Remus Lupin
“I don’t get the issue,” Harry complained. “Why are you doing this?”
Sirius mumbled something Harry couldn’t hear from beneath the cloak. The others at the breakfast table didn’t look nearly as bothered as they probably would have if it wasn’t Sirius who was invisible.
Harry studied the Head Table subtly and saw Lupin was there, talking to McGonagall. Every few seconds Lupin would look to the Slytherin table and Harry would look away.
It probably wasn’t Harry that Lupin wanted to see, Harry was sure.
Harry didn’t understand why Sirius was being cagey. Sure, it might be strange for Sirius to be taught by one of his good friends, but it couldn’t be that awful. It certainly wasn’t dramatic enough for him to be hiding from Lupin under their cloak.
“Who is that?” Blaise asked, watching as Harry resumed his careful scan of the table until Lupin looked toward him again.
There was a second, just one second, where Lupin caught Harry’s eyes. Lupin couldn’t hide his shock quick enough and Harry quickly ducked his head.
“New Defense professor,” Harry told Blaise quietly, well aware that the other first years were listening. “Professor Lupin.”
“How do you know that?” Theo asked loudly. He looked exasperated and Harry couldn’t imagine why. Harry barely talked to him, they shouldn’t have any issue about who Harry did or didn’t know. Harry didn’t have to answer though because Daphne sort of did it for him.
“Oh!” Daphne looked at the Head Table and then nodded. “He’s the one you said told you and Sirius about Sirius’s father being innocent, right? He was friends with your fathers?”
Oh, God… why did Harry tell them that?
It had been the easiest way to clear Sirius’s name to the others at the time, Harry certainly didn’t expect Lupin to show up less than a month later.
“Er…” Harry tried to stall, wishing desperately that Sirius would say or do something to change subject.
“He looks poor,” Draco said suddenly and rudely. “I bet he jumped at the chance to have a job.”
Harry expected Sirius to chime in, defend his friend, something. Sirius stayed quiet though even when conversation turned to speculation over the difficulty of filling the position.
“I bet nobody wanted it because Harry Potter killed the last Professor,” Pansy said.
“Mandy said last night that Professor Quirrell was full of dark magic,” Tracey Davis argued. She smiled kindly at Harry. “We know you’re not really a killer.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, his dry sarcasm going over her head. He then went back to elbowing Sirius. “You’re being ridiculous.”
Sirius said something that sounded a lot like ‘going to hurt him’.
“Who? Lupin?” Harry desperately wanted to yank the cloak off Sirius, he only didn’t because there had been many times he wanted to hide under the cloak as well.
The clock chimed, signaling the end of breakfast and the start of classes, before Harry could get a decent answer from Sirius. Ever since the night before, Sirius had been weird. For a minute, Sirius had seemed pleased, then he turned quiet and odd.
Harry had to grab Sirius by the arm to make sure he didn’t lose him when the others began leaving for class.
“You’re not wearing that all day,” Harry said, holding Sirius back so they could walk to history by themselves. Sirius seemed prepared to do exactly that and Harry wasn’t going to spend his day talking to thin air without a good reason.
“You don’t understand,” Sirius whined - he actually whined - from beneath the cloak when they had a bit of privacy to walk to class together. “He’s going to take one look at me and hate me, Harry.”
“You two were friends, right?” Harry said, truly not understanding at all. Lupin and Harry’s dad had been friends, Lupin never acted as if he hated Harry.
“I should have said I was Reggie’s son,” Sirius said, which didn’t answer Harry’s question. He sounded so stressed over it all that Harry, who had been rather happy initially to see Lupin on the map, was beginning to wish Lupin wasn’t there.
“Who is Reggie?” Harry asked. He thought he remembered Sirius mentioning a brother once, though Harry didn’t think that Sirius could ever pass as anything except his own son. Sirius looked like… Sirius.
Harry resembled James and Lily Potter, enough that people recognized him. Lupin would recognize Sirius as the wrong Sirius, but that didn’t seem like a horrible ordeal.
“Regulus, my brother.” Sirius answered him distractedly. “Maybe I can skip off defense?”
“For the rest of the year?” Harry grabbed Sirius by the shoulders and turned him so he could shove him in an alcove just outside of Binn’s classroom.
“What is this about?” Harry demanded, struggling for a moment to yank the cloak off Sirius’s head. That was when Harry realized that Sirius wasn’t being dramatic, he wasn’t acting ridiculous, he was truly upset about Lupin being at Hogwarts.
There was a deep sense of unhappiness in Sirius’s eyes, shadows that Harry had seen in Sirius as an adult too often, but had disappeared recently. Sirius had been angry about Scabbers, he was snarling over Dumbledore and Snape, but Sirius looked miserable and Harry hated it.
“I would have been born in 1980,” Sirius said flatly, looking down at Harry’s chest rather than his eyes. “So I was conceived in 1979.”
“Alright then,” Harry said, mystified by the change in subject.
“Harry…” Sirius glanced up through his lashes, enough that Harry saw there were tears clinging to his bottom lash. “Remus and I were together from ‘76 until I was arrested in ‘81.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
Harry had to sit through a double lesson in history with that knowledge in his mind.
Sirius and Remus had been together.
They weren’t just best mates, they were… they were together.
Harry kept opening his mouth to ask Sirius about it before he snapped it back shut.
There was something wrong about them together, something that was digging in Harry’s chest and clawing at him. It didn’t make any sense at all, it was just all wrong.
They were together; lovers, probably. It would have started while they were in Hogwarts and their relationship ended when Sirius was arrested… So Lupin might have been pining for Sirius for all those years before they were reunited at the end of third year.
Maybe Sirius had been pining as well. Maybe Sirius was still pining, maybe he loved Lupin…
The quill Harry had been flicking around snapped and Harry never even noticed the ink suddenly splattering his hand as he considered that thought.
If Sirius loved Lupin, they might have gotten together after Sirius escaped Azkaban and Lupin saw Pettigrew on the map. Maybe they had been together right up until Sirius fell through the veil, that would explain why Dumbledore had once told Sirius to lie low at Lupin’s.
Lie low…
Harry glanced sharply at Sirius, who had his head lying on his desk. Sirius wasn’t asleep, he was staring out the windows morosely.
“Sirius…” Harry whispered Sirius’s name and kicked him a little harder than he meant to. Sirius jolted in his seat and blinked at Harry while raising a questioning brow.
“Did you sleep with him?” Harry whispered. It was a daft and invasive question, Harry knew it was, but he needed to know.
Someone in front of them made a quiet gasp, but Harry didn’t even notice. What he did notice was that Sirius was blushing, which he had never seen before.
“Of course we slept together,” Sirius whispered back hotly. “Circe, Harry.”
Harry nodded and then turned to the front, refusing to look at Sirius any longer.
That was the answer Harry expected, he just didn’t expect to feel like he had just been kicked in the stomach.
Of course they slept together, Sirius said. Of course. They were probably in love and had been together for most of their lives.
Sirius might still love him, he probably did. It explained why he was so upset over Lupin seeing him. Sirius didn’t want Lupin to think that he had cheated on him because - of course - they slept together.
Lunch felt tense with neither Harry nor Sirius talking. Sirius was back beneath the cloak, skipping the meal to sulk, and Harry was stabbing his food more aggressively than necessarily required.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry snapped at Sirius abruptly when he couldn’t hold it in any longer. He scowled and reached out to yank the cloak off Sirius. “He’s not even here,” he said once Sirius was visible and glowering back at Harry.
“Tell you what?” Sirius asked. “About - about— no, fuck this.” Sirius pulled his wand from where he carried it in his sleeve and flicked it, erecting the same buzzing privacy charm he had used before.
The others might be annoyed, but it was worth it if it meant Harry could get answers without having to be vague.
“You never told me that you and Lupin were together,” Harry said. “Why?”
“It wasn’t a secret,” Sirius answered. His eyebrows were mashed down and he looked as angry and frustrated as he did over the summer when he was trapped in a place he hated.
“You said before that you wouldn’t be his friend again but clearly you care about him,” Harry said. It was such a stupid thing to fight about, but it was a pretty big secret that Sirius had kept from him.
“I said I probably wouldn’t be his friend again,” Sirius said, flushing with some emotion Harry couldn’t pick out. “It didn’t exactly feel great sitting in Azkaban thinking that any day Remus was going to go to the Ministry, to the news, to the Order, and shout about my innocence, did it?”
“Do you still love him?” Harry asked, feeling it was important to know.
Sirius flushed darker and he turned his head, looking away from Harry. He also mashed his lips together, clearly not going to respond.
“You do,” Harry said. He shook his head and hated that truth. Lupin was - he was - he was all wrong for Sirius.
“He thought you were a traitor and you just forgave him?” Harry demanded. Sirius didn’t respond and Harry started ranting. “You were mad at the bloke that sells ice cream because he didn’t say anything nice about you but you forgave Lupin?!”
Sirius snapped then and all the emotion Harry couldn’t figure out suddenly switched to anger.
“I thought it might have been him!” Sirius slammed his hand on the table and the students sitting near them immediately scooted away, leaving them to have their private argument in public.
“I thought the traitor could have been Remus, I didn’t trust him enough!” Sirius yelled. “I know he blamed me, I blamed me! Our friends were DEAD, HARRY!”
“I KNOW THAT BECAUSE THEY WERE MY PARENTS!” Harry yelled right back. “LUPIN DIDN’T DO A DAMN THING FOR YOU THEN! AND WHEN YOU FELL IN THE MINISTRY HE JUST STOOD THERE!”
“NOT EVERYONE IS STUPID ENOUGH TO GO CHASING ME THROUGH A FUCKING VEIL, HARRY!”
Harry’s jaw dropped at the furious way Sirius spat the words at him. Sirius couldn’t have made his point more clearly if he had slapped Harry in the face.
“Fine.” Harry pushed himself to his feet and ignored the stinging behind his eyes, keeping them down so nobody saw him being an idiot.
“I’m sorry I didn’t want to lose you,” Harry said, as coldly as he could. “I’m sure you wish Lupin was here instead, but- hey! Maybe you can bloody reconcile in seven years. Or maybe he won’t care - maybe you can sneak off to his room tonight to LIE LOW!”
With that, Harry snatched his cloak back from Sirius and stormed from the Hall, leaving Sirius to sit by himself in the space the others made around them.
Harry didn’t particularly want to attend Defense, but he wanted to be in detention again just a little less. It meant that when the clock chimed and it was time to go to class, Harry hesitated in the alcove where he had hidden himself.
It wasn’t a terribly difficult decision - Harry just decided that he needed a way to skip class and not have detention for it. Which meant that Harry needed an excuse… and to get an excuse, he needed to go to the Hospital Wing.
It was his least favorite place to be, just behind anywhere near Sirius or Lupin.
Harry made up an easy excuse about having a headache and only had to spend a few minutes being fussed over before he was sent to a bed with a potion for pain.
It meant that Harry could curl up on his side and glare at the wall, wishing he understood why Sirius had to be so - so…
Sirius was being an arse, it was that simple.
What was Harry meant to do when he saw Sirius falling through the veil? Stand there and cry like Lupin? Torturing Bellatrix had merit to it, but Harry had only gone to the Ministry because he thought Sirius needed him.
Maybe that had been Harry’s mistake, thinking Sirius needed him like Harry did Sirius.
“Ugh.”
Harry started to flip on his back, debating on begging for something to sleep through the rest of the day with. Before he could make up his mind on it, he heard someone saying his name.
Since it wasn’t Sirius, Harry reached out to grab the curtains he had originally closed and pulled it open enough to peer out.
On the bed beside Harry, with puffy eyes and dried tears on her face, was Hermione. Harry was instantly concerned, he couldn’t remember Hermione ever having gone to the Hospital Wing in their first year. Though he supposed he didn’t talk to her much before the troll incident on Halloween.
“Hermione?” Harry scooted up on his bed so he could sit and quickly wiped his face, embarrassed to realize that he had been crying.
“Are you alright?” Hermione scooted up on her bed as well until they were both sitting up and looked less pathetic.
“Me?” Harry laughed humorlessly and had never felt so stupid before. “Er, fine,” he assured her quickly. “I’ve got a headache.”
“Oh.” Hermione smiled, a little shaky and tearful, but it was a familiar smile and one that Harry hadn’t realized how much he missed until he saw it again.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked her, concerned and trying to not be a strange amount of concerned to the girl who didn’t remember being Harry’s best friend for years. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Hermione said, as if Harry couldn’t see that she had been crying. “It’s stupid, really, I had a fight with one of our classmates. Not a fight, really, just a mean argument. I was running and tripped.” Hermione held up her left wrist. “I sprained my wrist. Isn’t that the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?”
It certainly wasn’t any stupider than Harry skipping class because Sirius liked Lupin more than he did Harry.
“No, it isn’t,” Harry said genuinely. “Did Madam Pomfrey fix you up alright?”
“Oh, yes,” Hermione said. “I have to sit here until dinner though. I’m really sad to miss defense, I heard that we have a new professor.”
“Yeah.” Harry scowled again and Hermione seemed taken aback by his suddenly dark tone. “Professor Lupin,” he told her.
“Do you know him?” Hermione asked. “It’s - I mean, you sound like maybe you don’t like him.”
Harry huffed and crossed his arms. He didn’t like Lupin, he wished that Dumbledore had hired anyone except Lupin.
Suddenly, Sirius’s theory that Dumbledore was a life-ruining monster had more evidence. It wasn’t enough that Dumbledore sent Sirius to a place where Harry was trying to keep him from; no, no… he had to bring Lupin to the castle.
Where was Lockhart? Off stealing credit from some poor witch or wizard?
“He’s fine,” Harry said waspishly, swallowing back his complaints because Hermione wasn’t his Hermione and Harry would never have his Hermione back again.
Even if they became the best of friends, it wouldn’t be the same. The only person in the entire world who knew Harry was Sirius. And he was busy crying over Lupin.
“Okay then,” Hermione said, not sounding at all convinced. She was polite enough to change the subject though, something Harry appreciated.
“Are you looking forward to flying lessons?” Hermione asked.
Harry reluctantly grinned at that, assuming Hermione was only asking because she thought Harry might be interested. Hermione had been terrified during their flying lesson, she never did warm up to flying. Even when they flew on the thestrals, she had been pale and trembling.
“Not really,” Harry said honestly. It would be great to be on a broom again, but it wasn’t as if Snape would assign Harry to the quidditch team if Harry impressed him enough.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Hermione laughed softly. “I think it sounds terribly scary, but everyone else is so excited for it.”
That reminded Harry of how much of an outcast Hermione had been during the first couple of months at Hogwarts. Which in turn reminded Harry of what Hermione said led her to being in the Hospital Wing.
“Was someone being rude to you?” Harry asked. “Earlier, before you tripped?”
“I don’t think I’m doing a great job making friends,” Hermione said slowly and quietly while she looked at her fingers twisted up in her lap. “I’m quite excited to be here, to be magic, and I guess I’m ‘annoying’.”
Harry frowned unhappily, not much liking hearing Hermione put herself down like that.
“There’s nothing wrong with being excited,” Harry said. “You spent your whole life thinking you were crazy when you showed signs of magic, why wouldn’t you be excited to know it’s a real thing?”
“Exactly!” Hermione cried. She was beaming even when she tilted her head and looked half-confused and half-happy. “Um… how did - how did you know I felt rather crazy?”
Harry needed to stop talking. It was so difficult to not simply say things he knew to be true and after finding out that Dumbledore practically sent Sirius to an active fight where he would have been one of Voldemort’s highest targets, the last thing Harry wanted was for anyone to become suspicious of Sirius.
Sirius was a secret-keeping, Lupin-loving arse, but Harry didn’t know what he’d do if he were gone.
“It’s how I felt,” Harry said after careful consideration of how to respond without making Hermione more curious. “I think it’s fine to be excited and you shouldn’t worry if others don’t understand that.”
“Thanks, Harry.” Hermione hesitated, only for a second. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party last night. I don’t think I was exactly invited.”
“You’re always invited,” Harry told her. It was his turn to hesitate - thinking of the Hermione he would never have again, the one who stuck by his side for years. Even when she thought he was wrong, even when he didn’t appreciate her concern, she had always been there.
“If I’m doing something, you’re always invited.”
Harry might not get his Hermione back, but there was still a Hermione that Harry would be happy to build a new friendship with.
In view of their new friendship, Harry accepted Hermione’s invite to go to the library once they were both released from the Hospital Wing. Harry was then put in a rather unique position where Hermione was asking him for help with her homework.
They stayed in the library even when dinner began, as neither of them were particularly hungry. They talked a lot about their classes, but also some about their classmates. Hermione mentioned how it was lonely in her dorm with Lavender and Parvati being so close she was something of a third wheel.
Harry tried to think of something Hermione could use to help her make friends with them.
“Lavender and Parvati are really interested in divination,” Harry said. “Makeup too, but I don’t think you’re too interested in that. I think Parvati wants to see Paris though, so you could talk about that.”
“I’ve never seen Paris?” Hermione said, peering across the table they shared with big brown eyes that were too damn intelligent.
Maybe being friends with Hermione would be dangerous if Harry couldn’t stop saying things he shouldn’t know or that hadn’t happened yet.
“Oh,” Harry said lamely, unsure how to explain that she would see Paris in the summer after second year and how she would love it.
“I’d love to go though,” Hermione said. “Have you ever been?”
Harry was lucky that Hermione was too polite to carry on about his slip-ups. It had him on edge for the rest of the evening though because her could only say so many things before he became a mystery for her to solve.
Nobody more than Harry knew that Hermione was excellent at solving mysteries.
Harry walked Hermione back to the Gryffindor Tower before curfew hit and they made plans to meet up the next day and study whatever they missed in defense. Harry wasn’t terribly concerned with anything in that class, but it was nice spending time with Hermione again.
Unfortunately, that meant that Harry was then left alone with just his thoughts and his cloak as he didn’t want to face Sirius yet.
Sirius liked Harry enough to invite him to live with him once, what was his issue with Harry following him through the veil? Would he have been happier to be living as Sirius James Black without Harry there?
Harry stood in an alcove on the third floor for a long time, staring sightlessly out the window and wondering why things with Sirius were never like they were with Ron or Hermione.
It was Sirius’s moods, partially. He was the moodiest person that Harry had ever met. Harry was moody too, that had been pointed out to him multiple times by multiple people the last year.
Maybe Harry was just a disappointment to Sirius. Hadn’t he pointed out how Harry wasn’t as much like James as he thought? Sirius had seemed happy to have a second chance at a new life, maybe he was already sick of sharing that second chance with Harry.
If Harry were more like James, then Sirius might not be so angry over Harry following him through the veil. But Harry didn’t necessarily want to be James, he wanted to be Harry.
Harry wanted to be himself and he suddenly didn’t know if he was a person that Sirius wanted to be around.
Wasn’t that why Sirius was trying to make Harry more social, more funny, more outgoing than he was? Sirius didn’t think Harry should be friends with Ron or Hermione, he thought Harry should be someone he wasn’t.
Sirius was still himself: moody and apparently in love with Lupin, charming, brilliant, and picked at Snape every chance he had. Sirius didn’t change, why should Harry?
So maybe - maybe Harry should just let Sirius live his life while he lived his own.