April 25th part two
Sirius stood in front of Professor Lupin’s office. Professor Lupin. Professor R. J. Lupin. There’s a briefcase with that name, somewhere in the world. Sirius gave it to his Moony as a joke. In fifth year- was it fifth year? It was definitely after fourth year, but was it much later after?- Remus became tutoring students in pretty much every class he took. Every week, his tutoring group grew larger and larger. When it hit thirty kids, Sirius bought him the briefcase.
Professor R. J. Lupin? I’m not a professor.
Sure you aren’t. Your students may disagree though.
Come off it Pads. No one would hire a werewolf to be a professor.
I would. We’d have a beastly good time!
Remus had blushed to that. Sirius remembers that. He always remembered when he could make Remus blush. It used to be his favorite activity.
The full moon had gone up thirty minutes ago. Remus’s office reeked of magic. There was no sound from inside at all, not even the buzzing from the light that was clearly on. There had to be every single protection charm to keep the door locked. Sirius was always good at getting into Remus’s personal space.
Cissy had told him this was a bad idea. But she was also the one to tell him about the potion.
I wonder how your boyfriend likes the potion.
The potion?
Walfsbane. It’s a new development for werewolves, it lets them keep their minds while they transition.
Sirius knew exactly what he had to do when he heard that. He couldn’t see Remus. He couldn’t look into Remus’s sad and guilty eyes and he couldn’t listen to the man say he’s move on. But it wasn’t fair of him to avoid Remus. This way, Remus got to see him and he didn’t have to talk about anything he didn’t want to because wolves can’t talk.
He started undoing all the protective charms. He then started unlocking the door. Practically every single locking spell was on the door. Sirius couldn’t blame Moony. If a student walked in, they would be in for a surprise.
Luckily though, this was advanced magic that no student should know or have the power to do. Also Luckily, for Sirius, wolves couldn’t do magic. So even if Remus caught on to what Sirius was doing, he couldn’t stop it.
It took a few tries, but he got the door open. A wolf was sitting behind the desk. Moony was always bigger than Padfoot, but now he seems larger. Sirius has never seen Moony while he was still human, it was too dangerous. Now Moony just sat stared at him.
Sirius closed the door.
“Hello Romulus.”
Your name’s Remus? You should watch out for Romulus.
What?
You know, the story from Ancient Greece where twin brothers Remus and Romulus fight over a crown then Romulus kills his brother and becomes king.
Right.
****
Maybe that’s what we should call your wolf form.
What? Moony?
No, you’re Moony and you’re not the wolf. We should call it Romulus.
The Ancient Greek man who killed his brother Remus?
Yes.
That’s… that’s rather fitting actually.
The wolf, naturally, didn’t answer.
“Although I suppose you’re not Romulus at all. Cissy said there was this potion that sort of joined you together. His body but your mind. And seeing that Romulus hasn’t instantly killed me, I’d say she was right. I’m staying with her you know. Cis- erm Narcissa. She’s not as bad now. She has changed her views slightly. You teach her son. She says you’re one of his favorites.” Sirius sat on a chair that was definitely meant for students, but it was across from the wolf, so sirius didn’t care. The wolf had not blinked yet. It was bizarre.
Draco mentioned your lover in his letter today.
I’m sure it’s something horribly rude and dim like your husband.
No. He actually has yet to say anything bad about Lupin. He must be a good professor.
No doubt about that.
“I suppose… that I should explain some things that had happened.” Sirius was not good at judging emotions on wolves, but this one in front of him looked like Sirius said the most obvious thing known to mankind. Then the wolf nodded its head almost signaling him to go on.
“I was going to yell at you. When I made my plans of coming to see you, I was planning on just screaming at you. Make you feel bad or whatever because of what happened to me. But this would have never happened if we- if I told you. It was my idea to switch secret keepers. I was too obvious of a choice. The death eaters would have come for me regardless. I could handle them, but it would be safer if I never had the information to begin with. I chose Peter. He was weak, he was so unbelievably average that no one would ever think it was him. James thought it was brilliant. Our next great prank on the death eaters. You were out with the werewolves, I- I knew you weren’t the spy. Maybe not all of me knew it and maybe some part of me was still convinced you could be, but that only makes us even in the whole spy drama. James and I were worried that the other werewolves would find you out and you would tell them about the switch, so we didn’t tell you. Now this was clearly the wrong choice. Er- choices. Plural.”
The wolf looked sad. Can wolves look sad? This one did. He specifically did this to avoid the sad looks. What the hell Remus? This wasn’t how it was supposed to go!
The wolf growled at him.
“What?” What more could Remus want?
What do you want Moony?
What would you give me?
Everything.
The wolf pointed his nose to a calendar on the wall. The word ‘full’ was under today’s date. The wolf growled at him again. Sirius understood the message: why pick a full moon to come back?
“I chose to be a coward today. I could not face you as a human. I can not look into your eyes as you reply back to me. It’s been twelve years. Twelve years you thought I killed James, Lily, and Peter. Twelve years you were all alone. I don’t want to hear how you’ve moved on. I wouldn’t be able to take it. My family is famous for going mad, I knew I couldn’t handle you right away. So I chose to be a coward. To face you when you couldn’t respond.” He had it all planed out. He would enter after the moon had risen, then leave before it went away. Remus would never follow him as a wolf and Sirius would be gone before he was human. It was unfair to remus, but Sirius couldn’t handle any more.
“Peter is in Azkaban and hopefully he will be dead soon. Harry should be in my custody then, Dumbledore wouldn’t let me meet him today, but I won’t stop that ancient man until I do. If Harry agrees to stay with me, I’ll take him to France. I inherited a house there. I always liked going to France, I think Harry will like it too. You’ll love it in France. That country has the best chocolate the world has ever seen. Their hot chocolate is not like ours but it’s much better than anything the UK has made. When we get there, that’ll be our first stop-“
Sirius realized his mistake too late. You’ll love it there. When we get there. It’s been twelve years. He’s probably moved on. He owes you nothing Sirius. The chance that he could even love you, after hating you for so long? Almost zero.
“Not that you have to come. I’m sure you’ve got your whole life all squared away. But if you wanted to come or even just to visit… It’s a really big house. Erm Manor might be a better word for it. Lots of bedrooms, lots of space. There’s a forest behind it. The Blacks have been paranoid for thousands of years, there’s every single protection charm put on it. S’il vous plaît, rejoignez-nous pour l'été.*”
Talk to me.
Hello Moony, How are you?
You knew what I meant you idiot.
Ah. Je n'ai aimé personne comme je t'ai aimé**
What did you say?
That’s a secret.
“I’ll see you later, Moony.” Sirius stood from his seat. He took two steps towards the door, but the wolf beat him to it. The wolf was blocking the door, teeth barring, growling. He was not letting Sirius leave so easily. “Let me go Remus.”
The wolf growled even louder. Sirius wanted to go. They didn’t have that much time before the moon went away. He couldn’t face Remus, not after everything they just spoke about. He wants to go. He feels unclean, he wants to go back to Cissy’s. He can’t do this today.
The wolf was not backing down. If anything, he was inching towards Sirius. It was almost suffocating. He needed an out. He knew Remus, better than anyone, what situation would make him let Sirius leave.
A promise.
“How about this Saturday at noon. You won’t have class and you’ll be recovered from the full. We’ll meet at the shack.”
An olive branch.
A peace.
Sometimes Sirius, we have to give the lessor a pillow so they stay bowing at our feet.
What if it doesn’t work?
Then you make it work. Do you understand me?
Yes Papa.
The wolf backed down. He sat down and eyed Sirius. He was unsure.
“I promise. If I don’t show up you can feel free to barge into Malfoy Manor and drag me out yourself.” He raised his arms in surrender. Moony did always like to be in charge, the control freak.
The wolf went back to his chair behind his desk.
Sirius went out the office door.