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His mother always told him that to know love was to know pain. At the age of thirty-four, Remus Lupin understood that more than anyone ever should. If love was pain then Sirius Black was the embodiment of torture. After twelve years, Remus thought he had closed the wounds if not healed them. He thought he had finally got a hold of himself. One look at the shell of his former lover was enough to rip those wounds open and expose them to the air, leaving him bleeding right there in that haunted shack.
The events that followed the initial slice into his heart only brought more pain, more confusion, more anger. Peter! Peter. Why hadn’t Remus put it together himself? Why had it taken him twelve years, three teenagers, one map, and one convicted murderer to open his eyes to a truth that had been there all along? Sirius betray his brother? Never, never. The guilt he carried now would sit upon his already burdened shoulders, cutting down his height a centimetre or two under the weight of it all.
No longer would he stand by. No longer would he listen to orders passed on to him that held no room for discussion, no room for reason. This is exactly what he had told Dumbledore this morning after limping into his office, blindingly furious. ‘He was innocent,’ he had panted. ‘An innocent man, Albus. I loved him and you told me to let him rot.’
He could only listen to the professor make non-apologies for so long before the former student had had it; unleashing his anger in a way only Moony could, and in a way, Padfoot would have grinned over. Calmly, clearly, and passionately, full of fire and grace.
He hadn’t been Moony in years, not since before the end of the war. He felt him returning now, if even slightly, and Remus was more than willing to welcome him back into his heart, into his soul. ‘You let him rot and what’s worse is you robbed James’ son, Lily’s son, of love. You robbed not one life, but two. You hired me not out of the kindness of your philanthropic heart, but out of the bitter need to control and manipulate. I’m quite finished. You’ll be needing to find yourself a new Dark Arts professor.’
Sirius was gone again, but not really. Without needing to have spoken about it, Remus knew exactly where he was flying. There was a starman waiting in the sky, he just had to go to him. He knew where that hippogriff was carrying the waif of a man as he strode briskly back to his rooms. Well, as briskly as he could manage so soon after a full moon. The fact that he was up and moving at all was a good indication of the levels of adrenaline that were still coursing through his half-breed veins. He would have to apologise to poor Harry at some point for not giving him more time, more of an explanation.
Three ill-advised apparations—and one-stop to vomit—brought Remus to his destination. Home. His family home, the Lupin cottage in northern Wales. It had fallen into his hands during the war by way of unfortunate inheritance, but Sirius had brought it to life in 1980. Of course he had, Sirius burned like an inferno and engulfed everything and everyone in flames wherever he went.
This cottage had been no different. It was small but warm. With traces of love evident in the very foundations it had been built upon. Sirius Black had taken it upon himself to care for Remus here in the wake of his parents' deaths. He had made it his home, their home, within hours. Their records taking up space in disorganised, but organised piles in the sitting room, their books mingling with his parents' books, double and triple copies of novels shoved unceremoniously together.
While Remus mourned and fought in a war he didn’t have the strength to fight, Sirius moved their life from London to Wales and fought in a war that he had all the strength to fight. ‘S’alright Moons, I’ve got enough of it for the both of us,’ he’d whisper half-asleep when Remus would confide in him late at night as he crawled into their bed after his latest mission. Azkaban had sucked that strength from Sirius Black like a dementor who hadn’t tasted happiness in a century.
Apparation was not how one would typically travel from northern Scotland to northern Wales, but flooing from anywhere within a 500-mile radius of Hogwarts was out of the question. The Lupin Cottage had remained unplottable through a young werewolf’s maturity and through a bloody wizarding war. Now—when he needed it to harbor a ‘criminal’—was not the time to reveal its location, he needed its secrecy to remain in place more than ever before.
Remus hadn’t lived here permanently in years. The figurative scorch marks had burned through every room, leaving emotional soot covering everything in the cottage. Staying for more than a few days at a time made it impossible for him to drag himself from the bed and sober up long enough to keep whatever entry-level job was the current flavour of the week. Movement was good, movement was safe. If you didn’t stay in one place for too long then you could outrun your monsters, always aiming to stay one step ahead to keep from being pulled back into the abyss. Now his movements were tied to a fugitive on the run, rather than run from his monsters he would be running alongside them.
Remus landed unsteadily just outside the small gate running along the edge of the remote property. On this side of the gate there was nothing but overgrown grass bordering a lush forest that most definitely had never contained a shaggy, black dog and his werewolf companion.
With a grounding breath, he opened the gate and stepped quickly through the wards, the wards that were only keyed to Sirius and himself. Even after that Halloween he hadn’t been able to bring himself to remove Sirius from the wards. For twelve years he had thought that made him a lovesick idiot, but now he couldn’t have been more thankful for his weakness.
He saw Buckbeak lid in one of the dilapidated garden beds and quickly looked past him. There he was, just as Remus had known he would be: sat on the gravel, leaning against the cold stones. Was sat the right world? Sagged? Slumped? Crumpled? All applied to the pile of rags curled up at the door.
No wand, certainly no key, he had nowhere to wait but right here and the sight of him nearly stole Remus’ breath. Now that the adrenaline and excitement of the day before was over, the true state of Sirius was clear. Twelve years of filth and grime was streaked over the once sunkissed skin of a pureblood demigod. It was woven into every strand of once luscious locks that could have been confused for silk. It was caked under each tooth-ravaged nail.
What was he supposed to say? They were alone now, there was nowhere for either of them to hide and Remus found himself tongue-tied. What did one say to their ex-boyfriend in circumstances such as these? He doubted there was precedence, he doubted this was a common situation that most exes found themselves in.
He had the door unlocked with a flick of his wand before he was even up the path, refraining from outright running to Sirius like a buffoon.
‘Don’t nag me about the state of the place, wasn't expecting company.’ What? Why the fuck was that his opener? He barely kept himself from physically cringing. Merlin, he truly was an idiot.
‘Bad joke, sorry. Don’t mind me,’ he rambled as Sirius stood, pushing the now unlocked door open and letting himself inside. In the half-a-minute it had taken Remus to make it inside, Sirius had sat on the edge of the sofa and pulled his legs up to his chest. It almost looked like the man was physically attempting to hold himself together in one piece. Remus felt like doing the same.
‘Alright, jokes aside, I haven't been here since the school year began.’ The mangy, old editions of the Prophet were proof enough of that. Remus gathered the scattered papers quickly off the table and the sofa and tossed them to the floor, which wasn’t really fixing the cleanliness issue. Although, a few papers strewn about were nothing compared to Azkaban.
‘Bugger it anyways. Tea? You have to be freezing. Long flight with Buckbeak at dawn. Oh, a fire, I’ll put on a fire.’ More rambling, fantastic. Two fluid motions with his wand had a fire started in the hearth and the kettle in the kitchen boiling. At least his magic was useful even when his brain was so clearly malfunctioning on an astronomical scale.
‘You’ll be wanting to get out of those clothes, I’m certain. Let’s get you something to eat first.’ If he weren’t staring right at the ball that was Sirius Black he would have missed the slight shake of the man's head.
He had his face hidden in his knees, but still Remus saw the nearly imperceptible shake of his head. Food would have to come at some point today, but there was no need to force the topic. He wasn’t Sirius’ mother—well that wasn’t anything to compare anyone to. He wasn’t Euphemia Potter.
Perhaps if Sirius were able to transform into Padfoot this might be easier on him. If his mind, body, soul, and magical core hadn't been drained in the last twelve hours then there would be a malnourished, raggedy dog on the sofa in place of the malnourished, raggedy man. Sirius had always found safety in Padfoot, always using his animagus as an escape from himself and others. Padfoot was where he could retreat when things became too much, his mind became too much. Certainly now he would like nothing more than to transform into his safety blanket and hide away.
The whistle of the kettle drew his attention to the other side of the single-level cottage. Really the kitchen and sitting room were one large room, the space between them non-existent. The two bedrooms were down the small hall near the back and the bathroom was nestled between them. It wasn’t large, but it housed his parents and himself comfortably. And it had housed Sirius and himself more than comfortably if even for only a year. Now, Remus found himself thankful for the layout because it afforded him the ability to keep an eye on Sirius as he moved into the kitchen and poured them each a cup of tea.
‘No rush on the food. Just let me know when you want something. I think I’ve got a can of soup here at least. Not much in otherwise. Afraid it’ll be black tea for you now until I pop round the shop for milk.’ Two teabags and a swirl of milk had been Sirius’ tea preference since 1973. Though he supposed Sirius didn’t care much about having a proper cuppa at the moment. There were probably more important issues at hand. Just maybe.
Sirius had looked up enough so that his eyes could lock onto Remus as he moved through the kitchen, trained on him like a hawk. He could barely glimpse the dull grey eyes from behind the matted hair, but they were most certainly trained on him. Merlin, those eyes used to hold the entire universe inside of them. Every glimmer of hope that Remus Lupin held had been found in the stars of Sirius Black’s eyes. Now they were like grey skies that threatened torrential downpour. Skies so cloudy you couldn’t find a star, so cloudy they occluded the moon.
Remus came back to the sitting room and placed an old Gryffindor mug down on the side table nearest him. He wanted to comfort him, but had no idea how. Neither of them were the same twenty-one-year-old men they had been in 1981 and neither of them knew who the other had become. They were familiar with each other and knew the other better than anyone else on this planet, but they were also unfamiliar and had missed so much of each other's lives.
They had ten years of near-constant interaction and communication, ten years of friendship and camaraderie. Four of those ten years they had shared everything with each other, their bodies, their deepest fears, their greatest dreams, their deepest love. Ten years of knowing the other better than they each knew themselves. The fact of the matter was that they had now spent more time apart than they ever had together. Twelve was longer than ten. No matter how you looked at it, they had spent the last twelve years in total separation from one another. Had the twelve years of exile effectively erased the ten they had put in? He hoped not.
Sirius made no move for the tea, which was fair. Remus also barely sipped his own before setting it to the side and clearing his throat. ‘I’ve got your clothes boxed away in the garden shed. I’ll bring them in and freshen them up, but until then you can borrow some of mine.’
It had been after Lily and James’ funeral that he had come back home, after one too many firewhiskies, and thrown Sirius’ belongings into boxes. Well, actually, he had wanted to burn the lot of it, but Mary MacDonald had insisted on staying with him that night and wouldn’t let him. She’d been the one to bring the boxes and neatly fold away the clothing that Remus had thrown into the sitting room. She’d wrapped all the trinkets Sirius had collected, stowed his broom, organised his jewelry, cleared away his belongings into neatly-labeled boxes in the garden shed.
Remus had drank himself further into oblivion rather than help, and he hadn’t stepped foot inside that shed since that night. He owed her a lot for that night; not knowing how he would have survived the funeral of two of his best friends held on the birthday of his traitorous, incarcerated boyfriend without her. They had passively kept in touch after that, both having lost too much of their youth and innocence to the war. They had lost everyone they had in common, they were each just a reminder of the people who were no longer there, too many empty chairs at empty tables. In the last letter he remembered receiving she had mentioned her children and living somewhere in North America.
Sirius gave no indication that he’d heard anything Remus had said since the offer of food was made and his head had once again returned to his knees. Was he failing at this already? Was Remus so incapable of helping Sirius through even a fraction of what he was going through? It felt like a chasm had cleaved the connection they used to have between them. ‘Right, well, I’ll just go get those clothes for you and leave them by the bathroom door. I’ll give you some privacy to wash up.’
Just as Remus turned to follow through with his words he felt Sirius’ hand shoot out and grab his forearm in his bony fingers. ‘Rem, don’t. Please, just don’t go.’ And there it was, there was the dimmest flicker in those grey eyes, the hint of life that Remus had been searching for. His voice was weak, but his request was clear. It was all that needed to be said for a realization to come flooding through.
Remus knew what to do, he knew how to care for this man. He knew how to do that, just as he knew how to breathe because Sirius had taught him how. Sirius had always been the one to take care of Remus when he was vulnerable, both emotionally and physically, after a full moon. Wounds would be dressed, his body would be bathed, sweet nothings and amusing anecdotes would be murmured to him. All of that led to Sirius tucking him away in bed and holding him as he slept or cried or both in his recovery from his excursion with the moon. Never would he leave his side for a moment, and neither would Remus now.
With a nod of his head, Remus wrapped his hand around Sirius’ and reached for his other at the same time. ‘Come on. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.’ It only took a small tug to initiate the movement to stand and without a single hesitation, Remus wrapped Sirius in a loose embrace.
It hadn’t been a secret to anyone who lived in Gryffindor Tower between ‘71 and ‘78 that the black sheep of the Black family was starved for touch. Right from that first train ride into Hogsmeade it had been clear that the little spitfire of a boy was starved for affection, draping his arm around the first friend he’d met. Of course James Potter had been more than happy to make a best friend so quickly and had been over the moon to fill whatever role Sirius needed him to. Sirius’ grazing touches lingered longer than others, his hugs were tighter than most. Even his taunts were physical, poking, pushing, pulling, flicking, anything to make contact with others.
Remus hadn’t batted an eye when Sirius started to climb into his bunk at night claiming he was cold. Instead, he made room for him and fed the starvation with an arm wrapped loosely around his warm waist.
If Sirius had been starved then, twelve years of isolation had made him ravenous. Remus felt him sag into his arms and wind his fingers tightly in the soft material at the back of Remus’ shirt. He said nothing, and instead allowed him to share his warmth, decidedly not thinking about how frail he felt.
They had time now, time they hadn’t had in over a decade. Time to exist in the same space safely, if not freely. There was no plan, there was no easy path forward, there was no knowing what was going to keep Sirius the safest from the threat of Azkaban. All Remus knew for certain was that today he was going to start the process of helping a lost man find his way back to himself, to remind him of his humanity.
Untangling Sirius from his arms was worryingly easy, but he made certain not to release him completely. Instead, he wrapped an arm around Sirius’ shoulders and began to guide him back to the bathroom. A scourgify spell cast by Albus Dumbledore himself wouldn’t have been able to clear away the filth that clung to Sirius now like a second skin. It was time to clear it away and find the man hidden beneath it all.
In the bathroom it only took a second to get the faucets flowing into the bathtub. A hot bath was now a distant memory to Sirius, but not for long. Remus had taken a moment to turn and gather together what would be needed on hand: soap, shampoo, toothbrush, comb, scissors, flannel. A moment was all it had taken for Sirius to find his own reflection.
Remus started at the sound of the mirror shattering, spinning to find Sirius stood, panting with a bloodied hand still raised. Honestly, it was far less frightening or concerning than it should have been. It wasn’t the first time that mirror had been shattered and he doubted it would be the last. At fifteen, Remus had smashed both fists into it at the sight of the gouges The Wolf had torn into his face and neck the night before. It had been winter holidays and The Wolf had missed its new pack, had taken its anger out on himself. His mother had found him standing, crying and bloodied, where Sirius stood now.
At twenty-one he had taken out more anger on his own reflection, shattering it once again. Sirius had started to leave notes written in steam on bathroom mirrors in their first year. You wouldn’t know one was there until the steam of your shower would fog the mirror and reveal the hidden missive. Some were jokes, some were just his signature, some were his quidditch number, some were funny little drawings. The first shower he had taken after Halloween ‘81 had revealed a heart with R+S written inside. Without a second thought Remus had slammed his fists into the mirror, obliterating every trace of that blasted image just like Sirius had obliterated his heart.
He should have anticipated this reaction, after a year on the run it was unlikely Sirius had had access to a mirror of any sort. It was quite possible that the last time Sirius had looked upon his own reflection had been when he drew that silly little heart that Remus had shattered. A few days shy of twenty-two and blissfully unaware of what was to come in mere hours. Strong, healthy, headstrong, cocky, and self-assured. In short, beautiful. A far cry from who stood in his place now, a thirty-four-year-old shell.
‘Let me look at it,’ Remus said softly, no trace of judgment in his voice. ‘Sit and let me heal it.’ Despite the protest in his moon-aged joints, Remus knelt on the bathroom floor once Sirius was sat on the lid of the toilet.
‘It looks far worse than it is, Sirius. Prison uniforms don’t do much to flatter a person anyways so you shouldn’t judge too quickly,’ he murmured as he ran his wand over the cuts, clearing away the glass with concentration.
‘I’ll brew some potions and we’ll work to get your health back up as much as we can without a healer.’ With the glass cleared away he began to heal the wounds, watching the tattooed skin of Sirius’ knuckles stitch itself back together. All he received in response was one nod, it was more than was expected.
Remus was no stranger to injury, from the age of five he had dealt with injuries of varying severity each month. Some left him in hospital for days on end and some needed nothing but a bandage. These experiences left him fairly desensitised. But now as he helped Sirius remove the threadbare material, his heart ached. Cuts and bruises were easy to handle, easy to look upon and assess. The spells for those he knew, the salves he could concoct, no amount of blood could make him blink twice. The emaciated body he was now undressing bit by bit was different. This was unknown to him.
At one time every inch of Sirius’ body had been ingrained in his mind. He could trace every scar while telling its history, name every tattoo, outline every sinew of muscle. Where there had once been muscle there was now nothing, the skin pulled taut over bones. There were tattoos he didn’t recognise, whose origins he didn’t know. Scars of varying ages were scattered over Sirius’ entire body, all holding stories that were foreign to him. Now was not the time to ask for those stories, nor was it the time to reeducate himself in the art of Sirius Black’s body. Remus needed to push the pain away and focus on providing the care that was so desperately needed.
With Sirius now lowered into the hot water of the bath, Remus cast a replenishing cleansing charm on the water to keep it both clean and warm. And to keep them from having to empty out the dirty water that was sure to accumulate. It was time to get to work and get to work he did, soaping up the flannel and starting the long process of cleaning away the dirt. He worked diligently, but gently, not wanting to rub the skin raw. Occasionally he would glance at Sirius, but the man did not lift his head from where it was resting against the edge of the tub; his eyes trained on Remus’ face.
‘Tell me about him. About Harry.’ The request came as Remus had guided him to lean forward so he could wash his back. It had taken longer than expected to be asked, but it was not the least bit surprising.
‘He’s a Gryffindor through and through. More so than you, more so than James. More than the both of you combined, believe it or not. People make the mistake of assigning him as a clone of James, but there is so much of Lily in him, Sirius. His heart is hers,’ Remus began.
And so he told Sirius what he knew of Harry, he told him all he had learnt in the short school year he had had to reacquaint himself with James’ son. The brilliance of his magic, the lessons on the Patronus charm, the way he carried himself with his friends, everything he had to share was shared. ‘I know you’ll love him.’
There was another faint spark in the shadowy grey eyes as Remus set the flannel aside. ‘I never stopped loving him,’ came the reply of the besotted godfather.
Of course he hadn’t. Sirius had done what no witch or wizard had ever even come close to accomplishing. He had broken out of the highest security prison in the wizarding world and evaded capture for nearly a year, driven by his unyielding love and devotion for James, Lily, and Harry. His family. He’d made a vow to James in the hospital room as he held Harry for the first time, the squirming bundle calming at the sound of his voice. ‘He’ll be alright, Jamie. I swear on it, I’ll do anything for him. Anything.’ They didn’t know then just what that might entail, the trials that were to come, but Sirius had meant it with every fiber of his being.
Knowing just how much Sirius had done for Harry despite his circumstances, despite his literal barriers, Remus felt the guilt wash over him anew. In his grief and self-loathing he had been so quick to dismiss himself from Harry’s life. He had asked after him once, one time he had asked if he could care for him. All it had taken for him to give up was one pitying look from Albus. ‘You know you aren’t fit, Remus. Someone with your condition-’ he hadn’t needed to finish that sentence before Remus was nodding along and agreeing with him, apologizing for the ridiculous suggestion. Coward. He had been a coward.
A coward he was again now because he decided against explaining to Sirius how he had failed Harry. Now didn’t feel like the right moment to explain his decisions and likely bring more distress to the already fraught day. Was he possibly using that as an excuse to push the inevitable row further away? Perhaps. Neither of them had it in them to have the proper discussion that needed to be had so instead he added it to the growing list for later.
As a way of moving forward from his thoughts, Remus guided Sirius to lean his head back in the water to fully saturate his hair. He didn’t quite know where to start, but he did know he was going to need to make some cuts. There was no way some of the mats were going to be combed through.
One day, far from now, he would ask Sirius what the personal care regimen was like in Azkaban. He had heard rumors that there wasn’t one at all, prisoners never given the privilege of cleanliness. That being said he had also heard that once a month they were lined up and doused in buckets of ice water before being thrown back into their cells.
Working the shampoo liberally into Sirius’ scalp seemed to begin the loosening process, the elbow-length locks floating like a halo in the water. With some of the looser tangles coming free just with his fingers, he was better able to map out which knots were not going to be salvageable. It felt blasphemous to even be thinking about cutting Sirius Black’s hair, but it had to be done.
This version of Sirius probably wouldn’t have batted an eye if Remus had shorn his hair right down to the scalp. There were larger issues at hand than lost curls that would grow back, but Remus knew deep down his hair was a point of pride. It had always been a point of pride for Sirius, so much so that it translated to his animagus form. He had hardly shut up for a month after his first transformation bragging about his thick, shiny, black coat. Remus had threatened to drop him at a dog groomer if he didn’t shut up about it.
Sirius’ hair had made him stand out, darker than the night, absorbing light and reflecting it back with its silken shine. Whether it was mussed from sleep, blown out by the wind, pulled back for prank-planning concentration, or falling away from his face as he leaned his head back to let a laugh loose, it had always been perfect.
With the hair clean, Remus pulled the plug from the bath before having to brace himself with both hands in order to stand. The first full moon without Wolfsbane in nine months was catching up with his ravaged body. He had Sirius wrapped in a bathrobe for his own modesty and warmth before guiding him to sit on the toilet once more.
‘Just a bit needs to be cut away. Not much, but some.’ It was all that needed to be said, to be promised in order to receive another small nod of acceptance.
Now Sirius’ eyes tracked the movements towards the scissors with both apprehension and resignation, but under both of those there was trust. Trust that had only ever once faltered in their lives together when it might have mattered most. When they had needed it the most they had let it slip through their fingers like water.
Their one lapse in trust had cost them everything. They had allowed doubt to darken their hearts and it had spread like a disease, choking the life from the love that had once flowed freely between them all. Worst of all it had taken the lives of their friends and it had ended their own lives as well.
The trust he saw now in Sirius’ eyes was built from the brief exchange they had in the shack last night. It had been rushed and brief, but each of them had taken some degree of ownership over not trusting each other. They would need to talk more, there were more apologies to be exchanged, but for now this trust was enough.
Remus cut away at the largest mats at a near glacial pace, not wanting to pull at the scalp in any way. The hair fell to the floor silently, the sounds of the scissors was the only sound filling the small bathroom. Somehow he had managed to detangle most of the knots throughout the top layer and minimal cutting was needed. It was more throughout the hair underneath that needed to be done away with, so he worked layer by layer until Sirius was freed.
To say it was even would be a bald-faced lie, with the majority of the hair falling to Sirius’ elbows the shorter portions stood out more in contrast. He still had Sirius’ trust so he ran with it, cutting the length away and bringing it up to fall just past his shoulders. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better and it would still easily provide Sirius a curtain to withdraw behind if he needed.
Running a comb through the drying curls pulled away any remaining snags, leaving behind a far more tamed mane than the one that had rested upon this head before. With his eyes closed, Sirius seemed to lean into every touch to his scalp like a stray cat begging for affection.
A simple evanesco vanished the mess of hair that had fallen in the bathroom before Remus dusted himself off and stood back to take stock. Sirius was more man than animal now, free from the shackles of dirt and decay that had clung to him. He was less of a madman.
‘Harry seems to have a strong right hook,’ Remus remarked as he stroked a thumb gently over the black eye that had been administered in Harry’s confusion and rage-fuelled attack. A well-aimed taunt would be coming Harry’s way the next time they had the opportunity to speak.
A grunt of what might be slight amusement was the response he received. Taking the tattooed hands into his own scarred ones, he guided Sirius to stand once again and lead them out towards the bedroom.
Food would have to wait until the late afternoon or evening, they both desperately needed rest. Sirius had expelled more magic and energy in one night than he had in the last twelve years combined. That would have been bad enough had he not needed to physically fight an angry werewolf, not to mention avoiding a brush with a Dementor’s kiss. Sleep in a proper bed that could provide him with safety and warmth was more than necessary.
Remus found himself losing what little energy he had been able to scrape together, the moon catching up with him at the speed of light. His limbs were heavy, his joints still screamed in protest at having been torn apart and reassembled. His skin still felt as though it didn’t fit quite right. He wanted to give Sirius the care that he was due, but he wasn’t going to be able to continue doing so if he didn’t sleep.
Once they reached the bedroom he felt his legs buckle slightly under his own weight. No, he wasn’t done yet. They were near the finish line of rest but they hadn’t reached it quite yet, their goal on the horizon.
Gathering clean pyjamas for Sirius was like scaling Mount Everest in a blizzard but he managed to reach the peak of the mountain and hand the cotton fabric over. As an afterthought, he pulled out one of his woolen jumpers before he allowed himself to sink down on the edge of his side of the bed; paying great attention to removing his tie and undoing the buttons of his shirt to give Sirius privacy.
The marauders had teased him endlessly for his jumpers, citing them as grandfatherly and terribly uncool. What they were was warm and provided enough coverage to Remus’ angry and fresh scars. Though Sirius had been the loudest one of the taunts, he was also the only one to steal the jumpers for himself. He claimed he wore them ironically. When paired with a leather jacket, dark denim, and dragonhide boots there had been nothing grandfatherly about them. Sirius Black had managed to make Remus’ unfashionable wool jumpers impossibly sexy. It had been like a statement, like he was loudly staking claim of Remus.
Now there was no stake to be claimed, there never really had been. Through it all Remus belonged to Sirius. In the darkest of days he knew his heart unwillingly belonged to the pureblood boy who invited him into his compartment on the first of September in 1971. He had hated his treacherous heart for betraying itself to the man he was meant to hate most of all. Perhaps he owed his heart an apology.
With a soft exhalation of air, he fell back against the pillows and allowed his eyes to trail over to Sirius as he finished dressing. The jumper, the last to be added, hung from his skeletal frame and pooled over his bony hands. Somehow, it still looked right.
‘Come,’ he encouraged with an extended hand. Was it too soon to feel optimistic? Was Remus a fool to feel a flame of optimism light inside of his heart?
The road ahead of them was long and difficult with nearly every turn unknown, unmapped. Still, he somehow felt that because they had managed to find each other, they couldn’t be parted. Only death could pull them apart once more, but Remus John Lupin was naive enough to believe that their journey wouldn’t end for decades to come. He had no way of knowing that he would have Sirius for only two short years before losing him forever.
For now, Sirius climbed into their old bed, sliding under the covers and into Remus’ outstretched arm. Despite the loss of muscle mass, they still fit together just as perfectly as they had in their youth. It was soothing and familiar on a cellular level. The warmth of Sirius’ breath on his neck was beginning to lull him into sleep. A mumbled question drew him back.
‘Hm? What’s that?’ He couldn’t even pretend he had heard the question, having been too close to the precipice of sleep.
Sirius’ head shifted under his chin so he could speak more clearly and Remus heard him this time. ‘Wormtail. Do you think we’ll find him again?’
‘Course we will. It might take a while, but we’ll find him. We’ll get you cleared and we’ll make sure he’s put away.’ They wouldn’t. They didn’t know now that none of that would come to pass.
No reply came for nearly a minute and Remus had assumed this meant he could fall into the loving embrace of sleep, but he once again caught Sirius’ words when he finally spoke.
‘I don’t think I’m strong enough, Moony,’ Sirius whispered so softly that only a man with wolf senses could pick it up. That had been Remus’ lines, not Sirius’. That was what Remus had whispered into the safety of darkness while they were losing a war.
Remus tightened his arm around Sirius’ waist, pulling him closer into his chest. The response fell sleepily and naturally from his lips. A near-direct quote of Sirius Black mumbled into his hair. ‘S’alright, Pads. I’ve got enough of it for the both of us.’