Thursday 1st June 1995
Walking into Grimmauld Place had always felt like a walk to the gallows.
Remus remembered Sirius' anticipation when he suggested the House as a hideaway. The glint of childlike excitement behind his eyes.
Remus had seen the country estate, walked its halls. It had seemed gaudy and eccentric, sure, but still warm, loved, even if that love was rooted in pride.
Grimmauld Place, the city estate, rather, was different. The property itself had to be large given the number of rooms, by no means the size of the terraced house to which its exterior eluded, but unlike the country house, an imposing granite wonder, Sirius's childhood home felt constricting.
The entry hall was long, it was a fifty-meter walk to the front room lined with dead relatives from the earliest traces of the family tree.
The same green meadow of wallpaper stretched through the house. Skulls upon skulls sifting on top of names Remus didn't recognise. The hardwood floor was dusted and unkempt now, but it had always creaked and groaned as you walked along it, that had nothing to do with its age.
An unnatural draft still leaked through the hall, back and forth in quiet sighs.
As Remus crept through, he couldn't help but feel as though he was walking into the belly of a beast.
When he finally reached the end of the hall, his mind dizzied with confusion. Light seeped through the house's windows only a few feet away despite the length of the entryway. He hated this house, he couldn't help it.
Kingsley was stood at the window of the front room. Watching the streets with a reserved curiosity, as he watched most things. Remus was relieved to be working under a man of similar temperament this time rather than Alastair.
This time. Now there was a grim thought.
"You called." Remus coughed. He stood stiff by the threshold. Best to make this quick.
Kingsley turned, his face a bit sourer than usual. His gaze flickered to the file on the bureau. It looked brand new, untouched for 13 years, the trial of an innocent man locked in a storage room somewhere while life went on for everyone outside of it.
"I worked with Bartemeous Crouch for many years," the Defense Minister paused, raking his mind for the end of his sentence.
"Kingsley-"
"He should have been investigated long before his death. Please apologise to Sirius on my behalf and on the behalf of my colleagues." He swallowed and took a breath before stepping towards Remus, seemingly aiming for a quick exit. Remus shifted away from the door. He had no intention of digging into the contents of Sirius's past around anyone.
Kingsley patted Remus' shoulder comfortingly on the way out. He felt nineteen again, being sent off to kill some other recent Hogwarts graduate, except this time round he was far less enthusiastic.
Remus perched on the edge of the nearest armchair, file in hand.
It was thin. Strangely thin for a murder trial. Not a great start.
With a trembling hand, he pinched the cover and opened up the old documents.
The first sheet was a dictation of his confession. There wasn't much there. It didn't really sound like Sirius, and for a moment, the suspicion of an imperium spell of some sort knawed at him.
Then he slid the sheet to the side and Remus made a noise.
INTERROGATION - DAY 1:
INTERROGATION - DAY 2:
INTERROGATION - DAY 3:
INTERROGATION - DAY 4:
INTERROGATION - DAY 16:
Confession.
Blank. All sixteen days. Crouch hadn't said a fucking thing about what "interrogation" entailed. Fucking bastard. Remus wished the man were still alive so he could tie him to two portkeys and splinch him over and over.
Two pieces of A4. That's what a life sentence had relied on. Then there were the photos. His first mugshot from right after capture. He was twenty-one in that. It was taken on November 2nd, his dark hair still falling long and pretty next to his carved-out features even after 2 days on the run. Eyes tired, but furious, determined.
The other photos were taken the morning before the conviction, and Remus's gaze flinched away from them. Fucksake.
His mugshot came first. The mugshot. Very familiar from the papers last year. Remus was sure no one was at all curious about the rest of the trial after seeing him like that.
His face was okay. Pale, dirty, sunken - sure, but okay.
He'd been stripped of the clothes he'd been wearing on the way in, Azkaban-wear on full show. That was the next photo.
The next was a set of pictures of his tattoos. Possibly for witness identification, maybe Crouch wanted trophies, the bloody psycho.
The lunar cycle down his neck was obscured with ugly purple lines.
The antlers in the centre of his chest sliced through.
Little marauders' map feet tiptoeing along his ribs were barely visible under the bruising.
Goddammit, love.
Remus's brows furrowed and his vision blurred.
Confession.
Confession? How dare he. The arrest of James and Lily's traitor was the biggest media success of Crouch's career and he'd tortured a kid to get it.
This was what Sirius hadn't wanted to tell anyone. Not even him.
***
It was dark out when Remus finally stumbled back into the living room.
He could see into the kitchen, where Sirius was sitting, hosting a mug of something hot in his hands. His gaze shot up, eyes red. Remus hoped he hadn't kept him on edge all day, though given the content of that file, he doubted it.
"You're back." Sirius croaked, placing the mug on the table and walking to greet Remus at the hearth. Remus eyed the hot mug on varnished wood without a coaster. Thorn in my side, you are. He thought, smiling tiredly down at the other man.
"I hate your house," Remus muttered, feeling a desperate urge to rest his forehead in the crook of Sirius's neck. He didn't.
"Bad day at the real estate office, I take it." Sirius smiled. Remus snorted.
"Yeah, terrible, London terraced houses are a nightmare to sell these days."
"With that ugly fucking wallpaper I bet they are."
Remus grinned, and a hand came up to cover his mouth as laughter tumbled from him.
He sat at the edge of the bed and began unlacing his boots as Sirius walked back to the kitchen. "Tea?"
"Please, love. And for the love of God put a coaster under that mug."
He heard Sirius laugh then, and his chest swelled painfully.
"The table is older than you, Moons. It should look like it's been put to good use."
Remus kicked off his boots and stood to stretch before joining the kitchen.
"Enough with the excuses and quit abusing our furniture."
Sirius turned and leant against the surface, arms across his chest, he grinned. "I've always hated that table."
"Have you?" Remus mused.
"Yes. Ever since you spotted it in Heart Foundation." The kettle clicked and Sirius grabbed a mug from the drainer.
"Sirius."
"Mhm?"
"You chose the table."
Sirius barked out a laugh and glanced over his shoulder at the mahogany piece with matching chairs. "Alphard must be weeping in his grave seeing how I've spent his well-earned cash."
They fell into a comfortable silence, then. For a few minutes, Remus didn't feel like bringing up the file at all. Sirius seemed very welcome to forgetting the ordeal.
But as they sat down across from one another at the table, a table Remus didn't find particularly ugly but Sirius eyed suspiciously like he wasn't entirely sure he had ever been capable of buying something so horrifying, Remus felt the questions roll off him before he could consider the argument that could follow.
Oh, how the tables had turned.
"If I'd known," Remus started. Sirius stiffened. "If I'd known what he'd done... even... even back then, I'd have killed him, you know?"
Sirius looked up at Remus with worried eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me? Anyone? It would've gotten you- I... I don't know- but at the very least a retrial."
Sirius snorted in amusement, but it was dry. He looked irritated.
"Come off it, Remus. You've never been the stupid one. Even I knew I was the most hated man in the country." He paused, rubbing his forehead. "Hated living man, anyway. People wanted someone to blame. I was there. Crouch was sure I'd done it. Can't really blame the man."
"Yes, I can." Remus croaked, resolve weak. Sirius didn't notice.
"Alright, you can... but you shouldn't. Anyone would've done it, what case did I have either way? My word against a rat I'd apparently blown to slitherines in the street."
"You didn't tell anyone what was going on?"
"I wasn't lying when I said I don't remember the trial, probably not. Who would have believed me?" Sirius pressed, and Remus swallowed, his stomach sinking.
I would've. He wanted to whisper, but it felt cruel to tell him that now.