Dear Remus,
I hope this letter finds you well, wherever you are–
A rather pointed remark from McGonagall, Remus grimaced. He scanned the letter in alarm, but she wrote a few questions out of politeness before she got to her point.
Hagrid has sent letters to the class of '78 with similar messages, but I wanted to write to you personally.
“What remains of it anyway,” Remus muttered wryly. He had to purse his lips shut to prevent his breakfast from making a grand upheaval into the sink. He sipped his tea before continuing to torture himself with the curves and lines of McGonagall's steady penmanship. A writing he had unknowingly memorised after years of classes, pranking and detentions. A life he had firmly left behind.
I was hoping you had a few pictures from the Potters’ wedding.
She needn’t have clarified, he hadn’t made it to the only other wedding. He was caught between the teeth of another wolf, battling for his life, during the Longbottoms’ simple evening matrimony.
It is meant as a gift for Harry Potter. I was hoping you’d have some pictures to spare for a boy as good as your nephew. Do enclose them in your reply if you have any.
Hoping to see you soon,
Minerva McGonagall
He sighed. She had essentially strong-armed him into both a reply and going through his past; it was the least he could do, he told himself unconvincingly, for the boy as good as his nephew. The Gryffindor head's voice gently reminded him that it was also for you, Remus.
Remus arranged for a drive down to his childhood home from Yorkshire in his mother’s old Ford Corsair, the only thing he’d taken from Wales when he moved away. He had pointedly not connected his house to the Floo, a minor rebellion against the 24-hour communication people could force him into; his doormat tendencies meant he would be letting people control his schedule. He much liked his peace now, preferably away from the wizarding world. The editing job he'd been holding down for a while proved that, since he was putting up with it regardless of the ridiculous pay.
Remus had Owled his father, who had written back in agreement but cited a work function for his absence during Remus’ arrival time. He was grateful to have the home for himself, he couldn’t bear to see the age on the folds of the crow's feet on his father’s face or the gentle rebuking smile on his lips when he mentioned his muggle job.
He made the 4-hour drive down to Abergavenny on Saturday morning, arriving just in time for lunch. He parked the car in the garage above his childhood prison and stepped onto the stone path leading to the oak door.
Lyall had dropped the keys in a pot of unruly bougainvillaea creeping up the stone walls. Remus stepped into the home, tentative.
It was just as he remembered it – warm, cosy.
Empty.
No mother laughed with her son over dinner and no father taught his boy the times tables. No parents calming their child to sleep, and no music filling the house with love. He thought of Harry Potter. He hadn’t gotten half the experiences young Remus had. He swallowed back his ache and crept up the stairs into his bedroom, apprehensive of what he would find.
It was clean, but obviously untouched.
Like a moment in time. A foot stuck in the quicksand of the past. A head filled with nostalgia. Like a set out of Ms Havisham’s home in Great Expectations.
It was the same as he had left it, before the war. Posters of The Stones, Fleetwood Mac, and Bowie were pasted on the wall. A turntable unused in the corner, rows of records ranging from Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin beneath the stool. His bedclothes had been changed, Remus didn't know when but it smelled like the lemon detergent his mother used.
He was coerced into ignoring all of that when something else caught his eye.
An unobtrusive, handsome wooden cane was leaning against his bed frame. Remus cleared his throat, dust catching in his mouth, as he crossed the room to pick it up; like his body was leading his conscious there. He knew why he was feeling the way he was, the pull towards it, but a part of him that he'd buried along with James and Lily, his most rebellious persona, screamed for confirmation. Do it, see if he's there.
It was a long walnut cane, made specifically to scale Remus' lanky frame and unbidden height (it always made him more noticeable than he wished to be). It looked fairly muggle, and to everyone else it was. Not to Remus though.
He reluctantly placed a hand on the brass handle, half hoping nothing would happen. But his heart stuttered in his chest embarrassingly with relief when he felt the immediate thread of magic weave between his fingers, just as affectionate and strong as he remembered, although he wasn't sure his memory could be trusted. It had been eleven, maybe even twelve years since he'd felt this magic.
The magic whizzed up his body, protective-like. A smile hooked his lip up at the corner, trust his magic to be exactly like him, dog-like and loyal. Then his head spun, no, not loyal, was he? He'd sold them out, betrayed them.
But then why was Remus feeling guilty?
The magic pressed insistently against Remus' hip and bicep, feeling much like a body whose weight and gait he was so very familiar with, apologetic and doleful. He clenched his teeth; even locked up there was no escape from his presence.
He exhaled sharply, allowing the magic to trail behind him all dejected and forlorn, like Padfoot when he chewed up his homework, as he made his way into his father's study, where the photo albums were tucked away.
Remus pulled out the cardboard box from its high shelf. The magic kept his arms from cramping under the bulk of the memories. He set it on the ground, a camera and its printed film mocking him cruelly. He sat down beside it, the cane resting on his thigh, and blew the thick coat of dust from the album cover and hesitated only once before he flipped it open.
The year was dated '74, when his mother had gifted him the camera for Christmas which she'd purchased from a charity shop near her work. Remus had taken pictures of them all through the ride down to Wales from Kings Cross – James throwing up out of the car window, Peter drooling into a disgusted but willing Sirius' shoulder. His mother laughing at their awe of the muggle world.
He shut the album.
From then, Remus methodically checked the year before opening any others, even though the magic hooked over his shoulder and chastised him for being so uncharacteristically cowardly, Moony, and the scent of Padfoot wafted around him. He rooted through the box for the small wedding album. This one he'd magicked to be like Wizard photos, moving. Capturing a movement not just a moment.
He slid some photos of the wedding out of the plastic covering, clinical with his assessment of what would be appropriate for Harry to see. He needn't scar the boy with the many pictures of James and Lily sleeping through the morning and then reaching out to punch the face behind the camera, naked below the sheets, taken by the best man, egged on by his two friends. Well, one friend, one boyfriend. Remus felt irritated at the correction his brain had supplied.
Remus piled some photos of their first dance, James pulling Lily into him from a twirl. While the entire image was moving, only James' smile remained unmoving. He stared transfixed as Lily mouthed the song into the sliver of space between them. There was another of them cutting the cake, Lily feeding him a piece. One of Peter breaking a champagne glass when he stood up to clink it.
There was one particularly nice one of the wedding party – Remus had ushered Sirius into the frame beside James and Lily before clicking down on the shutter. They looked so happy together, smiling wide, eyes crinkled shut at whatever Sirius was muttering to them behind his grin, so he slid that one out for Harry; the memory of it was enough for him.
His heart thudded to a stop at the next.
Sirius was staring straight at the camera, mouth crooked up in a joking sort of smile, a laugh pressed between his lips. His grey eyes sparkled with the light reflecting from the decorations. Remus was certain his face mirrored that expression behind the camera. Sirius opened his mouth, murmuring, "I love you" so earnestly. His spine tingled, those words affecting him even now. It had been an entire decade but Sirius Black still possessed the ability to make him forgive and forget. How fucking pathetic, Lupin, he sneered at himself.
Oh, but it wasn't fair at all. Why was he being punished so?
Remus decided to select a few pictures from their last two years of school for Harry and bravely flipped another album open, from the summer before their seventh year when they'd spent a good half of their holiday lazing in the pool at the Potter Manor.
One of the first pictures was of Fleamont explaining to Peter, who adored Mr Potter, about his new product line of Sleekeazy's. Remus remembered Monty saying in that wise voice of his, "Effie mentioned her hair was thinning out. Stress, you know?" Because of the war went unsaid but alluded. "That's how this hair potion was born. What's that thing – I love her to the point of invention."
That Christmas, Sirius had gifted Remus a wooden cane he'd fashioned himself.
All his complaints of looking like an old man had died at that admission. He had grumbled once or twice of his twinging hip, more to himself but Sirius had listened. And found him a solution. It would be rather rude of him to whinge about its implications when Sirius had made it himself.
"Every craftsman signs their piece," Remus had teased, after throwing a thankful arm around Sirius' shy shoulders. "Where's yours? Don't tell me Padfoot pissed on it or that or you've carved a dick into the wood, although that would be like you, no?"
"Such little faith. I've interpolated my magic in it, Moony," was the reply, a smirk stretching his previously sheepish mouth, impressed by his own magical prowess. "It recognises you, so you have magical and physical support!"
Remus' eyes had pricked with tears.
He shoved that memory away but the tendrils of his magic settled on Remus' shoulders, in an abstract sort of hug. Sirius' magic crackled with his, coming to life after years of dormancy. It smelled like firecrackers, like the time they celebrated Diwali with James, it smelled like a dog, like happiness, so Remus allowed it to gently pressure his scalp and shoulders while thumbing through the many more albums of pictures he wanted Harry to have.
Yours, Remus thought of the baby swaddled to his chest, not having any idea of what that boy looked like any more, they are yours.
He picked up the pictures intending to reply to McGonagall after lunch but his camera blinked at him innocently under the afternoon sunshine as he stood up. In a moment of weakness, of resignment, Remus picked it up and made his way downstairs, the cane shouldering his weight without the complaint of a decade gone unused and even the magic stayed by his side, a promise.
On the dining table, he laid out a paper and penned a letter to McGonagall, after eating the lunch his father had prepared and placed under stasis, distantly polite, informing her of the photos pinned to the envelope and not his of his residence. The Lupin family owl was employed to fly over to Hogwarts, where Harry Potter was probably taking his classes and eating his meals. He shrivelled with shame.
Remus thought fleetingly of Mary Macdonald, who was living a continent away, desperate to escape the Wizarding world. He wondered if she had received a letter and if she would reply. If he had the courage she did, the strength to erase these people from his life, he wouldn't have even come here. But Remus owed it to Harry, in an extension of his debt to James, to give him some love in return. Love that he deserved to receive from his parents, godfather, and uncles.
Reality was not so kind. Time wasn't either.
Suddenly feeling exhausted after his trip down home and this forceful confrontation with his demons, Remus made his way back up to his bedroom. His mattress was soft and his bed didn't creak under him, used to the bodies of two originally, his parents, and then three, his friends. Feeling so wrapped up in nostalgia he slipped a hand into his pocket and pressed the camera. It turned on, much to his surprise. Remus sat there, clicking through memories of a life he had forgotten he had lived.
Still images of James' stag-do, Sirius fixing his bike in his jeans in time for the wedding, and Peter looking unsure in his robes. But when he clicked for a while, he started seeing pictures of himself.
Remus from twelve years ago stood bent over the sink washing the dishes, nineteen-year-old Remus was knocking back a shot while pregaming before they hit the pubs in the one day off between missions, he was sat on his favourite armchair reading a book in the dimming evening light. Photos of him at the wedding, in his black tux as solidarity for Lily amongst the many wizarding robes. He'd even walked Lily down the aisle, her parents had passed earlier that year in a car crash and Petunia had not RSVPed. There were so many photos of him in mundane events, a frame for every time he was seen through the eyes of love.
These weren't his memories.
Feeling wildly out of depth, he curled a hand around the cane, unthinking. The magic clung to him instantly, searching for purchase on him but when it detected his pain it flitted around frantically, trying to soothe his trembling hands. The knowledge of Sirius' magic being so accustomed to him was not very helpful, but it sure as hell had the intended effect on him.
"Oh, darling Moony," it seemed to say. "Go to sleep, my love."
It gently pushed him into the pillows and lulled him into sleep.
For the first time in years, Remus fell asleep with the unforgotten threads of Sirius' magic curled around him, the image of Sirius murmuring, "I love you" in his dreams and the sound of his voice outside the shell of his ear.