Black Beauty
Sirius Black has always been a very,very beautiful boy.
It was never a secret. Just something he had always known to be true.
But for the first eleven years of his life, he didn’t feel very beautiful. He hadn’t known too much as a child, and even though he was undoubtedly much smarter than other kids his age - mastering every skill forced on him with ease and performing his first magic when he was just shy of two years old - he was a naive child. A mischievous, cunning child, but nonetheless - a very naive child, who wasn’t a pessimist by nature, but by nurture, and held the belief that true beauty and kindness lie somewhere out there in the big wide world.
The first to beat this belief was none other than a god. The one which created him. His mother. Before having learned the power of the beauty he held, he wished, sometimes, that he had grown in a house without any mirrors, so that he could ignore the strain his reflection brough to him, and the shame that came with baring the face of the person he feared the most in the world.
He doesn’t remember much before the end of the summer of his eleventh year. It comes in flashes, sometimes, a bit more vividly when he really tries to think about it. His memory has been a bit hazy for ages now, but he is very sure that once upon a time it was very good. He remembers the day his brother was born very clearly, almost to the point of recitement, as it was one of the happiest days of his life. A true wonder. A gift from above.
He doesn’t remember much before he actually held his brother in his hands for the first time. Doesn’t really care to. For Sirius, his life started on one very specific moment, when his father laid the smallest creature he had ever seen in his hands and told him to watch him until he would be back.
Sirius, only shy of two years old and sitting on a pile of blankets on the floor of their home, held this miraculous creature, his baby brother between his hands and just… stared at him. What a beautiful sight to be seen. His brother didn’t cry like he did when he was in Sirius’ father’s hands, but looked at him with curious eyes, a gray with the faintest hint of blue residing in it. Sirius didn’t know too many words at that exact moment, when he first held his brother, but can remember, to this day, the way his eyebrows furrowed and his grip got stronger on his little brother, guarding him from the world, holding his little hand in his palm and never letting go of it until the day he turned eleven.
When Sirius was eleven years old, he left his house for the first time and finally understood the difference between a house and a home. Fot some people, he came to find out, it is simply one and the same for some people. But when he boarded the train platform, he realized that for him, a home and a house were not one and the same. He had to chase the former, therefore inevitably having to run from the latter.
His mother had sent Kreacher to escort him to the platform that day. She and his father had business to attend to, so he remained sitting there alone on the platform. He wasn’t usually a quiet child, always grabbing the attention of everyone in the room by the throat, thinking - look at me, look at me, maybe even see me as I am . But the train was very big, and he suddenly became very aware how all the other children were walking with their parents, and how Regulus would be alone in that house for the whole year without him, and -
“Hey. I like your hair.”
Sirius shook his head. In front of him stood a boy with big round glasses and hair so free that it would send his mother into a coma if she were here. But then again, she wasn’t. He found himself smiling at the thought.
“Thanks. Sirius Black,” he lent out his hand to shake the boy’s hand.
“James Potter,” the boy smiled, wide and happy.
“Oh, Potter!. They told me not to talk to you.”
James smiled widely again and there was the slightest hint of mischief in his eyes. It was almost familiar. Like he’s seen it before.
“James! James!” a woman’s voice came from behind Sirius. His heart sped up.
“I’m here, Mum!” James said and waved to her. The woman sighed in relief and quickly paced towards them, patting her son’s shoulder in affection and kneeling down to fix his tie.
“It’s fine, Mum. I’ll be okay. Promise. And look, this is Sirius. Sirius, this is my Mum,” he smiled.
The woman turned to look at him and her smile did not falter, not even for a bit. Her eyes were the same as her son’s were, which put Sirius at ease and made him stand straight as he lent his hand to her and said - “It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Potter.”
“Oh, none of that,” she huffed and smiled at him, “Call me Effie, dear. Everyone does. And it’s lovely to meet you too, Sirius. I’m glad to see that James made a new friend.” She looked up at the clock. Five minutes to eleven. “Now go ahead, boys, don’t miss your train.”
She kissed her son on his forehead and whispered something to him which escaped Sirius’ ears. James quickly grabbed Sirius’ hand after the goodbyes had ceased and the two ran to the train, Sirius’ baggage lagging behind him and making noise as it hit the floor, but he didn’t really care. The two found a new compartment and sat down, breathless.
James hurried to the window and saw his mother standing there. She was looking for him in her eyes and did not notice as he waved, so he opened the window slightly and yelled out - “Mum!” - which she heard, as she smiled at him and blew a kiss. He blew one back, and Sirius wondered why James’ mother was so nice to the both of them. He would grow to know much kindness and love, but by this point he hadn’t known too much of it, and found himself yearning, hungry, for something like James had. I am so hungry, he would think - what do I need? Maybe one day his mother will wave goodbye to him like that. He doubted it, but cast the thought aside for now. James was staring at him.
“What?”
“You don’t have a lot of friends, do you?” he asked. He wasn’t being mean. Kindness remained in his eyes.
“Not really. I mean, I have my little brother, he’s my best friend in the world, I guess. But my mum is really strict about who I can be friends with, and all of the boys she approves of really suck.”
“Then I’m going to be the first,” he said firmly, smiling, “aside from your brother, of course.”
He lent out his hand.
Sirius stared at it for a moment, but took it. James was very warm. Like a sunrise after a cold night.
And then another boy came into the compartment.
“Can I sit here? all the others are full.”
The first thing Sirius noticed about the boy was that he was very, very pretty. His eyes were dark brown, almost hazel in the sunlight that landed on them, and his hair was a mess of light brown curls, dirty and messy, not as well groomed as his own hair. On his face was a big white scar, which looked faded but outlined his face, as if a very big dog had scratched him, or something. It was very, very cool. He was slim and lanky, and his dirty clothes looked ill fitted and much bigger than him. He was clutching a book in his hand so firmly, as if he was scared that someone would try and pry from his hands.
“Sure, mate,” Sirius heard James say. “I’m James.”
The boy nodded and sat on the very side of the bench James was sitting on, right across from Sirius, very put together yet messy in appearance, it seemed as if he was trying to take up as little space as possible for him.
“That’s the part where you say your name,” James informed him, smiling widely.
“Oh, I- Remus. Remus Lupin.”
“I’m Sirius,” he said to him and mustered the best smile he could put on. The boy - Remus - lifted his head from the book he was still clutching firmly to gaze at him. His eyes widened for a moment and he mumbled his name again. His head bowed down to his book again and he opened it ever so gently, pressing a finger to the page he was on and furrowing his eyebrows as he read, as if it were the single most important thing in the world.
Sirius couldn’t quite tear his eyes away, not until a golden haired boy entered the compartment and sat down, introducing himself as James’ friend, Peter.
In the present day, Sirius was sitting by the common room window and chain smoking his last few cigarettes away, partly because he was nervous and partly because he would always go to Remus for more when he was out, so that he would have an excuse to talk to him.
The smoke filled his lungs in the familiar way that he had always known so well, and he remembered, fondly, of his first cigarette. It was fourth or third year, and Remus came in with his first pack - at least the first one Sirius had ever seen him with - and sat down next to him in the common room. James complained about the smell, calling the cigarettes ‘hellish sticks’, but Sirius thought that it made Remus look even cooler. More mature. He sat down next to him and asked for one. Remus looked up at him in surprise but did not say a thing. He had a filter in his mouth, sitting between his chapped lips as he rolled Sirius a cigarette. He tried to hide his cough for the first time but couldn’t do it. Remus smiled at that, but the hint of sadness in his eyes did not escape Sirius. Come to think of it, in the same place Sirius was sitting at now, and the place where they had shared many cigarettes before.
It was the ritual of the thing, not just the cigarette - Remus digging up the pack from his pockets, putting one between Sirius’ lips and one between his own. He would get closer, leaning in and snap his fingers ever so slightly to light Sirius’ cigarette. Sirius could do it himself, though he spent the entirety of that year pretending to Remus that it was hard for him to pick up the spell. He assumed that Remus figured out that it really wasn’t somewhere in the middle there, but if he did and if he didn’t, he never said a thing - lips twitching as his fingers snapped and he would light the cigarette the way he still does to this day. His voice is rougher and his eyes have dark clouds that had not been there before whenever he looked at Sirius, but some things stay the same.
The wind came flooding through the crack of the window which allowed the smoke to escape and Sirius smiled, feeling his hair brushing his shoulders lightly. He always liked keeping it long, never managing to control it the way Regulus always did, simply because he never bothered to. His mother always kept their hair short, and after every holiday in which he was summoned home, he would come back with his hair chopped off and his expression fallen.
Needless to say he started growing it out the moment he got out.
He doesn’t really like to think of the night he got out, much of it he pushed away to the point he can’t remember. His mother has made his own mind to a battleground - and he was the soldier fighting his own army. He was strong, but even the strongest of men gave in at last - and though he didn’t, even if he came close to it that night and many nights before - blood was still shed, and the scars remained. He could not remember the entire flow of the night, only bits in pieces - and the last clear memory was him, standing in front of the Potter’s residents. He was pretty sure that his face was somehow messed up, as the tears had a reddish color to them as they dropped onto his neck and his torn shirt. Idly, he became aware that he was still bleeding. His feet were bare, but he could not remember the moment he had lost his shoes, or how he managed to get this far without them. Memories came back after time, but he did not dare to dwell in them, pushing them farther and farther away from himself until the boy standing barefoot and small in front of the house which he now called home was a mere stranger to him.
The last thing he remembered of that night was the look on James’ face when he saw him.
The next day he remembered clearly occurred two days after he ran away. He had woken up in his room and the sun was gently drifting through the curtains, as if nudging him to wake up. He rose from his bed and looked around. The room became fuller than he remembered it to be - posters of his favorite quidditch teams hung on the walls. Near the big window, a big poster of David Bowie decorated the wall, making him muster a smile as he remembered an old memory of Remus and he - fourth year? Perhaps third? - they were listening to Sirius’ record player together and Sirius could not stop himself from staring at it. He didn’t really know why then, but as the year passed and the memory faded, the feeling remained.
Now, he knew.
The cigarette ash burned his hand slightly, too distracted by his thoughts, and made him mouth a curse word. He dubbed it into the ashtray Remus left by the window during the party and lit the last of his cigarettes and got up to sit by the edge of the window on which he leaned. His back grazing the window, he looked at the common room. It was empty now, but the ghosts of him and Remus from the party remained. He could almost see it, for as drunk as he was he still remembered it all: The fight, the silence and at last - the kiss. Nothing Sirius did drunk he did not wish to do sober. He was braver, hazier like he wished to be all the time, but he still wanted . He had found it to be the one thing his mother and no amount of drugs in his system could redeem him of: Want. And oh, how much did he want. And how impossible it all was.
The first time he kissed Remus Lupin wasn’t like anything out of a book, for books almost always have good endings. At least the ones Remus read, which somehow always made their way to Sirius. He appreciated the classics the most out of all, but even them, in the grimmest of stories, had some sort of a happy ending. And this kiss, the kiss that has been driving him absolutely mad for weeks now - didn’t have a happy ending.
It started out innocently enough. Like any party. He won’t bore you with the details of the beginning of the party and the part which led him to kiss Remus Lupin, as he was very used to parties, and as much as he loved them - it took quite a bit of a show to impress Sirius Black when it came to partying. It was the moments after which took him and shook him completely, the moments after the party, with almost no one but Remus around, that got to his head the way alcohol and drugs got to other people’s heads.
Sometimes he thought that Remus Lupin was the strongest drug he’s ever tried, and it is fair to say that he’s done his fair share. It wasn’t anything to be proud of - as addiction never is - but no amount of them could get him to where Remus could. This land of beauty he managed to slip him into with mere touch, a shared cigarette and the slightest graze of the boy’s lips against his own was stronger than anything he could snort or inject. Sirius has been chasing pleasure since before he learned how far he would go to reach it, but this? Remus? This was more than pleasure. Remus was euphoric. All the drugs in the world couldn’t take him this high or bring him this low.
It comes to him in flashes, those moments before the kiss. Even if right before it happened he could have sworn no one had ever bared such torture, no one has ever longed for something the way he has - and longing did not grace this need with enough intent, as it was something more: a hiraeth.
They were sitting by the window in their room and sharing a cigarette. The ritual was far too known, and as Sirius drew the smoke in he looked at Remus. Beautiful, absolutely torturous Remus, who was sitting there, in front of him. Almost close enough to kiss.
And then the thought came, which surged quite often in his mind, and as used to it as he had gotten, it never quite ceased to frighten him. So much that he would feel his mother’s voice coming to him, scolding him.
He never said it to anyone, couldn’t quite get himself to mouth the words, but sometimes when he was so far away from the house he could still hear her. Her voice, scratching, itching him, making him bleed. He would turn in the hallway and look for her tall, frightful figure, never getting a moment of peace from the undying love and hatred which could only reside within a mother’s soul. Only a mother could haunt a man as she did Sirius, never cease to bring chill to his bones when she was countries away from him. It seemed that no matter how far away he ran, he could never quite escape her claws and the echo of her voice, the ghost of her haunting him wherever he went.
But Remus looked so beautiful , and suddenly Sirius remembered something so wonderful that made a small smile rush towards his lips, just as the thought came to him - he wasn’t fourteen anymore. He could kiss him now, if he wished to. The question of whether or not Remus would comply occurred to him, but he pushed it away from him, as he did most things right before they mattered. At this moment, he was pretty sure he’d sell his own soul to kiss him.
He took a deep breath and looked into Remus’ eyes, searching for an answer, any answer. Remus’ eyes were hazy and he looked almost like he was dreaming. And so, so beautiful. So Sirius urged forward and kissed him. Well, attacked him would be more suitable to describe it. It was hungry more than it was sweet, beautiful more than anything he had ever experienced.
When Remus leaned in to him, he made his way down, the way he knows best. He felt like a rabid dog, hungry for more and more, he was almost crying as he tugged on Remus’ hair, biting, scratching and sucking on every piece of skin he could get his lips and hands on. And Remus, beautiful, lovely Remus, complied in such a way made Sirius feel as if he had been kissing him for a long, long time - as if it was meant to happen to him all along. He would have done anything, everything, every single thing Remus would have asked of him, anything… but then, Peter knocked on the door.
And for one moment, he thought it was his mother.
And he let go of Remus’ belt.
Remus seemed to have caught the distance. Flushed and panting, he seemed lost in thought as he wasn’t before, when he was underneath Sirius’ weight.
“Pads? If you’ve snuck a girl in there again, I swear to Merlin I’ll kill you. It’s the second bloody time this week!” Peter said.
He hurried and buttoned his shirt like his life depended on it. Thinking of it now, Peter probably wouldn’t have done or said anything had he asked him not to. No one that Sirius knows now would do anything, or say anything.
But Sirius wasn’t the only one inhabiting his own body. The body is a chamber for our soul, and our soul houses the remains of all which have loved us and wronged us, and Sirius’ mother remained in him, staining his soul with her hatred.
But her being there meant that she had loved him once - maybe still does, in her own twisted way - and that in that dark corner of his soul, where a drawer he never dares to open lies, he had loved her once, too. If the victim loved their killer once, must they carry the blame for their demise on their shoulders? And if Sirius loved his mother, in the way you can only love a mother - any mother, as cruel or kind as she may be - did he deserve it?
Peter said something and Sirius, for the life of him, can’t remember what he replied to him. Just that it made him laugh, and he left.
And then he turned around.
Remus was still there. Beautiful as he was seconds ago. He was staring at him.
“Could you, maybe, not tell anyone about this, Remus?” he heard his own voice say. He almost didn’t recognize it.
Remus looked hollow.
Sirius tried to control the words out of his lips, but couldn’t quite do so. He resorted to cruelty when he stood face to face with fear, and in this moment, the most beautiful boy in the world took the shape of his worst fear.
He doesn’t mean to be cruel. He doesn’t know why he does it. Why he bites.
“Sure,” Remus said, and Sirius could tell that he had lost him now. He seemed elsewhere yet too present for his own good at the same time. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think Sirius Black was a queer.”
Oh, Sirius thought softly. Bitterly.
The insult stood right under his tongue, so close that it could slip away if he wasn’t careful.
“Come on, Moony, you know it’s not like that.”
Oh, but it was. Why was he saying all of this? Sit down , he thought. Please .
“Then how is it, Sirius? Tell me.”
There are so many things he could say. So many things, but nothing seems to form between his lips.
Silence can be a form of violence.
But words hold violence that cuts deeper more than any knife.
A knife will leave a scar upon the skin, but the soul will continue to bleed.
And then came a whisper. His throat hurt as it came out.
“I don’t know.”
The cigarette had only one drag left in it, so he tried to savor it, taking one long inhale and exhaling.
He stood there with the burnt butt of the cigarette until he knew what he had to do.
He has to get his shit together.
And so, he collected himself, stuffing the empty cigarette pack into his pocket as he threw the butt onto the ashtray. It made a satisfying crisp sound as the flame went out, and he stared at it as the voices coming from the hall made their way into the common room.
As they went inside, he quickly passed them and went outside. Struck in the hallway, heart beating so fast he feared it might jump out of his chest, he wondered where he could find Remus.
The library was as good a place as any to start.
He walked quickly, his steps light and hurried like a true man on a mission. He felt his heart thudding and the hint of sweat dripping down his spine. He tried to think of something to say, anything: to form a plan, to stick to it once he found him.
So he made a list in his head. Reasons Sirius Black would want to kiss Remus Lupin:
- Remus Lupin was very pretty, and he simply wanted to kiss him.
- He was drunk.
- He was an asshole.
- He was in love with him.
He tried to imagine which of the options Remus would think is true. Truth be told, sometimes he didn’t even know himself. He was actually kind of spectacular at lying to himself. His own head was a mumble of half-true memories, pictures of his family, his bloodline - faceless, staring at him in disbelief. He just didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, most of the time. He remembered telling Remus that once, and in return, Remus told him he’d learned a word for it in a book: derealization.
If you’d have asked him a few weeks ago to tell you which of the options it was, he would’ve probably lied. But lying didn’t come as naturally to him after he kissed Remus. He began to feel an anxious feeling that carried with him everywhere, as if he was carrying a secret that was begging to be let out.
On the way to the last section he hadn’t looked at in the library, he ran into Mary.
“Sirius! How are you?” She asked, a knowing smile on her face.
“M’fine. Have you seen Moony by chance?” he asked, not bothering to look her in the eye, his eyes dancing around the bookshelves, searching for a glimpse of dirty brown hair.
“No. Sorry. Are you alright? heard you got pretty sloshed last night. Marlene said that-”
“Listen, Mare, I’ll catch up with you later, alright?” he said, apologetically, “I really have to find him.”
“Of course,” she said. This time, he looked her in the eye. A smile came over her face when she saw how nervous he was, like she knew. Sirius could always keep his face sealed from emotion, but his eyes carried storms within them. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, Mary.”
The last corner he hadn’t checked was Remus’ favorite in the entire library. It wasn’t the same spot where he held his infamous study group sessions, but a farther one, only known to those who frequently visit the library. It was usually quieter there, and the books surrounding it were muggle literature books, a part of the muggle studies class Sirius took, but didn’t really bother to show up to. Remus always sat in the same spot, near a big red book with a cracked spine, which he held gently in his hands whenever he touched it. The book would often come and go from their room, and became a frequent visitor in the dorms. Sirius supposed it calmed him down at times of pressure.
So he wasn’t very surprised when he finally turned the corner and found Remus sitting there with the red book in his hand. He seemed very entranced in his book, but Sirius saw the tension in his face as soon as he walked in. He knew he was there.
“Hey,” Sirius said, quietly, from the corner.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. Not argumentatively as much as tired. He seemed exhausted.
“I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I was thinking somewhere else, if that’s okay.” His heart was beating so fast he was surprised it didn’t beat itself out of his chest by now.
“Sure. I was just about to leave anyway,” Remus said. It felt wrong to hear him so defeated. Like he didn’t even have the power to fight with Sirius anymore.
When he got up he put the book gently back on the shelf. When he came closer Sirius could see dark circles under his eyes.
They walked silently in the hall when Remus asked idly, “Anyone at the dorm?”
“I don’t know,” Sirius said and stopped by the entrance to a broom closet. Remus turned to see him standing there, waiting patiently for him, and rolled his eyes. “I’m not one of your conquests that you can dump in a broom closet,” Remus said, but he came to the door and opened it. His shoulder hit Sirius’ on his way in, but Sirius didn’t mind. He’d want to hit him, too, if he was Remus.
He came inside and locked the door behind him.
“So, what do you want?” Remus asked. A calm but defeated manner came over his voice. It felt like a knife upon skin.
Sirius stood there in silence. His heart was beating faster than before and he looked at Remus, wide eyed and terrified.
Words were never Sirius’ strong suit, not when it came to using them to bring pleasure. He couldn’t wield them like Regulus did, or stab another with them like Remus could. He was a man of action more than he was anything.
So, hesitantly at first but sure enough after, he leaned forward and kissed Remus again.
And it wasn’t like it was the day before.
He realized then that he had never once kissed Remus sober. What would it be like, he thought, to be able to know him and feel him in all of his senses? And how sad it was, that Remus had alcohol and drugs to blame for the reason Sirius kissed him every time before.
He felt as if he could see more clearly now - differentiate between the things that mattered and the things that belonged in the past. And Sirius’ mother belonged in the past.
So he kissed him like his life depended on it. Remus started kissing him back, more aggressively than he ever did before. He did not try to savor the moment as Sirius did, he tried to make it hurt. As if kissing Sirius with this much force could somehow make him bleed.
Sirius let go of his lips, but his hands remained tangled in Remus’ hair.
“I-” Remus began, dismissed quickly by Sirius hand covering his mouth gently.
“No, now you shut up.”
Remus looked stunned.
“I know I’ve been fucking this all up for a while now, but you’ve been putting words in my mouth instead of letting me answer. And I think- I know - that I have my answer now. Well, your answer, I guess.”
Remus tried to open his mouth to speak but Sirius couldn’t let him kick him out, not until he said what he had to say. He’d spent far too long being silent about the things that really mattered, and loud about the things that didn’t. And if there was one thing Sirius knew about Remus, is that he mattered.
“I kissed you then because I wanted to. And I kissed you now because I wanted to, because I-” the words felt rough on his tongue, “forgive me if I’m not doing this right. You of all people know how I am. But I needed to tell you, because I don’t think I can keep it in me any longer. And I think you deserve to know. I love you, Remus. Fuck, this feels so weird. But I love you, and I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you, if I’m being honest. And I get that you don’t feel the same, and that you’re probably pissed at me for yesterday, but I-”
The words stopped flooding out, suddenly, and it took him a few moments to realize that Remus was kissing him, making him lean on the closet’s wall.
“Oh,” he said after Remus pulled apart. “So you…?”
“Yes, you idiot,” Remus said, with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips hiding a smile.
“ Oh . So you’ve been-”
“Yeah, Pads.”
“While I’ve been-”
“Yeah.”
“Well, shit. I’m sorry,” Sirius said and looked up to Remus from his place against the wall. “I’m sorry, Moony. I’m not good at this. I’ve never done this before with anyone I care about.”
“Then what was it with Mary?” Remus asked. He was curious but Sirius could notice the way his shoulders tensed.
Sirius and Mary dated for a very brief period when they were both fourteen, right before Mary started dating Lily. It wasn’t anything too serious, though he did linger on that time every once in a while. She was very dear to him, Mary. A force of nature. His first kiss, his first girlfriend, and though she wasn’t his last, she was dear to him in a way none of the others ever were, but they were more friends than they were anything else. And all the distractions in the end didn’t work, and he was left to sit and think about Remus.
“I think I figured out pretty quickly that I just don’t see her in that light. She dumped me after I accidentally… “ he coughed, “Well, no pretty way to say this. I may have said your name during. You know.” He could feel his face go red as he uttered the words.
“Oh,” Remus stared at him, baffled at first and then he started laughing. “So in what situation exactly did you say my name?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Sirius said.
“You are what you eat, or however the saying goes,” he said, only contributing to making Sirius' face redder.
“Do you want to go to Hogsmeade together this weekend?” he said suddenly. “With me, I mean,” he added quickly when Remus fell silent.
“I’ve gathered that. And yes, Sirius. I’d love to,” Remus said.
“I know we haven't been so great lately, and I want to make it up to you, Moony. I know that something like you and me can’t be fixed over one conversation, but I want to try, if you’re willing to.”
“I am,” he said softly.
Sirius coughed. “Now we have to figure out a way to tell the others. If you want to, I mean,” he added.
“Oh, you’re in this, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Sirius frowned, not of anger but of determination, quiet, “I am.”
“A changed man you are, Black,” Remus said, smiling.
“I’m trying.”
“You know, I don’t think we should tell them,” Remus said.
“You don’t?”
“Not without fucking with them a little bit first.”