Remus had made a point of avoiding the room. Every time he walked down the corridor and the door appeared in front of him, he kept on walking. He didn’t know what he could possibly need that a simple room could provide. It wasn’t like a room could bring back the dead, after all. It wasn’t like a room could take back the way he’d been convinced that Sirius had been to blame for James and Lily’s deaths for twelve years.
Ever since their reunion at the Shrieking Shack, he’d been in a deeper state of self-loathing than usual. This had not been helped by the pressure from the school governors to resign after Snape leaked his condition to the Daily Prophet. He still didn’t know what to do about that. For every thought that he shut down, his brain came at him with three more. An encephalic hydra.
Dumbledore had told him he’d have to make a decision by the end of the week and as Thursday drew to a close, he still had no idea. He walked along the corridor that connected his office to the rest of the school and it appeared.
What could it hurt?
He opened the door slowly and gasped.
Four four-poster beds, an open window with the curtain billowing, a signed photo of Freddie Mercury on the wall, the sound of the shower running in the adjacent bathroom… How could this be what he required?
He sat down on the bed that used to be his and looked around him. He’d thought himself the only Marauder left for so long, but for Sirius to be innocent and less addled than one would expect after so long in Azkaban, and Pete awaiting trial, he didn’t know where he stood anymore. He wondered if Sirius would want anything to do with him, once his name was cleared. He had no idea where Sirius had gone after Remus had transformed and risked everyone’s lives. Harry and Hermione had sent him off with Buckbeak, and he knew that Dumbledore had been in touch, but he’d been too much of a coward to ask any further questions.
He looked around the dorm. Everything felt smaller than he remembered. The urge to set fire to Peter’s bed was growing, so he took himself to Sirius’ bed and lay down on it. How on earth did it smell like him? How could a room do that?
He closed his eyes to try and stop the tears that were building. How the fuck was this room an answer to the question of whether he should stay at Hogwarts or resign?
The shower shut off and Remus froze. He sat up just in time to see Sirius, thirty-four-year-old Sirius, stroll out of the bathroom, towel slung low on his hips, as it always had been. He took one look at Remus, turned around and walked back into the bathroom.
Well, Remus thought, there was his answer about whether Sirius would want to have anything to do with him going forward. He stood up from the bed slowly and was about to leave when the bathroom door swung open again.
“Moony?” Sirius said cautiously. “Are you real?”
“Are you real?” Remus asked. It hadn’t occurred to him that Sirius could be anything other than a projection of the room. “I’m— yeah, I’m… me.”
“How are you here?”
“The door has been appearing for me, and I needed somewhere to think today.” He said, “Apparently that place is our old dorm.”
“Oh, no. This is my required room.” Sirius said stepping into the room, still looking like he didn’t quite believe Remus was real.
“Then why has it been showing up for me?” Remus frowned, sitting back down on Sirius’ bed.
“What did you need to think about?” Sirius asked him, uncharacteristically gently. Maybe he wasn’t real after all.
“Dumbledore wants to know whether I want to work here next year or resign.”
“Why the fuck would you resign?!” Sirius asked.
“Snape went to the Prophet and the Governors and told them what I am. The governors and a few parents have pressured me to quit.”
“That’s such bullshit. Fuck. I’m so sorry, Moons.” Sirius, still wearing only a towel, sat down next to Remus, who did his best to ignore the tattoos and scars that now covered Sirius' body.
“Have you been here the whole time?” Remus suddenly asked. “Since…”
Sirius nodded, “Waiting for the ministry to get their arses in gear and pardon me.”
“And until then you’re just… living in a replica of our old dorm?”
Sirius sighed and touched Remus’ arm gently. “I think, like you do now, that I needed to be reminded that Hogwarts will always be my home.”