How to be Human

Peter Pettigrew was convinced that there was never,, and will never be, a greater, stronger, connected pair than James Potter and Sirius Black. 

They all first met their first year at The Hogwarts Academy, and from the beginning, Peter had watched the two quickly become attached from the ankles up, infused at the mind once it reached the top. Peter thought of it like this:

Each personality type was a straight line. 

Whatever personality type James and Sirius shared, because they were the same, they were on the opposite ends of the lines. They were the same person, different levels, spectrums, fonts, whatever you want to call it. One was a Hufflepuff, one was a Slytherin. What could be more different?

Peter just knew he’d never seen faster friends. Friends that only ever grew stronger the longer they knew each other. 

In the beginning, Peter thought it all had to do with James. 

James Potter was the color yellow. Yellow went well with all colors except green. 

Sirius Black was the color green. 

So why did it work so well?

After many years of trying to crack the code, to discover the secret of their ways, he realized they just worked. They just did. And that was really all there was to it. 

After almost five years, Peter felt he understood their bond. It went beyond friends, into a brothership that didn’t require blood. It was understanding one another without words, sometimes without looking at each other at all. It was protectiveness and defensiveness of the other, even when one was not near. It was...perfect.

It was James and Sirius. Potter and Black. The best of friends. 

But Peter Pettigrew really, truly had never, and was convinced he would never, see something so peculiar, so specific, so special as whatever it was that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black had. 

Peter liked Remus, he always had. Very much. Sometimes, the other two were too much, too loud. Sometimes, Peter liked quiet and Remus was nothing if not quiet. Remus was someone Peter could just sit with, could just be with. But because Peter was so fond of Remus, he could also admit, with all the love in mind, that Remus Lupin was odd. 

No one understood Remus, no matter how hard they tried. And frankly, Remus didn’t put much effort into, well, anything.

But somehow, some way, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black made sense. 

In every way they didn’t, they did. 

Peter found that it was different from Sirius and James. Every vital organ in their bodies needed the other to survive. All the separate parts of them worked in one being. Two halves of the same whole. Two sides of the same coin. 

Remus and Sirius, however…

It was like they shared the same soul. Like they were born on different planets, different universes, but were always meant to find each other. Like they were looking, actively, all their lives for each other and never even knew it. Not until they found it. 

And Peter was sure they really didn’t know it yet, but he was watching them figure it out. 

But he had always been a hopeless poet, so really, what did Peter Pettigrew know? 

__________

One night in late December, days before Christmas, Sirius came to Remus just before Remus was to turn in for the night. 

It was much too cold for the Astronomy Tower for Remus, so he’d taken refuge in the common room window sill, the one in the back, between two large shelves full of books and knick knacks. 

The sun was maybe an hour away from rising. An hour away from floating up above the

horizon and washing Remus out for the day. Although, Remus couldn’t lie, he had been feeling much more in the past month or so, ever since Sirius declared to teach Remus how to be human. 

Neither was sure how well Sirius was actually doing, but he’d been doing something. 

“What makes you feel alive?” Remus had questioned quietly one night under a black and blank sky. 

Sirius spent many moments thinking it over before settling. 

“Music. Friends.” Then he held up the lit cigarette between his fingers. “These things, apparently.” 

Remus had then confessed he hadn’t ever given much thought to music. When he thought of music, the only thing he’d think of was what his mother would always play, late in the night, too loud to be enjoyable. Sirius just couldn't have that. 

They had spent the rest of that night listening to various songs and artists and genres. Listening to what made Sirius feel alive, feel human. Remus found he quite enjoyed music. Moreover, he quite enjoyed Sirius under the influence of music. 

That night, when Remus was found curled next to the frosted glass, Sirius joined him wordlessly with a small smile. He shifted until he was settled, and then he finally said, “Hiya Moony.” 

Remus snapped his head up at this, brows furrowed, nose scrunched. 

“I’ve been thinking about it lately. I reckon it fits. Don’t you?” 

“Moony?” Remus repeated, testing it on his lips. He understood it, though he wasn’t sure how to feel. 

Sirius tilted his head thoughtfully. “Moony.” 

They sat for a while longer, quiet and thinking, watching the glass frost over even more, the pattern of the ice began to glow with the rising sun. 

“Why do you fancy the moon so much?” Sirius asked randomly. Remus wasn’t sure how to answer. “Or do you just have a vendetta against the sun?” Remus’ lips twitched. “Or are you a vampire? Ya know, I can’t recall the last time I saw you outside during the day.” Sirius stroked his chin animatedly as he spoke. Sirius’ voice lowered seriously (siriusly). “Will you burst into flames if you're touched by the sun?” 

Remus cracked and smiled. Sirius was satisfied. 

“I think,” Remus shifted. “During the day, the sun…I just feel so…seen, I guess.” 

Sirius sat up. “And that’s a bad thing?” Remus didn’t- couldn’t answer. “You don’t want to be seen?” Sirius didn’t know how to tell Remus that even if the world lost all its light and everything was the deepest of blacks, he would still glow. Still shine. At least to Sirius.

“I don’t know,” Remus answered honestly. “Sometimes it’s like I’m not worth seeing, I guess?” And Sirius added this to the list of things Remus Lupin said that could’ve brought tears to his eyes. He just could not understand why Remus couldn’t see how, how, how….

Sirius looked at the window. He couldn’t see much outside, but he could tell the sun was rising. He stood at once and held his hand out for Remus, who was watching him curiously. “Come on.” Remus didn’t move. Sirius wiggled his fingers. “Come on. Don’t you trust me?” 

Remus found that he did, in fact, trust Sirius. 

So he placed his hand in Sirius’, and let him pull him up and out. 

They went, somewhat rushed, through the common room, down the steps of the dorm tower, through some corridors, down another staircase or two, weaved their way through courtyards, dashing through a hazy blue morning until their feet sunk into earth. By the time they reached the lake, near the big willow tree, where they could see the castle from across the water, the sun was almost completely round, fully visible. 

Both their cheeks were tinted pink from the cold, the tips of their nose numb. They were out of breath, hands still frozen together. They stood on the dewy green blades, frosted at the tips. The willow was weeping crystals of morning ice, shimmering in the sun that was now fully up. 

Remus was confused and cold and was feeling many things he couldn’t place. Sirius felt alive under the sun, against Remus’ skin. The star turned to the moon.

“Close your eyes,” he said. Remus stared at him for many seconds, just staring and thinking. And then he closed his eyes. Sirius let go of his hand, and turned him directly towards the sun by his shoulders. The blacks of Remus’ eyelids glowed red with the light. His skin prickled with the unfamiliar rays of the sun. He felt his body thaw in the warmth, despite the air being freezing around him. 

Sirius was mesmerized. 

Where Remus was usually a ghostly pale, his skin was tinted golden. It was like he was a flower, wilted so long in the darkness, and when the sun touched his petals, his stem, his roots, he rose, he grew, he became alive. 

His lashes casted a dark shadow on his cheeks. His nose, red at the tip, was covered in freckles, so much so, the skin underneath could not be seen. His scars glowed in the light, so there and so beautiful. His lips held a pink tint, bright and plump. Everything about him looked soft and hazy and unreal. Ethereal. Mythical. Magical.

Sirius Black’s confession to the moon had never been more true than it was in that moment. He was confused. Yet somehow knew exactly what he was thinking. Perhaps it was time for another confession. Perhaps it was time to admit what he knew to be true. 

Remus felt warm all over. Tingly. He pictured his blood sparkling and his bones flourishing. Remus felt the beginning of what it was to be human. After the heavens and the earth, didn’t it all begin with the sun?

Sirius then whispered, “Keep your eyes closed.” And Remus did. Even when the faint tickle of fingertips brushed his cheeks. On either side of his face, fingers trailed from his temples, down his face, tracing his jaw. He used his thumbs to stroke under his bottom lip, then up to his nose and over his freckles. Then, with his palms, he cupped Remus’ face. 

Remus found he couldn’t breath and was overfilled with air all at once. 

“I see you.” 

And Sirius thought, and oh how it’s worth it. 

__________

Something awful had been bothering Sirius. And it came to him in a dream. 

In the dream, Sirius was at his parents’ house. Back home, his and Regulus’ room were connected by a servant’s tunnel through the walls. They were on opposite ends of a large hallway, and when they were younger and in trouble with their parents, they’d use the tunnels to sneak through to each other’s rooms. 

Dream Sirius was younger than fifth year Sirius, but he couldn’t be sure by how much. He couldn’t be sure if, when he got to the end of that tunnel he was walking through, Regulus would be in his room, or if he’d be buried in the Black Family Cemetery. Once he reached the door, he pushed it open, needing to know. 

Inside that room, it was not empty, but it was not his brother he was met with. 

It was Remus. 

It was Remus, except he was naked. And all his scars were fresh and new, open and bloody. He was standing in the middle of his little brother’s room, trembling like he was cold, but Sirius knew it was pain. Remus reached out to Sirius, but fell to his knees, crying out in a way that Sirius had never heard from him in real life, but it felt so real. 

But Sirius couldn’t move from his spot. 

He couldn’t help.

Just like he couldn’t help Reggie. 

Then he woke up, and all he needed to know was how Remus had gotten those scars. Because he never asked about Reggie’s, he was always too scared. Then, Regulus was gone. 

Sirius jumped from his mattress, ignored shoes, and rushed out of his dorm. Remus was not in the common room, so he headed for the Astronomy Tower, though Remus had not been going recently. But where else was he meant to look? He rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps of the dorm tower and-

Sirius suddenly was on the floor, looking up at a startled Remus Lupin with half an eaten muffin now dropped at his feet. They were both frowning. Sirius at Remus, and Remus at his muffin. The dream then felt silly because it was just a dream. But the scars weren’t just scars so Sirius didn’t know how to feel. 

“My muffin,” Remus pouted cutely. Cutely?  “Are you okay?” Remus then held out his hand for Sirius to take, something fairly new for him. Starting conversations, initiating contact. 

Sirius let Remus pull him from the floor. “Are you okay? What the hell are you doing out here?” He said this like it was unusual to find Remus about the castle at night. And obviously he was just in the kitchens to grab a snack. Their hands were still connected; Sirius’ were clammy. 

“I was hungry,” Remus stated, dropping his hand, put off by the urgency. Sirius noticed this at once and ran a hand through his hair, then down over his face. 

“Sorry. I just had a bad dream and you scared me.” Remus nodded slowly, picking up his muffin from the floor. He turned around and began walking. Sirius took a moment to realize he was meant to follow. 

“You had a bad dream,” repeated Remus, in his own way urging Sirius to continue. 

“Yeah, and you were there and I-” he stopped abruptly, realizing he didn't know if he wanted to admit dreaming about Remus. They reached a waste bin down a random corridor and Remus threw his muffin inside it. Sirius frowned. “Sorry about your muffin.” Remus just waved him off. 

“I was there and it was a bad dream?” Remus had been focusing on this, and of course he’d take the sentence so literal. 

“No! I meant like it was a bad dream and you happened to be there. Not that you being there made it bad; I think a dream with you in it would be quite good. It was just the nature of the dream, the fact that you were there made it bad, and-”

“Do you want to go with me to get another muffin? I think you need a muffin.” And in that moment, Sirius was grateful for the fact that Remus was Remus and he ignored every embarringing thing Sirius had just said, and instead came to the conclusion that he needed a muffin. 

“Yes,” Sirius said through a breath. “Let’s go get a muffin.” 

So they went. And neither one of them said a word until they were walking back towards the dorms, each with a muffin in hand. Sirius had chosen chocolate chip, while Remus chose banana nut. Sirius couldn’t explain why he thought it was fitting, he just knew it was. 

“So,” Remus started. “Did something bad happen to you in your dream?” 

Sirius couldn’t even complain about the fact Remus was so stuck on the dream because he was the one who had made such a fuss about it. “Not to me,” said Sirius. “To you.”

“And that made it bad?” Remus cocked his head to the side, confused. Genuinely. 

Sirius snorted. “That something bad happened to you? Yeah.” Remus nodded his head as he took a bite of his muffin and swallowed. 

“Why?” Because Remus wanted to know. Because Remus didn’t get it.

Sirius understood Remus, and the fact that Remus probably really didn’t understand. But this still shocked him enough to ask, “You really don’t get the fact that people care about you?” 

And Remus answered honestly because he always did. 

“No,” he said blankly. “I don’t understand how people, like, perceive me? I guess. And I don’t have a perceptive..is that the right word? Perception? Of myself. Or a correct one because I also don’t know how other people see me. So I don’t get how someone can. Care, I mean. Or…would.” 

Now, this was a normal length sentence for Remus as of late, but Sirius sometimes still got shocked that Remus had so many words he was willing to say out loud. Sirius loved it.

“That makes sense…I guess.” Sirius understood what he was saying, he just didn’t agree because he knew what he thought of Remus. And that was everything. 

“You think it’s stupid.” 

“Shut up. No I don’t,” Sirius eased Remus’ mind in a single wave of his hand. Remus nodded. “I just wish you’d see yourself how other people see you.” And by other people, Sirius really meant himself. And James and Peter, of course. 

Then they were at the bottom of the dorms, but neither moved towards the stairs. Their muffins were gone. Remus looked at the ground while Sirius looked at Remus. 

“How do you see me?” Hogwarts had no lights in the corridor, but there were many windows. Everywhere. Only the light of the night outside lit the area around them. Remus whispered into the dark, shy and genuine. 

Sirius didn’t know how to answer. 

“What?” He whispered back. 

Remus shrugged. “Like, how do you see me? Because I can’t…I don’t…I don’t see anything, I guess. So I thought maybe if you told me, it would help.”

“It would help?” Sirius asked. Remus looked at him and nodded. “Okay. How I see you. Okay.” It was muttered, filling thoughts out loud while Sirius tried to figure out what and how to say what he wanted to say. “Can we sit?” Suddenly, he was nervous. 

They sat at the bottom of the stairs, each leaned on opposite sides of the same step, facing each other. Sirius didn’t know if that made it easier or more difficult. Remus found himself growing squirmish, and just as he opened his mouth to tell Sirius to forget it, Sirius began. 

“First year, I thought your scars were so cool.” It wasn’t where he meant to start, but they had already been on his mind. Remus froze at the mention of them. None of his friends had mentioned the incident. Remus had successfully shoved it so far into his brain he forgot it ever happened. Until that moment. “I thought you looked so badass. I was going to tell you but when I said something to James, he said I’d better not.” 

“They’re not badass,” Remus looked down, fiddling with the sleeve of his jumper. 

“I thought they were the coolest,” Sirius told him. “You were always quiet. I guess you still are, but back then, I guess I couldn’t see how loud you could be when you weren’t talking.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like, you have these facial expressions sometimes. Or your eyes. Or even the way you move sometimes, it’s like you talk without speaking.” 

“I do?” In Remus’ mind, he was a robot. He was...nothing. 

Sirius hummed in response. “You’re also smart. Very smart. I think everyone knows that.” And he said this so normal, like Remus should know already. “I think you’re clever, too. When you want to be. When you’re not worried about what you’re saying.” 

Then the energy shifted.
“I think you’re really strong. I think you’ve been through something and for whatever reason that messed up how you process things. I think you can feel things, you’re just scared to.” 

“I’m not strong.” Remus was sure of it. I am scared though, Remus thought. He was sure of that just as well. 

“You’re still here,” Sirius said softly, nudging the other boy with his foot. “That counts for something.” 

Sirius’ chest began to strum and his mind began to float back to his brother. Reggie couldn’t hold on. He wasn’t strong. Sirius was supposed to be strong for him, hold him together. He failed. He wasn’t strong. He was scared, and so he ignored it. And Reggie was gone.

And he couldn’t let that happen to Remus. 

“I don’t always feel here,” Remus argued quietly. He regretted asking Sirius to tell him what he thought because it was just making him sad. How wrong it all was. But it couldn’t be, because Sirius wouldn’t lie to him. He just wouldn’t. So why, why, why couldn’t Remus see any of this? 

“I know.” Sirius nodded. 

“Sometimes I do. Sometimes it’s just, like, I’m half here. Sometimes I’m just…gone.” 

“Not here at all?” And Remus nodded. Sirius gnawed on his lip. “How do you feel now?” 

“Here,” he whispered. “I’m here.” Sirius stared at him as his heart beat harshly in his chest. 

“I’m glad you’re here.” No one had ever told Remus that. Growing up, it was easy to know how to feel. His father ignored him and his mother was, for lack of a better word, sort of crazy. After the accident, Remus’ brain got flipped around one too many times in the car that it screwed up something. It must have. 

Because who wouldn’t be upset that their father died? Right in front of them? Or that they couldn’t remember a time when their father said their name? Or looked them in the eye? Or that their parents never said happy birthday? Or wished them a goodmorning? Or asked how their day at school was? 

Remus wasn’t upset about any of it. 

In fact, he thought nothing of it at all. 

Because if the two people on earth who were made to care for him, wired to love him, didn’t…why should he love them back? Or love himself? It didn’t make sense to him. And neither did the boy sitting in front of him in that stairwell. 

“You don’t believe me,” Sirius noted. Remus had been looking at the ground. 

“I just..don’t…understand.” He looked up. “But I believe you.” Sirius smiled softly, sadly, believing that he did believe him. Believing that maybe if he would’ve told Reggie that, it could have helped.

“Good.” Sirius looked down to his lap. “Good,” he whispered to himself. He felt heavy. A question eating at him. “Can I ask you something?” It was almost inaudible. 

“Yeah.” 

“How did you get your scars?” 

Remus had been waiting for this question since the moment he stepped through the great doors for the first time. He expected to be stared at, to be asked daily by various kids why he looked the way he did. If he was attacked, if he was born that way. What was wrong with him. 

He especially expected his roommates to ask. As the years went on, they became friends, and they still didn’t ask. Remus began to think they never would, and he could leave that school with the secret still tucked safely in his pocket. 

“You don’t have to-”

“It’s okay.” Remus nodded. “I want to tell you.” Because Remus found that he did. Sirius settled down onto the step more, bringing his feet forward, the tips of his socked toes touching Remus’ shoes. Remus took a small breath. 

“When I was younger, I got into an accident. A car accident.” There. It was out of his mouth. Remus could even stop there and be done, satisfied that he told him. But he looked up at Sirius, honest and caring. Welcoming and worrying Sirius. Beautifully kind Sirius. And he kept going. 

“My father was driving. He was drunk. He lost control of the car and we flipped…there was a tree…and the glass kind of-” Remus waved his hands about the air and to his face in a weird motion, but it got the point across. “Now I have these.” 

Sirius was nodding slowly, taking it in. He could handle that. An accident. But it was an accident with his father. His father was driving. Driving drunk. “And your father?” 

“He…wasn’t strapped in.” Is what Remus decided on. Sirius understood. Remus lost his father. And just by looking at him, he couldn’t gauge his reaction, his emotions.  

“Were you…okay?” Remus only looked at him with a small, weak smile, and shrugged. 

“Not so badass, huh?” It was a rare moment where Remus cracked a joke, but Sirius didn’t find it funny at all. 

“Remus-” 

“No,” Remus shook his head. “It’s okay. I didn’t like my father.” The and he didn’t like me stayed in his mind. Sirius found himself nodding because

“I don’t like my father either.” 

“Why?” 

“What about the burns?” 

“What?” They stared at each other for a long moment. Sirius had avoided the question, and Remus wished he could avoid that one. 

“The burns?” Sirius grabbed Remus’ arm without thinking. Slowly and gently, he rolled the sleeves of Remus’ jumper up. If it would have been anyone else, Remus would have froze, or ran, or perhaps slapped them away. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Sirius. “How’d you get these?” Then, Sirius was tracing the outline of the burns on his arm. They’d healed quite a lot since Sirius saw them last.

“I don’t want to tell you,” Remus whispered, watching the slender fingers touch his skin.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” Sirius looked up at him, completely serious. 

“I don’t want you to think bad of me.” Sirius chuckled. 

“I just told you what I think of you. Did any of it sound bad?” Remus shook his head. “Then nothing you say can change any of it.” 

“I burned myself. With cigarettes.” But Sirius had already known. He just needed Remus to confirm it. 

“Why?” 

“I wasn’t trying to…hurt…myself,” Remus said because he knew that was what the other was thinking. “I was just trying to…feel…something.” 

“This summer?” Remus nodded. 

“I guess because last year I felt more, like, alive than I ever had. Then I went home and…it was like I- I don’t know, forgot how to feel anything.” Remus was curling his arm back to himself, watching Sirius drop his hand. 

Remus wasn’t nervous anymore, but he was feeling…feeling…vulnerable? Was that the word he was searching for? The feeling he was trying to place? He felt open and exposed and like Sirius knew his deepest darkest secret. Because, in a way, he did. Remus didn’t know what he thought about it. 

Sirius opened his mouth before he could take back the admission he was about to tell Remus. “Back home, at my parents house,” Sirius corrected himself, though it was more for himself than Remus. “It’s a sad place. An angry place. And here, I feel so happy, so free. During the summer when I’d have to go back there, sometimes- especially this summer, it felt like I forgot how to be happy. Like I’d never feel happy again.” Sirius would have no problem telling this to James. 

James Potter grew up with the two most perfect people Sirius had ever met. They each had stolen a piece of the sun and stored it behind their eyes, buried it in their hearts. Nothing in the world made more sense than James Potter coming from Effie and Monty. Sirius knew how James’ childhood was, how lovely and happy. How accepting and caring. 

So Sirius could tell James all the awfulness of his own life without a care because he knew, as much as he tried, James would never really understand. And in a way, that comforted Sirius, because he knew James would never feel that pain. 

However, sitting there in front of this boy who deserved the world, Sirius hated that he understood what Remus meant. Knew what he felt. Remus held the same pain that Sirius did, and Sirius loathed the fact, even just the thought. 

“You’re different this year,” Remus commented. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to, but he did. Sirius didn’t look at him for a long time. Just thought about how he was. He knew he had been acting differently. He definitely knew he felt differently. 

He spent the summer locked in a dark room, literally and figuratively. His parents were crueler that summer, stopping him from mentioning school, or his friends, or his brother. One night at dinner, when Sirius made an off handed comment about Reggie and his death anniversary coming up, his father…snapped. And then proceeded to snap his arm. 

He then took three different trains with a broken arm to James Potter’s house. And then never looked back. 

Sirius Black came back slightly dimmer, slightly quieter. Honestly, to the rest of the world, he could have been considered the same. But to his roommates, to his friends, it was more than noticeable. 

“Something bad happened. Didn’t it?” Remus couldn’t stop staring at Sirius, because there he was, avoiding him and not the other way around. Seemingly scared to tell him something. Seemingly ashamed of something. Seemingly something other than Sirius. 

Sirius nodded. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Remus told him, and that’s when their eyes met. Finally. Sirius blew out a small huff of breath, not realizing how much he needed to hear that. That someone was glad he was there. That he was okay. Because Sirius was okay. He got out. That’s all that mattered.

“I’m glad you’re trying to be.”