3 - i've got a ghost in the hallway grinning
To say that Remus’s day was going poorly was an understatement.
He had, to his bitter disappointment, awoken the following morning to a freshly healed leg along with an incredible ability to breathe without it feeling like he was physically being seared from the inside out. That was a plus, if he forced himself to find one.
A young, brunette trainee healer had checked him over after he had been supplied with a subpar breakfast consisting of dry toast with sickly-sweet strawberry jam and an abysmally made cup of tea – Remus was appalled that anyone could’ve prepared such an inadequate example of one of his favourite drinks, honestly. It was watery and had far too little sugar in it to be enjoyable, but Remus decided that he wasn’t in the position to be picky, and so he sipped on the remainder of it as the trainee asked him some follow-up questions.
Remus had answered her routine inquiries in a surprisingly quick manner but, then again, there was hardly anything that he could say when all her queries required knowledge of who he – of who this body – was. Knowledge that Remus very much lacked.
Before leaving, the trainee healer had done some final charms and checks that she had said were ordered of her to do by her superior, Healer Rooks. They had consisted of Remus gritting his teeth in pain and the trainee apologising and trying to finish them swiftly. In the midst of these, he had forgotten to put down his mug and had succeeded in spilling some of that awful, diluted tea down the centre of his hospital shirt. The liquid was lukewarm, which somehow made the whole situation worse to him, and caused the wet part of his top cling to his skin unpleasantly. So yeah, the general consensus was that Remus wasn’t having a brilliant time.
A saving grace, however, was that he had been left alone by mid-morning, and it was then that Remus decided to come up with a plan to win against his hidden battle with Death. His thoughts that he had produced the prior night had been out of slight deliriousness and, now that he had taken some time to process his situation a little bit more, he realised that he had no fucking clue how he could beat Death. No one had before, so how could he think that he, Remus Lupin, could be the one to change that?
Perhaps he could research a spell. But research was known to take years, and with his current ailment of ‘amnesia’, it would be unlikely that he would be allowed out of anyone’s sight for long enough for him to find anything of use. If he was still here in a couple weeks, then maybe it would become a possibility, but Remus hoped that he would find a way out far before then so, for now, he deemed it as an unsuccessful route to explore.
Killing himself… now that could work, but if he was already dead surely it would be ineffective? Even if it did work, would it just be him admitting to Death that it had won over him? If Death’s task was to make him lose his mind, or lose the strength to continue in their fight, then surely choosing to die would be giving Death what it wanted. No, Remus decided then and there, murdering himself wasn’t the right choice. At least not yet.
The most logical option, Remus concluded, was that he go along with everything until he found something out of place – perhaps a loophole of some kind – that meant he could prove to Death that, instead of fooling him like Death would’ve hoped for, Remus had been aware of what had been happening the entire time. A big ‘fuck you’ to Death, if you will.
Remus sighed out loud. It was a shit plan and, by the time afternoon hit, it was still one of the only ones that his brain could come up with. Fortunately, his fruitless thinking was interrupted.
“Moony!” James’s voice entered the room first, followed by the man’s body which was trailed by Lily and Peter. “How are you doing this fine afternoon?”
“Better, yeah. Thanks.” Remus, whose head swivelled to the doorway at the noise, replied.
“Ignore him, Remus. How are your leg and ribs? Did the Skele-gro heal them all okay?” Lily butted in before James – whom Remus was still unsure as to whether was her friend, boyfriend or husband in this place – could continue speaking with his happy-go-lucky spirit.
“Yeah, a trainee healer checked on me earlier,” Remus started up, talking a bit louder than he had been able to before. “She told me it all looked healed as it should be. I assumed everything was pretty much okay since she didn’t mention anything else.”
“I thought Healer Rooks was going to keep an eye on you?” Lily questioned, to which Remus shrugged as he hadn’t seen the other man since his friends had left the day before.
“Haven’t seem him, to be honest. But the trainee healer did do a couple of charms on me before she left that, according to her, were ordered by Healer Rooks.”
“Oh? What charms did she do?”
“Not gonna lie, I haven’t got a bloody clue.” Remus declared sheepishly with a small smile. James snorted at his response as Lily shook her head, fingers clamping between her eyebrows.
“Merlin, Remus, you’re supposed to be the responsible one out of this lot!” Lily retorted with frustration before realisation about what she had said set it, her face dropping.
You’re supposed to be the responsible one.
Even here, he was the responsible one, then. Did that make this version of Remus a coward, too? For the only reason he was named the ‘responsible one’ in his old life was because he was cowardly. He ran, he hid – from Voldemort, from his past and, primarily, from himself – and for that, he was rewarded with surviving the atrocities his friends did not.
You’re supposed to be…
He was expected to be something, but what? In this period full of the unfamiliar and unknown, who the hell was he supposed to be?
“I-” Lily stuttered, obvious panic bubbling up in her voice. “I mean, I didn’t mean that, Remus. I’m, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Lily. Really.”
Speaking her name so casually gave Remus a bout of goosebumps that rose across his sleeve-covered arms as his heart shook out of his chest. It was the first time in so long that he had referred to her directly. He hadn’t addressed her in over twenty years, not soon before she and James had been murdered, actually, in a meeting between them just before he had travelled up north of the country on a mission for the Order. Just before the worst period of his life had begun.
Lily continued to profusely apologise, with Remus combating every apology with an ‘it’s okay’ or ‘don’t worry about it’ before James gently closed his hand over hers to try and help her become less flustered. Remus watched on as he witnessed the bond that his two close friends had. In this place, too, it seemed to be strong.
“Oh yeah, we’ll be apparating back to Padfoot’s flat, if that works for you?” James started after pulling away from the now slightly less embarrassed redhead, with Remus mindlessly nodding along. “Awesome! Lils and I would’ve offered for you to stay but with Harry and everything there’s hardly any space and even less peace and quiet, so we thought that you’d need somewhere a bit more relaxed.”
“Harry?” Remus couldn’t prevent the name from being whispered from his lips.
“Oh shit, um.” It was James’s turn in acting sheepish now, with his arm awkwardly scratching his head. “Harry’s our – I mean, me and Lily’s – son.”
All Remus could think about was the fact that Harry Potter’s parents were still alive years after they should’ve been dead. Holy shit, these waves of realisations never seemed to stop, and Remus fought hard not to be pulled into their strong, distressing currents.
“Oh, okay, nice.” Remus responded, just as awkward as he comprehended that he had to come up with a response and not mentally spiral over yet another admission. “How, uh, old is he?”
“Around six, but he’s got Lils’s smarts, so he’s way smarter than he lets on. I think he’s gonna become a proper prank connoisseur when he grows up, if I say so myself.” James replied, puffing out his chest ever so slightly with proudness before his body deflated. “But, uh, sorry, Moony. This memory thing is shit and whilst it’s gonna take a little bit of getting used to, we’re all gonna try our best. But, again, sorry ‘cuz we’ll probably mess it all up sometimes.”
“’S alright, honestly. It’s gonna be something to get used to for everyone, ‘m sorry.”
“Moony, what are you apologising for? You didn’t do anything!”
But, he had, hadn’t he? He had done something. He’d possibly murdered the old Remus that was in this body – another horrifically monstrous action he had done, just what he should’ve expected from the abomination that he was.
“Yeah but…”
“No buts about it, Rem.” Lily spoke up again, a firm but kind tone entwined in her words. “Don’t you blame yourself for this.”
His eyes, which Remus hadn’t realised had moved back down to his hands, reverted upwards as he gazed at the people in the room. Remus set his lips together and gave them all a close-mouthed, tense smile, ignoring to meet Peter’s eyes – the man had been beautifully quiet, and Remus hoped that him not acknowledging the other man would keep it that way.
“Exactly, and what I’ve learnt is that it’s always best to listen to Lils here, so you better heed to her demands, Moony. Now, we’ll just go and get you discharged and then we’ll apparate, so pack anything that you need, okay?” James exclaimed happily as him and the two others with him started towards the door. “We’ll be back in a sec, Moony, see you soon!”
///
It had taken the others another forty-five minutes, doing Merlin knows what, before they had managed to get him discharged. Remus would’ve thought that being a magical hospital, St Mungo’s would’ve been quicker to get released from, but apparently not.
The wait had almost made his nerves of going back to Sirius’s flat simmer down and diminish. Almost. But after hearing James say, ‘you ready?’, Remus’s anxiety had returned back in full force. No, he wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t ever be prepared for this.
Grabbing his friend’s hand hesitantly, Remus squeezed his eyes closed, his body clenching as the familiar feeling of apparating grew around him. The air tightened and he felt his body being sucked into a tubular space – so constrictive that he felt like his bones were melding together into one. He struggled to breathe and bit aggressively on his bottom lip at the apprehension of what he was about to face. And then, just as quick as it came, the atmosphere loosened, and his body was freed from the restraints.
A light chatter murmured in the background, strong coffee and musky leather wafted by his nose. Since being in St Mungo’s, anything other than the stench of strong soap was kindly welcomed by Remus. He took a moment, inhaling the warm scent, preparing to see Sirius again, before daring to open his eyes.
He was met with Sirius, Marlene Mckinnon – whose presence still baffled him as she had hardly been close with anyone in his friendship circle in his previous life – and, fuck, another surprise appearance in Severus bloody Snape. Remus dreaded that this day, already dire, was only going to get ghastlier as it went on.
“Uh.” Remus dragged out a hum of confusion because, in all honesty, he had no clue what he was about to say. At least the amnesia story was somewhat believable, since he really did have no idea what was going on. “… hello?”
What a wonderful opening sentence to a bunch of people who were once dead, and half of them being his once-enemies. Like Remus had concluded earlier on, it wasn’t his day. At all.
“You alright, Remus? How are you feeling from apparating?” Sirius, who was dressed in an outfit full of black and leather, was the first to reply, probably sensing Remus’s confusion and uneasiness.
“Uh, yeah. I’m all healed, physically at least. Everything’s working okay apart from the, uh,” Remus moved a hand up to his head, making a vague gesture to it as his voice trailed out, “the memory thing.”
Downtrodden expressions appeared on the group’s faces, even on Peter’s, who Remus had finally braved a peak at when he was sure the other wasn’t watching him. Their reactions reminded him of looks that he’d been given ever since he woke up in this strange world. Pity.
This pity, with its sympathetic eyes and lightly grimaced mouths, was something that Remus was unfamiliar to being on the receiving end of. It seemed as though everyone he encountered felt this almighty sorrow towards him, for him. Sure, it made sense if he thought about it from their perspective: the one where their friend had nearly died and suddenly lost most of his memories, leaving him a barren shell of someone they used to know. So, yes, the pity was understandable. But, for Remus, it was such a shift from what he had known that it only escalated his discomfort.
In his ‘old life’, as he resorted to call it, if he ever received a glint of pity, it would soon curdle into disgust. Or terror. Even when people had tried to accept him as the werewolf he was, he knew that they were still unsure of him, waiting for him to break down or, worse, become the monstrosity that he transformed into every full moon. And no matter what, they too, would look at him with this sort of sympathy that was laced with cautiousness that made him feel mightily ashamed. It had only with Sirius and James that he had felt none of this humiliation – or, with his Sirius and James, he should say. Because standing there, with their eyes currently on him, he felt a wave of crushing embarrassment flush over him.
Again, this look was lingering around him and Remus wished almost frantically that the disgust he was ever so familiar with would appear. It was easier to deal with disgust than to deal with being pitied. He would prefer for them to be disturbed by him, in fact, as then they would consequently leave him alone and therefore, he wouldn’t be subjected to seeing their bloody wonderful faces over and over and over again. It wouldn’t give him the opportunity to feel anything more for them than he already did.
God, he wanted them to see him for the monster he was except, now, there was nothing monstrous apparent within him. It was worse this way, without the lycanthropy to ward people off – not that it had warned them off before, but still, Remus could’ve at least had the chance to hope it potentially would’ve. Now, he was aware of the blood on his hands – some of it the blood of the very people in the same room as him – but no one else could see it. No one but him.
He was meant to be Remus Lupin, one of their closest friends, not Remus Lupin, the bitter, broken lycanthrope. He wasn’t the person who hadn’t been able to save them from their deaths so, of course, they wouldn’t suspect him of being a monster and, with him no longer being a werewolf, he didn’t have anything to convince them of how disgusting he was. What did they have to be repulsed by, for he was just their mate, Remus Lupin, right?
Although they perceived him differently here, with changed, other memories of a Remus who wasn’t him, it meant nothing to Remus, for he still remembered them from his old life. Remus still felt their deaths weigh heavily on his conscience and he knew that if he looked hard enough, he’d see a bright, bloody red smothered across his hands, imprinted forever on his now scarless skin.
///
It was only when Remus found himself sat on a dark brown leather sofa in between Sirius and Lily with a warm tea shoved in his hands that the haze of apparating, combined with seeing yet another surprising face of Snape, wore off.
Snape, who was sat in a corner of the room next to Peter – which, of course, he would be – was talkative and, he’d even dare to say, looked to being enjoying the company of the other people surrounding him. The eerie characteristics knocked Remus for six, along with the astonishing ability of Severus’s that was being able to produce a smile – a big upgrade from the smarmy smirks that previous Snape would occasionally show off. It was a huge relief, as well as a strange sort of reassurance, that Snape still remained a goth, adorned in all black clothing that matched his shoulder-length hair. Such a statement was one that Remus never thought he’d ever make.
Remus had chosen to go back to ignoring Peter’s presence and so there was nothing to comment about him. Remus tried to not wince when he accidentally overheard the traitorous man’s voice in conversation and so, to distract himself from Peter, he dived his attention into concentrating on the other people in the room.
James and Marlene Mckinnon had plonked themselves down on another, smaller sofa that matched with the one that Remus was sat upon. Marlene – a blonde, blue-eyed spritely woman, from what Remus could tell – was currently in a passionate conversation with Lily about the medical trial that she had brought up with Healer Rooks. Lily, bless her, had taken it upon herself to start questioning his healer’s decision. Remus would’ve been annoyed at her persistence if it wasn’t so endearing.
“I swear that Healer Rooks wasn’t right!” Lily exclaimed, outraged at what she called the healer’s ‘incompetence’. “That trial about amnesia and memory charms has been found to be extremely successful!”
“Literally! And didn’t it show that seven out of ten patients who received the charms and treatments had an improvement in their memory?” Marlene replied, anguished just like her red-headed counterpart. “Like, surely it’s worth trying out, especially since the success of the charm is over fifty percent!”
“Exactly, Marls,” Lily nodded her head in adamant agreement. “And did you hear about the work that Healer Alerio has been doing? I mean his research on the…”
Remus decided to tune out of the women’s discussion as he truly didn’t have the mental capacity to delve into such a topic. Especially when said topic was about him and his ‘condition’. Instead, he focused on sipping his tea – this one was thankfully much better than his one at St Mungo’s – and tried to mould his body into the settee.
Remus thought that perhaps the best course of action was to sit back and watch to see whether he could gain any information about the others and, more importantly, find a potential mistake that Death had made. But, even when he tried to blend in with the sofa as much as possible, this plan was soon disturbed.
“Hey, Moony!”
A whisper disrupted his intensely concentrated tea-drinking session, and he turned his head towards the voice.
“Yeah?” Remus hummed back as he met Sirius’s gaze.
“’m sorry if it’s a bit much, you know, all this.” Sirius leaned closer as he spoke. Remus felt the heat of his breath gently hit his own cheek and, like an unstoppable force, he was driven to think about how Sirius felt all so extremely real. “I couldn’t stop them from coming over once they knew you were gonna be here.”
“Uh huh.” Remus’s brain took a few more seconds to come up with anything else. “It’s nice to, uh, see everyone, I guess.”
His eyes tracked Sirius as the other man took a moment to analyse him with an expression of doubt on his face.
“You’re a bit overwhelmed, aren’t you?”
“What? Uh, no.” Remus said ever so convincingly, face warming at the blatant question. “Of course not.”
“Sure, Moony, sure.” Sirius mockingly patted his upper arm as if he trusted Remus’s words. He looked around at the others before reverting his eyes back to Remus. “Look, I’ll give these lot ten more minutes and then I’ll ask them to bugger off.”
“No, no, you don’t have to do that.” Remus pleaded back with a slight jolt of his head in disagreement, but the look on the Black man’s face showed him that Sirius was undeterred by his weak effort to fight back.
Everyone’s conversations trickled on as Remus resumed to sitting back and observing. James and Sirius managed to steal his attention by getting into a heated debate about the upcoming Quidditch match between Puddlemere United and the Chudley Cannons: apparently in this universe the Chudley Cannons were actually decent at the game – not only that, but they were also the reigning champions of the Quidditch League – and that was perhaps the biggest plot twist Remus could never have even begun to predict. The time ticked on, and Remus found that he had grown so absorbed by his two old friends dialogue that he had completely forgotten about Sirius’s previous words until the latter dragged himself away from his discussion with the Potter man and addressed the group.
“Alright, you bunch!” Sirius bellowed out, standing up to gain everyone’s attention. “Whilst it’s been lovely having you here, I’m afraid I must kick you out now, for I have booked myself and wonderful Moony here to cook a spectacular dinner of lasagne and our preparations require us to start soon!”
“That sounds so yummy, Merlin, I’m starving!” Marlene commented with a cheeky grin. “Could I convince you to let me stay for that delightful dish?”
“Marls, you know I love you, but no.” Sirius played along, pouting. “It’s a very special time that can only include Moony and I. Plus, you’re terrible at cooking.”
“Oi!” The blonde woman sprung up from her seat, moving towards the Black man and lightly slapping his shoulder. “You’re too mean to me, Black.”
“You like it really.” Sirius flirtatiously retorted, but Marlene just scoffed in response, so he resumed speaking. “I’ll take your silence as you being in agreement with me.”
“Oh, please. As if! Now, Sirius, would you be a darling and get my coat from the hall before I actually hex you for your idiocy?”
“Why yes, madam, I’ll be right back with it!” Sirius dramatically bowed and robotically walked out of the room, leaving peels of laughter behind him.
It did take a few minutes saying his farewells to people but, soon enough, nearly everyone was gone, and Sirius saying goodbye to the last stragglers that were leaving through the front door. With the space becoming barren of people, the flat was strangely quiet and, although cluttered, felt rather roomy. Empty, or maybe that was just how Remus was feeling internally now that all the distractions of his old friends had dispersed.
The silence emphasised his brain’s deafening declaration that he had been trying to avoid: the fact that he was here, in Sirius Black’s flat in 1986, and everyone who should’ve been dead was still breathing. Shit, he couldn’t even believe it and he was the one actively going through it. The curiosity within him flared yet Remus couldn’t bring himself to snoop around Sirius’s belongings. He couldn’t bear to touch something out of its place.
He knew he should’ve tried to dig around, investigating whether Death had left any traces of itself still there, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t allow for himself to change something and then accidentally ruin it.
There had been nothing to suspect from Death as of yet and, despite the peculiarity of his situation, not a single thing was reminding him of Death’s presence. With him foolishly refusing to do any extra probing about when he had the chance, Remus would just have to wait and hope that Death appeared in front of him at another moment.
///
“Right then,” Sirius spoke as he clumsily re-entered the living room that Remus still occupied. “Now that all that lot are gone, do you want a tour?”
“Sure.” Remus breathed out a sigh before he prepared his body to lift him out of the sofa. The other man, sensing his hesitancy, reached out a hand to help him up; a hand that, when grabbed, Remus realised was warmer than he had expected. Warm and gentle and stable and everything that Remus didn’t correlate with his Sirius. Remus made sure to let go of the hand hastily, as soon as his limbs agreed on supporting him to stand steadily.
Sirius’s hand lingered ever so slightly as Remus’s own one pulled away, as if he was unsure Remus would be able to manage on by himself. He moved it soon after he assessed Remus’s state and, most likely, decided that the taller man would be okay.
“Okay, so, as you’ve already seen, here’s the living room,” Sirius splayed his arms out and then pointed them towards an archway. “And through there is the kitchen, come and have a look if…”
Sirius showed him around every room and, despite the other man trying to hide it, Remus sensed his eyes on him, watching for his reaction around each area of the flat – searching for something from Remus, perhaps a glint of recognition, that never would come.
The Black man’s flat’s layout was like any other – with a living room that was connected to a surprisingly spacious kitchen, where a small table and two wooden chairs resided. A hallway, linked from the living room, led to a bathroom, Sirius’s bedroom – the owner of the room had just pointed at it, so Remus had no idea as to what was inside – and the room where Remus would be staying. Apparently, it usually acted as a study as well as a space for friends to crash out in if they had had one too many drinks at a pub and it was, according to Sirius, ‘not a problem in the slightest’ to set up Remus in the room.
The flat was simple, yes, but it was just so Sirius as well. Filled with warm, caramel browns and deep, sultry reds that contrasted the inviting cream of the walls, the difference between the lighter accents of the place and the darker furnishings blended together and made the flat feel whole-heartedly lived in; a weird coziness was radiating from the place, in fact. There were collections of records, books and posters that were chaotically sprawled everywhere but it was the overall brightness of the space that truly caught Remus’s attention.
“So, what do you think?” Sirius asked as they stood together in the corridor, his eyes still hopeful, obviously wishing that Remus would remember something. Remus hated that his existence, with him replacing the prior Remus that the Black male knew, would become the reason that Sirius’s hope would die more and more the longer he stayed within the other’s presence.
“Yeah, it’s really nice. It’s so, uh, light and stuff.”
Remus’s vocabulary appeared to have left him since his death and, instead of being the expansive range of words that he prided himself for, it was dismally basic.
“Yeah,” Sirius let out a little huff of air with a small upwards jerk of his lips. “I really wanted my place to seem welcoming and shit, you know? I, um, dunno whether you’d remember this, but my parents’ house was… well, let’s just say that Dracula’s castle would be considered bright and airy compared to their house.”
Remus nodded in acknowledgement, he could only assume that 12 Grimmauld Place – the Black family’s residence and Sirius’s childhood home – was still the same here, then; miserable and grim with elaborate décor that drooped and wilted inside that horrendous and horrid example of a family house. That home’s dark, dark walls had kept his version of Sirius encaged within them, confining him to be an unwilling subject to his mother’s wrath. Remus hoped the décor was the only similarity that had stayed unchanged for the Black male in that place.
“Wait,” Remus’s mind finally reacted to an abnormity in the other man’s speech. “You know who Dracula is?”
“Of course! I-”
“No, hang on a second, you actually read books?” Remus cut the other man’s explanation off. He was sure the disbelief on his face would make an almighty picture. “As in, you read read? For fun?”
The emphasis he used could’ve been mistaken for genuine mocking, but Remus was just so bewildered that he couldn’t contain his surprise. He didn’t think he’d seen his Sirius pick up a book if the other man hadn’t been forced to, especially not since their Hogwarts days.
“You wound me, Moony! You mean to say that I don’t strike you as a reader?” Sirius scoffed in a teasing tone. “I mean, most people look at me and, like, automatically think ‘wow, I bet that gorgeous man with the most amazing hair I’ve ever seen really likes some George Orwell!’”
“George Orwell? My word, Sirius, you’re not only someone who reads books, but you’re also a reader with taste. Consider me mildly impressed.”
“Yes well,” Sirius snorted, his nose crinkling with amusement. “I’d hope you’d find my taste good seeing as you’re the one who introduced me to muggle literature.”
Ah, that made a whole lot of sense.
“It’s all adding up now, Padfoot.” The old nickname of Sirius slipped easily out of his mouth, but Remus ignored the way it felt on his lips and continued. “I may be an amnesiac but I sure as hell know when something’s not right.”
“Hey!”
“I was almost in awe. Any other secrets you have about me that you plan to hide away and use to your advantage?”
“Oh, Moony, wouldn’t you like to know?” The mischievous tone of Sirius died down a little, becoming more earnest with his next words. “But on a real note, you know I wouldn’t actually hide anything from you, right?”
“’Course, mate. I know you wouldn’t.”
His words seemed to calm Sirius, as the other man breathed out in relief.
“All I ask is that you let me know if I have an evil ex, just in case they try and murder me or something.”
“Hm. I mean, out of the exes I’ve met, yours have all been annoyingly lovely, it’s actually such a piss take, mate. You’d probably need more of a warning with some of mine, to be fair.” Sirius shivered in over-exaggeration, his voice turning into a whine at the end of his sentence.
“Oh? Did your bad boy aesthetic finally catch you up and bite you in the arse?”
It was dangerous, this banter between them. It was all too easy to fall into a joking role with Sirius, all too easy to forget that this whole situation was most likely a sick simulation fabricated by Death. Another important factor that played on his mind was that Remus didn’t have a bloody clue how the past him had been and so he was worried that the possible ‘amnesia’ he was facing wouldn’t last as an excuse if he acted too out of character. However, his doubts weren’t a matter of importance as of yet so he just couldn’t resist jesting with the other, especially when this Sirius was so, so easy to tease.
“First of all, it’s not just an aesthetic, Moons, I even have the motorbike to match!” A pointed look of disapproval was targeted at him and Remus raised his eyebrow in retaliation. “And, like, I don’t know, I just seem to attract the strange ones! Not my fault they fall for my charms before I realise how deranged they are.”
“And what charms are those?”
Merlin, he couldn’t stop this back and forth with Sirius. Why couldn’t he just stop already?
“Oi! You may be injured but I won’t allow this defamation to happen!”
They both laughed and, before Remus could retort, the other man interrupted.
“Anyways, enough of these silly allegations, Moony!” Sirius clapped his hands together before he gently pushed them against Remus’s shoulders, turning him to face his new room. “You, dear sir, need to rest up and I, your most precious and doting friend, must start to prepare and make us some dinner.”
“You’re just saying that because you know that I’ve caught onto you and you know that I’m right.” Remus couldn’t help but have one last playful jab.
“I refuse to comment on, again, such trivial accusations!” Sirius chuckled once more and began to move before Remus could ask him if he wanted a hand with making dinner.
As he faced the door, Remus could hear the other man’s footsteps tapping down the corridor, further and further away from him. He, stupidly, decided to look back one final time, his hand on the door handle, and found himself witnessing a beaming Sirius looking right back at him over his shoulder.
His smile was so beautifully innocent, Remus thought, and fuck, did he relish in it. He could only hope that the life Sirius had experienced here was far, far different from the life that the other version of him had undergone.
Peering at the other, Remus found that, although his ribs were healed, his lungs had seemingly reignited themselves, burning so sharply within his chest that he fought a gasp. He fumbled his hands around the door handle before he managed to rip the door wide open, giving Sirius a half-grimace and pacing through into the room, leaving the other out in the hall. He thought that the pain might leave him when he entered, since the Black man was no longer in his sight of vision. But Remus was wrong, a common happening of recent times, and he found that the burn remained heavy and alight within him.
As the scorch flamed on and on throughout him, Remus had an awful inclination. He feared that, whilst he continued to reside here, this internal blaze of his would only persist, gradually leaving his unprotected, feeble soul blackened and charred in ashes below his weary feet. Remus Lupin knew that it was only a matter of time – and he was completely clueless as to when that would be – until he would inevitably fall apart, his whole being crumbling into a pile of forgotten cinders, left to waste away in the wind of this unknown world.