no matter what i do, this wound will never heal (why are you never real?)

It had been a week, a whole entire week, of adjusting to wherever the hell he was, and Remus was still struggling, to say the least. He had, for the most part, been coddled by Sirius – a phenomenon that he was still in shock over – and resting quietly in his makeshift bedroom, reading an occasional book from the Black man’s never-ending book collection.

The only other person he had seen regularly during the week apart from his healer was James and, whilst it was painful to see the other man so alive and well, Remus had been working on pushing that pain aside. He couldn’t prove to these people that he was the regular Remus they knew unless he got his shit into order and stopped acting like a major, stuttering mess every time he glanced in their direction.

A complete seven days of existing here had meant Remus had discovered several things, mostly unimportant to his mission of getting the hell out, but still. Information was information and he didn’t have the privilege of picking and choosing.

Firstly, this world’s version of Sirius Black was frustratingly charming.

Remus had made his mind up that he’d remain unattached – a decision that even he could admit was extremely unrealistic – but even so, he had thought that for at least for the small amount of time that he had been in this world, he could’ve managed to not feel anything more for his dead friends than he already did, especially in relation to the Black man. However, this Sirius had an intoxicating effect, an inescapable influence that made Remus simultaneously be constantly reminded of his Sirius and yet be so absorbed by the other man’s company that he found himself lost in this new Sirius’s words.

Whilst in the black-haired man’s presence, Remus found himself swinging dramatically on a pendulum; soaring back to the hurt and the pain that his old friendship with the other had entailed and then launching in the opposite direction to this new feeling, light and fun and a brief view into a friendship that was full of a strange innocence that Remus had long forgotten could exist.

It was most unfortunate, therefore, that Remus had unwillingly become attached to this new Sirius, despite his confidence in the opposite outcome. It was pathetic and embarrassing, and Remus was thankful that the only witness to this weakness of his was Death. If Death had even cared to keep watch, for the ex-lycanthrope hadn’t seen a peep out of it yet.

Another conclusion he had come to was that his healer, Healer Rooks, who he had been seeing every other day for the past week, was irrevocably useless. Remus didn’t know whether to delight in that fact as, whilst seeing the oblivious man often was far too regular of an appearance for his personal taste, there was a higher chance that Remus wouldn’t be questioned about suspicious ‘symptoms’ he was facing – like how he remembered friends who he had met later in life but how he couldn’t remember his basic childhood memories.

The questions hadn’t come yet but Remus was almost certain that he would slip up and say something he shouldn’t know. Or worse, say something that never actually happened here.

The final, and most disturbing fact he had unwillingly found out, was that his friend group was uncomfortably interconnected. Remus had cursed in his head when he discovered how close everyone had been as it would be only harder to fool them that he was their Remus, but that feeling was soon replaced by a disturbed curiosity. With Sirius out working – somewhere in the Ministry of Magic, he had been told, though his actual job was kept hidden between a vagueness that made him suspicious – he had been left alone with James on a Thursday afternoon and so it was all thanks to the young Potter that he had spent the rest of the whole day learning about the ‘friendcest’, as James had named it, that had occurred.

James had been unwilling to tell Remus if he had been together with anyone from their group and the lack of conformation made Remus believe that it was, unfortunately, quite likely that past him had some complicated situation with one of the people in their friendship group. No matter how much Remus pushed, the Potter refused with a devious glint in his eye.

Although James was unwilling to share the information about Remus, he had been overly chatty about the other’s dirty laundry, and Remus found himself compelled into interest by the complexity of the dynamics. It had taken a while to wrap his brain about who had been with who - and, Merlin, Remus had needed a whole chart drawn up to fully understand whom actually had dated whom – but he managed to get a grip on it eventually.

Peter and Snape had apparently been together for a few years earlier but had split due to insecurities and breaches of trust. Hearing that had made Remus struggle to hold in his laughter as he thought about how fucking ironic that was. They were still amicable, to his surprise, and Remus couldn’t help but wonder just… how. How had they even happened? It was so illogical and yet, it made such peculiar sense. Maybe Remus was the one who needed psychological help, if he continued believing such things were possible.

Marlene Mckinnon and Sirius was another discovery. They were, according to James, in a ‘mutually beneficial arrangement’ as of late, and Remus didn’t want to know more than that. He hadn’t seen Sirius in any sort of relationship since just before they left Hogwarts and even then, it was nothing too significant. Remus ignored the burn of his heart as he wondered whether that meant the Black man would discard him as soon as he could and return his focus back onto her.

The biggest shock, however, was that James Potter had dated Sirius’s younger brother, Regulus, briefly after they had both graduated from Hogwarts.

“And you’re still alive?” Remus had questioned, mouth opened in astonishment as he had leaned over to the other man, desperate for information. Regulus was alive here, too? Had everyone he had known to be dead in his old life been revived?

“Barely, trust me.” James replied, jokingly grimacing before he burst out into a full grin. “Let’s just say Sirius missed out on an awesome brother-in-law. I mean, could you imagine the fucking jokes I would’ve been able to make. Merlin, the opportunities would’ve been limitless!”

James had continued, saying that him and Regulus agreeably parted their own ways when the younger Black brother took up a job in Japan. In the Potter man’s words, Remus should’ve been “glad that Reg is so far away, ‘cuz he’d be telling you all the details you’d never want to know”. He didn’t know the full extent of what that would’ve entailed and although his curiosity for seeing Regulus was at an all-time high, he heeded James’s warning and was glad that the younger Black brother hadn’t been there. That would’ve turned this whole ordeal into an even bigger shitshow than it already was.

James had taken a few years of being single before he and Lily, who had been a friend of his over the years, had dabbled in dating each other. They had been twenty-two when they started dating, a whole year older than they had been when they had died in Remus’s old life. The goosebumps rose upon his arms uncontrollably at that insight, but Remus didn’t acknowledge them.

This conversation between the two of them had lasted for a couple hours, with James mostly speaking as Remus struggled to say anything other than shocked remarks and gasps at all the knowledge he was receiving.

Currently, he was sat in the living room, having a break from their discussion and waiting for a cup of tea which James had been adamant he hadn’t wanted any help for.

“Remus! For the last time, sit your arse down!”

Remus groaned as he was told off by James – of all people, James Potter was telling him off – and it was that moment when he recognised that he was truly in a different dimension of some sort.

“Okay, fine, Prongs. But you must let me know if you need any help.”

The school nickname, although still eerie to say, was becoming easier and easier to mutter out and Remus was glad that at least one thing to make him seem like the ‘normal Remus’ instead of the amnesiac one.

“No matter, I’m all done now. Here you go.” The Potter man moved back from the kitchen and bent down to give him a mug of hot, steaming tea. “And before you ask, yes, there are at least three teaspoons of sugar in it.”

Remus blew on the hot liquid before he gently sipped it, sighing in satisfaction as he tasted the sweet goodness.

“You really pushed the boat out with adding three sugars in, Prongs, blimey!” Remus joked back to the other man, who seated himself back down on the sofa. “I tend to only have two and a half teaspoons to keep some decorum.”

“Yeah, you’re right, mate.” James nodded solemnly. “Three sugars is fucking demented. I mean, they might as well chuck you in Azkaban for such a crime.”

Remus fought to keep his easy-going smile placed on his face as his body twinged at the mention of the prison. He forced out a pained chuckle before gulping down his tea too quickly, searing his tongue with the hotness of it.

“Oh, also, I dunno whether you heard when I was in the kitchen, but I got an Owl from Padfoot.” The Potter added as Remus breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that the conversation had turned away from its prior topic. “It said he’s gonna be back sooner, he fixed some issue at the Ministry, so he’s been allowed to come home earlier.”

“’kay,” Remus nodded in understanding. “Are you going to stay for dinner?”

“Nah, mate, Lily’s making us a roast tonight, so I’ll be heading back once Pads arrives.”

“A roast? On a Thursday?”

“I don’t care what day it’s on, Moony. You never – and I mean never, ever – fucking say no when Lils offers to do a roast. It’s the most delightful, scrumptious food I’ve eaten.” James was dead serious as his eyes lit up at the thought.

James delved into a long, descriptive monologue about the delicacies that Lily had created and, in under half an hour, Sirius returned from his mystery of a job with a potent, unrecognisable smell sticking to his body. The stench made Remus’s nose curl up at its pure ripeness, and James made a point to cover his nose and mouth in open disgust.

After a little bit of small talk that included Sirius apologising for the smell, James apparated back to his house where the said ‘scrumptious roast’ was ready for him and so Remus was left alone, waiting for Sirius, who had also left the living room to clean up and get whatever that horrid odour had been off of him.

Remus picked up a book as he stayed in the lounge, impatiently anticipating when the Black male would rejoin him and trying to prevent his mind from concentrating on James’s earlier joke about Azkaban. Again, he chucked the thought into a casket and buried it.

That was another thing, really. How the longer he stayed here, the harder it became to repress things internally. For Remus only had a certain capacity that could hold onto these overwhelming feelings in and put them in impenetrable cages, and he knew that the space that remained was limited; a fine slither that, once completely filled, would overspill his feelings out in uncontrollable, damaging flares.

But that wouldn’t happen yet, Remus would make sure of it.

So no, as he sat by himself, he didn’t reflect on James’s Azkaban comment, just like how he most definitely didn’t think about his missing scars or the lost lycanthrope within him or how he scared himself in the mirror every day with a reflection that was an eerie ghost of someone he never was. He didn’t toil with the fact that he hadn’t used his magic since his death – or his first death, he should say, although he was unsure as to whether a second one was ever going to come. Remus didn’t know if he could perform magic again, either. But he didn’t think about that, because wallowing in it meant that he would have to accept knowledge that he never wanted, or needed, to face.

So, yeah. Remus Lupin told himself that he was doing fan-fucking-tastic after his first week, especially since he had seen far too many fucking dead people for his own good.

///

It was when yet another week had passed that Remus, full of keeping himself occupied with Sirius’s books and with the occasional visitor of James or Lily over at the flat, found himself being dragged out to a pub night with his group of friends. It was meant to be an introduction back into his old life, as Sirius had mentioned to him. A meeting that was going to be more pleasant and less overwhelming than his previous meeting with them.

In all honesty, since he had been locked inside of Sirius’s flat for the past two weeks, with the exception of an occasional walk and his appointments with Healer Rooks, Remus couldn’t fucking wait to go out and experience some normality.

So, alongside Sirius, he walked into a pub called ‘The Slippery Toad’, incredibly excited for some Butterbeer or, even better, some bloody strong Scottish whisky. He and Sirius clambered across the rickety wooden floor, dodging between the busy crowds of people, before they ordered their drinks at the bar. Fancying something that was sweetly familiar, Remus decided on having a Butterbeer and he saw that the black-haired man with him ordered some Firewhisky concoction.

With their drinks in hand, they weaved their way through the pub’s tables, Remus following behind Sirius with no idea as to where he was meant to be going. Soon enough he saw the others, who were sat on a long table, chatting loudly and laughing joyously.

His heartbeat elevated as him and the Black male neared. Fuck, could he do this? He guessed he didn’t really have any choice of backing out now.

“How’s everyone doing this pleasant evening?” Sirius said, announcing their presence to the group of his friends.

Everyone’s eyes snapped to them and their faces brightened as they made jovial, welcoming greetings. Remus plonked himself on a wonky chair next to James, facing Marlene Mckinnon, with Sirius sitting opposite the male Potter.

It was about thirty minutes into being there and, for the majority of the time, Remus had just sipped on his warming drink and engaged in polite conversation when he needed to, remaining quiet when he could. Although this was soon to change as Marlene, who had consumed a few alcoholic beverages at this point, soon directed her attention onto him.

“Wait, wait, I wanna ask you something, Remus, if that’s alright?” Marlene piped up, blue eyes ablaze with mischief and curiosity.

Remus shrugged with a little nod of his head as well, showing her to go ahead and ask. He hoped that the action didn’t portray the anxiety he was feeling internally.

“So, I was chatting with my mate, Mary, and we were both thinking about whether the lack of memories, like, changes your perception of people and other shit, you know?” Marlene blabbered away and Remus was unsure as to where the conversation was heading. “And so I was wondering, would you be up for me asking a few questions to see whether any of your tastes have changed?”

“Uh, sure.” Remus agreed, albeit slightly wary of what was about to be asked.

“Great!” Marlene beamed, taking a sip of her fruity cocktail before she placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “So, let me think, oh, here’s an easy one. What’s your favourite drink?”

“Tea.” Remus said back to her. This might not be as difficult as he predicted, then. “Two and a half sugars, no less.”

“You and your sugary tea will catch up to you at some point, Moony!” James chimed in, pouring his attention onto his and Marlene’s conversation as Remus shook his head in disagreement.

“No, Prongs, I think you’ll find it’s the perfect ratio of tea and sugar. And, with a dash of-”

“Ahem.” Marlene interrupted his tea rant part way through. “Remus, whilst I love to see you being so passionate about your tea, I’ve got another question for you. Who would you say is more annoying, our lovely James here or our darling Sirius?”

“Finally, a tough question.” Remus grinned and his body eased up at the lightness of the question. “Hm, it depends on what the criteria is, but the more probable answer is our darling Sirius.”

“Oi!” Sirius rebutted as his pleaded his defence to the group. “I rebuke this unfair judgment for I’m immediately at a disadvantage since Moony’s living with me and hasn’t moved in with Prongs!”

“I doubt Prongs takes an entire fifty minutes to do his hair, Sirius.”

“Prongs takes no time to do his hair,” Sirius replied to Remus and gestured towards the Potter male, who was sat there clearly enjoying Sirius’s flustered character. “Just look at it right now, my case is closed.”

“Sorry that you haven’t been blessed with the genetics of having hair that naturally falls perfectly, Pads.” James clapped his hand on the Black man’s back in faux sympathy.

“Don’t you start slandering me and my image, James. It’s been a well-known fact throughout the pureblood family grapevine that us Blacks have the most luscious locks in the entire wizarding population of England!”

“Yeah, but you’re also kinda inbred, mate, so I don’t think you’re gonna win with the genetics card.”

“Hey!” Sirius grumbled but couldn’t stop the smile from setting on his face. “I’ll have you know that my family is only very, very slightly inbred.”

“Sure.” James’s deadpan reply was said with a smile that mirrored the Black man and Remus, who had been enjoying seeing his friends’ banter, sat back in his seat, highly entertained by the duo.

“Well, like, okay fine.” Sirius spluttered and, even though his words didn’t show it, the jokiness of his tone showed his amusement. “They’re cousins. But! They’re basically, like, fourth cousins so it essentially cancels the incest out, right?”

“Pads, please, you know that’s not how that works.”

“Well then. I’ll just blame it on my family being French.”

“And not on your parents being deluded, pureblood extremists?”

“Well, that too.”

Sirius and James cracked up in laughter, the older Black brother reaching across the table to playfully punch the other man on the shoulder.

“Oh! Remus, I’ve got an interesting one for you now.” Marlene spoke out, her eyebrows wiggling as Remus reverted his attention back to her and felt his stomach drop. “What would you say your type is? Like, if you’d describe your ideal person to date, who would that be?”

Okay. This was where it could very possibly be going tits up.

What even was his ‘type’? In his prior life, if he had to find a correlation between his very few past partners, he’d say they all had rebelled against ‘societal rules’. Dating a werewolf had meant that the majority of people he had attracted were always somewhat uncaring about being the stereotypical magical person in the Wizarding World, whether that be the outspoken opinions on taboo subjects that they held or an irregular life that they lived.

Outcasts. That’s what they had been, just as Remus was too. The lack of empathy the wizarding community gave them was what brought them together, but he was sure that he wasn’t going to be able to say anything of that to his friends, who were patiently waiting for his answer.

Shit, wait, was their Remus even into men? Perhaps it would be best to be as vague as possible just in case he wasn’t.

“Uhm, I’d say someone whose kind and … and cool, yeah.”

Very clear, Remus thought sarcastically, well done. Ten points to Gryffindor for that coherent statement.

The group looked expectantly at him and so he forced himself to speak again, the fear of mis-stepping prevalent within his mind.

“And, perhaps I’d like it if the person I was seeing was, I don’t know, opinionated?” Remus’s voice turned unsure as he spoke. “As in, they really stood up for a cause they believed in, I guess. What was my ‘type’ before, uh, all this?”

“Smart – the kind of smart where they gave off know-it-all energy, you know? – and preppy, really. People who were irritatingly nice, too.” James responded to his question as the group nodded in agreement.

“What about that Evelyn girl?” Peter, whose voice grated against his eardrums, piped up and Remus was forced to turn his attention to the man. “She was a right prick, wasn’t she?”

The group groaned in unison as they collectively agreed with Peter’s sentiment.

“But Padfoot, you-” Remus started, confused as to why Sirius had lied to him the prior week or two ago about him having no, quote on quote, ‘evil’ past partners.

“Oh Merlin, I had forgotten about her.” The Black male moaned out in distaste. “Moons, I can’t even begin to tell you how fucking delusional she was.”

“Really? Do you think I have to worry about, you know, running into her or something?” Remus was genuinely worried as he asked for he had no idea of whom this ‘Evelyn’ person was.

“Nah, she’s roaming about somewhere in Europe – a little island off the Greek coast, I think – so you won’t bump into her anytime soon. And neither will we, thank fuck for that.”

Remus sighed a breath of relief, along with the rest of his friends, and picked up his pint of Butterbeer, drinking in a brief celebration of avoiding such an awkward possible meeting.

“Your kryptonite is a ginger, Rem, I swear by it. Most of them are alright but, boy, was Evelyn quite the opposite.” Marlene commented, grimacing at the end of her sentence.

“Marls.” Sirius’s voice was quiet but stern and held the attention of their group for a moment. The look in his eyes was full of disapproval, and Remus found himself quickly peering away before the other man glanced at him with the expression.

“Really?” He hummed out, hesitant in replying but still doing so, sipping on his cold drink as the eyes of the group remained on him. “Never thought I’d have a particular type I’d go for.”

“Oh yeah, I mean it was as if after Lily, she had infected you with a ginger curse, or something.” Snape snorted out dryly before realisation overtook his face, going suspiciously quiet along with the others around him.

Lily, whose face was already flushed from the several ciders she had consumed, turned a bright fuchsia pink and she began to anxiously bite her lip, avoiding Remus’s questioning eye contact.

“So, um, did you guys hear about that new seeker who the Chudl-” Sirius abysmally tried to change the subject, but Remus had begun to process Snape’s words, and he wasn’t about to let them go by unmentioned.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘after Lily’?” Remus enquired, interrupting the other man as his heartrate increasing every moment he was left without an answer. “I… I don’t quite understand what you mean by that?”

“Uh…” Severus was for once showing an ounce of shame. Shit, it must be bad.

“Do you mean to imply that Lily and I… dated?”

“Ha, well it’s actually a funny story!” James’s tone was panicked and overly joyful, painfully trying to prevent Remus’s mood from turning sour.

“Yes, we dated.” Lily interrupted her other half, voice calm although her face was still mortifyingly red. “But, before you panic, it was literally only a month back in, like, our sixth year at Hogwarts when we were still kids and thought that ‘cuz we were so close it had to mean something romantic. We figured out we were better off friends super quick, trust me.”

“Oh my word, I can’t believe it.” Remus stated with disbelief but decided not to throw his dolly out of the pram since he saw the genuineness in Lily’s expression. Everyone remained still as he turned to James. “Wait a fucking second, is this why you wouldn’t tell me ‘bout my dating life?”

The Potter’s guilty smile, along with his silence, spoke volumes and, before he knew it, Remus was speaking again over the quietness of his friend group.

“I fucking knew something was up, Prongs!” Remus grumbled loudly, his face flushed as he refused to meet anyone’s eyes. “Can’t believe Lily and I were together, Merlin, I need another drink for this shit.”

Remus excused himself from the jovial table after he reassured his friends that he was “totally okay, I promise” about going to the bar on his own. He meandered through the pub and ended up sitting by the bar for a while, sipping on a new half-pint of Butterbeer, before he decided to get some fresh air outdoors. Perhaps the cold, winter air would save him from going completely insane.

Outside, the coldness hit him, making his brain focus on the freezing temperature and not the many interactions that he had witnessed at the table earlier. Remus walked further down the side of the pub’s walls and found himself not alone.

There Sirius was, black leather jacket and all, back leant against the brick wall and a cigarette hanging from his lips. Whilst Remus had been at the bar, the Black man must’ve nipped outside without him noticing. He didn’t detect Remus’s presence, seemingly lost in his thoughts, until the Welshman scuffed his shoe on a stone that ping ping pinged down the pavement, causing the Black man to lift his head in the direction of the noise.

“Oh, Moony, what are you doing out here?”

“Just wanted to clear my head, mate. It’s bloody freezing out here, though, isn’t it?” Remus responded, wishing that he had worn something thicker than the thin jumper he was currently sporting.

From what he had seen, it looked like prior-Remus hadn’t invested in warm clothing, unfortunately, and this jumper was one of the thicker pieces of clothing he had found in the trunk of clothes at Sirius’s flat that was from old-Remus’s wardrobe. It was strange wearing someone else’s attire as your own, to say the least, and it made it even weirder that everything fit his body perfectly – in his prior life, Remus had usually worn limp, unfitting clothes to try and drown himself beneath the fabric.

If he was here any longer, Remus vowed to himself that he’d buy some cozy garments. At least, then, if he was stuck here, he would retain some of his body heat instead of losing it to the viciously cold weather.

“Yeah, and you’re ridiculous for wearing that out here, honestly.” Sirius scoffed at Remus’s clothing choice, no hint of empathy in his voice. “You should’ve at least put a jacket out before coming outside.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, for once, but I couldn’t find one in my trunk, sadly.” Remus stated, rubbing his hands up and down his arms to produce some warmth before nodding his head down to Sirius’s cigarette. “Can I have one?”

At Remus’s request, the other man paused and tilted his head.

“Uh, you sure you want to?”

“Uh huh.”

Sirius’s hesitancy remained as he furrowed his brow, eyes searching Remus’s face, studying for something that Remus had no understanding of. The other man took another drag of his cigarette as Remus looked earnestly back at him.

“You never smoked before, you know.” Sirius exhaled the smoke into the cold air of the evening, a reminiscent smile decorating his features. “Always used to nag me ‘bout how it would kill me before I reached forty.”

A cord broke inside of Remus, his patience ending. The act of pretending everything was okay and normal shattered, its dainty façade cracking into little, bitty pieces that Remus couldn’t prevent from breaking. For a moment, the war veteran Remus showed his face to the external world.

“Yes well, I don’t remember asking for what I used to be like, thank you very much.” Remus grumbled in frustration, frowning his brows together. He just wanted a fucking cigarette, for Merlin’s sake. “So, either hand me one or I’ll find someone else that will instead.”

“Alright, alright.” Sirius held out his hand, cigarette case in tow, as an action of surrender. “But don’t blame me when your memories return and you get pissed at me for this, yeah?”

Remus nodded agreeably, ignoring the clench of his stomach at Sirius’s wording of ‘when’ and not if, reaching his hand out for a cigarette and, after Sirius tossed him a lighter, Remus lit his own one up, blowing the smoke in a relieved puff.

The silence withheld and Remus cursed himself for snapping and therefore making the environment full of an uneasy awkwardness that wasn’t scattering away.

“What would you do?” He caught the Black man’s attention with his words but failed to continue them as his eyes met Sirius’s piercing grey ones.

“What would I do if what, Moony?” Sirius prompted him as he continued to stare at Remus with an uncomfortable intensity.

“What… well, um,” Remus cleared his throat in a desperate attempt to ease his pounding heart and avoid his voice from cracking. Why had he started to say this again? He should’ve remained quiet, a regret he was regularly facing now. “What would you do if I never regain the memories back? What then?”

His cigarette had fizzled out and so Remus couldn’t use it as an excuse to distract himself. No, instead he was forced to look at the way Sirius’s face morphed into confusion and uncertainty and, then the worse one, pity.

Remus immediately felt a bout of regret; the kind of regret that left his knees pathetically limp and shaky, his heart thrashing so hard that he could hear nothing else but its powerful beats drumming in his ears. The kind of pounding that made the organ ache from the sheer exhaustion of the accelerated tempo. Merlin, it had only been two weeks since he had awoken here and yet he was such a fucking weak example of a person that he couldn’t even withhold the one thought that plagued every second of his existence. It shouldn’t have been difficult to hold his tongue – he had been rather good at it before, withholding information and keeping secrets – but Death, with its silly little tricks, had decided to make him a blabbermouth so that he was unable to hide his thoughts within him.

“What’s got you saying all this? It’ll all be okay, like, the healer said it would take time and, uh, we’re making progress and-”

“No, Sirius, it’s not going to be fucking okay.” Remus interrupted the other man’s spluttering attempts of positivity, perhaps it was for his own mind’s sake and not Remus’s, but the ex-lycanthrope didn’t care to delve into such a way of thinking. “You and James and Lily and every other bloody one of you have all been acting like it’s all alright. Like tonight’s like any other pub night out with mates. You’ve all been acting as if this whole memory malarkey isn’t a huge spanner in the works that even Merlin himself would struggle to fix.

“Look, I know you’ve all been doing this to help me, and I appreciate it, I really fucking do. But I’m just tired. I’m exhausted of having to constantly try and ‘remember’ these things that I have no clue about and, I just.” He let out a big sigh. “I just want to know, what will you do, Sirius, if I don’t remember? Ever. ‘Cuz that’s a big possibility that no one has been talking ‘bout.”

“Um, well I,” Sirius spluttered once again, his eyes darting around as if looking around his surroundings would help him produce an answer. “I hadn’t really thought about it, Moony. But, like, it wouldn’t matter, honestly. No matter what, me and Prongs and everyone will be here for you. You’ll never be alone in this, I promise.”

Sirius’s words probably sounded like he was saying all the right things, but all Remus could hear was the hesitation; the pause that implied Sirius’s rejection of the possibility that his friend could become a stranger. Would Sirius and the others even want to remain close to him if they realised that him never remembering was a bigger possibility than they had predicted?

No one will fucking care about you when they find out about how messed up of an individual you are. Why are you here when no one actually wants you here?

The words were unstoppable in his mind, repeating on and on and on like a broken record. A record that Remus didn’t, and couldn’t, change. His eyes began to burn and well up, though Remus blamed the bitter smoke of the cigarette and nothing else.

The familiar feeling of the words reminded Remus of a time he had long forgotten, or tried to, at least. He found himself being thrown back to a conversation he had with his Sirius, when they had been working for the Order and, over the time, had found themselves doubting each other of their intentions.

///

It had been a dull, grey day, a rather accurate depiction of the feelings that Remus had been feeling about seeing his old friend again. He had travelled down from Scotland for a meeting between Sirius Black – a potential betrayer of the Order – and him at an out-of-the-way pub in a small, quiet pub in a Yorkshire village.

Remus hadn’t been looking forward to it and when it started to gently spit rain as he waited inside the cold pub, he had almost laughed at the pathetic fallacy of it all.

As the lycanthrope nursed a drink, lost in thought, Sirius Black entered the pub, his presence an obvious irregularity compared to the old, wrinkled men that were its regular customers. Nevertheless, the young man didn’t seem to care as he strode confidently over to where Remus was sitting in a secluded, dim corner booth of the pub’s interior.

“Moony!” The Black man was overly-jolly, immediately making Remus suspicious as to why so – had this been a trap all along? It was too late now if it was. “How are you?”

“Yeah, ‘m alright, and you? How’s, uh, Prongs?”

“Good, good,” Sirius muttered a distracted response as he sat down opposite Remus.

“Are you getting anything to drink?”

“Oh, no, I can’t today. Sorry, Moons.” The shortened nickname said in such a blasé manner nearly made him wince in discomfort. Remus sipped on his own drink to prevent any suspicions about his reaction. “And Prongs is good, you know what he’s like. Though he’s a bit more exhausted than usual with Harry and all that, but he’s happy, I think.”

It hurt; hearing Sirius address him so casually when the other had so blatantly pulled away from him. These meetings were always the same, Remus asking questions, Sirius replying with short, stunted answers and simply declining a drink, predictably being whisked away to a more pressing matter soon after their meetings commenced. It was almost sick at how much Remus had wanted Sirius to be the traitor, making that the reason as to why the other was so distant, instead of it being something between them – something that was wrong with him – that made the Black man slowly disappear from his life.

“That’s good then.” Remus responded, his head tucked down in defeat at Sirius’s fake act of friendship. “And Lily? How’s she finding it all?”

“Oh, you know, she’s being the classic Lils we know. A bit overwhelmed with juggling a baby and Order work but she seems happy, too.”

Sirius was lying.

Remus had seen the Potters just before he had left for Scotland, two weeks prior to his meeting with Sirius, and Lily hadn’t been cheerful in the slightest. She had been loving being Harry’s parent, yes, but she had mostly been worried, fear controlling her due to having a young child in such perilous times.

“I can imagine Harry’s a good distraction for her.” A small fib, but Remus couldn’t risk being truthful to the other man. “And I heard about your recent Order task, I’m sorry it went tits up, mate.”

The fact that Sirius didn’t even blink as he said those false words to him about Lily had made his heart ache. The fact that he, too, had lied so easily back. All these fake interactions had fucked with his head, Merlin. The war really had changed everyone.

“Yes, well, you win some, you lose some.” Sirius, with a tense smile, clasped his hand onto his shoulder, the strong, sudden grip causing Remus to almost stumble. “But never mind, it’ll get better. I’ve heard you’re off doing whatnot for the Order too. Good luck with your mission, Moony.”

“Cheers, Sirius.”

He couldn’t bring himself to say the old school nickname that Sirius had referred to him as. They were no longer children, even if they were barely in their twenties. No, they were warriors, soldiers, survivors. Sirius was most likely a traitor and Remus would not allow himself to give the other man the satisfaction of using such a personal name.

Remus wanted to say more; to question the other’s true intentions, to finally get the truth from the man he so greatly desired it from. To ask why. Why did Sirius betray them – betray him – after all this time? After all the years of their friendship. To understand why the other man had distanced himself from Remus for no particular reason. But Remus, the complacent coward he was, didn’t say anything else and instead kept quiet as him and Sirius held intense eye contact, searching for the lies that their mouths could speak yet their eyes couldn’t hide.

It wasn’t soon after their stare ended, with no answers in sight, that Sirius took his silence as the end of their meeting. The Black man stood up with a short grimace towards him before turning his back to him and slinking out of the pub, Remus’s eyes tracking him the entire time until he left the space.

And that was it: his interaction with his old, closest friend had whittled down to a couple of disappointing lies and half-arsed facades. Remus knew that they had mutually known that something wasn’t right between them, but they had both forced themselves to keep up appearances.

Remus let out a deep, regretful sigh and took a long swig of his disgusting whisky, wincing as the liquid hit the back of his throat. Never mind Sirius Black, he had more prevalent worries that needed to be sorted. As he continued to drink in the grimy, miserable pub, he left the thought of the Black man behind, putting him into a compartment of his mind that was never to be opened again. At least, not until the war was over.

What Remus didn’t know then was that the moment there, in that subpar Yorkshire pub, would be the last time he would see Sirius Black for fifteen years and that the Sirius he once knew would never appear again.

Their relationship, too, would be forever disfigured, with their time apart and the death of James, which Sirius would never get over, causing their friendship to become irreparable; it slowly becoming colder and colder, with them tiptoeing across eggshells when they were in each other’s company, before Sirius had died, whispering James’s name as he perished, leaving Remus alone, yet again, to fight for a cause that had taken everything from him.

///

“And anyways, we’ll make new memories together, that’s what’s important. Maybe I’ll finally beat James’s spot of being your favourite person.” Sirius quipped out in an obvious attempt to lighten what he had just said as Remus was torn back into the reality he was currently facing.

Sirius Black doesn’t care for you; he cares for his friend that you murdered. Leave before he finds out what you are and you hurt him even more.

“Fat chance of that happening, mate.” Remus’s tone fell flat when he eventually replied, the ‘mate’ leaving his mouth with a hissed bite as he chucked his cigarette down on the ground. The world began to feel too tight around him. He needed to escape from here right now. “I think I’m gonna go for a walk or something. See you later.”

His internal, degrading words kept coursing through him as he was, for once, the first one to turn his back on the other and walk away, leaving a stammering Sirius Black alone behind him.

As the space between him and the other man extended, he turned back for one final look and saw Sirius, his head hanging low in defeat with his hands gripping his hair tightly, cigarette long forgotten on the pavement beneath him. The shadows caved around his aristocratic features and made the Black man seem so incredibly delicate and mortal.

Remus mourned at the fact that he had hurt Sirius. But then again, he told himself, staying with him whilst he was in his current mindset would’ve only hurt the Black male even more.

Ripping his gaze away, he walked further and further from the pub and, when he felt he was at a safe distance, he stared up at the night – relishing a time that would always create the slightest of comfort for him. The night’s blackness was particularly opaque this night and he breathed the cool air in, as if the darkness could consume him for just a moment and he could imagine that this was all unreal and that he was just still in death, free from mortal burdens. His eyes involuntarily closed as he just stood there, basking in the blackness.

A glimmer of light flickered across his eyelids and, after it hadn’t dispersed momentarily, his eyes opened back up in curiosity. Curiosity, just like everything else, that he was soon to want to wish away, making it disappear from within him and never, ever return.

Soothing white glowed in his irises in the quietness of the night, but he was sure that the sound of another piece of his heart shattering was to be heard for miles upon miles.

A full moon taunted him from above, its light tendrils caressing his being in a sneering embrace. A tight clasp which soon saw its caresses shapeshift into sharp shards of piercing white, cutting its wisps into his flesh and deeply hacking indiscernible wounds into him and slicing his skin, his ever so clean, unblemished skin, tracing over the now-invisible scars that had been carved into it in his prior life.

His whole body tingled, and it was as if seeing the moon made it yearn for the horrid transformation into a lycanthrope that Remus knew would never come anymore. His mind pined for it too, if he was honest, but he shoved that thought deep into a tomb of his heart and buried it away like he always did.

His eyes were unable to move from the white orb in the sky and, if Remus focused his hearing, he could discern that somewhere in the distance, a wolf was howling in anguish, as if it was mourning for the death of the lycanthrope that used to be inside Remus. The howls haunted him as he continued walking into the darkness of the night, and he promised himself that he would keep going until the yowls eventually diminished. They didn’t, only getting shriller as his blood pumped faster and faster around his body.

It was only when he could barely stand up straight that Remus Lupin could admit that the howling was, in fact, the inexistent wolf inside him, whining grief-stricken whimpers that made his stomach curl in painful coils. It was such a haunting sound that Remus Lupin felt sympathy towards the monster that had plagued him his entire life and craved that it would return.

The reality was that it would never return and, as he was able to stare at the glowing full moon for the first time since he had been bitten without worries about turning into a werewolf controlling his every thought, he knew that nothing would remain the same.

Eventually managing to tear his gaze away from the bewitching moon, he found himself looking into the shadows of the late night, wishing that Death would show him some mercy and encase him, this time once and for all. It didn’t. Instead, the howls persisted and warbled on and on and on until he couldn’t take it any longer, apparating back to his makeshift room in Sirius’s flat long after the wintry chill of the night had rooted itself deep within his bones.

Remus thought perhaps the yowls would disappear once he was within the four walls, but they lingered. He lay in his bed, mattress so soft that he couldn’t fight the feeling to relax, where the pained howls eventually turned into dull whimpers that lulled him into a sleep full of ghosts and lycanthropes and horrid, torturous nightmares.

When he awoke the next morning in a cold, terrified sweat, he was almost relieved until he heard a flicker of a whimper. Oh Merlin, they hadn’t stopped; the tiny cries, muted but there nonetheless, were laced with pained weeping and icy hatred.

Just as he began to think they would forever haunt him as he lay in Sirius’s flat, the low, longing howls stopped, leaving him to deal with the unbearable silence, once again. The quiet, absolute aloneness that had encompassed Remus since he could remember returned and his mood, already depleted, diminished into a deep, aching tiredness at the thought of playing yet another facade – with Death, with his dead friends, with himself.

You’ll never be alone in this, I promise.

Sirius’s words plagued him. But he would be alone, wouldn’t he?

Remus Lupin had always been intended for aloneness; a destiny cruelly gifted to him by a scheming, sly fate. He was forever a vagabond of life who stumbled his way between people, clasping onto them before they were ripped away from him after he had ruined them with his troubled misfortune. And now, with his lycanthropy gone, even the curse that his life was eternally bound to had been torn away from him too. 

You’ll never be alone in this.

I promise.

But… what if, in Death’s illusion, he could escape this loneliness? What if, just for a brief moment – even if it were to be as short as a second – he could finally beat this soul sucking isolation?

What if…

Remus had never allowed himself the space to combat the loneliness for, in his old life, he never had a chance to breathe before the next loss occurred. But here, in this alternate place, everything seemed so calm, so free of the tumultuousness that he was so used to dealing with.

Remus Lupin, the pessimistic hard-beaten man he was, was now faced with a dilemma; an internal battle where his prior life’s disturbances struggled against the ‘what ifs’ that his dead friends’ presence had dared to ignite in his mind. And, just for an instant, Remus permitted himself to think that, whether real or not, he really fucking loved their company here.

But, as soon as the thought was there, it was rapidly gone, and Remus Lupin let the all-consuming loneliness return once more as he laid down in Sirius Black’s flat in 1986, mentally preparing himself for another day of lies and deception, the small ‘what ifs’ alluringly whispering in the back of his head, tempting him with something more dangerous than what he had faced in years: Hope.

A tiny, treacherous flicker of hope lingered like a sticky trail of persistent honey, the feeling leaving its adhesive residues and making it impossible to unstick them from his mind. The feeling, the hope, that what if here, alongside his dead friends, he, too, could possibly allow himself to feel happiness again.