an idea
"A California song,
A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air,
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads departing,
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the Earth and sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense."
By the next morning, Remus had come to regret the gift.
It wasn’t that Sirius hadn’t liked it. Remus had no way of knowing that yet, but it was precisely that element that was getting to him, the not knowing . Perhaps Sirius had thought the gift silly. Perhaps he’d tossed it aside and laughed about it with James and the pair were planning on some cruel humiliation for his assumption that Sirius Black would want anything to do with his gifts.
Or, perhaps he’d loved it too much, and had taken it as an offer of friendship rather than an apology, and now expected that Remus would hang around with his friends and talk about poetry with him all the time.
Remus wasn’t sure which option was more horrifying.
Peter had to practically drag him to breakfast that morning, insisting over and over that if Sirius had never initiated an interaction with him at breakfast before, he wouldn’t suddenly start now. As it turned out, he’d had nothing to worry about, as Sirius hadn’t even shown up. Peculiarly, James was there, sitting instead with a few of his and Sirius’s other friends, including that blonde punk-looking girl that Remus had deemed to be Sirius’s girlfriend. He’d never had any official confirmation on the idea, but she was the only person Sirius really spent one-on-one time with that wasn’t James. She was very pretty, and seemed to match Sirius’s energy well- that same rebellious, cool look as opposed to James’s more jock-y, popular appearance. Besides, the idea of any girl spending as much time with Sirius as she did without catching feelings was simply absurd. He was handsome and at least somewhat charming. The type of boy that anyone would fall for. At least, that’s how Remus surmised a girl would feel about him.
Anyway. He wasn’t at breakfast, which had been both a great relief and a source of confusion. Was he sick? Would he be in poetry class later? Could the book have anything to do with his absence? Could it be he was nervous to talk to Sirius as well?
This absurd train of thought was thankfully interrupted at the arrival of the mail, in which an unfamiliar owl came through and dumped a letter in front of Lily, a charmless white envelope which flopped unceremoniously onto her plate.
She picked it up cautiously, as if it were some dangerous item. LILY was scrawled on the front in inelegant print, pencil smudged across the bright white paper. Undoubtedly the work of a muggle, and Remus already knew exactly which one.
“Oh,” Lily said softly.
“Your sister?” Peter asked through a mouthful of eggs, having put his fork down at the arrival of the letter.
She nodded, and placed it in the inside pocket of her robe hastily before anyone could look her way. “I’ll read it later,” she said dismissively, her tone casual, but Remus could hear a slight shake in her voice.
“I can be with you when you read it,” he whispered to her. “If you want.”
Lily said nothing, but smiled and nodded gratefully at him. Letters from her sister tended to be difficult and were rarely read through without at least a few tears. Which Remus was absolutely horrible at dealing with, but Lily was his friend and he knew she at least appreciated his efforts each time.
The anxiety from breakfast, which had faded at Sirius’s absence, had returned in full swing at the start of poetry class, and Remus found himself sitting there, twiddling his thumbs and dreading the arrival of those loud Doc Martens. He arrived to class ten minutes early, as usual, and was at least able to comfort himself with the knowledge that should Sirius arrive, Remus had plenty of time to prepare for it. It was just as he was brainstorming what to say- whether he should address the book, whether he should apologize for yelling at him, what to do if Sirius didn’t like the book- that the heavy, jingly footsteps began approaching his table. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound. He never arrived this early. Remus kept his head down and tried not to betray any emotion at all.
Sirius flopped down onto his seat with his usual obnoxious inelegance, tossing his book bag to the ground, and as he sat there, fiddling with something in his arms, Remus allowed himself a glance over and nearly did a double take.
Sirius looked terrible. Not terrible terrible- a person of his facial structure could never truly look bad- but he looked exhausted, cheekbones sticking out a little more than usual, deep bags under his eyes. Nevertheless, he was grinning, single crooked tooth on full display, chest heaving like he’d ran all the way to class.
Remus let out some noise of surprise before he could stop himself.
“I know, I look terrible,” Sirius said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But listen- I was up all night last night.”
“Er- okay?” Remus stammered.
Sirius slammed something down on the table in front of them, and Remus immediately recognized the bright green cover of his copy of Leaves of Grass. Sirius’s backpack sat on the floor beside him, still zipped shut. Which meant that Sirius had just been walking around the halls with the book in his hands.
“I was reading it all night,” Sirius said.
“So you liked it?”
“I fucking loved it .”
Remus finally allowed himself to meet Sirius’s gaze. The embarrassment was beginning to fade, and he returned Sirius’s smile with some caution.
“Really makes you want to visit America though, huh? All that stuff about the redwoods?”
“My mother’s been there,” said Remus. “She says the trees are as big as buildings. Like skyscrapers.”
“She’s been to America?” Sirius seemed intrigued by the idea.
Remus shrugged. He’d never felt any particular urge to visit America, despite Whitman’s poetic descriptions of its scenery. “She traveled a lot when she was our age. Before she met my father.”
“So she’s not from there? Did she go to Hogwarts, too?”
Before even thinking about it, Remus said, “she’s a muggle.”
Instantly, he regretted it. As far as he knew, all of Sirius’s friends were pureblood, and of course, the Blacks were notoriously hateful and unaccepting of anyone with even a drop of muggle blood in their family lines. A prejudice which they took to the extreme, if rumors about cousin-marriages were to be believed. Remus knew that Sirius had left his family- and no wonder- but still, deep-rooted prejudices were not so easily abandoned. Remus’s own family was evidence of that, he thought bitterly.
However, the look in Sirius’s eyes reflected no disgust, only understanding. If he was bothered by Remus’s muggle blood, he didn’t show it.
“Ah, so that’s how you know all about David Bowie and muggle music.”
Remus smiled. “She gave me all her records for Yule last year.”
“You have a record player?”
“At home, yes,” said Remus. “Nowhere to plug it in here.”
“Oh, I need to try one of those,” said Sirius. “The Potters don’t have one either. I’ve never even listened to a record.”
Alright, so he definitely lived with the Potters. Noted. From one rich pureblood family to another. Remus doubted they had the radio or walkmen at the manors of either family.
“Hey,” Remus said. “How’d you even get into muggle music?”
Sirius smiled. “You know Marlene McKinnon?”
The name was vaguely familiar, but Remus couldn’t pick her from a crowd to save his life. “Er, I don’t know many people,” he said honestly.
Sirius seemed to find this very funny, snorting and bumping his shoulder against Remus’s as he did when he was amused. “I should introduce you. You’ll like her. She got me into Queen, David Bowie, all that. Plus, James knows some muggle music. Just not my usual type.”
Remus nodded, remembering Sirius’s comment about Abba.
Then, the realization hit him that this Marlene girl may be that punk blonde, an idea which he found inexplicably horrifying. From Sirus’s description, Remus probably would like her. He wasn’t sure why he disliked the thought of her so much.
“Hey, Remus,” Sirius said suddenly. Remus looked up at him. There had been a complete shift in his tone, his voice softening to something Remus would almost describe as shy, though the word didn’t sound right attached to him.
“Thank you for this,” Sirius said, gesturing vaguely to the book. “Really.”
Remus glanced back down at the table in an awkward attempt to hide the blush he could feel approaching his cheeks. “No problem,” he said quickly. “Sorry about the- er…”
“Oh, that?” Sirius shrugged in Remus’s peripheral vision. “It was nothing. Sorry, I get like that sometimes… it’s whatever.”
Remus nodded. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”
Sirius mirrored Remus’s vigorous, awkward nodding. “Yup. Good.”
When Professor Keating finally announced the start of class, Remus could have fallen to his knees in relief.
Remus returned to the common room that afternoon to find Lily on a couch before the fireplace, the light of the flames flickering against her face, coloring patches of white skin and freckles to match her hair. The letter sat on her lap, unopened.
Remus dropped his bag by the couch and sat down next to her. She did nothing to acknowledge his presence. They sat there in silence for a few minutes before Remus finally decided to speak.
“You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to,” he said.
His speaking seemed to snap Lily out of whatever trance she’d been in, and her eyes snapped over to meet his gaze with one of determination. “Let’s move to the music room,” she said.
Lily was quite talented with a piano- a skill she attributed to some muggle habit of forcing children into piano lessons from young ages- and although wizards could simply enchant pianos to play themselves, she insisted on frequent practice. They’d found a room in a secluded corner of the castle with a piano, thereafter referred to as the music room. They spent many of their afternoons there, Remus and sometimes Peter sitting on the floor doing homework, Lily filling the silence with her music and occasional soft singing.
On that particular afternoon, she sat on the piano bench, the letter placed carefully beside her, and went through a variety of pieces that she’d already mastered, ones Remus had heard countless times before. Not that he was complaining- she always sounded wonderful.
They stayed in the room for some hours before she placed the letter back in her robe and told him it was time for them to go to dinner. Remus did not push the subject.
---
It wasn’t until three days later, huddled in the corner of the common room with Remus by her side, that Lily finally opened her letter. It was from her sister Petunia, and although she held it close to her chest as she read it, keeping the contents to herself, Remus could tell from the first few seconds, the way her emerald eyes dimmed as they scanned over the muggle handwriting, that it wasn’t good.
Finally, after about a minute, she put the letter onto her lap, the contents facing down, drew in a deep, dramatic breath and shut her eyes. Like she was coming to terms with whatever she’d read. Then, to Remus’s horror, something in her steely expression broke and she burst into tears.
Lily wasn’t a loud crier- thank Merlin- she wasn’t sobbing, but her hand had come up to cover the top half of her face and she was bent over her lap sniffling quietly. Her face hidden from view.
Remus was absolutely terrible around crying people, and for a few moments sat there beside her, his hands hovering in the air behind her back with uncertainty. He wished Peter were here; he was always better with this sort of thing. Lily wanted comfort, in all likelihood, but all Remus could really feel at the moment was anger. At this stupid Petunia , whom Lily had spent the last five years doing everything in her power to maintain a positive relationship with, who had responded to Lily’s heartfelt efforts with nothing but scorn and hatred. Remus had no siblings, thus, as he’d been informed, he “didn’t get it.” An assessment he wholeheartedly agreed with. He could never comprehend this strange relationship, why Lily kept trying when seemingly every communication from her sister ended in heartbreak. Why she still wasted her tears on this pathetic excuse of a sister. What he did know was that he hated Petunia Evans.
But of course, that wasn’t what Lily wanted to hear. The “I’ll kill them” attitude he usually held towards anyone who hurt his friends had never worked for this particular conflict.
At a loss, he gently lowered his hand to rest against the back of her robes. “I’m sorry,” he said instead. “This sucks.”
In the awkward silence that followed, and Lily’s lack of a reaction, Remus became aware, suddenly, of loud footsteps approaching the common room. Instinctively, he turned his back toward Lily to shield her from the view of whoever was about to enter. He realized why those footsteps in particular, heavy and slightly jingly, sounded so familiar just moments before their source walked through the entrance.
He turned around in horror to see Sirius Black enter the common room. Thankfully, his other half was nowhere to be seen. He caught Remus’s eye immediately, given that Remus was the only other student in the room currently, and began walking towards him.
“Hey, Remus,” he began. “I was just- oh.”
He stopped in his tracks a few feet in front of the couch, noticing Lily folded over crying, and Remus’s attempts at shielding her from his view.
“Shit,” he said. “Are you okay?”
At his distinctive voice, Lily lifted her head up and scanned Sirius and his surroundings with red rimmed eyes. She seemed to relax a bit when she came to the same conclusion as Remus- that although Sirius was here, James was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m great, Sirius,” she deadpanned, her voice shaky with tears but filled with all her usual sharpness. “Thanks.”
Sirius smiled slightly and let out a huff of a laugh that seemed almost nervous.
For all Remus knew, Sirius and Lily had never interacted much at all. He knew they had a few friends in common- Lily’s friend Mary hung around with Sirius’s friends occasionally- but Lily was generally unimpressed with Sirius’s cool personality and popularity. His association with James Potter, of course, did not help at all. However, she was being remarkably tolerant of his presence at the moment, which meant she either was too upset to care, or needed comfort that Remus and his awkwardness were just unable to provide.
Remus doubted that Sirius could do any better. The boy had hardly taken anything seriously a day in his life.
Sirius nodded down toward the paper still sitting on Lily’s lap. “Tough letter?”
Lily stared down at the letter, biting her lip. “My sister,” she said.
Sirius seemed intrigued. “You have a sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Older or younger?”
“Older.”
Sirius smiled sadly at the floor, bouncing on his heels a bit. “She mad at you for something?”
“Yeah, for the last five years,” Lily’s voice had taken on a slightly hysterical tone. “She’s a muggle. She hates all this… magic stuff.”
Sirius hummed sympathetically, then gestured awkwardly to the empty couch cushion on the other side of Lily. “Can I sit?”
Miraculously, Lily didn’t tell him to leave and instead settled on a noncommital shrug. Sirius took it as an invitation and sat down beside her. Remus felt very awkward all of a sudden, sitting there uselessly while this practical stranger comforted his best friend through her tears.
“I’m an older sibling, too,” he said. “Sometimes we say things we don’t mean.”
Lily was silent for a few seconds. Then, in a smaller voice, she said, “Have you ever told your sibling that you hate them?”
There was a long pause.
“Really?” Sirius finally said, sounding incredulous. “I mean, yes. A thousand times. Every day since he started speaking.”
Lily huffed, smiling slightly, and wiped her eyes. “Yeah, alright. I know how that is.”
“Point is, I guess,” said Sirius. “Maybe she said some awful stuff, I don’t know, but if she really hated you, you think she’d even bother with writing a letter? She can say she hates you all she wants, but the fact that she’s even writing to you tells you that she cares.”
Lily had stopped hiding her face and was watching Sirius earnestly.
“Plus, just on my honor as an older sibling, I can guarantee you she still loves you. I know how we operate.”
Lily smiled genuinely, though the evidence of her tears still lingered in her eyes and stained her freckled cheeks.
“So… you fight with your sibling a lot?”
Sirius paused, furrowing his brow with something like confusion on his features. It was a ridiculous question.
The Black brothers had developed something of a reputation for their rivalry- Gryffindor and Slytherin, older and younger, heir and disowned. Talk about their mutual hatred had started the day Regulus Black was sorted into Slytherin while his brother was in Gryffindor, and the tension had only escalated this year following Sirius’s departure from his family, which absolutely no one, not even the sources closest to the brothers, seemed to have any details on. Sirius’s constant referring to James as his “brother” had only added fuel to the flames.
It seemed to take a moment for this realization to click in Lily, for her to associate the boy she was speaking to with the gossip of the Hogwarts halls, but when it did, she smacked her palm against her forehead and shook her head in embarrassment.
“Oh my god, duh,” she said. “Duh. I’m sorry.”
Sirius huffed, seeming thankful that he didn’t have to explain it himself. “It’s okay. Point is- what’s your sister’s name?”
“Petunia.”
“Petunia?” he wrinkled his nose. “Merlin, what do you call her for short? Petty?”
Lily laughed, shaking her head.
“Okay, sorry. Point is, Petunia ,” he emphasized the name with an overly snotty voice, “loves you. I promise you she does. No matter what stupid shit she said in that letter.”
The tension seemed to have deflated out of Lily. She was leaning back against the couch more naturally now, most of the evidence of her crying fit gone from her face. She smiled thoughtfully at Sirius, studying his face like he was a problem worthy of analysis.
“What?” he frowned.
“You’re not nearly as insufferable when you’re alone,” she said.
Sirius bit his lip and glanced down at the couch, before returning his gaze to Lily with a humorous glint in his eye. “So, I take it you don’t want to go to the Yule Ball with James? Because that was my next question.”
It startled a laugh out of Lily, who reached over and practically pushed him off of the couch. “Ugh, get out of here, you’ve ruined it,” she groaned. “Tell him about this and I kill you!”
Sirius wiggled his eyebrows, walking backwards towards his room so he could continue to face the two of them. “Bye, Lily. Bye Remus,” he said in a singsong tone, and blew a kiss in their general direction before turning back in the direction of his room.
Lily watched after him thoughtfully, then turned to Remus. “He’s really not as bad as James, huh?” she said. “I can see why you like him, Remus.”
Remus was horrified.
---
Later that week, the two of them were sitting in the library, doing their work quietly, when a smattering of whispers and a groan of “Oh, God, them again,” from Lily pulled Remus’s attention away from his potions work.
Bustling into the library in perfect sync, with matching cocky smiles gracing their faces, were James and Sirius. The pair of them looked about as out of place in a library as a marching band in a study hall.
“You think they’ve ever stepped foot in here in their lives?” Lily asked under her breath, mirroring Sirius’s thoughts.
“Absolutely not,” Remus whispered back.
The entire library, which had been dead silent and focused only two minutes ago, had been completely distracted by the boys' presence and were staring at James and Sirius. They seemed only to revel in the attention as they, to Remus’s horror, made a beeline for he and Lily’s table.
James was the first to arrive, heading right over to Lily’s side of the table and leaning against it, tilting his head to look her in the eyes.
“Hey there, beautiful,” James said, leaning against their table by Lily.
Lily raised her eyebrows. “What, now you’re Mr. Suave and Cool all of a sudden?”
“I’m always suave and cool,” James insisted, rather childishly. His cheeks were turning pink at her callback to his awkwardness when Remus had dropped off the book.
Sirius came next, hovering behind Remus’s seat. “Hey, Lily,” he said cautiously.
Lily’s gaze softened as she directed a slight smile in his direction, a subtle acknowledgment of their interaction a few days prior. Then, she turned back to James, her eyes returning to their hardened glint.
“Hm,” she said. “Y’know, I seem to remember-”
“Okay, nevermind all that,” Sirius said quickly, a valiant attempt to save his friend whatever embarrassment Lily was going to bring upon him. He tapped Remus’s shoulder, and Remus, who had had his head buried in his potions book up until now, finally looked up to meet his eyes. “Remus, I’ve a brilliant idea.”
Remus glanced around the library anxiously. Everyone was staring at them.
“Er, what?” he asked, keeping his voice as low as possible and praying that Sirius would take the hint.
Sirius grasped hold of Remus’s arm, seemingly having forgotten about the last time he did that, and pulled him to his feet. “Come on,” he said.
As Sirius dragged him to another section of the library, Remus cast a helpless look at Lily, who was still being courted by James at the table but seemed more amused at Remus’s predicament than anything. She sent him a little shrug.
Remus sighed and resigned himself to his fate, following Sirius through the library to the bookshelf filled with old yearbooks. He frowned as Sirius pulled him to a stop in front of it. He’d been expecting something poetry related. Not that there would be much muggle poetry to be found in the Hogwarts library.
“Er. What are we doing here?”
Sirius ignored the question. “What year do you think he graduated?”
“Huh?”
“Professor Keating. What year, would you say?”
“Oh, I- er-”
“He seems like early or mid thirties, right? So, 1960? Early 1960s?”
“Er, I suppose.”
“Well, let’s find him!”
Next thing he knew, Remus had an armful of yearbooks and was seated on the carpet floor before the bookshelf- nevermind that there was an empty table five feet away- sifting through the senior yearbook photos. Sirius was beside him, sitting cross-legged like an elementary schooler, and had spread a few yearbooks out in front of him in chronological order. Every year from 1955 to 1965 was spread out in gold lettering before him, stamped into variously colored covers.
“This is gonna take a while,” said Remus. “We don’t even know what house he was in.”
“Check the Gryffindor section first,” said Sirius.
Remus snorted. Of course he’d think that his favorite teacher would share his house.
“Then Ravenclaw,” Sirius added after a moment.
Remus shrugged. “You know, he could be a Slytherin,” he said, just to observe Sirius’s reaction to the suggestion.
As Remus predicted, Sirius seemed horrified by the prospect. “Merlin, I hope not.”
Remus studied Sirius’s face. The grimace gracing his handsome features looked to be genuine. However, Sirius’s disgust for all Slytherins had been a source of puzzlement for Remus recently- his entire family were Slytherins. Sure, he hated his parents and very likely his brother, but his cousins, too? His extended aunts and uncles? Were truly no Blacks redeemable?
Remus had to admit, he’d never exactly had a positive interaction with a Slytherin before, but he’d also never had much of an occasion to speak with one. Sirius, however, was surrounded by them. Part of him was hoping that the professor would turn out to be a Slytherin, just to see how Sirius would react.
“Why do you even care so much about this?” Remus asked, skimming the Ravenclaw section in the graduating class of 1959.
“He’s the coolest professor,” said Sirius, not looking up from the yearbook in his lap.
“I’ve had cool professors before, but I didn’t go stalking them.”
Sirius’s fingers stopped their page flipping momentarily. He met Remus’s gaze. “I suppose I’m just curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Remus.
“And satisfaction brought it back.” Sirius bumped their shoulders together.
Remus smiled, shook his head, and returned his attention to the yearbook.
After about five minutes of mindless skimming, Sirius let out a triumphant “HA!” that was far too loud for a library.
“Shhh,” Remus said.
“I found him,” Sirius shoved the yearbook currently on Remus’s lap out of the way and leaned over to the one in his hands rested between the two of them, one side on each knee. “Class of 1962. He was a Ravenclaw.” He pointed to the photo, a long-nosed, dark-haired boy with a big smile who was undoubtedly their teacher. He looked a bit like Sirius, in a way.
“ John Keating, ” Sirius read aloud. “Honor roll, prefect… ”
“ Thigh man?”
Remus nearly jumped out of his skin at James’s sudden appearance behind him. He was squatting down on his haunches, peering over his best friend’s shoulder.
“Merlin, where’d you come from?”
“Nowhere,” said James.
“Yeah? Lily kick your arse yet?”
“Guys, come on,” said Sirius. “Look at the next one.”
Remus returned his attention to the yearbook, where Sirius’s finger hovered below the last phrase.
“ Dead Poets Society. ” Sirius turned to look between Remus and James. “What do you suppose that is?”
“I imagine it’s a society for dead poets,” said Remus.
“Shut it,” said Sirius, and knocked their shoulders together again. It really was a habit of his. Remus wondered if he did it with James too.
“But what’s thigh man?”
Sirius turned around to smack James’s face lightly, shoving his wire rimmed glasses against his eyes.
“Who cares about thigh man? Dead Poets Society, ” he said, giving the phrase a particular flair, as if he were speaking of some great secret. “Remus, we’ve gotta ask him about this.”
“Er- why?”
“Because, don’t you want to know what it is?”
“... do you really want to know the answer to that?”
“Ugh,” Sirius smacked his palm against his forehead. “Exhausting, the both of you. Look, Remus, we sifted through a decade’s worth of yearbooks for this!”
Remus had really only done it because Sirius had dragged him over here and forced him into it, but he got the feeling that wasn’t what Sirius wanted to hear. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask…” he said finally, although he had no clue what Sirius intended to do with the information when he got it. Merlin forbid start a Dead Poets Society of his own. Whatever that was.
“Yes!” said Sirius, slapping Remus’s back triumphantly.” Carpe diem!” Then turned back to James, and, in a much tamer tone, informed him, “that means seize the day.”
“I see.”
“Well, we’ll have to seize the day tomorrow,” said Remus. “It’s almost dinnertime. I doubt the professor’s still in his room.”
“Oh,” Sirius was only deflated for a moment before perking up with a new idea. “Well, that does it then. After class tomorrow. I’ll bring the yearbook and we’ll ask him about it.”
“ You’ll ask him about it,” said Remus.
“Sure, I’ll ask, but you at least have to stand there with me.”
“Why?”
“I’ll stand there with you!”
“Shut up, Prongs. You’re not in the class. This doesn’t concern you.”
James grabbed a black wave of Sirius’s hair and yanked it. Sirius, in turn, yelped and smacked James’s hand away.
“Anyway, what do you say, Remus?” Sirius turned to look up at Remus. “You just stand there with me. For emotional support.” At Remus’s unsure silence, Sirius seemed to shrink a little, emphasizing the height difference between them that was apparent even sitting, silver eyes seeming to grow in size like a puppy’s. He was doing it intentionally, Remus was sure.
“Alright, okay,” Remus sighed. “Fine.”
Sirius grinned and slapped Remus’s back again. “Yes!” He leapt to his feet, clutching the book to his chest. He and James stepped around the mess of yearbooks scattered about the ground, something Remus imagined they were well-practiced in given the state he’d seen their room in the night before. Just as Remus thought they were going to walk straight out of the library without so much as a goodbye, Sirius turned back to face him for a moment.
“After class tomorrow,” he said, grinning, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Yeah, sure,” Remus said weakly.
Sirius gave a nod of confirmation and turned on his heel to saunter out of the library, James at his side, in sync like a pair of twins.
Remus pushed himself up to stand, his feet surrounded by yearbooks and having gained the attention of most of the library from his loud interaction with two of the most popular boys in school.
“What the hell?” He mumbled under his breath.
---
Remus had been hoping, against all his knowledge of Sirius Black, that Sirius would have let go of this Dead Poets Society thing, but his excited, knowing grin at the start of class the next day indicated that he had not been that lucky.
When Professor Keating concluded class, as the rest of the students filed towards the door, Remus and Sirius were moving upstream, against the flow of students, towards the professor’s desk. Well, Sirius was. The only thing that kept Remus going that way was Sirius’s tight grip around his arm as he practically dragged him to the front of the room. And maybe the promise he’d made to Sirius the day before.
Though his eyes remained trained on the floor, mumbling apologies to each person he bumped into, Remus didn’t miss the way Sirius intentionally bumped his shoulder against Evan’s as they passed his desk. “Sorry, mate,” Sirius said, his tone indicating the opposite. Thankfully, Evan did not engage with Sirius’s attempt to start conflict, aside from an exasperated sigh and eye roll.
Sirius dragged Remus until they were both standing before Professor Keating’s desk. The professor looked up at them, a surprised smile gracing his features. “Gentlemen,” he said.
“Professor,” Sirius said enthusiastically. Remus had no idea how Sirius could talk to others, much less adults, much less authority figures, with such nonchalance. He placed the yearbook onto the professor’s desk, with much the same drama that he’d placed Leaves of Grass with the day before. He opened it right to the page and pointed at the professor’s photo. “We found this.”
The professor glanced down at the photo, his smile turning a bit distant, nostalgic, as he took in the sight of his younger self. “Merlin,” he said, shaking his head, his cheeks a bit pink. “That’s not me.”
Sirius chuckled politely, his lips pressed tightly together. He was bouncing on his heels on their side of the desk, something Remus was sure the professor would notice as well given the way his head and shoulders were moving up and down rapidly.
“What’s the Dead Poets Society?”
Professor Keating looked up, a mischievous glint in his brown eyes that reminded Remus very much of Sirius. “Can you gentlemen keep a secret?”
Sirius nodded vigorously, and Remus copied the gesture to a much smaller degree.
“The dead poets were dedicated to ‘sucking the marrow out of life,’” the professor said. “That’s a phrase from Thoreau we would evoke at the beginning of every meeting. We would take turns reading from Thoreau, Whitman, Shelly; the biggies. Even some of our own verse. And in the enchantment of the moment, we’d let poetry work its magic.”
“You practiced spells?” asked Sirius.
The professor laughed. “Oh, no,” he said. “The poetry was the magic, you see. All the magic we needed.”
Sirius exchanged a glance with Remus. “So it was just… some blokes reading poetry? No magic at all?”
“We weren’t ‘just blokes,’ Mr. Black. We were romantics. We didn’t just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues. Like honey. Spirits soared, women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen.” His gaze was darting between Sirius and Remus throughout the explanation. Remus felt a little bit uncomfortable each time the professor’s eyes settled on him. Sirius was the one asking all the questions. Remus wished he could communicate that he was just here to support him, not to actually become involved in this dead poets thing.
“And all of that with no magic at all. Just poetry. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?”
Sirius’s eyes were dazzling. Remus could practically see the images flashing in his mind, a bunch of boys sitting around reading sonnets dramatically, surrounded by pipes and alcohol, listening to records, making women swoon. Certainly the other boy’s idea of a perfect evening.
“Where did you conduct these meetings?”
Professor Keating smiled slyly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to keep that one to myself, Mr. Black.”
Sirius nodded, a little disappointed, but none of his enthusiasm had dimmed. “Thank you, professor,” he said.
“Of course, gentlemen,” he replied. He shut the yearbook and handed it back. “Now, I’ll have to request that you burn that, please. Especially that photo of me.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Sirius said, taking the yearbook with one hand and doing a messy little salute with the other. Remus resisted a groan. Sirius had taken to calling the professor “captain” in the spirit of Whitman.
Professor Keating chuckled, and gave an appreciative nod at the nickname. “I’ll see you tomorrow, gentlemen.”
“Thank you, professor,” Remus mumbled on the way out, simply because it would be rude not to.
The moment they were through the doorway, Sirius gave an excited little leap forward and turned to face Remus, speed-walking backwards through the hallway to speak to him and keep up with his pace. “Remus, this is amazing!” he said.
“Oh, Merlin,” said Remus. “Sirius-”
“I say we do it! We start a Dead Poets Society! Tonight!”
“Sirius,” said Remus, placing a hand on his arm and pulling him towards him so they were walking side by side. “We don’t even have anywhere to meet.”
“The Gryffindor common room,” said Sirius, shrugging as if it were the obvious answer.
“Are you crazy?” Remus said. “There is no way I’m reading poetry in front of the entire Gryffindor class.”
“It’ll be in the evening,” said Sirius. “No one will even be out there.”
“Anyone could just walk right through. You do this, you can kiss your popularity goodbye.”
Sirius stopped in his tracks and gave Remus an incredulous look.
Remus stopped as well. “What?”
Sirius kissed his fingers dramatically and mimed blowing the kiss away into the hallway. He waved after the imaginary kiss, saying, “Goodbye, popularity!”
Remus shook his head. A few students had stopped in the hallway and were glancing at each other in a confused attempt to identify the recipient of Sirius’s kiss. “Come on, keep walking,” he said, shoving Sirius forward.
Sirius fell back into step with him.
“We are not doing the common room, so you can let that idea go,” said Remus.
Sirius seemed to accept it this time, biting his lip as he stared at the tiled floor below their feet. “Well, we’ll just have to find somewhere else.”
“What about members, huh? What kind of society has two people?”
“Well, we have James too.”
“Excuse me?” Remus sputtered. “I am not reading poetry with James Potter.”
“Why not?”
“He’s just- he’s James Potter!”
“Look, I know he can be a git sometimes,” said Sirius. “But really, he’s a great bloke, okay? He’s my best mate.”
“Sure he is,” said Remus. “But that doesn’t mean I want to read poetry with him. I mean, be serious.”
“I’m always-”
“Always Sirius, yeah, I got it.”
“Classic.”
“But really, I’m ser- I’m- I’m…” he struggled for a synonym for serious. “I’m not messing around!” He sputtered.
Sirius snorted.
“Shut up, I’m not a walking thesaurus.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“What I’m saying is, we don’t have a meeting place, we don’t have members, hell, we only have one poetry book! How do you even expect to make this a thing?”
Sirius frowned. “You mean, you don’t have any more poetry books lying around? You’re always reading.”
Remus worried his lip between his teeth. He did have more poetry books sitting around, but none that he wanted to read aloud in front of a group of peers, especially if one of those peers was James Potter. Sirius took his hesitation as a confirmation.
He smiled and jumped ahead of Remus again, resuming his backwards speed-walking position from earlier. “I know you do, Remus. I know it. Come on. Do this with me. It’ll be so great.”
“I don’t know, Sirius,” Remus sighed. “I don’t really do this sort of thing.”
“Come on,” Sirius insisted. His grin was growing in size, as if he felt he was winning Remus over. “We’ll do it together. We can figure everything out. Carpe diem, remember? Seize the-”
Abruptly, as he took another step backward, Sirius crashed right into another student, stumbling forward and nearly falling flat on the floor. Remus lunged forward to steady him, Sirius’s hands clamping around Remus’s arms as he regained his footing and turned to see whoever he’d walked into.
“Watch your- oh.”
The change in Sirius’s demeanor was instant and drastic, and it took Remus a moment to catch onto why.
Standing there, brushing off his robes was a very bitter, very intimidating Regulus Black.
Remus had never seen the boy up this close before, and seeing him right next to Sirius, the familial resemblance was almost frightening. Regulus really did look exactly like how you’d expect Sirius Black’s little brother to- a mini version of him. Half a head shorter, leaner, his black curls styled slightly shorter and parted in the middle to frame his face. He had the same pale porcelain skin, sharp jawline and cheekbones, with a daintier nose and slightly thinner brows. Thick black lashes framed his silver eyes, though Regulus’s gaze was colder, seemed to pierce much deeper than his brother’s.
Sirius’s eyes were expressive and deep, like Remus could see exactly what he was feeling just from looking into his. Regulus’s though… it was like looking into a snake’s eyes. They were blank and unfeeling.
Currently, they were regarding Sirius up and down with cold disgust. He was walking with another boy, a dark haired, square-jawed Slytherin who looked a bit older than Regulus. He was looking at Regulus expectantly, like he was waiting to see how he would react to the unexpected encounter.
Regulus stared at his brother with callous silver eyes and then, without a word of acknowledgment, a nod, or even return of his gaze, he turned on his heel and walked down the hallway, his posture as stiff and unfeeling as his facial expression. He was a true Black, Remus thought. An air of aristocracy seemed to cling to him like perfume as he disappeared down the hallway, students parting instantly out of the way of his path, his friend hot on his heels. The small crowd of students who had stopped to linger around them began to disperse, realizing that nothing was going to come to blows that day.
Remus turned back to look at Sirius, and something in him ached at the sight. Sirius was still watching Regulus, the tiny tuft of curly hair still visible as it weaved stiffly through the crowd, his eyes longing. He didn’t seem frightened, or shocked, like he had at Remus’s outburst in the hallway the other day, just sad. Though Remus wasn’t the reason for Sirius’s sadness, he felt the inexplicable urge to get rid of it.
“Okay,” he said suddenly.
Sirius looked back at him and blinked himself out of his stupor. “Huh?”
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” said Remus. “Maybe I’ll be a part of it.”
Sirius smiled. It was a bit softer and sadder than his excited grin earlier, but it was something, at least. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk about it next class.” He turned on his heel and disappeared down the hallway at a quick pace. It was a very unnatural exit, like he just wanted to get away from everyone as soon as possible.
Remus frowned as he watched him disappear into the throng of students, remembering what Sirius had said to Lily about her letter. Regulus seemed, to him, like a younger version of Petunia, and he’d honestly enjoy killing the pretentious little shit just as much as he would Lily’s muggle sister.
He tried not to think too hard about what he’d agreed to in his attempts to cheer Sirius up. The Dead Poets Society was only some stupid idea. It would never come to fruition.
Farewell my brethren,
Farewell O Earth and sky, farewell ye neighboring waters,
My time has ended, my term has come.
- Walt Whitman, "Song of the Redwood Tree"