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The First Day: December 21 (Friday)
"Watch Remus," Peter urged him, over beers in the pub, over curry, over fish and chips dripping through The Mail. "That's all we ask. Keep an eye on him." James, when he was with them, would look away, nod.
Well. So Sirius had watched him. Had tried to get close to him. Had kept an eye out for all the signs that Peter said were suspicious, and when he looked he saw them. The avoidance, the secrecy, the odd injuries and absences. The way Dumbledore's eyes followed Remus around the room. The way the other Order members silenced themselves in his presence. The look on Remus' face when the word werewolf was spoken.
If you find that he is the spy, Peter and James said, late one night over Chinese take-away in Peter's mother's kitchen, we'll take care of it. He's one of our own.
Innocent until proven, James added, and Peter looked away that time. It reminded Sirius of his father's expression when his mother came downstairs in front of company. Indisposed, he always said, and it had come as a shock to Sirius years later to discover that this was not a synonym for drunk.
"Evidence," Peter said, still studying the horrible avocado-coloured tiles on the walls. "It would help."
Which was how Sirius came to be here, spending his Christmas holiday chez Lupin.
Remus had begged off James' parents' annual dinner and dance, saying he had to go home. He'd looked thin and bone-weary and smoked too much. Sirius had looked at James and Lily and their bump and in a fit of madness had asked Remus if he needed company. He could cook, he said, and do light housekeeping, and was generally thought to be sturdy and useful. Remus' eyes had gone as bright as fairy lights. That was all the invitation Sirius needed.
Standing in front of the door, keys in his hand, Remus bit his lip and looked back.
"Anytime you want to go, just go. I won't mind. It's not--" an odd look--shame?--flickered over his face. "Don't stay for me, I'm used to it."
"Just open the damn door, I'm freezing," Sirius said.
Being indoors didn't help much. The front room was as bitterly cold as it was outside: all the windows were open. Snow had actually piled up on the floorboards behind the sofa. Remus asked him to stay downstairs, and he was glad for it. The house stank of burnt vegetables, and piss, and unwashed things, and the dust of neglect. The electric lights wouldn't turn on, Remus said, muttering something about the bills. Sirius shut the windows, banished the snow, and lit the fire that had been left set in the fireplace.
He heard the thump of doors above him, the tread of Remus' boots on bare floors, and a low growl of a voice that must be Remus' dad. Fuck, he thought, why am I here?
Remus came down the stairs and went to squat in front of the fire. He still wore his jacket and muffler; so did Sirius.
"My dad's sleeping," he said. "There's a lady from the village who's supposed to come. She hasn't. I pay her to come. He can't... he can't really live alone." Remus rubbed his hands together in front of the fire, then stood. "I made up my old room for you upstairs." He undid his coat and hung it on a peg behind the door, but kept his muffler on. "You hungry?"
"No," Sirius said, not even wanting to think about what the kitchen looked like. Remus picked up his bag and started up the stairs. After a moment, Sirius followed.
He wasn't sure what he expected from Remus' bedroom. Walls of books, posters of Quidditch or Muggle rock bands, old toys. But the room was tiny and sterile. There was a gable, and the bed was in front of the window. There was a cheap chest of drawers, the flimsy kind that was built from a kit. There was an electric lamp that didn't work. Of course. The kerosene lantern next to it had a smoke-blackened chimney through which the light shone dully. The walls had been papered with a floral print that had both faded and yellowed with time. That was it.
"Homely," Sirius said, and then realised how sarcastic that sounded.
Remus looked around, shrugged. "Everything I didn't take with me, my parents binned. My mother never could stand clutter. I put warming charms on the blankets," he added. "The bath is right across the hall. Your towels are in the top drawer, and there's hot water." He shrugged again. "Lock the door when you sleep, and keep your wand under your pillow."
Sirius opened his bag, took out his pyjamas. "Right. Good night."
Remus nodded. "I'll see you in the morning, then," he said, and shut the door softly behind him.
The Second Day: December 22 (Saturday)
The house had already awakened when Sirius crawled out of bed. He didn't want to--his breath rose in white billows before him, no better than if he'd been outdoors--but there were wonderful smells of food, and his stomach growled. He took a hot shower (the bathroom had a gleaming, freshly scrubbed lemony shine) and dressed, and then went to find the kitchen.
Remus was sitting at a collapsible aluminium table with his back to Sirius, but he turned in his seat and smiled. The room sparkled with cleanliness; from the dark shadows under Remus' eyes, Sirius guessed he'd been up the better part of the night. He'd never suspected Remus of being house-proud; in this house, it was probably a losing proposition.
"Didn't know if I'd see you before noon." Remus stood, indicating that Sirius should take the chair. "Dad, this is Sirius Black, my friend from school."
Sirius stepped forward, introduced himself, and shook hands. He'd seen Remus' father before, on the train platform once and a couple of times at school, exuding strength and good health as McGonagall escorted him to the infirmary. He had the same powerful build now but he was somehow fuzzier around the edges. His hair was uncut, not closely cropped, and he wore a red jogging suit instead of the saffron robes of his profession. Remus really looked very little like him, Sirius thought: the eyes were the same brown but a different shape, and Remus had a slighter build. He wondered if there were any pictures of Remus' mother around; and whether he'd have the nerve to ask to see one.
Remus was talking about the plans for the day, which seemed to involve a large amount of laundry and a trip to the village. He asked Sirius to peg the wash, which Sirius agreed to, only later realising it had been a trap that Remus had baited with jam on toast and sausages. Remus seemed intent on washing every scrap of cloth in the house, all the sheets and clothes and towels. Admittedly, Remus' job was worse, involving bathtubs of boiling water and scrubbing and cleansing spells that exploded. When he brought down the last basketful of wet things Remus had been reduced to wearing a thin vest and his pyjama bottoms, but he still cheerfully helped Sirius peg the sheets straight and cast a general Wind-Up charm on all the lines, making the sheets snap briskly.
"There are drying spells, too, you know," Sirius said, rubbing his numb fingers together.
"It smells nicer dried in the sun," Remus said, taking down a pair of trousers and a jumper as they headed back to the house. He said a charm, and a puff of steam rose up. It smelt vaguely of fried onions. Remus pulled the clothes (and the smell) on over what he already wore and put the kettle on.
"Shall we head out after we eat?" he asked, already taking out crackers and bread and a tinned ham.
"Do you want me to help?" Sirius said, politely, even though Remus seemed to have everything under control.
"Why don't you look around and write up a list?" Remus suggested, slicing the ham thinly and heating up a skillet. "I think we need almost everything--milk, eggs, flour, meat, veg...."
"Where's the pantry?" Sirius asked, and Remus pointed out the shelves next to the door, on which there were a few dented tins and a plastic bucket with dusty sprouting potatoes. Sirius went to beg a piece of paper and a biro from Mr Lupin and was still writing his list when Remus set the food on the table.
"You're never going to buy all that," Remus said incredulously, as Sirius squeezed a few more items onto the back of the paper. He leant over to read it upside-down. "Cinnamon? What do you want with cinnamon?"
"Good on toast," Mr Lupin said absently. Sirius suspected that that summed up the Lupin family attitude to food in general.
"Anyway, I'm buying," Sirius said, folding the list into his shirt pocket. "I said I'd do the food, and I meant it. From now on," he added, pointing at Remus, "you are not allowed in the kitchen except to make tea and to look decorative. This is supposed to be your holiday."
Mr Lupin put down his ham and toast. "He's going to the office on Christmas Day," he said, waving vaguely at Remus with his glass. Remus took it from him and got up to refill it with water.
"Why're you doing that, Moony?"
"Time and a half," Remus said, masterfully repressing a squirm as his father and Sirius looked at him. "It's not like we have plans. Do we? Are we doing something?"
"Well, we're not eating Christmas dinner without you," Sirius said. He didn't say, Are you that strapped for money? Every naked space in the house that cried of furniture sold off, the bare shelves, the ridiculous electric lights that sat dark, all proclaimed a poverty that had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with Remus working himself into an early grave. He knew that Remus had trouble getting and keeping jobs; he was cagey enough about his present employment to make Peter's insinuations that it was dodgy, if not downright Dark, ring true. "Stop doing the washing up, I said I'd take care of it, didn't I?"
He had to beat Remus away from the dishes with a tea towel, which he then used to tie Remus down to the sofa. He summoned a book at random from the shelf (How to Hex Your Enemies and Curse People) and stuck it in Remus' hands.
"And stay there," he added. Remus was laughing too hard to respond verbally, but he gave Sirius a very rude gesture indeed. Sirius told Mr Lupin to go discipline his boy, and finished up in the kitchen.
He came out to find Remus still sitting obediently on the sofa, but he had some kind of ledger out and was frowning over some very complicated Arithmancy.
"Let's go shopping," Sirius said, and threw Remus' coat at him. Remus grabbed it with one hand and put the ledger away in a battered biscuit tin that he shoved under the sofa. He untied himself and asked his father if he needed anything from the village. For one horrible moment Sirius thought Mr Lupin might want to come with them; he opened the door and let a cold draught in. Mr Lupin pulled his cardigan shut and asked for some kind of sweets. Remus shrugged into his coat, grabbed his muffler, and started down the road with Sirius on his heels.
"So, what's wrong with your dad?" Sirius asked, never one to be tactful. Life was more interesting that way.
Remus kicked at the dirty snow that lined the narrow road. "One too many curses. Maybe. He was a cursebreaker, you know." He glanced sideways, and Sirius nodded. They'd all thought it the coolest thing ever, back in school. "I've tried to get it lifted. But no one seems to know...."
Sirius thought about the furtive research Remus was always doing, and he wondered how far Remus might go in his search for a cure. Who he might ask for help. But when he spoke he didn't say that. "What will you do if he doesn't get better? If he gets worse?"
"I've applied to the Aged Wizards' Home."
"Expensive," Sirius said. More money than threadbare Remus had, at any rate.
Remus abused the snow a bit more. "Dumbledore knows someone who wants the house. We'll sell it. Dad gets a pension as well." He hopped a little as some of the snow slid into his boot.
"Does he even know who you are?" Sirius asked abruptly.
Remus smiled without humour. "On good days. He never remembers how old I am, though. I caught him cutting up the sheets, once, for nappies. Most of the time he thinks I'm his junior assistant Matthews, who was a bloody incompetent cursebreaker. I was... I was glad when they snapped my dad's wand. I mean, it's terrible and it drives him crazy, can't even boil water by himself, but I was so relieved. I used to be afraid to sleep." He stopped speaking and spread his hands. "Anyway. Not your problem, Pads."
Which was Lupine for 'change the subject'.
"So, what are the holiday plans?" Sirius asked, and the pinched look returned to Remus' face. Oops. "I thought," he said, looking around for inspiration, "we could get a tree. It seems like there are a few around here."
Remus glanced at the woods. "I'm not sure we can just go around chopping down trees."
"We'll dig it up for a few days and put it back, no one the wiser. And--" Sirius relaxed, secure in his possession of a plan--"we can hang gingerbread men on it. And put the presents under it." Remus glanced at him. "Oh, Merlin, you do have presents, don't you, Moony? Well, it's a good thing we're going in to town, that's all I can say. I got a sweater for your dad," he said, half-questioning. "Seemed safe. I didn't get one for you, got you something better, so you have to get me something good. Did I mention I've a turntable now?"
"Only a thousand times, Pads," Remus said, but he looked slightly less panicked.
The road rounded a corner, and the valley opened up before them. There was a partially iced-over river and a cluster of snow-covered houses up the hillside, smoke rising from chimneys into the clear blue sky.
"Bloody quaint, Moony," Sirius said, pausing for a moment. "You're sure there are shops?"
Remus punched him on the arm. "I grew up here, I should know. That's the school I attended, over there, next to the church. That park's where I broke my arm in a very foolish bicycle and swing dare. That tree, right down the hill here, is where every day for eight months Billy Cowlie and his mates used to wait for me and shake me down for lunch money."
"What's Billy Cowlie doing now?"
"Dead," Remus said shortly. "Overdose, back in our sixth year. Bit of a scandal, left a girlfriend and a baby behind. Gossip is a powerful force around here," he said, only half in apology, and started down the hill.
"Is that a warning?" Sirius asked, amused at being cautioned to be on good behaviour.
"Oddly enough, I cannot think of a single thing that you could do today that would have me shunned from village society for the rest of my life."
Sirius paused, thinking of at least ten things that he could do that would have them burning Remus in effigy; and something must have shown on his face, because Remus grinned and shook his head.
"All right, perhaps you could, but you won't."
"What makes you so certain of that?" Sirius asked absently, noting how suggestively phallic the War Memorial could be under certain circumstances.
"Because I'm asking you nicely."
"Low blow."
"If I fought fair I'd never win."
The words hung in the air where Remus had tossed them, with self-deprecating humour, and Sirius listened to their echoes until his head buzzed.
"Oi, Pads, you're miles away." Remus tugged on his scarf. The road had run into the high street at an angle, and there were indeed shops. "We'll get the food last--too heavy to carry around." Ha, Sirius thought, you're waiting for the end-of-the-day specials. "Where do you want to go?"
Sirius shrugged. "I'll follow you."
Remus smiled. "You're in for a hike, then."
Which turned out to be the truth. Remus stopped in every shop up and down the high street, the Muggle ones and the Wizarding ones alike, and paid his father's credit. (Sirius had no idea what Mr Lupin did with his purchases; they certainly weren't in the house. Remus shrugged and said he probably left them somewhere, or they were stolen.)
Everyone seemed to know Remus, and Sirius found himself watching their hands. The Muggles simply smiled, but every witch or wizard invariably made a warding gesture, anything from a simple 'avert' to the three-fingered 'werewolf' to a full 'back, evil.' At one shop the owner gave some cryptic warning to the girl at the till, who refused to meet Remus' eyes or take the money from his hand, making him set it down on the counter and not moving to take it until his hands were both at his sides. The owner pointedly kept her back turned to him. Sirius held his tongue (firmly, between his teeth), but the door had just shut behind him when he exploded.
"That bitch."
Remus laughed. "You're more right than you know. Look at the shop name."
Sirius twisted to look back. "Is it the same--?"
"There aren't that many Greybacks in the wizarding world. That's his mum."
"Merlin's balls, how do you stand it?" Sirius waved one arm around in agitation, and Remus ducked reflexively. "How can you live here?"
"Padfoot." Remus fixed him with a sharp glare. "Calm down." He waited until Sirius let out his breath in an angry huff and then started walking. "Firstly, I don't live here. I hate coming here, but it's home. For now. Secondly." He tucked his hands in his pockets and led the way into a small park at the head of the road. "Greyback was a Squib, did you know that? He wanted to have a place in the wizarding world. He wanted to be turned, just like those Muggles who seek out vampires. But afterwards, he was afraid, and he asked my father for help. And my father couldn't help him. It's a curse that can't be lifted."
Remus stopped in front of a small iced-over pond that was ringed with willows. "My father nearly killed him for what he did to me, apparently. But Billie Cowlie never came near me again." Remus' mouth curled in what Peter had always called his Dark Creature smile. "That's Billie over there," he said, pointing to an open can of beer sitting on a stone, and that was when Sirius realised that they were in the cemetery, surrounded by the dead. Remus walked a few paces and bent to wipe away the snow from a marker set in the ground. "My mum," he said, straightening and rubbing the end of his muffler between his reddened hands. "Let's go get groceries."
Sirius nodded and followed. Remus seemed unaware that he'd made Sirius entirely speechless with rage and horror and pity and pain. Sirius wrapped his hand around his grocery list and hung on for dear life.
The Third Day: December 23 (Sunday)
Sunday morning they set out to find the perfect tree. The tree they decided on was the best they could find without ripping each other's throats out: not perfectly symmetrical, and rather hollow on one side, but a proper height. They got it back to the house, roots bound up in burlap sacking, through a combination of magic and sheer stupid strength. After a final epic battle to get it through the front door, Sirius left Remus to get it stood up in the front room while he went to the kitchen to entertain Mr Lupin with tales of their escapades, prepare food, and bake gingerbread men for the tree (he'd brought Mr Potter's foaming gingerbread recipe).
Talking to Mr Lupin was peculiar: most of the time it was like talking to a cat, but just when he'd lulled Sirius into relaxing he'd come out with a terribly disconcerting remark. "You're wasting that meat, boy, just throw the fat right in," or, "Do all the young people at school wear their hair like girls, or are you two the only freaks?" Sirius had adopted a smile-and-nod policy, but his lip was sore from being bitten by the time Remus appeared, his face well scratched but looking grubbily satisfied.
Remus washed the table efficiently, tidying away his father's breakfast things. Mr Lupin let him, but clung to his crossword puzzle. (Sirius had been warned that the crossword was sacred and not to be touched.)
"Smells good, Pads," he said, taking out three robin's-egg-blue plastic bowls and dishes.
"He has a name," his father snapped. "So do you. Use them."
"Yes, sir," Remus said, turning to get spoons from the drawer. His father slapped him across the backs of his legs with the newspaper, and Sirius nearly knocked the soup over. Remus met his eyes and held his gaze until Sirius looked away; and then set the flatware out, and put out glasses of water at each place. He took out the new loaf of bread and sliced it thickly. He set a slice on each plate and looked expectantly at Sirius. "Ready when you are."
They were halfway through their second bowls of soup when Mr Lupin looked up at his son.
"Remus John," he said, "named after your mother's grandfather and my father. Ugliest baby I ever saw. School going well?"
Remus had set his bread down and looked at his father with a smile that made Sirius' heart ache. Peter, Peter, he thought, it should be you here, you bastard. I'm a lousy spy, I'm not like you. I'm not naturally inclined to be suspicious. I keep looking for something that'll prove you wrong, not right.
"Left school," Remus said. "I've a job delivering owl-order parcels now, down in Manchester."
"Why the hell would you want to do that?" his father asked. "It's your life, of course, but you're bright enough you could do better."
Remus shrugged. "Best I could find. The money comes in handy."
His father laughed; not the harsh laugh Sirius had heard before. "And what does our Remus do with his money in Manchester? Girls, beer, and the cinema?"
"Two out of three," Remus said.
"Ha. Chip off the old block. Your mother's always asking when you're going to bring someone home. I tell her you're too young. You should have some fun while you're young."
Remus grinned. "Tell Sirius about the goblin horde in the Alps. The diamonds."
"Oh, he wouldn't want to hear about that," his father protested; but Sirius insisted, and they were still laughing hours later, long after Remus finished the washing up, and they'd had coffee (proper coffee, Sirius had seen to that), and Sirius had iced his army of gingerbread men and run string loops through their heads. It was already getting dark when Sirius asked Mr Lupin a question and was met by narrowed eyes.
"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house?" he asked.
Remus stood, pushing his chair back noisily on the scarred floorboards. "I'll get the ladder, shall I?" he announced. "We'll get the Christmas things down out of the attic. Sirius, show Dad the tree, would you?" And he was out of the kitchen before Sirius could re-introduce himself to Mr Lupin.
The ladder was more than half rotten, but Remus managed not to break his neck climbing down it with the two dusty boxes labelled Christmas. He had refugee spiders in his hair, but Sirius decided not to mention it.
They set the boxes down in front of the fire. Mr Lupin sat in his chair with the newspaper; Remus and Sirius sat on the floor.
Sirius opened the boxes with glee. He'd never actually trimmed a tree: at his parents' house (he schooled himself not to say home) and at Hogwarts he'd always been presented with a fait accompli. He tipped out a tangled ball of fairy lights and set Remus to unsnarling them, so he could keep the fun parts to himself.
There were fading chains of paper links, which he put aside. There were delicate glass balls in red and silver with wire hooks. There was an entire flock of brightly coloured birds that rose up in a whir of feathers when he opened the box. They swooped around the room, chirping, before finally settling onto the tree.
"We usually put the lights on first," Remus said, but he was smiling.
"They're brilliant," Sirius said, totally charmed. He coaxed a bright yellow bird off its branch and set it in his hair. It pulled out a few strands and started building itself a nest above his ear.
Having exhausted the first box, Sirius started on the second. He wasn't sure what the first thing was. It was wrapped in newspaper and very heavy. He unwrapped it and stared. It was made of clay and painted red and brown with great green eyes.
"Remus," he said, and held it up. Remus looked and turned red.
"Oh, Merlin, I should bin that."
"What is it?"
Remus blushed harder. "It was supposed to be an elephant. I had a bit of a fixation. I made it in nursery," he added, in apologetic explanation.
"It's..." Sirius searched for the most offensive adjective. "...adorable. And you painted it your very own self. I am madly in love with this elephant. If you bin it I will be desolate. My only question is how to get it on the tree."
Remus took up his wand; Sirius curled his fingers around the elephant reflexively.
"It's just a simple hover charm, honestly, Pads." Remus winced slightly as the nickname slipped; Sirius wondered if by the end of the visit they would be addressing each other like complete strangers. Like the complete strangers he increasingly felt they were.
The elephant rose from his hands and settled comfortably at the top of the tree, causing two lovebirds to trill in alarm.
Remus flicked his wand again, and the lights rose up, serpentine, to wind themselves around the tree. Sirius gave him the glass balls to take care of, to keep Remus away from his box.
He took out a set of wooden disks illustrated with Snitches, bludgers, and brooms; stars made out of ice lolly sticks and twine; and strings of pinecones and sea shells. He added the gingerbread men last: the birds seemed very interested in them, and he supposed they'd be reduced to crumbs by Boxing Day. He broke off a leg and fed it to the bird in his hair.
The Lupin tree was decidedly eccentric, but lovely, Sirius decided.
The last thing in the box was a shoebox tied shut with a faded green ribbon. He had it open and was rummaging through the tissue before he noticed Remus watching him.
"My mother made those," Remus said, as he uncovered a carved wooden nativity scene. Sirius took out sheep, geese, goats, cows. Remus shifted to sit next to him. "She gave Mary her face, and Joseph my dad's." He held out the dolls to show Sirius.
Sirius peered down at the tiny sleeping baby Jesus. "I thought your dad said you were an ugly baby."
"He wasn't born yet," Mr Lupin said. "Or she'd have abandoned the project. Here." He got up and crossed to the battered desk in the corner, and over Remus' protests took out a photo album. He opened it and handed it to Sirius. "That's him the day after he was born. We were hoping he'd improve overnight. But look what happened."
The colour had washed out from the picture, but as Sirius watched swollen, lashless eyes blinked and a toothless mouth opened in a wail of rage.
"Good lord," Sirius said, staring. "Don't show this to Lily. You really do look just like a monkey."
Remus made a futile effort to get the album back, so Sirius got up and went to sit on the arm of Mr Lupin's chair, holding the album so that they could both see. After a while, Remus stretched out on the hearthstones with his arm draped over his face; but Sirius was certain that he was listening as his father described his life in photos.
The Fourth Day: December 24 (Monday)
Remus spread a layer of newspaper over the kitchen floor and set a chair in the middle. "Haircuts," he said to Sirius by way of explanation as he sharpened a wicked looking pair of scissors and then a straight razor. "We always go down for midnight mass." He turned on the electric light with great satisfaction: he had made a special trip out to the post office and apparently had begged prettily enough for someone to take pity on him and turn the power on.
"Your hair looks better long. Makes you look less of a swot."
"Praise from Sirius Black is praise indeed," Remus said dryly. He set his weaponry on the table and went to get his father.
Mr Lupin looked far less dotty, Sirius thought, with the ragged ends of his hair shorn. Remus finished up with the lather and the razor and stepped back. Mr Lupin looked the way he had been in the family photos, like a Ministry worker. He stood, and Remus knocked the stray bits of hair from his cardigan. Mr Lupin sat down at the table, alternately working on the crossword and looking at his hair in the hand mirror.
"You should do mine," Sirius said abruptly. "If we're going to church and all."
"I have trouble," Remus said, smiling, "picturing you in a church."
"Picture me as a choirboy," Sirius said. "Thrice weekly practice at St Bugga's. Thank God my voice changed." He sat down and pulled the towel over his shoulders. "Not too much, mind you. Be gentle with me."
"He still looks like a girl," Mr Lupin said, when Remus finished.
"That's two inches off, dad." Remus paused, scissors still in his hand, and looked at his father.
"I'll do you," Sirius offered.
"I can do it myself. I doubt you've ever cut hair in your life."
"How hard can it be?" Sirius asked, pushing Remus down into the chair.
"I want to see his ears," Mr Lupin said, and Remus rolled his eyes.
"The important thing," Remus said, as Sirius tentatively removed a large chunk of hair from the back, "is not to try and correct mistakes by cutting off more."
"Oh. Good," Sirius said absently, and Remus made a noise and grabbed the mirror from the table.
They left the house at eleven and walked down to the church in a whirl of biting wind and snow. Sirius carried the torch, and Remus kept a hand on his father's arm. The road was rough with ice and treacherous on the slopes. As they approached the church, bells began to ring, and Remus looked up in delight. Sirius fell a pace back as well-wrapped women descended on them and washed Remus and his father into the church in a wave of solicitous attention. Remus insisted on a back pew (Sirius had a sneaking suspicion that this had something to do with paranoia about the state of the back of his head; it wasn't that bad--Sirius had secretly regrown the worst bits when Remus wasn't looking), and he and Sirius sat on either side of Mr Lupin.
The service was long and the church was freezing, but the music was pleasantly familiar. Sirius found himself reluctant to leave, although the wind that howled outside might have had something to do with it. One of the twittering ladies, accompanied by a daughter, pushed her husband forward to offer Mr Lupin a ride home, so sorry that they didn't have seats for the boys. Remus was gracious and said that he appreciated it, that the cold didn't bother him a whit, and he gave his father the keys.
As soon as they rounded the corner from the church, Sirius and Remus Apparated, laughing, straight into the kitchen. Remus sent Sirius up to bed and sat down to wait for his father to come home.
The Fifth Day: December 25 (Christmas Day)
Sirius had set his wand to wake him at half past six on Christmas Day, because Remus had to work a seven-hour shift and he wanted not to seem a completely lazy arse.
He rolled over and might have gone back to sleep if something hadn't slipped off his chest and dropped to the floor. He leant over the edge of the bed and found that it was one of his socks with what felt like an orange in the toe. He picked it up gingerly, hoping Remus had at least used a clean sock, and tipped it out on the quilt.
As a child, he'd always got sweets in his Christmas stocking. This one was much more daring: in addition to the satsuma there were shelled nuts, a string of chilli peppers, and a small pot of bright purple jam (labelled 'potato'). He also had a bar of black soap, two biros, and a small pocket diary for the new year.
"What did Father Christmas bring you?" he asked Remus as he stumbled into the kitchen, only realising when he saw Remus that he was still in his pyjamas and probably had horrible bed head.
It didn't seem to bother Remus, who was wearing his coat and muffler and stood with his hands wrapped around a cup of tea. "Socks, underwear, and fags. You, dad?"
His father didn't look up from The Mail. "Handkerchief, underwear, and marzipan eggs, you daft bugger."
"Oi, you'll get nothing but sticks next year," Remus said, and slid a plate of sausages, eggs, and salad in front of Sirius. "Happy Christmas."
"When do we open our presents?" Sirius asked, swallowing a mouthful of grated cabbage (he always ate the thing he hated first).
"After dinner," Mr Lupin said.
"And you're cooking," Remus added cheerfully, setting the teapot in the middle of the table. "I should be back by two, three at the latest." He sipped at his tea.
"It's not right, working on Christmas Day," Mr Lupin said, and Remus shrugged.
"You shouldn't have given me a work ethic. I'd still be asleep then."
"Ha," his father said. "Well, tell Dworkin she's to finish her report for me."
Remus tightened his muffler. "I will," he said, setting down his cup and nodding to Sirius before Apparating out with a pop of displaced air.
Mr Lupin was having a good day, and Sirius was relieved. They ended up spending the whole morning in the kitchen with the wireless on, arguing Quidditch and talking about Remus. Mr Lupin proved unable to even peel a potato successfully. Sirius reminded himself that he had been at least fifteen years old before he'd realised that potatoes were grown with jackets on, and that even James had laughed at his ignorance.
Sirius assumed he had carte blanche for Christmas Dinner; when he'd asked what Remus and his father usually did, they had just shrugged and looked at each other.
"Did we have chicken last year?" Remus asked his father, who only laughed at him. "I think we did. Or maybe just ham sandwiches. And potatoes."
Well, they might be only three, but Sirius meant to do things right (Mrs Potter had drilled him in the importance of traditions, and Mr Potter had passed on his recipes). He had a chicken roasting, with bacon and sausages and stuffing, and there were potatoes, carrots, and (because Remus in his economy didn't feel comfortable at a meal without something cabbage-y) a pile of Brussels sprouts that had gone rather wrong.
Remus had insisted that they didn't need any kind of pudding or cake, but Sirius had made the cake already (it was upstairs in his bag), so he just smiled and made a snide remark about Remus watching his girlish figure. He'd used Mr Potter's recipe for the pudding, and the vapours alone made his vision blur. Remus would get his pudding and cake, and eat it, too.
Sirius transfigured a bedsheet into a tablecloth, and Mr Lupin produced a box of red candles (all only half burnt). The dishes were still bluish through the transfiguration into china, but in the candlelight they wouldn't be quite so bad, Sirius hoped. He washed his hands and went to wait for Remus in the comfort of the fire.
Sirius supposed that this was when he should be rummaging through Remus' belongings to look for evidence; but it felt dirty. Remus didn't appear to have many belongings, anyway. His clothes were in a box in the understairs cupboard; he had a few books on the bookshelf and the tin that he kept under the sofa with ink, quills, and parchment. It was possible, of course, that his toothbrush was really a treatise on the Dark Arts cleverly transfigured. But Sirius felt that to stoop to such levels of suspicion was to court madness.
He had just dozed off when he heard the creak of the back door (he suspected that Remus rusted the hinges on purpose as a cheap alarm system). He let Mr Lupin get up and go talk to Remus: he'd been watching the clock since two. Remus looked exhausted when he came in to hang up his coat, but he smiled down at Sirius.
"Guarding the presents, are you?"
"Someone has to do it, and I nobly volunteered."
"The house smells wonderful. I'm starved. I just want a quick wash, but--" He pulled a small bag from his coat pocket and dropped it on Sirius' stomach. "I picked up a few things in town."
Sirius peered inside. "I knew we were missing something! Trust you to remember the things that explode."
Remus had had a trick for doctoring Christmas crackers that he seemed to have refined, Sirius thought: instead of opening with a snap, there was a deafening fanfare of drums and trumpets and a thick outpouring of smoke in which tiny dragons made of sparks flew like outraged hornets. When the back door had been opened and the dragons had risen up into the sky, they returned to claim their hats and tell bad jokes. Remus had a pirate captain's hat which he absolutely refused to change for Sirius' pillbox-with-tulle. When Sirius turned his eyes to Mr Lupin's gold crown, he was met by a smug, superior smile.
"Don't even think it, son," Mr Lupin said. "It suits you. You look just like the American president's wife." Remus choked on a mouthful of cheap wine and was still spluttering when Sirius set the chicken in front of Mr Lupin to carve.
There was very little conversation: the table was small enough that even the social lubricants of "pass me the potatoes" or "more sausage, please" were unnecessary. Sirius later swore that Remus ate half the chicken himself, and Remus didn't argue, only added that he'd also eaten half the sprouts and deserved a medal. The pudding left scorch marks on the ceiling, and Sirius caught Mr Lupin surreptitiously loosening his belt, which was the mark of a well-done dinner, he felt.
They did the washing-up all together and then went in to open presents. Mr Lupin thanked Sirius for the sweater, which was red and conveniently matched the jogging suit that he usually wore. Remus had given him a book with all kinds of odd facts that (he said) was useful for crosswords.
Sirius had two presents as well. He'd known that he was getting a record from Remus and was very excited that it turned out to be two by the Buzzcocks ("Best thing to come out of Manchester"), which Remus said were essential for any respectable record collection. His father commented that in his day bands had real names, like Doris and Lido's Magic Swing Band ("Thank God they're not available on vinyl," Remus stage whispered, and ducked the newspaper). Mr Lupin had given him a tattered copy of Mrs Merrilee's Charms for the New Homemaker, with Nell Lupin written neatly on the flyleaf in brown ink.
Remus opened his presents last. From his father he got a pack of fags and a five-pound note: that they were wrapped badly, as the book had been, in the sports pages of The Mail was the only hint Sirius had that Remus hadn't given them to himself. From Sirius and James and Lily and Peter he had a proper wizarding tent that collapsed into a backpack, which they'd earned with fifty books of octarine stamps from Diagon Alley. ("It hasn't got plumbing," Sirius explained, but Remus was thrilled anyway, he could tell.)
He opened Sirius' gift last, which was a pair of jeans that weren't five years out of fashion or riddled with badly-patched rips and holes. Peter had confiscated Remus' last pair of jeans over the summer, saying that he was doing it to protect the flower of British womanhood from the impending encounter with Remus' manhood.
"I was going to get him leather bondage trousers," Sirius said to Mr Lupin as Remus went to try his jeans on, and they were still talking about leather and bondage (Sirius' mind boggled at how many topics Mr Lupin could discuss beginning with the phrase, "When I was young," despite not being able to recall what he'd done half an hour before) when Remus returned.
"Cover your ears, young Remus, your father knows more about women with whips than any three people I could name."
"Getting an education, are you?" Remus asked. "These fit perfectly, thank you."
Sirius looked at him critically. "You ought to try replacing your fags with food, it might put some meat on your bones. You disappear if you turn sideways. I'll have to feed you more often."
Mr Lupin pushed himself up. "I could do with a bit of supper myself. Didn't you say there was a cake somewhere?"
And despite the fact that a few hours ago they had all sworn off food at least until New Years, the cake somehow managed to disappear almost entirely.
Sirius stayed in the kitchen to tidy up generally while Remus took his dad upstairs. When Remus came down, they both retired to the front room. Remus dropped down on the sofa, collapsing sideways and stretching out. Sirius took the slice of cake he'd hidden in his pocket especially and broke it into little bits to feed to the birds. They chirruped and trilled. Sirius loved them madly, especially the yellow one, whose nest was made out of newspaper, twine, and long black hair. Well-fed, the birds began tucking their heads under their wings. Sirius tiptoed away and lay down on the fire-warmed stones of the hearth.
"This has been the best Christmas I've ever had," Remus said sleepily.
"It was nice, wasn't it? But you work too hard."
Remus snorted. "Says the man who spent days on Christmas dinner."
"I enjoyed it."
"I should keep you around. I enjoy eating."
"As if I hadn't noticed how food disappeared from your vicinity. Even the sprouts, and they were vile. Next year, we won't have sprouts. We'll get something else green. Spinach, or maybe avocadoes--or do I mean artichokes? You know, the nasty prickly things. It could get to be a tradition, Christmas dinner at the Lupin's. Your dad's warming to me, don't you think? D'you suppose he'll remember my name before I go tomorrow?"
Remus refused to respond to any conversational gambit, and Sirius rolled over to look at him. Remus was sound asleep, curled on his side on the sofa.
"Oi, Remus," Sirius said softly, but there was no response. Sirius sat up and rested back on his heels. It wasn't such a tricky proposition, after all. The sofa was where Remus had been sleeping (even though his long legs didn't quite fit). It was a matter of finding the blankets (Sirius located two in the cupboard under the stairs) and removing Remus' boots (Father Christmas ought to have brought Remus new bootlaces, Sirius thought, picking the knots apart carefully). Remus didn't move as Sirius tucked the blankets around him. In sleep, Remus' cares were lifted, and his face reminded Sirius of the photo of the laughing boy caught up in his mother's arms. He patted Remus on the shoulder to say good night, and then gave in to temptation and brushed his hand over Remus' badly-cut hair, dark as tea in the lantern light.
Sirius was restless, and he had a look at the bookshelf, pretending that he wanted something to read, pretending that the reason he ended up taking Remus' photo album upstairs was that none of the books appealed. He lay on his stomach under the tent of covers with the album between his elbows and watched that dreadfully plain baby totter into childhood, get tall, lose teeth, be dressed in uncomfortably tight-looking suits. There was a picture at King's Cross Station, and Sirius found that even though he must have met Remus for the first time that day, he still couldn't reconcile that child to the man downstairs.
He turned to the last page--the pictures tapered off, whole years of Remus' life missing after his parents had abdicated their responsibility to save them--but these pictures Sirius knew well. James and Lily's wedding, all of them squashed together, glowing with drink and happiness. Peter was standing on a chair, balancing over Minerva McGonagall, and Remus had his arm around Peter's waist, preventing certain disaster and incidentally being elbowed in the ear by Dung Fletcher. The next picture was of the Order of the Phoenix; Sirius passed it by--some in it were already dead.
The last picture was Sirius' favourite. Peter had taken it; Sirius had been sitting right next to him at the time. James and Lily had just announced the pregnancy, and the picture was of Remus with his arm around Lily's shoulders, grinning like mad. He leant in to kiss her cheek and Lily turned her head to kiss him very sweetly on the mouth, causing Remus to pull back, bright red, and James to tug Lily over for a snog of his own.
Sirius covered over Lily and James with his hand, and Remus-in-the-picture blinked up at him. "Kiss me," Sirius whispered down at him, which was stupid, it was only a picture, but Sirius was already imagining what would have happened if Remus had kissed him. A short while later, as he lay panting on his back and still seeing stars, he wondered what was wrong with him, wanking to Remus' photo album with Remus' dad just across the hall and Remus, all-unsuspecting, asleep downstairs. He turned his head into the pillow, whimpered, and fell into troubled sleep.
The Sixth Day: December 26 (Wednesday)
Boxing Day began with a brilliant blue sky, streaked with thin wisps of white cloud. A bitterly cold wind blew down, cutting through clothing and rushing impertinently up trouser legs and down collars.
Sirius rolled the bike out of the shed and wondered if he knew any warming spells strong enough to keep from icing over on the way back to London. At least the pervasive cold kept him occupied enough (rubbing hands, stomping feet, pulling on socks, hunching shoulders) to forget what he had done last night. Remus hadn't mentioned anything at breakfast, and Sirius had put the album back straightaway he came down the stairs; for all intents and purposes, nothing had happened. Nothing would happen. Nothing could, and that was all there was to it.
Sirius didn't think he'd learnt anything damning or even useful against Remus. He seemed to have actually accomplished the opposite of all his goals, which away from the pleasant interlude of the holiday would show poorly in his favour. He didn't want to be sympathetic to Remus if he were going to Azkaban; he didn't want to feel guilt if they had to kill him. And he wanted, more than anything, to have found proof that Remus was not the spy. But he was still in limbo; and he thought he'd sooner die than have to lie his way through the Easter holiday as well.
"Thank you for coming," Remus said awkwardly, the way a child does when prodded in the back by a parent.
"Thanks for having me," Sirius said back, crossing his eyes and making Remus grin. He took his bag and tied it down tightly on the back of the bike. He strapped his helmet on, and Remus stepped back. He looked--not just cold, but lonely.
"What are you doing New Year's Eve?" Sirius asked abruptly.
Remus raised an eyebrow. "Nothing."
"Well, let's go out. Get smashed. Have fun." He saw Remus hesitate, and gave him his most irresistible smile. "C'mon, it's a new decade, that's got to be worth something."
Remus tucked his hands into his pockets. "I know a place in London, a bit of a dive but decent. I could meet you at your flat."
"Seven o'clock," Sirius said, and the engine roared to life. He waved goodbye, and the bike shot straight up. He circled the house once before engaging the invisibility generator and heading home.
December 31 (Monday)
The pub was a grim-looking wizarding one, and Sirius wondered how Remus had found it. The door was disguised as a bank of peeling posters for pornographic films; Remus simply walked through, and Sirius followed on his heels, appearing in a shabby room with sticky red carpeting, flickering gaslights, and music that sounded like ashcans being crushed. The walls were hung with mouldering tapestries of cats and dogs with enormous eyes, and there were cobweb-festooned ceramic statues of cats, dogs, and fat children scattered in inauspicious places.
He'd expected there to be a crowd for New Year's Eve, but the bar was half-empty. They ordered, Remus chatting easily with the landlady about her Pomeranian while Sirius eyed the menu, nervously wondering what the 'leftovers' ("special daily?ask for our prices!") really were. When their order was ready, Remus led the way to the lounge (the salt-and-pepper shakers were shaped like black Labrador puppies, and Sirius smirked) and settled in with a sigh.
"I used to work just down the road from here," Remus said, biting into a chip with great satisfaction, and they talked about that for a while, work and pubs and food, and argued about music (but not about the Buzzcocks: Sirius agreed with Remus about them completely) and Quidditch. Finally, when the chicken and chips were reduced to streaks of grease on their dishes, Remus leant back and stretched, his cheeks flushed with the heat or the drink, or both.
"You've been watching me," he said lazily, his half-lidded eyes intent on the glass in front of him and his hands around it.
"And if I was?" Sirius said, trying to look nonchalant even as all the accumulated lies made his skin itch. He shifted uncomfortably and caught the flash of Remus' eyes on him, a glance that ghosted past him and back to the glass.
"Well, perhaps I'm watching you back," Remus said, echoing Sirius' light tone. Sirius panicked silently: did Remus know he was spying on him? Looking for evidence? Under the table Remus' ankle bumped against Sirius' leg, stayed there.
"We could," Remus said, and smiled in a slow way that made him look his age and carefree, "we could get a room for tonight?"
Sirius blinked. "Why?" he asked; then registered the confusion on Remus' face even as all the events of the past week suddenly realigned themselves in his mind.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Remus' expression folded in on itself, the inscrutable mask falling into place, shutting Sirius out. He slid out from the corner seat and walked past the bar, down to the door and out into the night. Sirius made no move to stop him. He finished his pint, stared at the ceiling for a while, and then went to inquire of the landlady whether there was floo access. Told it was only five knuts, he paid up and appeared moments later in James' dark kitchen.
James and Lily were not especially pleased to see Sirius curled up on their sofa when they arrived back home. Lily stalked past him, kicking off her heels as she went and flinging her coat in the direction of his head. James made more subtle noises of small desperation, his eyes flickering between the bath, where Lily sought refuge, and the sofa, where Sirius sat trying not to look like a bottomless pit of need.
The bump made Lily's nightgown rise over her ankles in the front, but Sirius decided not to mention it as she dumped a blanket and a pillow (both thin and covered with dog hair) on the end of the sofa and told him to take his damn boots off and not bother them before ten. Sirius curled up in misery and was rather surprised by how easily he fell into heavy, dreamless sleep.
January 1, 1980 (Tuesday)
Someone must have cast a silencing charm around the sofa, because Sirius slept until the bright sunlight on his face became annoying. He stumbled into the bath, avoided his eyes in the mirror, and washed up quickly.
In the kitchen, Lily was sitting at the table in an orange robe that clashed horribly with her hair, eating what appeared to be tinned fruit and ice cream floating in fizzy lemonade.
"Hullo, Lils," he said. "James. Hullo, bump. Happy New Year."
Lily stared at him through narrow eyes. Sirius had the distinct feeling that he was not welcome.
James, leaning with one hip against the counter and fiddling with a teapot, looked from Lily to Sirius and back again. Deer in the coach lights, Sirius thought, that's what he looks like.
"I'm not going to get lost in my own house," Lily said, spearing a piece of pineapple and a fluorescent cherry with an expert twist of her wrist. "So you boys can sort yourselves right here. And right now," she added, looking significantly at the clock.
After the first few abortive attempts to hold their discussion without actually referring to what was being discussed, and after enduring increasingly abrasive commentary from Lily, Sirius broke down and told them the whole tale of his holidays, culminating in the pub disaster of the night before. James interrupted, wanting to know who Remus spoke to in town and what was in the ledgers under the sofa and where in Manchester he worked. Lily asked about Remus' father, and Christmas, and presents, and who had asked whom to the pub. Sirius wanted to tell both of them that they were getting everything wrong, that these were not the things that mattered.
He tried to think of what was important, but he kept seeing Remus' back turned to him, Remus walking out.
Lily drank the last disgusting sludge in her glass and pushed herself up, crossing the room to put the glass in the sink. She took down a small box from an invisible shelf over the sink and walked back to set it on the table.
"It pains me," she said, opening the box, "to watch such stupidity." She took out a small vial and handed it to James. "Truth serum. Just find out, why don't you, without all this faffing about."
James held the vial carefully between two fingers, as if it might explode. "Peter says that any traitor really working for the other side would have the antidote for truth serum."
"Peter says, Peter says--can't either of you think for yourselves anymore? There are at least twenty-seven known truth serums, and no antidote works on all of them." She paused and stretched her hands out on the table in front of her. "I never questioned your loyalty when we got married," she said, looking sideways at James, and Sirius squirmed. "I knew. Sometimes?--ometimes the heart can see things the eye doesn't." She suddenly looked tired and careworn. "Just settle that it's not one of us, and let Dumbledore sort the rest. It's the not knowing that hurts the most."
Sirius crossed his arms to hide a shiver. I'd rather not know, he thought fiercely. I don't want to know if Remus is the traitor. I don't want to know that he fancies me. I don't want to know if I fancy him back.
That last thought made him slouch down in his chair and sneak a look at James. James was biting on his lip and obviously thinking along the same lines.
"No offence, but we all know about you, Padfoot. Peter would say--" he repeated himself as Lily started to protest "--well, he would, he'd say that he's trying to manipulate you sexually. Maybe you were getting too close to something, and he's trying to distract you. I mean," he said, cringing under Lily's glower, "there's never been any kind of indication that he even, ah, plays for your team, Pads. It could just be--" His voice trailed off.
Lily made a disgusted noise. "See if you get manipulated sexually any time soon. You're so thick. And you're not so eager with your accusations that you want to tell Peter, are you?" She smirked at their expressions. "No, it's one thing to slander Remus in private, another to tell the law, isn't it? I feel sick," she said, and pushed gracelessly from the table, stumbling to the bathroom. There was the undisguisable sound of vomiting over the flushing of the toilet. James stared at Sirius, looking bludgered, then followed Lily. Sirius sat alone at the table, tracing invisible lines on the cloth idly before letting himself out the front door and down the stairs to the alley where he could Apparate to his empty flat.
January 2 (Wednesday, full moon)
Sirius knocked on the Lupins' door. After a very long while, the bolts were shot back and the door opened.
Remus looked cold, distant, miserable, and sick. He probably was, Sirius thought.
Remus shoved his hands in his pockets, then yanked them out again. "I would like to apologise for the other night. I--"
Sirius could see Remus' dad sitting in his chair in the kitchen, could hear the jangle of the wireless. "Let's go for a walk," he said. "Put your coat on."
Remus' face was blank, but he shrugged slightly. He went into the kitchen to say a word to his father and take the knobs off the cooker. He came out and shrugged into his coat as he shut the door behind him.
"Lily sent me an owl," Remus said, his voice rough and low.
"Good God," Sirius said. "Do I have any secrets left?"
Remus raised his eyebrows. "What have you been telling James' wife?"
"Nothing," Sirius said, with the air of a penitent praying. "What did she tell you?"
"Nothing about you. Your horrible secrets are safe with her." Remus took out a crushed pack of fags, looked at them, and then shoved them back in his pocket. "She said I was going about things arse-backwards." Remus crossed his arms. He was walking slightly in front of Sirius, his face hidden. "So. I'm gay, too, Sirius. That's what I should have told you first. And I like you. I think I've fallen in love with you. I don't know. I never have before."
His words were tripping over each other, and he paused to take a breath. "I'm just--everything's falling apart lately. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy. I don't know if it was wishful thinking or what, but it was just so damn nice having you here, that I thought?I thought it was something. That it wasn't. And I should... I should have talked to you. Instead of propositioning you in the pub. Scare anybody off." Remus shrugged in a rather helpless way; his shoulders stayed hunched. "I'm sorry as hell about that."
"Don't be, all right? Don't." Sirius wasn't sure if he was better off or not talking to Remus' back. "When I was here with you, that was kind of like a relationship, wasn't it? That we just fell into. And it was nice. Wasn't it?"
Remus turned his head just enough that Sirius could see his profile through his hair. "It was nice." He took a deep breath. "But now that I'm not being stupid, well. There's a much more obvious reason for you to have come here and to be watching me, isn't there? I don't know who you're supposed to be reporting back to--I don't want to know." He finally turned around, and Sirius flinched at the raw pain on his face. "Go on back to London, Sirius, and leave me alone. Please. I can't... I can't live with this one more thing."
"What if I said I trusted you?"
Remus shut his eyes; when he opened them, they were fever-bright. "Do you?" he asked harshly. "Do you? God knows, I trusted you with everything of mine. I'm afraid you won't have discovered anything that compromises my loyalties, but I've never been as vulnerable to anyone as I am now to you. You know all my secrets, and I don't even know who you're giving them to."
"James," Sirius said, grabbing for honesty the way a drowning man gasps for air. "Peter."
Remus blinked, but the tears spilled over anyway. "All of you, then. Well. At least. At least... I had several good years of, of friendship before the werewolf thing caught up to me." He turned his back on Sirius. "I want you to go now."
Trust, friendship, love: all lay shattered on the ground around them. The world was frozen, waiting for the words to draw that uncrossable line between them, or to begin the painful process of reconciliation. It was snowing; it was wartime; there was hard evidence observed and evidence of the heart, so fragile it melted on touch. There was such a long time until spring; and still it might never come.
The world waited, and the world was as small as the snow-muffled clearing. All the implications, all the lies, all the laughter and touching, all the secrets, they all drifted down in whispers like the snow, and formed into a clinging weight that smothered.
"Damn it, Remus." Sirius had the sudden vivid recollection of the time he and Regulus had stolen his mother's wand and gone up to the roof. They hadn't even known any spells at the time, but with only intent they took turns shooting down every bird that flew by. It had been great fun; they had still been giddy with secret pleasure when Nurse took them on their daily constitutional, dressed in their horrible black woollen suits. The street had been littered with the dead and the crippled and dying bodies of birds, their pitiful cries making his stomach turn with horror and guilt.
Sirius crossed to where Remus stood, pulled him around roughly, and wrapped his arms around him. Remus was rigid with grief. Sirius raised his right hand and pressed at the back of Remus' head until his forehead came to rest on Sirius' shoulder. Remus' hair was soft and warm; Sirius brushed it gently with his fingers. This, he thought, this is what it feels like to care for someone so much that you hurt when they hurt. He'd felt that way with Regulus and never thought it special; he'd never thought he'd feel it again.
Sirius had one hand in Remus' hair, and he nudged Remus up, tilting his head to the right and tracing Remus' lips with the tip of his tongue. Remus shuddered against him, and then he was kissing him back.
It was like flying. Sirius had to shut his eyes because not seeing the landscape speeding past him made him feel dizzy, when his body was saying that this roar of his blood, this breathlessness, this awareness came from acceleration into the sky.
The kiss lasted until Sirius' knees collapsed; and then he pulled Remus down to sit with him, in the snow.
"Oh, my God," he said blankly, desire warring with implications he didn't want to think about. He could feel that his eyes had gone wide, and he was painfully aroused. Remus smiled faintly and brushed his hand against Sirius' cheek. "Why haven't we ever done this before?"
Remus' eyes looked heavenward in a give-me-strength plea that he'd perfected during his prefectural years. "Do you need a moment to collect yourself?"
"No." Sirius pulled him forward again. "I need you." Not that he was comparing, exactly, but their second kiss was even better, mostly because Remus' hands pushed up under his jacket and settled, warm and strong, around his waist.
I can touch him, too, he thought, and slid his hands under Remus' jumper to stroke his stomach. Remus made a noise that made Sirius smile against his mouth. Not a tickled kind of noise, no.
Sirius stood, stiff and wet, and smiled thanks as Remus skimmed a drying charm over him. "Come back with me."
Remus stared at him with slightly parted lips. "God, but that's a temptation, Pads, but I can't. I wish I could, more than anything."
Sirius reached out and pulled Remus close. I can do this, he thought. Fancy that.
"Can't you spare a few hours?"
Remus sighed, and Sirius kissed him until he felt his resistance dissolve under the onslaught.
"I'll have you home in time for dinner. I'll bring you home and make you dinner. Come with me."
Remus nodded jerkily, and Sirius didn't give him time to change his mind. He held Remus tightly and concentrated: destination, determination, deliberation. Yes, yes, yes, he thought to all three, and they were gone.
They Apparated into Sirius' bedroom and dropped their clothing in a tangle on the floor in their haste to get to the bed. There was nothing coy about their nakedness: they'd lived in the same dormitory long enough that neither had secrets or modesty left. It was the idea of permission that made Sirius' blood run hot. I can touch his arse, he thought. I can bite his nipples. I can find all his ticklish places. He cast a general Warming Charm and set his wand on the bedside table, within reach.
Sirius kissed Remus hard and pushed him back onto the bed. It was not (Sirius knew) really a comfortable bed for two, but he wasn't planning on sleeping. He kicked the blankets off the bed and wrapped Remus in himself instead, testing his touching hypothesis with hands, mouth, feet, cock. Remus responded to this with an attack on Sirius' body that made him groan: who'd have suspected that Remus wasn't shy in bed?
Who'd have thought that he'd have his mouth latched around one of Remus' nipples and three fingers up Remus' arse, or that Remus would have started begging for more? It was the way Remus' voice broke on the "please" that broke Sirius' resolve. He pulled his fingers out, even as Remus' hand, slick with Sirius' convenient wizarding lube, wrapped around his cock and stroked, slowly. Sirius grabbed the pillow, shoved it under Remus' arse, and bent his legs up as Remus guided him in.
Remus was tight and hot around him, his eyes closed in a fierce look of concentration, his mouth open as he breathed out to match Sirius' push in. Remus' hands were restless across his back, as if he were afraid he might grab hard enough to bruise, or claw hard enough to raise blood, if he didn't keep his hands moving. Seeing Remus so close to losing control was like a drug: it filled Sirius with a wild kind of energy and made him thirst for more.
Sirius was balls-deep in Remus and panting hard to keep from pounding him through the wall, when Remus opened his eyes and said, "I'm not the traitor."
"What?" Sirius said. Sweat from his forehead dripped onto Remus' face, and he watched, mesmerised, as Remus' tongue flicked out to lick it away.
"But I know you think I am. It's okay. You don't need to trust me. Or love me. Just--just fuck me?"
"Right," Sirius said, and kissed Remus very badly, too much sweat and spit and tongue, but it shut him up, at least until Sirius started thrusting within him. He tried to go slowly, but Remus arched and cried out, bracing his hands against the wall and pushing back. There was something about the sight--Remus naked and writhing, hair dark and damp against the sheets--that made Sirius feel tender and furious at the same time. Sirius bowed his head and drove into Remus frantically. He wanted to make Remus surrender. He wanted him to come screaming.
But when Remus came, his eyes meeting Sirius' were wide and innocent, and he chanted Sirius' name like a prayer. His body vibrated with orgasm, and Sirius groaned; so close; and then he was flying free of his body, up into the darkness, and when he came down he was heavy across Remus, whose hands were combing through his hair and whose mouth was pressed very gently to his forehead.
"Oh, God," he said when he could speak, and he disentangled himself from Remus to collapse backwards onto the bed. Remus looked at him, mussed and confused and vulnerable. "That was your first time, wasn't it?"
Remus flinched. "Was it that bad?"
Sirius reached up and pulled Remus down into his arms. "It's a precious gift, Moony, it's the most wonderful thing, you are the most wonderful thing. I could have--I would have been gentle," he said, and Remus shook his head, making a noise that was close to a laugh. He stroked his hands down Remus' taut back and turned his face into the tangle of Remus' hair. This was where the words 'I love you' and 'I trust you' belonged, in this lazy, satiated closeness. Their absence wailed its presence like a siren; but Remus shifted up anyway to kiss Sirius with a languid thoroughness that seeped through them like Lethe.
This is how it could have ended: Remus goes home alone to his father and to turn into a wolf. The next day he goes back to his job, and Sirius has work of his own. The next time they see each other Remus is jittery with exhaustion and his house had been sold. He has quit his job and is fully committed to the cause of the war. He doesn't say where he lives now; looking at him, Sirius fears he is sleeping rough. The nicotine stains on his fingers are deep; Lily refuses to stand near him for fear of what the tobacco would do to the baby.
Remus would be off doing unspeakable work when Harry was born. His name would be barely remembered by the other members of the Order. His own father would have forgotten his name as well by then. And once a month Sirius would get good and drunk and spill the secrets of his heart into the fullness of the moon, all of them beginning and ending with Remus.
This is how it could start: it could start with three words, short and sharp, cutting though rumour and lies and fear and suspicion. It could start with a single step onto the bridge of trust. It could start over the kitchen table, with the careful use of names to hold back the rising darkness, and it could start with warm arms wrapped around a battered and torn body.
It could start with the ruthless weeding out of spies, the presentation of a united front. A safe home for the Potters; a defeat for Voldemort; the tide of war irrevocably turned onto alien shores.
Three words, and the world will change.
Sirius nuzzled his face into Remus' neck, and took a deep breath.