Chapter Text
Remus didn’t want to break up with Sirius. To his dismay, however, it was a necessity. He was too weak to do it in person either, so he was left to sit in his bedroom with paracetamol and his phone as he typed out a message. It was sent, and things were done.
Eight months. Over that, actually. Over eight months, It was all finished because he didn’t want to hurt Sirius more than he already had. It was ironic, in a stupid, fucked-up way. His relationship, and the person that he loved most intimately, were ruined because of a choice of his own. It made sense. That’s what he told himself for the duration of the evening. It made sense. He would hurt Sirius more by staying with him.
Lily was going to kill him when she found out. He didn’t even need to tell her that morning before she knew that he was full of regret surrounding what he did. She always had known him a little too well for his own good, even before she became one of his best friends. She would probably think of him as crazy, and a fool. And James and Peter. James and Peter. He would lose them as well as Sirius, he supposed. It didn’t seem to matter so much to him now, as the clock ticked onwards and he stared blankly at the phone screen. Sirius had begged to talk to him, and to sort things out and give it time. He messaged Peter rather than replying to Sirius, and asked him to check in. He was almost certain that Sirius would begin attempting something reckless soon, if nobody were to step in.
The phone screen went dark and Remus came to the abrupt realization that the sun had set outside his window.
It had long since reached midnight before he could bear the thought of sleep. Without Sirius to talk to, the night was hauntingly silent and lonely. Sleep came fitfully, without consistency or stability. That is what Sirius had always been for him though, wasn’t it? Safe and comforting. He tried not to think about it. He was fine.
Wednesday nights were unideal times to break up with a long-term boyfriend out of the blue. They would need to see each other the next day at college, and Thursday morning made Remus feel as though his already broken body had been run over repeatedly by a lorry. He leant more heavily on his cane than usual as he waited for Lily to arrive.
Sirius arrived with James, looking hollow and as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. It had been thirteen hours by that point, and Sirius looked as though he had cried for all of them. Eyes that were usually bordered with bold and eccentric eyeliner were red-rimmed and refused to look at him. The pair walked past Remus without a word, though James gave him a tentative nod, which Remus couldn’t force himself to return.
He couldn't manage to keep his eyes off of Sirius that day. The night before, in the comfort of his own home, he didn't cry. That day, in their art history lesson where he could see how sad Sirius looked the whole time? He came very close.
He sat with Mary in art history, and although she wasn't very pushy, he knew that she could tell something was wrong. He cracked his knuckles relentlessly and wouldn't stop glancing over towards Sirius.
“Remus?” She began tentatively, and uncertainly.
“Hm? What is it?” He tore his eyes away from Sirius with a start, hoping that he didn't need to answer a question.
“Are you doing alright?”
“Fine. Why?”
She gave him a look.
“Mary.. It's not his fault, I promise. I messed things up.”
“Well why would you do that? Were you unhappy?”
He shook his head, but just kept looking at the textbook. It was open to a page about surrealism, but he wasn’t learning anything from it.
“What was it, then?”
“I couldn't stay. I didn't want to.. I was going to hurt him.” Across the room, Sirius looked gutted, broken. He stared blankly out the window, with his wand in his hair keeping it up.
“Remus.. If you regret what you did..”
He felt the tears beginning to blossom in the corners of his eyes. The traitorous little bastards wouldn’t go away. “It’s fine, Mary. I’m telling you that it’s for the better.”
“What makes you say that?”
Their teacher, Professor McGonagall, caught Remus’s eye and seemed on the verge of giving the pair of them a stern telling off, before appearing to soften at the look of him. Great, he looked pitiful enough for McGonagall to ease up on him.
Dropping to a whisper, he did his best to answer Mary. “I’ll hurt him. You know that I’m ill. I won’t get better anytime soon. The pain makes me cruel. I’ve told you how bad it gets. I can’t ask him to put up with it. I can’t do that to him.”
“You want to, though.”
“I want to. But I won’t. What’s done is done, and we must move on.”
“You haven’t moved on.”
“It has been less than one day. Give me a grace period to mourn.”
“Mourn?” It was then that Remus realised what he said. It wasn’t wrong, exactly, but it wasn’t the best description for when he was trying to convince Mary that he doesn’t care about the situation.
“Personally,” he said, tearing his eyes away from Sirius at last, “I happen to have a lot of complex feelings that I need to work through.”
“Which includes love for him that you are returning to denying, I assume?”
“Mary!” He hissed, desperately trying to ask her to be more quiet.
She rolled her eyes at him, as the bell finally rang to save him from having to continue the conversation.
Despite how easily Mary accepted his half-hearted excuses, he was soon cornered by Marlene. She reminded Remus of a thunderstorm; she was bold, and brilliant, and beautiful, but terrifying nonetheless. She appeared next to him as he was hobbling down the long set of stairs after his English Literature class. Her bleach-blonde hair was shorter than it had been the day before, and he was certain that it hadn’t been that length that morning. He made a note to ask her about it later.
His cane clicked on each individual stair, as he made his slow way down, and tried not to think about how Sirius would’ve usually been waiting outside of his classroom.
“No Sirius today, Rem?”
“No.”
“Any reason why that is?”
“I’m sure that you already know why. Was it Mary who told you?”
“Lily, actually. James hinted at it to her this morning. Sirius didn’t look very jolly, and we worked it out from there. So, Rem. Out with it. What’s up with you?”
“Marlene. I have places to be.”
“I’ll take your bag. Now get talking. Sirius isn’t the only one that has been moping about today.”
“Not moping. Just resigned.”
“You are the worst person alive.”
“I’m your favourite really. Apart from Sirius. I think that you might like him more than me.”
He heard the shouts of laughter of James, Peter, and Sirius echoing up the stairwell and immediately changed the subject. “Will you be going tomorrow evening? To the Christmas market?”
“Me and Dorcas already have plans together, so we aren’t able to make it this time.. Are you and Lily going?”
“Yeah, I think we will. It’s a bit of a tradition for us nowadays. She always insists on dropping me home afterwards too. I think that she gets worried about my poor old fragile bones.”
“Don’t we all?” Marlene laughed, and he was thankful that she could take the hint to drop the subject.
He nodded along as he continued to hobble down the stairs. “I’m a delicate soul!”
“Message me tomorrow. About how it is.” She paused to ensure that the sounds of the boys in the stairwell far below had quieted. “Is he going to be there?”
“Probably.” He groaned. “I hate my life.”
“I have to run now, Rem. I’ll phone you tomorrow whilst you’re getting ready if that helps? And I’ll make sure that Mary sits with you in art history again tomorrow. Sounds good?”
“Thank you, Marls. Enjoy your date with Dorcas!” He took his bag back, as she hurried off. Presumably, she was on her way to speak to Mary about how he couldn’t be left alone in art history, or maybe to make sure that Lily stayed with him for the entirety of the market.
That evening, he received a message from Sirius. It was nothing fancy, just a short and simple ‘Hello’. It took all of his willpower to not reply instantaneously.