Chapter 4
Friendship has never been something that Remus really falls into. Every so often, he feels the pull to just try, to reach out to someone new, who doesn’t know what the other boys say about him and have someone to, if not snuff out his loneliness, be lonely with.
It’s never really that easy, though. At least, it never was. Until suddenly every time he sneaks out he finds Sirius black waiting for him with the manic smile tugging at his lips that says he’ll do anything Remus suggests, no matter how mad, unless he can come up with something even madder.
Remus is still careful. Still keeps in mind that Sirius is not him and if his parents or the coppers or even some passer-by on the street asks him who he cares to keep in his company these days, he will tell them Remus’ name and just about everything else that has ever slipped past his lips.
So to Sirius, Remus is John, which is not completely a lie, only half of one, and one that Remus slips into so quickly that when Matron raises her voice at John Gleeman, whose parents decided he wasn’t worth the trouble and sent him into the “idyllic Welsh countryside”, Remus flinches away and has to play it off as a sneeze.
Oh, he knows Sirius is different. The way he talks and the way he dresses and even the way he walks is other, something out of a story. But stories are fake and this summer is real, so when Sirius asks if he wants to pull the craziest stunt they’ve ever tried, crazier than filling all Matron’s stockings with rosehip seeds, Remus grins wide and doesn’t hesitate a second before agreeing.
But as they draw closer and closer to the black manor, the craggy roof looming over them like an eager row of teeth, ready and waiting to snap shut, Remus is less and less sure.
And when Sirius seems stuck in place, fingers unwilling to grasp the silver doorknob, Remus hopes it means he’s changed his mind.
“Sirius?”
Remus gently prods his friend, trying to keep his voice as steady as he can.
“Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t have to-”
“No!”
Sirius turns to face him, the anger in his eyes so sharp that Remus feels himself shrink away.
“I can do this. I have to.”
Silence hangs thick and heavy between them before Remus nods.
“All right.”
Sirius sighs, blowing a strand of hair away from his face as he finally twists the doorknob.
“You’ll get it later, John. Just trust me.”
Remus bites his lip as his feet inch onto the floorboards, creaking as he slowly lets the door fall closed.
“This way.”
Sirius turns, not bothering to check if Remus is following as he creeps over to the winding staircase, the shadow cast on the ground underneath so menacing that Remus makes sure to keep close to the wall on his left, his shirt sliding along as he clambers up the steps.
He doesn’t like this house. Remus never has, and he can tell Sirius doesn’t either, his shoulders stiff and set as they climb higher and higher. It feels wrong, whether it’s the cold creeping up from the wood underneath his socked feet or the paintings lining every wall.
“We have to be quick, because otherwise-” Sirius turns to face him before his face turns white, the colour leeching from his already pale cheeks it would be funny except he looks scared, and Sirius never looks scared, not even when they leapt out of the moving carriage of that train a week ago.
“Sirius.”
Remus flinches against the wallpaper, pressing his back against it so hard the breath is knocked out of his lungs.
“What exactly are you doing?”
“Dad.”
His voice is small as Remus has never heard it, and he watches as Sirius slowly lifts himself up a step higher, inching away from the man before him.
They almost look alike. Almost, except if you look closely, like Remus always does. Then you would find that they don’t look alike at all, because the coldness in this man’s eyes takes Sirius’ eyes and his mouth and it turns them into something awful.
His voice is soft, as yet Remus finds himself trying to do as Sirius did, his feet slipping on the smooth stairs as he lifts himself up another wrung.
“Explain yourself.”
“It’s not - I know - I just-”
Sirius will get them out of it, Remus knows, he can tell his way out of anything, and he keeps that hope high in his mind. Everything will be fine.
“Do you know this boy, Sirius?”
He can tell his way out of anything and Remus should know that by now but Remus should also know that Sirius is so scared that his hands are shaking and perhaps his explanation is not big enough for two.
“No.”
Remus feels his stomach drop to his feet.
His father exhales, in one fluid breath, and he flicks his hand, the movement sending Sirius scrambling further up the stairs and around the corner.
He hopes, and Remus knows it’s the hope of a pathetic fool, but he still hopes that Sirius will turn around, because then it might not be so bad, he would know that he still cares, but the last
Remus sees of his friend is his shock of black hair disappearing around the corner.
He turns back to the man who must be Orion Black, swallowing as he shifts to block the weak light from the lamp.
“Well.”
His voice is no longer soft, it is razor-blade sharp, and his last thought as a woman with pale hair slides into view beside her husband is that he is suddenly very, very afraid.