a summer’s day
Remus could count on one hand the things he knew about Sirius Black.
Index finger: he was a Black.
Obvious, of course, but it was more than just a last name. It was a legacy. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Easily the wealthiest, oldest, most pretentious family at Hogwarts, a name that even his muggleborn mother shuddered to hear. And, to be quite honest, Remus himself did too.
Middle finger: He was a Gryffindor.
This one went hand in hand with the first, in a way. It was in no way abnormal or particularly special to be a Gryffindor, as much as his fellow Gryffindors may object to Remus’s analysis. They were a quarter of the school, after all. The weird part was a Black Gryffindor. Remus remembered the moment of Sirius’s sorting in even vivider detail than his own, the hush that fell over the hall when the sorting hat called out Gryffindor, the way Sirius’s face paled and dropped, before breaking into a tentative, almost mischievous smile as he shuffled over to the Gryffindor table to sit beside James. Of course it was James.
Ring finger: He was best friends with James Potter.
Remus had rarely ever seen one without the other. The pair were attached at the hip. At any party in the Gryffindor common room (which, to be fair, Remus rarely ever attended) the two could be seen conspiring in a corner together, giggling, drunk not so much on the bottles of liquor scattered about the rug as on the sheer joy of friendship. They were brothers in all but blood, and everyone knew it. This wouldn’t be particularly notable if not for Sirius’s real brother, another Black sauntering through Hogwarts’ halls, a mini version of Sirius with an uncanny resemblance to his older brother, but a stiff pretentiousness that was as far from James and Sirius’s giggly nonchalance as could be.
Pinky: He was an insufferable troublemaker.
Remus was biased. He knew that. But how could he not be, when Lily Evans had spent so many hours complaining to him about their behavior, the way that Potter was following her around like a lost puppy, asking her out once a week, terrorizing her other friend, Severus, who… alright, Remus himself wasn’t particularly crazy about, but still. No one deserved to get terrorized the way those pests terrorized the boy, obnoxious or not.
And that was just the start of it. Hexing Slytherins in the halls, sneaking out past curfew on a nightly basis, slipping Veritaserum into the liquor before a game of truth or dare in the Gryffindor common room (Remus thanked Merlin every day that he wasn’t present for that). In his five full years at Hogwarts, Gryffindor hadn’t won the house cup once, and if they never did, Remus would be holding those two personally responsible. Everyone else would, too, but they would never say it, because James and Sirius were too popular and funny and charismatic and handsome to be held responsible for anything.
Thumb: He was… interesting looking.
From an aesthetic standpoint, as one would observe a work of art, Remus appreciated the way Sirius Black looked. Pale, porcelain skin, jet-black wavy hair that reached just past his chin, a strong jawline and nose that added just the right amount of masculinity to his features. Always decked out in Doc Martens and rings and every possible accessory that pushed the Hogwarts dress code to its very limits. The palest silver eyes Remus had ever seen, an intense gaze that cut like a knife with something reptilian, snakelike, in it, though Remus was sure Sirius would despise the description.
It was those Black genes.
And the last thing: Sirius had sat down right next to him in year six muggle studies.
He supposed that would have to be his other index finger. Alright, so two hands.
More specifically, it was a muggle poetry class, something that Remus himself was fascinated by but saw no reason for Sirius to take his own interest in. Firstly, because neither James nor any of their other obnoxious, Quidditch-jock friends were in the class. Secondly, because the Blacks were notorious pureblood supremacists, and okay, Remus knew that Sirius had distanced himself from the rest of his family, but still. Most of his friend group was still pureblood, and even if he didn’t think muggleborns below him, it was still rare for a wizard to have any appreciation for muggle-created art, no matter its beauty. The way other students frequently scoffed at Remus’s collection of cassette tapes and muggle books was evidence enough of that.
Remus had planned ahead and found all of his classrooms the night before, so on the first day of class, he was sitting in muggle poetry ten minutes before its start. He took a seat right in the middle of the classroom, where he wouldn’t be noticed or called upon. There were two chairs per table, a setup which Remus absolutely despised, and he placed his backpack on the seat beside him, hoping that there would be an odd number of students and he could get away with having a table to himself. It was a literature class, after all. It wasn’t as if he’d need a lab partner.
So he sat there in the middle of the class, pretending to read the textbook but really just staring down at it and letting his mind wander as the rest of the students filed into the room, avoiding eye contact with the teacher. He must have been new. Remus hadn’t seen him around before.
He was just beginning to think he’d gotten away with his one-person table plan as the clock neared the start of class, when heavy, boot-clad footsteps stopped right next to his seat. His heart sank and he reached over to grab his bag off the seat.
“Hey.”
His hand froze briefly in the air. He recognized the voice immediately, confident, careless, with just the tiniest hint of a stiff, unidentifiable accent that had been painstakingly suppressed.
“Anyone sitting here?”
He shrugged and gave a noncommittal grunt.
“Um, what was that?”
“No, go ahead,” Remus said, his bookbag now awkwardly positioned on his lap.
“Thanks, mate,” came the cheerful response as he settled into the seat and tossed his own backpack onto the table before them with a careless thunk. He unzipped his bag and shuffled through it, mumbling quietly to himself as Remus continued to stare down his own book, pretending not to listen. His seatmate finally found the textbook for the class, pulled it out onto the desk and threw his bag onto the ground to lean against the table leg.
“Remus, right?”
Remus finally looked up to meet Sirius Black’s silver eyes, boring into his with an innocent friendliness that Remus found it hard to trust. He’d never been this close to the other boy before, never seen the little darker flecks in his irises like rust or the thick black lashes framing them.
“Huh?” said Remus, though he’d heard Sirius just fine. He just didn’t know how it was that Sirius Black knew his name when the two had barely interacted outside huge group hangouts that Remus did everything in his power to avoid.
“You are Remus, right? Remus Lupin? Gryffindor?”
His full name? What the hell?
“Yeah,” Remus said.
“Yeah, I thought I recognized you.”
An awkward pause.
“I’m Sirius. Sirius Black.”
“Yeah, I know,” Remus said, then internally cringed.
Sirius smiled, though it was a bit tense. “Well, nice. Y’know-”
There was a clap in the front of the room, and Remus had never in his life been so thankful for a teacher.
Ten minutes into class and said teacher, Professor Keating, had them ripping pages out of their textbooks. Remus was a bit baffled by the order, given that he’d actually been hoping to learn about muggle poetry and not rip it up, but Sirius, characteristically, was the first to follow it, ripping a page out with slow, languid drama to the professor's loud approval. The rest of the class followed suit, laughing, the nervous first-day energy slowly draining from the room as the ripping continued.
Seemingly not satisfied enough with destroying his own book, Sirius turned to face Remus, settling a disapproving gaze on his unharmed textbook.
“Why aren’t you ripping?” he said.
Remus didn’t particularly want to rip the page out, but he also didn’t want to cause a fuss, so he settled on a simple, silent shrug.
“Merlin, don’t be a killjoy,” said Sirius, reaching out across Remus, a firm arm pressing against Remus’s robes, to pull the first page out with a dramatic tearing noise.
“Sirius!” Remus said, flustered to suddenly have this boy’s inky black hair in front of his face, his body practically invading his space. It felt far too familiar, yelling his name like that as if they were friends, but Sirius didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Remus!” he said, in the exact same tone. He leaned back to face Remus, silver eyes sparkling with mirth. “Go on, rip. I’ve already ruined it.”
Remus felt a tinge of annoyance at Sirius’s endearing grin, his pandering attempts to include Remus in his fun. He held Sirius’s gaze as he pulled out the next page, as slowly and boringly as possible, keeping his expression deadpan although he felt the inexplicable urge to smile as well. Sirius’s own smile faded throughout the process. When the page was out, Remus crushed it into a ball and lightly threw it at Sirius. It bounced right off of his cheek. Sirius blinked.
“There. Ripped,” Remus said.
The Black boy stared right back at him with his own deadpan look, almost like he was trying to contend with Remus’s, but his eyes shined with that same mirth, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards sporadically. Finally, having seemingly lost the battle with a smile, he broke out into a grin and shook his head. “You’re weird,” he scoffed.
Remus had the strange urge to smile at what should have been an insult but from Sirius, felt like a compliment. He let himself smile back, just a tiny bit, before turning his attention back to his book and carefully ripping the next page out.
There were only a few seconds of peace before Sirius was disturbing it again, nudging his arm with his elbow.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Bet I can hit him.”
Remus followed Sirius’s concentrated gaze to the front left corner of the room, to a tall, blonde Slytherin, who was sitting stiffly and had yet to rip a single page out.
Remus cringed. The boy was about as tall as himself, but strong, built like a beater. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he said uselessly.
Sirius ignored him, grinning, and balled up the paper as tight as possible. “Check it out,” he told Remus, who simply shook his head but voiced no more protest. Sirius threw it, with more force behind the arm than Remus thought necessary. His aim was impressively true, the paper cutting straight through the loud chaos of the classroom to bounce right off of the back of the boy’s blonde head. Sirius knocked his arm against Remus playfully, hissing a victorious “yess,” and Remus thought he must really be missing Potter to be behaving so familiarly with some boy he hardly even knew.
Sirius’s victim turned around, rubbing his hair with a scowl that seemed to deepen even further when he met Sirius’s gaze. Sirius grinned in response, wiggling his fingers at the boy in a mocking wave, and the boy simply shook his head with a dramatic sigh and turned back around.
It had taken Remus a moment to recognize him, trying to place where he’d seen those angry features before before connecting him to the quidditch pitch, attending Slytherin-Gryffindor quidditch games with Peter when the pair became bored enough. It was Evan Rosier. A fellow sixth year, Slytherin, quidditch beater, and notorious pureblood supremacist.
“What’s he doing in a muggle studies class?”
Remus mumbled. He was in the habit of talking to himself, but Sirius, understandably so, took it as aimed at him.
“I know, right?” Sirius said. “Who fucking knows. Merlin, what a prat.”
Professor Keating reconvened the class before they could continue to talk bad about Evan, which Remus was slightly relieved by.
After the rest of the class period, which had at least renewed Remus’s faith that they would actually be reading poems and not just ripping them and throwing them around the classroom, Remus gathered his things together and hurried out of the room. He wasn’t late for anything, but sometimes he pretended to be as he found it deterred others from engaging him in conversation. Only when he was halfway down the corridor and well on his way to the Gryffindor common room did he slow his pace.
“He was a weird professor, huh?” Sirius’s voice came out of nowhere, and Remus tried not to start at how he’d just seemingly appeared at his side.
He shrugged noncommittally, hoping to deter Sirius with bland conversation. “Yeah,” he said.
“He seemed cool though, right? I mean, ‘Carpe Diem.’ ‘The human race is filled with passion.’” He imitated the professor’s energetic tone.
“Yeah,” Remus said again. “I liked him.”
“You like poetry, right? I mean, you know poets and stuff?”
“Er,” Remus said. He had no idea where Sirius was going with this, or even why he was walking with him at that moment. “A little, I guess. I’m not an expert.”
“Do you know, uh- Jacques Pervert? He’s a poet, right?”
"Jacques Prevert?" Remus said incredulously. Sirius's ridiculous pronunciation aside, he wondered where he would have heard of the muggle poet. "Sure, he's a poet. I've read some of him."
“And Charles Baudelaire? You know him?”
“Of course,” said Remus. The real question was, he thought, how did Sirius know these people? Any muggle would know them, but a wizard? A Black, no less?
“You think we’ll read a lot of them in class?”
"Maybe," said Remus. "They're pretty well known, among muggles at least." He paused. “You want to learn about them?”
“Well, yeah,” said Sirius. “I guess I just wanna learn more about muggle poets, y’know? Thought it’d be interesting. I’m a member of the human race, after all. I’m filled with passion. I’d like to think so, at least.”
Something about Sirius referring to himself as “full of passion” had flustered Remus a bit, especially when he glanced over to find those silver eyes looking right into his own earnestly. Against his will, his cheeks began to heat up. Damn those Black looks. Why couldn’t all Blacks be ugly?
His mind was racing for a response to the ridiculous statement when a familiar figure, messy hair and round glasses, rounded the corner, bellowing, “Sirius!”
In a moment, Sirius was whisked away, calling a “see you later, Remus,” behind his shoulder as the two walked off, steps bouncing with lively energy that was exhausting just to look at.
Remus had never been so grateful for James Potter in his life.
“Sirius Black?” Peter asked incredulously, in the safety of their room.
“God, he’s friends with that dreadful James Potter,” Lily mumbled. She was perched on Peter’s bed, chin resting on her knees, painted toes hanging over the edge.
“I know,” said Remus. “I know, he’s a prat. I’m just saying, why would he be taking a muggle poetry class?”
“Why are you taking a muggle poetry class?” Peter asked. He had been lying back on his bed, reading some school book, but had set it aside and sat up a bit when Remus entered.
“Because I like it.”
Peter raised his hands in a “there you go” gesture.
“Oh, come on,” said Remus. “He’s a Black.”
“Is he even a Black, though?” Lily said thoughtfully. “I mean, I hear he lives with the Potters now. When was the last time you saw him hanging around his actual family? His brother goes here, for God’s sake, have you ever even seen the two of them within thirty feet of each other?” She shook her head to make her point. “No, I think he’s out of that family. He’s gotta be.”
“So he’s rebelling against the pureblood stuff by taking a muggle class,” said Peter.
“Guys, guys,” Remus said quickly, trying to corral them back to his point. “It’s Sirius Black. The guy who turned all of the Slytherin banners pink for the Quidditch cup that one year? Come on. Him? James Potter’s best friend? Reading poetry?”
Lily and Peter exchanged a look that Remus couldn’t decipher.
“Not everyone is as sophisticated and cultured as you, Remus,” said Peter.
“Oh, shut it,” said Remus. “I don’t mean it like that. I just mean… it was just weird. He was all friendly with me. Like we know each other.”
“Some people are just like that, Remus,” Lily said, her voice taking on a slightly gentler tone. “He’s just an outgoing person.”
Remus groaned, flopping back onto his bed to stare up at the ceiling. “He’s never even spoken to me- nobody does, really- and now, all of a sudden, he’s acting like we’re best mates. Like I’m James Potter. And he’s in a muggle poetry class. I mean, come on! It’s strange.”
At the lack of response, Remus lifted his head a bit to gaze at his friends, who were looking at each other. He was beginning to feel left out from his spot, like he was missing out on whatever silent looks Peter and Lily were exchanging on Peter’s bed.
“Hey,” he said. “What are you guys thinking?”
Peter blushed and had the courtesy to look guilty, while Lily merely shrugged and returned her gaze to Remus calmly. “It’s just strange that you care so much.”
“I don’t- ugh,” Remus grabbed a fistful of his hair and dropped his head back down. He didn’t know.
There was a long moment of silence.
“Maybe he’s a poet,” said Peter suddenly.
Remus had to scoff at the thought of Sirius Black writing poetry, reading it aloud. The words would sound unnatural, stilted, in his casual tone. He’d make a mockery of it.
“Sirius, a poet? Give me a break,” Remus said. “No, he has some other reason to be in that class. He’s up to something. I know it.”
“Well, you’re not getting anywhere else with this tonight,” said Peter. “So are we going to go see the Quidditch match or not?”
Sirius Black prevented Remus from paying any attention to the Quidditch match. Ironic, because Sirius himself was playing.
Not that Remus cared at all for the sport. He only attended Quidditch matches when his friends wanted to, and even then, he’d often bring a book and focus on that instead, checking the scoreboard every once and a while and acting disappointed if Gryffindor lost. This time, though, he wasn’t staring at a book but the actual match, the players darting about in the sky like fruitflies, and letting his mind wander to class that day.
Jacques Prevert and Charles Baudelaire. Why did Sirius want to read about them? They were two very specific poets for him to be interested in. Why? Were they the reason he was in the class?
He then thought about that blonde boy who Sirius had thrown the paper at. Evan. Remus couldn’t point him out in the sky to save his life, but he knew that he was there. Was there some rivalry there, something deeper than the typical Slytherin-Gryffindor pettiness? Something like whatever was going on between Snape and James over Lily (who didn’t care one bit for either of them, not that that deterred them). Could he have found out about Evan taking the class and taken it to get back at him?
Merlin, this was pathetic. Someone is friendly with him once and he launches a full-scale investigation.
He resigned himself to stop worrying about it and pay attention to the game, and, in focusing his eyes back on the game and trying to work out what was going on, they instantly landed on a mane of black curls hot on another player’s tail.
Sirius.
Merlin help him.
He squinted. He couldn’t be sure- he wasn’t familiar enough with the other boy- but the player Sirius was chasing could very well be Evan. He had the hair and build to match.
Lily nudged him suddenly, breaking his gaze away from the pair.
“I think he sees the snitch,” she said, pointing at another, smaller figure in the sky.
Regulus Black was quite like the snitch itself, small, easy to miss, darting around quickly and hovering about like a hummingbird. If Remus knew one thing about Quidditch, it was that when Regulus spotted the snitch, the game was practically over.
And it was only a minute later. Regulus was on the ground, the snitch in his hand, and the Gryffindors were descending with defeated posture and shaking their heads. The moment their feet touched the ground, James and Sirius were by each other, talking animatedly, seeming disappointed but not so much as the rest of the players. Remus wondered if each other’s presence was enough to keep their spirits up.
His eyes went back to Regulus, who looked comically bored for someone surrounded by a giddy group of students hailing him a hero. Evan was standing the closest to him, ruffling his black curls- shorter than Sirius’s- and saying something to him.
“Well,” Lily said, standing up with a sigh and drawing Remus’s attention. “No party in the common room tonight, then.”
Remus wasn’t even going to pretend to be disappointed.
The next few classes passed with no excitement. Sirius still sat beside him every day, was still irritatingly friendly, and continued to bother Evan at every moment possible. Despite the drama between the two of them, which Remus tried his hardest not to get involved in, Remus was beginning to truly enjoy the class, so much so that he began to look forward to it more than any other time of day, not even dinner with Peter and Lily.
The first of these reasons was easy- Remus loved Professor Keating. He was like no professor that Remus had ever had. He’d liked him after that first class, when he forced them to gather round and talked about the passion behind poetry, he’d liked him when he taught about Whitman and sounding your “victorious yawp,” and when he told them to seize the day- Carpe Diem, a phrase which Sirius had taken to quoting quite often- but the moment Remus had decided that Professor Keating was truly the best teacher he’d ever had was the morning of their fifth class together, when he walked into the room to see a few album covers mounted to the wall. It was a strange decor choice for a school where most students wouldn’t even know the artists or bands displayed, much less what to do with a record in their hands. But, the professor was a muggle studies teacher, and the room was his to decorate however he wanted. And, Remus decided, he had amazing taste in music. The first he spotted, of course, was David Bowie, who made a few appearances on the wall, including Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, and Hunky Dory. His absolute favorite artist. Not even Lily, his only muggleborn friend, shared his love of Bowie, leaning herself more towards the slower, easier melodies of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Joan Baez. She was also a Beatlemaniac, a fact which she would blush at and fervently deny if confronted about it. But Remus had been in her room, had seen the John Lennon posters hanging on her wall. And the magazine cover hidden away in her Hogwarts dresser.
Anyway. Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited was up there- no surprise that a poet would be a fan of Dylan. A couple of really good ones: T. Rex, Blondie, Lou Reed, Led Zeppelin, Heart, Queen. There were only a few that he didn’t recognize- one of which particularly caught his eye. It was green, with a scary-looking drawing of an electric chair right in the middle. A yellow serif font at the bottom declared: Face The Music.
It creeped Remus out. He immediately wanted to listen to it.
Sirius came in as Remus was thinking about the albums and how cool Professor Keating was, plopping down into the seat beside him with all the elegance of Hagrid. And there was the other reason that Remus was starting to enjoy the class- something he was loath to admit. He liked the company of Sirius Black.
He was not the sort of person Remus typically liked at all. Remus liked to shrink, he liked to shy away from attention. He did not enjoy being looked at- hell, he didn’t like being thought about. Sirius was the complete opposite. He walked into a room and sucked all the attention out of it. He made a point to stand out, with his heavy Doc Martin steps and jingly necklaces and bracelets, his jet-black mass of waves, charcoal lined silver eyes that demanded attention and shone just like the real metal. He was someone Remus would avoid purely to prevent attracting attention to himself by association.
However, Sirius had left him no choice. Sitting down next to him, whispering to him throughout class, attempting to involve him in whatever schemes he was hatching to bother Evan. It seemed Sirius had decided that he wanted Remus to be his friend. And what Sirius Black wanted, Sirius Black got.
Remus still would never hang around him outside the class. In fact, he made a point to reject any of Sirius’s invitations to hang out, and barely return his waves and hellos in the Hogwarts halls. But he had to admit, in the safety of this one classroom, under the authority of Professor Keating, the sanctity of muggle studies- he was beginning to like Sirius Black.
On that particular day- the day of the album covers- Sirius settled into his seat without a greeting to Remus, a bit peculiar given his typical behavior. Remus glanced over to find the other boy’s pale eyes directed upwards, at the album covers hanging over the blackboard. Remus frowned. Could Sirius actually know them?
Sirius seemed to have noticed Remus’s staring and gave him a peculiar look. “Um, hey?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Remus shook his head and turned back to face the front of the classroom.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Sirius said, gesturing to the records. “I mean, David Bowie.”
That caught Remus’s attention. He fixed his gaze back on Sirius the moment the name left his mouth. “You like David Bowie?”
Sirius met his gaze with the matching urgency, eyes lit up. “You like David Bowie?”
They nodded, simultaneously answering the other’s question, and Sirius’s face broke out into the brightest grin Remus had ever seen on it. Unbidden, his own expression followed suit. One of Sirius’s teeth, Remus noticed- the one to the direct left of his front tooth- was just the tiniest bit crooked. It added an extra something to his smile, something that made it more authentic, sweeter, even. He didn’t look like a Black at all like this.
“...I mean, none of my friends like Bowie,” he was saying. “Well, they like him because I like him, but they’re not real fans, y’know?”
“Not even your- uh, James?” Remus asked, having pulled his eyes away from Sirius’s smile to pay attention to his words.
“He’s more of an Abba guy,” said Sirius.
“Ugh,” Remus said with a shudder before he could even think about it. He froze, suddenly horrified with himself, wondering if an insult to the great James Potter’s music taste would ruin the potential of any friendship with Sirius. Not that he wanted to be friends with Sirius. “I mean, uh, sorry-”
“Don’t be sorry, you’re right,” Sirius mumbled, shaking his head. Then, seeming to have the same horrified realization as Remus, straightened up and looked right into Remus with pink cheeks. “Oh, Merlin, don’t ever tell him I said that.”
Remus had no plans to ever socialize with James Potter, but he mimed zipping his lips closed for Sirius’s sake.
“I’m trusting you with that,” Sirius added. “I’m telling you, that could be a friendship ender.”
“Oh, come on,” Remus said, rolling his eyes. As if anything could be a friendship ender for those two. “Be serious.”
He paused. It took him a moment to realize why the word sounded so funny and wrong in this particular conversation.
“I’m always Sirius!” Sirius nearly shouted, with all the glee of someone repeating a joke he’d said a thousand times before to someone who’d never heard it.
Remus groaned. He’d never heard it, sure, but anyone could have predicted it. The delighted grin on Sirius’s face, that crooked tooth, was almost enough to make it endearing. Almost.
“But Bowie,” Sirius said, nudging Remus with his elbow to bring him back to the prior conversation. “What’s your favorite song?”
“‘Lady Stardust,’” Remus said instantly.
Sirius’s ensuing smirk was almost mischievous, amused by something about the answer, like he knew something that Remus didn’t. “Good one,” he said. “Mine’s 'Five Years,' I think.”
“Oh, I love that one.”
“Swear to Merlin, I had a poster of him on my wall for like, an entire summer,” Sirius said. “David Bowie, I mean. Mother was so angry when she found it.” He laughed and shook his head as if he were regaling some funny tale. “I honestly think that’s why I ran away.”
Remus smiled, though the story had more intrigued than entertained him. He had a poster of David Bowie on his own wall at home, though it was for more reasons than just the music. There were plenty of reasons to appreciate David Bowie, and he wondered, briefly, if Sirius himself would understand these reasons.
No, he wouldn’t. Remus was being silly.
Anyways, there were more interesting details from the story than just the Bowie poster. So he had run away from home. Remus had been pretty sure about it, but now it was confirmed. And his mother was angry about the Bowie poster. He almost wanted to shudder, imagining what it must have been like to live in a home with the Black matriarch. He’d never seen her, but he imagined her to be something like an older, female version of Regulus- small and delicate, but with a stiff air of pretentiousness and a sharp snakelike gaze that made one’s blood run cold. Remus’s parents weren’t perfect, but at least they weren’t scary.
Sirius seemed to want to talk more about David Bowie, looking towards Remus expectantly, but before Remus could come up with some way to continue the conversation, Professor Keating clapped his hands and announced the start of class.
They were going to be reading poems that day, the professor explained, a prospect that frightened Remus even more than extended conversation with Sirius Black.
“I’ll only be asking volunteers to read aloud,” Professor Keating added, his gaze settled on Remus. He must have seen the way Remus had tensed up at the prospect. Remus glanced over to find Sirius looking at him curiously, and his cheeks flushed. He must have noticed as well. Sirius, at least, seemed similarly embarrassed to have been caught staring, directing his attention right back to the front the moment their eyes met.
Professor Keating, quite awkwardly, seemed to have taken note of their silent interaction, and only looked away from their table in the center of the room after a beat too long had gone by. “Please open your sonnet books to page 72.”
Remus flipped to the page in the sonnet book, which the professor had handed out a few days ago. He smirked, reading the title of the sonnet before him. He knew this one. Everyone did. No one was going to want to read it aloud.
“Now,” the professor said when loud paper-flipping noises had ceased. “Do I have a volunteer to read this sonnet for the class?”
In the absence of rustling paper and whispering, a tense silence hung heavy over the classroom. Nobody was going to embarrass themselves by reading a sonnet aloud, even those who didn’t know this particular one. He glanced over at Sirius, who was scanning the paper before him, brows furrowed in careful thought. He looked up, seemingly having completed his scan of the poem, his eyes glinting with some idea, and… Merlin, no.
Remus had the urge to bury his head in his arms when Sirius’s hand shot up next to him. Of course.
The smile on Professor Keating’s face was almost knowing. “Mr. Black,” he said. “You’d like to give it a go?”
“Yes, professor,” said Sirius, grinning, teeming with excitement.
Remus shook his head minutely. If anyone was going to do this, he figured, at least it was Sirius. He was easily the most popular Gryffindor in the class- probably the most popular person, along with Evan and a Ravenclaw quidditch player- and Remus had come to find that one could get away with anything as long as they’re well-liked, rich, and attractive. All qualities Sirius possessed, along with his complete and utter lack of shame.
“Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Black,” said Professor Keating.
Remus returned his gaze to the poem on the page in front of him, not looking forward to whatever butchery Sirius was going to make of it. He couldn’t even imagine that voice reading poetry elegantly, the way it’s meant to be read. It was like he’d said earlier. Sirius Black was no poet. He was almost certainly going to make a joke out of it.
Sirius cleared his throat dramatically, still seated. “Shall-”
“Mr. Black,” Professor Keating cut him off almost instantly, raising a hand.
Remus wanted to thank him. Just hearing the one word had been enough.
“We’re not reading a potions recipe, Mr. Black,” said Professor Keating. “This is poetry. Do you remember why we read and write poetry?”
“Because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion,” Sirius said instantly. He was watching the professor intently, with an uncharacteristic earnestness in his gaze, nodding along with him.
Professor Keating’s eyes had practically lit up at Sirius’s perfect quotation. Remus himself had to admit, he was a bit impressed. That class was weeks ago.
“Exactly,” said the professor. “So, stand up.”
Sirius complied immediately.
“And read it with passion.”
Sirius nodded, seeming less excited now, but more set, that eyes glinting, brows furrowed expression that meant he was about to do something significant. The look that made Remus nervous.
Then, bewilderingly, he turned to look down at Remus.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
What the fuck.
Sirius looked back down at the book.
“Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
His usually grating voice had taken on a softer, more natural tone. That natural accent that he had been suppressing was edging its way to the forefront, the breathy R’s giving his voice a distinctly French flair. He was smiling a little bit, silver eyes gleaming, but there was nothing goofy or mischievous about it. It was all passion. It was all poetry.
He was glancing, inexplicably, down at Remus every few moments, between lines.
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
He hadn’t faltered or stuttered a moment.
There was a long beat of silence after he concluded, the class still stuck in the moment, in the poem itself, and Sirius’s expression remained focused down at the page, still right there with them.
Then, Sirius broke out into a grin and looked up, and like a rubber band stretched too thin, the moment snapped. The class broke into a sporadic, silly round of applause, students giggling and whispering to each other, a few students reaching across the classroom to pat him on the arm or shoulder. Professor Keating looked absolutely delighted at the front of the room.
“Well done, Mr. Black, well done!” he said.
Sirius gave an overconfident, frankly ridiculous, little bow while the class remained in its excited frenzy, students talking amongst themselves, Evan and the Slytherins scoffing in the front of the room.
“So,” Sirius huffed, plopping back down onto his seat, his voice returning to its natural, annoying state. He nudged Remus and stared right at him like he hadn’t just done something completely insane. Grinning proudly, having transitioned seamlessly from Sirius Black the French poet back to the Sirius Black everyone knew- popular, rebellious, quidditch chaser, troublemaker with a crooked-toothed smile that could knock someone out. “What’d you think?”
Remus was rendered speechless. Still in the moment.
“It was good,” Remus choked out.
If possible, Sirius’s grin got bigger, and his shoulders seemed to slump a bit in relief, almost like he’d been anticipating Remus’s answer. “Nice,” he said. He turned back to face the front of the class, and Remus, still staring at Sirius’s face, may have imagined the way his cheeks had pinkened at Remus’s minute praise.
Remus found it hard to focus for the rest of the class. The rest of the day, even. It was stupid, and bewildering, but he couldn’t stop thinking of Sirius Black and his crooked toothed grin, his slight French accent.
Still in the moment.