Chapter Text
Remus Lupin has been tempering chocolate since he’s been old enough to use a stove. Under the watchful eye of his father, he had learned the important lessons early. There are no magic tricks, no shortcuts, no methods that matter except careful and meticulous exactitude. And even then, sometimes your chocolate will seize, sometimes your batch will be ruined, sometimes you’ll have to start from scratch. It is, at its core, an act of patience.
Remus Lupin is nothing if not patient.
The chocolate shop is blissfully quiet in Severus’s absence, and Remus takes it as an opportunity to tidy the mess that has been made in the squabble. He straightens the smudged menu board, restoring brushed off letters with a flick of his wand, and replaces the items knocked off the counter by the sudden bout of fisticuffs. With a last glance at the front door to ensure the locks and wards are in place, he dims the front shop lights and retreats to the kitchen, potion flask in hand. He downs the vile concoction in one swig, no more accustomed to the acrid flavor than he was at first taste, but grateful for its effects nonetheless. With just days to the moon, he can feel the wolf already stirring in his soul. Everything seems heightened, sharpened, like claws and teeth snapping to get out. Remus clenches his hands into fists, presses blunt nails against his skin, and turns on the stove.
He’s three degrees away from a perfect temper when the back door swings open to reveal Severus, out of breath and obviously unnerved, an unfamiliar man draped haphazardly around his shoulders by the arm. Severus is holding onto his waist by the fabric of his shirt, the man’s shoes fumbling for solid footing underneath him.
Remus drops his spatula. “Severus-“ he starts, but is immediately cut off.
“Ward the door,” he says, low and urgent. “Strong as you can.”
Remus doesn’t hesitate, and the door shuts with a satisfying click before the frame dissipates entirely into the wall around it, as if it’d never been there at all.
“Help me with this,” Severus says, nodding down at the man, and Remus wraps his arm around his shoulders, bearing as much weight as he can. Together, they carry him awkwardly to a storage pantry, sacks of chocolate piled up in teetering towers. Remus flicks a hand towards the nearest stack, and the bags rearrange themselves to be as close to a mattress as they can hope for. Transfiguration has never been his strong suit. Gently, and not before nearly falling over in the process, they manage to lower the man down onto it, and Remus notices for the first time that he’s mumbling something, over and over, unfamiliar to Remus’s ears. He turns to Severus, who’s panting from exertion.
“Who is this?”
Severus schools his face back to its default expression of chilly disdain, and sniffs. “It’s James Potter.”
Remus brings a hand up to his mouth, eyes widening. “My god,” he murmurs. He can’t seem to tear his gaze away from the man, tossing and turning on his storeroom floor. “Why is he here?”
Severus’s absentminded frown curls into a sneer. “I’m to extract a confession,” he says, “And there isn’t time to brew new veritaserum. Our only stock is here.” He smiles coldly at Remus. “My employers have been led to believe that I’m the only man you will trust.”
“From the looks of it, there’s been some pretty monstrous extraction techniques applied already,” Remus says darkly, eyes fixed on blooming bruises and sluggish blood, seeping into the sacks below him. “It’s a blessing he’s even breathing.”
“Well,” Severus says, apparently unconcerned. “You would know all about monstrous methods wouldn’t you?”
The wolf rears and snarls in Remus’s throat, and he swallows it down. “Why should I trust you?”
Severus regards him carefully, calculating, “I’m not the man you think I am.”
“And I told you I’m done,” Remus counters.
“That’s why I’ve come,” Severus says, slowly, as if speaking to a child. “You know how to get hold of his cohort?”
Remus nods, wary.
“Then do it. We haven’t much time.”
Steeling himself, Remus lifts his wand and summons up a memory – the first taste of chocolate on his tongue, bitter and smooth – and a silver wolf bounds into existence. “I’ve found something that belongs to you,” he tells it. “Come at once.” It nods once, as if in understanding, before fading through a wall and out into the streets.
Severus smiles, jeering and contemptuous. “Nothing but a beast through and through then, aren’t you?”
“Maybe so,” Remus admits. “But I was made this way by force. You became a monster by choice.”
Severus opens his mouth to retort, but then James is groaning, sitting up, struggling to standing, and Remus has to hold him down against the chocolate sacks before he does himself an injury.
“Easy there, mate, take it easy,” he says, as soothing as he can be.
James stares up at him, eyes wild. “Don’t let them find him,” he says, hoarse and hysterical. “You can’t let them find him.”
Remus places a gentle hand on James’s back. “Find who?”
There’s a sudden bang from the front of the shop, as if someone is trying to bodily kick their way in.
Remus quickly lifts his wand. “Revelio,” he murmurs, and an image shimmers into clarity in front of him, displaying a disheveled and increasingly agitated Sirius slamming his boot repeatedly into the locked door. “Patere,” Remus says, and on the next kick Sirius’s foot goes completely through the wood like water, the rest of Sirius tripping in after it.
There is shouting from the storefront. “Lupin!"
“Back here!” Remus yells in return, and then Sirius appears in the door to the storeroom, deranged and angrier than Remus has ever seen him. Sirius’s eyes swivel from Remus, to Severus, and finally to James, and it’s like the rage just melts away from him.
“Prongs,” he says, breathless.
“Hey, Padfoot,” James says, and the smile that appears changes his face entirely.
Sirius is past him in an instant, pulling James into his arms, hands clutching at his shirt, and Remus feels like he oughtn’t be watching.
“Harry,” James says urgently, hand nudging weakly at Sirius’s shoulder. “Lily, where-“
“I left them with Petunia,” Sirius says, and he’s got James’s face in his hands like he can’t believe he’s really there. “We got your S.O.S., and then Lupin’s patronus, but I didn’t know what I’d be walking into.” Then, louder, he asks, “What am I walking into, Lupin?”
Remus exhales loudly, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. “Bugger if I know. Severus?”
Abruptly, as if just remembering the fourth man in the room, Sirius levels his wand at Severus, who has been slinking further and further into the dark corner of the storeroom.
Severus sneers back at him, but it’s belied by his placating hands, held up in mock surrender. “He was discovered in Paris while meeting with a known traitor to the cause.”
James inhales sharply, tightens his hands on Sirius’s sleeves. “It was Reg,” he whispers.
Sirius whips his head around, eyes wide with shock. “What?”
“The Dark Lord suspected him of betrayal.” Severus hitched a shoulder in a casual shrug. “He was right.”
Sirius moved as if to strike him, but James dropped his forehead against Sirius’s shoulder, holding him in place. “That’s how they found me,” James said feebly.
“We’d been tracking Black for weeks,” Severus concurs, emotionless. “But we couldn’t have known he’d lead us straight to the Dark Lord’s most coveted asset.”
“Where is he?” Sirius demands, and Remus is surprised to see Severus hesitate, eyes flicking to the door before he answers.
“Dead,” he says quietly.
Sirius sucks in a breath, and James begins murmuring a litany of apologies into Sirius’s shirt.
“I am… sorry – for your loss” Severus forces out, words halting and awkward and sincere, Remus believes. “But there isn’t time for this now.”
Sirius coughs once, wipes briskly at his eyes, and stands. “Can I apparate?”
“The wards will recognize you,” Remus confirms.
“And Lily? Harry?”
Remus nods. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Sirius squeezes James’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” he says, firm and unyielding, and James shakes his head once, pulls himself together. “I’ll be right back,” Sirius tells him, and then with a crack he’s gone.
James blinks, watery and myopic, at Remus, who lifts a hand in greeting.
“Hello,” he says. “I’m Remus.”
The air sizzles loudly with magic and then Sirius has reappeared, Lily at his side and Harry in her arms.
“Abba!” Harry says reaching over her shoulder towards James, and Lily whirls around.
“James,” she says, breathless and disbelieving.
Harry wiggles his way out of her arms and onto the makeshift mattress, climbing into James’s lap.
James, for his part, hides the pain as tiny feet hit fresh wounds and clutches fiercely onto Harry. “I’ve missed you too, kid,” he mutters into his hair, and once again Remus feels like he’s witnessing something too personal.
Lily’s hands tremble as they reach for him, and James stretches a tired arm out to meet her, pull her in, press shaky kisses against her hairline. “Hello, love,” he says.
Next to Remus, Sirius has his hands stuffed into his pockets, and Remus fights the urge to reach out and comfort him. His mind, normally cluttered and open like the pages of a journal, has slammed shut against Remus’s probing. He’s surprised to find he misses it.
From the corner, Severus clears his throat. “Not to break up this touching reunion, but as I’ve said, time is not our ally tonight.”
Lily keeps her hands tangled up in James’s, and turns to look at Severus. “You brought him here?”
Severus pauses, nods, and Lily shakes her head in confusion.
“Why are you helping us?”
Severus seems, for a moment, at a loss for words, and if that alone is uncharacteristic of the man Remus knows, what he eventually says is even more so.
“I have made a great many mistakes,” Severus says, looking resolutely at a point just over Lily’s shoulder. “Many of which have hurt you. But we were friends, once.”
Remus sees his hands clenching, white knuckled, at his sides, and thinks he understands.
“Perhaps I am seeking penance.”
On a different night, at a different time. Remus imagines Lily might have hugged him. Instead, she simply says, “Thank you,” and Severus turns away.
“Go,” he tells her. “I’m expected back, and I can only slow him down.”
“Go where?” Sirius cuts in sharply. “The apartment’s been compromised, the Fidelius is down, and there are no safe houses left in London.”
“Paris,” James says.
“But Reg-“ Sirius starts, but James stops him again.
“We won’t stay long, I promise, but there’s someone there who can help us. He’ll have a place we can go.”
Lily nods, understanding. “How far?”
“Far enough, hopefully.” He looks down at Harry, who’s been watching the adults fearfully from his father’s lap. “You ready for an adventure?”
Harry nods once, sure. “Fuck yeah,” he whispers.
James laughs, loud and delighted, and Remus thinks he can see the man he was, the man he must have been to have survived six months undercover, to have earned the love and trust of someone like Sirius, a woman like Lily, and so unlike the quiet, broken man he’d carried into the pantry.
“Pads,” James says, turning to Sirius, but Sirius waves him off.
“Don’t tell me,” he says gruffly. “You know I’m rubbish at secrets.”
James grins, cheeks red and tear-stained. “I will see you again,” he says.
“You bet your arse you will,” Sirius replies, eyes turning to Lily. “And Lils, darling, try not to weep without me.”
“I’ll weep with joy, you daft cow.”
“That’s the saucy tart I know and love,” Sirius says, watery and fond.
“Do you two need a moment?” James asks, joking, and Sirius is about to retort when there’s a groan from the corner.
“What part of there’s no time do you imbeciles not understand?” Severus grits out.
“Right then,” James says gruffly. “Lils, if you would?”
“Right.” Lily grasps Harry and James firmly in either hand, gives Sirius one final wink, and disapparates.
Startling silence descends on the storeroom.
Severus speaks up first.
“I will buy you what time I can,” he tells them both, and then he, too, is gone, eddies of dust the only evidence he’d ever been there at all.
Remus takes one calming breath, then another, until he can feel the wolf begin to settle again. Sirius is motionless next to him.
“So,” Remus says into the silence. “You lied to me.”
Sirius snorts. “It’s going around.”
Remus nods, conceding that point. “But the greater good?” he presses. “That’s not what you’re fighting for.”
The transfigured chocolate sacks still hold the impression of a recently departed body, and Sirius shakes his head. “No,” he concedes, but then he’s shrugging off the moment like a bad dream, and rounding on Remus. “What about you then?”
“What about me?”
“Has anything you’ve said been the truth?”
Remus considers that for a moment. “I’m not a squib,” he replies.
Sirius just rolls his eyes, though. “Fuck off.”
Remus lifts his hands in offering. “What is it that you want, Mr. Black?”
“Some fucking honesty would be nice,” Sirius growls.
“You would not like me when I’m honest,” Remus says, low.
Sirius takes two quick steps forward, and the pantry becomes two times smaller. “Try me.”
The smile comes unbidden to Remus’s lips, sinister in its slant. “Okay,” he says lightly. “Do you know why your beloved Dumbledore didn’t offer to be your secret keeper?”
Sirius balks slightly at that, but doesn’t back down. “What?”
“Instead of James, that is. It could have been Dumbledore. He’s the most powerful wizard in Britain. He could have kept a family together. Do you know why he didn’t?”
Sirius shakes his head.
“I do.” Remus says. “It’s because he would tell.” Confusion, and then realization bloom across Sirius’s face, and Remus hates the smug satisfaction it fills him with, hates the pretension of a man so ruthless and so admired. “If it came down to your little family and the greater good, you would lose. Every time.”
“It’s-“ Sirius stumbles. “It’s not that simple.”
“It has to be that simple,” Remus demands. “That’s why we fight.”
Sirius laughs, untrue and biting. “You don’t fight for anything!”
Remus, who since the age of five has learned to keep a tight lid on his temper, can feel it snap. “I fight for everything!” he growls.
Sirius takes a quick step back, and Remus knows he sees it, the wolf. No longer lurking beneath the surface, it’s snarling, snapping, teeth bared.
“I’m fighting for my life!” Remus shouts. “And I’m doing it on my own because neither side of your foolish fight thinks I deserve to have one!”
“That’s not-“ Sirius starts, but he’s cut off.
“True?” Remus asks, incredulous. “Of course it is. Dumbledore cares about my life so long as it proves valuable to him, and Voldemort does the same. I do what I must to survive.”
“And dash the consequences?” Sirius adds darkly.
Remus sighs. “I am sorry for any part I played in the death of your friend,” he says, sincere. “But she volunteered, as did you. And whether you accept it or not, you are all just pawns, at the mercy of a cunning king.”
Sirius drops suddenly, disappearing from Remus’s eye line as he sits down heavily on a stack of cocoa. “What’s the alternative?” He asks, desolate.
Remus sits down across from him and shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
The uncomfortable silence descends once more upon the pantry, and Remus doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where they go from here. His arrangement with the Death Eaters is compromised, as is Severus’s tentative position as an informant, and yet he can’t imagine leaving. His life’s work is here, and it is not brave, perhaps, or important, but it makes people happy. And in a life so bereft of happiness for so long, Remus is reluctant to give it all up.
“I’ve seen it, you know,” Sirius says unexpectedly.
“Seen what?” Remus replies automatically, still caught up in his own thoughts.
“A transformation.”
Remus jerks his head up at that. “What? How?”
“Years ago,” Sirius says, quiet. “I ran reconnaissance for Dumbledore on the packs in the mountains.”
Remus knows his surprise must be visible on his face, but he can’t help it. He’s seen those communities. “They don’t take kindly to outsiders.”
“That’s for sure,” Sirius replies, and he hitches a shoulder lightly, giving a little wince.
If Remus wasn’t against Dumbledore’s methods before, this would have ensured it. “That’s a suicide mission,” Remus says softly.
Sirius just shrugs. “I didn’t have much to live for. I was eighteen, disowned, jobless, and a man I trusted told me it would help.”
Remus’s eyes go dark, and Sirius quirks up one corner of his mouth in response.
“And I have a special skill set, as it were.”
“And what would that be?”
Magic suddenly crackles sharp and static in the air, and before Remus even thinks to reach for his wand, Sirius’s form begins to shift and twist until the man Sirius is gone, replaced by an enormous black dog, standing tall and proud before him.
And with each passing second Remus’s carefully constructed world is falling down around him, so he can’t help it. He brings a shaky hand to his mouth, an uncontrollable giggle bursting out from between his fingers.
The dog Sirius growls, and Remus waves a hand at him. “No, no,” he says quickly. “It’s not you. I mean it is, it’s just-“ he laughs again, mirth barking out of him in a way it hasn’t in so long. “Remus the wolf,” he says, hand on his chest, “and Sirius the dog.” He grins down at him. “It’s good to know the universe still has a sense of humor.”
Sirius cocks his head to the side in what Remus hopes is amusement, and then the dog is shifting back into the man, disheveled and heartbreakingly familiar.
“You were never working with the Death Eaters,” Sirius says, sure.
Remus shakes his head. “Severus discovered me, and my secret. He promised to brew the wolfsbane and to keep my name off the registry, and in exchange…”
“You gave them a way to smuggle veritaserum.”
Remus nods.
“Is that why you took so much interest in me?” Sirius asks. “Because I was a threat to your arrangement?”
“No, Mr. Black,” Remus says, chuckling.
“Then why?” Sirius asks, desperate.
Remus smiles, real and rare and foreign on his lips. “Because you were a threat to my heart.”
He watches something happen behind Sirius’s eyes, and then hears, “Were?”
Remus takes him in, flushed and exhausted, hair unkempt and two days worth of stubble on his cheeks. His glamours are down and his voice is his own and he looks defeated, and angry, and more beautiful than Remus has ever seen him. “Are,” Remus whispers.
And Sirius is standing, crowding into Remus’s space and pressing him back into the pantry wall. And Remus knees are bent at an odd angle, still half draped across a sack of chocolate, but Sirius’s mouth is right there and he doesn’t care. Sirius bypasses his mouth though to bury his face in the crook where Remus’s neck meets his shoulder, breathing him in.
“You smell like chocolate,” Sirius mutters against his skin.
“We’re standing in a cupboard full of chocolate,” Remus laughs, but tangles his fingers in his hair and tugs, too hard, until he can lean in and kiss him.
“No, you taste like chocolate, too” Sirius says against his lips, and Remus kisses him again, pushes him back, out of the pantry. They stagger their way up the back stairs, pausing only so Remus can unlock the door, and then Sirius is pushing him into his flat, kicking the door shut behind them.
“There’s not enough time,” Remus tells him, hands running wild, like they can’t decide what to touch. “Severus-“
Sirius groans loudly. “Jesus, Merlin, and Joseph, could you not? That is not what I want to be picturing right now.”
“But we have to-“
A warm hand is clapped over Remus’s mouth and he’s prevented from finishing.
“Shut up,” Sirius says, moving them both steadily toward the beat up sofa behind them. “Everything is gone,” he whispers. “My mates are on the run, my godson is wanted by a mass murderer, and my brother-“ his voice cracks and he trails off. “I want this. Just tonight.” He slowly lowers his hand, freeing Remus’s mouth again. “Let’s just have this,” he breathes.
And Remus has built a life on knowing what people want, what they need. He can box it up and stick a price tag on it and be confident that he has chosen correctly. But Sirius - there is no way to contain this want, no value to it other than this moment, and he is confident his heart has chosen wrong, that the only way for this to end is badly. And there’s absolutely no way he can refuse. So he nods, kisses Sirius, pulls him down onto the sofa and forgets about everything else. He forgets the chocolate he’s left on the table downstairs, solid now and unsalvageable. He forgets Severus’s promise, the ticking clock of time carefully bought rounding its last hour. He forgets that somewhere, outside the shuttered windows of the chocolate shop’s small flat, the war rages on, untempered.
In the wee hours of the morning, Sirius will leave, new bruises on Remus’s neck the only evidence he’d been there at all. The sun will rise on dark alleys and friendly storefronts, where illegal curses are exchanged like handshakes, information hopping from hand to hand like germs. This is not a happily ever after. Like tempered chocolate, it is fickle, careful, ready to snap.
Hundreds of miles from London, on their way to a new beginning, a young family will appear on the cobblestone street outside the oldest house in Paris. There, with stone angels peering down solemn and resolute from its walls, they will retrieve a forgotten invisibility cloak, a threadbare blessing tucked safely in the pocket.