don't think you knew you were in the song
13th November, 1979
Remus Lupin comes home to a completely empty flat.
The worst part is that he’s not completely surprised by this fact.
The past few months have been undeniably, relentlessly rough - an admittance that has taken Remus a while to come to terms with. For a long time, Sirius has been a wondrous, bright, soothing constant in his life. The simple existence that they’ve forged for themselves as young adults has been a safe haven for the two of them, after uniquely rocky childhoods and countless traumas. And it had taken both of them such a long time to really trust the thing between them, to trust that it wouldn’t be pulled abruptly away from them.
In the wake of a war, trust becomes sparse.
So, yes, Remus is not surprised that the flat is silent and still when he finally arrives home.
What he is surprised by is the fact that someone else has clearly been living here in his absence.
He almost doesn’t notice anything abnormal at first, too exhausted by weeks of missions from Dumbledore to do more than stumble through the front door and dump his things in the hallway. It’s not until he slumps down onto the well-loved sofa that his brain finally catches up.
To Remus’ left sits a folded-up knitted blanket - one that’s barely seen the light of day since their Hogwarts days. He’d forgotten that they even owned it, yet here it sits. It’s not necessarily reason to be suspicious but Remus’ paranoid brain won’t let it go.
So, he searches.
The bedroom remains relatively untouched but on the kitchen sink rests an extra toothbrush. An old towel that never usually sees use is draped over the radiator. The fridge is actually stocked - something that Sirius can never reliably keep up with when alone. Someone was thoughtful enough to throw away any perishables before departure. A discarded book on Dark Curses rests on one of the dining chairs. The bin is full of scrap pieces of paper covered in swirling, aristocratic handwriting - similar to Sirius’ but not quite.
To put it simply, Remus is fretting.
He’s so sure that Regulus Black has been in his home recently and he’s not sure what to do with that information.
As far as he knows, the Black brothers haven’t spoken since an explosive fight at the train station on the first day of Seventh Year. Why loyal Death Eater and Black heir Regulus Black would be in the home of his estranged brother, Remus genuinely has no idea.
Throughout the past nine years, Remus has heard countless fond memories of Sirius’ brother, mostly centred around their close bond as children. He’s listened empathetically to every moment of Sirius’ upset over their shattered relationship, has soothed the endless nightmares and fits of guilt. He knows how complicated it almost has been.
Which is what's so worrying. He can't trust that Sirius will act logically when it comes to his younger brother. And he also can't trust that Regulus Black has been here for morally sound reasons.
(There's also that small, unkillable part of him that worries that Sirius has gone back to the side of his family.)
As Remus begins to try and construct some dinner for himself, he understands that there's nothing he can do until either brother resurfaces from wherever they've been hiding out.
All he can do is wait.
-
19th November, 1979
It’s around midday when Remus’ nap is interrupted by the loud crackle of Apparition. It’s followed by a loud crashing sound and what sounds to be horrified, heaving sobs.
Wand in hand, Remus bolts out of the bedroom to find Regulus Black crouched over the body of his older brother. Both men are so smeared with deep, deep red blood that it takes him a moment to quite work out where it's coming from.
And it's coming from Sirius.
Blood is gushing from deep slashes across his whole body, spanning the length of his torso. It’s coated in his hair, splattered across his face (his beautiful, beautiful face ), staining the knitted jumper he's wearing - one that Remus is so sure is his own.
“What did you do to him?” He bellows, rushing towards the brothers, panic and rage swirling in his stomach, “What did you do?”
The younger Black brother shakes his head, spluttering incoherently through his gasping sobs, “It wasn’t- It wasn’t me! It was her, it was her, how did she find us? It was her! You have to- you have to help!”
Remus turns to look at him, though his hands don’t ever cease applying pressure to Sirius’ wounds.. The Black heir looks so incredibly young, with wide watery eyes and a trembling lower lip. His face is lined with healing scratches, though they’re hardly discernible through the splattering of blood that is drying on his cheeks. Remus curses - he won't be helpful like this, “Black, go and sit down. I’m going to do my best to help Sirius, okay? But I need space.”
Regulus lets out a broken sort of noise, the kind that only comes from having to leave the side of one of your precious people. Remus is uncomfortably well-versed with the feeling. The other man mutters something about washing his hands, and stands on shaky legs to stumble into the kitchen.
The good thing about being a werewolf for the entirety of your life is that you become very comfortable with healing spells. Remus knows almost all of them, has performed them on himself.
Nothing about that makes saving Sirius Black’s life any easier.
All he can think about as he works is the fact that their last words were tense and resentful. He viscerally knows the furrow of Sirius’ dark brow, the curl in his lip, the hurt that breaks through his mask of nonchalance, that leaks through his grey eyes. Remus could probably draw the defensive slump in his shoulders from memory, just as perfectly as he can recall the agitated tapping of his nimble fingers on the table. He remembers it all.
And he can’t live with that being the last image of Sirius he ever has.
So, Remus works. He recites every healing spell he can think of, watches as the deep slashes slowly begin to sew themselves back together under his wand. The rest of the room blurs and fades as he focuses - he exists in a bubble as he works to save Sirius’ life.
-
“You’ve got a lot of fucking explaining to do.”
Regulus Black snaps his head up to look at Remus, startled. He’s hunched over in one of the kitchen chairs, picking at his nails feverishly, though he’s clearly much more coherent than he’d been upon arrival. Still, for a moment, he looks ever the wide-eyed, shy 11-year-old that Sirius had introduced to them all back in 1972. But then, his face hardens into a much more familiar aristocratic mask as he rises to his feet.
“How is-”
“Stop. He's fine.” Remus snaps, surging forward, “Start fucking talking, Black. What the hell is going on here? Why do I not hear from my boyfriend for weeks and then he shows up half-dead with his Death Eater brother, who I know he hasn't spoken to for-”
“Okay! Okay, stop!” Regulus snarls, hand cutting through the air swiftly, “I know how it looks, I do. But you have to believe me when I say that I didn't do this. We've been-” He cuts himself off, running a hand sharply through his hair. He sinks into one of the kitchen chairs, gesturing for Remus to do the same.
Against his better judgement, Remus does. His wand remains firmly in his hand.
Regulus rests his forehead in his hands for a long moment, taking a few controlled, deep breaths. He straightens, “I've defected from the Death Eaters. There are multiple reasons for this and it was a long time coming. But the… catalyst, you could say, was two things. The first being that the Dark Lord has harnessed a great kind of Dark Magic, in a vastness and quantity that no wizard has ever attempted before. Not any sane one, at least.
“He's created what's known as a Horcrux - a piece of Dark Magic that fractures a part of the spellcaster’s soul and binds it to an object of their choosing. It's a gruesome process that requires a murder in order to break down the soul - it can't be done without the ritualistic dehumanising of the caster. Lord Voldemort has made five.”
Remus feels his stomach drop. He's always known that Voldemort is a particularly Dark wizard - has seen it - but this… this is much more grave that he had previously thought. If Voldemort has made five of these things…
Regulus stares at him intently, clearly waiting for Remus to be done processing his words, before continuing, “For the past month, Sirius and I have been tracking down these Horcruxes with the intent to destroy them. We've yet to do so because we're not sure whether Riddle can, you know, feel when they're destroyed. If we do them one at a time, we risk him creating more or adding extra protection to the currently existing ones or tracking us down or… it just seems safer this way.
“This morning, we retrieved the third Horcrux. It- we didn't know what kind of protection spells were placed over it and Sirius… it was my fault, I should've- I-I’m usually more prepared than this, I just-”
The Black heir drops his head into his hands again, shoulders slumping. A slight tremor is visibly quaking through his body.
There’s no mention of the Her that Regulus had been spluttering about earlier.
Remus nods slowly, letting out a whispered okay. Despite every instinct in him telling him to not listen to a word the other man is saying but… another part of him is sure that Regulus is telling the truth.
“So, what now?” Remus finds himself asking, “How do we find the other two?”
Regulus’ head snaps up as he turns to look at Remus, clearly startled at his easy acceptance. There's still a smear of blood on the side of his neck.
“I guess we can't do anything until Sirius is awake… And I'd rather do it myself from now on - the risk is just too high and I can't-”
Remus snorts, “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“What?”
“I don't know you very well, Black, but I do know Sirius. There’s nothing in the world that could stop him from doing this. It's what he lives for, protecting the people that he loves.”
Regulus looks at him, almost shy. “He loves you, too. A lot. He hasn’t said it but you not being here has been… hard on him. He's been lonely.”
Remus can only nod. Loneliness is a beast he knows extremely well, has carried with him since he was five years old. His chest feels heavy.
The kitchen is silent. Remus almost feels like laughing at the bizarreness of it all. Why is he here in his own kitchen with Regulus Black of all people, having an emotionally stunted version of a heart-to-heart? And having just had the most dense, worldview-shifting deliverance of information he'd ever-
“Wait, what's the second thing?”
Regulus stiffens, “What?”
“You said the catalyst for your defection was two things.” Remus queries, feeling a strange sense of foreboding dread settle heavily on his shoulders, “What's the second thing? What aren't you telling me?”
A deep, shaky exhale leaves Regulus’ lips as he gives an accepting nod. He meets Remus’ eyes once more, “I discovered who the Spy is.”
And Remus’ stomach drops.