Chapter III
Wednesday, 13 February 2002
“So, how have you been?”
Remus currently sat in a slightly itchy chair faced opposite from his therapist in her office. By office he means the conservatory jutting from the right of her house, but he’s learned to equate the panes of glass and the various plants with getting in touch with his feelings.
“Um, good.” Remus said. “Yeah, good.”
It always started this way, has since the very beginning. He remembered his first visit with a mental health professional; the stale room, the nonchalant way the man across from him spoke, Remus’ complete and utter confusion on what he should say. Remus knew the feeling well of being at a total loss regarding what he was feeling, and how often he was asked to describe the thing that was background noise for his entire life without being given the tools to actually do so.
Since that first meeting, he’s learned how to bring things up on his own rather than have his own feelings be violently pulled out of his mouth by someone with an M.D. at the end of their name. That’s why he liked Poppy. She never pressed him, never really asked him lead in questions to start their sessions other than ‘how are you’ and ‘how are things’. He found he liked the freedom she gave him. Far too many times while in care, Remus has felt that he was being forced to get help, that he had no choice in the matter. With Poppy, he did have a choice. He was a willing participant in their meetings. She was the first therapist Remus felt that level of comfort with.
So comfortable that he just blurted out, “I actually had a really good week,” without thinking through where it might take their conversation.
Poppy lets this hang in the air for a while, waiting for Remus to elaborate on his own terms. He doesn’t. He still needs a push, sometimes.
“What made it good?”
“I met up with some old mates.”
“Really?” She gave him one of her sweet smiles she often sent his direction. It was a smile that showed Remus that he had done something like a normal person should and that she was proud of him for making progress. That’s what Remus took from it, at least. “Which ones?”
There was only one point in his life when Remus had close mates, so this question was more of a formality. “My old mates from secondary school.”
“Mm, I think I remember. James and Patrick…?” She trailed off, letting Remus correct her.
“James and Peter. And Sirius.”
“Right, yes.” Another pause. “And how was that?”
“It was good. We, well, we first went out for drinks, and um…” He got nervous. Poppy and him had talked many times how alcohol, more often than not, left him feeling more like a sack of shit than usual. Though she never got mad at him when he’d say he’d been drinking, Remus always felt he was letting her down in those moments. “And, yeah, it was just really nice to see them all again.”
“I bet it was.”
“Mm,” was all he said. For how many therapy sessions Remus had been to you would think he would be better at them by now. “Um,” he tried, forcing himself to say something, “I was a bit nervous, at first. James had been the one to call me, and, like, I’d really had not been expecting it so I just said yes without thinking.”
Poppy nodded her head, signaling she was listening.
“But then, after I got there, it started to feel good. Really normal, actually.”
“What do you mean normal?” Poppy asked.
What did he mean? “I think I mean, um, I felt…light.” Remus had told her before how he feels this Weight on his chest—it’s what he calls the indescribable feeling he experiences when he’s depressed. He just felt weighed down by the world sometimes, like there’s a cinderblock sitting on his chest. Or a blackhole, right in his center. One that kept absorbing more and more, taking all lightness from around him. Remus just called it The Weight because it was simpler. “Which I don’t feel often, so I guess normal’s not the right word.”
Both of them sat in silence; processing, thinking, waiting for the other to speak.
“Well, it might be,” Remus interrupted their thinking space with. “I felt like them. Like we were all alike, in a way. We existed on the same plane.”
Poppy gave another sound affirming his train of thought. “And you haven’t felt that with the people around you for a long time, have you?”
Okay, well. You didn’t have to say it out loud, but sure. “Yeah,” he said softly. Then, before thinking it through, “Maybe since we were in school together.”
She made another noise confirming her attention. She did this a lot, and Remus liked it. It calmed his nerves to know she was listening to him, and that he wasn’t yapping on while the other person dozed off, which had actually happened to him once. His last therapist had fully fallen asleep during one of their sessions and it put Remus off the whole therapy thing for a year.
“Well, I don’t know, I didn’t feel light then all the time either.” Remus thought back to those days. The four of them had shared a dorm, and bonded with each other due to them being absolute fucking losers, and a collective hatred for the rival house. Real petty things, but as an eleven-year-old, that was all that was needed to form a bond stronger than blood. “With them I did. When I was with them I felt light. When I was alone things got heavier.”
“Do you feel that now? That when you are alone, this weight in you returns?”
“Yeah.” Remus didn’t want to think about when he felt heavy. He didn’t want to talk about the times he was alone in his room and he had to slap himself so he would stop staring at the knives. Remus didn’t want to think about the times in his life where he gave up showering and didn’t go outside for weeks. He wanted to think about something else. “We actually ended up playing together. Like instruments.”
“Really? You did?” Poppy seemed genuinely surprised by this. He didn’t know how he felt about her reaction; whether he was proud with his participation in something he loved so much long ago or if he hated the way she seemed surprised he did something normal people were capable of doing everyday. “How did that go?”
“It was fun. Real fun, yeah.” Remus took a breath, remembering how he felt. “I haven’t felt like that in a while. It was almost like the world didn’t exist, everything stopped…and it was just us playing.”
She was again wearing her kind smile. “You felt light then.”
In that studio, there was no weight on his chest. It was just him. And James. And Sirius, Peter. Just the four of them. Existing, living. “Yeah, I did.”
Thursday, 14 February, 2002
The pungent scent of freshly ground up coffee beans that he had built an immunity to created a stale, constant hum around Remus as he cleaned up the dishes from a table. He brought them over to the sink and began scrubbing. Usually during his shift at Costa, he would let his mind wander to topics ranging from the questionable cheese he found in his fridge the previous night to an uncomfortable sex scene he had recently read in a novel. Undoubtedly, very riveting stuff. But today, the normal topics were left behind, and the rhythms of Sirius’ song were the only noise in Remus’ mind.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it. The ways the guitar mashed within itself, the speed of which James was able to hit the drums, completed with the compelling lyric Sirius had that brought the song together in the first place. He’d been tampering with his acoustic for the past couple of days. It didn’t have the same affect as it did in the studio with the electric, but it did its job.
It was embarrassing, in Remus’ mind, how badly he wanted meet up with the Marauders again and flesh it out. After his meeting with Poppy, he couldn’t ignore the lightness he felt while with the Marauders. He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. And in the time he’d spent on Sirius’ song, working out the chords, he had a rush within himself to create. Remus wanted to spent his time with his guitar, he craved it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’s craved to do something, a want deep within in bones, a need to see something through. It wasn’t just the song, though.
Remus wanted to see Sirius again. He wanted to bounce ideas off of him. He wanted to know what else he’d come up with for the song. Remus wished he knew what the other lyrics were, to have an idea what the song was about. There is something so special about creation; the act of making something new that never existed before. Doing that with another person felt sacred. And he wanted to experience the joy of that. But what if Sirius wanted nothing to do with him? What if Sirius wanted to work on the song on his own? Sirius and Remus barely knew each other anymore, and now Remus was thinking about the act of creation with Sirius. What the fuck was he on about? Remus should’ve just kept himself out of it, enjoyed his recent memories with the Marauders and went about his day.
But instead, Remus thought, fuck it, and called Sirius.
When Remus called after his shift, Sirius was very adamant on what he had to do: Remus was to come over to his flat immediately, he wasn’t to bring anything, he just needed to be there now (“I’ve got a guitar, that’s all we need. Just get your arse over here right now!”). And Remus had never one to say no to Sirius Black. Sirius gave him his address and Remus was on the tube three minutes later, heading towards Mile End.
Based on the world Sirius had come from—banquets, ceremonies, formalwear—Remus had expected for him to live in a nice, posh area of London where the houses were white brick, dogs were held in purses, and Paddington Bear moseyed down the street with a marmalade toast in hand. But no, Remus walked along the familiar dirty streets of London he’s known all his adult life to get to Sirius’ flat. He walked passed pizza shops and curry places, the rich smell of spices and grease wafting through the air. The smell alone calmed Remus’ nerves. He reached the flat matching the address Sirius had told him over the phone and made his way up. With a deep breath, Remus knocked on the door.
“Just come on in,” the muffled voice of Sirius sounded. With only a little hesitation, Remus entered.
The unlocked door opened into the kitchen. It was standard, nothing special. The countertops stood in a single file line against one of the walls, with the only other fixture in the room being a small table in the corner that sat two people at most. The sink and small table had no remnants of a meal, something Remus could only hope to say about his own living conditions. Remus knew he was a bit of a slob, and he had tried to get his act together before, but after six months of on-and-off sobriety, leaving dishes in the sink for a few days was pretty much the only vice he indulged in regularly. A rumbling came from upstairs and Sirius bursted through the door on the other side of the kitchen. “Hi,” Sirius said a bit breathlessly. “Come, come in. Come upstairs. Oh, wait, do you want something to drink? Eat?”
Remus blinked at his frazzled demeanor. This Sirius, one that was a bit all over the place, was not one Remus had thought existed in the new Sirius. Yes, Remus remembered the days where Sirius experienced all the pain and awkwardness of growing up, even if he wore it with a bit more grace than the rest of them. But his first impression of the new man he had known for maybe two weeks was one who never once stumbled over his words, never once had an awkward interaction. It was endearing to see him like this. “Uh, no thanks.”
“Come on, then,” Sirius said with a smile. And there it was, he stood collected and regained control over the situation. Sirius’ brief stint with discomposure didn’t last long.
Sirius led him up the stairs he had tumbled down to greet Remus. “I’ve been buzzing since you called me,” Sirius told him, addressing his erratic behavior. “Thanks for coming over.”
“Yeah, no problem.” There was a pause after this. Remus could feel the awkwardness building around them as the silence grew longer. Stop! Stop making this awkward, Remus yelled at himself. Just say something! “You’ve got a nice place,” he opted for.
“Thanks,” Sirius responded, still smiling. “I’m not here often, so it’s a bit barren.” The stairs led into a small landing area lit by a loft window with a couch cramped within the walls. Sirius motioned for Remus to sit while he popped into another room and returned with an old acoustic guitar. It was familiar to Remus, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“What’d you come up with?” Sirius handed the guitar to Remus, getting straight to business. Remus gladly took the instrument and began strumming, which is when he felt a surge of fondness course through him. The guitar Remus was playing now, the one with malcoloring on the edges from the peeling wood and matted over residue from torn off stickers, was the one Sirius had worshiped when they were in school.
“Jesus Christ,” Remus said. “Is this Glenda?”
Sirius’ eyes widened with shock. “You remember her name?”
“How could I not with the amount you would hark on about it.” Teenaged Sirius had been adamant that his guitar was a she and her same was Glenda and if you were to refer to his guitar, you would so so correctly. Remus remembered the amount of shit he and the other lads would give him. It’s a fucking guitar, why is it a ‘she’? could be heard yelled in their dorm room. I finger her Potter, of course she’s a she!
With a smile on his face, Remus showed Sirius what he’d written. While he played the chorus and the lead in to the bridge, Remus couldn’t ignore the way Sirius looked at him. It was quite distracting, honestly. Even with his head down, his eyes on Glenda, Remus could feel Sirius’ focus trained on him, watching every movement he made with his fingers.
When Remus finished the run, Sirius was quiet. “What’d you think?” Remus asked, nervously.
“Fucking amazing,” Sirius said, simply. He turned his gaze upwards and looked Remus in the eyes. “That’s so fucking cool.”
“Oh, thanks.”
Sirius stared at him for a few seconds, and Remus didn’t know what to do. He was grateful when Sirius finally moved to grab the guitar back from Remus. They began going back and forth with the song, tinkering with certain melodies until they were happy with the chorus, then moved to another section of the song.
Remus watched Sirius work, entranced. His fingers moved up and down the fretboard with grace after years of practice. Sirius would occasionally let go of the guitar and move his hands around, like he was trying to physically grasp of the idea which had just braced his mind with his hands. But that wasn’t the part of the image that intrigued Remus the most. It was Sirius’ face that did. The complete and utter concentration he wore when playing. His eyes concealed a world behind them, one he was trying to explain through the instrument. Everything indicated with abundance certainty that this was Sirius in his element. This is where he belonged.
It was in this moment that Remus’ perception of Sirius began to shift. In school, Sirius was loud, overcompensatingly so. He was boisterous, and acted as if he ruled everything to make up for his sheer powerlessness in the world he lived in. And with this new Sirius, Remus built up an idea around him. He had been immediately infatuated by him, that was obvious enough—but there was this idea that the new Sirius was a figure of shining beauty, no more of a person than a beautiful sculpture was. Sirius always had the knack for creating a persona around himself, to hide who he truly was behind an image. And Remus knew this, had known when he was younger, but it didn’t stop him from doing the same to Sirius. But now he is seeing him, the real Sirius. The person he had become, not just the fragments of potential of what could happen. The way Sirius talked about music, the way his eyes lit up and his hands fidgeted as if that was his body’s way to get out the excitement, he had a genuine want to create, a need. It was who Sirius was. He had something to say, and this was him shouting it.
It had become dark. At some point, Sirius got them beers from downstairs and the two men nursed the dregs of them while ruminating in their thoughts. Remus, as he always did, felt the need to fill the space to prevent any chance of awkwardness.
“Sorry for ruining your chances for Valentine’s day,” Remus said, attempting a joke.
“Huh? Oh, it’s fine,” Sirius let out a polite chuckle—the one that only served to acknowledge that something has been said. “Not like I had much planned anyway.”
“No?”
“No,” Sirius kept his head low. “Not really into relationships.”
Remus nodded, mumbled his agreement.
“What about you?” Sirius asked.
“What about me? You already know I’m single.”
“Yeah, I know, but are you into relationships? Is that what,” Sirius paused for a moment, gesturing towards Remus, “you do?”
Remus raised an eyebrow at him. “You mean, is that what gay guys do?”
“Sure,” Sirius said with a smile, relieved he didn’t have to be the first one to say the word, “But I’m asking about you.”
Remus gave it a thought. Truthfully, he’d never had a proper serious relationship before. All his encounters with romantic partners had been hookups and one-night-stands, a quick fuck with a hot stranger he met at a bar. Remus found that fact to be quite embarrassing and pathetic so he’s not sure why he said to Sirius, “Not really. It was never a priority for me before.”
“What about now?” Sirius asked as if he was genuinely interested.
“Now,” Remus let out a breath, “I mean, I wouldn’t say no if the opportunity presented itself but I’m not losing sleep over it neither. I don’t know, it’s a weird thing.”
“I get that. I was with someone for about a year, and it did not end well.”
“Shit, when abouts was that”
“Maybe six months ago. We lived together and everything. I had to get my own place afterwards.” Sirius said this all without a sour look on his face. Weirdly, there may have even been a small smile on his face.
“Why’re you smiling about that?”
Sirius shrugged. “I don’t know. It kinda just feels like a thing that happened. Like you said, I wasn’t losing sleep over it but I was happy while it lasted. Well,” his face finally conveyed some regret, “she did take the cat. That was fucked up.”
Remus couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“No,” his grin had returned in full swing. “I’m Sir-”
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t even finish that sentence!”
The two men continued to talk and laugh, and even ran through the song a couple times. When Remus asked what the song was about, Sirius revealed that he had no other lyrics. “I only have the one. I’ve just been trying to make something good enough to hold it.”
“It is a good line,” Remus admitted, though quietly he thought Sirius’ obsession with a single line to be a little weird. But, that only endeared Remus more to him. “It’s almost remains me of Frankenstein. Like the whole human obsession to constantly further science and see how far we can push something without caring where it leads.”
“Wow,” Sirius said, dryly. “Quite a mind you got there, Moony.” Sirius didn’t say it to be mean, but Remus still got self-conscious about his over analysis.
“Piss off.”
“No, it’s good,” Sirius assured with a laugh and a backhanded smack to Remus’ shoulder to seal the point. “It’s kinda like the songs Pete used to write, remember?”
Remus paused, remembering. Then he involuntarily snorted. “Yeah! Fucking hell, the orcs, the dragons.”
“The dragons!”
“What was it?” Remus racked his brain, thinking of the line. “The blades of the dragon’s hide, sharp like silver,” he sang in a deep voice, mimicking the metal bands Peter was infatuated with in Hogwarts.
Sirius croaked with laughter alongside Remus. “Fuck, I forgot! The worst part is we thought his songs were cool.”
“Oh, we thought they were fucking brilliant.”
“Jesus. Fuck me if viking metal ever comes back, honestly.”
“That’ll be the end. At the end of humanity, all that will be left is cockroaches and viking metal.”
“Dark times,” Sirius scoffed.
“Dark times,” Remus repeated, clinking his beer to Sirius’.
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, and then Sirius broke it with, “So you’ve really not done any music since school?”
Remus shook his head.
“Doesn’t show.”
“It will. I’m going to have blisters all over my hands tomorrow.” He looked down, the tips of his fingers were red. It was going to fucking hurt. Sirius didn’t say anything after that, so Remus voiced what he had been feeling since they played together in that studio. “I’ve missed it, though.”
“Mmm, why’d you stop, then?”
Remus wanted to answer in a way that was true but didn’t give too much away. Remus didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to lie to Sirius. “I guess it felt like there wasn’t a reason to do it anymore. I got caught up with everything else.”
Sirius smiled. “So you gave up punk to become an academic?”
“Something like that. And, hey!” Remus retorted. “I don’t remember ever being a punk.”
“You were punk, Remus.” Sirius insisted.
“Fucking where?”
“You are punk!”
Remus raised one eyebrow, staring him down.
“It’s in your soul,” Sirius said it with such gravitas Remus almost wanted to believe him. Almost. He rolled his eyes as a response.
Remus caught a glimpse of his watch which read 10:37. Without realizing it, he and Sirius had been hanging out for around five hours and it felt like nothing.
“Sorry, I’ve got an early shift tomorrow. I’ll have to leave soon.”
“Fuck, I didn’t even realize the time.”
They got up brought their empty bottles down to the kitchen. Remus didn’t want the night to end, but he really did have a shift the next morning.
“Hey,” Sirius called his attention as he headed towards the door. “I’ll call James and Peter and see when they’ll be available to work on the song.”
“Yeah, fantastic. The only thing is Sunday during the evenings I work so…” Sirius leaned against the open door, and Remus’ sentence hung in the air. Though he’s been around Sirius for the past few hours getting to know him more, Remus is still struck by how absolutely fucking gorgeous he was. “I had a lot of fun tonight.”
“Me, too,” Sirius smiled.
“Okay,” Remus had nothing else to say. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
Remus fought the goofy grin trying to break his face the entire way back to his flat.
Saturday 16 February, 2002
It was one o’clock and Remus was once again in the musiccomplex studio with James, Peter and Sirius. Sirius actually covered the fee this time around, and the four Marauders have been working on the song for the past few hours, but none of them were keeping track of the time.
Remus had been itching to hear the parts he and Sirius wrote on an electric guitar, and it sounded unreal. Not only was the electric a nice break for his hands which had indeed sprouted blisters from the acoustic, but Remus was in love with the way the chorus sounded, and the bridge, and basically how the entire song erupted through the amps.
Peter and James were just as eager to contribute to the song. The drum sections James wrote were aggressive, and had James breaking a sweat within the first few runs. Peter was mesmerizing to watch. He was a natural on bass, knowing instinctively what notes went where; how to most effectively compliment the exaggerated guitar riffs. Remus suddenly remembered that Peter was the closest any of the four of them had gotten to to classically trained. Peter’s father and uncle were guitar players in the 70s, so he grew up surrounded by the music of Bob Dylan and America, though his own personal taste skewed towards Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin in his teen years. Peter had never been a showoff, organically blending in with the background even more than Remus did, and it was amazing to see Peter thrive in an environment he clearly belonged in.
At the end of the session spanning an unknown amount of hours, they had a song. It was still messy—James and Sirius kept going back and forth on the drum parts, which meant Sirius was making nonsensical loud noises as James tried to figure out what he meant—but it resembled a song. They decided to run through it once more before finishing.
“Ready?” Sirius asked them all. Each Marauder had their instrument in hand, like preparing for battle. Sirius counted off, “One, two, three.”
The final hits of the drums came crashing to an end, and James, Peter, Sirius and Remus stood in shock, gaging one another’s reactions. It sounded amazing.
“Fuck!” Sirius whispered, breaking the silence as he was often the one to do, and they all broke out into rejuvenated laughter.
“Was that everything you thought it would be?” James laughed, holding his hand up to Sirius.
Sirius sent his hand into James’ and clasped it. “Absolutely fucking incredible.”
They all cheered. Remus had a weird feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t distress, as most foreboding feelings he had were. His heart raced with adrenaline, he wanted to jump around and embrace his friends. He was light. There was nothing weighing him down in this moment. Remus felt alive, and he wanted to do whatever he could to keep this feeling burning inside him.