31.10.1993
They say unconditional love is when you love someone without any limitations; that no matter what - not how much they hurt you or how your morals collide with theirs - you will still love them.
Your heart will keep burning from the affection and care you have for them.
There aren't a lot of people who love unconditionally.
That’s alright - it is human to love with the expectation of receiving something in return
Remus is one of those people.
People say it's unhealthy to keep loving someone after they hurt you in a way that kept you up at night even years later.
They say you should move on, put yourself first, love people who love you back.
Remus doesn’t care about what people say. He stopped caring 12 years ago.
He knows he should hate him. For god’s sake he should fucking despise that man to his core.
But he can't bring himself to do that.
He just can’t.
The other night was another sleepless night for Remus.
He couldn’t stop thinking about James and Lily, wallowing in old memories attenuated by anguish and misery.
Tonight is going to be the 12th year anniversary of their death.
The old clock from his parents’ house is hanging on the flaked wall of Remus’ quarters, ticking above his head.
Tick…tock…tick…tock…
It's 11am and Remus still in his bed.
He forces himself to get out of bed and get dressed. He doesn't teach today - it's the day of Halloween night - and he planned on going to Hogsmeade to have some drinks.
That's what he has done every year on Halloween since 1981.
He is fine though, don’t worry about it.
He doesn't need help or anything - not that there is someone who will help him anyway.
Except Madam Pomfrey of course, but he wouldn't want to bother her.
That is, if he needed any help at all - which he doesn't.
He is completely fine.
It's not like his heart aches painfully or something of the sort.
Remus’ body movements are slow while getting ready, and when he leaves the castle to the chilly breeze of October it's already 12 o'clock.
On his way to The Three Broomsticks he finds himself thinking about his dead friends again. Them - and another certain someone who Remus can’t force out of his mind.
Sirius Orion Black. His murderously beautiful paramour.
Should he even allow himself to call him that? After all he has done?
It doesn't matter. He wouldn’t talk about Sirius with anyone anyway. He can call him however he wants.
.
Grim Reaper. Murderer. Fell Hand. Traitor. Perfidious Soul. Lier. manipulator. Backstabber. Turncoat. Bastard.
Remus knows by now that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and once a Black always a Black, but those aren’t the words that come to his mind while thinking of Sirius.
Instead of bitterness, the words that come to his mind are full of heart’s desire and sweet regard.
Padfoot. Pads. His star. Sweetheart. His darling. The flame of his heart. His soulmate. His lifetime lover.
Remus was so deep in thoughts about the wanted murderer that he didn't notice he was already standing outside The Three Broomsticks.
He enters the inn and orders a glass of firewhisky as he takes his seat at the counter.
As he sips from his drink, he reluctantly reminisces about his long lost friends.
Twelve years have passed, and Remus still blames himself for what happened that night. He should have saved them. He doesn't know how, but he should’ve saved them somehow.
Most of the time, Remus wishes he would’ve been the one who got murdered by a traitor instead of Lily and James. Instead of Peter.
Remus still doesn't get why Sirius would’ve done this. It wasn’t the first time Sirius had betrayed him, but why would he do this to them? They were his family. Why would he turn on them like that?
Remus doesn't know the reason, but he wishes that now, when Sirius roams free, he will kill him as well.
Remus starts to feel dizzy after a while. He didn’t lose count of how many glasses of firewhisky he drank.
He stands up, pays for the drinks - thank Merlin for the salary at Hogwarts - and leaves the tenebrous inn and back to the warmth of the afternoon sunlight.
How is it already 3pm?
Remus doesn't know and neither does he care.
He tries to walk back to the castle without looking drunk - he is a teacher after all. He can't be drunk in the middle of the day.
As he’s on his way back to Hogwarts, Remus hears a familiar sound of footsteps.
He listens carefully. These are not man's footsteps.
He turns around and sees a creepy looking big ass black dog following him. Remus flinches for a moment.
‘Matches the spooky spirit’ he jokes to himself.
Then he takes a second look at the dog and his heart skips a beat.
They stare at each other for a long moment, clearly recognize one another, but none of them do anything.
After another minute in which the dog doesn’t do anything, Remus starts to think that maybe he only imagined the spark of recognition in the dog’s eyes.
He looks away and continues to limp his way to the school, leaning on his cane.
He realizes that he must have had too many drinks, because there is no way that dog was padfoot.
As he walks, Remus notices the dog has already disappeared - not that he cares. It's just a dog.
Just a dog who happens to have black fur and gray eyes, just like padfoot’s.
It's just a dog, right? Remus only imagined the feeling of safety when the dog was next to him. It's nothing, he just needs to rest.
When he enters his quatars he takes off his jacket and shoes and crushes on his bed. He doesn’t get to change his indoor clothes before falling asleep.
Remus wakes up when it's already dark outside.
He sighs. He completely ruined his sleep schedule.
He gets out of bed and changes his wrinkled clothes from earlier to something a little more presentable for dinner. After that he washes his face and fixes his messy hair.
He looks at himself in the mirror above the sink and hates what he sees. He’s only 32, but with the strips of gray in his mustache and hair, the dark circles and bags under his eyes and the wrinkles of worry on his forehead - he looks much older.
Remus knows that if Sirius hadn't got into Azkaban, he would have looked so beautifully handsome, in a way that matches his age.
Not that he thinks that now Sirius looks bad - he still thinks Sirius is the most beautiful man he has ever met.
He goes out of the bathroom, ties his shoelaces and leaves his quarters to the great hall for dinner.
He takes his seat between professor McGonagall and professor Flitwick, and takes a look at the Gryffindor table.
Remus finds Harry pretty quickly. He looks like he's doing alright, like he’s happy.
Remus wishes he could've spent the eve with him.
He wants to hear Harry call him Uncle Moony, just like he did 12 years ago. But it's clear that Harry doesn't even remember him.
Not that Remus is surprised by that, nobody can remember things from when they were only one year old.
Remus feels a little better when he sees Harry smile and laughs with his friends.
Dumbledore stands up and the great hall falls into silence.
The Headmaster says a couple of things which Remus doesn't bother to listen to, and the feast begins.
Remus puts some food on his plate and takes out a white gold cutlery set from his cloak pocket and starts to eat.
He hates how needs to use his own cutlery and not the ones Hogwarts has, and remembers how when he was in his first and second years of Hogwarts, he preferred to eat with the silver cutlery and get burned or to not eat at all, rather than eating with a different set.
Whatever tho, it doesn't matter what he feels about it.
"Dumbledore decided to throw a Halloween party for the School staff." McGonagall tells Remus while they eat. Remus nods slightly but doesn't say anything.
"Do you plan on coming?" She asks, and Remus tilts his head up and looks at her in silence.
"Everyone thinks it's ridiculous, I do too, but I don't want to let Albus down. He thinks it's a great idea." McGonagall explains when Remus is still quiet. He looks away and starts eating again.
"For me, Minerva, it is not a day of celebration." He states shortly.
McGonagall is silent for a moment.
"You're right. I'm so sorry, dear." She answers eventually with a quiet voice, but Remus just eats and says nothing.
The feast ends around 9pm, but the students walk around Hogwarts, all dressed up with different costumes.
Remus already counted 7 werewolf costumes - great for his shitty mood.
He comes back to his quarters and changes to his sleeping clothes - a black old t-shirt with a Fading print of Queen on the front and a Plaid pants. He makes himself a cup of verbena tea and honey, and sits down at his desk to grade some student’s essays until he gets tired again.
The Hours pass quickly, and it's already midnight when Remus finishes checking Neville's essay. That’s when he hears someone walk in.
Remus turns around to the door, wand is ready, and stands up immediately.
So he really didn't imagine that dog, It was really him.
For years, Remus thought that when he would see him again - when he’d stand infront of him, face to face, and see the madness in his eyes - he would pull out his wand and torture him so with the most dark and agonizing curses he knows, make him suffer like Remus has suffered all those years.
All those years, he thought that when he’d meet him again, and see that man is nothing like the boy he thought he knew, then he would finally stop loving him.
He thought that when that would happen, he would shout at the man, scream at him until his throat and lungs were burning, yell at him all the things he thinks of him and all the things that have happened because of him.
But Remus doesn't do any of that.
Instead, when he looks at Sirius, who just stands at the entrance - robes dirty and tearing apart, all worn out - Remus just freezes.
They stare at each other for a long time, making up for the years that have passed without the other’s eyes burning holes in their heart, with not even a single gaze in a dream or a nightmare.
Remus breaks eye contact and looks down at Sirius’ hands. No wand.
He opens his mouth with the intention to speak, to say something to the poor looking man standing at the threshold of his quarters, but no words are coming out. No voice leaves his mouth.
Remus closes his mouth shut. He swears he can see the corners of Sirius' dried lips going upwards, like tries to compress a bigger smile. A chuckle escapes his mouth.
“What’s so funny?” Remus finds his words, quite annoyed by the other man’s expressions. In fact, Sirius’ unserious demeanor makes Remus’ blood boil with years of bottled up anger. He slams a fist on the wooden desk.
“How could you do that?” He doesn’t shout. His voice is quiet and shaky from hurt and anger.
“How?” Remus demands, his wand now pointing at Sirius’ chest in his shaky hand.
Sirius puts his hands up in defense or pacification. “Wait, before you do anything you might regret,” he says, Renus’ chest goes up and down with short exhales, he’s angry and impatient for Sirius’
games.
“One question, just let me ask you one question.”
There is a moment of silence when Sirius paus, probably for a more dramatic effect, and Remus just waits for him to continue.
“Are you really going to keep that mustache?” he finally asks, his smile wild and his eyes shine with amusement almost as if he didn’t spend 12 years of his life in the most soul destroying prison on earth.
When those words leave Sirius’ mouth - Remus closes the gap between them in three big steps. He catches the other man’s robes and pins him to the wall behind him.
They both breathe heavily, studying each other’s new version - older version - of the same well known face.
Sirius smiles, and this smile tells Remus everything he needs to know. His hold in Sirius’ robes relaxes and his hand gently rests on Sirius’ chest.
Remus can feel Sirius’ heartbeat racing and the gaze of his gray eyes on him, and with that he collapses into the other’s arms and hugs him so tight that they both can't breathe.
Sirius wraps his arms around Remus’ body - one arm on his back and the other is over Remus’ shoulder.
They stay like that for a while, breathing into each other’s neck, eyes closed and arms tight around one another like it’s the end of the world.
Sirius is the first to break the silence.
“Hello, love” he whispers, and Remus knows Sirius loves him unconditionally, too.