Archive of Our Own

Broken kids find broken kids.

It’s a cracked record, skipping and repeating the same phrase over and over I know I know. It’s a shared grimace, a look across a room that speaks more than words could ever hope to convey. It’s a lonely Christmas and split knuckles dripping blood onto the kitchen floor.

It’s the kind of magnetism that brings Remus into Sirius’ orbit on nights filled with nightmares, sweat-soaked sheets and bed curtains pulled tightly shut.

James and Pete try their best, truly, but the wand light doesn’t light up their eyes the same way, and their voices don’t lend to a shared silence where any words would crack in the middle. Their bedcovers don’t speak of years spent huddled together on nights where the moon feels omnipresent and terrifying or when someone’s voice hits the right pitch of shrill to make Sirius see Walburga behind his eyelids.

Remus remembers the first night shaking out of his skin in a dormitory filled with strange boys and home being so far away, far away enough that he hadn’t felt its amber warmth since a strange creature crawled from his window so many nights ago. He remembers coming to the chilling realization that Peter snores. That James talks in his sleep. That he can never be normal enough to fit in with these boys that look younger than his eyes seem to be when he huddles under the fluorescent light of the bathroom sink.

Remus remembers a stifled whimper shattering the careful not-silence, close enough that he worried it crawled up his own throat without permission. The bed next to his was hastily claimed, a whirlwind called Sirius Black chasing after James Potter, losing a race by seconds or minutes, or however long it would take so that Sirius could never hope to catch up.

Remus was polite enough, used words he’d only read in books and pretended not to flinch around the two wild boys or the wide-eyed Peter caught in the hurricane. His fringe was long enough to cover the faded scar across his eyebrow, and his cardigan was long enough to trail over his fingers and hide any other marks keen eyes could question.

They looked at him strangely. Invited him to a game of exploding-snap that he refused. Remus curled himself into his corner of the dormitory and tried to pretend that he was half as brave as the hat seemed to think he was. Tried to pretend it wasn’t fear shuddering down his spine as the moon loomed only half a week away.

“You can’t let anyone know, Remus. It has to be our little secret.” His mother’s words reverberated around his head like the windchimes on their front porch in stormy weather, but he shoved it down and pretended that his mother’s shame didn’t hurt him.

So Remus had vowed to keep his distance. To keep his eyes on the too-close moon and not the ever-present yearning for a friend, someone, anyone, to see him and like what they see. But in the middle of the moon-soaked night, right when Remus was ready to shake out of his skin, he heard a whimper.

One could say the rest was history. That Remus crawling behind Sirius’ bed curtains with soft words and wand light was simply the beginning of a long pattern that both of them were loath to break. The truth would be that Remus felt the touch of each and every one of those nights. Cherished eyes that looked as old as his. Learned to soothe and be soothed and tucked each and every kindness into his back pocket to be brought out in rusty mornings after the moon. Remus didn’t need an explanation for Sirius’ tears. Sirius didn’t ask about the catch of scars in the evening light. You could say that the rest was history, but it never felt quite over.

“Moon-moon!” It was a familiar croon, one that kept Remus’ eyes to his Arithmancy textbook in a bid to hide the smile creeping up his lips like Devil’s Snare.

Even if Padfoot had never come into existence, Sirius would still have those unforgiving puppy-dog eyes. A pale hand covers his line of sight, long fingers curling over the page he’d been pretending to read, silvery rings glinting in the afternoon sun.

Remus chances a look up.

There he was, in all his Sirius Black glory, somehow looking like he was painted into the dust motes fluttering from the library window, face lit in striking profile. It was all exhaustingly Heathcliff, and Remus probably couldn’t love it more.

“Moony?” Sirius repeats himself, only then in that moment fully registering that Sirius had called him before while he indulged in honey-sweet, god-forbid mooning. If the rest of them knew, he’d never live it down.

“Padfoot?” Sirius was a much better hand at nonchalant, but Remus has his own practice from years of looking Professor McGonagall dead in the eyes and promising that next time he’ll keep them out of trouble. As if he hadn’t come up with half the prank ideas himself.

Sirius raises a particularly aristocratic eyebrow.

“Lost in your books Moony?” He teases, “Must be incredibly riveting if it’s enough to ignore me,” Sirius flips the hair resting on his collarbone with a flick of his wrist, “Hiding naughty books from us now?” Sirius’ grin carves a perfect home on his face, roguish enough to make Remus want to throw a book at him-

Remus throws a book at him. Sirius scrambles out of the way with little-to-no grace, but the book thuds despondently on the library floor nonetheless.

“I’m wounded Moony!” Sirius pours himself across the table with the drama of an ailing Victorian woman fainted onto a chaise lounge, “And you wound the books you claim to love more than me!”

It’s easy to grin at Sirius’ dramatics, bright and vibrant, and everything that the shrieking nightmare that left him pale and shaking- the Sirius of last night- was not.

“Alright, Pads,” Remus gives a sigh with enough drama to match Sirius’ own, “What is it this time?” The light spins Sirius’ midnight hair a lighter gold, and Remus has the heart-clenching thought that he could spend forever in this moment and not grow tired of it, not for even a second. Sirius’ quicksilver eyes shine with mirth.

“Today in Muggle Studies, we were learning about instruments. How could you- the all-knowing benefactor of all-things muggle- keep the creation of the trombophone to yourself?” The Remus from first year would’ve been properly concerned about the faux hurt in Sirius’ eyes.

“Trombone, Sirius?” Fifth year Remus has no such qualms, “Why on Earth would I tell you lot about such a loud instrument after the disaster that is Peter discovering the harmonica?”

If Remus was half as good at Potions as he was discovering the subtle tells in Sirius’ expression, he might not have exploded his last cauldron. That being said, Sirius wasn’t bothering to hide his snickers, but the shadows still present in his eyes were much harder to catch.

“Think about the prank possibilities Moony! Peeves with a trombone! Trombones erupting from the Slytherins’ pumpkin juice at dinner! Have you no imagination?”

Remus has half of a mind to protest that his exact problem is too much imagination, the kind of midnight musings that made it seem like Sirius’ lingering gaze had much more weight than it should, but he just shakes his head.

“I think you’re the one caught lacking, Pads,” Remus’ ears are already cursing his lack of restraint when it comes to one Sirius Black, “After all, why stop at trombones? There’s an entire plethora of Muggle band instruments, and I’m sure the portraits near the Great Hall could compose quite the melody.” That’s to say that every Christmas, the portrait of the Fair Ladies try their hands at My Baby Gave Me a Hippogriff for Christmas and fall quite short at anything resembling the correct key.

“Brilliant, Moony.” Sirius doesn’t say it like he would to James, all brotherly rowdiness, back-claps and teasing. It’s softer, with the kind of look that Remus would expect to see only in the dead of night, tucked safe behind bed curtains.

The sunlight doesn’t erase last night, doesn’t make the dark circles under Sirius’ eyes any less tragic, but it makes it all seem softer somehow, like today will be better for the simple fact that there is light.

“Unfortunately we will have to find a way to keep the instruments from Peter. I don’t think my ears can suffer from much more harmonica, let alone trombone.”

“Don’t worry, Moony. I’ll protect your delicate sensibilities.” Remus scoffs.

“I think my sensibilities are the only thing protecting you, dearest Padfoot. Where would you be without my common sense?”

“Hopelessly lost, Moony dear.” The moment spools soft and thin like spider’s web, and the tenderness in Sirius’ voice feels like a balm to every frosty night. He could probably stay warm forever, if Sirius keeps looking at him like that.

Remus is hesitant to call it love, hesitant to strike the final nail in his self-made coffin, but sometime around third year he realized that every time Sirius laughed, Remus couldn’t tear his eyes away. It’s probably always been Sirius, in some way. He couldn’t stand anyone else seeing the midnight-worst version of him. He hasn’t looked away since.

“And you’d do well to remember that.” Remus puts on a haughty sniff with the statement, if only to make Sirius laugh, if only so the other boy wouldn’t see his face caught in flame.

If Remus didn’t sleep with self-loathing underneath his pillow, he’d almost believe Sirius could feel the same way. There’s something alluring in sharing the worst parts of yourself. Remus feels it even now. But Sirius doesn’t crawl after James when a howler comes from the House of Black, doesn’t turn to Peter when a nightmare shivers down his spine. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?

The thought lingers throughout dinner, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. There’s something to it all, like a breath that Remus can’t keep from holding, like the magnetic pull that shrinks any space between them to mere centimeters. Sirius knocks his elbows against Remus’ at the table. Neither of them pull away until it’s time to head back.

“Alright, lads?” James struts back to Gryffindor tower like he’s got the sun in his back pocket. “Guess who has two thumbs and a pint of firewhiskey he bought off Prewett?”

“Peter.” Sirius deadpans, and Remus catches his eye with a half-smuggled grin. James ignores the both of them to instead focus on the starry-eyed Peter.

“This guy!” Pete gives a little cheer and James preens in the positive attention. If Remus didn’t know better, he’d think the messy-haired boy’s animagus was a peacock. Not that Sirius was much better, to be fair.

“Does that mean we’re having a party?” Pete watched too many cheesy high school muggle movies growing up, having been babysat by his squib aunt, and he’s never been the same since.

“Got it in one, Wormtail! A party of four, my good gentlemen.” James splays his hands out like he’s conducting the world’s worst orchestra, and Sirius has to swerve out of the way to avoid getting knocked in the face.

“Sounds like a piss-poor party, Jamie-boy.” James swats him on purpose for that one.

“Nonsense, Pads. It’s a Friday! All good things happen on Friday.” James performs a grand bow at the portrait of the Fat Lady, and she giggles before letting them in. “Besides! We have a prank to plan, boys. It’s been far too long since our last one.” James says that part a bit too loud while passing through the common room, causing Lily to send the lot of them a rather poisonous glare.

“Lily, darling, you look as effervescent as usual.” James ducks his head to shoot her a grin-and-hair-ruffle combo, which was probably meant to look roguish and charming, but only serves to make him look like he doesn’t have a neck.

“Piss off, Potter.” Lily huffs like the world itself is trying her, while James puts on a wounded look with a hand over his heart.

“Wicked woman with a fire-tipped tongue, how you wound me!” James looks like he wants to continue his not-so-friendly banter, but Sirius grabs him by the collar and begins to pull him up the dormitory stairs.

“James?”

“Yes, Moony?” James twists around on the stairs to meet his eye, but is forced to turn back around after almost falling up the stairs. James seems to be growing faster than his balance can keep up, or maybe he’s just an idiot.

“Do you actually know what effervescent means?”

“Not at all. I found the word in my Charms text and used my excellent deduction skills to gather it’s a positive thing.” Sometimes Remus wishes he was placed in Ravenclaw after all. Remus just sighs, instead.

“I didn’t know you could read Prongs.” Sirius throws himself on his bed with a hearty thump, while the rest of them settle around the room like normal people.

“I didn’t have much of a choice since you hexed the book to my face, Pads.” Sirius snorts.

“Ahh yes. Good times. Especially when you ran into that wall in front of-”

“Anyway men!” James cuts Sirius off before he could possibly finish that sentence with the word ‘Lily,’ “That brings us back to the topic of pranks.” James wields his wand like a scepter, or maybe one of those talking sticks they use in primary school.

“For too long we’ve lived in squalor,” James sweeps a rather serious look across the room, from Peter shuffling his Chocolate Frog cards to Sirius’ rather aristocratic imitation of lounging, with Remus’ eye roll somewhere in between, “It is time to remind the school who we are: The Marauders!” Only Peter raises his fist and cheers with him, causing James to shoot Sirius and Remus a glare to where they’re snickering.

“Lads, I can’t be the only one cheering when we do the chant, I’ll look like a right prat doing it by myself.”

“Don’t think you need any help doing that, Prongsie.” Sirius catches Remus’ eye as he says it, and he can’t help the scoff that falls from his lips. His eye roll doesn’t seem to deter Sirius, given the fact that it’s a moment more before Sirius finally tears his eyes away, leaving Remus’ ears inexplicably warm. Sometimes the firelight hits Sirius just right, and it feels like coming home. Like Sirius might feel the same. “But our dear Moony here had a brilliant idea. Charm the portraits near the Great Hall to play muggle instruments.” Sirius attempts to waggle his eyebrows in emphasis, but ends up looking like he’s having a conniption.

“It was really Sirius’ idea.” Remus begins to pull out his work from the library as if he had any intention to finish it, when really he knows his face becomes rather unattractively splotchy when he blushes. And to keep up the appearance of a suffering Prefect.

“Nonsense!” Pads crosses the two feet between their beds to splay against his side, arm hooked around Remus’ ears, until it finds its true place around his shoulders, “I merely brought up the trombophone- “Trombone, Sirius.” “Yes, that. The rest was all Moony.”

“Instruments?” Peter perks up like he’s gonna whip out his harmonica then and there, but Sirius waves him off with an out of your range, mate. James adjusts his glasses with a considering hum.

“Yes, that could cause the right amount of mischief that we are looking for, but it would affect us as well. We do sit rather near the doors.” James shoots up suddenly, “What if we charmed them to only play when Slytherins walk by?” Remus never truly understood their undue hatred with all Slytherins, much more of the mind to harass a select few if any at all, but has long-past given up talking them out of it.

“Brilliant, mate!” Sirius is gleeful at the prospect of annoying Slytherins, as per usual, “Do you think they have portraits in the Slytherin dorms? Maybe we could charm one by Snivellus to play constantly so he’ll have to sleep in the common room.”

“My Mum says that’s how they torture the Russians for information.” All eyes whip to Peter with varying degrees of incredulousness.

“What do you know about the Russians, Peter?” Pete just shrugs, looking back at his cards.

“I dunno. My Mum just said Aunt Mary was talking about it.”

“Torture them with a singing portrait in their rooms?” James looks particularly confused, and Remus spares a moment of despair wondering if they taught wizard children geography, or at least common sense.

“Obviously not, Prongs,” Sirius rolls his eyes like he hadn’t just learned that Muggles don’t fly on broomsticks, “They don’t have moving portraits, just like their pictures.”

“Oh. So they don’t even have someone to talk to when it plays?” A furrow appears between James’ brows, “That sounds terrible.” There’s a moment of silence to digest the questionable torture tactics on possible Russians, before they swiftly move on, as fifteen year old boys are wont to do.

“Let’s avoid torture tactics if we can, please?” Remus never thought he’d have to warn the boys off of torture tactics, but they never fail to surprise him.

“We’d have to get the Slytherin password anyway, which seems more trouble than it's worth at the moment,” They spare a shiver for the last time they got the Slytherin password and somehow ended up seeing Bellatrix in her underthings, “Let’s just stick to the portraits by the Great Hall. We can use that sensor charm we used on the pixie prank to have them only play around Slytherins.” James whips out a piece of parchment to start transcribing their plan.

“We’ll need to increase the range of the sensor charm to capture all of the Slytherins. Last time we only had to focus the charm on Filch.” After five years with these boys, Remus is well versed in compromise, as well as taking what he can get. Personally, he’d rather the portraits be indiscriminate in their music making, much less work that way, as well as a great deal more mischief with it spanning castle-wide. That being said, Remus isn’t a Marauder for the fancy title, and is therefore honor bound to make sure the rest of them don’t accidentally set anything on fire. Only on purpose.

“Right you are, Moony-Mine, and I’m sure we can rely on your magnificent research ability to achieve such?” Sirius squeezes him against his side in emphasis, the arm around his shoulders heating him like a brand. Remus eyes the black-haired boy critically.

“You lot are so lucky I’m taking Ancient Runes. Thankfully, I already have a good idea of how we can increase the power of the charm with a set of amplifying runes. Otherwise you wouldn’t have any hope of foisting this off on me to deal with alone.” Sirius does not give him the courtesy of looking abashed.

“Precisely why we keep you around,” Sirius winks at him with all of the charm of a fifteen year-old boy, therefore not amounting to much, “I’m sure between James and I, we could’ve come up with something eventually, but who would harass the Slytherins in the meantime?”

“I believe your intuitive magic is precisely why I learned a fire-proofing spell long before it appeared in the curriculum. I’m certain my things wouldn’t have survived without it.” Remus raises a single eyebrow, a trait that James is ridiculously jealous of.

“Nonsense, Moony! Your eyebrows were only lightly singed the last time.”

“Yes, yes, if you two are done flirting, can we focus back in on the prank?” James doesn’t deign to look up from his parchment, but Peter still snickers dutifully, “I was thinking we could-” Surely James goes on, but it turns to static in his ears. Sirius’ arm turns to stone around him, and Remus is quickly released as if he suddenly contracted Spattergroit, before bounding over to slump against James instead. It coils low in his gut like slow-moving poison, but Remus is used to the cold grip of shame.

“And what of the firewhiskey?” James is startled out of his rant by the question, but never let it be said that Remus will pass up a strong drink when Sirius avoids his gaze like that.

“Yes, yes, I’d forgotten! Can’t have a prank without a party.” James says it quite solemnly and goes to rummage in his chest, as if it was some unbreakable vow instead of a half-made promise to always celebrate pranks together in first year. Regardless of Remus’ musings, he gratefully takes the bottle out of James’ hands after his honorary ‘first-sip.’

Everyone thought Remus was quite cool the first time they tried this, the only one to keep from coughing. The reality is that it’s a different burn, not quite like his father’s hands or the shifting of his bones, but it’s a burn nonetheless, and Remus has been smoldering for a long time.

He lets himself drift again, lost between the quiet cadences of his closest friends designing mischief. It’s just as well, Sirius seems too afraid to pry the bottle out of Remus’ grasp, meaning Remus drinks much more than usual. There’s a half-thought of supervising the chaos, ensuring that no one gets terribly hurt, but Remus has always been quite self-destructive when it comes to his friends. His thoughts are tides washing in and out, eroding at his common sense, yet forgotten with the next breath.

The bottle is significantly less full when Peter eventually retrieves it from him, James sparing both eyebrows for Remus’ rapid inebriation. He sees it out of his peripheral, from where he’s apparently taken to leaning back and staring at his bed’s canopy.

“Alright, Moony?” Remus just raises a single eyebrow in return, and James turns away with a jealous huff.

The world is swirling behind his half-closed eyes, and the amber light of the fire leaves Sirius’ hair tinged red. It’s the kind of seasickness where Remus isn’t quite sure where he ends and the bed begins, but he’s grateful for an excuse to stare nonetheless. A cheer goes up. Apparently James beat Peter in cards again. It all feels very far away from him, his own private island of misery, but Sirius would just call him a maudlin drunk again if he knew.

Sirius is looking back. There’s something of a promise in his eyes, a secret later that only he can read. It feels private, sacred. To know Sirius Black in the midnight hours, in craving, in chaos. Something undeniably theirs when Sirius and James are the best of brothers, when Peter and Remus are the dutiful followers, when Remus feels like he must not know Sirius at all. Somewhere in his musings, he lost Sirius' eyes, but that doesn’t mean that Remus stopped looking.

The reality of it is that Sirius is quite a beautiful boy; aristocratic cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, a wave of hair so black it reflects like a cool blue lake, delicate fingers suited for pretty rings and piano keys. There’s the even slope of his shoulders, a tease of his collarbones. He’s not quite muscular like James, built more for speed than strength, lithe muscles a rolling tide down his back and up his forearms. He could talk about his smile, sharp as his eyes and as fleeting as them too. But that’s something anyone could know.

No, Sirius is a beautiful boy. He cries an angry red, tears tracing his cheeks with delicate fingers. He screams in a shrill pitch, lashing his voice into the stillness of the night. His hands are rough from perfecting his favorite spells, knuckles worn from unforgiving stone. Sirius’ tongue is sharp enough to draw blood, practiced in carving others with his hard-earned cruelty. He flinches if you raise your hand too quickly, he tenses underneath a kind touch. He bites the inside of his mouth until it bleeds, a perfect smile of blood-stained teeth.

If Remus were not built the way he was, if he hadn’t learned blood before much else, it might scare him; the violence in his eyes, the bark of his bite. But Remus grew up a skinny thing, colored blue under his father’s hand, frostbitten in the cold of his mother’s voice. He tore out of his own skin at the age of five, and he’s been living in that peculiar metamorphosis ever since. A constant cycle of give and take, wash out with the tide, breathe it all back in. His hands are gnarled and ruined from a lifetime pain, his scars burn silver in the moonlight.

Remus is not so egotistical as to crave a mirror, but misery loves company and Remus loves Sirius Black. It’s that simple, isn’t it? It’s little beasty things you’re not trained to want.

At some point, Remus gets a hold of the bottle once more. The glass warmed under their feverish hands, the room almost stifling in the fire’s heat. Remus feels rather removed from it all, even as the glass acclimates to his touch, even as he finishes it off.

Remus finds himself tucked in bed later, the woodgrain on the ceiling swimming each time he blinks. He can hear Pete’s snores and Remus isn’t quite sure he’s still awake. Like clockwork, Sirius crawls his way beside him, a little unsteady where he knocks his knees against Remus, and it’s all bitten-off curses and frustrated sighs. Sirius always likes to sleep with Remus when he’s drunk. Says it’s something to do with how warm Remus is and how the alcohol smells like his mother on the worst days.

“You don’t have to do that, you know.” The words sound warped in his ears, but they seem to hit Sirius just the same.

“Do what?” Sirius is curled up in the furthest corner of the bed from where Remus is sprawled, daring enough to look confused.

“Curl up like you can’t bear to touch me,” he begins, thoughts of Sirius flinching away from him flitting behind his eyes, “I won’t bite, you know.” Sirius makes some aborted sound of confusion, and Remus feels inexplicably frustrated at his feigned ignorance.

“I know you don’t bite, Moony.” He’s not fooling either of them, but Sirius looks like he wants to believe it.

“Not unless you ask me to.” His eyes feel lazy, and grin appropriately wolfish, the moon taken roost somewhere in the hollow of his throat. No one really acknowledges how his eyes reflect in the dark, but he can see Sirius turn away from his gaze, nevertheless.

“You’re drunk, Moony.” Sirius’ voice wavers a bit. Remus can almost taste Sirius’ fear on his tongue, curled up against his canines. Sometimes it’s gratifying to be the monster everyone thinks you are.

“Sure, Sirius. And you’re a coward.” Remus states it matter-of-fact, unsure who he’s even hurting anymore, the knife double-edged all the same. It doesn’t matter, in the end. Remus gathers himself up in the wake of disgruntled silence, crawls unsteady limbs back to Sirius’ hiding place. Sirius would fall completely out of the bed if not for the bed post he’s uselessly pressed up against, and it pleases Remus that he can’t easily get away.

“I think you know, Sirius. And I think that scares you.” Remus leans in close enough that he can see the other boy’s eyelashes in the non-existent light, hear the quake of his breath in his lungs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, really,” Sirius’ eyes darting down to his lips in a quicksilver flash tell another story.

“Then why do you look at me like that,” Remus, tongue clumsy with drink, feels frustration peek through his vowels, and thinks somewhere past him he must have lost the plot, “Not like how you look at James and Pete, not like how you look at anyone else.” Sirius swallows heavily.

“I look at you just the same, Remus.” Remus leans back incrementally, and Sirius takes a sharp breath.

“I thought we don’t lie in here,” Remus’ brow furrows, anger making itself known.

“I thought we don’t ask unnecessary questions.” The bite of Sirius’ tongue is whip-sharp, but soothing all the same to see the aristocrat lose his mask of ignorance. Regardless, it’s a fair point. Remus searches the other boy’s face for a moment before deciding to let it rest for the night. He moves to pull away, and would have gotten there too, if not for Sirius setting him off balance enough to crash backwards on the bed.

At this point, Remus isn’t as drunk as he wanted to pretend to be, so his attempt to catch himself isn’t entirely lost, but Sirius crashing against his mouth like a quaffle is enough for any remaining strength in his limbs to fall away.

Sometimes Remus feels entirely other, as if he could never match Sirius for all his long-haired, defiant elegance, but this is entirely teenage boy and inexperienced, Remus unable to distinguish his own heartbeat from Sirius’. Remus drags a hand through the black hair in question, while Sirius’ fingernails threaten to dig in from where he’s holding Remus’ face. It goes on for long enough that they’re both breathless when they break away, but if Sirius is sharing half of the awe that Remus is, then they may have been breathless to begin with.

The moment stills, and they just look at each other. Sirius is half-crouched over Remus, forearms planted to cage him in. There’s no moon here, not in these bed curtains, and yet Sirius is shining like a star regardless. Remus moves to return the embrace, the hand not in Sirius’ hair going to cradle his sharp cheekbones, but they never make their mark.

“Sirius?” He first jerks away from the hand, then scrambles off of Remus altogether. “It’s alright.” Remus tries to approach him slowly, Sirius looking every bit the scared animal from the whites of his eyes.

“No, nono no,” Remus can’t quite understand who Sirius is talking to, the other boy’s head shaking from side to side in increasing franticness, “Remus, Moony, no.”

“What is it Sirius?” A hand, lightning-quick, latches onto Remus’ bony wrist with a bruising grip. This time, Sirius leans in, but Remus isn’t naïve enough to mistake it for another kiss. No, instead the boy looks terrified, a snarl curling his lips into something darker, and Remus finds himself trying to lean away. Much like before, the other boy doesn’t let him.

“This never happened.” Sirius says it with so much conviction, Remus could almost believe him in his addled state, but Sirius is never this terrified in his daydreaming.

“Why not?” The grip on his wrist gets tighter.

“Because it can’t. It wasn’t like that.” Sirius pulls away first, going to clamber out of the bed curtains with jerky movements, “Go to bed Remus, you’re confused.” He throws it over his shoulder without meeting his gaze once more, and the gaping maw of the curtains closes behind him.

His mother was always very fond of Moby Dick, not for any reason Remus could really understand, but he read it anyway, grasping at the straws of closeness like it could soothe her shame. For the first time, he thinks he understands, if just a bit. Remus has been swallowed whole, cocooned in the coffin of his own making, speaking with metaphors nonsensical enough to not understand, cradled there in his bedcovers.

The ship is far behind him now, and wherever he’s landed is much darker, indeed.

The next week passes in a strange sort of limbo. Neither of them mention what happened that night, though Sirius goes to even greater lengths to avoid any physical contact with him, stiffening up or straight up bolting at a brush of their hands. Remus just replays Sirius’ sheer panic over and over again until he can begin to understand, his crooked fingers drifting up to touch his lips at inopportune moments.

The prank goes off without a hitch. That’s to say any and all Slytherins are harassed with an ear-piercing combination of trombones, drums, and trumpets whenever they enter the Great Hall for a full 18 hours. The paintings were delighted to have some enrichment other than every-day people watching, and like the world’s worst garage band, took to the racket with gusto. Unfortunately, the prank was shut down due to Snape entering the Great Hall at the same time as Professor Flitwick, the Charm’s professor turning an ugly shade of puce at the unholy amalgamation of moans that sounded off as the two passed through the doors.

James and Sirius truly had too much fun recording their voices for that spell, and Remus couldn’t bring himself to get close enough to tell them off for it, given that the rather enthusiastic fake moans from Sirius made his face rival Flitwick’s.

Hearing such sounds from a boy that flinches at your touch and pinned you down to kiss and threaten you in quick succession has to be the tenth circle of hell, indeed.

The day before the full, Lily brings it up in one of their study sessions.

“I just don’t understand why they hate him so much.” Remus was lost in his Potion’s homework, startling at the anger in her voice and only then noticing the ink all over his hands.

“Who? Wait, what are we talking about?” Lily gives him a poisonous glare-huff combination and Remus feels mildly scorched.

“Weren’t you listening?” She scratches something out in her paper angrily, “Potter and Black. I just don’t understand why they hate Severus so much. I mean that last trick they pulled was so embarrassing! And there are children here!”

“I think it was something from first year?” Remus has to rack his brain for a moment, “Someone made a snide comment and the other made it back, and so on and so forth.” The ink has smudged into his cuticles, and it burns from where he picks at them idly. “I wasn’t really close with them that part of first year, so I can’t say for certain.”

“And they just never stopped? I mean, really, we’re fifth years!” Remus begins to fear for the integrity of her paper, “You’d think they’d mature out of all of this petty nonsense! You don’t see Severus continuing this!” Always fear a Lily scorned. Remus raises a single eyebrow.

“I’m fairly certain Snape spelled James’ hair off just two weeks ago.” He rubs a hand against his eyes, the light irritating them with the moon so near.

“Well, yes, but that was just retaliation! Was he supposed to just take all of their antics lying down?”

“So it’s retaliation when Snape does it? But not for James and Sirius?” Lily shoots him another glare.

“Spelling off Potter’s hair is miniscule in comparison to the things they’ve done! And it’s not like he wasn’t doing the world a favor, ridding it of that rat’s nest he calls hair.”

“James cried for three hours.” Remus deadpans, a little incredulous at her blatant bias. Although he agrees that James and Sirius are a little too vigorous in their payback, Snape has never been any kind of passive bystander in the situation. Lily just huffs again.

“Well then he shouldn’t be so vain, and should learn to take a joke.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Lily,” he pressed his fingers against the burgeoning headache between his eyes, “Do you want me to apologize on their behalf? Because I don’t know if I can bring myself to do that given what he said to you last October.” That finally quiets her.

“It just seems cruel, is all.” Her voice is as small as he’s ever heard it.

“I don’t see why you’re still defending him. He called you a slur, and he meant it, Lily. And you know it’s not the first time he’s said it either.” Neither of them are pretending at doing homework anymore.

“It’s just hard, is all,” she sniffles a bit, “He was my best friend for years. I know he’s been hanging around those nasty Slytherins and saying all of these terrible things, but it’s hard to reconcile that with the boy who picked the prettiest flowers so I could put them in my hair, or told off my sister whenever she’d shout.” He puts his hand over her’s on the table and squeezes gently.

“I know it’s hard, but you have to try. You deserve better than a lousy blood purist as a best friend.”

“I will, I’ll try to be better,” she wipes her eyes a bit with her other hand and straightens her shoulders, “He doesn’t deserve a friend like me.”

“That’s more like it,” he shoots her a smile and sits back in his chair with a breath.

“Thanks for listening to me rant. I know they’re your friends.” She returns his smile, albeit weakly.

“Of course, Lily,” he shrugs, “Just because they’re my friends doesn’t mean I have to like everything they do.”

“Still. It means a lot.”

“Anytime.”

He’s still thinking about it as he goes to bed that night. Thoughts of Sirius flying around his head and his bedsheets lonely. Snape and his careless words. The kind of power that brings one of the strongest people he knows to tears. How can you reconcile that?

The air is unsettled the next morning, the moon’s foreboding felt in his very veins. Unluckily for him, the moon fell on a Thursday, so he’s forced to muddle through a full day of classes with the itch in his skull. He trudges to breakfast with James and Pete, Sirius curiously absent but the tension between them enough that he’s relieved for the brief respite.

“How’s the head, Moony?” James looks short of checking his temperature with the back of his hand, but he’s always hovered around the moon, mother hen instincts in overdrive. Remus waves him off.

“Propositioning me so early in the morning, Potter?” James just rolls his eyes and looks at him expectantly, “No worse than usual, James. I’m fine.” James huffs.

“Someone’s gotta worry about you lot,” He spoons a load of eggs onto both his and Remus’ plate while Peter just tries not to fall asleep into his tea. “Speaking of, any of you lads seen Padfoot this morning?” Peter just shakes his head so Remus brings it upon himself to elaborate.

“I know he was in the dorms last night, but I haven’t heard anything from this morning. I think he was around at like the arse-crack of dawn, but I just remember being bloody freezing from the open window and not much else, sorry Prongs.” Remus pokes at his sausage despondently. If Sirius wasn’t doing his whole careful-avoiding thing, then maybe Remus would have a better idea, but he’s just as clueless as James.

“Well, alright. He’s probably off somewhere brooding like usual.” James almost breaks his neck whipping it around as Lily sits down at the table, but her morning glare and Remus’ shin-kick stifle any comment before it can arise, “We’ll see him tonight anyway. He wouldn’t miss it.”

“‘Course.” The sausage holds no answers, not that he was particularly skilled at Divination anyway.

“Buck up, lads!” James elbows Peter into wakefulness and nudges Remus across the table with his foot, “We’ve got a full day ahead of us, so let’s fill up while we can!”

“Yes, Oh Captain, my Captain.” He eyerolls. James just shoots him a quizzical look.

“I know you’re hopeless at Quidditch Moony, but even you have to know I’m not Head Captain, yet.”

“Yeah, Prongs wouldn’t shut up all summer about it. The ‘injustice of being a fifth year,’” Wormy is unrepentant in the face of James’ lackluster glare.

“It is injustice! Crowley does an alright job, but can you imagine the team under my stead?”

“Only in my nightmares,” James’ glare ratchets up two more degrees.

“If Moony can be a Prefect in fifth year, what’s so wrong about me being captain?” The eggs never stood a chance against James’ wrathful fork.

“Maybe the fact that you smoked out McGonagall’s classroom the last day of term? And that she’d actually have to appoint you as captain?”

“Nonsense, Minnie loves me. She’ll appoint me captain next year if she knows what’s good for her.” Pete snorts into his orange juice.

“I can’t tell if that’s a threat or not, but I want no part in it. My Transfiguration grade is shaky enough as it is.”

“Wormy, my dear friend, you’d dare betray me like this?” James clutches his heart in drama, “I thought we were brothers!”

“You try reasoning with my Mum! She keeps going on and on like ‘what about the future Peter, what are you going to do with your life Peter.’ It’s nauseating honestly.”

“What is there to fear but fear itself my lovely Worm-brother! We can overcome this-”

“Speaking of nauseating, can we not please?” Remus cuts in, “It’s way too early and my head is killing me.”
“Yes, yes, sorry Moony. Inside voices.” James nods solemnly, speaking with the inside voice of a deaf grandma. He tries, though. That counts for more than you’d think.

The bell rings and the students herd themselves to class. But Sirius isn’t there. Not in Transfiguration, where McGonagall shoots them a dirty look as if Sirius’ mysterious absence could lie with them. Not at Potions, where Remus inevitably blows up another cauldron without him there to undo what Remus does incorrectly. He has to hoover the sticking potion off himself with his wand, but he still ends up at lunch smelling uncomfortably of bubblegum, poking at his food without Sirius joking by his side just to make him smile.

His stomach swoops uncomfortably every time he thinks back to that night. How Sirius lips were chapped and clumsy. How for a moment they held each other, and even with his heart pounding out of his ribs, he felt safe. How Sirius’ words turned cruel and sharp, his eyes bottomless in their fear.

Because it can’t. It was never like that.

Go to bed, Remus. You’re confused.

Yes, he is. Undeniably and irrefutably confused as to what possessed Remus that night, why he burned down the tether that tied him to his closest friendship and reveled in the ashes. Why Sirius kissed him in the first place. Why he was so, so afraid.

Remus can’t begin to make heads or tails of what is going through Sirius’ mind, but he fears he’s already done too much, asked for more than he deserves. He’s a werewolf after all. One that’s desperately in love with his best friend, covered in scars as he is, plain and unassuming next to Sirius shining like his namesake. How can he begin to compete with that? What would he even say if he could only open his mouth to ask? How could he stop himself, if it all came spilling out?

He opened his mouth that first day after Sirius kissed him. They’d run into each other as Sirius was leaving the bathroom, and shared this unfathomable look. Remus had opened his mouth, and he might’ve just asked, but Sirius must have seen it on his face because he only brushed past him with an Alright, Moony? But it’s okay. Remus is well-versed in secrets. It’s all he’s ever known.

James, Pete and him duck out of dinner early to head to the Willow. What would be a routine of jokes meant to calm Remus’ pre-moon nerves jerky and out-of-place without Sirius there to finish them.

“Sirius will be here, Remus,” James vows, standing to the side of the shack and preparing to transform, “He’s a right prat on the best of days, but he wouldn’t miss this,” Something in James’ eyes seem to say he knows more than he lets on, but it’s gone in a blur of magic and the antlers of a stag.

The tension reaches its zenith as the moon rises, his bones preparing to crack and crumble, his teeth baring their way for fangs. The stag and rat shift in the corner nervously, and yet there is no black dog bounding up the stairs. They prepared to stay in the shack when his skin began to crawl and still Sirius had not arrived. The dog was the best at corralling the wolf, better than any of them, and the wolf would not take kindly to his absence.

But as he screams and screams in pain, body twisting its painful dance, the same pain, always the same blinding burning in his lungs, his screams make way for howls and his last human thought echoes around his skull in heartbreaking disbelief.

He’s not here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remus’ first thought when he wakes is that this moon must have been worse than usual. His bones groan against his skin, his skin aches where it’s stretched taut, his muscles protest against themselves and bring light to the stinging slashes decorated across his body. It’s unusual in the way that Remus had not had a very bad moon in quite a while. Surely not since his friends discovered their Animagus forms for all that Remus tried to protest their involvement, because the animal, pack-like comfort was enough to keep the wolf from bothering with tearing at itself when it could be chasing his friends instead.

The thing about the wolf is that Remus tries very desperately to not remember its presence every full moon. Tries not to hold onto the feeling of taking a backseat in his own body as another takes over and fills his dreams with snatched memories of howling and running and the scent of fresh game in his teeth. But it lingers like the taste of blood in his mouth, more so after particularly traumatic moons where his mind grasps for an explanation for the damage he finds written on his body.

It’s not coherent, not in any form, but Remus can remember the scent of panicked animal, the growl that tore through his throat and howled as the doors to the Shack shuddered against his throwing weight.

Flashes after that, sprinting across the snowy lawn towards the castle, two retreating figures, a desperation like he’s never known and the all-consuming hunger. The moon hung fat and heavy, gluttonous over the night and over the pain that shrieked through the wolf as a silver rope wrapped around its hind legs. After that, not much remained, but the boy sitting in the infirmary comes to the chilling realization that the blood in his mouth may not be his own.

His breathing begins to quicken, heart beating its protest against his ribcage, broken bones and foggy skull, picking over the memories that end abruptly, just enough to leave him desperate to know what happened.

Tar wraps around his lungs and he finds enough breath to heave over the side of the bed, all blood and unidentifiable bits stinging tears in his eyes.

Madame Pomfrey is by his side in an instant, holding a bucket in her hands and heartbreaking pity in her eyes.

“Ma- Ma,” Remus tries to shove the question through his throat but can’t even get through the first syllable of her name. She rubs a comforting circle against his back and holds his gaze.

Speaking over the coughing, Madame Pomfrey answers.

“You didn’t hurt anyone else Remus. Just yourself.” The crashing relief feels like an aguamenti in his veins. His skin still burns against what must be a left-over fever, but his heart can calm, if only slightly. Madame Pomfrey never calls him Remus.

“Wha- what?” The word feels the gravel in his mouth, the syllables scraping against his throat like glass. Madame Pomfrey looks grave.

“Dumbledore will explain.” The implication makes his stomach swoop in terror, and he catches a glimpse at Pomfrey’s frantic face before he promptly passes out.

Remus wakes some unidentifiable time later, light spilling across the closed infirmary curtains, to voices by his bedside. Though he can’t quite make out what they’re saying, he blinks back bleary eyes and focuses in on Dumbledore’s white beard and serious face.

Some pathetic noise of confusion cracks out of his throat, and the figures of Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore turn to him at once.

“Mr. Lupin,” Dumbledore’s grave tone makes him seem larger and more imposing than he is, “I’m glad to see you’re awake.” Madame Pomfrey hastens to his side, and helps prop him up against the pillows, comforting not-words falling from her mouth when he winces in response. Dumbledore steps closer.

“I would’ve liked to have given you more time to rest, but I believe you’d rather understand the full situation as soon as possible.” Remus can only look up at Dumbledore, feeling as small as he did when the wizard appeared from his fireplace at ten years old, Remus’ fate held in his hands.

“It seems that last night, Severus Snape found his way to the Shrieking Shack. He made it halfway down the tunnel before the wolf was able to break through the door. James Potter claims he saw Mr. Snape heading towards the tree and ran to stop him. Peter Pettigrew ran to inform Professor McGonagall, who in turn alerted me. By the time we arrived, James Potter had restrained you in order to protect Mr. Snape and himself from the wolf.”

Remus feels his heart tumble through his stomach and down to his feet. He has to close his eyes from the wave of nausea that threatens his composure, and is sure that this is the moment he’s sent from Hogwarts. His mother mumbled the dangers over morning tea, kept him always in the corner of her eye, spoke the word liability like it encompassed all there was to the wolf. He’s not sure how long it takes to shove it all down and open his eyes, but Dumbledore and Pomfrey are standing there just the same.

“The restraints were silver, and its impact will likely leave scars along both your arms and legs,” Remus chances a glance down to his bandaged arms, but the twisting white cloth doesn’t reveal anything underneath, “We will be increasing the wards and protections on the Shrieking Shack immediately. There were no casualties in this event, but we do not ever want to come that close to harm again.” Remus hears the words Dumbledore’s not saying. He knows all-too-well what The Ministry does to werewolves caught attacking others, knows exactly whose casualty it would be. At times like this, Remus questions Dumbledore’s faith in him. It would be much safer for the entire school if he was sent away.

“Severus Snape has been sworn to secrecy,” This forces Remus’ gaze away from where his broken fingernails are picking at the bedsheets, but Dumbledore’s eyes reveal nothing, “If he reveals your werewolf status, he will be expelled immediately.”

Remus prides himself on his puzzle-solving ability, his skill to read between the lines and shake a particularly troubling problem until it reveals exactly where things started to go sideways. It’s been the savior of many a prank, and it comes into play to ferret out what exactly is missing from Dumbledore’s explanation.

“H-how?” Pomfrey hands him a glass of water to soothe his throat, clearing some of the words lodged in his throat, “How did Snape figure out the Shack? The Whomping Willow?”

Both Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore share a particular look, the one that adults give each other when they’re deciding exactly how much to tell you, but Remus refuses to be babied. If he had almost killed someone the night before, then he deserves to know exactly how the situation came to be.

‘What?” Remus pretends he doesn’t sound frantic, “What is it?” Dumbledore turns back to him, and the first hint of sorrow floods his face.

“It seems that Sirius Black informed Mr. Snape about the Shrieking Shack, as well as the Whomping Willow. Mr. Snape claims that Mr. Black told him of your werewolf status, and dared him to find out for himself,” Dumbledore pauses for a moment, reading the disbelief radiating off of Remus. Snape had never liked any of them, and had no cause to tell the truth now. It’s a sinking moment, that pause, as if the next few words would throw Remus’ world more off-kilter than the terrible night before already had. He feels the dread of it in his bones.

“Mr. Black backs up these claims. He was nearly expelled, but his quick thinking in tackling Mr. Snape out of the way of the wolf moments before it was restrained spared him. He will be in detention for the foreseeable future.” Dumbledore peers over his half-moon spectacles as if Remus’ heart isn’t tearing itself out of his chest.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lupin.” Dumbledore is all sweeping starry-blue robes walking out of the infirmary, but Remus can’t even spare a goodbye, or thank you or how could this happen for the shock that’s invaded every inch of his burning body. Madame Pomfrey strokes his hair back, and leaves with the promise to return with a potion for the pain. Remus doesn’t have the presence of mind to inform her that it probably wouldn’t work, that he can take broken bones and bruises and blood any day, but that this pain is much more devastating.

The thing is, no one taught Remus how to love. He learned it all on his own, stumbling after his own heart as it went ahead on its business. Learned how a certain look from Sirius would send his pulse racing, how to keep his feelings down where it wouldn’t hurt anyone. But it made a home in his chest, one that’s rattling against his ribcage and screaming bloody murder. No one taught Remus how to love, so he must not have done it right. It’s sitting like a broken bone healed without a splint, a piece born wrong, a stutter in the rhythm of the warped orchestra that makes up his body.

He must not have done it right because why else would it hurt this bad? Why would it ache like a festering open wound, why would the pain remain if he can’t love someone that used him as a- as a tool. As if his worst worries and fears were just another prank. Why would he love someone that doesn’t seem to care for Remus at all? Why would he love Sirius, even still?

It’s incomprehensible, and illogical, and brainless, and other adjectives that he can’t conjure up as his mind reels. If his heart weren’t doing its level best to tear itself in two, he’d claw into his chest and do it himself. Let the wolf finish the job.

The thing about being self-aware is that for all you know that you’re only hurting yourself, only self-destructing enough to make others scramble out of the blast zone, you can’t stop it. It’s like keeping your eyes open when the train comes, when the hit lands, when the claws shoot out of his fingers like a nauseating Muggle horror movie.

But Remus had practiced the art of tearing into himself for many moons before the Marauders, and the ache was almost comforting in its familiarity. The infirmary curtains shut closed like his bed curtains would have been if he’d just kept his stupid heart to himself all of those years ago. He tells Madame Pomfrey that he doesn’t want any visitors, and closes his eyes tight against the tears that threaten his lashes as an increasingly-desperate, achingly familiar voice drifts from the doors of the infirmary.

It’s winter, and his heart is breaking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time Remus comes to, his mouth tastes like potion and his eyes feel gritty with sleep. He groans out some protest to the waking world, but opens his eyes to blinding sunlight anyway.

There’s a moment, sleep-soaked and soft, where Remus spots James and Peter and can’t understand what would make them look so upset. His dreams of long-fingered hands and the crackle of the hearth cloak his thoughts in kindness.

All-too-soon reality crashes down on him. It reminds him of the time James and Sirius dumped freezing cold water over his bed one too-early morning, it shocks him awake faster than any alarm, makes his eyes clench against the tumbling weight of it. It feels like Remus will never sleep again. He opens his eyes anyway.

“Hey mate,” Remus is starting to wonder if his heartbreak is contagious because James and Peter look almost as miserable as him. Peter’s eyes are darting everywhere but Remus, flighty in the way that he gets sometimes when he’s spent too long as a rat. James looks like Lily beat him over the head and cursed him blue, all the while learning that Quidditch was canceled forever. They both look a mess, hair sticking in disarray and bruises under their eyes. Remus still has to look away before James catches his eye.

“Hey.” His voice sounds somewhat better than the other day, an upgrade from a croak to a grumble. The infirmary feels too still, air too stale for all that Madame Pomfrey is bustling around, seemingly tending to another student.

“Listen, mate,” James takes a deep breath in and out, “I really had no idea that Sirius had told Snape anything about the Shack, or the Willow, or- or you,” Remus never thought he’d hear James refer to Snape as anything but Snivellus, “It wasn’t until Pete and I had already transformed that Snape started coming through the tunnel. We got out to try and get him away, but the git didn’t seem to have any self-preservation until the wolf was breaking through the door.” Remus can hear a smidge of tears in his voice, but the other boy clears it away.

“I- I tried to get him away, but my antlers don’t fit in the tunnel, so I had to drag him out, but we weren’t fast enough. The wolf got close and- and I panicked.” James’ tears begin anew, for all that he tries to hastily scrub them off his face faster than they can fall. “I’m so sorry Remus. I know how you feel about your scars, but I didn’t know how else to stop it.”

The bandages are lighter today, though Remus still hasn’t seen the full extent of the damage. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter. He’d rather be coated in scars than be a murderer, any more of a monster. Remus wants to reach out, but doesn’t know how well it’d be received. It’s one thing to meet the wolf through the eyes of an Animagus, safe in the animal world, safe as pack. It’s another thing entirely to meet the wolf as a human, let alone one running for its life. No wonder Pete can’t look him in the eye.

“James,” The other boy’s head snaps up to meet Remus’ eyes, misery coating every inch of his face in melancholy, “Thank you,” He tries to pour every ounce of gratitude into his voice, “Thank you for stopping me.” Remus had to look away again, white hospital sheets offering no comfort. “You’re the reason I’m not a murderer. You’re the reason I’m still here.”

“You don’t know that Remus, really, I’m sure I could’ve thought of something better, I mean you know all of the spells Moony I’m sure there’s a better one-”

“James. Stop,” He falls silent, glasses sliding down his nose that he fixes with an absentminded gesture. “I’m not upset with you. You were very brave, and you did what you had to do to keep everyone safe. Maybe there’s a better spell. I don’t care. Either way, you still cast the one that saved Snape and yourself. That’s what matters.”

Remus pointedly ignores a grumble that shapes something like you sound just like Dumbledore, and steels himself instead.

“I understand if this changes things,” His tongue feels like cotton in his mouth, “Or- or if you don’t want to be friends anymore.” Remus fails spectacularly at sounding unaffected, but considers it a personal victory that he could even get the words out in the first place. He chances a glance up at the two, and is shocked to see James looking particularly affronted, and even Peter looking gobsmacked. It’s a great deal more than he expected.

“Now you listen here, Remus Lupin,” He can hear the echo of Mrs. Potter in his voice- not that he’d ever say such, “This is not your fault. The wolf can’t be controlled in that state, so it’s up to everyone, especially the staff, but most importantly, your friends, to keep you safe,” James moves from his seat at Remus’ bedside to sit on the bed directly. The darker-skinned boy ducks down to meet Remus’ downcast gaze.

“If there’s anyone that’s at fault here, it’s us, but,” James tightens his fist and only then does Remus notice his split knuckles, “Specifically Sirius,” James’ voice is as low and furious as Remus had ever heard it, “He had no right to do that to you. Not when we- you- trusted him.”

It’s pathetic that a single name can threaten to wrench his heart straight out of his chest. As if it had any other choice.

“I know you’re not one for revenge, Moony, but whatever you want to do, we’ll be right behind you,” James’ eyes are dark and serious, “Spell off his hair, put mealworms in his bed- no really!” James speaks over Remus’ halfhearted chuckle. “We haven’t spoken to him since that night. Whatever you want, Moony. We’ll be there.”

Remus takes a moment to stare out at the falling snow through the window across from his hospital bed. The privacy curtains surrounding his bed have been pulled back, but there’s still a large one spanning across the infirmary, sectioning him off from the rest of the beds. The snow is falling lazily, building great puffy mounds up against the glass.

He feels inexplicably warm for James’ support. Pete’s too, for all that he hides behind James’ words. It was all quite more than he ever expected, both now and the time in first year that James sat them all down and told Remus he didn’t care that he was a werewolf, he was a swot anyway. The barest hints of a smile tug at his lips at the memory, but it quickly falls again.

It would be all too easy to ruin everything. To spell off Sirius’ hair and make the other two vow to never speak to him again. But even now, Remus can see how James is hurting without his other half, his brother. He could set the remains of the Marauders on fire, doom them to ruin, grind the ashes under his boot. Or he could move on. Could save whatever is left.

It’s a quiet realization, but Remus doesn’t think his hurt is worth enough, is worth making his friends miserable just to ease some of his bitterness. They will live together regardless, will attend the same classes, eat at the same table. Remus can make himself scarce but he can’t quite break them up as a whole, it’s just not possible. He turns back to James.

“No, it’s quite alright,” James gives him a look, “No, really. I- I don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Remus would pick at his cuticles if there were any left, “It would just make everything harder.” James starts up some form of protest, but Remus doesn’t have the energy to hear it.

“James. Please.” He knows he sounds desperate, but the longer he ruminates over Sirius Black the more he feels his heart crush like a field of clovers neglected underfoot. James and Pete share a look.

“Alright, Moony. Whatever you want,” James places a gentle hand on Remus’ shoulder, and it feels like an apology unnamed. “But I can’t forgive him that quickly, and you shouldn’t either.” If Lily could see this side of James, she might not hex him on sight anymore.

“I won’t, Prongs. I just want to go back to normal.” Remus doesn’t have the heart to tell him that normal isn’t exactly in his repertoire, that he doesn’t think he could reliably sit at the same table as Sirius without vomiting his entire heart out right then and there.

“We’ll try our best, Remus. Just get better soon, okay?” Peter steps in before James can nag any longer, not looking quite as nervous anymore. “Here. I know it’s your favorite.” Pete gently pulls James from Remus’ side and offers a single bar of chocolate, likely from his own stash.

“Thanks, Pete.” Remus offers a smile and ignores how it tugs uncomfortably at a scratch on his face, years of practice hiding his instinctive wince. Peter seems to catch it anyway, giving him a look before beginning to usher James out of the room.

“We’ll get out of your hair. See you back at the dorms.” Pete always seemed to have a sixth-sense for when Remus was reaching his limit for social interaction, especially around the moon. He pulls James out of the room while the other boy shouts a hasty good-bye over his shoulder with promises to get the homework Remus missed.

Pomfrey catches the flap of the privacy curtain as the two boys take their leave, bustling to Remus’ side with a clinical haste. Sirius loved to joke that Pomfrey could beat Pete in a race any day, that is until Pomfrey overheard him one day and threatened Sirius’ visiting hours for it. Remus still privately thinks that Pete would have no chance.

“Good afternoon to you, Mr. Lupin.” She runs a few standard diagnostic spells, checking his vitals with a routine that Remus could probably do in his sleep at this point, “How is the pain today?”

“It’s fine. My arms ache a bit, and my throat is still a bit sore, but not so bad anymore.” In first year, Remus would be extremely reluctant to admit to any bit of pain he might be enduring, but sometime around third year he realized she’d find out anyway, and found it pointless to lie. Pomfrey was much happier for it.

“Ah yes, that’s to be expected at this point.” She begins to unwrap the bandages around his left arm, finally revealing the swirling burns that extend from his wrists all the way up to his shoulders in a crisscross pattern, “These will likely scar worse than your legs due to the pressure of the wolf’s struggling making these burns much deeper at the point of contact, causing your skin to split.” Pomfrey begins to apply a greenish paste to the cuts, the minty smell stinging both his eyes and his wounds.

“And my throat? I’m assuming the howling damaged it.” Remus watches as she carefully rewraps the wounds with fresh bandages, moving on to the right arm.

“Yes, it seems that the stress of both the pain and the presence of humans damaged your throat on top of the usual damage inflicted during the transformations themselves.” The wounds on his right arm are a bit more irritated than the left, likely from how the wolf attempted to struggle. Remus doesn’t flinch as the paste is worked into the wounds and rewrapped.

“You will likely have a bit of a sore throat for a couple days, so you should avoid talking for long periods of time, if possible. It most likely won’t severely damage your throat further, but you will be at risk of losing your voice otherwise.” She pulls a light blue potion out of her coat pocket and uncorks it, handing it to Remus. He downs it without question, but still grimaces at the fizzy soap-like taste.

“And when can I leave?” Right now, Sirius would usually be saying something along the lines of that’s no way to treat a lady and it’s not you, Poppy dear, it’s him. Sirius isn’t here. Pomfrey tsks at him like she can hear the unspoken words anyway.

“You just went through an incredibly traumatic moon, Mr. Lupin, and your injuries are nothing to laugh at either,” With her hands on her hips like that, Remus imagines she looks like a proper mother would, or at least the ones he reads about. “Your fever has gone away, but you gave everyone quite a scare with your fainting spell earlier. I will keep you overnight and we’ll see how you feel in the morning.”

Remus purses his lips to hide the protest building in his throat, but nods his agreement anyway. It will make it much easier to avoid Sirius, at the least. Though none of that will matter if he dies of boredom in the meantime.

Seemingly reading his mind, she gestures to the side table, where his current Sherlock Holmes read sits. James must have dropped it off before Remus woke up, and hadn’t had a reason to notice it until now.

“I imagine that’ll keep you occupied in the meantime, but if you experience any worsening pain or drowsiness, I expect you to inform me immediately. I don’t want to give you too many pain potions in such a short window, but I don’t want you unduly suffering either. Understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He reaches for the book and ignores the spike it sends up his spine. Pomfrey hastens away without another word.

Both the book and the infirmary are familiar enough to take his mind off of the overpowering dread that has weighed him down since he first woke up. He’s spent many afternoons sitting in the infirmary with a Sherlock Holmes book to keep him company, the mystery always taking his mind off of the pain and sucking him into the story without question. It’s one of his favorite post-moon reads, and it works even now.

By the time he looks up, he’s only a few chapters from the ending, and the torches of the infirmary have been lit. Evening has fallen, and a plate of food waits on his side table with a stasis charm over it, likely from the house elves.

He doesn’t bother with bookmarking as he sets his book aside, having read it so many times that it would be redundant at this point. He goes to reach for the plate of chicken, but the feeling of another presence stops him.

Remus is always quite sensitive around the moons, his hearing and smell especially sharp due to the wolf lurking just underneath his skin. Sirius would joke that his time of the month just made him more snappy, but made an effort to avoid raising his voice too much anyway. It was one of those little considerate things that made Remus feel much more special than he probably ever was to the other boy.

His hands look ghastly under the torch light, a mess of gnarled knuckles and twisted scars blending into ripped nail beds and bitten-down nails. Remus remembers Sirius tracing over the scars one night, soothing the ever-present ache of broken bones with the warmth of his hands. It’s all he can look at, knowing who exactly lurks by his bedside. The smell of clove cigarettes and pomegranate shampoo too unmistakable to be anyone else.

He hears the whisper of the cloak unfolding, the unsteady breathing, the half-broken whisper of Moony. He shuts his eyes tightly against the sudden pressure behind them, but musters up his Gryffindor courage anyway.

If Remus had been half as good at protecting his own heart as he was reading Sirius’ expressions, he wouldn’t have looked at all. Sirius looks ragged, worn out, dark bruises under his eyes matching the one trailing up his chiseled cheekbone. He’s still beautiful, and it sets a fire in his chest. He looks away.

“Sirius.” Remus almost has goosebumps at the frigidness of his own voice, but refuses to apologize. His hands ache from where they’re clenched in the bedsheets, and his stomach feels like a riot has run through it. Sirius is Remus’ every nightmare walking, has been since they first met. It doesn’t change anything.

“Moony,” Remus can hear the hesitation in his steps, but desperation seems to move him forward anyway. “I am so sorry. I- I never meant, I mean-” Sirius seems to choke over his own words, “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, it’s- Moony, look at me, can you please look at me?” Remus stubbornly keeps his gaze on the bedsheets, on his broken hands.

This isn’t their first fight, isn’t the first time Sirius has come bearing apologies and desperation like old friends. Each and every time, Remus finds a way to crawl back to his side, a way to forgive, forget, go back to midnights and whispered words. But this is not that story.

Remus has always found a way to play with fire. From locked in a cage to running free, from juggling classes and keen eyes, from deluding himself with the idea of Sirius, the idea of a future that doesn’t hurt. He runs his fingertips through the flames like it won’t burn him if he doesn’t get close enough. Each and every time, he gets too close.

“Moony, I-, I wasn’t thinking, I was just so angry, and I wanted him to shut up and I couldn’t-”

“Why did you do it?” There’s tears in Sirius’ voice, and Remus has to cut him off before they worm their way into Remus’ own eyes as well. He’s quiet now, unable to keep up any kind of façade, just overwhelming hurt that makes him wince as it leaves his mouth.

“I-, he wasn’t-, Snivellus was saying all of these things, and I just wanted him to stop.” Remus chances a glance at the other boy, the tears dripping off his face catching the light like a portrait, perfect even in poison, in the throes of anguish. But for a second, all of that falls away, and all Remus can see is a truly miserable boy, slumped and pitiful.

“What did he say?” Sirius holds his eyes at this point. If Remus still believed he understood a thing about Sirius, he could almost imagine seeing the war held in those frost-covered eyes. A stillness falls over their little section of the infirmary. Pomfrey is elsewhere, no other students occupy the remaining infirmary beds. Sirius ceases his twitching, foot-tapping shakiness.

If Remus closed his eyes, he could imagine another life where things go right. There would be no wolf to plague him, no moon to weaponize. No beautiful boy clawing uncaring hands into the animal-soft parts of him. Remus dreams of happiness like he could spool it himself, weave a narrative so present and real that it’d become his own. In this one, this life that he lives and breathes, Sirius doesn’t say a thing. He dons the cloak like it’d hide him, runs out of the infirmary like the wolf itself was on his heels.

If the moon could pull him out to sea like the tide, he doesn’t think anyone would be able to find him. Sometimes he thinks it might be for the best. To be washed out to sea, to free the wolf and the moon and Remus himself. Sinking, but with purpose.

When he sleeps, he dreams of silver eyes staring out from a silver moon, howling and hurting and the sharp metallic tang of blood. It’s all the same, in the end.

It’s really unassumingly easy to wake up the next morning. To visit the dorms, gather his things. Ignore Sirius’ unmade bed like it isn’t burned into the backs of his eyelids and the creaks of his soul. Catalogs his new scars with resignation as they’re steadily hidden behind his cloak. Catch his afternoon classes after a hasty lunch. The house elves never truly liked him, but they make him a nice mug of tea anyway. He wonders if they sense the predator on him, or if it’s just who he is. If Sirius could hear his internal musings, he’d call Remus maudlin.

Remus sits next to Peter during Charms. He very much does not sit next to Sirius, not like he has been since second year when the professors had grown wise enough to not allow Sirius and James to sit together. He doesn’t even look to see if Sirius found a different seat, or if he had to sit next to James. Flitwick doesn’t say a thing.

He wonders how long he will be purposefully not doing things with Sirius, how long until the little changes in his routine just become doing. Maybe they’re too intertwined to ever be truly comfortable. How long until it all just becomes history? He wonders which will hurt more, the now, or the history of it all.

At dinner, Sirius doesn’t show. The remaining Marauders share an awkward rhythm for it, all disjointed silences and off-beat jokes. Spaces aching to be filled like the silence of a missing tooth. The next day at breakfast, Remus sits with Lily. She doesn’t comment on it, but gets the particular gleam in her eye that she does when she’s figuring out an Arithmancy problem. Remus almost wishes she’d figure it out, if only just to explain it back to him in a way he might understand.

The thing about Hogwarts, about routine, is that it’s inevitable. Time will pass and dinner will come. The ground will thaw and Sirius will reintegrate into classrooms, into the Marauders. Remus can feel it happen like a physical force, can see it in James’ eyes as he gradually accepts Sirius back into his life, if only to keep his promise to Remus at first, then surely encouraged by Sirius’ act of remorse. Peter is just happy to be there most of the time.

Remus learns to wake early and go to sleep late. Remus can learn all manners of things, can unwind himself from Sirius bit by bit. There are new spaces in his life, but they too become routine. A quiet study session no longer crashed, a meal that goes unshared, a moon without a big black dog by his side. Somehow it doesn’t get any easier, somehow it never feels like he’s finished healing. If he picks at this scab enough, it’ll scar. But what’s one more scar? One more day? Somehow it never feels quite over.

James and Peter give him space, echoes of whatever you want, Moony. Remus wants to combust, he wants to scream and cry and throw the mother of all tantrums like he’s small again and his mother can stand to hold him. He wants to look at Sirius properly in all his silver-shine glory, look him in the eyes and smack him across the face. He wants to pull him close, tenderly, and ask him why why why. He asks the wind too, for that matter. Howls it into full moons and cries it into pillowcases.

No one seems to have an answer.

He catches Sirius looking at him sometimes. When Remus forgets to wake early, stumbles all sleep-soft and hazy out of his bed right into a passing Sirius. Just a look, not a word at all. Just a look like Remus was his biggest regret and his greatest fear all in one. He catches it more after that, in classrooms and mealtimes. Sometimes Remus feels so sick of it all that he could scream, could stride right up to one Sirius Black and kiss him full on the mouth, could set himself on fire and scream I love you to the tide.

His mother used to say that if history was written by the winners, then poetry was written by the losers. His thoughts at midnight seem to suggest that he hasn’t won a single thing at all. He could write sonnets about Sirius’ voice, his laugh, the half-moon crinkle of his eyes. It’s all poetry in the end. As if Remus could write anything else.

The wolf becomes restless on the second moon without Padfoot. It doesn’t understand the trappings of love, the nuances of hurt, just the missing black dog, just the unfinished pack. Sometimes Remus worries that if you boiled down all his thoughts and all he is, the wolf would be the only thing left. It tears and cries and rallies against its own skin like Remus does quietly by the day.

He gets used to it all, to a degree. He’d given up his prefect status, feeling too unstable, too dangerous to be anything but a liability to the younger kids. Lily argues with him for a full half-hour, tries to convince him that whatever happened between you and Black isn’t worth destroying yourself over. It’s safe to say she didn’t know the full story, that Snape kept up his end of the bargain and didn’t snitch. But that doesn’t mean he learned the value of quiet, either. Snape spent the first couple weeks after the incident avoiding him like Remus had Spattergroit, skirting around the walls whenever they happened to pass each other. When the other shoe failed to drop, he seemed to lose any previous qualms.

“Moon’s coming up, Lupin. Planning on trying to maim anyone else?”

“Do you think your kind is really fit to be around others? We both know how dangerous you are.”

“Don’t come any closer, Lupin. I’ve got silver on me.”

Remus has been inexplicably spoiled by Hogwarts. The professors treat him normally, the friends he’s made accepted him without another word. Of course, there’s always the off-color comment floating around, the bigoted news from The Prophet settling a pit in his stomach. It’s not perfect, but it felt so far away when he lived in anonymity. Snape’s sneer, the poorly disguised fear, the crystal clear disgust. Those are all much closer, now.

If anything were normal, then Sirius would hex the disgust off Snape, would curse him black and blue and promise Remus that all of that is rubbish, Moony, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’d crawl behind Remus’ bed curtains and speak to him softly in the moonlight, tickle his sides to make him laugh. He’d curl up behind him like a puzzle piece, make sure Remus went to sleep with a smile on his face. But things aren’t normal, and the Marauders remain none the wiser.

The worst part of it all, is that spring comes. Professors ramp up their lessons in preparation for OWL’s, and Remus gets through it like he always does. Without the distraction of pranks, of Sirius, he’s probably never been more studious. Spring drags him kicking and screaming through the days, through blades of grass, but time never stopped for those much greater than Remus, and it has no reason to listen now.

Yes, the worst part of it all is that spring comes. Remus is suspended in a snapshot of amber, a moment in time captured for future generations to gawk at. He’s still laying on that hospital bed, he’s still running across the lawn towards three fleeing boys. He’s still caught in the orbit of Sirius like nothing was broken at all.

Sirius still doesn’t speak to him. James pulls him aside to assure him Sirius is only giving him space, only trying to give Remus his boundaries after he so thoroughly thrashed his trust. Remus doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Sirius is just as stuck as Remus, still standing in that infirmary heart-sick and weighed down by silence, still unwilling to answer why why why.

Sometimes, Remus fears there isn’t an answer at all. And wouldn’t that hurt the most.

“Remus?” He’s musing again, lost in the rolling hills of Hogwarts’ now-green lawns. His Transfiguration textbook abandoned for much more maudlin thoughts.

“Yes, Lily?” Remus has learned that she gets this particular crease around her mouth when she’s concerned, a look that has been shot at Remus more and more often as the frost fades. He can see the war in her eyes, but Remus has too much practice keeping secrets to be anything but an iron vault. She sighs.

“Do you have the notes on Partial Vanishment? I want to look over them again.” Remus digs the parchment out of the ever-growing pile that accompanies studying for OWL’s, and passes it to her.

“Here. Though I’m not sure what good it will do, you’ve looked over those notes three times already.” Lily sends him a half-glare, the other half something tremendous in its exhaustion.

“You know Transfiguration isn’t my best subject,” She runs a hand through her hair in what’s almost an echo of James, “Too much bloody intention. Give me potions any day, at least it involves measurement.” Remus pretends to give a considering hum.

“How about- hear me out- you whip up a Polyjuice potion so I can take your Transfiguration OWL and you take my Potions,” Remus spans his hands out in a grand gesture, “It’s a full-proof plan.” Lily stills, seemingly considering it for a moment, before shaking her head roughly.

“You’ve spent too much time around Potter and them, I fear it’s irreversible at this point.” Remus doesn’t bother even trying to tamp down the particularly wicked grin that sneaks across his face.

“Now, Lily dear, who do you think had the sense to come up with all those particularly elaborate plans, hmm?” He can see the realization dawn in Lily’s eyes, and can’t resist a smirk, though Lily still smacks him on the arm hard enough that he’s left rubbing his shoulder.

“Lupin, how were you ever made Prefect?” She laughs to herself, “Though that explains why things have been quieter around here recently. I can’t imagine the rest of them have the attention spans to pull off The Great Christmas War part two.” Remus’ smile dims into something more melancholy, and she catches it with a belated wince.

“Sorry, Remus. I know you’d rather I don’t mention them.” The library is as quiet as it always is, but somehow more oppressing in the awkward silence that follows.

“S’alright, Lily. It’s silly of me to try and avoid mention of them forever.” Remus has to force himself to relax his grip on the quill, lest he snap the sixth one this month. The twisted scars creeping up his fingertips offer no comfort. There’s another moment of stillness before Lily throws down her parchment with a growl.

“Oh- Blast it!” She whips to face him suddenly, the fire in her eyes making her hair seem pale in comparison, “It is silly!” She throws her hands up, “You’re making yourself miserable avoiding them, and I can’t stand it!” Lily leans forward to grip his forearm, the look on her face daring Remus to say otherwise. “Whatever Black did, hex him and be done with it!”

Remus’ mother always advised him to keep his anger locked tight, pushed down until it hardened into something like resolve, but he can feel the tide rising almost without his control. He tries to keep her words close, not like the wolf, not like your father, in a mantra.

“Lily, it’s not that simple,” He tries to imbue every inch of warning he can muster in his voice, a particular live-wire running through his veins, begging to light.

“Then do something about it!” She thankfully lets go of his arm, but doesn’t bother to back down, “You’ve been living an empty half-life ever since whatever happened, and you can’t keep going this way!”

“And what would you have me do, Lily?” His voice goes low, dangerous, deceivingly soft. He sounds just like his mother when he’s angry and he hates it, “It’s all I can do to sleep in the same room with them at night.” The quill breaks, splattering ink across his meticulous notes. Lily leans back in surprise, and he hates himself for the cold grip of satisfaction that worms up from his belly. “Would you have me return to them like nothing happened? Like I wasn’t almost a murderer?” There’s a brief flash of fear in her eyes, and it only serves to darken Remus’ tone.

“Surely you weren’t-”

“And what would you know, Lily?” His words drip toxic, poisonous, “What would you know about any of this? You didn’t even know that Snape, your best friend, was a blood supremacist, let alone the lengths he went to try and get me expelled last February.” Tears begin to well in her eyes, and Remus can almost feel the claws break out of his fingernails. There will always be a part of Remus that’s still wolf, still hungry for blood.

“What would you know about friendship when you spent the last six years holding onto a dead one?” The tears begin to fall. “The fact of the matter is that you don’t know anything at all, but you still walk around and act like you do because it’s the only way to keep your world black and white. You’re naïve, and yet you have the gall to accuse me of making myself miserable?” His hands begin to tremble where they’re clenched white. “Live my life, and tell me there’s another choice.”

Lily rushes off suddenly with a choked-off sound, almost as suddenly as she prodded him in the first place. Her stuff is still strewn around the library table and the ink is still meandering a steady drip from the splatter, and this is usually when Remus feels his anger extinguished under the weight of his own guilt. But this time it grows and grows until he feels it on the tips of his fingers and down to his feet, until he has to clench his teeth against the rising tide of a scream erupting from his throat.

He stumbled upon a dead deer in the woods by his house, once. It was half-decayed and torn apart, bits of bone and dried blood shining in the afternoon sun. Flies gathered around in an ominous buzz, crawling out of its mouth and darting around its corpse. For a moment, Remus could imagine the exact scene that occurred. The scent of fear, the chase. How it screamed in pain until the life slowly drained from its eyes. The warm rush of blood uncontained. He dreamed about it for months afterwards, spent midnights in a cold sweat with aching eyes. No matter how many times his mind conjured up the gruesome scene to punish him, he still couldn’t figure out which he was supposed to be. The deer, or the wolf. Maybe there isn’t a difference.

He tries his very best to leave Lily alone after that. He writes a letter explaining himself in a bit more detail, tells her that the thing lying heavy between him and Sirius is nearly prohibited to talk about, but sneaks in details about the moon and the willow and the taste of Snape’s fear. Either way, he does his best to apologize, a dog-eared book of Sylvia Plath’s and a letter all to his name. He sees the makings of forgiveness in her eyes, but he stays away. It’s better this way. All he has left are the things that he’s lost. And isn’t that something?

He takes his OWLs. Seems to do pretty well too, even as his eyes ache from exhaustion and his heart lies heavy at his feet. Lily lets him sit with her on the train ride home, though neither of them work up the courage to speak through the ashes, just that worried crease around her mouth as Mary and Marlene argue over Quidditch.

The house stands tall against the hills of the moors, run-down and shabby and so, so cold. Even as sweat drips its steady pace down his neck, he feels the chill in his bones. No one ever speaks of dread like the physical thing it is. He doesn’t know how to start.

“Home again?” It’s the first words his mother had spoken to him in five months, not a single owl as the term ran like water through his fingers. He’s struck by how much older she looks, each time they’re apart. This time it’s the wrinkles around her mouth as she purses her lips. How the skin of her hands seem to cling to her bones as they wrap around her afternoon tea.

“Yes. Home again.” He’d taken off his robes before hailing the Knight Bus home, and he can see her eyes dart to the twining scars.

“Oh Remus,” her voice goes sickeningly sweet, but she doesn’t bother to get up from where she’s sat at the worn kitchen table, “What happened?” He fights the urge to wrap his arms around himself, but he flinches at her tone regardless.

“You should’ve gotten a letter about it in February.” She takes a sip of her tea with a faux-considering hum.

“Ah yes, that.” She always says he looks like his father, the same curling brown hair, same sturdy jaw and large hands. But every time he looks in the mirror, he sees her brown eyes. Every time he forgets to temper his accent, he hears her voice. He takes his tea just like she taught him to. They are the last cracked mirror at the end of the world.

“You know, Remus, I was thinking. It’s just so dangerous for you at that school, so dangerous for the other kids too. I mean, as a mother, I have to be thinking about the kids, you know?” His blood goes ice-cold in his veins before she can even speak another word, “I just don’t see how all of this magic is worth it, sweetie. Maybe we should find you another school closer to home.”

“No,” He can’t pretend his voice isn’t shaking, that his bag hasn’t fallen from his hands and thudded to his feet.

“No?” She raises a single eyebrow, and her voice goes dangerous in that soft way, shame falling over him from Pavlov’s bell.

“No, I just mean, that-” He can’t get the words out fast enough, “I need magic to lock the wolf up at the moon, I mean, ever since Dad left, and, and to heal myself after, because we can’t make it all the way to the hospital out here, and they’d ask questions, and-”

“But haven’t you already learned all of that? At your school?” She shakes her head with a sigh, “I just don’t see what good being there can do for you anymore.”

“No, no, there’s still more to learn. I’m almost done. Just two more years,” he pleads, “And Dumbledore said it was okay, they’ve strengthened the wards around the shack and the wolf has been fine since, so-”

“But all of those boys, the ones involved in the incident, don’t they know?” Her quiet emphasis on that single word makes bile rise in his throat, “It’s not a secret anymore.”

Remus remembers the chemical burns on his mouth and nose, crying and choking on the soap as his mother repeated it has to be our little secret, Remus, you can’t tell anyone. You can’t play with the other kids here, it’s too dangerous. Over and over until he learned his lesson, until he didn’t even try to look at the other kids in the village. Didn’t say a word when his skin would ache from the full moon. Quiet. Safe. Just him and his mother.

“I know. I’m sorry.” The tears begin to burn in his eyes and somehow the shame compounds. No one can make him cry like his mother, not even Sirius.

“So what will we do about this, Remus?” If he closes her eyes he could mistake compassion in her voice.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry,” he sniffles, eyes on his worn socks and mangy duffle, “They’ve been sworn to secrecy, all of the people involved. No one else will know.” He can barely hear her answering hum over the pounding of his heart.

“Is that so?” she sighs a world-weary sigh, “Oh, Remus, it’s just so hard being a mother, you know? I just want what’s best for you.” The bird-shaped clock ticks in the spaces between her words like the world’s worst metronome.

“I know.” The tears begin to fall. He’s helpless to stop them, really.

“Remus, don’t cry now.” It sounds chiding, “You can keep going to that school. But you have to promise nothing like this will ever happen again.” His hands shake and shake and shake.

“Thank you,” he swallows, “It’ll never happen again, I promise, never, no one else will know.”

“Alright Remus,” She turns away from him and Remus gets just a little bit more air to breathe, “I’ll give you one more chance.”

“Thank you, mam.”

“Now go put your bag in the room. We don’t need it cluttering up the kitchen.”

“Yes, mam.”

He’d covered his room in all of his favorite books, all of the ones he’s collected over his lonely childhood and beyond. They act as a makeshift nightstand, rows upon rows bowing the wood of his bookshelf. When he first went to Hogwarts, he was certain that all that magic paled in comparison to the library. Yes, there were floating candles, and magically appearing food, but the library felt a little more like home than anything else.

He had a single painting hanging over his bed, a large ship traversing over rolling waves. He’d never really seen a lot of moving paintings, the memories of his father’s hazy and unreliable since his mother endeavored to remove any and all of his things from the house. But he’d stare at the painting and make up all manner of stories, ways to take him somewhere, anywhere but his quiet room.

His room still has the flood damage from his first big act of magic. He’d just finished reading Narnia, and he dreamed that the painting would come alive and wash him away, just as it did to Lucy. Safe to say, he didn’t go very far, but the wooden floor remained warped and some of his earliest books held onto the water even as they were hung out to dry.

The twin-sized bed creaks and groans under his weight, likely older than him, and the moth-eaten sheets smell like his mother’s detergent. It’s little things like that, the fact that she must have dusted his room and changed the sheets, that make it so hard to resent her. Yes, he’s shameful, yes she’s cold. But it’s home, one way or another. His own little microcosm of misery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s a new boy at his village with scars like Remus. For a heartbreaking moment, he finally thought he might not be alone, but his mother informs him that the boy - Matthew Crawford- had moved to Wales with his father after a nasty car accident killed his mother and left him scarred.

He’s not a werewolf like Remus, but their scars are similar enough to catch each other’s eyes from across the village market where Mr. Crawford sells honey. It’s a weird, magnetizing dance, sneaking clandestine glances as they turn circles around each other, Remus leaving with a basket of fresh fruit and a jar of honey, Matthew following not too many paces behind.

He’s muggle, and his eyes are brown, and he’s pretty enough to look at under summer sunlight. He’s blonde, and soft-spoken, somewhat simple in his speech. His features are soft and round, and the gap between his two front teeth makes his smile charming whenever he dares to let it rise to his face. He needs glasses but his dad can’t afford them, so he walks around squinting all of the time. He rides his red bike everywhere, and he doesn’t know any Welsh.

Most importantly, he’s nothing like Sirius.

So he gathers up the remains of his Gryffindor courage, recalls every heartbreaking time Sirius flirted with anyone that wasn’t Remus, and tries it out for himself. He looks up at the other boy through his eyelashes, leans a little closer than the average person would, lingers a bit in every point that they bump into each other on the grassy hill just a bit outside of town. He’s apparently daring enough to make Matthew blush, but the other boy follows Remus into the shade of the forest anyway.

“I’ve never done anything like this before.” Matthew’s brown eyes are wide and nervous, looking up at Remus like he has the answers.

Remus doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he hasn’t either, not really. That the closest he’s ever gotten was a piss poor attempt at love, and that maybe the futility of it all was what really drew him in. Remus is practiced in the art of self-destruction, but that’s not what Matthew wants to know, and he’s loath to break the illusion.

No, Remus just gently crowds the shorter boy against the nearest trunk. Sirius is much closer to Remus in height, but he’s markedly not thinking about Sirius right now, so he focuses on the other boy’s lips instead. They’re chapped with nerves, straight except for a scar running diagonal from his cupid’s bow. Much like the twisting scars on his arms and legs, Matthew’s still covered in the angry red of healing, and it’s like looking into the mirror of another life.

Matthew tastes like the honey sticks his dad makes and the summer sweat of teenage boy. The buzzing in his head stops, if just for a moment, and Matthew places a hand on his neck gently. It’s not fair to Matthew, but it feels like a stolen moment, like a full breath when you’ve only been taking in water. Maybe it’s easier if Remus doesn’t love him.

It’s not kind, not like Remus to lose himself in another person for the sake of distraction, but the trees keep his secrets and Remus keeps theirs. The jagged edges of Remus scrape uncomfortably against the other boy’s soft and sweet, a little broken but nothing like Remus. It’s all he knows how to do. The days of summer stretch intimidatingly ahead, and for the first time since he learned Sirius Black’s name, his head is quiet.

His mother doesn’t question the marks or his kiss-bitten lips, they don’t really talk much these days, really. She acts as if she wants him close, but treats him like a ghost whenever they’re in the same room. She just sends him a disapproving look that makes the vague shape of you’re making a mistake. As if she thought Remus could do anything right.

Matthew brings it up once, staring up at the unforgiving sun and pressed against Remus’ sweaty side.

“I think you’re more broken than me.” His vowels don’t lilt in the same way as Remus’ but he feels the awe in the other boy’s voice regardless. In the same way that archeologists pore over broken bones, dust and debris, as if looking at Remus is an excuse to put something back together. If Remus were a touch kinder, he might just let Matthew try.

But at the end of the day, the moon always comes to haunt his windowsill. Scratchy sheets in the unforgiving heat, he lies awake and thinks of whispers behind closed curtains. He tortures himself with Hamlet, pretends that the words remind him of the boy he’s kissing instead of the one that shadows his waking memories. The dreams- half-snatches of raven hair and an undignified laugh- are a breath of respite.

He spends his days like that. He never promises more but Matthew keeps coming back anyway, and he learns how to make the boy gasp and how to take more than he gives. Summer trickles down his back and Matthew looks at him with stars in his eyes, but Remus looks away, every time.

He’s fixing the chain on Matthew’s red bike when the other boy realizes.

“You’re in love with someone,” Remus’ hands still, but they don’t tremble, “And it’s not me.” He takes a breath.

“No. It isn’t.” He’s got dirt under his fingernails and his back twinges from the summer moon, but he’s not sorry. He wishes he could be.

“Then why?”

“I did a pretty piss-poor job of it the first time around.” The truth isn’t love, but it’s all he has to give. He sees Matthew’s work boots come closer from the corner of his vision, but he’s careful not to block the sun.

“I never told you about the accident.” Matthew’s voice is the hardest he’s ever heard it.

“No, you didn’t.” He fiddles with the chain a bit more, but he looks up. Remus won’t deny him this.

“It was raining. I was in the passenger seat,” His voice is choked,” My mum’s last words to me were you’re a fucking queer? But when the car went off the road she flung her arm across my chest anyway,” He swallows heavily, “It probably saved my life,” Matthew’s brown eyes fill with tears, but he doesn’t look away, “But Remus, I’m gonna love again, and I’m gonna love a boy,” he hiccups, “I don’t owe her my unhappiness.”

He takes Matthew’s hand as the tears start to fall. It goes unsaid, but he hears it floating around the air nonetheless. I don’t owe her my unhappiness, and you don’t owe anyone your misery either. He’s some kind of beautiful with his hair catching the sunlight and tears on his face and in another life this is where he’d fall in love. He kisses the back of his knuckles softly, and holds his gaze.

“I think you’re the bravest boy I’ve ever known, Matthew Crawford.” He nods, but doesn’t make any move to wipe the tears away. They watch them fall to the dirt and stain it dark and Remus has to swallow against the lump in his throat.

“As long as you understand.”

“I think I do.”

They don’t speak about it again, but Remus makes sure to hold him just a little closer as the summer ends. He tries to be a little more gentle, a little kinder. They both know he’s going to leave, that he was always going to leave, but they pass the days together anyway.

The morning he takes his bags and makes to leave, Matthew drags him behind the treeline. In a parallel to how summer began, Remus finds himself shoved up against a tree and kissed breathless. Matthew holds his face, calloused palms against his cheekbones, and Remus’ head goes quiet.

“I think you did a pretty good job of it, if you love him as much as you do.” Matthew whispers against his lips when they come up for air, and Remus’ eyes go wide, “So don’t give up quite yet, alright?” Remus doesn’t say anything, but still Matthew gives him a final peck and a gap-toothed smile, then walks away without another word. Remus stays standing there under the trees a long time after he leaves.

He returns to Hogwarts, as he always does. He shows up to the platform with a hickey on his neck and kiss-bitten lips. James looks stunned, but claps him on the back in congratulations anyway. Sirius won’t look him in the eye at all.

If Remus had grown up during the summer, gotten a little taller, a little more jaded, then he has nothing on Sirius. His hair brushes against his collarbones, and the leather jacket looks at home on his body, all worn leather contrasting with his silver piercings. It’s something Walburga would never let him go to the platform wearing, and it’s with this that Remus realizes he must have missed something.

The owls between Remus, James and Pete were short. The summer stretched on in lazy breezes, and the other two boys studiously avoided any mention of Sirius. That being said, there was one letter. One letter where James mentioned Sirius feeling especially rough, washed up in the summer heat and spending a couple weeks with James. It seems to have been more than a couple weeks, indeed. His fingers itch for a cigarette.

The moon took his humanity just two days before, and if Remus wasn’t so exhausted, he might have found it in himself to find another train car. A car where the air isn’t pressed as tight and loud, where the breathing of others doesn’t grate in his ears and behind his breastbone. But Remus is known for his creature comforts, sweaters in the summer and the same train car since first year. It’s an allowance for sure, just another moment pressed between the pages. It’s enough, for now.

“Who is she?” Remus is slumped next to Peter, barely awake enough to keep his eyes open, but Sirius’ words shock him out of anything resembling slumber. It’s a lance to a festering wound, really, the first meaningful words Sirius had spoken to him since the infirmary. The arrogance, the assumption of it all, is what really stings.

Something pops in his left shoulder when he reaches for his tin of tobacco. Sirius still won’t look at him.

“His name is Matthew.” Remus goes through the familiar motions of rolling a cigarette, and his bloody and bruised, broken hands don’t thank him for it.

James’ eyes widen, and Peter chokes out a weird little cough-sound. Sirius lets out just the littlest of gasps. The cigarette is licked closed, and his wand is at the ready.

“Do you mind?” Remus asks, gesturing to the cigarette and the train car window, to the summer with Matthew and everything in-between. Do you mind that I kiss boys. Do you mind that I can’t talk to Sirius. Do you mind if I burst into tears in the middle of this train car.

“Of course not, mate!” James rushes to say, and Remus lights up the cigarette without another word, “We’d be piss-poor friends if that bothered us.” He puts emphasis on the word us, a not-so-subtle glance to where Sirius is clenching his bag with white knuckles. It hurts, like all things pertaining to Sirius does.

“What’s he like?” James continues, “A swot like you I reckon.” Remus spares a crooked grin.

“He helps his dad sell honey, and he doesn’t read anything not assigned by professors,” Matthew is not exactly what Remus would call an academic, “He has some cool records though.”

“So he’s a muggle, then? How’d you meet?” Peter is practically on the edge of his seat, hopes of star-crossed lovers hidden beneath his tongue. Peter must have spent a long summer with his aunt.

“He moved to town just before the summer. We met at the market where his dad was trying to sell honey with little-to-no knowledge of any Welsh,” Remus’ grin turns wolfish, “His dad was so thankful for the help, he sent his boy off with me to ‘show him the sights.’” James lets out a low whistle.

“Scandalous, Moony! Preying on innocents now, aren’t we?” Remus takes a long drag of his cigarette, already half-gone with nerves.

“Matthew didn’t seem to be complaining.” It feels like trying on a costume of someone much cooler than Remus, and it grates that it feels like Sirius.

“Atta boy!” James says with a cackle, “Seems you’ve gotten a steel spine over the summer.”

“Sounds like you don’t have much in common.” Everyone takes a bit of a pause at that.

“On the contrary, Sirius, we share quite a bit. Most notably, we both decided to stop denying ourselves what we really want,” Remus’ voice has gone soft and sickly sweet, and he dares to meet quicksilver eyes, “I’d say that’s pretty important, wouldn’t you?” The hurt in Sirius’ eyes burns like firewhiskey.

A moment of eye contact seems to be too much for Sirius’ sensibilities, given the fact that he’s bustling out of the car in a flash, fast enough to challenge Madame Pomfrey, with a going for a fag thrown over his shoulder. Remus almost wants to laugh at the double-entendre, because if he really was, then Remus would have much more in common with Sirius.

There’s a question there, somewhere in the stillness of Sirius’ disappearance. When will he stop running? And a much more dangerous undercurrent, When will Remus stop chasing?

Nobody says anything for a moment.

“If he’s not a wizard, how are you going to talk to him during the term?” James had recently learned that muggles don’t take kindly to owls at their windows, a rather unfortunate incident with Sirius’ muggle neighbors. Remus is just grateful for the movement again.

“I’m not,” The cigarette is all but burned to ash now, threatening his fingertips, but he just shrugs, “Matthew knew I went away for school, so we kept whatever was between us for the summer alone.”

There’s more that he could say. He could talk about how Matthew found Remus’ darkness unsettling, or how Remus couldn’t talk about poetry and David Bowie with the other boy. He could even go into the fact that their encounters were not a real relationship, just two broken boys finding solace in each other while it lasts. Sounds remarkably familiar, in the end.

“Huh, so you didn’t love him?” James, smitten from the first glance of fire-red hair, isn’t the most familiar with casual dating. Peter, the hopeless romantic he’s grown to be, isn’t much better.

“No, I didn’t love him.” The embers finally burn the tips of his fingers, causing Remus to vanish it away with a bitten-off curse.

What Remus doesn’t say, is things would be much easier if I did, if I could recognize a love that didn’t burn. But Remus is already uncomfortable with the vulnerability he’s shown, and decides that a proper nap is in order. The moon aches in his bones and his eyes, and he’s ready to forget about it all for a while.

The train car is comforting in its familiarity, rocking him gently to the sounds of Pete and James. Sirius comes back some time later, the minutes passing strangely in his half-awake state, but Remus keeps his eyes closed like he could will it all away. There’s something heated and half-spoken between Sirius and James, Remus could almost taste it in the air. Remus wishes he didn’t want to know.

He rouses properly to the train screeching on the long span of track just by Hogwarts. His bones click uncomfortably against each other much like his eyes give the appearance of someone much older and worn. He pretends he’s thinking about that, thinking about the new scar on his collarbone, thinking about the upcoming term. Pointedly not thinking about Sirius, not the knife-like gaze burrowing into his skull.

They make their way into Hogwarts like they always do, carting trunks into fresh carriages, careful not to make eye-contact with the Threstrial’s knowing gaze. Though it seems that last experience is only limited to Remus. He never says anything.

There’s the feast, a host of new Gryffindors filling in the gaps made by the newly-graduated. He starts the dangerous habit of indulging himself, sitting next to Peter and across from the other two for the first time since before The Prank. There’s that, too. Apparently James and Sirius were terrible at whispering, though he’d known that for years, but it makes the new code-word more intelligible. Can’t openly discuss the incident in front of Remus, no, surely his feeble sensibilities would be damaged. There’s a secret part of him that knows they’re right, but he just stabs at his chicken viciously and tries to wish away the headache behind his eyes.

He thought it’d be easier this time around, thought time and familiarity would be preferable to sitting with someone else. But Sirius’ glare is hot against him, making his robes feel scratchy and stifling against his skin. The audacity of it all is truly damning, because what in the world could Sirius be angry for. How is it even his place?

He goes to bed angry, and he wakes up angry, and if the look of Sirius means anything, he’s doing the same. It itches red-hot like a still-healing scar, makes Remus roll his shoulders with tension more often, as if he could contort himself enough to shake off the feeling. They spend a few weeks like that, orbiting each other in anger, James and Pete a welcome buffer to the heat-sick of it. Summer is still clawing its dying fingers through September, leaving classrooms stifling and evenings cold. He curls up in his bunk and tries to focus on his breathing.

It all comes to a head one evening after dinner, James and Peter having gone ahead to work on their Divination homework. Sirius left with them, allowing Remus to scribble a few notes between supper’s mashed potatoes. Lily is only a few spots over, trying to catch Remus’ eye, but he keeps it on his fork and his parchment, pretends he’s still hungry.

After what he assumed was enough time for the rest of them to make it to the tower, Remus gathers his things and dodges Lily’s knowing look. It’s all too much sometimes, and he craves the stillness of the library. He’s half in his thoughts, wool-gathering about his Potions assignment in a rarely-used corridor a floor below the library. It’s his usual way of avoiding anyone, namely Snape, and it almost goes off without a hitch.

“Moony.” Sirius steps from the shadows behind a rather disfigured statue of Bartholomew the Bard, and if they were still in that place in their friendship, he’d call him out for being the dramatic shit he is. It’s a distant pulse in his memory compared to the overwhelming bitterness he feels at that ill-begotten nickname.

“Sirius.” He infuses the name with all the ice in his soul, tries to walk past him, but Sirius’ words stop him in his tracks.

“Gonna find another boytoy for the term, Remus?” His tone is patronizing, feigned innocence in the curl of his brow.

His father taught him how to swim once in the pond by their house. They were still pretending everything was the same, even as the beast grew within him. So his father took him swimming, threw him feet-first into the greenish-blue water. There was a chilling moment where the world tinged blue and his limbs froze in the shock of it. His heart froze in his chest, caught a gasp in his throat, and trembled like the big dog was back at the window. But he managed to fight to the surface, all flailing limbs and coughing breaths. His father was just standing there by the pond, looking so tall against the sun, hands in his pockets. Remus scrabbled a hold on the bank, squinted up at his daddy with childhood tears. His father told him later that he would’ve pulled him out if he really started drowning. Cited the feet-first philosophy of Englishmen before him. But there was that precious moment of motion, the cool stillness of his father’s eyes; that was the first time he learned he’d have to fight if he wanted to survive.

“Fuck you, Sirius.” His despair had coalesced into anger over the summer, melted diamonds into coal if only for the burn of it. His hands itched to claw, tear and bleed Sirius for all he’s worth. Rip into the other boy and return winter’s favor.

“You just seem to move so quickly from one to another, I’m merely curious is all. Who knew quiet little Remus was such a heartbreaker? I mean, really, a summer fling? Didn’t expect that from you of all people.”

“I wasn’t aware it was your business to care, Sirius. Rather thought you left that behind with your morals.”

“You just never seemed to show an interest in dating before. I wonder, Remus, what changed?”

“It seems I am often underestimated to little benefit. I was always interested in boys. I am indeed quite capable of a variety of different things, something new I’m discovering about myself.” Remus bares his teeth with a sneer, “Though I would be hard-pressed to expect you to know the first thing about me.”

“I know you better than anyone, Lupin.” Sirius would almost look hurt if not for the snarl poisoning his expression, “I know you get off on making yourself miserable, but not even you can deny that.”

“Do you know?” Remus’ voice goes sickly sweet, “Then you’d know exactly what you did to me, Sirius. You would know exactly why I can’t look you in the eyes most days,” Remus takes a step closer to the other boy, grim satisfaction at Sirius’ almost step-back. “If you know so much, then tell me, Sirius, how does it feel?” Sirius swallows heavily, the words seeming to lodge in his throat. Crowded against the corridor wall as he is, there is no mistaking exactly which animal is cornered.

There’s a moment, tense in anticipation, Sirius caged between his arms and the unforgiving stone. For the first time since the infirmary, he looks, really looks, at Sirius. His eyes are shadowed, sleep seemingly as scarce as it is for Remus, his skin wane and as tired as it’s ever looked stretched across aristocratic cheekbones. An ugly snarl makes its way across thin lips, teeth bared and barking, close enough to feel the other boy’s breath. They sit on the knife edge of love and anger, hatred a balm to the terrible ache of loneliness. If Sirius were a bit more honest, dropped his mask of aloofness and whim for this uglier but no less beautiful anger, then maybe Remus could forgive him. It’s the first time he’s ever really considered it, the first time his heart isn’t bleeding out at the thought of him. It feels transcendent, sharing this space knowing that love isn’t what books make it out to be, isn’t soft and sweet, isn’t childhood yearning. It feels ugly, painful, and wild with nerves. It feels like the rug you so relied on is swept from your feet, it feels-

“It feels good.”

Sirius’ eyes are sharp in their shadow, wild in the curl of his lip. There will always be a part of Remus that’s still boy, still desperate for approval in the place of overwhelming shame, still yearning to be something more than the monster to run from and his mother’s scorn.

His fist meets Sirius’ cheekbone without much conscious thought. It hurts, like all things with Sirius are wont to do.

These hands, these scarred and gnarled hands. Are they capable of more than violence? Is it fair to expect that of them? Sirius takes the blow with full force, not much room for avoidance, leaving a litany of curses in the wake of it. Remus steps away.

There is no one here to witness this act. Just Sirius, cradling his smarting cheek. Remus shaking in the aftermath of his own anger. The sardonic smirk on his face would feel unfamiliar if he hadn’t spent so long learning it from the other boy.

“I see what you mean.” He walks away, now, confident in the fact that Sirius doesn’t have the courage to chase him. And isn’t that something? To finally not shoulder the burden of chasing after the approval of the uncaring.

He remembers the one funeral his mother forced him to go to, an uncle only known to Remus by name, sitting dead in a casket. His mother had never been the religious type, not since Remus had been bitten, at least, but he remembers her murmuring along to the sermon as he was lowered into the ground. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We’re all lowered into the very earth we fought to crawl out of, but maybe you need to believe in God before you can have any illusions of resurrection. He can’t quite say what this is; a resurrection, a fall from grace? What’s the difference?

He forgoes the library, forgoes trying so hard to forget. His hands are still shaking and smarting where they’re curled into themselves, nails biting with jagged teeth. He passes James and Peter in the common room but refuses to acknowledge them. It’s all so much sometimes, every time, really, and his hands shake until he’s out of the castle toting his rolling tray and the shreds of his dignity.

The night is cool and dark where it gathers overhead. He makes his way into the Forbidden Forest with his own personal mantra just wait, just a little longer, hold on hold on hold on. Somewhere in the ashes of his sense of self, he prided himself on his control, his stoicism, never too much too angry too anything. But everyone breaks sometimes.

Somewhere in second year he’d found this clearing. The moon burned in his eyes, everything was too loud, his friends too close. But he’d swallowed it all down, years worth, until he could fall apart on his own. And now he falls and falls. Tumbling head over heels into his own misery. His singed fingers push against his eyelids until he’s surrounded by stars and the forest is covered in smoke.

It’s only ever him here. The forest holds its breath until he’s gone, but the trees keep swaying and it gets harder and harder to breathe even with the smoke in his lungs. He’s not sure what he’s afraid of. The worst has come to pass and he’s still the scariest thing out there, still the wolf, ripping and chomping for blood. The ground is up and the sky is down and maybe that’s the worst of it. That he gets older and the boundary between wolf and boy gets thinner and he’s afraid one day he’ll lose it all, wake up bloody and hungry and surrounded by his life. That his knuckles bruise and his fingertips burn and he wants more. More falling and more hitting, and more of Sirius close enough to share air, if only he could get some fucking air maybe he’d be alright. But he’s not, not right now, and maybe he’ll never be alright again, maybe he’ll decompose in the only place that’s ever held him and his mother will shake her head at his funeral and tell everyone he was a bright boy but she’ll breathe a full breath for the first time in god knows how long and maybe it’s better this way, maybe it’s meant to be, maybe, maybe, maybe.

He comes to on the wrong side of midnight with swollen eyes and a sore chest. His skin still buzzes with lingering panic and his nails are bloody from where he’s scratched into his skin. He’s had enough years of practice that sneaking back into his dorm is an old hat by now, and he makes his way up the stairs on unsteady feet.

The dorm is as quiet as it ever is, between Peter’s snoring and James’ mumbles, but for once it’s a balm on his beating heart and he doesn’t feel as strung out as before. He toes off his shoes, changes into pajamas, and moves his bed curtains aside. He gets as far as an arm and a leg swung up onto the mattress before he realizes there’s another body in his bed.

There’s a moment where they just look at each other, Remus’ eyes catching the blooming bruise on the other boy’s cheek and the fragile way he looks small lying there. For that moment he wants to scream, wants to give him a matching bruise on the other side and tear the boy limb from limb. But it’s just a moment, really, and Remus is tired and his chest still hurts, and Matthew’s words aren’t quite so far away. He climbs in.

He keeps his back to Sirius, but the beds were never that terribly big anyway, and he burns in all the places they’re pressed together. Remus closes his eyes.

“Remus?” Sirius whispers, “Your arms are all bloody.” It’s a familiar refrain, one he heard all the way in second year that first time, where Sirius crawled into his bed and spelled his wounds clean.

“Go to sleep Sirius.” There’s a moment of quiet where he thinks that’ll be it, but the other boy shuffles closer and grabs his arm, starting the slow process of cleaning the scratches without making them burn, never commenting on the newer silver scars. Sirius gently tugs Remus onto his back and starts in on his other arm when the first is done. He keeps his eyes closed through it all, too exhausted to reconcile with this facsimile of care.

“Goodnight, Remus.” Sirius settles back down after he’s finished.

Where his brain would typically rush for the closest miserable metaphor, this time, it’s quiet. Remus doesn’t roll over again, and they fall asleep like that, with Sirius plastered to his side.

When he wakes up, Sirius is gone. James gives him a strange, knowing look anyway, but doesn’t say anything. For the first time since everything went to shit, they all head down to breakfast together. Peter is fretting about their first Transfiguration assignment, and Remus assures him they’ll look over it at breakfast. Sirius and James are shoving each other, something too loud and too bright for the hour, but it’s familiar.

“You wrote about Gale’s third law here, but it’s actually his sixth law, Pete.” Pete stares forlornly down at his porridge, and Remus edges it away from him before he decides to try and drown in it, “It’s alright, you just have to rewrite this paragraph and you’ll be fine.”

“But I only studied his third law! I know bollocks about his sixth law.” Pete groans.

“Then maybe you should get started on revising.” Lily chimes in, plopping down next to Remus on the bench. James just about breaks his neck looking up from where he was whispering with Sirius, and immediately runs a hand through his hair, his hand getting stuck halfway through.

“Hey, Lily.” Pete rolls his eyes and pulls out his textbook, accurately sensing that he won’t be getting any more help. Remus just tries not to throw up his breakfast, nerves making a home in his stomach.

“Potter,” Lily gives James the stink eye, and quickly diverts her attention to Remus. “Good morning, Remus. I was wondering if you’d already checked out the reading for Ancient Runes from the library?” She begins assembling her strange assortment of breakfast food, namely sausage and marmalade.

“Yes. I checked it out yesterday.” Remus tries to swallow past the frog in his throat.

“Wonderful. There weren’t any more copies available in the library. Can we share it this evening?”

“Uh, sure?” Remus surely looks like a dumbfounded fool, but Lily’s face gives away nothing.

“Alright. I’ll be at our usual table after dinner.”

“I’ll be there.” She nods sharply and returns to her marmalade, but something seems to catch her eye.

“Quite the shiner you’ve got there, Black.” The table itself seems to stiffen at the reminder, eradicating any doubt that James remained unaware of what went down between them.

“Ah, well, you should’ve seen the other guy,” Sirius jolts suddenly, shooting James a dirty look. “I mean,” he takes a deep breath, “I deserved it, so…” Sirius trails off somewhat awkwardly, certainly a first. It’s not an apology, but Remus' shoulders seem to lower against his will, if just a little bit.

“Sounds like it.” She raises an eyebrow, and turns to speak to Mary. Remus catches Sirius’ eye for just a moment in the ensuing silence, but it’s enough to make him steadfastly keep his gaze on his eggs and toast. James starts whispering something to Sirius once more, seemingly having gotten better at volume control, and they pass the rest of breakfast in that not-silence until the first bell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He approaches the table with his heart in his throat, Lily already sat in her usual seat. The memory of her rushing out of the library crying bashes him over the head, and he tries not to wince too obviously.

“Hey, Lily. I have the book you wanted to borrow…?” He hovers next to her chair awkwardly, not daring to take a seat.

“Did you really think you were getting off that easily?” She gives him a severe look from under her fringe, but she blows it out of the way with a huff. “Sit, Remus. I’m not going to hex you.”

Remus takes his seat and dutifully ignores the yet she mutters under her breath.

“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am again,” he starts, staring down at his hands rather than facing the judgment surely on her face, “I wasn’t in the best place, but it’s still no excuse to have spoken to you like that.” She hums for a moment.

“I accept your apology.” Remus whips his head up in disbelief, shocked at her ease, but she just rolls her eyes. “Really, Remus. You know I forgave you a long time ago. It wasn’t alright for you to speak to me like that, but I quite obviously ignored your boundaries. Now, I gave you the summer to sulk, but it’s behind us now, alright?”

“You’re too kind, Lily.” He shoots her a crooked grin, overcome with fondness. He remembers staring into the mirror in second year, unsure what he did to deserve such good friends when all his life he’d been told he’s inherently bad. It’s a similar refrain now, quieter, but no less felt.

“Please, it’s just as much selfish. I mean truly, only a handful of people know what a biro is around here, and you’re far more pleasant than the majority of them.” She smiles at him cheekily for a moment, before sobering again. “Now, tell me about your summer.” Remus winces.

“You first?” He’s not too proud to stifle the plea in his voice.

“Very well,” She sets her quill down and laces her hands together instead, “Petunia met a boy, and has declared far and wide that he’s her soulmate. Which means she’s been even more insufferable than usual. My parents are pleased she’s found someone, but even they can’t understand what she sees in Vernon, of all people, except his ties to a local construction company. Otherwise, I worked at the convenience store down the road from my house, and got my muggle driving license.”

“Seems like a productive summer. Glad to know gold-digging runs in the family, if your crush on Samson Davies in third year is any indication.” She punches him in the arm with a huff.

“Perish the thought that I have anything in common with her other than our last name, something that seems like it will change rather soon. And Samson really was quite handsome.”

“Oh?” he teases, “So you already have your wedding dress picked out? Am I your best man?” She punches him again, this time a good deal harder.

“You’re far from best man status with that attitude. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing! Spill. What’d you do this summer that makes you freeze up like that?” Only then does Remus realize he’d been picking at his cuticles anxiously.

“Well, my mother wasn’t too pleased about the incident,” He darts his eyes up to meet hers, but she seems nonplussed. Even then he refrains from telling her just how upset his mother had been, “And.. I began seeing a boy in my village.” This gets a reaction out of her, but not the one he expected.

“Remus!” Her eyes go wide with a gasp, “You have a boyfriend and you didn’t tell me! What’s his name? What’s he like?” Her green eyes sparkling in curiosity and poorly-hidden glee.

“Ah, we’re not together anymore. We broke up before school, but we weren’t really dating.” Lily leans closer in rapture.

“So you had a summer fling? How was it? Was he handsome?” Remus can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm.

“He’s pretty cute, but in a soft way,” He begins, feeling the flush creep up his neck “His name is Matthew, and it was pretty fun. I certainly learned a lot.”

“Yes! I knew you had hickies on the first day of term! Marlene owes me a galleon.” She whoops, and Remus has the mind to be thankful for the silencing charm she’d put over the table before he’d even arrived. Either way, it doesn’t stop him from flushing furiously.

“Lily! How did you even get there? I just said it was fun!” She giggles as he buries his face in his hands.

“Yes, but you also said you learned a lot.” She waggles her eyebrows at him from where he’s peeking through his fingers, and he swiftly regrets the day he was born.

“I could have learned how to be a good boyfriend! Or how to communicate with a partner!”

“Oh, really? So you’re telling me you didn’t snog him all summer?”

“...No.” She cackles at him again, and he rues the day he ever sat down next to one Lily Evans in first year Potions.

“Lily,” he whines, scrunching up his gangly limbs the best he can in his seat.

“Alright, alright,” she points her finger at him, “But you’ll spill sooner rather than later, I know it!”

“Whatever you say.” He peeks out from his fingers again. “But you really don’t mind? That, you know, I like boys?”

“Oh Remus,” She covers his free hand with hers, “If you could accept my unfortunate crush on Samson Davies, then I think I can accept something as harmless as what gender you prefer.” He huffs a laugh at that, and she grins in triumph.

“Thanks, Lily.”

“Anytime, Remus,” She gives him a pointed look, “Now, are we going to talk about the other thing going on? Or are we ignoring it?”

“What do you mean?” He stares at her confused for a moment, but she just squeezes the hand she’s still holding, earning Remus a wince.

“The fact that your knuckles are all busted and Sirius showed up to breakfast with a black eye?” Remus splutters on nothing, a weird ummm falling from his lips, but Lily just rolls her eyes.

“If you were trying to hide it, you should’ve at least healed your knuckles, I mean really.” She releases his hand, but doesn’t waver in her gaze, “But we don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready. I know I still don’t have the full picture of what went down last winter, and I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for you. So, if you punched him just for the fun of it, you won’t be hearing any complaints from me. The only reason he isn’t permanently bald is because I know it would upset you.”

“I just don’t want to start anything. I just want it to be over.”

“I know, I know. You’re too forgiving for that. Just, don’t let him walk all over you, alright? You were miserable last term,” She gives him a mischievous smile, “Although I don’t know if we have to worry about that, it did look like a rather good punch and-”

“Lilyyyy,” Remus whines, “Can we just study Ancient Runes.” She holds her hands up in defense.

“Alright, alright, I’ll leave it alone, but,” she squeezes his bicep gently, “Anything you need, I’m there, Re.”

He opens up the textbook, ignoring his heart beating bloody in his throat, choking the words, “Thanks, Lils.”

Remus is the last to bed, once again. Somewhere between avoiding Sirius and desperately stitching his heart back together, he’d become something of a night owl. Now that he’s back to avoiding Sirius, this time with the added bonus of steadfastly not thinking about sleeping beside the other boy the night before, it seems this term will go much the same.

Either way, he’d finished the Transfiguration essay due the next week, studied for the Charms exam in two days, and dallied long enough that the fire in the common room was on its last legs.

In all of his time not thinking about Sirius or The Bed Incident, he’d come to the conclusion that last night was just a lapse in control on both of their parts. Remus was exhausted from his panic and still feeling the stirrings of guilt on his knuckles, and Sirius was likely feeling the bruise on his cheek in a too-familiar way from whatever went down at the Noble and Ancient House of Black the previous summer. Relapse is common when addicts are feeling vulnerable after all, and tearing himself from the other boy has always been nothing more than the most painful process of detoxification.

That’s all to say that he’s been standing by his bed staring at his bed curtains for a few minutes more than sane, unable to determine what would feel worse: if Sirius was there, or if he wasn’t. He knows the logical answer, knows it like the back of his hand, scarred and twisted with moonlight. But if the winter taught him anything, he knows logic has no place in his heart.

He parts the bed curtains.

There is a shape there, in the darkness. Relatively Sirius-sized, but it doesn’t stir when the faint spill of light falls onto their frame. Almost too still, in fact, as if Remus isn’t the only one holding his breath.

His anger still lives on the tip of his tongue, eager and hungry to paint all of his words poison. It burns there, as he closes his mouth and crawls under the covers. He jostles him inevitably, but Sirius doesn’t stir, feeling like iron against the places they press together.

The colors of the canopy are indistinguishable against the swirling on the backs of his eyelids, so much so that it’s difficult to say whether his eyes are open at all in the darkness. But they are, and each breath feels like something stolen, the air so thick with everything that Remus knows he won’t be able to sleep.

“Remus?” He breaks the quiet stillness, “Is this okay?” It’s not more than a whisper, and it sounds like every night they’ve spent curled around each other.

The answer, if he really wanted to hear it, is that it’s absolutely not okay. Sirius hasn’t given him more than half-arsed apologies and avoidance, not even the semblance of true repentance. No, if Sirius really cared whether Remus was alright with him crawling into his bed, then he would have given him the answer to the impossible question why why why.

But he won’t, and Remus will keep his mouth shut in turn. Reciprocity is the foundation for connection, after all.

“Go to sleep, Sirius.”

No matter how Remus has waged war against his own heart, he falls asleep easy that night. It was tense, all of the words unspoken spooled around them like thick blankets, but muscle memory remembers what Remus wants to forget: how easy it is to fall asleep next to Sirius Black. A warmth to all of his cold mornings.

He wakes up well-rested and aching with it. The other side of the bed is still warm, though he wakes up alone. He wonders if this will be the scorched remains of their friendship. A warm body telling the lie of closeness, only to be unable to meet Sirius’ eye in the daylight.

He goes to breakfast and feels like a parody of himself. Like someone else is pouring the coffee, ladling the porridge. Smiling at his friends and going to class. It feels exaggerated and wrong, like his skin doesn’t fit on his body and everyone can see it. Sirius gives him a long look at dinner. He doesn’t meet his eye, but Remus can feel it like the itch of a new scar. No one else seems to notice.

Sirius is in his bed that night. And the next. A week passes, then another. The moon tugs at his skin, pulling and twisting, drawing Remus up into his orbit. James surely knows how Sirius is spending his nights. Lily asks him about Remus’ newfound silence. Worries about him being quieter than usual. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s tired. That for all the things he feels, he doesn’t have much to say. It doesn’t reassure her.

James, Sirius, and Pete are discussing a new prank. James pleaded for Remus to join him, said his expertise would be vital to the execution of this prank. Remus went out for a smoke hours ago. James is probably disappointed, but nobody goes to find him. It’s just him and the moon and the never-ending orbit.

The nights are getting chillier, and his hands shake rolling his sixth cigarette. There’s an art to not thinking about something, a strange wrap-around your brain undergoes to think of every minute detail in the hopes of drowning out its presence. The burn in his lungs. The moon sitting heavy. His worn-out trainers standing on their last legs. But there are no words, no objects or actions, nothing really, that can drown Sirius out.

He’d already decided he’d spend the night outside when he heard the crunch of footsteps. It pounds a drum behind his eyes, sunburnt from staring at the moon. It could only be one person, really.

“It’s cold out here, Remus.” Sirius towers over Remus laid out in the grass, but he just closes his eyes.

“I know.” There’s some poetry shite between Remus, Sirius and the Moon. Something insufferable about one not living without the other, something about how Sirius likes Remus for his brokenness, or how the moon will never care. He doesn’t know. His head hurts.

“You should come inside. It’s late.” Remus’ tongue burns to mock him for pointing out the obvious, but he’s still desperately not thinking.

“I’m alright here.” Remus keeps his voice pleasant and counts his breaths. Sirius makes a frustrated noise.

“Listen, if this is about the bed, then I’ll sleep somewhere else. But you said it was fine.” It’s the edge of accusatory that really gets Remus, the one to always be sorry.

“It’s just the moon. It’s fine.” His heart beats nothing is fine i’m not fine, it hurts and it never stops, over and over. Luckily for both of them, Sirius can’t hear it.

He yanks Remus’ arm until he’s sitting up, none-too gentle. Remus is oscillating between the wolf’s anger and apathy in each breath he takes. He doesn’t react.

“Can you stop being a martyr for two fucking seconds?” Sirius snarls, and it’s not beautiful. Not like the usual reckoning of his anger, just a boy, just frustration and this thing lying heavy and dead between them.

“You came to me. Go back inside if you’re just going to complain about it.” His voice is rough with smoke.

“Because it’s fucking freezing out here, Remus!” He yanks on his arm a bit more, shaking him from where he conveniently never let go, “And it’s two in the fucking morning and the moon is tomorrow night!”

He feels like nothing. Not his mother, not his father. Not sickly sweet or bruising in his anger. He’s not James’ right hook, or Pete’s cruel words. Not even Sirius standing over him, Remus’ heart bloody in his hands.

“Why do you even care?” His lack of expression seems to only fuel Sirius’ rage. He leans into Remus’ face like he could put an emotion there by sheer osmosis.

“Because we were actually friends once, you idiot!” His breath is hot against his cheek, and Remus feels it rising, “I don’t even know what you want from me!”

The day his dad left, he remembers his mother screaming at his father and throwing a plate at his head. It made an awful crashing noise against the kitchen wall, ceramic shards everywhere, and it only made his Da angrier.

“He’s a Beast! He’s too dangerous to be around anyone!”

“He is your son!” Another plate sacrificed.

“That thing is not my son! It is no more than a beast! It deserves to be put down!” At this Remus can’t contain his whimper, and his Da’s eyes are drawn to where he’s haunting the dining room doorway. He grabs him by the upper arm and hauls him in front of his mother, uncaring of the ceramic embedding itself in Remus’ bare feet. He’s crying, but unnoticed.

“I have spent my entire life hunting down these beasts! I’ve seen them kill countless people, wizards and muggles alike!” His father’s grip is bruising, “What do you want from me!”

There’s only a small handful of times he’s ever seen his mother break down in tears. This is one of them.

“I want you to love him!” She joins Remus on the floor, knees turning bloody, “I want you to care!” Da throws Remus down to the floor, knocking against his mother’s knees. “I want you to be sorry!” His mother cuddles him close and covers his ears after that. Whatever his dad says in reply is lost in his mother’s apron. He never saw his dad again.

Remus feels those words burn on his lips, and wonders for a moment if children will always be the echoes of their parents’ mistakes. The dam breaks.

“I want you to be sorry!” Remus knocks Sirius onto the ground without conscious thought, he sits on his chest and he screams in his face, “I want you to care that you hurt me!” Remus can only tell he’s crying by the way his voice cracks. Sirius looks stunned, though it quickly turns desperate.

“Remus, Remus, no, Moony, no, I am sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” Sirius reaches up to grab Remus’ arms, and he trembles. His knees ache against the cold ground.

“Then why, Sirius? Why would you do that to me?” His fingers are digging into the dirt around Sirius’ head, and Remus tastes blood in his mouth. Sirius’ face tries to shutter closed, but it just turns pained instead.

“I-” Sirius never really stutters, been beaten out of him, but he does now, “I- Remus, I’m so sorry, you have to believe me, I just,” Sirius starts to cry, “I want to tell you, but you’ll hate me even more, Remus, Moony, and I can’t, I can’t.” Remus feels cold. Sirius is sobbing, full-on heaving, but Remus can’t muster up proper sympathy.

He sits back on his haunches and looks up at the moon. His palms itch, and he wants to draw blood, but he just spits out a bitter laugh instead. It’s close enough, in the end.

He looks at the boy beneath him. Sirius looks back through his tears.
“You had to have known, Sirius, you’re not stupid,” He goes for anger and comes out the other side tired of it all.

“Know what, Moony? I didn’t, I swear-” Sirius’ grip around Remus’ biceps has passed into bruising.

“That I loved you.” The truth of the matter is that Remus planned out exactly how he was going to say it a billion times. Fell asleep in Sirius’ arms and dreamed of whispering it behind the curtains. Of telling him he learned how to love through Sirius’ warmth, that he found sanctuary in his words. Days in the library leaning into his noise. Heart-sick and desperate, he couldn’t have dreamed of this. The words echo I want you to love me.

Sirius goes silent. The clearing is silent, like it always is when he’s there. It’s just the blood in Remus’ ears and Sirius’ ragged breaths.

“What?” It sounds like a plea. Remus isn’t merciful enough to answer it.

“You’re not stupid, Sirius. Whether or not you wanted to admit it to yourself, you had to have known. Either the night you kissed me or the billion times you froze up whenever I touched you.”

“Remus, I didn’t-”

“Remember when I told you I was gay?” He’d sound almost conversational, if not for the tears choking his words, “I’d never come out to anyone before. You were the first. I’d never seen you look so scared,” The moonlight mixes with his tears until Sirius is just a pale, blurred thing beneath him, “Hell, James and Pete didn’t even know until the beginning of term.”

“It wasn’t like that Remus, I just, I didn’t know what to do! You’re always there, and Snivellus is always hanging around and saying all of this shit, Remus, it was an accident-” His hands follow his words in emphasis, and Remus remembers calling him a conductor in second year.

“How do you accidentally tell someone your best friend’s biggest secret?” Sirius’ words die off, “You can lie to yourself, Sirius, but don’t lie to me.”

“Remus…” Sirius levels him with a helpless look. He feels every inch of his body still pressed against Sirius, and he hates himself, more than usual.

“Sirius, if you didn’t want to,” Remus stumbles over his words, lost in the storm of his thoughts, “I don’t know, be together or anything, you could’ve just told me,” his breath hitches, “I wouldn’t have pushed, or, or, done anything you didn’t want, and I know I cornered you that night and I’m sorry, Sirius, but I backed off, and I just, I don’t see why you’d feel the need to do that.”

“It wasn’t-, it wasn’t because I kissed you Remus,” Remus bites back the snide so you’re admitting it happened now? “I mean, I panicked, so maybe it was a little bit, but it was never you, Remus, it was always me and all of my fuck ups and my fucked up family,” Sirius swallows heavily, “I knew how you felt, at least a little bit, but I was so scared, Remus, and I know that’s not an excuse, I just panicked and I thought Snivellus would be too much of a coward to do anything, and he was always saying all of these things, and I got a letter from my parents,” Sirius’ voice cracks and Remus can’t hold off his surprise, “I just wanted it to stop, and I thought I could fix it, but I fucked up, I fucked up, Remus, and I’m so, so, sorry.”

“What did your parents say?” Remus can’t help himself for the question, even as everything lies in ruins, he’s helpless to care about this boy. The solidarity of brokenness.

“Just some vile shit about my…” Sirius swallows again, “Preferences, and since I’m gonna be of age soon they decided they would arrange my marriage, except they’re obsessed with blood purity so it couldn’t just be a normal marriage, and even if it was-” Sirius cuts himself off from where he’s getting worked up, “I wasn’t gonna marry anyone my parents picked out, let alone my own cousin.” His grin would be wry if not for the tears on his face.

“Bellatrix?” It was an open secret that Andromeda had been cast from the family, and Narcissa was already betrothed to Malfoy, so that leaves only one cousin left.

“Yeah. Even if it wasn’t my most batshit cousin, I still wouldn’t trust them to pick out my socks let alone who I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with and,” Sirius shudders, “Produce an heir.”

“So, you didn’t go through with it?” Remus will deny how his heart does its level best to crawl up his throat. It’s stupid, and it should be over, but Remus doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to stand by and watch Sirius get married.

“Hell no, Moony, not for every galleon in the world,” Sirius shifts uncomfortably underneath him, making Remus all-too aware that he’s still resting on top of him, but he can’t help the fear that if he moves something will break, that the moment of honesty will end, “I mean, you probably noticed my head wasn’t completely buzzed on the train,” Sirius’ eyes shine like the moon, “Mummy dearest wasn’t just being nice for the first time in her terribly-long life.”

The pieces suddenly click together: James and Sirius’ notable closeness, even more than usual, and all of the whispering. The Potter family owl dropping off some new robes for Sirius one early morning, the leather jacket and Sirius’ new jagged edges.

“You left?” Remus is somewhat breathless in wonder; this was something they’d talked about countless nights sequestered behind bed curtains. Quiet anger on each other’s behalf, and whispered get-away plans that they both knew would never come to fruition.

“Ah, y’know. Kicked out, left, same difference,” Sirius clears his throat, “Can’t make fun of me for being a rich boy anymore, eh?” Remus gathers his wits from his open jaw.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You live with the Potters, you’re still richer than God and Merlin combined.” Sirius smiles, but the shadow doesn’t leave his eyes.

“Whatever you say, Moony.”

“But, why Snape?” Remus learned from his mother’s voice how to read between the lines, “So you got a letter, and you left in the summer, but it still doesn’t explain why-” Remus has to take a deep breath, “Why you tried to get me to kill him.”

“It wasn’t- I didn’t think he’d actually go to the willow,” Sirius avoids his eyes, but they both know how well Remus can see in the dark, “I didn’t think much at all, really. For once, Reggie wasn’t the snitch. That’s all Snivellus, and, and-, he was saying all of these things, the things he told my family, and I was just so angry, and scared, and I wanted him to stop.”

Remus knows he has to choose his words carefully, sitting atop a cornered animal. “About your… preferences?” Sirius shuts his eyes tightly at the word.

“Yes,” he grits out, “About my preferences, and about… you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” he huffs, “C’mon, Remus, don’t make me spell it out.” The thing is, Sirius would’ve probably never been as close to Remus if they weren’t both a little cruel.

“What about me?” Sirius glares at him, but Remus remains unmoved. He was honest when he told Lily he wasn’t interested in revenge, but there are some liberties he feels he’s earned in blood and tears.

“About my preference…” Sirius takes a deep breath and presses his cheek against the cool ground, “For you, us, whatever.” Just as he spent countless nights rehearsing his confession, Remus had imagined extensively what Sirius would say in return. He never expected this ugly thing, real and awkward as it is. A single shoot in a barren field. His hope is battered and worn, and he doesn’t know how much more he can take.

Remus has to blink back tears, eyes red and raw from all he’s already cried. “I don’t know what you want me to do with this, Sirius.” The other boy turns back to him, a furrow in his brow.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we can’t just- just be friends, or whatever again,” Remus gestures angrily, “Even if you have some sort of preference for me, even if you fucked up and didn’t think, how am I supposed to trust you after everything?”

Sirius' voice goes quiet, “You’re not.”

They stare at each other for a moment, but it’s Remus that has to break away first.

“So this is it, then?” The trees sway dreamily in the frigid wind, and the night is as dark as it ever is with the moon on its back.

“No, no, Remus, Moony, look at me? Please?” Remus reluctantly turns back to meet his gaze. “I know I fucked up, and I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m gonna do everything I can to make it up to you,” Sirius gently lays his hands on Remus’ knees cradled around him, “If you want, I’ll do my best to leave you alone and never bother you again, but Remus, I want-” Sirius blinks rapidly, “I want to be the kind of person you don’t feel ashamed for loving.”

Remus can only freeze, eyes wide above him.

“Will you let me try?” If there’s one thing about Sirius Black, it’s his unforgiving puppy-dog eyes.

“Okay.” Remus can’t give more than a whisper, heart in his mouth. Sirius’ grin goes blinding.

“Okay?” Remus nods, “Great, now can we get out of this bloody cold? I think my tears are freezing on my face,” Sirius coughs, “Not that I was crying or anything.”

Remus rolls his eyes, “Obviously,” and clambers off of him, knees stiff. They manage to wobble upright, bracing each other against unforgiving gravity until they can stand on their own. He can’t feel his fingers, but Sirius’ touch burns like a brand.

Remus honestly feels like dogshit, and the moon hangs over his shoulder like a menacing shroud, but it feels a little lighter for the first time in quite a while.

They head back to the castle and sneak into the dorms like it’s old hat, likely because it is. They’re wordless this time, as they crawl into Remus’ bed. James mumbles something about Quidditch and Pete gives off a great bellow of a snore. They’re stiff with cold, and their frigid toes skate off each other’s shins, but it’s familiar, and easy, and it’s no time at all until Remus slips off to sleep, Sirius’ arm around his waist.

The next morning was not necessarily better, but different. Different to know why Sirius did what he did, why things have changed so rapidly between all of them as Sirius was able to find space to come into his own. An explanation is not an excuse, but it’s something, and it’s a whole hell of a lot more than what he had.

That’s to say that Sirius was gone by the time Remus woke, but he didn’t feel the same need to avoid Sirius’ eye like his cruelty was contagious. James squinted at him and Remus for a moment, likely able to feel some change in the aura of the group, or whatever bullshit he learned in Divination before he figured out Lily thought it was bollocks.

“Alright lads?” Remus grumbled some affirmation while attempting to double-fist coffee and tea; staying up so late the night before the moon wasn’t his smartest idea.

“‘Course, Prongsie.” Sirius flashed a winning grin, entirely too early for the time of day. By the time Remus could open his eyes fully, someone had filled his plate. He’d guess James due to his overall mother-henning, but the strange eyebrow conversation James and Sirius were having made him a little wary. That being said, bacon is bacon, and Remus will be a dead man before he turns it down.

Pete nudges the sausage plate a little closer to Remus with a half-smile, and it’s one Remus can return between bites. Lily is chattering his ear off about the weather for the evening, as she does every full moon, even if he’d never officially told her. James throws his arm around his shoulders as they walk to class, making the ever-present itching of his skin calm a little beneath the weight. They all care, in their own little ways.

But for the first time in a while, it’s Sirius shoving an extra sweater at him, seemingly pilfered from Remus’ own trunk, before rushing across the castle to his first period. James gives him that weird sideways-eyebrow look, but an elbow to the ribs cuts that out quick.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it sometime, y’know.” James grins at him.

“Please, as if you and Sirius don’t share a brain cell.” The Ancient Runes classroom is just down the hall, but its proximity seemingly won’t save him from James’ dragging feet and the painful conversation.

“I dunno, mate, he’s been pretty mum about you lately. Think he’s got a new favorite marauder, truly, I’m hurt.”

James releases him, as the door looms, and the itch comes back, “Truly, you’re losing it.”

“I’m just saying, it must be a damn good story.” James leans against the wall, trying to look cool as students, most specifically Lily, stream by.

“We can’t all be the epic love story of James and Lily, as told in three parts, Prongs.” If Remus had a galleon for every time James practiced telling our love story to my future spawn, Remus would be rich enough to send James somewhere far, far away.

“So you admit it’s a love story?” James’ grin is smug, and Remus’ face goes up in flame. Remus pulls out his wand.

“I’m going to hex you.” Nothing like a threat in the early morning.

James puts his hands up in defense, shoving off the wall, “Alright, alright, I’ll leave it be,” He says, as if James has ever left a thing alone in his life, “But I’m telling you, Remus Lupin! You’ll spill one day!” He heads down the hallway at great speeds, likely sensing the oncoming hex, and hoping distance will save him.

Unfortunately for James, his hair sparkles for the rest of the day.

He had the vague hope of Ancient Runes giving him a brief reprieve from the nosiness of his friends, but Lily is much more like James than she’d like to admit.

“What’s up with you and Sirius?” Lily tilts the corner of her parchment towards Remus to let him better see the note, and he has to repress the urge to bang his head against the table.

“Don’t tell me it’s going to be all over the castle by lunchtime. Breakfast wasn’t even that different!” His old quill smudges some of the letters, but he thinks it’s still somewhat legible.

Lily raises a single ginger eyebrow at him while Professor Winx is turned away towards the board and he huffs.

“The whole atmosphere of the Gryffindor table was leagues different than it has been in months. I think we’d have to be daft to not notice. So, spill!!!”

He can feel some of the old anger rising, between the moon and the lack of sleep and the immense need everyone feels to be in his business constantly. But he shrugs on the extra sweater and feels it lower to a simmer, the weight some reprieve from his dull, throbbing headache. He takes a moment to think over his words, keeping the blade away from his teeth.

“We talked,” He’d leave it at that, but Lily’s elbow digging into his side quickly dismissed the idea, “Okay more like yelled. But he explained to me a little about what he was thinking and going through.” He can see a furious rant rising in Lily, and hurries to write the rest, “it’s not an excuse, I know. I don’t forgive him or trust him after just one productive conversation.”

Lily thinks that one over, twisting her hair between her hands with furrowed brows.

“Yet?” She squints her eyes at him, as if she could divine the whole story from his face alone. Knowing her, she probably could.

The ink builds under his quill, blotting the edge of the parchment as he pauses, “Yet.”

Lily’s eyes grow wide and she looks half ready to shake him for answers, but Professor Winx saves him from his temper.

“Miss Evans?” Lily straightens up from where she’d been leaning towards him, “Perhaps you’d like to tell us the answer to this next one?” Professor Winx’s eyes are knowing, but unfortunately for them, it would take much more than five minutes of inattention to throw her off her game.

“Yes, well first you have to carry the four and multiply it on both sides, then subtract the cornerstone, after that…” Lily surely goes on, but he can’t help but tune her out. He’ll get the notes from her later, but for now he puts his head down against the torchlights and tries to keep his breakfast in his stomach.

Classes pass as they usually do. Sirius hovers in his peripheral, but it doesn’t ache as much as it used to. At lunch Sirius even braves sitting next to Remus, but the other boy is wise enough not to test their peace with theatrics, just fills Remus’ plate in silence. James is grinning wide enough to split his face in two, but the overall sparkle of his person lessens his smug aura, thankfully.

“‘Reckon you’ll be alright tonight, Moony?” Peter asks softly from the other side of him, mindful of Remus’ pre-moon headache. They both ignore the strange game of footsie going on between the remaining two marauders.

“Yeah. Nothing new,” Remus gives the blonde boy a wan half-smile, “I’ll just be dead tired tomorrow as usual.” Peter keeps on his worried look.

“But what about…” Peter trails off with a meaningful look in Sirius’ direction, and it all crashes down on him at once. Their peace is tentative, and hard-won at that. There’s no telling how the wolf will react to Padfoot, especially with all of Remus’ mixed emotions about the other boy. In all likelihood, it’s a bad idea, but Remus has always been weak to Sirius’ particular brand of kindness.

“Guess it’s up to him,” Remus tries to play his apprehension off with a shrug, but Peter’s eyes see right through him, “He might not even want to come.” Remus turns back to his lunch, stomach turning. Sirius missed a handful of moons in-between. Although he’s heard a thousand reassurances from Pete and James since the attack, there’s no telling how Sirius feels about the wolf after everything. Not many can stare death in the face and recognize it as a friend the morning after. The time passes in nausea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It starts as it always does. The feverish, crackling weight. Every inch of him straining to reach a light he’ll never meet.

When he first transformed, he didn’t understand what was happening. His fingers ached and his jaw felt too big for his mouth, twisting and warping and rendering him unable to scream from the pain of it. All kids believe in monsters, but he doesn’t think any of them know what it’s like to become one.

The cellar floor was cold under his little feet. The iron shackles held heavy on his wrists, wrapped around multiple times to account for his small size. His Da hadn’t been home in a long while. It was dark and he was scared, felt an itch under his skin, but she locked the door.

Pain exploded in each nerve, shredding themselves faster than they could reform, a wet, hot heat that smelled like the lamb his mum had to slaughter last spring. He was alone.

Sunrise met him, bloody and raw, and aching each breath. He met his mother’s fearful eyes and felt oh-so small. He begged and pleaded with her, told her he’d be a good boy and eat all of his vegetables if only he didn’t have to do that ever again. She didn’t answer.

Instead, she placed him in a warm bath, blood smeared all over her nightgown and exhaustion pursing her lips, and told him about butterflies. She explained that the caterpillars have to eat many leaves to prepare themselves for the energy the transformation requires, that their bodies prepare for this twist and change. They cocoon themselves to stay safe, to dissolve completely and emerge brand-new.

She washed the blood from his matted hair, speaking softly to him all the while.

“I do this to keep you safe, Remus,” She traced the washcloth down his blistered arms, “You have to stay in the cellar if you want to be safe.”

Many moons she washed the blood from him, until his limbs outgrew the tub, and the blood stained her hands something permanent. Still, cold hands would drag him up the cellar stairs, murmuring all the while.

“You’re safe now, Remus, Mam has you.”

He opened his eyes to afternoon sunlight. Instead of his mother’s cold hands, long fingers threaded a different tempo between his curls.

“Remus, are you awake?” A thumb whispered across his brow, gentle as anything. It was Sirius.

“Hmm, not yet.” He ached all over, but it felt quieter on the edge of sleep. He pushed his head against the hand.

“Oh, really?” Sirius chuckled, “And they call me the bloody dog.” The hand got a little more confident, fingers tracing the line of his jaw, the slope of his ever-crooked nose, until it settled around the shape of his cheek, “Poppy wants to give you a pain potion soon, said she’s been whipping up something new that might help with your old man bones.”

His eyes opened to Sirius, dark circles under his eyes and sunlight in his hair. Quicksilver eyes hold him gently in his gaze.

“Hmm,” His voice cracked, but neither of them flinched, “Moon go okay?” He didn’t immediately register any outstanding pain, but Sirius was still there.

“Went great, actually,” His mouth shot up into a grin, “The wolf was pretty calm, and seemed pretty happy to see me.” Remus raised a single eyebrow, “Really!” The fingers twitched on his cheekbone, and Sirius’ voice dropped a little more hesitant, “If anything, I think the wolf might have a thing for me.” Remus shut his eyes as heat rose to his face. A finger traced over the red tip of his ear.

“Well, I can’t blame him really. He’s not the only one.” The hand disappeared with some strangled squeak, and he cracked and stretched in the hospital bed with a grin.

By the time he looked over, Sirius was completely hidden behind his hands, red peeking through the gaps of his fingers. Remus reached out, softly tugged one of those hands into his own. Almost strange, Sirius’ hand against his scarred fingers, skin lighter and less weathered. He brushed his lips softly against smooth knuckles, and peered up at Sirius’ smiling face.

“I’m still angry,” He promised softly, lips whispering against Sirius’ hand.

Sirius nodded solemnly. “I know.”

“I still don’t quite trust you.” Sirius swallowed heavily.

“I know.”

Remus tightened his hold on Sirius’ hand. “But I love you.” It was somehow the easiest thing to say. Sirius’ face broke open like the rising sun, softness shining from every crevice. He smiled wide, not his typical grin or smirk, not his constant mask or performance, but boyish and cute and dorky on his face. The evening would surely come, but Remus could stand to stay in this moment.

“I know.” Remus quickly dropped his hand.

“Git.” He grumbled, but never in a million years would he admit to a pout. Sirius’ laugh was bright, shaking the dust off of every old ache.

“Moon-moon!” Sirius rose from his chair to hover over him instead, “I was joking!” Remus closed his eyes in stubborn refusal. Sirius’ laughter shook the bed. He’d be irritated if he wasn’t so fond.

“Moony.” Sirius cradled Remus’ face in his hands, voice soft enough that he was forced to open his eyes, “I can’t quite say it yet, but one day, I’ll be good enough to say it back.” He pressed a kiss between Remus’ eyebrows, quick, like the moment would slip away.

“I can wait.” Remus slid his hand over Sirius as a force pulled them closer like the tide, lips barely brushing in a shared breath.

“If you’re quite done defiling my patient, I’d like to administer his pain potion now.” They sprung apart immediately, Sirius almost tripping over himself in his haste to get away. Madame Pomfrey stood at the entrance to his privacy curtain, hands on her hips and extremely unimpressed.

“Poppy!” Sirius blustered, “How lovely to see you! You come here often?” Meanwhile, Remus did the mature thing, and pulled the covers up past his head.

“Yes, Mr. Black, I do indeed spend a good deal of time in my infirmary.” Madame Pomfrey deadpanned, and if Remus wasn’t so embarrassed, he would have laughed.

Sirius carried on with his chatter, and Madame Pomfrey soon placed some kind of syringe in his arm. Soon after, James and Peter burst in, crowing about homework and You won’t believe what you missed in class, Mate and Why are you hiding under the covers?

It was all a somewhat haze, as the medicine swiftly carried him off to sleep, but his eyes shut to gentle hands uncovering him, and he fell asleep with a smile.

It would be diminishing to say it was a new beginning. They weren’t perfect nor fixed, with many more years of their lives to live, and a looming danger on the horizon. It didn’t feel like an end either, with a kind of warmth that brought relief to old bones.

For a moment, Remus bloomed with possibility. He was still stuck in that wand light, in the shared whispers of two broken boys on countless nights. No, neither quite fit. Better to say it was never quite over.