the mail
“I still don’t see how it’s any different from reading poetry,” James said.
Sirius glanced up to send James an unimpressed glare over the pages of his notebook, spinning his quill between his fingers. “Really? You don’t see how it’s any different?”
“I just mean, like, you read so much poetry,” James said. “And if you can read it, I feel like you should be able to write it, too. Like, what’s the difference, really?”
“Well, one of them involves reading and the other involves writing, you see,” Remus said.
James reached into the pile of snacks and cigarettes on the hardwood floor and threw a chocolate frog at Remus. It bounced off his face, and he caught it against his chest before popping it into his mouth.
They sat in silence on the floor of the Shrieking Shack for a few moments, cigarette smoke lingering in the musty air above them. Three Dog Night’s Shambala was playing at half-volume on Sirius’s radio, filling the silence, along with a few random candy wrapper crinkles from James or Peter. Remus watched Sirius unabashedly. He was staring at his notebook in intense, adorable concentration, quill hovering above the paper, as if glaring at the pages would somehow give him an idea of what to write on them.
“Hey, what about music?” Peter asked suddenly.
Sirius glanced back up from the notebook, gaze settling on Peter in annoyance. “What about music?”
“Like, music is poetry, right? So just pretend you’re writing music.”
“Yes!” James said, sitting up to point at Peter. “He’s right! All musicians are poets.”
“Really?” Sirius said. “So Beethoven was a poet?”
“I dunno who that is, but I’m assuming he’s a musician, so yeah,” James said.
“He wrote music without words,” Sirius said flatly.
“What kinda music doesn’t have words?”
“Boring music,” Sirius said. “Old music.”
“Wait a second,” Remus said. “How do you know about Beethoven?” He directed his gaze straight at Sirius, who shrugged sheepishly.
“I used to play piano,” he said. “Not of my own volition, obviously. But anyway,” he turned to address James and Peter again. “Not all musicians are poets.”
“Technically, Beethoven could be a poet,” Remus said, simply because he knew it would annoy Sirius. “In the… abstract sense of the word.”
“I agree!” James said.
“Shut up, you don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Sirius huffed. “All of you. Shut up. I’m trying to write poetry over here.”
“You’re the one who invited us to come down here,” Peter said.
“Yeah, and you’re not even writing, you’re just staring at the page,” James added
Sirius groaned, sliding down the wall so he was laying flat on the hardwood, notebook laying open on his chest.
Remus watched his dramatics in amusement. “It’s due in May , Sirius,” he said. “You’ve got plenty of time to do it.”
“That’s only two months!” Sirius whined. “How am I supposed to become a poet in two months?”
“I’m absolutely sure that you’ll figure it out, Sirius,” Remus said.
Sirius made a little disbelieving noise and threw his hands over his face in despair. Remus shook his head, smiling, and reached forward to take a cigarette from the half-empty box on the floor, his second of the night.
“You should try falling in love,” Peter said. “Then you could write a love poem. With all the love poems out there, I bet love just, like, naturally makes people more poetic.”
Remus lit his cigarette and took a drag, smirking at the comment.
“Please, Pete,” James said. “He’s never met a girl he loved for more than one night.”
Sirius flipped James off without looking in his direction.
“He’s never met a girl he loves more than his own reflection,” Remus added.
Sirius rolled his head over to the side to meet Remus’s eyes, smirking. He had taken to smiling at Remus like that when they were around others, a secret sort of smile that Remus had only ever seen directed at him; intense, unblinking eye contact, the weight of everything they’d ever done in secret reflected in his silver pupils. He knew Sirius had never smiled at any of his past girlfriends like that, because he never had to hide what he did with them. He probably should have been ashamed of that or something. But he liked it.
Sirius sat up, still holding Remus’s gaze. “How about this for a love poem?” he said. He drew in a deep, dramatic breath, as if about to drop some infinite wisdom. “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds to shake-”
Remus burst into laughter.
“That’s perfect!” James cried. “See, just do that!”
Sirius grinned proudly, puffing his chest out as he looked at Remus, that secret, knowing look still glimmering in his eyes.
Remus shook his head through his laughter. “James, he’s messing with you. That poem already exists.”
“Oh,” James said, deflating. Sirius was too busy smiling at Remus to notice James’s betrayed gaze on him. James lobbed a chocolate frog at his head. “You are such a faker.”
“Hey,” Sirius cried, swatting the frog out of where it’d lodged itself in his hair. “I’d like to see you write a poem, alright? It’s tough work.”
“I bet I could,” James said. “I could write a love poem for Li-”
“No,” Remus and Peter said in perfect unison.
“Why not?” James said. “She’s smart, she’d like stuff like that, I bet.”
Remus took a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “No offense, mate, I don’t think she’d like anything you write.”
“Okay, well how do I get her to forgive me, then?”
Remus and Peter exchanged a look.
“Maybe just don’t speak to her for the rest of the year and wait until September to start over?” Peter suggested lightly.
“Maybe just don’t speak to her, period ,” Remus said.
“Come on,” James said. “I haven’t done anything in like, two weeks!” he threw a hand out to gesture to Sirius. “Neither of us have! We’ve been so nice!”
Sirius nodded proudly, leaning forward to do his signature handshake with James before flopping back to lay down against the hardwood floor. Remus watched them, bemused. They had been pretty restrained since the Snape incident, no pranks or obnoxious stunts. It had almost been quiet in Gryffindor tower lately.
“Like, three days ago I passed Snivellus in the halls and I didn’t even hex him or trip him or anything,” James continued proudly.
“Wow,” Remus deadpanned. “However will Lily resist you when hears about your great deed of… not hexing someone in the middle of the hallway?”
Sirius laughed.
“Hey!” James cried. “Don’t laugh at him, you’re supposed to be on my side!” He turned to face Remus, face suddenly solemn. “Remus,” he said. “Be completely honest with me, okay? Are you sure you’re not into Lily? Like, at all?”
Behind James, Sirius propped up on one elbow and rested his head on his hand, raising his eyebrows at Remus with a little smirk. That secret smile again. Remus bit his lip.
“I wouldn’t be mad if you were, really. I just need to know. ‘Cause I feel like you’re always telling me not to talk to her…”
Remus pointedly ignored Sirius’s look and focused on James. “I’m telling you not to talk to her because she’s still mad at you, and she’s just going to reject you. And I’m on her side, by the way.”
Sirius pushed himself up into a sitting position, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows in an over-dramatic expression of innocent curiosity. His eyes twinkled with amusement. “Are you sure , Remus? You’re sure you don’t like her, like, at all?”
Remus brought a hand up to hide the smile that was fighting its way onto his face. “Pretty sure,” he said.
“Really?” Sirius said, wiggling his eyebrows. His face had flushed red. “I mean, I was really sensing some romantic tension between you two…”
Remus bit his lip behind his hand. “I’m sure, Sirius,” he choked out, voice shaking.
“Alright,” Sirius said. “Y’know, just had to make sure you weren’t…” he cut himself off with a little, restrained giggle.
James, who had been watching the Remus deny his interest in Lily with some concern, cast a bewildered look back at Sirius, who flopped back onto the floor with his hands over his face. Remus shook his head and dipped his face down, biting his hand. James glanced between the two of them.
“What the fuck are you two laughing about?” He asked after a moment of bewildered silence.
This sent both of them into a fit of full, shameless laughter. Sirius kicked his feet against the hardwood, rolling over to the side to face away from James.
“Just ignore them,” Peter said. “They’re always on about something.”
Sirius really needed to learn to be more subtle, Remus thought as he buried his face in his hands. One of these days, Peter or James were going to figure out their secret and it would spell trouble for both of them.
Of course, there was no telling when Remus’s own secrets would come out, and he didn’t even want to imagine how all that would go over.
With a couple month’s worth of practice completely ignoring the fact that he was a werewolf, it was really quite easy for Remus to push down the thought of the stunt he’d pulled with Barty’s closet. Besides, he couldn’t bring himself to really regret it. If he hadn’t closed the door, Remus knew exactly what would have happened. Sirius would have awkwardly greeted Regulus, grabbed a bottle, and then Regulus would have sat there and ignored him until he left. Lily was right, they needed to be forced together. The whole thing was getting exhausting, and none of their friends, on either side of the conflict, wanted to deal with it anymore.
That being said, it had been an impulsive decision on Remus’s part. He hadn’t planned to close the door until he was standing there and the opportunity was staring him right in the face. He hadn’t had much time to consider the consequences then. Now, the more he thought about it, the more he knew they would be disastrous.
Sirius was incredibly, irritatingly close-lipped when it came to his family. He’d been a little more forthcoming with details on his relationship with Regulus recently, but it was abundantly clear to Remus in those moments where he did open up about him that he was experiencing a rarity. And any mention of his parents resulted in an instant shutdown. Remus was still rather traumatized by the time he suggested that Sirius had “had it hard” as a child and Sirius had considered it a friendship-ending offense. Safe to say, Remus thought, if Sirius ever found out that Remus had intruded in his personal business in such a way, he would never forgive him. No matter how good his intentions, or how positive the outcome.
Then again, Remus was also a werewolf. So, there was a far more destructive, damaging secret between the two of them. Did another really make that much of a difference?
Merlin, Remus thought. There was a ticking time bomb hanging above their relationship, just waiting to go off.
When Sirius found out the truth, this whole thing was going to blow up. And, frankly, if whenever what they had ended Remus could at least know that he’d helped Sirius heal his relationship with his brother, he’d be happy. Well, not happy. But satisfied, at least.
Then, Regulus had gone and hung out with a bunch of death eaters and ruined the whole thing.
Remus honestly didn’t think that Regulus was a death eater. He’d never heard of a fifteen-year-old death eater before. But whatever progress was made in the closet had been completely undone when Sirius saw Regulus walk away from that group. He’d been in such a foul mood the next day at breakfast that no one but James even dared to attempt comfort for fear that he’d bite their heads off. Which, he probably would. Even after a full night of sleep, he’d looked exhausted.
“Y’know, maybe it wasn’t him,” James had said. “Like, he was wearing a hood, you couldn’t even really see his face…”
“It was him,” Sirius said firmly.
“But, I mean, all we really saw was a smaller Slytherin and just assumed it was him, it could have been any other younger student-”
“I’ve known him since he was born,” Sirius spat reproachfully. “Gouge my eyes out and throw me into a crowd of a million people and I’ll still recognize him. It was him.”
No one spoke a word to him for the rest of breakfast.
The terrible mood had persisted for most of that week. It was rather difficult to deal with; the sudden return of his short fuse after such a long period of improvement, but Remus tried to be patient with it. He could tell from his near-constant dark circles that Sirius wasn’t sleeping well, and he was quick with an apology whenever he did snap or say something nasty. The improvement was still there, and besides, Remus figured, this was probably how everyone else felt about him during the week of the full moon.
Sirius had ceased in his attempts to speak to Regulus and had gone back to their normal state of ignoring each other’s existence, though Remus could still see him staring in the Slytherin table’s direction when he thought nobody was looking.
Keating’s poetry assignment seemed to have reignited some sort of spark in him, and he’d demanded that they convene in the Shrieking Shack to discuss it. The assignment quite literally wasn’t due until the end of the year, so Remus wasn’t really sure why Sirius was so stressed out by it, but he was just happy that Sirius wanted to hang out as a group again.
They spent a few hours down there, smoking and talking while Sirius attempted to write, and mostly complained about writing, poetry. When they headed back up to their rooms, huddled underneath the invisibility cloak, Remus felt that light, post-friendship high, which only increased as Sirius brushed his hand against Remus’s and sent him a secret little smile before he passed through his room door.
He thought of that smile for the rest of the night, trying to hold onto it as long as possible. He was going to need it to get through his day tomorrow.
The next day turned out to be just as shitty as he’d feared it would be.
Neither Lily nor Peter did much to address it, which Remus appreciated. He’d told them he didn’t want them to make a big thing of it. His parents had sent him a package in the mail that morning, and his father’s gift had put him into a particularly foul mood.
There was also the strange, and unexpected, fact that after breakfast, Sirius had pretty much disappeared. Remus hadn’t thought much of his absence from lunch, but not showing up to poetry class that afternoon had thrown him off.
Remus stopped by his and James’s room after poetry class to inquire about Sirius’s whereabouts. James glanced about awkwardly at the question, fidgeting with his hands. “He’s er, he’s fine,” he said. “Just dealing with a family thing.”
Remus tilted his head suspiciously. “...the family that disowned him?”
“Yeah, that one,” James said weakly.
Remus gave him a flat look that he hoped conveyed his disbelief.
James sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Look, it is a family thing, okay?” he said. “It’s not, like, a huge deal, but he probably wouldn’t want me talking about his shit, y’know? When you see him, he’ll tell you himself.”
Remus reluctantly accepted this answer. Once the sun went down, he knew exactly where he’d find Sirius.
When he poked his head out the roof of the astronomy tower after dinner, Sirius was seated on the shingles, knees drawn to his chest, cigarette hanging from his lips. A newspaper sat on the roof beside him. No liquor bottle, Remus noted with some relief.
His eyes, which had held a solemn, almost wistful expression to them, lit up when they met Remus’s. “Remus,” he said, smiling softly.
Remus returned the smile, relieved that Sirius didn’t seem to be in any sort of terrible mood or existential spiral. “Hey,” he said. He pulled himself across the roof to sit beside him. “I haven’t seen you all day.”
“I know,” Sirius said, glancing down at the roof. “I’ve been- well-” he messed a hand through his black curls, cringing. He met Remus’s gaze with a reluctant, almost sheepish expression. “Er… my uncle died.”
“Oh!” Remus said. “Merlin, I’m sor- or- er…” He cut himself off suddenly, remembering exactly who Sirius’s family was. Was his uncle dying a sad thing? Sirius had had nothing but bad things to say about his family and their beliefs in the past. He studied Sirius’s expression, trying to decipher whether this was an uncle that he liked. He looked rather forlorn, but more thoughtful than actually upset.
“Er-” Remus cautioned. “Was he… a good uncle, or…”
Sirius clicked his tongue, shrugging. “I suppose he was my favorite uncle, though that’s not saying a lot. Reggie and I used to sleep at his house sometimes.
“Oh,” Remus said. “Shit, then, I’m sorry.”
“What, did you kill him or something?”
“No, I just- for your loss.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Sirius said with a wave of his hand. “I hadn’t seen him in a while. It’s just been bothering me all day, because… well, have a look yourself.” He passed the newspaper to Remus.
The middle-aged wizard on the cover photo had all of the trademark Black traits; pale skin, features fine and handsome, if slightly more weathered than Sirius’s. His black curls were streaked with silver to match his eyes, which, far from Regulus’s cold silver glare, had more of a mischievous shimmer to them. Like Sirius. Staring straight through the page as if he knew something the viewer didn’t. The smirk was the same, too, wolfish and crooked. Remus cast a little glance at Sirius, who was staring off into the sky. He couldn’t help but think, rather inappropriately, that Sirius was going to age quite well, if this photo of his uncle was any indication.
He scanned past the photo to the text down below. Alphard Black, son of Pollux Black, died in his home this morning of natural causes. He was forty-seven years old.
Remus frowned. “Natural causes? At forty-seven?”
Sirius raised an eyebrow and gave him a knowing look. “I know. I mean, come on,” he took a drag of his cigarette. “I’m pretty sure they just don’t wanna admit he drowned in his cups.”
Remus blinked. “What do you mean, he drowned in his…”
“He drank himself to death.” Sirius said firmly. “It was a real nasty habit of his, we always figured he’d go out that way.” Remus wondered who exactly we referred to.
Sirius leaned in close to look over Remus’s shoulder. “Keep reading, though. It gets better.”
Alphard, unmarried, is survived by his father, Pollux Black, and siblings, Walburga and Cygnus Black. Speaking for the family, Walburga Black told the Prophet, “We are all heartbroken by Alphard’s death. He will not be forgotten. Please keep our family in your thoughts.”
This is the first death in the Black family since the disownment of their eldest son and former heir, sixteen-year-old Sirius, this past summer.
Remus frowned. How was that even relevant to anything? He glanced over at Sirius, who was staring at him expectantly. “They- er, they got your age wrong.”
“I know!” Sirius cried incredulously. “And look, look-” he tapped his mother’s quote aggressively, rumpling the paper. “She’s quoted in the article. She had to approve it. So she saw that they got my fucking age wrong and still let them publish it. I mean, what kind of petty shit is that?”
This was the first Sirius had ever gone into any detail about his mother, or any member of his family but Regulus. Remus treaded cautiously. “Yeah, that’s- that’s shitty.”
“Also, I’m sorry- you’re heartbroken? Really? Remus, you wouldn’t believe how often she used to bitch about him. She hated him. I bet she’s happy he died. Really happy, cause now it means she gets all his money, too.” He shook his head. “Ugh. Fucking cunt. I swear, she’s doing all this shit just to piss me off. She knew I’d read that article. I bet she told them to add that sentence at the end. It’s not even relevant to the story!”
“I-” Remus shook his head, rather overwhelmed by the sudden ire in his tone. “How would she know you’d read-”
“Well, it’s not like I’d get a letter, is it? She hasn’t sent me a letter since she burned me from the tapestry. She knew I’d hear about it in the newspaper with everybody else.”
Remus paused. “Hold on,” he said. “She burned you from the tapestry? What does that mean?”
“Oh,” Sirius said, his tone calming a bit. “I keep forgetting you don’t know all of the pureblood shit. Er- there’s like, this tapestry in our house that has the family tree on it. If you leave the family, or do something bad enough to get yourself disowned, you get burned off of the tapestry.”
“Oh,” Remus said. “So, she sent you a letter telling you she burned you from the tapestry?”
“Fuck no, Remus, she’s pettier than that,” Sirius said, smiling wryly. “She sent me an envelope full of ashes, and like, the little shards of fabric from the spot she burned.”
“Oh,” Remus said. “That’s… terrible.”
“It was sort of a relief, actually,” Sirius said. “Y’know, like, to know I was permanently gone. I’d just gotten to James’s house, and we threw it into the air like confetti.” He smiled at the memory.
“So… who else is burned off the tapestry?” Remus asked, intrigued.
“Not many people,” Sirius said. “You’d have to do something real bad. Unforgivable. There’s only a few–” he stopped suddenly. “Actually, I’ll show you.” He leaned over Remus and plucked his bookbag from where it had been sitting by his side.
“Alright, then,” Remus mumbled.
Sirius stuck his cigarette between his lips and dug through Remus’s books, pulling a history textbook out. He opened to the back- an encyclopedia of wizarding families, and ruffled through the pages before settling on one. “Here,” he said, voice muffled through a half-closed mouth, placing the book onto Remus’s lap, still open.
Remus glanced down at the Black family tree. “Wow,” he said. It was sort of funny to think that Sirius’s family was in his history textbook.
Sirius hummed and rested his chin on Remus’s shoulder, peering over it down at the book. He pointed to a small black spot next to Regulus’s name. “That’s me, see? I’m burned off. There’s my uncle Alphard, up there.” His finger slid over the page to hover under Alphard’s name, next to his mother.
“That one’s burnt, too,” Remus pointed to another black spot, below another of Sirius’s uncles.
“My cousin, Andromeda,” Sirius said. He smiled. “She’s cool, actually. You’d like her.”
“Did she run away, like you? Or get kicked out?”
Sirius cringed. “Disowned, a few years ago. She married a muggle.”
“ That got her kicked out?” Remus asked incredulously.
“Well, of course,” Sirius said.
“You said you had to do something real bad ,” Remus said. “Unforgivable. I thought you meant, like- murder or something. Or like, y’know, an actual unforgivable curse. Something like that.”
“Ugh, if only,” Sirius scoffed. He took a drag of his cigarette, his exhale of smoke brushing past Remus’s hair. “They’d probably encourage that shit. Marrying muggles, though, that’s out of the question. Merlin, my mother had a conniption when she found out I was with Marlene, and she has, like, one single drop of muggle blood in her.”
Sirius was divulging details surprisingly easily, almost eagerly, like he wanted to talk about it. Remus was more than happy to listen, although he was a little disturbed. It was one thing to discuss their strange customs with horror and amusement, and another to actually imagine a kid growing up with this as their family.
Remus’s gaze returned to the tree, hovering around Sirius’s close family.
“Wait a minute,” Remus said. “Hold on. Your parents are cousins?”
Sirius smiled. “Second cousins,” he said, shrugging.
“Oh, second cousins,” Remus deadpanned. “Sorry. Nevermind, that makes it totally normal.”
Sirius detached himself briefly from Remus’s side to put his cigarette out on the shingles. Then, he moved closer, folding his hands on top of Remus’s shoulder and resting his chin on them, smiling wryly at him. He seemed to be relishing Remus’s horror. “You think that’s bad? Oh, it gets way worse, Remus.”
“How? What, is there a pair of twins or something?”
Sirius laughed. “Not quite. But guess how old my mom’s parents were when they married?”
“Merlin, I don’t want to know,” Remus groaned. “Seventeen.”
“Younger,” Sirius said, smiling wryly.
“Younger than seventeen?” Remus asked. “But they wouldn’t have even been of age!”
Sirius shrugged. “Blacks don’t care about that shit. Come on. Guess.”
“Fifteen.”
Sirius’s smile grew.
“Are you kidding me? Younger than fifteen?”
Sirius nodded.
“Fourteen.”
“Nope.”
“Thirteen?”
“Bang on,” Sirius said. “Only took you a few tries, too.”
“How the hell- but how-” Remus sputtered. “Thirteen? Are they still married now?”
“No,” Sirius said. “But it’s only because my grandmother died a few years ago. They were married all the way up until then.”
“But- but- did they want to marry?”
“Of course not,” Sirius said. “I mean, I never really asked them, but I doubt it. They hated each other. Or- okay, that’s not fair. My grandfather hated her. Like, hated her. And so did my mother. The only thing those two could agree on was how much they hated my grandmother.”
“Was she- was she horrible?” Remus asked. “Did she drink too much, like-”
“Oh, no,” Sirius said quickly. “No, Merlin, no. He was the drinker. She was too out of it to ever pick up a cup. I think she had a few screws loose. She had this… glazed-over look in her eyes all the time, y’know, like she didn’t even see what was in front of her. You could walk right up and start talking to her and she wouldn’t even look at you.”
“But why would they hate her so much?”
“Who fucking knows,” Sirius sighed. “Maybe she was different when mother was a kid. I mean, I didn’t really like her either. Not much to like.” He smiled lightly. “Reggie did, though. He was the only one who ever talked to her. I think she liked him, too. He was the cutest little kid, he was like, impossible to hate. Even she could see that.”
“What happened to her?” Remus asked. “How’d she die?”
“She drowned in the lake by our summer house,” he laughed humorlessly. “That was an eventful summer.”
“She just drowned? How does that happen?”
“I always thought- well, at first I sort of supposed that grandfather finally got sick of her and threw her in. But Reggie thought she…” he met Remus’s eyes, cringing. “Y’know.”
Remus blanched. “I don’t know.”
“Y’know, like… threw herself in. Like, a suicide thing.”
“And you agree with him?”
“I dunno. I’m inclined to. He knew her the best, and Reggie’s real good with that stuff, y’know, he’s real observant. He doesn’t like to talk to people, he just sits there and watches them and figures them all out without ever saying a word.” He shrugged, staring off into the distance. “I guess I sort of believe it. Maybe she did throw herself in, but I doubt she knew what she was doing, she was so gone all the time. She probably didn’t even realize she was drowning until she was in too deep to get back to the surface.”
“That’s really sad,” Remus said quietly. “I mean, if she was so unhappy, she could’ve just left and gotten burnt off the tapestry, couldn’t she? Why wouldn’t she leave if she hated being there so much?”
Sirius sighed. “Who the fuck knows why people stay in situations that make them miserable? I’ll never fucking understand it. I’ve tried. Maybe some people just like the pain.” He stopped, the statement hanging heavy over the two of them. He glanced at Remus. “I suppose that got really dark, didn’t it?”
“It’s alright,” Remus said quickly. “I liked it. Or- not the story, I suppose, that was really sad- but I like… er… listening to you, I suppose.” He cringed.
Sirius smiled softly. “Oh,” he said. He glanced down at the roof, blushing. After a few moments, he lifted his head again. “It is a shame about Alphard, though,” Sirius said. “If you were going to meet someone in my family, I’d have wanted you to meet him. I think he would’ve liked you.” He paused. “I think he may have been like us.”
“You mean like… us , us?”
Sirius nodded. “He wasn’t married. That never happens in the Black family, everyone’s supposed to get married. My mother always said grandfather was too soft on him, like, he should’ve just forced him to marry anyway. But anyway, everyone kinda figured he might have been… y’know.” He made brief eye contact with Remus. “Not that we are. But like, he felt for all men what we feel for each other. Y’know?”
“So he was… y’know, and not even that got him burnt off the tree?” Remus asked incredulously.
Sirius laughed. “Mate, he was always doing crazy shit, and he never got kicked off the tree. He’d insult the family right to their faces, get absolutely pissed at family gatherings, he never married, all that, and mother never burnt him off the tree. She wanted to, but grandfather wouldn’t let her. She always complained he was too soft on them.” He smiled. “I remember when I got sorted into Gryffindor, I was worried I’d get burnt off, and he told me that with all the shit he’d done over the years, he should have been burnt off ten times by now. He said he was testing the limits, trying to see if he’d ever do something completely unforgivable.” He shrugged. “He made it his whole life without getting burnt off, so… I suppose he won, in a way.”
Remus smiled to himself. “He sounds sort of cool,” he said.
Sirius smiled at him. “He was.” He paused. “I felt a little weird talking about him, y’know? Like, I’m not supposed to be one of them anymore. I mean, he was still a Black, he was still a blood supremacist and he probably supported Voldemort just like the rest of them but, like… he was still my uncle. And I really do hate most of them but…” he trailed off, glancing at Remus nervously. “Promise you won’t tell anybody this?”
“Of course.”
“I’m still one of them, I think. They may have burned me off the tapestry, but… they can’t exactly drain out my blood, can they? Some things are just, like… totally ingrained in you, y’know? I know I’m trying to change, and I really am, but I think some parts are just totally unchangeable. Sorry if that’s, like, pessimistic.”
Remus thought of the Animal inside him. He supposed Sirius couldn’t change his blood any more than Remus could get rid of it. “No, I think you’re right,” he said. “I…” he sighed, fidgeting with the cool metal in his pocket. “Look, if I tell you something, will you promise not to make a whole thing about it?”
Sirius furrowed his brow, looking at him. “Er… sure, I guess,” he said.
Remus drew in a deep breath. “Today’s my birthday,” he said, and braced himself.
“What?”
“You said you wouldn’t make a thing about it!”
“But- but- it’s your birthday!” Sirius cried. “We didn’t even have a party, or a cake, or anything- Merlin, I haven’t even seen you all day! This is awful, Remus!”
Remus smiled, rather charmed by Sirius’s horror at such a trivial thing. “Sirius,” he said. “I don’t want a celebration or anything. This is- I like it like this. I don’t want people to make a thing out of it. Like, please don’t have a party. I’d hate it.”
“Oh,” Sirius said quietly.
“But…” Remus began. “See, my parents sent me gifts in the mail this morning. And my father… he got me this.” He pulled his father’s gift from his pocket and held it out for Sirius to look at.
Sirius eyed it suspiciously. “Looks like a nice enough paperweight,” he said. “Is it, like- what’s wrong with it?”
Remus sighed. “It’s just- just-” He rubbed his eyes. “It’s made of silver .”
Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Er- alright?”
“I hate silver,” Remus said. “I hate silver. It’s not- it’s just- I don’t like it. And he knows that. He should know that. He’d be an idiot not to, and yet, he still got me a gift made of silver! I mean, what the hell?”
Sirius stared at him. “Er- yeah, I guess that is sort of shitty. Like, if you hate silver that much,” he said, though his tone was uncertain, like he still didn’t really understand.
“I just can’t- I literally can’t fathom what would possess him to send me something like this. Like, either he is just so clueless and disconnected from me and didn’t even think about it, or he did think about it and it’s some kind of like, message or something.
Sirius was staring at him thoughtfully. “Is your dad… is he like… is he… shitty?”
Remus considered the question. Sirius’s definition of a shitty dad probably differed greatly from Remus’s, and he didn’t want Sirius to think that their upbringings were at all similar.
“No,” Remus sighed. “Not- not really. He’s just- it’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
Remus glanced at Sirius. He was watching intently.
“Alright,” he said. “Well- okay. When I was a kid, there was this… thing… that happened. To me.” He drew in a deep breath. “It was a bad thing. A really bad thing. And it was sort of his fault. He blamed himself for it. And ever since it happened, he’s never seen me the same. It’s like he looks at me and he doesn’t really see his son anymore, y’know, he just sees the thing that happened to me. Like- I’m just some symbol of his guilt or something.”
“Do you blame him?”
Remus paused, thrown off. He’d never been asked that. “I- it was his fault. Objectively,” he said.
“Okay, it was his fault, objectively. Whatever. But do you blame him?”
“That’s- it’s the same thing, Sirius.”
“It’s not. I’m not asking about fucking objectively, I’m asking what you think,” Sirius said. “Do you blame him?”
Remus turned away from Sirius to stare out at the stars. He wished he could remember much of his life before being bitten, but it only came in flashes. The night that it happened, though- a nice, clear night, like tonight- he remembered in vivid detail. The light, crisp breeze seeping through the crack in his window, blowing his curtains about. The large, looming shadow against the sill, then behind the curtains. The way he pulled the covers over his head and squeezed his eyes shut, thinking it would go away if he couldn’t see it. Heavy breathing, like a wild animal, and slow, precise steps creaking across the hardwood. The first claw that clamped around his shin through the covers and dragged him across the bed. The bite itself, like getting a bunch of shots at the doctor, but bigger, and all at once, in a circle around his hip. And then, afterwards, trivial things. Like the feeling of the Animal’s saliva against his skin, the smell of its breath in his face. The way his mother screamed. The horror in his father’s eyes.
He didn’t learn the whole story with Fenrir Greyback until he was much older. But in that moment, when the Animal was finally gone and it was just him laying on a sheet of sticky blood with his parent’s faces hovering above him, he looked into his father’s eyes and he knew that he’d had some part of it. He felt his guilt, even then.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I blame him.”
“Remus…” Sirius said. “I’m not, like, wise or whatever like you. But if my perspective means anything… I think it’s okay to hate people for what they’ve done to you. Even if they didn’t mean to do it. Or if their intentions were good. The damage is still there, and it doesn’t go away just because they feel guilty about it.”
“But… I don’t think I hate him. Like, he’s my father. I love him.”
Sirius sighed. “I think sometimes… like, I don’t know how, exactly, but I think you can love someone and hate them at the same time. At least, I hope you can. Reggie’s always saying that he hates me, and… I gotta believe that he loves me too, y’know? Maybe you can feel the same way about your father.”
Remus fell silent, considering. He wanted to yell at his father, to scream in his face about every terrible thing he’d put him through, but he supposed another part of him just wanted him back. He wanted to be loved by him the way he was before everything else happened. It made sense.
He glanced over at Sirius, who blushed.
“Or… maybe not,” he said quickly. “I don’t know about all this, like, smart, philosophical shit like you. I don’t- I don’t really know anything-”
“Sirius,” Remus said. “I think you’re right. I really do.”
“Oh,” Sirius said. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Remus smiled. “Thanks.”
Sirius smiled and leaned back, huffing in satisfaction. They fell into a light silence.
“Y’know, Remus,” Sirius said suddenly. “I feel like this gift has committed an unforgivable offense.”
Remus stared at him. “Huh?”
Sirius picked the paperweight up, tossing it between his hands. “I mean, you hate silver. And it’s silver. It could have been any other metal, but it chose to be the one you hate, so… that sounds real bad to me. Unforgivable.”
“Er… okay?” Remus said.
He had no clue what Sirius was getting at, but he was smiling, eyes lit up with their mischievous little twinkle. There was one form of silver he didn’t hate, he thought.
“Well, I know you’re not a Black, but I still am, technically,” Sirius declared. He turned around to face the upward incline of the roof and placed the paperweight on the shingles in front of them. Remus turned with him, bewildered. “And you know what we do in the Black household when someone does something absolutely unforgivable?”
Realization dawned on Remus, and he glanced at Sirius, smile tugging at his lips.
“Go on,” Sirius said, nodding at the paperweight.
Shaking his head, smiling, Remus pulled his wand from his sleeve and pointed it at the paperweight. “Incendio.”
The fire bounced right off the smooth surface, scorching the shingles around it.
Sirius tutted. “You’re gonna have to try harder than that.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Back up, then.”
Cautiously, Sirius inched backwards down the roof, hands braced behind him. Remus glanced back at him, and he gave a nod.
“Incendio, incendio, incendio, incendio, incendio!”
The final burst of flames sent a splash of melted silver up into the air, splattering against their robes while the rest of it flowed down the roof, running down the shingles between them in a small, bubbling river. Sirius laughed, brushing flecks of silver off his robe.
“Now if only we could gather that into an envelope to send to your father,” Sirius said, grinning.
Remus laughed, shaking his head.
“Whoever’s up here next after us is gonna have a lucky day,” Sirius said. “Free fucking silver. Who’d pass on that? Other than you, of course.”
Remus scoffed. “What is someone gonna do with a bunch of melted silver stuck to a roof?”
Sirius shrugged. “There’s plenty of uses for it. Make it into jewelry. Kill a werewolf. I dunno.”
Remus’s stomach dropped.
Another laugh burst from his throat, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to stop it, because it sounded all wrong, hysterical and bitter where just moments ago it had been joyful. The laughs kept coming, though, muffled by the hand in front of his mouth but distinctively unhappy. He tried to stop himself with a deep breath, but it didn’t reach all the way into his lungs, and found himself panting in some kind of horrible hyperventilation.
“Remus? I- are you okay?” came Sirius’s voice. His face, eyes wide with concern, swam in Remus’s vision, blurred with tears.
Remus shook his head, cheeks burning, raising a hand to push Sirius away gently. He did not need Sirius to see him like this.
“Wait- I- please don’t cry- I- did I do something? I’m- I was trying to cheer you up-”
Remus shook his head frantically. “No, no, it’s fine,” he choked out, ducking his head and covering it with one of his hands to hide the tears. He wrestled his breaths into a controlled rhythm.
“I fucked up, shit- I’m sorry, I didn’t- please don’t cry, Remus, what did I-”
The sheer distress in Sirius’s voice had Remus lifting his head and rubbing at his eyes aggressively to erase any evidence of the tears.
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” he said quickly.
Sirius came back into focus, leaned in close to him, his eyes wide and wild with concern, hands tangled in his black curls. “I wanted to make you feel better-”
“You did. You did,” Remus said, grabbing Sirius’s arm and pulling it down from his hair. “You did. I’m just- I was just being stupid. You did nothing wrong. It’s fine.”
SIiurs continued to stare at him, wide-eyed, studying his face as if looking for signs of deception. “I… okay…” he said hesitantly.
“Really, it’s fine,” Remus said. “I think I just…” Suddenly, it was too much, being out here, alone with Sirius. He couldn’t stop thinking about it all ending, how Sirius would react when he found out. “I think… let’s just go back inside, okay?”
Sirius nodded, eager to do something to help.
A solemn silence hung over them on their walk back to their rooms. Remus still felt slightly shaky, trying desperately to keep from spiraling into another panic. He tried not to think of himself, focusing instead on Sirius’s presence beside him; his rapid, confident steps, the way his black curls bounced behind him, the concerned looks he kept casting Remus’s way.
Right as they passed by the door to McGonagall’s office, her door swung open into the hallway. They stopped abruptly, Sirius’s arm thrown out in front of Remus, frozen with panic. McGonagall stepped out of the office, her gaze falling on them with an exasperated sigh.
“Out after hours, you two?” she asked.
You two? Was that supposed to mean something? Remus glanced down at Sirius, who seemed unaffected by the phrase. He gave McGonagall a sweet, charming smile.
“We were just heading back, professor,” he said.
“Ten points from Gryffindor, for each of you,” she said.
Sirius smiled victoriously, nodding. That was practically nothing.
“Now back to your rooms, before I take away more,” McGonagall said dismissively.
Remus nodded and took a step forward.
“Oh, and-” she added quickly. Both of them turned back around to face her. “I was sorry to hear about your uncle, Mr. Black. Though… I suppose congratulations may be in order, too.”
Sirius stared at her. “Er. Congratulations… that my uncle died?”
“No, because…” she trailed off, studying Sirius’s face. “Oh, dear. No one told you, I suppose.”
Remus and Sirius exchanged an apprehensive look. There was more?
Sirius glanced back at McGonagall. “No one tells me anything,” he said carefully, a hint of childish petulance in his tone.
McGonagall’s gaze flickered between the two of them, uncertain. She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Well, they just read the will, so the news will be out soon,” she said. “I- let me speak to you in my office, Sirius. Just for a moment.” She pushed the door back open and gestured for Sirius to follow her inside.
Sirius stepped forward to follow, turning in the doorway to cast a bewildered look back at Remus. Remus shrugged and waved him on into the office.
When the door shut behind Sirius, Remus turned away from it and began pacing around apprehensively. What more could there possibly be? She’d said congratulations. That had to mean something good, right? But what good thing could possibly have happened? Someone died .
Sirius emerged about two minutes later, with a sort of stunned, dazed expression, face pale and arms hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes seemed absent.
Panic hitting him all at once, Remus stepped forward. “What is it?” he asked urgently.
Sirius blinked up at him rapidly, as if to re-focus his eyes. After a brief moment, he shook his head, gesturing Remus forward down the hallway. “Let’s, er- keep walking. Keep walking.”
It wasn’t until they had rounded the corner into an empty corridor that Sirius stopped and turned to face Remus, taking both his forearms to clutch in his hands. He looked up at him with wide eyes. His face had regained some of its color, although his eyes retained a bit of stunned glaze.
“He left it to me,” he said.
Remus blinked. “What? Left what?”
“His fortune. The gold. All of it. He left it to me in his will.” Sirius’s cheeks were rapidly flushing red, a tremor in his voice.
“I- what?” Remus stammered. “How?”
“Remus. I’m rich. We’re fucking rich.”
“I… holy shit.”
“We’re fucking rich!” Sirius exclaimed. He jumped up to throw his arms around Remus’s neck with a delighted laugh.
Remus stumbled backwards, overwhelmed by the sudden shift in his mood. After a moment of stunned bewilderment, he raised his arms to return the hug. “I- alright,” he said with a short laugh. “But you were already…”
“No, no,” Sirius said, pulling back to grab both of Remus’s forearms again, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looked him right in the eye, cheeks flushed, grinning in giddy excitement. “This isn’t like that. This- this is my money. No one else’s. Do you get what this means?”
Remus raised his eyebrows.
“We’re fucking free, Remus! We can do whatever the fuck we want! Holy fuck!” He jumped up and down, shaking Remus’s arms with the movement. “Let’s go somewhere! Let’s take one of those muggle plane things to California and see the fucking redwoods? Huh? Let’s go see Bowie sing! Let’s go- I dunno, where do you wanna go?”
“I- er-” Remus stammered. “I don’t know-”
“Well, fuck it, you’ve got plenty of time to think about it!” Sirius cried. “We’ve got all the time in the world, we’re fucking rich! Let’s see everything!”
“Alright,” Remus said, laughing, Sirius’s giddiness seeming to infect him as well. “Alright, slow down. Maybe let’s graduate school before we start travel plans…”
“Remus,” Sirius said, shaking his head as if Remus were being irrational, still grinning. “Remus, I don’t think you get it. This much money… This is like, we can go wherever we want, we can be whoever we want to be! And it’s all ours, no one else’s!” He shook Remus’s arms again, a sudden intensity in his gaze as he stared into Remus’s eyes. “Where do you want to go, Remus? Who do you want to be?”
“Er…” Remus said.
It’s all ours. Not it’s all mine.
“I’ve never really… it’s your money,” he said weakly.
“A flat,” Sirius said firmly, grinning. “When we graduate we’ll go get a flat in muggle London. The nice end, downtown, walking distance to a pub and a bookstore. And a record store. Multiple record stores, maybe. We’ll buy out all of the Walt Whitman in the bookstore and open our windows and just hang around and listen to music all day.” He nodded, dreamy gaze directed toward the ceiling. “Yeah, and a good block too. With a park across the street, the sort where kids play outside.”
Remus tilted his head. “Huh?”
“Yeah, like the sort of block where all the neighborhood kids go, like, play tag outside.”
“You realize we’d be adults, right? We wouldn’t be playing tag with them.”
“Right, but- but, it’s just… it would just be nice, okay?” Sirius said. He looked back at Remus, and the smile returned. “Remus!” he squealed, jumping up and down. “We’re fucking rich! Come on, we’re rich!”
“ You’re rich, Sirius,” Remus said. “It’s not like I would have all this stuff, too.”
“Oh,” Sirius said, his face dropping. “Did you not- would you not like that?”
“I dunno,” Remus said. “It’s just, y’know, graduation… it’s a long way away, I hadn’t thought much about it…”
Sirius frowned. “Only a year.”
“I guess…” Remus said hesitantly.
“It’s okay if you wouldn’t like to live in muggle London or anything,” Sirius said quickly. “I guess I was just picturing my ideal life after graduation and I just, like… figured you’d be there. I dunno. Ugh,” he blushed, ducking his head. “Nevermind.”
“No, no!” Remus said. “No, it’s a good idea! I like it. I really do. I like it. It’s just that…”
It was just that eventually, Sirius was going to find out the truth and he wasn’t going to want that anymore. Did muggle flats include werewolf-proof rooms?
He glanced back down at Sirius, who was staring up at him in anticipation, cheeks still flushed with giddy excitement. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen him this happy.
“Nevermind,” he said. “Nevermind. It’s a good idea. Really.”
Sirius smiled with relief, and turned in the direction of his room. Remus fell into step beside him as they headed down the hallway.
“I bet we’ll be there when Queen and David Bowie finally collaborate,” Sirius said as they walked.
“Merlin, this again?” Remus groaned.
“Hey, you promised we’d listen to it together, remember?”
“I promised because it’ll never happen.”
“Have some faith, Remus,” Sirius said. “It came to me in a dream, and I heard it, and it was amazing.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “It came to you in a dream? What are you, some kind of prophet?”
Sirius grabbed Remus’s arm as they reached his room, leaning back against his door and blinking up at Remus flirtatiously. “Something like that,” he said.
“Well, I’ll believe it when I hear it,” Remus said, smiling.
Sirius cast a forlorn look behind him at the door. “James is in there, so…” he whispered. “I guess you can’t come in.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he’d appreciate us snogging on the bed next to him,” Remus said bluntly.
“Yeah,” Sirius said sadly, fidgeting with Remus’s jumper.
Remus stared at him. He did wish he was a girl, sometimes. Just so he could kiss him right here in the middle of the hallway and not have to worry about anyone suddenly coming out of their room and witnessing everything. It was just the price they paid, he supposed.
“So, er… goodnight,” he said.
“‘Night,” Sirius said. He let go of Remus’s arm reluctantly and slipped into his room, casting him one last smile through the dim crack in the door.
Remus sighed, running a hand through his hair. Shit, why hadn’t he kissed him on the roof? He’d been too busy panicking about being a werewolf to take the opportunity. He should’ve kissed him. Who knew when they’d get another opportunity?
Chagrined, he turned to head back to his own room. As he passed through the common room, a few rapid steps echoed through the hallway behind him, following him onto the common room’s shag carpet. He turned to face Sirius, frowning in confusion at his rapid approach. “What are you-”
Without a pause in his step or a moment of preamble, Sirius threw his arms around Remus’s neck and kissed him. Panic hit Remus all at once- they were in public, anyone could come in and see-
The worries faded into the back of his mind, melting away with the feeling of Sirius’s lips on his. Might as well make it good, then, he thought. He cupped the side of Sirius’s face, running a thumb along his jawline as Sirius’s fingers slid into his hair, his body relaxing against Remus’s, lips soft and pliable beneath his. It was the only good thing to happen all day.
Sirius was the first to break away, pulling back to look at him, their faces still only inches apart. Remus stared down at him, dazed. He knew he should be looking around to make sure no one saw, but his eyes seemed unable to detach themselves from Sirius’s silver gaze.
“Happy birthday, Remus,” Sirius whispered, then pressed one more brief kiss to Remus’s lips, a signature. He was gone as quickly as he’d arrived, running back down the hallway from which he’d come.
Grinning like an idiot, Remus rubbed his eyes to blink away the post-kiss haze. He glanced around the common room, down the hallway behind him, down the hallway in front of him, up the staircase. They were all silent, perfectly still.
Anyone could have seen.
But no one did.
The mood at the breakfast table that morning was bright and chipper, to match Remus’s own mood. He’d been smiling like an idiot all morning, a little thrill of giddiness coursing through him every time he thought about the kiss.
“Merlin, maybe I should have married you,” Marlene was saying when Remus arrived at the table, shaking her head and smiling.
“Too late now, Mckinnon,” Sirius chirped.
“Remus!” Peter was the first to greet him. “Did you hear Sirius is rich now?”
Sirius looked up at him and smiled- that secret smile that was reserved just for him- scooching over on the bench so Remus could sit beside him.
“Oh, I heard,” Remus said to Peter before directing his own smile down at Sirius.
“Weren’t you already rich?” Mary asked.
“Now I’m rich with my own money!” Sirius said, throwing his hands up as if exasperated, like he’d had to explain this concept quite a few times already.
“You’ve literally never not been rich, mate,” James said.
“Don’t be jealous, prongs,” Sirius said. “Just jealous, all of you,” he added. “At this rate, Remus is the only one who’s sharing my riches.” He nudged Remus with his shoulder.
“Oh, of course ,” Marlene said, smirking knowingly from across the table.
Remus sent her a death glare.
“Anyway, I think you should all start referring to me as Lord ,” Sirius said, turning back to address the rest of the table.
“Oh, Merlin, it’s gone too far,” Lily said, shaking her head. “He needs to be stopped.” She, too, was smiling. It was the first she’d really addressed James or Sirius’s existence since the Snape incident two weeks ago.
They chattered for a couple of minutes, Sirius constantly sending Remus smiles and bumping their shoulders together. They were both thinking about the kiss, then.
The morning mail came in mid-conversation, just as James had launched into a tangent on the sort of house he thought Sirius should buy with his riches. His chatter came to an abrupt end as he looked up. Among the group of owls swooping low over the tables, one in particular stood out to Remus, unfamiliar. It was small, jet black, with fine feathers, smooth and shiny like clean water. With excessive elegance, to dove down in front of them and dropped a letter right in front of Sirius.
Remus glanced over at him.
The smile was gone. Any color had drained from his cheeks. He stared down at the envelope in front of them, wide eyes locked on the perfect cursive rendition of his name on the front of it, mouth hanging open. The table had gone dead silent around him.
A glance at James on the other side of Sirius, and the similarly pale, horrified expression on his face all but confirmed Remus’s suspicions.
His mother’s owl. His mother’s handwriting.
“Sirius,” James whispered. “Just burn it. Don’t read it. You don’t have to.”
Sirius’s eyes didn’t leave the letter. He gulped, picking it up with shaking hands and turning it over. The seal on the back was shiny, silver wax. Two words were stamped into it: Toujours pur.
“It’s just-” he said. His voice shook, higher and tighter than usual. “I can handle it. It’s just words on a page. It’s fine. I don’t care what she says.”
His fingers shook so hard that it took him a few tries to break the seal. Remus, without even thinking about it, placed a hand on his knee under the table. Sirius’s fingers stopped their movement as he glanced over at Remus, giving him a tiny, grateful smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
He opened the envelope and stuck his trembling fingers inside. Confusion flickered briefly over his features, and he pulled the envelope closer to him so he could peer inside it himself. Something in his eyes glazed over and he turned the envelope upside down.
A pile of ashes fell onto the table.
Remus leaned in close to look at them, little shards of burnt fabric mixed into the pile. James exhaled shakily on the other side of Sirius. Remus glanced up at the rest of the table, who only stared at the ashes in confusion. They didn’t know what it meant.
Remus knew exactly what it meant.
Sirius’s uncle had never married. He was probably queer. He’d drank too much and insulted the family and gotten pissed at family gatherings. And still, none of that had gotten him burnt off the tapestry. But leaving money to Sirius… that had done it. That was unforgivable.
Sirius had yet to move or react, staring down at the pile of ashes in a daze, eyes glazed over like he was somewhere far away. Remus squeezed his knee.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze to look over at Remus, his expression dazed and shaken, as if he’d just been slapped across the face.
Remus glanced back down at the envelope, the perfect cursive script on the front of it. He felt a rush of pure, unrestrained revulsion for the woman who’d written it. He’d been so happy a moment ago and with one envelope she’d ruined it. She’d ruined everything.
Sirius placed his hand on top of Remus’s and turned back to face forward, brushing the ashes onto the floor in a display of faux carelessness as he squeezed Remus’s hand under the table. He was silent for the rest of the morning.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
- "Go to the Limits of your Longing," Rainer Maria Rilke.