Full Moon
Sirius finds Remus already waiting for him in the cellar when he finishes saying goodnight to Harry. Remus is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, wrapped tightly in a bathrobe, and looks up quickly when Sirius descends into the space.
“Time?’ Remus asks quietly.
“6:46. Only a few moments now,” Sirius tells him. “It’ll be okay. Harry’s safe upstairs in his room, I warded the door–”
At the mention of Harry, Remus looks nauseous. Sirius decides to drop the subject.
“I love you,” Sirius says instead, and Remus’s face splits into a smile before he flinches, suddenly, and turns away.
“Change, Sirius, now–” Remus gasps. Sirius presses his palms flat against the floor and finds Padfoot in his mind, and suddenly he is there and there is his Moony, so he runs over on his doggish legs and pushes his head up into Remus’s arms as Remus shakes and his bones crack and reform.
Padfoot stays there, still, tail thumping softly against the floor, until there is no longer a man wrapped around him but a large grey wolf. Moony stays stock-still for a moment, ears flattened against his head, until he backs up and shakes himself.
Yellow eyes meet Padfoot’s dark brown ones. Then suddenly Moony’s head snaps upwards towards the ceiling, and he’s howling, filling the space with a deep, mournful sound.
Padfoot joins him. For a moment they are in harmony, dog and wolf–but Moony breaks off, and the first blood of the night is drawn from Moony’s chest as Padfoot tries to re-route Moony’s everlasting anger.
✶ ✶ ✶
It’s not a bad moon, all in all. Remus wakes up in Sirius’s arms, sore and bloody, but at least he’s here with Sirius. The cellar floor is cold, but Sirius picks him up and carries him upstairs to their bed, tucking their old, many-times patched quilt around him.
“You feeling okay?” Sirius asks softly.
“Yeah.” Remus croaks. It’s true. Not even wolfsbane can ease the pain of transformation like Padfoot can.
In the middle of the morning, Harry comes in with a cup of tea for both of them and the book he’s reading. Emma is one of Remus’s favourites, so they end up discussing it for the better part of an hour.
“In the end it is sort of just people going to each other’s houses,” Harry admits near the end of the conversation. “But that’s kind of fun.”
Remus agrees. “I read all of Austen when I was your age, maybe a little older,” he says. “Tensions were sort of mounting with the war and all, so it was good escapism.”
Harry is quiet for a moment. “D’you think we’re heading for another war?”
“I don’t know,” Remus lies. The truth is that he’s sure they are. Three years ago, Lord Voldemort himself had appeared on the back of a professor’s head and attacked Harry. As of a few months ago, Peter Pettigrew was now running around the countryside doing who knows what. There’s another war on the horizon, clear as day.
Instead of saying any of this, Remus changes the subject.
“Harry, did your aunt ever talk to you about her and your mum’s childhood?”
Harry shakes his head.
“Well, I’ve got some stories for you. First of all, your mother grew up in Cokeworth, and you’ll never guess who she was friends with as a child…”
✶ ✶ ✶
If Sirius stands outside him and Remus’s room, listening to Remus talk about Lily, nobody needs to know. He creeps away when he hears Harry say something about going downstairs for lunch, and as he’s digging through the fridge for sandwich material, Sirius wracks his mind for memories of James when he was Harry’s age.
His time in Azkaban had done something to his memories. Sirius knew there had been a time when his mind felt shiny and sharp as a tack, but since the Dementors had swooped in and stolen everything but his soul, Sirius’s memories were clouded with sadness and guilt.
“It’s odd,” Sirius says to Remus as they’re getting ready for bed. “I just…I know all the memories are there. I just can’t get to any of it.”
Remus regards him sadly. “Do you want to try a pensieve?” he asks. “I read that some people who’ve been through, well, you know–” He clears his throat. “A lot of people have found it really useful.”
“I’ll try that,” Sirius tells him. He slides underneath the covers, takes a moment to relish in the fact that he’s warm and dry and his Moony is right here with him.
“I’m proud of you, Pads.” Remus says seriously.
Sirius’s mouth twitches up in a smile. “For making an edible meal for once? Yeah, I’m proud of that too.”
Remus pulls him closer, swatting at his hair. “You know what I mean. For…how you are now. After everything.”
“What else could I have done?”
“You could fall apart, Sirius. You could break down, and no one would blame you for it, but you’re somehow still standing and walking around and–and smiling and–”
“And taking care of Harry.” Sirius says quietly. He’s silent for a moment, but Remus leaves the conversation hanging open.
“He’s so much like me,” Sirius whispers, his voice grating against tears. “I mean, I see it all in him. The way he flinches if I raise a hand, the way he still expects we’re going to send him away or make him pay bloody rent, or do all our cleaning or sleep on the bloody floor. He’s so young, Remus.”
“We’re never letting him go back there.” Remus says. He tightens his grip around Sirius. “We’ll fight for him, won’t we, Pads?”
“Until death.” Sirius says, voice hard.
“To the very end, if it comes to it.”
Sirius draws in a breath. “Until death,” he repeats. He’s never meant something more.