stands and grabbing people, pulling their friends onto their brooms and cheering, but Gryffindor cheers too. Charlotte and Em carry the tiny Seeker up to a group of jumping third-years, and James tackles Sirius.

Sirius must have expected some sort of grief at the loss — he’s completely floored by James shaking his shoulder, shouting over and over again that this is Sirius’ win. Sirius held down the team, Sirius kept spirits up, Sirius is going to help them win the cup. They could still win the cup.

Sirius lets the energy soak into him, catches his breath, shouts and shakes James back. James and all the points he scored, James training Sirius early, James and the third-year Seeker he scouted.

The Beaters join the pile, and they all shout some more. Frank and his heroic catch. Very romantic, everyone teases. Frank argues that he fancies someone else, so they call him an adulterer. He laughs and calls them all perverts, she’s fourteen.

“Well,” James says eventually, starting to untangle himself from the dog-pile and pull people up behind him. “We do know Frank prefers older girls.”

And whatever James means by that, Frank tackles him again, red-cheeked and laughing.

Sirius finds himself tackled again the minute he stands up, red hair in his mouth, knitted cap itching his face, and he grabs and spins Lily until she’s banging on his back, demanding to be let down. They’re both stumbling and dizzy by the time he does, Sirius catching himself against Peter, and Lily falling into James’ shoulder, then quickly stumbling away, apologizing.

Sirius watches as James and the Beaters join the other Chasers up in the stands, together hoisting the Seeker up onto their shoulders and carrying her around like a giggling trophy, and the stands empty as everyone starts to move to the castle.

Sirius moves with the crowd until he reaches his set of stairs, then breaks off alone. If Remus is still in the infirmary, someone should fill him in on what he missed. Sirius should.

But Sirius finds only two beds filled in the infirmary, Mundungus and Gideon. He shouts the end score for Gideon without properly entering, waves brightly to an unimpressed Madam Pomfrey, then turns around.

The Gryffindor common room is packed and buzzing when Sirius steps through the portrait hole. There’s already music and dancing, Butterbeer on one side and dramatic retellings of plays on the other, and it’s fantastic. Sirius finds Peter quickly, who supplies him with a drink.

“Where’s James?” Sirius asks, scanning the celebration, the dancers, the gawking crowd around half the Gryffindor team.

Peter elbows Sirius and points to a couch pushed out of the way, James and Lily each with a bottle in their hands. James laughs and runs a hand through his hair, and Lily takes another swig of beer to hide her smile.

“It’s happening!” Sirius smacks Peter’s arm, and Peter shoves him off.

“Nothing’s happening,” Peter argues. “James thinks something’s gonna happen. He keeps touching his hair. Wanker.”

“No, look! Look! Look at his arm!” Sirius points with one hand (with his bottle), whacks Peter on the arm with the other. James and Lily are both sitting sideways on the sofa to face each other, and James’ one arm is thrown along the back of the couch. Lily leans sideways on her shoulder, pressed against the back of the couch too, and she isn’t leaning away from him. James’ hand is almost touching Lily’s shoulder, and she isn’t leaning away.

Peter shoves Sirius off again, shrugging. “She probably just hasn’t noticed it.”

As Peter says it, though, James curls his finger around a single lock of Lily’s hair. His eyes drop to his hand, her hair, and then jump back to her face. Sirius and Peter both grab at each other, shushing each other when no one was talking. Lily’s eyes drop to James’ hand too, then back up to his face.

“He’s gonna do it,” Sirius whispers.

“He’s not,” Peter whispers back.

Sirius can’t even bear to take a pull from his drink and risk missing anything. He and Peter both lean more against the high back of the chair that’s partially obscuring them from Lily and James’ view, if the two of them could be bothered to look at anyone but one another in the first place.

“He’s leaning in,” Peter says.

“So is she.”

“Oh, barely. He’s gonna have to make the move.”

“Touch her face!” Sirius whispers, trying to force the thought into James’ head. James just smiles besottedly, says something else to Lily. When he adjusts the way he’s sitting, the lock of hair slides out from where it was draped softly over his finger, and James doesn’t reach out for more.

“He’s not going to do it.”

“He might.”

Peter shakes his head. “They’ve done this before, gotten close. A bit tipsy, James just come off the high of something. It never actually turns into anything.” Peter takes another swig. “He’s never touched her hair, though.”

How tipsy can either of them be when the match only ended less than an hour ago? Even a lightweight like Lily — she won’t be on more than her second Butterbeer, even if she was that ambitious.

Lily answers something, and her eyes drop to James’ lips for a fraction of a second.

“She’s flirting,” Sirius says. “She was looking him up and down. James, she’s flirting!” Peter smacks at Sirius like he’s talking too loud, even though they’re completely on the other side of the room.

James says something else and Lily laughs. She goes to touch his arm, clearly forgetting about the Butterbeer in her hand, and she spills a bit down James’ front. “Oh, no…”

Peter slaps a hand over his mouth, and Sirius finally downs some of his drink, getting far too big of a gulp in his hurry not to miss anything. “It’s just a spill…”

Lily must be apologizing. She sets her drink on the floor, reaches for her wand, kneels in closer to James, talking all the while, awkward and fumbling and so clearly embarrassed.

“It’s not even his clothes,” Peter says, a small plea in his voice. “It’s a school uniform, the kits. He didn’t even have to pay for it. Who cares?”

Sirius sighs. “She’s gonna offer to Tergeo him.”

“James doesn’t care about some Butterbeer,” Peter says, but he’s wincing.

“Yeah, but she will.” Sirius takes another drink, leans more of his weight against the back of the chair.

But as Lily keeps moving closer to James, completely red in the face and still bumbling through some sort of apology, James’ hand slides up around her neck and closes the distance between them.

Peter and Sirius watch in stunned silence. “Did he really…”

“Now? James…” Sirius shakes his head. “That’s not gonna work. She shuts down when she’s embarrassed. Bad move. That’s worse than just-“ Sirius pushes himself off the chair, ready to go rescue Lily. He whacks Peter on the arm again, pointing with his Butterbeer. “See, look. She’s pulling away… Oh, he’s useless. Hopeless. Socially fucking inept.”

Sirius downs the remainder of his drink, then sets the empty bottle on the nearest flat surface, but sees Lily laughing when Sirius looks back up. Laughing.

She has a hand on James’ chest but doesn’t use it to try to push him away at all, just throws her hair over her shoulder, laughs and shakes her head, then drops her forehead against James’ collarbone, hiding her blush against him.

Sirius pauses, watches, frowns. “Huh…”

James frowns too, stares down at the top of Lily’s head, whispers something. When Lily looks up again, she’s still smiling, and she pulls him in for another kiss. “No!”

Peter latches onto Sirius’ bicep. “She’s-”

“I guess.”

“James-”

“Yeah.”

Peter and Sirius look at each other, then at James and Lily again, then each other, bursting out laughing.

“Wow.”

Peter and Sirius watch for another minute, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “They’re sober?” Sirius asks. “More or less?”

Peter shakes his head. “Don’t know how they wouldn’t be. Neither of them’s moved an inch from that sofa since we got up here. Can’t be on anything but their first drinks, then.”

And yet… they’re kissing. Not the way Sirius kissed James when he was being an arse on the train, but properly snogging. Necking. Licking each other.

Sirius watches curiously. They do not look like they know what they’re doing… but they settle against each other anyway, awkward and bumping and laughing.

It’s a bad kiss, but it might be Lily’s first too. If they can give it three minutes, they’ll be fine.

“We probably shouldn’t-“

“Yeah.”

They walk off, still gaping at one another. Sirius means to take another pull from his bottle but finds his hands empty. “I need another Butterbeer.” Peter nods and points to some crates in a corner. “You?”

Peter shakes his head slowly. “Um, good game and all but… I think I’m going to go to Hufflepuff.”

“To see Annette?” Wow — James really is Peter’s role model. Peter nods. “Well, go!”

Sirius laughs as Peter scurries off, and then he’s left alone. He grabs another Butterbeer, takes a swig and looks around. He feels good, just… He wants to celebrate, and he keeps looking around….

He sees Marlene swaying to the music just off from where people are properly dancing and drags her into the crowd. “Let’s dance,” he says, another drink.

Marlene puts a step between her and Sirius, staring up at him appraisingly, then shrugs. “Do you know how to salsa?” she asks. Sirius shakes his head, drinks. “Wanna learn?” He stares around the room where Peter’s gone, Remus was never there, Lily and James are snogging.

“Yeah,” he says. “Show me.”

Chapter Text

Sirius dances.

It’s good. All his years of ballroom dancing… it doesn’t carry over perfectly to Latin dance, but it makes him well-suited to learning, to hearing patterns in the music, to guiding someone else’s body with his frame.

The dancing makes him hot, and he grabs another Butterbeer, falling into Mary when he comes back. Marlene’s taught everyone to dance over the years, apparently, and Mary falls into step with him easily, hesitant at first, then leaning against him and letting him lead.

There’s a problem with the record player at some point, and Sirius just hums against the top of Mary’s head and teaches her how to waltz.

Mary disappears for another drink, and there’s Spanish music again, louder this time, and Sirius pulls Dorcas off of a couch. She’s an inch taller than him today in some platform boot, but it doesn’t affect the dancing much, their hips at mostly the same height. He slots their legs together, taking a minute to listen to the song and remember which steps go with it.

“This is a dirty song,” Dorcas muses, stealing Sirius’ Butterbeer to take a sip.

He laughs and takes his drink back, drinks, hands it to Dorcas again, and neither of them miss a step. “D’you speak Spanish?”

“No. This is Mar’s record, though. I know all her music.”

Sirius hums. “Translate for me. I like dirty things.”

Dorcas pushes him off, spins him — completely out of time with the music, but they fall back together laughing and right themselves eventually. “Are you hitting on me with my girlfriend ten steps away?”

Sirius hums and drains the last of his bottle. He hadn’t meant to be hitting on her… specifically. He’s not opposed to the idea either. “I could be. Come upstairs with me.”

Dorcas laughs. “I am too good for you, single or taken.”

“You’re too good for everyone,” Sirius counters diplomatically. “May as well be me.”

Dorcas stops moving with him to pull Sirius a bit closer, whispers right against his ear. “And if I told you your boyfriend’s been watching us dance from the top of the stairs, would you still want to be down here with me? Or would you kiss me and hope he drags you off?”

Sirius pulls away to look over at the stairs, but they’re empty.

Through the haze of it all, the buzz of the Butterbeer, the good music and dancing bodies, the atmosphere… he feels something in his chest sink. He drags his eyes back to Dorcas.

“That was not very nice,” he grumbles.

Dorcas pulls Sirius back around, already moving like she expects he’ll start dancing again, but Sirius pulls her off the dance floor instead. He wants another Butterbeer, but doesn’t want to leave Dorcas and come back to find her dancing with Marlene, leaving him out of partners.

“No, but it proved my point,” Dorcas says, following Sirius easily to the stacked crates, steadily emptying of their glass bottles. She grabs and opens a Butterbeer to pass off to Sirius before fetching herself one. “So we can dance, or we can drink, or we can go our separate ways. Up to you.”

Sirius considers, then shrugs, downing his Butterbeer in painfully big gulps. “Let’s dance.”

—

The party doesn’t get the chance to fade out. Someone pops through the portrait hole talking about McGonagall being on her way, and everyone scrambles upstairs.

Sirius stays back to avoid getting trampled, a bit too unsteady on his feet to be running up stone steps. He finishes the last fifth of his Butterbeer, but he never makes it into his room.

There’s a tie on his door. On his door.

Everyone’s drunk. People lose clothing when they’re drunk. Sirius, personally, is barefoot, not even wearing any socks.

It’s Sirius’ door. There’s no way someone else is in Sirius’ room.

His next thought is James, James who’s been sleeping in Sirius’ room anyway, but James had been wearing his Quidditch kit. No tie.

He presses his ear to the door but doesn’t hear anything. He can’t tell if it’s suspiciously quiet, if that must mean the work of some silencing charm.

He goes to James’ room, wanting to have someone to investigate with. “James, we’re going-“

But while the torches are still lit, only Remus is there.

Remus, propped against his headboard, bed curtains open and framing him perfectly between long lines of crimson. He’s already looking up when Sirius comes through, wiping sleep out of his eyes, sitting upright with Effie’s book resting open against his knees.

Of course Remus would be here. It’s his own room, the day after the full moon. Remus hasn’t been around: he’s been here, in bed, recovering. Of course Remus is here — a Quidditch match, then a party, everything so loud and boisterous, of course Remus would be hiding away when he’s only halfway himself again after the moon — but Sirius was thinking about finding James. He was thinking about who would break into his room for a shag, because obviously they’re shagging if there’s a tie on the door…

The tie is somewhere at his side now, irrelevant.

Sirius finds it a bit hard to stand upright. He props himself up against the side of the open door so that he doesn’t have to put so much thought into balancing himself. Remus’ eyes don’t stray from Sirius as he situates himself.

There’s a yellow hue to the room from the flickering torchlight, and Remus’ skin glows at all the high points. The illusion of colour in his cheeks is exaggerated by his deep red curtains.

Sirius doesn’t know much about portraiture.

Composition. The frame of the bed, the squareness of the four poster, the mattress, the straightness of the hanging curtains. Stillness, structure, the way that Remus is contained by his four-poster, then — by contrast — cradled by his sheets.

Something about movement, blankets pooled at his hips, wrinkles in the grey fabric of his shirt, the crack of the spine in his book. Something about colour: yellow-orange torchlight, crimson curtains, pink cheeks. Something about warmth, a radiant kind — conceptual and atmospheric.

Sirius spent a decade hearing about theory from Regulus, only half listening. He knows just enough about art to know that he doesn’t understand it at all. But sometimes he thinks he gets it. A piece of it.

A whole story told in a single frame — home.

Sirius is so fucking jealous of his brother, his brother who takes moments like these and preserves them forever. Remus, like this, should exist in oils.

Someone like Regulus would be able to preserve Remus, tired-eyed, tousled-haired, scarred and soft and beautiful. Someone like Regulus could make this moment last forever, and Sirius can only stare as it’s already starting to pass.

Everything looks so extreme in the shadows, the depth of Remus’ features and the scars across his face, the line of his jaw and the faint swell at his chest.

Selfish and shameless, Sirius can’t look away.

Every detail — Remus’ fingers spread wide enough to support the book, open, in one hand. Perfect, the skin stretched tight over tendons and bones, the slight curl of his fingers.

The way Remus stares back at him.

Remus is just sitting there, quiet and curious, book open and abandoned in his lap, and Sirius loves him.

“Sirius,” Remus greets, gentle and sad and desperate and beautiful, Remus. He licks his lips. Sirius watches. “James isn’t here.”

Who cares about James?

There are tiny shadows on Remus’ cheeks. Soft, clumped lines painted across the shiny skin under Remus’ eyes. Pale grey streaks, barely there. Sirius hardly notices them until they flutter when Remus blinks — his eyelashes.

Sirius is meant to answer, but he can’t do anything but stare, can’t afford to look away because this moment will end and then it’ll be gone forever. Sirius has no way of preserving Remus like this. Young and beautiful and here.

“What’s wrong?” Remus sniffs and clears his throat. “What are you thinking right now.” Remus’ voice is barely a whisper. It still seems to echo in the empty room.

He can’t keep him. Sirius doesn’t get to keep him.

“You should grow your hair out,” he says instead. “Another inch, just that. You’re always cutting it right before it gets…“

Because Sirius is thinking about one more time. He’s thinking about his hands in Remus’ hair, thinking he would need something to hold onto.

He’s thinking about the fifteen tiny strands of Remus’ hair that catch the torchlight just right to look almost blond, and it should look ridiculous on him, and it doesn’t. He’s thinking about crimson curtains and the reflection of red across Remus’ cheeks… the tip of his nose.

What an incredible injustice, to live in a world with dozens of paintings of Kreature — shrunken down to the size of a fingernail so that Walburga Black would never happen upon them and see a house elf so honoured. Kreature, the only being that would sit still for hours and hours, over and over again for Regulus. Ugly and angry and big-eyed, Kreature, and no paintings of Remus.

Walburga’s own portrait will live forever on that wall in Grimmauld Place screaming at the boy who painted her, and Remus will shift his grip on Sirius’ book, and his hands will never hold the shadows the same way again.

“Sirius-”

“Can you just… can you just stay still? Just for a minute?”

Fleamont had asked Sirius if he wanted anything for Christmas and Sirius had insisted that he didn’t want to celebrate. He could have had anything he wanted, and he couldn’t think of a single thing. He’d lost everything he owned, and he couldn’t think of anything worth replacing.

Fleamont has a muggle device, a camera. For pictures. That’s what Sirius should have asked for. He wants a camera.

It would never be the same as a portrait. Sirius loves the way Regulus paints. He finds ways of capturing things in people, capturing on canvas things that only otherwise exist in someone’s atmosphere. Sirius has hated every painting he’s seen of himself. Vacant in a way a mirror would never dare reflect him, but he knows what Regulus would see in Remus.

He is so intimately familiar with Regulus’ style that he can already see the portrait he would make of Remus. He knows exactly what Regulus would see, what no one but Regulus could ever see in Remus at just a glance. That clumsy sort of strength that exists completely at odds with the roundness of Remus’ shoulders. The intensity that burns behind Remus’ eyes when he finally stares back at someone. Remus who curls in on himself and can’t help taking up every inch of space in a room anyway, so much larger than himself. Remus, only a few inches taller than Sirius, but massive and looming and consuming in the way that Sirius experiences him.

His hands are bigger than the back cover of the book.

That feels like an incredibly important detail somehow, the way the tips of Remus’ fingers curl to hug the tops of the pages.

“How drunk are you right now?” Remus asks, a tiny quirk to his lips. That’s Sirius’ favourite smile, the one where Remus wants to hide it, and his whole mouth ends up just a bit too tense, and his lips still quirk anyway, just at the corner.

“Mm. Seven of ten.”

Sirius has been denying it all night as he demanded another and then another Butterbeer. Dancing made him thirsty, and he drank, and Butterbeer made him overheated, and he drank. He laughed, and he danced and he drank, and he insisted he wasn’t drunk. But he’s… he’s a bit drunk.

“You look like you could fall over.”

“I could if I wanted to,” Sirius says. He’s not sure whether the joke is clever or not, but it makes him laugh. Sirius’ hand comes up over his mouth when he laughs, and he sees the tie again. “There’s someone shagging in my room! And this isn’t James’,” he lifts the tie for Remus. He’d smelled the tie at some point, strange but insightful. It smells sharp and flowery and not at all like James’ rancid body wash.

Remus sets his book down on a small pile of parchments in the sheets beside himself, then hesitates with his thumb still tucked between the pages. Remus lifts the parchments and folds them into something that can be tucked into the book. He marks his page — somewhere toward the end already — and sets the book aside completely, giving Sirius all of his attention. Just right.

“Who else would be shagging in your room other than you and James?”

Sirius laughs again, loud and drunk and easy. “I’m not shagging James!” Remus means other than you or James, and Sirius knows that — knows that if James wanted to drag someone off into Sirius’ room for a shag somewhere private, Sirius would be the one to guard the door, that’s what Remus is saying — but it’s funny anyway. “He’s an awful kisser. I’d never shag someone who can’t even-“ And obviously he’s still joking, because everything’s easy and funny with his head light (and heavy) and slightly spinny and Remus’ eyes on him, only Remus’ eyes change, and then he’s looking away. “Although in his defence, I never got the impression he fancied blokes, so he probably wouldn’t shag me either.”

Sirius doesn’t focus on the fact that Remus won’t look at him anymore, though, not when one of Remus’ hands makes a lovely slow fist in his sheets beside him. A gorgeous curl of his hand, tightening of skin, whitening of knuckles. Bones and veins that cut lines against his skin, then, just as quickly, a release, Remus’ hand loose and still in the sheets, and Sirius is sure Remus is trying to seduce him.

“You’re kissing James now?”

“It was just once as a joke, Remus, don’t be jealous,” Sirius teases. He comes further into the room, laughing and remembering dancing with Dorcas tonight, saying come upstairs with me, doing something stupid and wishing he’d get caught. “I like you jealous,” he admits.

He forgot to close the door, but it clicks softly behind him anyway, pulled tight by its own weight, and then it’s just him and Remus and soft torchlight. It strikes Sirius that Remus is laying in the bed Sirius slept in last night.

Sirius had wanked with his face in that pillow, splashed cum across those sheets and only scoured it away reluctantly. Sirius leans against the bedpost at Remus’ feet and enjoys how dirty that feels, Remus amidst sheets that Sirius soiled.

“I need somewhere to sleep,” Sirius says, not tired in the slightest.

Well, he does rest his head and all of his weight against Remus’ bedpost, but that’s just because his body is very heavy.

“James’ bed-”

“Has no mattress on it,” Sirius interrupts, nodding across the room. And before Remus can try again, Sirius adds, “And I don’t want to sleep in Peter’s.”

He watches the tight rise and fall of Remus’ chest, watches Remus press his eyes closed for just slightly too long. “Well, you’ll stain the sheets like that. Go wash up. I’ll find you something to wear.”

You’ll stain the sheets like that — done, actually. Sirius covered that one already. He laughs to himself as he wobbles his way across the room.

Sirius struggles with the doorknob, then falls into the bathroom, stumbling and only barely catching himself on the edge of the sink. He can’t remember why he’s meant to be in the bathroom. He pees for about a year, then looks for a hairbrush, wrinkles his nose when he sees only a fine-toothed comb on the counter, no good for the tangles that flying tied into his hair. He shrugs and leaves the room, walking almost straight into Remus as he does.

“You are so drunk,” Remus grumbles, hands on Sirius’ hips. “And you’re still covered in grass and dirt.”

Remus walks Sirius backward into the bathroom, and his hands are still on Sirius’ hips, so Sirius lets himself be manoeuvred, walked back until his arse hits the counter. He plants his hands behind himself and jumps, dropping easily onto his arse. He tries to wrap his legs around Remus’, but Remus sidesteps him.

Remus searches a drawer for a clean folded flannel and lets the water from the sink run without wetting the flannel. “Did you play today?”

Sirius nods and amuses himself by kicking his feet out in front of him, indifferent to how his heels bang against the cupboards when they swing back. “Emergency substitution. You’re looking at Gryffindor’s worst ever Keeper.”

Remus wets the cloth and works soap into it until it’s sudsy. “I’m sure that’s not true,” he says. “Were you hurt? It looks like you took a spill.”

Sirius frowns. “What do you mean?”

Remus closes the taps and holds the flannel out to Sirius. A drip of warm water sinks through the fabric at Sirius’ thigh, cooling quickly. “I mean, your hair is full of grass, and your face and kit are covered in dirt.”

“The kit’s Gideon’s.” Sirius turns to his reflection. He squints for a long time at the brown across his forehead, another smudge on his cheek. “I got tackled on the pitch but I landed on my back…”

He shrugs and turns back to Remus. Remus wets the cloth again with water that steams from the taps, then wrings some of it out, but not enough that it’s not still all bubbly. He offers it to Sirius again. Sirius wrinkles his nose. “Do it for me.”

That tiny gorgeous tension around Remus’ mouth. “You’re not that drunk.”

No, he’s not that drunk. He doesn’t need Remus to clean him up, just wants it.

“No one else touches me like you do.” Remus must know that, surely. Or not. Remus is Remus all the time, and he’s always Remus. Maybe he doesn’t know how he makes people feel special. Sirius kicks out one of his legs, sideways this time, but he doesn’t quite manage to hook a foot around Remus’ thigh, can’t quite manage to pull him in. “And you have big hands.” Sirius smiles down at his legs, Remus’ hand holding the flannel dropped when Sirius didn’t take it from him, and now it’s resting lightly on Sirius’ knee. “And I like it when you do things for me.”

Remus might go to say something, but Sirius suddenly knows what’s on his face.

He laughs and falls forward, and he might fall right off the counter if Remus didn’t step in front of him, and then Sirius is just laughing into Remus’ chest. Water soaks through Sirius’ kit somewhere by one of his hips, the wet flannel pressed into him from Remus holding him steady. Sirius smiles into Remus’ chest.

Sirius tilts his head up to Remus, still leaned against him. Another little laugh falls out when he says, “I think I’m wearing Dorcas’ makeup.”

He remembers every time they’d drunkenly fallen into each other, how he leaned his face against hers when he started getting sloppy. She’d warned him not to, and he’d done it anyway, and she laughed and leaned back, and all the hours of sticky, sweaty dancing, and some of her face must have rubbed off onto his face.

“Do I look pretty, Remus?”

Remus takes Sirius’ jaw in one hand, pushing him back far enough that he can look at his face, flicking the taps on again with the other, never breaking eye contact. “It’s not quite your colour.”

Sirius can’t tell whether Remus is joking, but it’s unbearably funny anyway.

Remus waits for the water to steam again, needs to put more soap on the flannel from all the re-wetting. He drops his hold on Sirius’ face but lets Sirius lean forward to press his forehead into Remus’ shoulder. Even Sirius doesn’t know whether he falls into Remus because he needs something to balance himself against, or just because it feels good.

Maybe it’s both.

Remus smells like Remus. Something soft and alive, something barely there at all that still makes Sirius want to scream, want to crawl into Remus’ skin.

Sirius has a cologne that he wears, and he tries not to be obnoxious with it, but he still leaves a trail behind him everywhere he goes, leaves sheets and clothes smelling like him after only occupying them for a minute. He wishes Remus were more like that, that Sirius didn’t have to strain to breathe him in.

“I lied to you, you know,” Sirius says, muffled a bit by his uncooperative lips and Remus’ own delicious collar bone. “A while ago.”

Remus hums. “I’m sure you did what you thought was best.”

Sirius tilts his head until he can press his forehead into Remus’ neck. “Doubt it. Wasn’t thinking at all, probably.” Remus snorts and the sound of running water cuts off.

The warm cloth interrupts Sirius’ laugh, a drip of water chasing its way down his cheek. Sirius leans into the touch. “You said I’d love other people, and I said yes, but I didn’t mean it.” When the cloth comes down again on Sirius’ cheek, it pushes his head back before he can remember to counter the movement, but that’s good, actually. It’s good when Remus has to wind his other hand into Sirius’ hair, cradle the back of his head to hold him steady.

Remus’ eyes don’t meet Sirius’, but they don’t leave his face either, focused. Like this is the most important thing he’s done all day.

“I could.” Sirius shrugs. “I think I could love anyone, just about.”

Sirius is hard to love sometimes. Erratic and inconsistent, sometimes just mean. A big temper and a short fuse, no ability to know even for himself how he’s feeling but still getting completely lost in it, good or bad. He says he’s fine, and he doesn’t know why people believe him, but they do, and then he gets in trouble for not being fine after all. Usually, he really thinks he means it, too. He’s fine, and then everything around him’s all blown up.

He’s not easy to love, but… He looks at Remus and doesn’t feel unlovable either. How could anyone feel anything but precious when Remus touches them like that? When he looks at Sirius like he’s something worth taking care of?

And it’s not so bad, being hard to love. Not when Sirius really could love so many people. He dances with Dorcas, drunk and beautiful, and he could love her. The only person to ever look at Sirius without apprehension — he might already love her. He spins Lily in his arms, laughing and spitting hair out of his mouth, and he could love her. She cares so much about everything all the time, and he’s almost exhausted by it by proxy, and he loves her. Fuck, Sirius hasn’t ever had a conversation with Frank Longbottom, but he catches the tiny Seeker girl against his chest like some sort of hero, and Sirius could love him.

So maybe Sirius didn’t quite lie. He’ll love other people if Remus leaves him.

“But no one else makes me feel safe. That’s what I want.” Sirius doesn’t want to be a sap. He’s drunk enough that he could definitely cry over it… But how messed up is that? That there’s really and truly only one Remus in the world, and Sirius could lose him. Remus could be gone for a few years, or he could be gone forever, just — gone.

“I think I deserve that,” Sirius whispers.

If Sirius were washing his own face, he’d be done by now. Eyes pinched closed, flannel scrubbed across his skin until he’s all pink — but he hadn’t wanted to wash his own face. Remus rubs tiny gentle circles in Sirius’ cheek, eyes flicking up to Sirius’ for a fraction of a second, and he has the audacity to frown, to look confused. “I make you feel safe?”

Remus pulls away from Sirius, taps on, water running, flannel waiting by the side of the sink for Remus to decide the water’s worthy or something. Remus’ other hand stays wound in Sirius’ hair, even as he avoids Sirius’ eyes. “Always do,” Sirius says.

Remus shakes his head and dips the flannel under the steam, just for a second, then squeezes. He hovers with a hand over Sirius’ forehead, waiting. “Close your eyes,” Remus says. “I don’t want soap in them.”

Sirius doesn’t want to close his eyes, doesn’t want to give Remus a second of privacy. He wants to keep searching Remus’ face for something, something. “I want to look at you.”

Remus is staring back, and Sirius is sure there’s something there. He just doesn’t understand it. “I’ll still be here in a minute. You can look at me then. It’ll sting — close your eyes.”

Remus will be all blank and closed off in a minute. “I don’t care if it stings.”

Remus hesitates, then drops the flannel from Sirius’ forehead, a few gentle passes over Sirius’ other cheek instead, then a swipe over his jaw and neck. Sirius is sure there wasn’t ever any makeup that far down, but Remus wets the cloth again and drags it over Sirius’ throat to wipe the soap residue away, then wets it again and adds more soap.

“I care,” Remus says, barely a whisper. “I care if it stings. Close your eyes…. please.”

Sirius glares up at Remus. He closes his eyes.

The flannel is wetter, dripping down Sirius’ face — Remus is only using one hand to wring it out now that his other hand has found a home in Sirius’ hair. Still, Sirius’ ankles are wrapped somewhere around the backs of Remus’ knees, and one of Remus’ hips presses itself soundly against the inside of Sirius’ thigh, so he doesn’t mind so much, being wet. A hand dragging the cloth over his face, soft, a hand tilting his head back and holding him steady.

“I don’t even make me feel safe,” Remus says. The flannel is so incredibly gentle against Sirius’ face, even as cooling water drips down into his hairline, face tipped back toward Remus.

Sirius doesn’t want to answer and risk accidentally interrupting Remus if he wants to say more, can’t nod with Remus’ hands all over him, so he squeezes his thighs against Remus’ hips in some sort of acknowledgement.

The flannel goes still.

Then starts to move again.

Remus doesn’t say anything.

“I wish I made you feel safe,” Sirius admits. He doesn’t necessarily feel like he deserves it — he’s not much of a comforting presence, but he wishes he was. He wishes he could make Remus feel the way Remus makes him feel. Safe and good and sure. Sirius isn’t good at that type of thing, not the words that make someone feel heard, the actions that make someone feel seen. He’s never been any good at making the people he loves feel important. “I wish you trusted me as much as I trust you.”

Remus’ hands stop moving again. Running water. “I trust you.”

Sirius doesn’t open his eyes. “If you trusted me, you’d let me trust you. But you don’t.”

Remus’ grip on the back of Sirius’ head shifts, presumably as he leans over the sink to wet the cloth again. The water cuts off, and Sirius tries to sneak a peek at Remus.

“Eyes,” Remus says immediately. Sirius huffs and closes his eyes. The flannel is gorgeously warm against his face, scratchier without soap to make it slide smoothly over Sirius’ skin. When Remus pulls both hands away from Sirius, Sirius knows they’re done now. He leaves his eyes closed anyway, resists the urge to try to lock his legs around Remus, try to trap him here.

Sirius almost jumps in surprise at a touch on his cheek, a hand, damp and warm. Just a touch. “I don’t know how I’d make you feel safe.”

Remus doesn’t say it like he’s arguing, though. They’re just words, soft and curious.

“But you’d trust me,” Sirius says, eyes floating open to stare up at Remus. “When I say that you do. You’d trust me.”

Remus helps Sirius down from the counter. Sirius almost insists that he doesn’t need help, but he likes his hands in Remus’, so he doesn’t fight the touch. He drops onto his feet.

And he almost stumbles anyway.

His body forgot it was drunk for a minute there, sitting down, steadied against Remus’ and unmoving. When he has to stand again, Sirius can’t quite remember where he put his centre of gravity.

Sirius lets himself fall into Remus’ chest, and Remus holds him there, picks pieces of dead grass out of Sirius’ tangled hair with the hand that isn’t steadying him from his hip.

Butterbeer is all full of sugar, but that always burns itself off much quicker than the alcohol, leaving Sirius sloppy and exhausted. He wonders if he could make Remus carry him to the bed.

“I do trust you,” Remus says into Sirius’ hair.

Sirius nods against Remus’ chest. “I want to sleep in your bed.”

Remus cards a hand through Sirius’ hair, breaking up a few knots on the way. His fingers snag a bit against the tangles, but it feels more good than bad. “You can sleep wherever you want. I don’t mind taking Peter’s.”

Sirius slips his hands around Remus’ back, up under his shirt and flattening against skin. Warm skin. “Sleep with me.”

Remus’ arms tighten around Sirius, then he steps back.

Remus pushes Sirius until he’s leaning his arse back against the sink, and Sirius just watches, down, big hands on his hips. Once Sirius has something else to lean against, Remus disappears, coming back just a second later with pyjamas.

Sirius stares contemplatively at Remus, hovering a step in front of him. “Are you going to undress me, Remus?”

Remus sets the clothes on the counter beside Sirius, a bracing look about him. “Are you going to do it yourself?”

“No.” Not if there’s a chance Remus will do it for him.

Remus laughs — just a quick exhale, but Sirius knows. “‘Course not.” He steps in closer to Sirius. “Arms up.”

And Sirius feels like a child… and he raises his arms.

Remus lifts the robes over Sirius’ head. Drying dirt crumbles around them on the floor from where it had stuck to the fabric as mud so many hours ago, and Remus steps back and just throws the kit in the shower stall. His eyes rake over Sirius — not dressed for Quidditch at all, but then, he hadn’t been meant to play.

Sirius is just in whatever pieces of uniform he hadn’t bothered with shedding before the match: his white shirt, down a few buttons, and trousers.

Distantly, he hopes Lily remembered to bring his jacket back for him. He’ll care about that tomorrow.

Sirius looks down at himself, then over at Remus. He raises his arms again, trying not to smile and sure he’s smirking anyway.

Remus shakes his head and steps back. “You can do that yourself.”

Sirius almost argues, then realizes Remus is still here, watching.

Sirius holds Remus’ eyes while starting on the buttons at his chest. He’s still a bit wobbly, so he leans his left hand on the counter beside him. He doesn’t need two hands to dress or undress anymore anyway.

A clever pinch and twist, the button comes loose. Another. Down his chest, his stomach. Remus’ eyes drop down one button at a time.

Sirius gets all the way to the top button of his trousers before Remus seems to remember that he can leave.

Sirius amuses himself by throwing any article of clothing he pulls off of his body out the open bathroom door. He hopes Remus watches his trousers, then his boxers fly by. Sirius wants all of Remus’ attention, even from the other room.

Dressed, Sirius finds Remus standing somewhere in the centre of the room, hovering. Sirius gives a tug at his hand. “Sleep with me.”

“You’re drunk,” Remus says.

Sirius frowns down at his hand, Remus’ hand caught in his grasp. “Hold me until I’m tired like you used to. Make me feel safe.”

Remus sucks in a slow breath, then pulls Sirius into his chest. Sirius collapses against him, exhausted from the Butterbeer, from his first Quidditch match and the stress of it all, the stress of the full moon last night. He lets Remus be the only thing holding him up.

“You can’t get drunk and tear your clothes off in front of me and then be upset with me for not sleeping with you.” Remus runs his fingers through Sirius’ hair again. “You’re being pushy.”

Sirius breathes in from Remus’ neck. “I’m not really trying to seduce you,” Sirius mumbles. “I promise I couldn’t get it up right now. Just hold me.”

Remus sighs, and Sirius feels himself moving but he doesn’t pay much attention to it until he’s horizontal, spread across Remus’ chest in one of the beds. Sirius wraps himself around Remus, who just passes a hand over the back of Sirius’ head, coming to rest in the dip of his neck.

“Sleep,” Remus says, a thumb tracing against the bottom of Sirius’ hairline.

And Sirius is exhausted, and the last thing he wants to do with Remus in Remus’ bed is sleep.

“I hate you for being good to me sometimes,” Sirius whispers, confessing into Remus’ neck. “If I thought you’d let me blow you right now, I’d already have my head between your legs.”

“Fuck- Sirius.”

“But I know you wouldn’t let me,” Sirius says with a shrug, cuddling further into Remus’ front. Remus’ breathing is a bit unsteady beneath him, but that’’ll pass.

“You would hate me in the morning if I let you do that.”

Sirius nods. He would. He can feel the red-hot How dare you already simmering in his chest, but right now he doesn’t really care. “You could let me hate you.”

Remus shakes his head, chin bumping against Sirius’ head “Stop that.”

“I’d forgive you eventually.”

Remus passes his hand over Sirius’ scalp. “You’re being pushy again.”

Sirius nods. “I trust that you’ll say no to me.”

There’s a soft press against Sirius’ head now, a cheek maybe. “That’s a lot of trust.”

Sirius lifts his head, squints at Remus through the shadows. The torches are still burning, but the bed hangings block out most of the light. Remus stares back at him. “Would you let me-”

“Don’t make me kick you out of this bed.”

Sirius laughs and drops his head again, a bit too hard. His head is so heavy. “I don’t think you’d make me sleep alone.” Curious, he starts to slide his hands down Remus’ sides.

“Then don’t make me pin your wrists.”

Oh… Sirius tilts his head, considering, fingers flexing against Remus’ ribs.

“Sirius-”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Go to bed.”

“I’m just saying-”

“Go to bed.”

Chapter Text

Sirius spends a long time drifting, floating to the surface of his mind where he can feel the steady rise and fall of Remus’ ribs, feel Remus’ heart beating back against him, feel little puffs of breath running their fingers through his hair. Then Sirius is sinking again, rocked back to sleep, soothed by the warmth.

The room is exceptionally cold today, a clever draught pouring in perfectly through the cracks between window and stone, and Sirius might have otherwise redoubled the sealing spells on the old castle walls. On another morning, he might have cursed the height of the tower, the way its isolation from the rest of the castle means it has no surrounding rooms to keep it insulated against the chill, but he can’t seem to mind today. Not with Remus being delightfully too warm beneath Sirius. It’s almost a nice combination, too hot and too cold, an overwhelm that’s still perfectly balanced.

He’s stiff, a bone-deep sort of sore that means he slept too soundly and didn’t move all night. His neck has a crick forming in some back corner from his head being twisted against Remus’ chest.

Sirius savours it all until he’s sure he won’t fall back asleep again.

“Do we have a first lesson?” Sirius mumbles.

Remus’ chest stills beneath Sirius. The breaths take a pause from puffing against his scalp.

“Transfiguration,” Remus says eventually.

“Breathe,” Sirius mumbles. There’s an unsteadiness to the first breath beneath him, but the next one is slower and surer. “How long do we have?”

“About half an hour, I think.”

Neither of them moves.

Maybe they can’t move. Once they move, even just a twitch, they’ll be forced to confront it. Sirius’ fingers spread wide over Remus’ ribs, Remus’ arms locked around Sirius. While they’re still, perfectly still, they can pretend their bodies aren’t rocking softly together — barely — with every breath.

“How are you feeling?” Remus asks eventually, still not moving. “After yesterday?”

Sirius bites his tongue while he decides how to answer.

Physically? Maybe still a bit drunk, a bit hungover at the same time. Energized and exhausted, heavy, slow. Warm.

Emotionally? Not… bad.

On the edge of something, maybe.

“Sirius?”

Maybe something. If he thinks about it too hard, he can’t find anything specifically out of place, but if he just relaxes… maybe. Maybe something.

“Are you going to run away from me as soon as I get off of you?”

“I…” Remus’ fingers flex in Sirius’ back. “I think we’ll probably go our separate ways to get ready, yeah? What’s going on?”

Maybe Remus can feel Sirius’ too-fast heartbeat against his stomach. He’s fine. It’s nothing. But maybe he stiffened in Remus’ arms.

Something. Something’s going on. Sirius pushes his forehead against Remus’ chest, his heartbeat, steady. It’s not passing like Sirius wants it to, the feeling. That build in Sirius that he isn’t good at recognizing, even worse at regulating. That feeling of being on the edge of a precipice and being too afraid to look down, scared he’s going to jump anyway.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“Right.” A quick breath, something that makes Remus’ chest rise sharply. “What do you need? I can fetch James or Lil-”

“Just- can you stay with me?” Sirius pulls himself up. He feels off-kilter and scrambly. The bed wobbles beneath him more than it should as he pulls himself to his knees.

Once he’s finally dragged himself far enough away from Remus that they can properly see each other, Remus’ eyes search Sirius’ face. His gaze is steady. Sirius focuses on that, on steady.

Maybe Remus recognizes what Sirius is doing. He lets Sirius look, holds Sirius’ desperate gaze.

Sirius got off him, and no one ran away.

It’s not a long silence… It feels too long, unreadable.

“Remus?”

“I’ll get some clothes,” Remus says, a little nod to himself as he sits up in the bed, never breaking eye contact with Sirius. “Then we can go to your room to get ready. Can you grab my toothbrush from the bathroom? It’s the green one… you’ll know.”

Sirius waits until Remus is standing before he can pull himself out of the bed, like he needs to steal a piece of Remus’ momentum to get himself started.

It might be the alcohol sitting strangely in his system today. He drank in a weird mood, then woke up in a weird mood. He thinks maybe that happens sometimes. They call alcohol an amplifier or something.

It could be some sort of emotional hangover from the stress of the past week, maybe. He’d been building the full moon up in his head, and then there was some sort of detox the first second his body relaxed, an overload of stale stress that he doesn’t know how to deal with, so his body tries to push a piece of it out in the restless aches in his legs, a shakiness to his breaths, winding knots in his stomach.

It’s hard to tell. His head’s foggy. Maybe he’s not sober enough to work through his own mood just yet.

He doesn’t want to linger in the bathroom, but he takes pause here to see how he feels. Worse. Alone is worse.

James and Peter have matching pink and purple dinosaur toothbrushes.

Sirius grabs the green toothbrush and steps back into the room. Remus has his arms mostly stacked with the pieces of uniform he collects from his dresser, the strap of his messenger bag already pulled over his shoulder.

Sirius discovers another set of scars, long and deep, down the back of Remus’ right calf. It’s off-putting, the realization that he’s never properly seen Remus’ legs. He hasn’t seen most of Remus properly. In daylight, up close, relaxed. The uniforms they wear feel incredibly conservative. Objectively, to see someone in loose boxers shouldn’t be much different than seeing someone in shorts, but Sirius has never seen Remus in shorts either.

Maybe there’s more to that than the uniforms.

Sirius traces his eyes over Remus’ thighs, another peak of white creeping up under the hem of his boxers, lines down the back of one arm. Remus really is covered in scars.

“How are you?” Sirius asks, realizing Remus was taking care of Sirius last night when he probably needed taking care of, himself. “With your recovery?”

Remus looks at Sirius over his shoulder, then goes back to his dresser, finding a tie to drop on the top of his pile.

“I’m… achy,” Remus says as Sirius opens the door for him. “Bit of a headache. Probably better off than you there this morning.”

“I don’t get bad hangovers,” Sirius says. “Should have drank more water, though. My mouth is all…”

Sirius clicks his tongue a few times, then decides he doesn’t care to finish his thought. They’re outside his door now.

Sirius hesitates, then knocks. There’s no answer. “Mad, knocking on your own door,” Sirius mutters, letting himself in.

He goes right to the bathroom, drinking deeply with his head under the tap. He’d shower if he had time. He feels like something pulled from the ocean, left out on the hot sand to dry, sticky and salty.

Once he’s drank half of the lake, then promptly pissed all of it out, he tackles his breath.

Sirius clearly hadn’t bothered with closing the bathroom door, but he still doesn’t expect Remus’ voice to come through the doorway. “You know… The toothbrush was for me, actually.”

Sirius stares at his reflection. Dark circles under his eyes, hair in a tangle… green toothbrush in his mouth.

Sirius’ toothbrush is red.

Interesting.

“Oh.”

“It’s fine,” Remus says on a laugh. His hand is just a ghost between Sirius’ shoulder blades when he passes behind him, then he grabs Sirius’ toothbrush from behind the sink. “It’s not like we’ve never…” Remus shakes his head and dumps (objectively way too much) toothpaste onto the bristles.

Sirius watches as his own toothbrush comes up to Remus’ lips. He looks away when he catches Remus’ eye in the mirror. It all feels ridiculously charged.

Spitting toothpaste in the sink shouldn’t make Sirius nervous.

It shouldn’t make Remus stare.

Sirius takes his hairbrush into the main room so that Remus can have the bathroom.

Sirius is still feeling the ghost of a hand in his back, though, as he buttons his shirt. That incredibly casual and meaningless touch, something that would almost feel like a habit. That wordless way of saying don’t step back — I’m right behind you for a second, and it’s narrow in here.

Sirius has a brother. He’s shared a bathroom. He’d shared a bathroom again with James over the winter break, and they got ready together all the time, James helping Sirius with half of it all when Sirius’ one arm wasn’t working.

It’s a bit the same with Remus, and that’s unsettling. It’s entirely different somehow, and still a bit the same, and it’s strange.

It’s the domesticity.

Sirius dresses in front of his dresser, tying his tie in the small square mirror that hangs overtop. Remus wanders into the background, and they quietly share the small mirror.

And that’s all it is, Remus checking in with Sirius while they both get ready, Remus watching as Sirius tightens the knot at his throat.

Sirius used Remus’ toothbrush.

Sure, Remus is right. It’s not as though they haven’t swapped spit. Snogged until they literally couldn’t hold themselves up any longer… but they’ve never shared a toothbrush.

They’ve never woken up together, laid tangled up in a bed and had it not turn into something more. Had it mutually understood that it wouldn’t turn into anything more, but laid like that anyway.

They’ve never ambled around the same room and bathroom as they got ready in the morning.

Seeing Remus in the mirror behind him dredges up an unexpected ache in Sirius’ chest, some want he previously didn’t even know existed.

Remus had said once, ages ago, that he hadn’t realized Sirius wanted them to be dating, and at the time Sirius hadn’t understood what Remus meant by that. What’s the difference between snogging someone and dating someone if you want to keep snogging just them for the foreseeable future? If you’re getting to know them and maybe even falling in love with them, how is that not dating? If it’s mutual…

It’s this part. Sirius hasn’t ever done this part before, this strange casual intimacy. This existing together for its own sake.

He wouldn’t have thought it would mean anything; he’d have said friends hang out together all the time. Siblings get ready together. He doesn’t quite know why it’s different even now.

It feels like sharing something, letting Remus watch him tie his tie. Sharing something that isn’t fun — a snog in an alcove, a story he knows will make Remus laugh, a touch on the thigh when no one can see Sirius’ hand under the table in the Great Hall. It’s a different kind of sharing, the mundane.

It would never have occurred to Sirius that someone might be brought in on this.

“Are you settling at all?” Remus asks.

Remus is always doing that, isn’t he? Standing just at Sirius’ back.

If Sirius thought it was intimate when he couldn’t see Remus, it’s somehow worse like this, in the mirror.

Remus is just a half a step behind him, eyes on Sirius’ back in front of him, then on his face through the mirror. They’re not just watching each other in small furtive glances — they can both see what they’re doing. Sirius can watch Remus watching him, watch as Remus catches him watching, just tiny flicks of eyes in the mirror, but they don’t move away. They let themselves watch and be watched.

It’s so flagrant and shameless, and Sirius isn’t even pretending to fiddle with his tie anymore.

“Maybe,” Sirius says slowly, remembering the question. “Maybe a bit.”

The mirror distorts the distance between them. From this angle, Remus looks like he could be pressed along Sirius’ back. Even when there’s an easy twenty centimetres between them, Sirius can almost feel Remus’ breath tickling the back of his neck.

“Good,” Remus says. “I’m glad.”

They break apart.

Remus helps Sirius search the common room for his boots, and Sirius finds them kicked under a sofa eventually. He tastes a memory when he bends down to retrieve them, bile and flat Butterbeer. “Did I throw up last night? With you?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Remus says. “I summoned the bin to your side of the bed, but you slept through the night.”

Your side of the bed.

Sirius winces. “I think I threw up… somewhere in here.” Remus chuckles as they cross the area where all the furniture is still shoved out of the way, and a bit more comes back to Sirius. “I think I went back to dancing after that.”

They take turns stepping through the portrait hole, a vague wave to the Fat Lady as they pass her.

It’s a largely silent walk to the Great Hall, but Sirius takes the time to sort through his memories from the night before. They’re a bit dream-like, full of missing pieces and awkward transitions. Sirius pulls up short in the middle of an empty corridor, hand wrapped around Remus’ wrist to stop him too.

“James and Lily shagged in my room.”

Remus stares at Sirius’ hand, then frowns at Sirius. “You said James wasn’t in your room.”

“It wasn’t his tie on my door. He was in his kit. He wasn’t wearing…” Sirius’ mouth drops all the way open, and he shakes Remus’ wrist. “The only person in the world showing up to a Quidditch match in full uniform is a Prefect. It was Lily’s tie.”

They’re walking again, Sirius still gaping. Remus bites down on his own smile. “James and Lily? Do you really think so?”

“They were snogging on a loveseat… and then they were gone. They didn’t even make it to the end of the party. Do you think they-”

They’re stopped now, lingering outside of the Great Hall doors. This is the part where they should go their separate ways. Not that they ever walk together, but they explicitly don’t sit together anymore.

This is where Sirius goes off with the girls, Remus goes off with James and Peter. Or else Sirius sits with James and Peter, and Remus goes off alone (only to inevitably find himself swarmed by OWL-prepping fifth years).

So they linger just outside the doors. Remus drops a shoulder against the wall. “If they were shagging, they definitely did it in your bed, you know,” Remus says.

Sirius crosses his arms. “James’ bed is right-”

“He’s not shagging Lily on the floor. They were in your bed. Listen, it makes no difference to me, just- you might consider changing your sheets.”

They’re late enough to breakfast that they get to watch students passing them on their way in, already on their way to lessons. They peel off and walk to the Gryffindor section. The table is crowded enough that Sirius just finds the first empty stretch of bench, pleasantly surprised when Remus falls into place next to him.

Remus eyes Sirius as he loads up a plate. “Are you going to call me obsessive if I check in with you again?”

“Yes,” Sirius says through a bite of sausage.

“You look… back to normal. What changed?”

Sirius finishes his sausage before answering, stalling.

He is back to normal, though. Whatever his normal is. “It comes and goes,” Sirius admits. “I don’t know why. It’s not so bad when I can get out in front of it.”

Remus nods and chews. “What’s bad, then?”

Sirius shrugs. “Could be anything. I guess I fall into whatever I shouldn’t be doing. Missing lessons. Not sleeping. Detentions. Picking fights.”

Remus doesn’t pile his own plate with food, but he does grab a danish. He takes a slow bite, chews while he thinks. “Getting expelled from Beauxbatons?”

Sirius freezes, then takes another bite. “Once or twice.”

They eat in a contemplative silence for a while. Sirius drinks more pumpkin juice than he normally does, fidgeting as much as rehydrating.

Remus seems to be thinking more than eating. “What does getting out in front of it look like? Just… not being alone?”

Sirius pokes around at his beans. “I don’t really know. I normally don’t notice I’m slipping. I guess when other people notice, they might step in and try to help. James takes me flying, and Lily talks.” Sirius laughs and pushes his plate away. “That’s probably why Dorcas wouldn’t let me dance with anyone else last night. It’s… yeah. I guess I’ve had a few weird days. Maybe it’s been building.”

Sirius frowns and pulls his plate back to himself, pushes food he doesn’t have much appetite for around on his plate for something to do while he thinks, some excuse not to look over at Remus. “Sometimes I don’t know where I start and it ends. I get bored and restless, but I don’t know if that’s the same as impulsive. I don’t know if impulsive is the same as reckless. I don’t… Even when I think about it, I don’t know. I don’t know what normal feels like, so I’m not all the way sure…. but I don’t think it ever goes away completely. I think I might spend my whole life getting out in front of it, and I still don’t really know how.”

Remus grabs another pastry just as the table clears itself. Students have been filtering out for a few minutes, but a bigger wave starts to stand up now. Sirius and Remus stay where they’re at. Sirius’ plate is empty, but he eats what’s left on his fork.

“You shut down for over a week after you got that letter from your brother,” Remus notes. “That was the same?”

Sirius nods. “I don’t think anyone here knew me well enough back then to notice I was slipping.” He fidgets with his fork, trying to find its centre of balance over one finger. It falls into his lap, and he grabs it just to toss it onto the table. “You noticed.”

Remus laughs lightly. “You lost like 80 house points in a week. I think everyone noticed by then.”

But Remus was watching him before that. Before the letter, even. Remus got splinched — that’s as far back as Sirius can track the feeling, anyway. And then Remus, bleeding on the floor, was still trying to help Sirius through his panic.

Maybe Remus purposefully doesn’t bring that up even now, the way Sirius was especially affected by seeing someone magically injured. Some things just don’t need to be said.

Sirius hardly remembers the week where he didn’t sleep, the week he barely made it to his lessons but somehow never missed a detention. He remembers a headache. “You stayed with me all day in the hospital wing.”

And of course, Sirius knows now why Remus was in the hospital wing. It must have been sometime around the full moon again.

By now, though, Sirius has seen Remus right after a transformation: beat-up and miserable, too weak to lift his head off the pillow. When Remus had stayed in the hospital wing with him, he hadn’t been like that. Maybe he was a bit off, but he was still chatty and upbeat.

“You weren’t all that sick,” Sirius accuses. “I don’t think you had to be in the hospital wing at all.”

Remus doesn’t deny that, just takes another bite of his danish. “You asked me to stay with you.”

Sirius frowns. “I don’t remember that.”

Remus laughs. “Yeah, well… at the time I didn’t know that you talk in your sleep. I thought you wanted me there, so I stayed.”

“I wanted you there,” Sirius says quickly. He doesn’t remember asking Remus to stay, but he knows he took comfort in him being there. Even if he wasn’t quite awake when he asked, he meant it.

“You started getting better after that,” Remus notes. “I thought it was all the potions. You slept like fifteen hours. But you needed to not be alone? That’s part of it too?”

“No one likes being alone when they’re-” Sirius swallows. “No one likes being alone.”

“No,” Remus says. He brings his legs over the bench and stands, and Sirius does the same. Remus stares at their feet for a while as they walk before turning to Sirius. “I have a map. It shows the whole school and where everyone is in it all the time.”

Sirius nods along. “For stalking, sure.”

“Among other things,” Remus says. He touches his shoulder just briefly to Sirius’ — and it’s a tiny touch, inconsequential, but fuck, it’s been ages since they did that. Since they had the right to lean against each other, call for attention without saying a word. “I’m going to fetch it for you, alright? And that way if you start to feel like… like you did this morning, you can get out in front of it. If you need to not be alone, you’ll find someone.”

Sirius stops in his tracks. They’re definitely going to be late, but Remus stops with him. They’re finally fully facing each other now, and Sirius can’t help searching Remus’ face, not sure what he’s looking for. “If I need you, I come find you?”

Remus’ shoulders rise just a centimetre. “You can find anyone you want. Peter and James and Lily and the girls… It shows everyone. You can find whoever you want.”

“And you?”

Remus turns his body away from Sirius, just to look back at him with a nod down the corridor, some wordless let’s get going.

Sirius walks, dazed. Confused.

“Yeah,” Remus says eventually, another tiny touch of his shoulder against Sirius’, another solid minute of Sirius’ head spinning. “I’m on there too.”

Chapter Text

After dinner, Sirius, James and Pete go flying until they’re too cold to grip their brooms anymore, then stay out for another hour after that. Back at Gryffindor Tower, Peter says something about icy fingers and a hot shower. James and Sirius head off towards Sirius’ room.

“Which bed did you shag Lily in?” Sirius asks from his doorway, toeing out of his trainers, flexing his stiff, numb feet. He turns to James. “I don’t care if it’s mine, but I’m sleeping in yours tonight if-”

James sputters and stumbles in the process of yanking his feet out of his shoes. “I- neither. What’s wrong with you?”

Sirius raises his eyebrows, lets his eyes wander around the room curiously. “Then… oh- in the shower? For your first time? James — proud of you, really, but that’s just dangerous. I-”

“Merlin, Sirius, no! Stop. We didn’t…” James shakes his head and falls onto his mattress on the floor, arms loose around his knees. “Thank you for not saying that in front of everyone, I guess,” he mumbles eventually, curling further and pulling his blanket around himself like a cloak, right up around his head and shoulders, too. “No, we just talked. We just- everyone was looking at us downstairs and… whispering and stuff. We just wanted to talk somewhere private. The stairs won’t let me up to her room, and my mattress is in here. I- We didn’t mean to stay up here all night, but she fell asleep, that’s it. We didn’t even- She slept in yours, and I slept in mine. Don’t- don’t go spreading rumours like that, okay? If she’s only just starting to trust me, I can’t… I don’t want her to think I’m telling people that.”

Sirius huffs and drops onto his own bed, wrapping his frozen hands around his feet and pretending there’s warmth to pass between them. “You’re a very boring pair, you two,” Sirius mumbles, secretly enjoying the image of James not wanting to disturb a sleeping Lily.

James shrugs. “I don’t want to mess anything up.”

They sit quietly for a while. James burrows further into his blankets, breathing hot air into his hands. Every fifteen seconds or so, Sirius’ whole body is wracked with a trembling shiver. “I think Peter had the right idea,” Sirius says. “I don’t think I’ll get warm without a shower. D’you need in the bathroom first?”

James shakes his head. “I think I might go harass some house elves for a hot chocolate. I need some warm on the inside. Bring you up one?”

“Yeah, cheers.”

James looks like an oversized child, sneaking out of the room with his blankets still pulled tight around him. Sirius grabs last night’s rumpled pyjamas off the floor to change into once he’s out of the shower.

Remus’ toothbrush is still sitting on the edge of the sink, and Sirius has the strange urge to hide it before James can stumble across it in the middle of the night or something. Sirius shakes himself and strips, waiting for the water to steam.

It’s ridiculous, how cold he is. He’s never seen weather like this before, not in England, certainly not in the south of France. Then the fact that it’s evening, dark, and with the high speeds of the brooms…

He’s so cold that he isn’t sure he’s feeling it all the way. Naked, he’s shaking so hard he feels ridiculous, but all of his skin is strangely numb on the surface. It’s hard to move his fingers without focussing all of his attention on it.

It’s funny how memories that might have otherwise been forgotten can be grounded in something so physical, brought back so viscerally.

This is almost the coldest Sirius has ever been.

He swam in the ocean once. The weather was warmer, although far from warm, but to be immersed in cold water must rip heat from the body more effectively than cold air and scattered snow. Tonight, it was hard to breathe because the air was so thin and sharp. Back then, in the memory tugging at the back of Sirius’ mind, he was having a hard time breathing because the cold water made his muscles so tight that it was hard to move his ribs with every breath.

He and Regulus got dragged somewhere far away. It was the first time they were old enough to be taken along with their parents but still too young to know what it was they were actually doing. Walburga and Orion were in meetings all day, but the boys wandered the streets, through shops, and eventually just up and down the sand. No one ever told him what country they were in.

Neither Regulus nor Sirius swam particularly well, but they went out in the water on their last day anyway, just for the sake of having done it. The water was too cold. Regulus jumped out before he was even knee-deep, but Sirius wanted to prove he was tough. After a minute of terribly seized-up shivering, his body stopped bothering to send signals to his brain. He was probably half-blue, but he stayed and he swam.

There was something mystifying about the experience, the first time being truly surrounded by something bigger than himself. He wasn’t even old enough to have seen Beauxbatons yet by then. Until that trip, the whole world seemed to fit tidily into Number 12 Grimmauld Place. The trip itself was eye-opening, and the ocean all around him felt unfathomable, vast and new and free.

He could cut paths through the water when it was calm, but the waves could drag him twenty feet out or crash down overtop of him and hold him under for as long as they wanted — and they did — just to turn around a second later and be peaceful. To have his head held underwater meant all the sounds of the world cut off abruptly, and there was a peace to that too.

He was hauled out of the water eventually, an old man shouting at him in a language he couldn’t quite decipher. The man pointed at the water, some red flag by the shore, Sirius.

Sirius could only pick out a few words that must have had Latin roots, but he’d have understood the sentiment either way. The waves were too big. He shouldn’t have been swimming.

For all the harshness and the loudness of the shouting, the bruising grip around Sirius’ bicep, the dragging and the too–fast pace that made Sirius stumble in the sand, Sirius wasn’t afraid. Still shouting, the man bundled Sirius in a big towel, pulled it snug around Sirius’ shoulders and fell to his knees on the sand in front of Sirius. Sirius had felt far more scolded when the shouting stopped, the man still speaking in a language Sirius hadn’t ever heard, but softer, pleading, and he held Sirius’ face in both hands.

The words probably sounded harsher than they were meant to. Sirius had certainly never been shouted at like this, by someone who was trying to keep him safe. There was a particular panic for Sirius, probably, at the language barrier, at not knowing exactly what he was being told, at the way his parents were known to switch into French when they were exceptionally, violently angry.

Maybe that’s why the old man had stopped shouting, fallen to his knees in front of Sirius. That, or he was just old, too old to be swimming out through strong currents to grab some strange boy being pulled a little further into the ocean with every wave. And the water was cold, the type of cold that sucks the breath right out of your chest. Maybe the man just ran out of breath, too.

The man had dark, almost black eyes that roved over Sirius’ face when he waited for an answer. Sirius did what he could, promised not to go in the water again. Slowly, in English and then in French, and he’s not sure whether he was understood any better than he could understand the man, but he meant what he was saying, and his earnestness might have shone through anyway.

Sirius received a stubbly kiss on the forehead, a pat on the cheek, and another few stern words before the man finally left him, never bothering to take his towel back. Sirius had watched him walk away and thought desperately that he wished he could follow him. Instead, he’d sat in the sand, buried his face in the scratchy towel, and cried.

It was only as he started to warm up that Sirius realized how truly frozen he was.

Even now, under the scalding spray of the shower, Sirius can still feel the cold, the waves. Just if he tries.

Maybe that was the first time Sirius’ brain went funny. It wasn’t until they got back to Grimmauld Place that everything started to fall apart, but maybe that’s where it all started.

It was the first time Sirius fought back against his parents — a miserable failure that he got addicted to anyway. A few days later, the first time he truly tried to protect his brother, and only a week after that, the first time they turned on each other. He got stuck somewhere between wanting to make trouble and wanting to disappear. Wanting to be anywhere but Grimmauld Place — not wanting to be anywhere at all. The first time he felt trapped. The first time he felt scared. He woke up.

There was no place in that house for the boy Sirius became. He never did find a way to make himself fit again.

He washes his hair and wonders whether things would have been different if Regulus had been in the water with him, if they’d both been pulled out of the ocean that day. If someone showed Regulus he was worth saving, too.

Sirius washes away yesterday’s Quidditch match and today’s flying. He scrubs soap over sweat and sore muscles, then just rots under the spray for a while. It’s only once his skin feels a bit rubbed-raw from the heat and the water pressure that Sirius towels himself off and steps into pyjamas he doesn’t quite recognize.

When Sirius walks back into his room, he falls face-first into a different memory.

Because Sirius is half wet, about to comb some product into his hair so that it can dry smoother, and he’s just walking out of the bathroom to do it, and Remus is waiting for him in his bed.

“You take too long in the shower,” he hears Remus grumbling, months ago by now, waiting up for Sirius after he just got off of Quidditch training with James, sweaty and gross.

“I do get distracted…” Not to mention, there were things Sirius needed to take care of in the shower when he knew he was about to go find Remus in his bed, knew what they would be doing for the next few hours. “Join me next time,”Sirius had teased, delighting in Remus’ gritted-teethed blush. “Keep me on task.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Remus had muttered, but it was one of those days where everything was perfect, and so he didn’t look away from Sirius even when he was embarrassed. Sirius combed the product through his hair, slicking it away from his face because it dries better that way, when it falls slowly around his cheeks and jaw as the water evaporates. Remus blushed… and watched.

“You could join me and keep me distracted if you’d rather.”

And then Sirius had fallen into bed with Remus… and Remus is in his bed just the same now, still watching. A cold drop of water slides slowly from a strand of damp hair tucked behind Sirius' ear, but Sirius doesn't interrupt Remus' stare by wiping it away.

Remus' eyes follow the droplet down the side of Sirius' neck, until the drip is soaking into the collar of Sirius' too-big Pyjama shirt, and only then does Remus drop his gaze.

“You don’t have any chairs in here anymore,” Remus says with a wavering defensiveness. “I guess… to make room for James’ mattress, probably. There’s just…. there’s nowhere to sit.”

Sirius laughs and opens the pot of product, watching himself in the little mirror over his dresser and making sure the goop is evenly distributed through his hair — otherwise he just looks greasy. Sirius can see just the top half of Remus’ face behind himself in the mirror if he stands a bit off to the side. Remus’ eyes are downcast, fiddling with something in his lap.

Sirius pushes his pot of product back to the back of his dresser when he’s done with it. “If you’re here hoping to get your pyjamas back, I only just got warm. You’ll have to wrestle me out of them.”

“No.” Remus swallows. “You can… keep them if you like them. I don’t wear them. I drank your hot chocolate, so…” Remus gestures to the empty mug on the bedside table. “James didn’t tell me it was supposed to be yours until he’d already let me drink half — prick.”

Sirius leans his shoulder against the bedpost at the foot of his bed. “You could have saved me the other half,” Sirius points out.

Remus shrugs. “It was already half-cold fifteen minutes ago. You-” Remus hesitates.

Sirius raises his eyebrows. “Take too long in the shower?”

Remus stammers something about how he can get Sirius another hot chocolate.

“Don’t bother.” Sirius would take Remus in his bed over a hot chocolate any day. “So,” Sirius says, coming around the other side of the bed so that he can sit up against the headboard next to Remus. “A map that shows where anyone is in the castle. Did you bring it?”

Remus holds up a folded piece of parchment. “I thought I’d show you how to use it.”

Sirius moves a pillow out of the way so that he can shift closer to Remus. “I’ve never used a map before?”

Remus unfolds the ‘map’, only it’s blank. Sirius reaches over and grabs the page from Remus, and he’s bowled over immediately by the sheer amount of Remus in his hands. “Shit,” Sirius mumbles.

“What?”

“I can feel…” you. Sirius coughs. “It’s just a lot of magic. How long did it take you to make this?”

“A few years, on and off. I thought James and Peter and I were all working on it, but I guess they were giving me a project to distract me while they were researching Animagi. You can feel it?” Remus peers over into the map like he’s trying to see what Sirius felt.

Sirius taps his wand against the page just to see what happens, and he watches black lines spread out across the parchment. It’s obvious in an instant that it’s some sort of blueprint. Sirius turns to stare incredulously at Remus. “Why don’t you have any protections on this thing?”

“It looks blank,” Remus says, but he’s frowning now. “How did you know to-”

“It doesn’t feel blank. This should have a password or something, at least. Can I put one on it?” Sirius hesitates. “I’d tell you what it was, obviously. I’m not trying- Just, if it got in the wrong hands…”

“Put a password on it, sure. Do you know how to do that?”

Does Sirius know how — he invented a way. “I have a meddling snitch of a younger brother. I can put passwords on anything. I can even make it call you names if I want… personalized…” Sirius trails off with a frown.

He’s not sure what he expected — the map is doing exactly what Remus said it would do. Still, Sirius stares into it, astounded by the amount of information he can glean from little black dots and people’s names. “James is with Lily,” he says, pointing. He holds the map out between them so that Remus can see.

“Yeah. He had a hot chocolate for her, too, when I saw him.”

Sirius smiles and keeps scanning. His eyes wander over the library and the common rooms, but he gets distracted by his own name.

Sirius… Lupin.

They must be sitting close enough that their names are overlapping. Black and Remus blur together into one illegible smudge.

Sirius swallows and forces his eyes to a different corner of the page. “Are Dorcas and Peter playing chess downstairs?” They look like they’re sitting together, and Sirius can’t think of any other reason they’d talk. Remus nods.

Sirius amuses himself finding Mary and Marlene next, then the Professors and the Headmaster in sections of the castle he’s never seen before. It had never occurred to him to wonder where Madam Pomfrey sleeps, but obviously she has quarters. She doesn’t live in the hospital wing.

In a way, everyone is exactly where he would expect them to be if he ever bothered to think about it.

Sirius sets the map down in the empty space to his left, but he can’t bring himself to meet Remus’ eyes. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Sirius stares down at their feet, his mismatched socks and the small hole starting at Remus’ toe. There’s just an inch between their thighs, and if Sirius focused on it, he’d be able to feel the heat pouring off of Remus. He can’t focus on it, though, nor anything but the strange, overwhelming ache sneaking its way up his throat. He wraps his arms around his legs and leans his forehead against his knees.

It’s just- everyone is exactly where they’re supposed to be.

“Sirius?” A soft, curious touch on Sirius’ shoulder knocks a shuddering breath out of him.

“I’m the one who isolated myself,” Sirius says, laughing. He shakes his head, just an excuse to wipe tears on his knees. He sniffs. “When… I was so scared when I left my parents’ house, and I felt so alone, and I was the one pushing everyone away. I was so scared of my arm not working again, and James was scared for me, and I hated him for it. And I just kept…”

Remus’ hand slides up between Sirius’ shoulder blades, and the weight of it helps somehow, the soft tracing of Remus’ thumb against the top knobs of his spine. “I know,” Remus says. “He’s okay.”

“I never even told him I wasn’t going to be paralyzed. He kept asking things, and-” Sirius’ voice cuts off at the realization, the fact that it’s suddenly been two months, and he never-

All the talk of back at Hogwarts, and flying, and when d’you reckon you’ll be able to play Quidditch again? If Sirius is honest with himself, he knew what James was really asking. He’d known he was holding back, being unfair. Sirius was punishing James for making him think about things that scared him.

The Healers said the curse damage could spread over weeks or months and James-

“He’s okay,” Remus promises. “I told him. The same night you told me… I knew you wanted him to know, even if you couldn’t tell him. I told him. He knows you’re okay.”

Sirius sniffs again, and Remus pulls on Sirius’ shoulder until his back is leaned somewhat against Remus’ chest. They could arrange it a bit more comfortably, but Sirius can’t make himself care, can’t make himself move away from the feeling of Remus’ heartbeat against his back, not even for a second.

When Sirius just keeps sniffling, trying not to let his nose run down his face, Remus says it again, “He’s okay, Sirius.”

“I couldn’t do anything,” Sirius says. “I never took my Apparition test. I didn’t even- If James’ parents didn’t take me, I don’t know where I would have gone. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t want- Even before then, I knew I was going to be disowned, and I didn’t… I should have- And if I couldn’t move half of me…” Sirius tugs at the collar of his tee shirt until he can wipe his eyes and nose on the neck hole. When he drops his head down again, he leans further against Remus.

He can’t make his throat make noises now, but there’s still so much more to say.

Remus has been all messed up… basically since he was a baby. Set up for a life that was different and harder than anyone else’s from age four. Sirius had to be that scared for two weeks, and he couldn’t handle it. Even when every second he was getting better, he still couldn’t handle it.

Sirius, even then, was so much luckier than Remus in so many ways, and he pushed everyone around him away, and-

He knows how defeated he felt, how hopeless and miserable and angry… and he never even worked through it. He just… got better. He got lucky.

Remus is never going to get lucky. It’s just-

Sirius can’t keep getting overwhelmed by it like this, but it’s not fair.

“Sirius, you would have been fine. No matter what-”

“It wasn’t fine. None of this is fine.”

Remus squeezes Sirius tighter, and Sirius’ breath leaves him in a shudder. “No, it was awful. I know. That’s not what I’m saying.” Remus helps shuffle Sirius until he’s leaned a bit better against Remus. He can lean his head back and have it supported by Remus’ neck. “But you had so many people around you ready to make it work.

“If James’ parents didn’t take you in, we would have gotten you a flat. If your parents had cleared out your vault before you turned seventeen, James would have paid. If you were in a wheelchair, there are fireplaces on most floors here: you’d have floo-ed around the castle instead of taking the stairs. You-” Remus squeezes Sirius again, waits for Sirius to catch his breath. “Everyone knew you couldn’t make plans. You were overwhelmed, and you couldn’t think about it, and James knew that. He’s okay, and you were taken care of. You couldn’t do it alone, but you were taken care of.”

That makes it worse, somehow, and then Sirius’ shuddering breaths are shaking sobs. He gets himself turned around eventually, legs in some aching knot, but it’s fine as long as he can press his face into Remus’ neck. Remus wraps his arms all the way around Sirius, whispering soft words against Sirius’ hair. “Yeah, it would have been easier if we knew more about how you were doing, but everyone was fine. You were looked after, Sirius. We were all making sure of it. And-”

“Stop.”

Remus stops talking, stops trailing his hands up and down Sirius’ back. Sirius sniffs a few more times against Remus’ shirt, then pulls back.

“What about you, Remus?”

“I was helping James with research, talking to-”

“No, what about you? Where are your people? Why isn’t anyone taking care of you? James- He’d do all that for me — what about you? Is Dumbledore really the only person…” Sirius can’t seem to get a whole sentence out, can’t catch his breath. “What about you?”

Remus forces down a clunking swallow. “James isn’t making plans for me because he knows. He’s known about The Order of the Phoenix since he found out I’m a werewolf. He’s always known there’s a plan for me. He almost joined The Order, himself. No one’s neglecting me. I just-”

“When should I book your Apparition test?” Sirius interrupts, clearing his throat. He has to clear it a second time, and it’s still scratchy, but he pretends it’s normal. “March or June?”

Remus stops his explanation, shaking his head. “What?”

Sirius pulls himself further from Remus, one leg completely asleep. “I paid ages ago. I was supposed to take mine in January, but I missed it, so I’ll need to re-book. I never got to sign you up for a test. I don’t know your middle name or your birthday for the forms, and you need to be seventeen. Will you be seventeen by March 15th?” Sirius’ numb leg is starting to come back to life, all full of sharp prickles. He ignores it and stares expectantly at Remus.

“I- March 10th, yeah, but-”

Sirius tries to do the maths in his head. A full moon every… twenty-nine days? Or- fuck, there was a whole unit in Astronomy on lunar phases, but Sirius hadn’t been in his right mind when they were studying it. It’s twenty-nine and a half days, something ridiculous like that. The February full moon was the night of the tenth through to the eleventh, and February is the short month… “June. You’ll want to do it in June so you can focus. I want to get mine in March, so I can side-along Lily around Hogsmeade a few times before June so that she can get a feel-”

“Sirius,” Remus interrupts. “I know you have less money now that you’re cut off. It was ages ago that you said you’d pay for that, and a lot’s happened since. I’m not holding you to that.”

Sirius wipes at his cheeks again with the shoulder of his shirt. “Apparition saved my life. I hope you can understand why it’s important to me that you have that level of autonomy. I have enough money.”

Remus shakes his head again, but he stays quiet for a long time, face twitching occasionally, and Sirius is sure that Remus is having a whole conversation in his head. He drops his eyes to the sheets eventually. “John.” Remus shakes his head again. “For the forms. My middle name is John.”

Sirius nods and waits out the last of the sharp static in his leg before shuffling in to kneel next to Remus, then thinking fuck that, and throwing a leg over both of Remus’ thighs.

The mattress is soft and Sirius wobbles a bit, but Remus steadies him, one hand on his hip, one hand on his thigh. “Sirius- what are you-”

“You’re going to stay here,” Sirius says, both hands on Remus’ face. “And if it’s too big and too scary for you to make your own plans right now-”

“Sirius-”

“Then it’s done. I’ll do it.” When Remus looks like he’s going to interrupt, Sirius drags him forward another few inches and presses their lips together. It’s not a particularly sweet kiss, rough and dry and too hard. Sirius pulls back once he’s confident he’s shut Remus up. “If you don’t have any more brave left in you, any more fight left in you, take a break. Do you want to stay here?”

Remus’ mouth opens and closes a few times, barely. One of Sirius’ hands wound its way into Remus’ hair when he kissed him, and he gives it a sharp tug. “Answer me.”

“Yes,” Remus breathes. “I- you know I do. But-”

“Do you want me?”

Remus sucks in a slow breath. “Yes.”

“You have me.” Remus’ eyes pinch closed. Sirius swallows. “Do you trust me?”

For some reason, that’s the question that scares Sirius, but it’s also Remus’ quickest answer. Soft, disbelieving, but easy. “Yes.”

“Can you let me do this?” Sirius slides his hands out of Remus’ hair, down to his neck, thumbs tracing along his jaw. Sirius doesn’t push, but Remus’ head tilts back an inch anyway. “Can you let me take care of you?”

Remus’ head drops back against the headboard with a small thud and a wondrous little laugh. “You can do whatever the fuck you want to me, Sirius.”

Chapter Text

Sirius hesitates with his lips hovering just a centimetre away from Remus’, almost sure. Almost sure.

Remus closes the last of the distance between them, and Sirius melts against him. The first kiss is slow and soft. Sirius settles his weight onto Remus’ thighs instead of perching, tangles his hands into Remus’ hair, moans against Remus’ lips when Remus returns the favour.

It’s instantaneous, the way Sirius’ body begs for more, and he’s sure Remus can feel it against his stomach, just like Sirius can feel Remus coming to life underneath of him, but they focus on the kiss for now, something so close to familiar and so close to forgotten.

Sirius finds himself trying to rediscover it all, commit every detail to memory, savour everything he forgot to cherish the first time. The press of Remus’ lips, the taste of his mouth, the fingers in his hair that somehow tangle differently than anyone else’s ever have.

It’s Remus.

Remus turns his head away, breathing too heavy. Still, he pulls Sirius closer as he breaks the kiss, so Sirius goes. His skin is alive with Remus, Remus’ hands against his back, the press of his chest against Sirius’, the warmth and every wrinkle in the clothes between them. His body is screaming for more, even with just the dry, inconsequential friction of fabric, he wants more. He goes. Remus turns away from the kiss and pulls Sirius against him, and Sirius goes. He lets himself be hugged, held tight, kissed on the head.

There’s a seam at the shoulder of Remus’ uniform shirt that cuts into Sirius’ forehead, and he doesn’t care. He presses in closer, tucks himself in tighter, breathes deeper.

It’s ridiculous, a bit. The boys almost all use the same shampoos here, the same soaps in the shower, the same detergents on their clothes. People seldom think to pack their own products when there’s stuff here already. Remus smells like Hogwarts, like everyone else, like Sirius’ clothes before he mixes in his own cologne. He smells like everyone else, only he smells like Remus.

“I miss you,” Remus mumbles against Sirius’ hair. “Fuck- I miss you.”

Sirius drops a kiss against Remus’ collarbone. “You have me.”

Remus kisses the top of Sirius’ head again, crushes Sirius against his chest in a way that should be too much, only it still isn’t quite enough. “Tell me you’re real,” Remus mumbles, lips dragging against Sirius’ scalp. “Tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me you’re here.”

Sirius can’t seem to pull himself back enough to look Remus in the eyes, so he does the best that he can, another too-tight squeeze around Remus’ ribs. “I’m right here.” Sirius’ lips drag against fabric, and Sirius just opens his mouth wider even as the cotton dries out his lips. He mouths at Remus’ collarbone until he finds a slightly softer patch of skin in further toward Remus’ neck, then bites down. Not too hard. Just enough to pinch. “Not dreaming,” Sirius mumbles, teasing.

But the way Remus’ body jerks isn’t funny. The way he says Sirius’ name… “Sirius.”

It’s so much deeper than Sirius is used to, a sound ripped from somewhere in Remus’ chest instead of his throat. Suddenly, Sirius is sure he’ll die if he doesn’t hear more of Remus’ voice like that. Sirius bites him again, but he’s only rewarded with a breathy moan. Unbearable.

He doesn’t quite care what Remus says, just as long as he talks.

“Do you dream of me, then?” Sirius asks, trying for normal, conversational. Trying to pretend he hasn’t suddenly turned into the most desperate person on earth, pushing his hands into Remus’ chest so that he can put enough space between them to fumble with the knot in Remus’ tie.

Remus’ hands trace absently at Sirius’ sides. His eyes are still closed, but he frowns slightly when Sirius’ hands become steadily less gentle, just yanking on the knot when he can’t remember how to untie it now that it’s on someone else, mirrored.

Remus tilts his head so that Sirius can pull the tie off that way, graciously ignoring the way it catches on one of his ears. “Sometimes,” Remus says, a slight hesitation as he drags his eyes open to fix his gaze on Sirius. Sirius has no idea what Remus sees there — something desperate, something hungry. Something he likes, clearly, because Remus laughs, soft. “Too often.”

Remus drags Sirius into another painfully soft kiss while Sirius starts on the top buttons of Remus’ stiff shirt. Sirius’ own shirt is a muggle thing, something with stretch, so Remus’ hands sneak up under it easily, wide palms pressed flat into Sirius’ back. Once Sirius has successfully exposed Remus’ neck and collarbones, he trails his lips down Remus’ jaw, earning him another shivering moan. Almost enough.

“Tell me,” Sirius says. He gives another little nip. “Talk.”

Remus laughs, something breathless and gorgeous and completely shaky. “This,” Remus says eventually. One of his hands snakes its way back into Sirius’ damp hair, directing him. Sirius lets Remus put him right where he wants him. Sirius bumps his nose against a mole and sets to work, leaving quick open-mouthed kisses, then sucking gently, just to watch blood draw up to the surface of the skin, pink.“That mark on my neck… your magic- your mouth. I could feel you.” Remus’ hand tightens fractionally in Sirius’ hair, then slides down to cradle the back of his neck. “Every fucking second.”

And Sirius realizes where Remus has lined him up. In just the same place Sirius left the last lovebite. Sirius licks a broad stripe over the area, some reminder. Remus sucks in a quick breath. “I hope that wasn’t distracting,” Sirius lies, lips stretched into a smirk.

“No.” Remus urges Sirius up until he can look at him, and Sirius delights in the subtle flush in Remus’ cheeks. “I could focus.” He licks his lips. “In the day. When I was busy… I could focus.”

Sirius likes the implication. In the day, he could focus. When Remus was busy, he could focus. If Sirius could pull himself away from Remus’ neck, he might tease him for it, and what about at night? What about when you were alone? What about when you were trying to sleep? Could you feel me when you were trying to forget, when you were trying to think of something else, anything else?

Could you feel me when you were touching yourself? Is that why you couldn’t heal it?

Sirius doesn’t bother to say it out loud though. He just puts his mark back where it belongs, savouring every little sound Remus makes, every twitch in his grip on Sirius’ ribs.

Sirius leans back to examine his work.

Remus’ chest rises and falls a bit more harshly, a bit more quickly than it should. His wrinkled white shirt is unbuttoned down to the sternum — obscene. Ridiculous and delicious… and his lips are just a bit too red. His hair’s messier than normal.

It all works well for him. Sirius traces his fingers over the fresh bruise. It’ll be dark by tomorrow.

Once Sirius has taken Remus in, he works backward trying to remember what Remus had said, if Sirius had ever actually answered out loud.

I could focus.

“Shame,” Sirius mumbles, tracing his fingers over the bruise again, then sliding them further back, around Remus’ neck and up into his hair. “I’d have wanted you distracted.”

Remus drags Sirius down for another searching kiss. Even when Remus finally lets up, he doesn’t let Sirius pull back far. “I know. I know you wanted me distracted.”

Remus’ dark eyes search over Sirius’ face, and Sirius feels a bit like he’s being scolded, and somehow that’s a victory. “I wasn’t trying to hide it,” Sirius says lightly. “I like knowing you’re thinking about me.” He curls his fingers to drag his blunt nails just lightly over Remus’ scalp. Remus’ eyes droop closed at the touch, and he pulls Sirius in a bit closer.

Remus breathes the words against Sirius’ lips, “And when I watched you crawl into bed with my best friend every night-” He gives Sirius another deceptively gentle peck while Sirius struggles trying not to just pant into Remus’ mouth.

“It’s just James,” Sirius says. A part of him needs to see the look on Remus’ face, but he can’t seem to pull his eyes open. Remus’ lips catch on Sirius’ with every word that they form.

“And I got to watch him put his hands on you, wrap his arms around you in his sleep or-”

Sirius actually laughs at that: nothing but jagged, soft breath. “The beds are small. No one was thinking about all that.”

“I know.” Something about the way Remus holds Sirius… Sirius knows he’s meant to look. Remus’ eyes are dark, so so dark. “You talk in your sleep, Sirius.”

“Oh.” Oh. “Suppose you know who I dream about, then.”

Sirius doesn’t know when it started, him rocking his hips in time with Remus’. Small, grinding motions that are so far from enough. Sirius lets his eyes fall closed again and focuses on the feeling, Remus’ cock pressed against him.

Sirius can’t get nearly enough friction like this. Remus is trapped in the cleft of his arse, and all Sirius has is the dry ache of his pyjamas, and he moans anyway. “Remus…”

Remus’ hands fumble to get under Sirius’ shirt again, and Sirius just tugs the whole thing off, throwing it somewhere beside him, irrelevant. So fucking irrelevant as Remus whispers, “Look at you,” under his breath, barely.

From this position, Remus hardly has to duck his head to mouth at Sirius’ collarbones, and Sirius drags him down to his nipples. Remus pauses, then drags his tongue over one, sending Sirius’ hips jerking hard enough that Remus has to grab him and hold him steady. “In my bed, Sirius,” Remus mumbles, dragging his teeth over Sirius’ nipple. Sirius can only whimper and tug at Remus’ hair. “That’s when I couldn’t focus. In my bed, drunk, when I can already smell you on my sheets from the night before.” He pulls away from Sirius, staring up at him, breathing unsteady. Remus’ hands around Sirius’ waist are the only thing holding him upright, and he can feel the warm whisper of Remus’ words against his — now damp — sensitive skin. “You were in my bed for the full moon.”

Close, Sirius is too close. He fumbles his hands down until he’s pressing against somewhere low in Remus’ stomach, stop. Remus’ hands tighten on Sirius’ hips, but Remus stills. He’s not grinding against Sirius anymore, but he’s still pressed tight against him, throbbing. Even that’s almost too good, too much.

“Fuck, Remus…” Sirius is the one who made Remus stop grinding against him, and he just might die without the touch anyway. He presses his hips down more firmly, desperate for more of that throb against him, hating that either of them are wearing anything at all. He focuses on Remus’ hands, then. The only real skin-to-skin contact between them. Tight big hands.

“I could smell you on my sheets when I got back to my room,” Remus says. Sirius needs to grab one of Remus’ shoulders, something to help hold himself upright.

Sirius doesn’t even answer, but his tiny smile must speak for itself, I hoped you would.

The next kiss Remus drags Sirius into is absolutely filthy, and Sirius hardly knows how to respond, just yields, moans.

“You wanked in my bed.”

Sirius laughs. “I was trying to relax.” His brain only catches up to the words a minute later. “You can’t smell that.”

He’d known he’d be leaving Remus’ bed smelling of his cologne.

Remus drags a thumb over Sirius’ lower lip, and Sirius lets his mouth fall open. Remus pinches his eyes closed and leans his forehead against the centre of Sirius’ chest. “I can smell you now, too,” he whispers. “Leaking.”

Like Sirius’ cock was just waiting for Remus to say it, he feels another pulse of precum staining the front of his pyjamas.

“You could smell it on your sheets…” Good. Sirius combs his fingers through Remus’ hair, then gives a sharp tug, something hard enough that Remus’ head falls all the way back, staring up at Sirius. “You,” Sirius accuses. “Didn’t change your sheets.”

Remus tries to shake his head, but he doesn’t actually move much with Sirius’ hands holding him still. His cheeks are pinker than Sirius has ever seen them, lips parted. “If I’d known you’d be helping yourself to my bed again the next night, me in it…”

And Sirius doesn’t argue that Remus could have taken Peter’s bed. Sirius would have just followed him there, too.

“Looking at me like that, drunk.” Remus spits the last word like it’s personally wronged him. “Legs around my waist on the counter, drunk. Relentless, drunk. Offering to blow me in one breath, then saying I make you feel safe in the next when I have never felt more fucking dangerous, Sirius.”

It’s funny- Remus, underneath of Sirius, looking up. Head tilted back like that, dragged around by Sirius’ hands, throat bruised from Sirius’ lips. It’s funny- somehow Remus looks it. Dangerous.

Not scarred and soft and beautiful. Not soft, anyway. Not even all the way human.

It’s impossible to say which version of Remus Sirius is more desperate for, the one in control or the one who loses it.

“I’m sober now,” Sirius breathes. “Offer still stands.”

Even if Sirius couldn’t see the pinch in Remus’ features, he’d still be able to feel the twitch in Remus’ cock beneath him. Remus draws in a too-sharp breath, and Sirius doesn’t give him a chance to adjust, grinding his hips down against Remus again, trying to get a feel for the cock beneath him.

Remus drops his head back against the headboard. For a second, he just watches, and it’s enough for Sirius to want to put on a whole show. At a particularly thorough shift of his hips, Sirius lets himself moan. Remus makes a soft choked sound, reaching up to wrap his hands around Sirius’ wrists, pulling them away and forcing Sirius to untangle his hands from Remus’ hair.

Remus doesn’t tell Sirius where to put his hands, so Sirius braces himself against Remus’ shoulders again. Remus pulls Sirius in for a slow kiss, all tongue and soft, panting breaths. “Let’s focus on you,” Remus breathes. “What do you want?”

Quite frankly, Sirius wants to blow Remus. All the more for every bit of restraint he sees — every time he sees Remus pull himself back together, Sirius wants to make Remus fall apart. He wants to feel Remus’ thighs shaking as he tries not to fuck up into Sirius’ mouth. He wants to make Remus moan, beg. He wants Remus’ hands in his hair, tight, hands that shouldn’t push, but they do. He wants Remus helpless to do anything but push, take. He wants to taste him. He wants to own him. He wants to break him.

Remus is all too dressed for any of that. Sirius is struck by the realization that he’s only managed to get Remus out of his tie.

“I want to see you. All of you.” Sirius tugs emphatically on Remus’ shirt, only open enough to see just a smattering of coarse hair spreading out from his sternum and the edges of a few scars.

Remus pinches his eyes closed. He hesitates but nods. Sirius leans forward, a reward, a distraction — a kiss. He doesn’t bother getting Remus’ shirt all the way off, not when Remus is pressed so thoroughly against the headboard. Not when Remus is still self-conscious but trying. Sirius kisses him until all the buttons are undone and leaves the shirt like that, open against Remus’ chest. A small first step, but so much skin even still. Remus’ skin is always a bit too warm, and Sirius is delirious with it, the reminder that it’s not just someone beneath him, but Remus.

He lets his hands explore Remus’ chest but tries not to overwhelm Remus with too much scrutiny right away. Sirius doesn’t look yet. He nips at Remus’ lips and traces scars, rocks his hips down against Remus’ cock and drags his nails over too-hot skin, adding his own claw marks to the medley.

There are scars of a different texture somewhere off to Remus’ left, high on his side, and Sirius tries not to touch those. A bite, not a scratch.

“Sirius, I’m…” Remus makes a deliciously strained noise at a well-timed pairing: a dragging shift of Sirius’ hips, and a sharp nip of Sirius’ teeth against Remus’ neck. “I’m close.”

“Good,” Sirius says, dipping his tongue into that little space under Remus’ ear. Remus is salty, sweaty, and Sirius is so high on Remus that he goes back for another taste. “Do you want to cum like this?”

Remus’ lips part, but an answer doesn’t come. Instead, his hands just tighten against Sirius’ arse, encouraging Sirius to rock down in time with Remus’ own chasing thrusts. Sirius just hums a moan into Remus’ neck and lets.

Remus is growing more and more desperate under Sirius. Sirius plants his hands against Remus’ chest, needing something to balance himself against, needing to watch. He wants Remus to get off like this, desperate and gorgeous, marked up, flushed red down to his chest, fucked out and stunning. Nearly fully dressed and properly debauched with his shirt hanging open against his chest. Sirius’ claw marks down his front, muscles gorgeously engaged from the way he can’t help fucking up against Sirius. Eyelids that flutter, a slice of white underneath, eyes fighting not to roll.

“You look good like this,” Sirius says.

“Sirius.”

“Let go, then.” He drags his lips down Remus’ neck. “Come for me.”

Sirius reaches the junction between Remus’ neck and shoulder, and he waits until Remus’ breaths stutter, short and desperate. Then Sirius bites down, hard.

Remus comes on a string of Sirius, Sirius, I…

Sirius means to talk him through it, but his brain stutters to a halt when the grip on his arse changes, and Remus isn’t helping Sirius rock down against him anymore, just holding him tight, still. Remus puts Sirius wherever he wants him, wherever he needs him, fucking up against his arse until he finally goes still, slumped against the headboard, gasping.

Sirius teeters on the edge there — entranced — indefinitely until he remembers how to move, but all he manages to do is slump forward enough to rest his forehead against Remus’.

He just watched Remus cum.

Sirius fumbles at the knot in the front of his pyjamas, desperately shoving his hand inside.

“Sirius,” Remus says. His voice is gravelly, like he’s been screaming all night. Like he’s losing his voice from it all, like he spent the last half hour with a cock down his throat. Sirius speeds up his hand. “Sirius- can I? Can you- Just let me remember how to move my arms.” Remus’ laugh is soft and breathy, and Sirius is close, so close. “Sirius- can I?”

Every time Remus says Sirius in that ridiculously hoarse, satisfied voice, Sirius moves his hand a little faster, grips himself a little tighter. It’s horrible, dry and too much, and he’s so close. Remus.

“Sirius?” A tiny hesitation, then softer, “Please?”

Sirius falls against Remus, tearing his hand away from himself, whimpering into Remus’ shoulder, gasping. He mumbles something, some combination of praise and insults, begging and threats, all of it muffled against Remus’ skin, but the sentiment is clear. Sirius turns his head enough to speak clearly. “Hurry up, then.”

Remus runs his hands up Sirius’ thighs. One hand starts to dip under his waistband, but the angle doesn’t work for Remus’ hand. Remus huffs and shakes his head. “D’you think you can get out of these?”

And Sirius honestly isn’t sure. There’s a spell — there’s always a spell — but he can’t remember where he put his magic. He’s not sure… but he’s standing, stumbling, steadying himself against Remus’ shoulder, then falling back into his lap, hoping Remus can straighten him out, and Remus must.

Sirius feels all too aware suddenly that he’s naked and Remus is nearly fully clothed.

Sirius drops his head against Remus’, then collapses further than that, forehead against the headboard beside Remus’, hands braced against Remus’ shoulders. “Fucking touch me,” Sirius snaps, begging.

And he learns what the delay was only a second later, because Remus’ hand on him is wet. “Oh, fuck, Remus.”

“Tell me what you like, yeah?”

Sirius shakes his head, too many words. He doesn’t know. “Just- anything. Just touch me. Whatever you want, just touch me.”

He’s babbling now, he knows it, but he can’t seem to care. Remus’ hand is moving so slowly, and it’s driving him mad, and he can’t seem to ask for more, and he needs more.

“Fuck- I am- I love your hands,” Sirius finds himself saying, pausing to sink his nails and teeth into Remus’ shoulder every time Remus’ fist finally swallows up the head of his cock, only to disappear again, so slow. So so slow, and not tight enough, and Remus breathes the most ridiculously self-satisfied laugh into Sirius’ hair.

“My hands?”

“Remus- please.”

“You are so gorgeous, Sirius.” Sirius whimpers into Remus’ shoulder again, trying uselessly to fuck into his hands, but the position they’re in only lets Sirius move about an inch, and it’s not enough. It’s not- “Can you let me look at you, Sirius?”

Sirius doesn’t process the words, can hardly remember being spoken to, but Remus’ hand slows, and Sirius finds himself scrambling desperately backward, trying to see what changed, needing to see. Forehead leaned against Remus’, Sirius is completely captivated by the sight of his cock in Remus’ hand.

Flushed red, shiny at the tip, leaking, disappearing over and over into Remus’ fist. He has such obscenely big hands. He was made for this, made for Sirius.

“Remus- Remus, please.”

“Fuck,” Remus mumbles, pressing a kiss against Sirius’ open mouth. “I love you like this. Desperate,” he says the last word like praise, and suddenly Sirius wants to be desperate, loves desperate. He’s so desperate.

“Remus.”

Sirius melts a little further, all of his strength dissolving into need, and suddenly his eyes are on the floor, James’ mattress on the floor, and he’s about three good strokes away from coming, realizing James could walk in at any second- “Remus- Remus- I need-”

Remus has Sirius by the jaw, holding him up and staring into him, hungry, and Sirius can’t do anything but stare back, but let. “I know, Sirius. You can come if you want. We can stop now if you want.” Now, now- Sirius needs to come now. “But if you can give me one more minute like this, I’m going to put you in my mouth.”

Sirius’ brain leaves the building.

There’s nothing left, nothing but Remus’ hand on his cock, Remus’ mouth. Remus’ mouth, Sirius needs Remus’ mouth, needs to cum in Remus’ mouth. Remus’ dark eyes drinking Sirius in, and Remus’ tongue, darting across his lips, Remus’ mouth.

Sirius collapses backward this time, not forward. He lands on his back, and he could scream when Remus’ hand leaves him, and then Sirius’ whole body is shooting sparks. Remus and warm and wet and-

And Remus sucks. He’s coming, and Remus is sucking him through it.

There’s something holding Sirius down, and he doesn’t process it until he’s slowing down, still coming, somehow stillcoming, but he can’t fuck his hips up into Remus’ mouth. Remus’ hands on his hips, pressing him into the mattress, and it’s good. Fuck- it’s good.

For a while, there’s just that. Throbbing, and good.

It changes eventually, the good. It changes into Remus’ voice, good. So good, perfect, gorgeous, good. Sirius smells good, and he tastes good, and he’s good. Wonderful and too good to be true, and good.

Sirius likes being good. He feels good.

Sirius finds his hands in Remus’ hair, too tight. He forces them to relax while Remus leaves a few final kisses against his stomach. When Sirius looks down at himself, he finds a few blooming pink marks between his hips, and he catches Remus smiling. “Fuck,” Sirius mumbles on a breathless laugh. “Fuck.”

Sirius runs his hands apologetically over Remus’ scalp a few times. He doesn’t remember winding his fingers through Remus’ hair, but he’s sure he pulled too hard. “Sorry,” Sirius mumbles.

“You’re okay,” Remus says. Sirius is still trying to situate himself in his own brain, so Remus keeps busy sucking a little bruise on Sirius’ stomach.

If Remus doesn’t mind, Sirius lets himself comb his hands through Remus’ hair some more. Slowly, he catches his breath. “Did I make it to the end of the minute?”

Remus laughs and crawls up Sirius’ body, kissing his cheek. “No. Longer than I thought you would, though.” He kisses Sirius on the lips next, slow and mild. He tastes like cum, and something about that makes Sirius smile. “You…” Remus shakes his head, kissing Sirius again. “I love you.”

Sirius hums. “Yeah.” Remus laughs and kisses him. “You taste like cum.”

Sirius doesn’t want to be kissed, doesn’t want to think hard enough to kiss Remus back, so he yanks Remus down on top of him instead. It’s a complicated feeling, actually, because he desperately wants to be kissing Remus, but he doesn’t want to do the work. He presses their cheeks together instead, and Remus turns his head an inch to breathe in from Sirius’ hair, then relaxes and presses back. “I love you.”

“Yeah,” Sirius mumbles eventually. “Yeah… you too.”

Chapter Text

Remus disappears into the loo to make sense of the mess he’s made in his trousers. Sirius stays right where Remus left him, not sure he can move just yet. His brain floats for a while.

“Are you awake, Sirius?” Remus’ soft voice finds Sirius eventually. Sirius answers, yes, he’s awake. Super awake. “Right,” Remus says. “What’s bigger, a quarter or a third?”

“What? Four.”

There’s a pause, then a little laugh. “Alright. Are you thirsty? There’s water beside the bed.”

Sirius drags himself upright and forces his sticky eyes to open, searching the room until he finds Remus standing near the door. It looks for a second like Remus is about to pull his trainers on, but he’s only bending down to straighten James’ pillows. Sirius finds himself buried under blankets, but he shoves them off to shuffle to the edge of the bed, grabbing the mug from the bedside table and downing the slightly strange water. He clicks his tongue. “What is that?”

“Hm? Oh, does it taste like hot chocolate? My cleaning charms need work. Here, hand it over. I’ll go wash it in the sink and get you a new one.”

“It’s fine,” Sirius mumbles, showing that he already drained the cup. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?” Remus is still by the door.

“No, not unless you want some space.” Remus pauses, waiting until Sirius shakes his head. “Alright.” Remus smiles and goes back to tugging James’ sheets into place, tucking the corners more firmly around the mattress.

“Can you come here?” Sirius asks.

Remus does, turning once he’s close enough like he’s about to sit next to Sirius on the bed, but Sirius sets a hand on Remus’ thigh, a slight pressure that makes Remus pause. He moves to stand between Sirius’ legs instead, and Sirius tilts his head back to look at Remus.

And that’s all the invitation Remus needs to cup Sirius’ jaw and press a slow kiss to his lips. Remus stays bent over Sirius even once they’ve broken the kiss, and Sirius sags against Remus’ stomach. “Okay,” Sirius mumbles. “Good.”

Remus is wearing one of Sirius’ shirts — a Zeppelin tee Sirius bought himself this Christmas when he was missing Lily — and Sirius smiles even as he pushes the shirt away, up until he can press his face into Remus’ stomach. Remus lets Sirius nose at his navel and the trail of hair underneath it, lets Sirius suck tiny little kisses to whatever skin ends up under his lips without any complaints about the fact that Sirius is overdue for a shave. Sirius can feel the roughness of his jaw catching against soft skin, can feel the muscles in Remus’ stomach jumping under the scratch, but Remus just trails his fingers through Sirius’ hair for a while.

When Remus pulls away from Sirius, it’s to kneel between his feet. Sirius is still naked, but he doesn’t reach for the blankets, doesn’t break Remus’ stare. “Talk to me,” Remus says, finding Sirius’ hands and winding their fingers together against Sirius’ thighs.

And Sirius only learns that he’s on the edge of crying when he has to suck in a shaky breath to speak. “You’re better at it than I am,” Sirius says. “Taking care of people.” Sirius casts his eyes around the room where Remus has let Sirius sleep and just silently tidied up, put some laundry away, got Sirius wrapped in a blanket so he wouldn’t get cold, left water beside the bed for him. Remus is just…

Everything that makes Remus good… Sirius isn’t any of those things. He isn’t gentle or thoughtful or careful. He’s not soft. He’s not kind. He’s not Remus.

“I don’t know how to take care of you,” Sirius whispers. “I won’t be any good at it.”

“Oh, Sirius…” Remus says.

“James is going to help me be an Animagus, and I’ll set you up for your Apparition test, and maybe after school we can — all of us — go-”

“Sirius.” Remus gives Sirius’ thigh a quick, tight squeeze. When Sirius stops talking, Remus stretches himself up until he can reach the back of Sirius’ neck, pulling him in for a soft kiss, then just letting Sirius drop the weight of his forehead against Remus’. “I don’t need you dropping everything to take care of me. I’m okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We’re okay.”

“I said I would-”

Remus shakes his head, an imperceptibly small movement except for the fact that his face is pressed against Sirius’. “You are not my parents,” Remus says. “You’re not my caretaker.” He hesitates. “And… I’m not your brother. Don’t take all my stress. Don’t take all my pain, yeah? Just — be with me.” He presses his lips against Sirius’ again, more of a touch than a kiss. “Let me sleep in a room that smells like you. Kiss me. Come-” Sirius kisses him, and Remus laughs against his mouth. “Come visit me in the hospital wing when you have time. I- Having you back a bit this week, even just a bit-“ Remus laughs again, softer now, pulling Sirius into his shoulder and kissing his hair. Sirius is bent double from it, and he just bends. “You make me so fucking happy, Sirius. Just be around. That’s enough, okay? You’re enough.”

“Okay,” Sirius mumbles.

Remus rubs Sirius’ back. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For- fuck, so much, Sirius. I don’t think I even knew how miserable I was. I knew, but I didn’t- I didn’t realize I gave up.” Sirius scoots himself off of the bed so that he and Remus can properly wrap themselves around each other. Remus holds Sirius tight against him. Remus presses another kiss to Sirius’ hair, then leaves himself there, lips dragging softly as he talks. His voice keeps getting more choked as he talks, but the words only come out faster, urgent. “I’m sorry, Sirius. I didn’t mean to put all my shit onto you like this. I don’t need you to take over. I had my break.” Remus takes a shaky little breath, pressing his forehead into Sirius’ hair. “I think I… I think I took a really long break, actually. I’m back, okay? I’m here.”

Sirius forgets to answer, lost somewhere in the feel of Remus’ hands in his back, wet tears dripping against his scalp.

They cling to each other until being pressed against Remus’ body still isn’t quite enough heat for Sirius’ bare skin, then reluctantly untangle themselves. There’s already pyjamas on the side table, a neatly folded pile next to the empty hot chocolate mug, and Sirius dresses while Remus straightens out the covers. They end up just stretched across them, Sirius’ back against Remus’ chest.

“Fuck,” Remus mumbles into Sirius’ hair, squeezing him around the middle. “Fuck- I’ve missed you.”

Sirius can’t remember whether Remus is a person who curses. Some people wear profanity so comfortably that Sirius doesn’t even notice it in their speech, but Remus doesn’t seem the type. He feels like Remus only does it around him, like half of the times Remus has ever said fuck, it was followed by Sirius.

Sirius tilts his head back until it bumps against some part of Remus. “You’re more profane than I’d have expected, Prefect.”

Remus hums indistinctly. “Yeah?” Remus uses his chin to bump Sirius back. “Well — you can be surprisingly polite. You don’t strike me as someone who says please.” And the way Remus says the word — low and breathy against the shell of Sirius’ ear — leaves very little doubt as to what Remus is remembering.

“I’m glad I can put my decade of etiquette lessons to use when you won’t let me come,” Sirius says blandly. He doesn’t bump Remus again, though, just scoots a little further back and tucks his head under Remus’ chin. “Soon you’ll be wanting me to show you how to hold a fork properly, then you’ll be begging me to speak French for you. Won’t you, Pervert?”

Sirius can hear it in the silence, Remus thinking Can you hold a fork wrong? But Remus just gives Sirius a bumping shrug. “I’ll ask you to speak French for my mum.”

Sirius turns to stare at Remus over his shoulder. “Pervert.”

Remus laughs and pushes Sirius’ face away. Sirius settles again. “Her mother was French. She died. Mum taught me as much as she could, but I’m just not French. I think she’ll cry when she hears your accent.”

Sirius doesn’t bother to argue that he doesn’t have an accent. He mostly doesn’t have an accent. Sometimes he forgets to keep all the versions of himself from blurring together at the edges, then he has a bit of an accent. When he’s excited or angry. When he says words with French roots. He can’t ever seem to say Beauxbatons like a proper Brit.

Sirius doesn’t speak French if he can avoid it, but he’s imagining it, running the scenario through his head like he’s testing it out, seeing if it hurts. Maybe he should just introduce himself entirely in French if it would make Remus’ mum happy. He could do that. It’s not like he’s forgotten how. “Do you think she’ll like me?”

“She’ll love you.” Remus presses his hands tight over Sirius’ stomach, fingers splayed wide. “Which is good, because my dad won’t. We’ll, um… we might just tell him that we’re friends. He’ll- he’ll know, and he won’t do anything, but he’s…” Remus’ voice trails off. “Old fashioned, I guess.”

Sirius rolls over, stares into Remus’ frown for a while, then presses his lips to the new darkening bruise on Remus’ throat. Offensive, Remus’ father had called the last one, scrubbing it from Remus’ skin without permission. Sirius kisses this new love bite, then kisses it again because it’s there, and it’s his, and it’s getting darker. “We can be friends at yours,” Sirius says.

“Thank you,” Remus says, deflating against his pillow. “He’s not around all that much anyway.”

Sirius just mouths along the bruise, then down Remus’ neck, pushing the collar of his shirt to make room for a kiss against his collarbone.

“Oh,” Sirius says, pulling back to get a better look at another bruise, this one with a very distinct shape. Sirius doesn’t remember biting Remus. “Does this hurt?” Sirius bumps the bruise with his nose. Remus shrugs. Sirius lines his teeth up again and bites, just softly, but enough that Remus squirms. Sirius pulls back and raises his eyebrows expectantly, proving he’s waiting for a real answer.

“It was… intense,” Remus says. “I wouldn’t ask you not to do it again, though. I liked, um… I liked knowing that you were feeling good. I don’t mind. I’ve been bit worse,” he jokes.

Sirius thinks back to the bumpy scar he felt along Remus’ ribs and frowns, leaving a gentle kiss against the bruise. There’s an old healing spell, and it isn’t nearly as effective as an episkey, but he doesn’t need his wand for it either. He whispers that against Remus’ neck quite a few times, alternating between soft words and a kiss, until the bruise is fading yellow. Remus tilts his head back to let Sirius work, and Sirius intends to leave the skin as unmarked as it was this morning, but Remus’ hand clamps around his wrist. “Sirius- Sirius. Hey.”

Sirius pulls back.

Remus’ pupils are blown wide, cheeks darkening, flushed.

Remus doesn’t say anything, just takes slow, deep, controlled breaths.

Sirius laughs when he finally makes the connection. “Oh… Built up a bit of an association, have we? With my magic? With my magic on your neck?”

“Fuck off,” Remus mumbles, pinching his eyes closed.

Sirius just laughs and pushes at Remus’ shoulder, encouraging him to roll onto his back. Sirius slides a hand down Remus’ stomach, fingers teasing at the waistband of his boxers. “If you admit it, I’ll show you what else I can do with my-”

“Let’s talk,” Remus says quickly.

That is not what Sirius was meaning to do with his mouth. “Talk?”

Remus sighs and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes for a while, then rolls back onto his side to face Sirius again. “I need you to be patient with me.”

The words move slowly through Sirius’ brain, and then very fast. “Are you alright? After today?”

Remus offers a slightly wincing smile, awkward but well-meaning. “I- today… today was good. Yes. I just- I think more would be too much for me right now. Today was good.”

Sirius nods slowly, propping himself up better on his pillow to watch Remus’ face. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do again? That doesn’t have to mean today wasn’t good.” Sirius is just happy to have Remus back. It doesn’t need to be everything all at once. “But if you need to take a step back for a while, I’d wait. I- I forget, I guess. I’ve been doing all this for years. And you have very good instincts with me. You make it easy to forget that you’re not… you haven’t…” Sirius hesitates. “Have you?”

Remus laughs and presses a smiling kiss to Sirius’ cheek. “Just you,” Remus says. And Sirius must be a hypocrite and an imbecile because that makes him unbearably happy. “And I don’t have instincts as much as you know exactly what you want, and you’re very easy to read.”

Sirius shrugs without bothering to correct Remus about his instinct for reading Sirius. “Lucky me.”

Remus kisses Sirius’ cheek again, then once more before pulling back. He squeezes Sirius’ hip. “Thank you.”

Sirius hums and tilts his head expectantly, and Remus obliges him with another kiss. “I don’t mind waiting,” Sirius says lightly, deceptively lightly. Remus squeezes Sirius’ hip again, and Sirius smiles. “I do hope you won’t hold back on my account, though,” Sirius says. “Because I promise, Remus, I’ll enjoy it. Blowing you.” And Remus just proves Sirius right with his reaction, something tiny, something so controlled that it makes Sirius want to shatter him — a tiny click of teeth, a quick breath, flared nostrils, nothing at all.

“Good to know,” Remus mumbles, teeth still clamped tightly shut, jaw flexing as he grits them. Sirius leans forward and presses a kiss to just the tip of Remus’ nose, feeling huge.

Remus pulls Sirius into a slow, deep kiss, gentle but insistent. “Don’t toy with me,” Remus whispers. “I don’t trust myself yet. I will not put you on your knees when I don’t trust myself.”

And Remus just goes back to kissing a slightly slack-jawed Sirius.

It’s hard to say why the words impact Sirius the way they do, heat pooling somewhere low in his stomach. Some role reversal that Remus never even intended.

Sirius knows he loses perspective sometimes, pushes himself or the people around him just a bit too far, loses track of which lines he’s allowed to cross. Most people either let Sirius push or walk away, but he’s never known someone who reels him in. There’s that intensity about Remus again, though, burning eyes and a soft kiss, some perfect little tug on Sirius’ leash, and somehow it shoots right through him. “I- sure. Yeah. Right.”

Remus’ eyebrows rise just a millimetre. “Easy,” he whispers, a slow smile creeping onto his lips. “Easy to read.” Remus shifts himself up until he can slide his hand down from Sirius’ hip to his thigh. With a hand tucked behind Sirius’ knee, Remus leans onto his back again. The action drags Sirius along with him, and Sirius ends up draped over Remus, leg stretched deliciously across his middle. And then there’s pressure, and Remus’ words are still bumping against each other in Sirius’ head, put you on your knees.

“Thank you, Sirius.” -and, sure, Remus had said I will not put you on your knees, but there’s an intentionality behind the word put that Sirius likes. Merlin, he wants to be put- “For being patient,” Remus mumbles, running the hand that isn’t still wrapped around Sirius’ thigh through his hair.

Because that other hand is still wrapped around Sirius’ thigh, loose enough that Sirius could pull away if he wanted to, but tight enough, too. Tight enough to keep Sirius stretched, keeping him wherever Remus put him.

Sirius grunts and pushes his forehead into Remus’ shoulder. Sirius is not patient. “For you,” he mumbles.

Remus goes still beneath Sirius, then something about the way he moves — just a tiny shift against the pillow — calls for Sirius’ attention. Sirius picks his head up to find Remus already staring at him, something contemplative in his eyes. And Sirius is being patient with Remus looking at him like that, patient and not shifting his hips at all for just even a tiny taste of friction. He could. He could grind himself down against Remus’ hip, and he could get off like that, easily, but he came less than an hour ago, and he can-

“You’re being good for me,” Remus says slowly, like the realization is only just dawning on him. Sirius buries his face against Remus again, patient, and he nods. “Fuck,” Remus breathes, tightening his hold on Sirius until it’s a miracle that Sirius doesn’t squeeze right in between Remus’ ribs, lodge himself somewhere behind Remus’ beating heart. “I don’t want to be patient either,” Remus says, voice soft.

Sirius shakes his head. “I can wait.” Of course, he’s one wrong move — one right move — away from slipping off to take another suspiciously long shower, but there are worse things than that. Than holding someone he cares about, than loving someone who turns him on. There are so many worse things than being pressed this close to Remus. “You’re not ready.”

Remus peppers a few kisses against Sirius’ temple, then just turns his face into Sirius’, another part of them pressed close together. “Fuck, I love you.” Another kiss. Another five kisses. “And you are, Sirius.” Softer, “You are so fucking good for me.” Remus laughs under his breath. “You are too good for me, and you are so fucking good.”

Sirius can’t do anything except whine, except attach his lips to Remus’ neck and focus on something specific. Focus on another bruise, focus on making Remus feel good instead of himself, otherwise he’ll start rocking his hips. Remus lets out a delicious little sigh and tilts his head back, making room for Sirius.

“You feel good,” Remus says, voice low and rough. His hands have found Sirius’ hips again. The tight grip that holds Sirius down means Sirius doesn’t have to focus on being still anymore. He can let Remus do that for him. He can focus on this, just this — the bruise on Remus’ neck and the scratch in his voice — and he can be patient. “You make me feel so good that I forget sometimes, Sirius. What I am. That it hurts. You feel so fucking good that sometimes I feel human.”

Sirius hums against Remus’ throat, but a tiny tug in his hair steals his attention. It’s not hard. It’s not Remus dragging him off, but Sirius still knows what it means. Sirius reluctantly pulls back, finding Remus’ heavy eyes waiting, open and waiting for Sirius. “Good,” Sirius says. “I want you to feel good.”

Remus hesitates. “I don’t want to feel greedy,” Remus whispers, and it’s a stupid thing to say, only Remus really does seem to mean it. “Desperate and hungry. I don’t want to feel entitled to something I shouldn’t have. I don’t-”

Sirius cocks his head, a tiny strain from where Remus’ hand is still wound into his hair. Remus quickly drops Sirius’ hair, moving that hand down to rest against his thigh instead, and Sirius just watches.

“Why shouldn’t you have me?” It’s more of a philosophical question — Remus does have Sirius, and he isn’t getting rid of him — but worth discussing nonetheless.

Remus lets out an exceptionally slow breath. “Because I feel less human with you sometimes, too. When I want you like that — it doesn’t feel human at all.”

Sirius leans down again just to nip at Remus’ jaw, the thin skin of his throat. He likes it when he can feel Remus’ pulse under his lips, when he has the whole world between his teeth. “You can want me desperately,” Sirius whispers. “I like greedy. I like-” and even saying it makes something clench low in Sirius’ stomach. “I don’t need you to feel human. Just good. I like hungry.”

Sirius doesn’t know how it happens — just that Remus is strong, and Sirius is on his back, panting.

“Hi,” Sirius breathes, and he’s desperate too, hungry.

Remus stares down at Sirius for one long second, one squeeze of his hands around Sirius’ wrists — pressed against the mattress. One breath, Remus inhaling right from the skin of Sirius’ neck, and then he’s gone. He’s off of the mattress entirely, stalking right out of the room.

Sirius pushes himself up onto his elbows, frowning as Remus disappears into the bathroom.

Remus is back before Sirius has even gotten his own breathing completely under control, and he hovers standing on James’ mattress just to the right of Sirius. Remus stares around the room, frowning. “I miss when you had chairs in here,” he grumbles. “I shouldn’t be in your bed.”

Sirius sits upright, moving toward the wall to make room for Remus in the bed, a gesture that says you don’t have to be on top of me if you don’t want. Sirius props himself up against the headboard and gestures to the empty space beside himself, then shrugs. “Or you can just stand there.”

Remus sighs and drops down next to Sirius, hand searching out through the sheets until he can wind his fingers together with Sirius’.

“There are things you don’t know, Sirius,” Remus says.

Sirius shrugs. “So tell me.”

Remus doesn’t answer right away, his grip on Sirius’ hand twitching. Eventually, he raises Sirius’ hand to his lips and presses a kiss to Sirius’ knuckles, holds them there, then sets their hands down again in the sheets between them. “It was stressful when you first got here,” Remus says. “It’s still stressful sometimes… The pull you have on me. On Moony — on the wolf.

“I can feel you walk into a room. Before I started getting… desensitized to it, I would just find myself standing next to you without ever having noticed I was moving. I- I felt sick all the time for weeks.” Remus shakes his head slowly, hand flexing in Sirius’. “I’ve only ever felt sick like that one other time, and at least that made sense.”

“When was that?” Sirius asks. Remus’ hand flexes in his again, and there’s a tiny pull. It’s probably unintentional, unconscious, but Sirius shifts in toward Remus anyway, lets Remus fidget with Sirius’ fingers as he thinks. Remus sighs and pulls their hands into his lap.

“The first week back this year. Before you transferred… When Slughorn introduced Amortentia.”

Amortentia. Sirius swallows something thick. “Sure.”

“I wrapped my head around that eventually, it affecting me differently than anyone else. I might process the smell differently.” Remus clears his throat. “I might process it all twice. Through my own brain, and then… yeah. That’s probably… overwhelming or something.” Remus’ other hand finds Sirius’, too, sliding a thumb between their hands and tracing over the lines of Sirius’ palm in a way that makes Sirius want to squirm. Soft and dragging and almost ticklish. “I could understand that. If Moony was smelling all his favourite things, too, and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t find them. I could understand why it felt like he wanted out.”

“Do I-” Sirius coughs to clear his throat. “Do I make him want… out?”

Remus pinches his eyes closed, then fixes them on Sirius, giving only a minute incline of his head in answer. “I think… I think it’s something about the way you smell.”

When he turns away again, his eyes seem distant, somewhere out Sirius’ window into the dark sky. Behind the clouds, the edges blurred, the moon could almost seem full.

“And I thought… sometimes there are additives in colognes. Pheromones. Things that we respond to unconsciously, even beyond the fact that someone smells nice. Sometimes they’re made in a lab, and sometimes they… sometimes they come from animals. I had it chalked up to that for a while. That you must- that you must smell like something he likes.”

But Remus said I thought, not I think. “What do you think now?”

“I think…” Remus brings Sirius’ knuckles to his lips again, just lingering there until he seems to settle. “I think back to when James and Peter became Animagi, and I think- I try to remember if Moony started reacting to them differently, if the way they smelled changed. I don’t think it did. I think in a way, he always knew what they would be.

“And I wasn’t there — not really — on the full moon where Moony saw James in human form. I don’t remember any of it… but James said Moony looked spooked, that’s all. He didn’t try to bite James, didn’t mean to hurt him. I think James must smell the same, then, too, for Moony to recognize him in another form. Even when Moony was scared, he knew he was… among friends.”

Sirius smiles at his knees. “Do I smell like a friend?”

There’s a moment where Remus stills — and that’s ridiculous because they’re both already not moving, but Remus wears stillness in such a distinct way that it’s impossible to ignore even his tiny hesitation — and then he turns to Sirius. Remus cups Sirius’ jaw, but instead of a kiss, he closes the distance between them just to breathe Sirius in. It’s ridiculous, being sniffed, and somehow it makes Sirius feel incredibly precious. “Sometimes I think you’re the only air worth breathing,” Remus whispers against his neck.

“Oh,” Sirius mumbles, weak all of a sudden. Too weak to not be laid out flat against this mattress, too weak for Remus not to be holding him up. “Right.”

Remus leaves a kiss against the hinge of Sirius’ jaw and squeezes his hand tightly as he settles himself again. “I don’t mean to frighten you,” Remus says softly, apologetic. “I’m still entirely in control-” mm. fuck. “I’m sure of that by now. Just- I know what Moony would smell in Amortentia. I think there’s only one thing he really loves, and that’s… that’s my dog.”

Sirius gives Remus a shaky, “Woof.” It’s as much as he can manage a joke right now.

He’s always thought of himself as a dog.

“I’m sorry,” Remus says with an almost insistent earnestness, another squeeze of Sirius’ hand. “I wasn’t trying to hide that. It’s just a lot to explain, and it’s just a theory, that you’d be a dog. I’m still not sure it’s accurate.”

“It is,” Sirius says. He’s sure of it, now. He’s a dog. “We’ll see soon enough, but it is. It’s accurate. Moony knows.”

Sirius’ voice is unsteady, and it’s taking everything inside of him not to squirm, and he knows.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Remus whispers again.

“I’m not.”

“Sirius,” Remus chides, like he scolding Sirius for some little fib.

“I’m not.” Sirius drags Remus’ hand into his lap, drawing Remus’ attention to Sirius’ reaction. With a wince, Sirius mumbles, “Moony likes me.”

Every part of Remus wants him. Every single part.

“Oh my god,” Remus croaks, but he’s wrapped a hand around Sirius through his pyjamas, just holding, feeling. Sirius’ laugh is all too breathless.

“Should we get me a collar?” Sirius jokes, turning his head (still dropped back against the headboard) so that he can see Remus. “A little leash so you can take me for a walk-”

Sirius finds himself flat against his back beneath Remus again — his favourite place to be — laughing as he’s kissed, messy and filthy and ridiculous, and that’s what Remus says. “Ridiculous.” A kiss. “Mad.” Another kiss, Remus’ tongue sliding against Sirius’, a nip against his bottom lip. “You’re fucking mad, Sirius.”

Sirius just hums into Remus’ mouth and winds his fingers into Remus’ hair. “I like how you smell, too,” Sirius says. It takes some shifting, but Sirius manages to get his legs untangled from Remus’, and he immediately wraps them around Remus’ waist, digging his heels into Remus’ arse until Remus settles his hips against him. “I like how you feel.” Remus drops entirely against Sirius at that, head buried in Sirius’ shoulder as Remus rocks against him.

“I think you must feel it too. A bit.” Remus’ voice is muffled but clear enough. “Because you always find me when I’m weakest for you. You’re always around near the full. Right before and right after. When I need-”

“Don’t tell me you need something if you won’t let me give it to you,” Sirius warns, fingers dipping under the waistband of Remus’ boxers.

“I need…” Remus’ hips stutter and his arms around Sirius tighten. He presses his teeth against Sirius’ throat, not a bite or a kiss, just a deliciously sharp press that drags a filthy fucking moan out of Sirius. “We can- hands. If you want. Hands are okay.”

Hands are bloody fantastic, if Sirius could figure out how to get a hand around Remus’ cock without having to pull their bodies apart even an inch. In the back of his mind, Sirius processes the click of the door, a small rumpling thump, but he’s still trying to worm his hands down the front of Remus’ (Sirius’ own, technically) boxers.

“Oh, gross,” James squawks.

There’s a tiny pause, then Sirius and Remus find themselves on opposite ends of the bed, scrambling to put space between themselves as if that could fool anyone.

James stands in the doorway, blankets dropped into a lump on the floor in front of him, cheeks vibrantly pink as he forces his eyes away from the space where Sirius undeniably just had his legs wrapped around Remus.

The air is still heavy with awkward panting breaths that Remus and Sirius can’t seem to force into something normal just yet. And James is… there.

“James,” Sirius mutters, slumping back against the wall, awkward, heart racing worse somehow. He can’t seem to tell James to leave, to fuck off. Sirius can’t seem to summon any sort of authority, nor even any sort of humour. All he can do is search James for a reaction. He’s not sure how James should be reacting.

James can’t seem to stop his eyes from jumping, and everything around the room suddenly reeks of innuendo. The sheets are peeling off of the corner of Sirius’ bed from their rocking. Remus’ hair is a mess. Sirius’ shirt has rucked up, and he pulls it down, but not before James’ eyes can lock onto the smattering of small lovebites Remus left above the waistband of his pyjamas while Sirius was still coming down from having his cock sucked.

And, fuck, Sirius can’t think about that.

The bruises on Remus’ neck are much, much darker than the ones on Sirius’ stomach.

James winces, blushes, laughs.

And just as the pressure in Sirius’ chest might be starting to ease, James’ face falls. “How long?”

And a few months isn’t right, because on and off doesn’t quite describe what they’ve been doing, but since two hours agois somehow even further from the truth. “A while,” Sirius says in an awkwardly choking voice.

And when James isn’t smiling, wincing and laughing, the flush in his cheeks somehow feels angry. “You’re shagging,” he snaps.

Sirius swallows. It’s not a happy tone.

“James, it’s-”

“Shut up.” James turns from Remus to Sirius. “You. Talk. Shagging — correct?”

Talk — what’s Sirius supposed to say? What’s Sirius supposed to say when James is looking at him like that, like he’s done something terrible…

“Correct,” Sirius mutters, frozen.

“James-”

The door slams, and Sirius is choking.

“Fuck,” Remus mutters. “I’ll be right back. Hey-” Remus squeezes Sirius’ thigh. “You’re okay.”

Sirius shakes his head. “I can’t- don’t go.”

He can’t keep doing this, losing people. Every time he starts to feel solid somewhere, something else starts to fall apart, and he can’t-

He can’t. He can’t lose James.

And James can’t hate him for this because he can’t lose Remus either.

“Hey, fine. I’ll stay. I’m right here.” Remus crawls in closer to Sirius, pulling Sirius into his arms. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow if you want. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a misunderstanding. He’s-”

There’s a ringing bang, metal doorknob versus stone wall, but Remus doesn’t jump away from Sirius this time, pulling him in tighter instead. “Just shagging?” James asks, still harsh but softer somehow. “You’re not- Tell me you aren’t that stupid.”

“No, James,” Remus says, voice firm if quiet. “Not just shagging.”

James stays frozen until he lets out a slow breath, and that seems to deflate him altogether. “You’re… I- Good. Um. Good.” James clears his throat, and his eyes catch again not quite on Remus’ face. Close, but a bit lower. Remus’ neck does look a bit… ravaged. James winces but laughs. “I’ll… yeah. I’ll find somewhere else to sleep. You lot…” James giggles. “Carry on.” He starts to turn around but sends them one last look over his shoulder. “Sirius?”

The pressure in Sirius’ chest is only just starting to ease. “Yeah?”

James snickers and gestures to his neck with a wink. “Good work.”

The door snicks closed softly, and Remus collapses against Sirius, laughing into his shoulder. Sirius just breathes, lets the panic pass and tries to understand how… how things might maybe be okay. Remus’ arms squeeze against Sirius’ middle when he laughs, and Sirius starts to laugh too, soft and choking and easy.

“PETER!” James’ voice is already somewhere far away. Sirius sags a little further against Remus.

“I think,” Remus says, still laughing breathlessly. “I think we might be telling Peter.”

“Whole castle will know by morning, then,” Sirius mumbles, pulling back to look at Remus. Remus is frowning at him, but he touches Sirius’ cheek gently.

“He can keep a secret when it counts, if you’re worried,” Remus adds quickly. “I can go interrupt now before he starts-”

Sirius hesitates. “Would it bother you?” Sirius asks. “If people knew?”

“No.” Remus’ eyes are still all over Sirius’ face, checking in, making sure, careful. Always careful. “But it’s up to you. I can go-”

Sirius drags Remus into a kiss. “Lock the door.”

Chapter Text

Remus Lupin

Remus is just rinsing the last of the soap out of his hair when he hears the click of the bathroom door. He doesn’t bother checking to see who’s just walked in. He knows: a perking up of something in the back of his head, a tiny jerk somewhere behind his ribs, a sudden impulse to move — Sirius. Remus smiles to himself and ducks his head under the spray one more time to be sure he won’t get shampoo in his eyes when he opens them. There’s a slow press of skin against his back, then hands that snake around his waist, and he hesitates before deciding not to lean his head back to rest against Sirius’. Sirius just showered last night, and his hair dries slowly. Remus won’t get his hair wet unless Sirius puts himself under the hot water first.

“Morning,” Remus mumbles, squeezing Sirius’ wrist in acknowledgement. “Did I hear voices in the room? I thought Peter went down early for breakfast.”

“Visit from the Head Boy,” Sirius says, voice strained and soft. “He wanted me to read his letter before he sent it.”

Remus stills, then pulls at the arms around his waist until he can turn around and face Sirius properly. Sirius ducks his head into Remus’ shoulder, avoiding his eyes. Remus slides his hand up Sirius’ back, which is breaking out in goose pimples under his touch, then turns Sirius and himself until they’re both getting a bit of hot water on one side. “You said you didn’t want to read it.”

Sirius shrugs, but his arms wind tighter around Remus. “It was riddled with spelling mistakes. I think his penmanship might make Regulus cry.”

Sirius pushes Remus off and grabs the discarded flannel. Remus is already finished with washing, but Sirius soaps up the flannel and runs it over Remus’ chest, and Remus just watches, raises his arms when prompted, holds his body away from the spray of the water so that the suds isn’t washed away before Sirius is done amusing himself with it.

Sirius won’t meet Remus’ eyes, but so long as Remus doesn’t demand more, he lets himself be watched. He’s entirely transparent, bottom lip pinched between his teeth, red-rimmed eyes, and he lets Remus see it all.

“James shouldn’t have made you read that. I’d have corrected it if he needed someone-”

“I should have written it,” Sirius snaps, then immediately deflates. “Step back.” Remus puts himself under the water again. Sirius hesitates, naked but mostly dry. He pinches his eyes closed, then follows Remus into the spray, tucking his head into Remus’ neck. Remus does lean their heads together now. “Remus, why can’t I write it?”

Remus tugs on the soapy flannel, limp in Sirius’ hand, but still locked tightly in his fist. Sirius drops it and leans a little more of his weight on Remus.

Selfishly, Remus loves this part.

Not the part where Sirius is miserable, but the part where Sirius comes to him with it. The part where Sirius lets Remus hold him up, lets Remus be his distraction, lets Remus promise everything will be okay.

Not every day is like this. Most days, Sirius looks like he walks on air. He is gorgeous and weightless and so straight, so upright and healthy and proper that it could just about make Remus cry. Remus is perpetually slumped and bent and dull, and Sirius is vibrant.

When Sirius is bright, Remus basks in him. Remus sits back and doesn’t understand why Sirius lets him look, why Sirius would want him to look, but he does. Remus gets to be a part of Sirius’ chaos and his fun.

But Sirius is so big and bright that he burns himself out, and when he does, he lets Remus be a part of that, too.

“James isn’t the one who’s been missing him. James isn’t the one who remembered his birthday.” Remus presses his lips against Sirius’ temple, and he knows the words don’t help much. He knows that Sirius already knows all this, already knows that he’s doing his best, so that has to be enough. All the knowing in the world doesn’t make the feeling go away, but Remus can acknowledge it, can try to remind Sirius. “It’s both of your letter. It doesn’t have to be you who writes it as long as it gets sent.”

Sirius shrugs in answer, but he puts a little more of his weight onto Remus again. Remus just tries to hold him up.

It’s a bit slippery, but they make it work.

Remus walks Sirius a little further under the water to warm him up, then runs the flannel over his back. He doesn’t bother putting much soap on it, just an excuse to rub soft circles along Sirius’ skin. Sirius gives a pleased little hum into Remus’ neck, so it doesn’t really matter if they’re late to breakfast.

When Sirius is ready to talk again, he turns his head out of Remus’ shoulder. “I’m supposed to take the letter up to the owlery. I-” Sirius shakes his head and trails off.

“I’ll take it,” Remus says softly. Sirius nods and turns himself around in Remus’ arms, a wordless request for Remus to do his chest next. Remus kisses Sirius’ temple and leaves one palm pressed into Sirius’ lower abdomen to keep him in place as Remus reaches around in the shower stall to get some more soap on the flannel. “Will you grab me a danish if I miss breakfast?”

Sirius nods and drops his head back against Remus’ shoulder, and Remus shamelessly drags the flannel from Sirius’ ribs right up to his jaw.

It’s awful. Ridiculous and possessive and animal, the way Remus loves to see his hands on Sirius. Sirius leaves Remus’ whole body covered in tiny sucking bruises, and Remus just does this, watches his hands on Sirius’ chest or his jaw, his ankles thrown over Remus’ lap as they lounge on a sofa in the common room. He doesn’t fully understand the appeal of it, even himself — his hands on Sirius.

Maybe there’s a part of Remus that’s still mystified by the fact that Sirius wants Remus to touch him, that Sirius even lets him. Even now, Remus leaves his hand against Sirius’ throat just a second too long, and Sirius tilts his head back another centimetre, giving Remus more.

Remus shakes his head and goes back to washing Sirius’ front.

“I love you,” Remus mumbles. With Sirius’ head dropped back against his shoulder like this, Remus gets to watch Sirius’ lips spread into a tiny smile, so Remus says it again, this time with a little kiss against Sirius’ eyebrow — the closest part of Sirius’ face to Remus’ lips. “I love you.” Sirius turns his head, eyes still closed, and leaves a few blind kisses under Remus’ jaw.

Sirius isn’t great with reciprocity in that sense — the I love you toos and the I missed yous and the you’re welcomes — but it doesn’t really matter. Somehow, for all of Remus’ own insecurities, he’s never questioned whether Sirius loved him. In a way, words are just words. Sirius comes to Remus when he’s been crying and tilts his head back when Remus rests a hand against his throat. What more is there to say?

Sirius has started saying it lately — trying — half asleep, hiding his face in Remus’ shirt, in the middle of sex when he’s just about lost all coherence — and that’s just… more than Remus ever could have known he wanted from the world, a Sirius Black who can hardly figure out how to tell Remus he’s about to come, but he can say I love you about fifteen times on a single breath, then collapse into a heap on the mattress, spent and speechless and pretending he doesn’t remember saying any of it at all.

“Will you read it before sending it?” Sirius asks, staying warm under the spray while Remus fetches a second towel.

“Not if it’s private.”

Sirius nods, ducking his head under the water one last time while Remus dries himself off. When Sirius cuts the water, he says, “I want you to read it. I don’t think… yeah. You should just know what it says so that I don’t have to tell you.”

Remus tucks his towel around his waist. “I can do that.”

Remus holds the next towel out for Sirius, who eyes it but doesn’t reach out to take it from Remus’ hand. Remus huffs a laugh and steps into the shower stall, patting Sirius down while Sirius smiles like he’s just done something incredibly clever.

When Sirius’ upper body is mostly dry, Remus kneels, pressing an absentminded kiss to one of Sirius’ thighs as he drags the towel over Sirius’ hips and arse. Sirius is half hard, but that’s just the way it goes, even with such a strange mood in the shower. Remus handles him gently and just gets him dry, moving down to his thighs and calves next. When he stands up, he hands Sirius the towel so that he can scrunch at his hair with it.

As Remus turns away from the shower, Sirius’ hand encircles Remus’ wrist in a biting grip. Remus pulls himself to a stop. “Yeah?”

“If it’s awful, you’ll tell me, right? You won’t send it?”

Sirius already read the letter, already made his own corrections, so he must know it’s not horrible, but Remus just cups Sirius’ jaw and draws him into a slow kiss. “Of course. If it’s not good, I won’t send it.”

Sirius drags Remus into another kiss, this one much deeper. If they had time — if the world didn’t just keep turning even when life is being awful and terrifying and too much — if they didn’t have lessons soon, Remus knows Sirius wouldn’t stop with the kissing at all. He would ask Remus for a distraction, or he would beg Remus to take over, to make him feel good. He’d beg Remus not to make him think at all.

As it is, the world is still turning, and they have lessons. Remus gives Sirius one last peck on the lips, then one on the forehead. “Brush your teeth. I’ll fetch you some clothes.”

Remus gets himself ready at the same time as Sirius. Sirius is stressing enough about the letter as is — he doesn’t need to watch Remus read it. He’d be forcing the letter into Remus’ hands if that was what he wanted, dawdling and lingering, but he’s not. Sirius doesn’t hesitate until he’s got his rucksack over one shoulder, dressed and standing in the doorway, halfway out the room.

“Remus?”

Remus looks up.

Sirius is just standing there, both hands on the strap of his bag, fidgeting. Remus waits.

“Thank you,” Sirius says.

Remus nods and picks up the envelope addressed to his own cousin. When Sirius doesn’t leave, Remus looks up at him again. He’s starting to recognize this look in Sirius, the one where Sirius is almost saying it.

“I love you,” Remus says, watching that same little smile stretch over Sirius’ lips.

“Yeah,” Sirius says under his breath. The door is only just closing when Remus thinks he might hear the tail end of a “… you too.”

Remus shakes his head and unfolds the single sheet of parchment. When he’s read it once, then a second time — just in case Sirius needs to hear that Remus read it twice — he tucks the letter back in its envelope and walks to the owlery.

Sirius never signed the letter, but his own gorgeous sloping cursive stands out in stark contrast to James’ wavering chicken scratch on all of the corrections and small changes he made. Remus can’t help wondering whether Regulus will pay attention to that type of thing. If Regulus Black — an artist, someone who works with detail, with shape, with lines — will see his brother’s hand in the letter either way.

October 10th, 1977

Regulus A. Black,

Forgive me the impropriety of having a letter slipped under your door. I have a friend at Beauxbatons, and she offered to deliver this letter to you discretely.

I know that some parents choose to have their childrens’ correspondence monitored or restricted there. Her parents don’t read her mail. If you want to tell anyone that I’ve been in contact, that’s entirely up to you.

My name is James Potter.

I’m sure you know Sirius has been staying with my family this past half-year. I’d like to extend the invitation to you as well. We have a guest bedroom at my house that never ended up getting put to use. You could visit if you wanted. You could come just for dinner, or you could stay a while.

I’d imagine you can’t write me back. Don’t worry about that.

Enclosed is a picture of my family in case you want to see where Sirius is at. That’s Sirius on the right, obviously, then mum — Euphemia Effie — then dad — Fleamont — then me. Hi. I’ve written my address on the back. If you ever need a place, show up.

Otherwise, know that Sirius is well. He’s playing Quidditch with me and supervising a club with his boyfriend. He’s in a band and they’re awful, but he seems to like it.

I hope you’re doing well too. I hope to meet you some day.

Happy birthday.

Sincerely, Yours colourfully,

James Potter