the first time remus lupin falls in love with sirius black, it is 1966. the marauders are in their third year. christmas has just passed. bowie is playing in their dorm, and the four of them are together, how it should be.
peter sits on his own bed for once, laughing at sirius' terrible dancing. he is wearing a light green and brown sweater and remus is 90% sure it is his.
james is climbing up a bed canopy to reach for a fluttering snitch. it hovers an inch away from his outstretched fingers, before darting away just as james is about to catch it. remus rolls his eyes from behind oscar wilde. there is a reason james is a chaser.
and sirius, stupidly gorgeous sirius, is busting some purely awful dance moves in the middle of the room, where he has pushed all of the beds against the walls to make space for himself. his black hair is in an impossibly intact bun, secured with his wand, and remus knows he's going to have forgotten it's there in fifteen minutes.
the full moon has just come and gone, but remus is still stiff and sore. he lays on sirius' bed - coincidence, of course, it was the closest to the door - reading 'the importance of being earnest'. well half reading. sirius is occupying most of remus' thoughts, as usual.
it is when sirius catches remus' eye in the middle of a particularly difficult move that remus feels it. that unfamiliar swoop in his stomach, a cloud of frantic butterflies, a shift in his vision, and then-
oh.
of course that isn't the last time he falls in love with him in that lifetime.
it happens again and again.
when he becomes an animagus and the first thing he does is lick remus right on the lips.
when their hands brush in the great hall one evening.
that night, underneath a canopy of stars.
their first date.
their first kiss.
their first 'i love you'. not that remus needs to admit that outright, he already knows it on a different level. he doesn't know that sirius feels that exact same thing.
when they move into together.
when remus sees sirius holding baby harry in his arms for the first time. his eyes are so full of love. that's when remus decides they need a baby.
but then october 31st, 1981 comes. remus feels something is wrong. it settles into his bones. sirius never comes home. james and lily aren't picking up, no matter how many times remus calls. he knows the phone bill will be far too high, but he doesn't stop. that is, until it rings. mary is on the the other end, and she is sobbing.
remus feels something sink in his stomach. he comforts her as best as he can. he pretends his hands aren't shaking so violently that the phone keeps knocking against his ear. it hurts. then, finally she manages to speak. he wishes she didn't.
"remus, something awful has happened..."
the next morning, sirius' face stares back at him from the daily prophets front page. he looks crazed. the newspaper burns in his hands.
dumbledore visits after a few days. the old man ignores the empty bottles littering the apartment. he ignores the state remus is in. he ignores remus' pained screams when he tells him harry is dead. he ignores the way remus blanks him as he tells him to stay where he is, or to keep fighting. he ignores how remus laughs when he says it is up to him. he ignores the loathing in his glare as he tells him of a werewolf mission he needs remus to go on.
it is remus' turn to ignore him. a week later, remus is out of england. he travels through europe, transforming in dense, uninhabited forests on full moons. he rarely uses magic. he gains more scars than ever.
in mid 1993, remus gets his first owl in over a decade. it is from dumbledore. a teaching opportunity at hogwarts. remus almost burns it, but he see's harry's name. he is alive. remus feels torn. he is so angry. but he is so happy. but he is so, so angry.
in august 1993, he returns to england for the school year. he isn't doing this for dumbledore, not even for himself. he is doing it for harry, his best friends son.
dumbledore offers him carriage transport. remus declines. he sits in the marauders compartment. there is no other way to get to hogwarts, not for him. he falls asleep fast. it had been a full moon the night before.
remus wakes up to james potter's face for the first time in 12 years.
when he first sees sirius' name on the map, remus cries. he doesn't cry easily, but he buries his face in his hands and lets out years of pent up sadness. after his eyes have dried up, he goes to see minerva. he doesn't tell her what he saw, but they cry together for hours. they hold cups of tea with shaking hands and lean against each other. the older woman sees him as her son, and when she calls poppy in, the three of them cry again.
at the shrieking shack, remus clutches onto sirius as if he is oxygen, and remus has been suffocating. sirius holds him just as tight, almost cradling him. the rest of the night is a blur. all remus can think about is sirius.
sirius, sirius, sirius.
he resigns before dumbledore can fire him, and flips the man off before leaving. he returns the map to harry. james would haunt him if he didn't.
then, he finds sirius. in a cave in the mountains, eating rats and random fish, remus feels more alive than he has in years.
he has sirius. that's enough.
when dumbledore re-opens the order of the phoenix, remus begs sirius not to join. he pleads. he can tell sirius doesn't want to, but he does. remus only partially understands - he is a black, and was imprisoned in azkaban for 12 years - sirius feels he has to prove his innocence.
it doesn't matter anyway, remus follows sirius no matter what. he'd follow him to his death if he had to.
dumbledore is pleased to have a werewolf in the ranks. he is sent away on missions immediately. he gets more than double the amount compared to the rest of the members.
every time he comes back, sirius cries over the new scars. he cleans new gashes, and traces kisses up the old ones. remus mumbles apologies into his hair, and they hold each other as they both fall asleep, remus' bandaged chest against sirius' skinny one.
at the department of mysteries, remus chases sirius through the halls. he stuns death eaters before they can even think about drawing their wands. he disarms lucius so that sirius can punch him. they fight back to back, spells pushing out from their wands in sync until remus has to lurch forward to cast a shield charm to protect harry.
that's when bellatrix hits him. remus feels it, as if he is being torn apart. he has to hold harry back as he watches sirius sink through the veil, his last laugh dying on his lips.
remus feels as if he is walking through water. harry is screaming, but he hears nothing. the battle seems to grind to a halt.
harry is fighting against his hold now, and remus' arms feel like lead. he escapes, running after bellatrix, but remus doesn't bat an eye.
the veil is so close, if he could just reach out and touch it, he could be with sirius again-
but then minerva is pulling him back, words spilling from her mouth, sadness, and panic, and exhaustion etched onto her face. she apparates him to hogwarts, and remus feels sick. he throws up in the hospital wing, feeling as if he has just had his entire world ripped from him.
which he has.
the battle of hogwarts is going to be remus' last fight. he knows it. he is not afraid.
when he dies, remus is back in that dorm, in 1996. only this time, sirius sits on remus' bed, wearing his beloved leather jacket. he looks 19 again, and remus knows he looks the same.
the first lifetime that remus lupin falls in love with sirius black in doesn't end well.
but, that's fine. they have thousands more to live through anyway.
it takes several lifetimes before they find each other again. they board the same train in one of them, but get off at different stops. in another, they are monks at an ancient monastery, but they do not meet. remus is already married to someone else in yet another.
the next is 1821. remus is a high up, orphaned noblewoman who has been taking care of her six year old sister since her parents death, with connections to a branch of the british royal family. sirius is also a noblewoman, but with french relations.
they meet at a ball, one intended for match-making. they dance together once, and it is love at first sight. they recognize each other: past lives have a way of being remembered in critical moments.
but they are both women. marriage is not an option, and sirius is already engaged.
it seems that there is nothing to be done. but remus has an idea.
through letters, they form an intricate plan. they joke that if anyone were to find out, they'd be branded witches for having such intelligence. they don't dwell on the fact that it is completely true.
three days before sirius' wedding, she fakes both her and her five year old sisters death. a hunting accident. their bodies are never found.
of course, that is because their very much alive bodies are boarding a ship headed to america, with remus and lily beside them. they claim to be going over to their husbands with their respective children. it is a very easy lie.
they live long lives in a fairly isolated cabin in the woods. regulus meets a man named james in the nearby village when she is seventeen, and they marry a few months later. lily stays 'single', and lives with a very close friend of hers - mary - as schoolteachers.
remus and sirius die within a month of each other, and are buried in the same grave. an field of wildflowers sprouts from their tomb.
they get their happy ending.
they spend the next two lifetimes together.
in the first, they meet in a coffee shop in the late nineties. bonding over a shared love of cappuccinos, they moved to the netherlands in 2001 with their three cats and get married.
however, in 2020, remus gets a deadly case of covid and he dies a year later, at the age of 40. sirius spends the next 25 years alone, until a series of strokes take him out too. their adopted son, teddy, opens a coffee shop after they have both passed.
it's famous for it's cappuccinos.
in the second, it is world war II. remus and sirius fight, side by side for three years. they lie in trenches and shoot over open fields. each night, they secretly hold each other in the dark barracks. remus isn't religious, but he prays to every god he can think of that they are both going to get out of this alive and together.
but then in a faulty bomb attack from the opposition, remus is permanently paralyzed and in a coma. he spends two weeks in the army hospital until the staff are forced to pull the plug.
sirius goes mad. he flies into a rage and shoots down every enemy single soldier he sees. overall, he kills 35 people, and puts 9 into intensive care. he is shot down on the field the same day, and he dies with a smile on his face.
his achievements are labelled a group effort, and his is buried the same way remus is.
an unnamed soldier in a field of blood-coloured poppies.
then there is a lifetime so similar to the first that remus almost considers getting himself killed early on.
but this time, there is no wizarding war. james, remus, sirius and peter meet on the train the same as they did before. they go through almost exactly the same things, but this time, remus isn't a werewolf.
he isn't a werewolf.
the four of them become animagi for the fun of it. this time, remus is an orange cat.
he and sirius are more in love than ever. harry grows up with his parents, but this time, it's regulus and james, lily being the surrogate. marlene and dorcas move in with remus and sirius after they all graduate.
when remus dies of old age, it is happier than ever before.
many more lifetimes follow.
an alien one that could have come out of a work of fiction with how strange it was.
a very simple one were they were married with six children and two dogs. several more of these follow.
one in which they are greek warriors. they die in a situation similar to achilles and patroclus.
a royalty x royalty love.
a pirate romance that ends surprisingly happy.
and more.
and more.
and more.
and more.
and more.
until they reach a lifetime where they meet quite simply.
remus is tired. he is shopping at a store for something to eat. he had just got home from work and would have gone straight to bed had he not realized he had no food.
so, here he was, in the middle of the vegetables section, looking at the green stuff with nothing short of disgust. his mind is fuzzy, and his sweater sleeves are past his hands, touching the basket. he hates imagining how dirty it must be, so he focuses on the broccoli instead.
then, a pale hand reaches out and snatches the one he was just about to take. remus is so exhausted he almost cries. the rest of the broccoli's look so awful, and that was the best one.
he turns, about to ask if there is anyway he could have that one, when his mouth stops moving, falling open in shock.
standing in front of him is a man with black curly hair and eyes the color of molten stars. he has a freckle above his left eye shaped like moon and a lip piercing. and he is staring right back at remus, shock mirrored on his face. the word slips out of remus' lips.
"sirius?"
his silver eyes fill with tears and remus wants to wipe them away, to kiss them away, to stop this beautiful man from ever crying again because he doesn't deserve to be sad. but then sirius' lips are on his and his hands are in remus' hair and oh my god how could remus ever think this wasn't him? because of course it is, and then remus is kissing back and his hands are on sirius' face, pulling him impossibly closer, pouring his entire soul into that kiss.
somebody clears their throat behind them and they pull apart to see a woman give them a slightly confused look and grab something from the shelf behind them. but remus isn't really looking because he is too busy tracing the curve of sirius' cheekbone, watching the way sirius leans into his palm with a small contented sigh.
sirus is looking at him with so much love that remus feels he might explode. his voice is so velvety, but when he speak it cracks.
"i can't believe i've found you." tears are welling up in his eyes again, and remus gently swipes them away and pulls sirius into his chest. his basket is forgotten on the floor.
"of course you did. remember?" sirius is relaxed in his hold now, and remus can feel him smiling against his chest.
"in every lifetime, i will find you." remus nods, and buries his face in his curls.
"and in every lifetime, i will love you."