divine will or happenstance
It was not long after Remus’s stay at Netherfield that he came upon Mr. Black again, wearing a rather harried expression and bustling through the market. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets and his eyes were downcast — he was clearly in one of his stormier moods — but Remus couldn’t resist calling out to him.
“Mr. Black!” he exclaimed, feigning surprise. “What are you doing here?”
What Remus really meant was, What are you doing here alone?
Mr. Black seemed equally caught off guard, stalling awkwardly in the road and nervously glancing around. “Mr. Lupin!” he greeted. “I’m just out for a stroll.” A pause. He removed the parcel tucked under his arm and gestured vaguely at it. “Present for my brother,” he explained. “And you?”
Remus smiled and tapped the basket he was carrying. “Down to pick up some wine for my mother. She always likes to have a little something with supper and our storage has recently run out, so she sent me into the village to—”
“The truth is, I was hoping to run into you,” Mr. Black burst out, seeming startled at his own words. Remus regarded him with amusement, trying not to huff out a laugh that might insult his friend. “Oh,” he said. “Okay.”
Mr. Black’s cheeks bloomed red but still he persisted, mortified and glaring at the cobblestones: “I guess I was just wondering—” He met Remus’s eyes for the first time, “—if you’d join me?”
Remus grinned at him. “‘If I’d join you?’”
Mr. Black blushed yet further, kicking at a pebble in the road. “On the stroll, I mean. We could go down to the park. I hear the trees are lovely this time of year.”
Remus really did laugh then, terribly endeared by Mr. Black’s antics. “They sure are,” he said, smiling. “Of course I’ll join you.”
The tension quickly loosened in Mr. Black’s shoulders, and then they were strolling down to the park, talking and laughing as easily as ever, any awkwardness forgotten.
It really was peculiar how comfortable Remus felt around him after so short an acquaintance. When Remus was speaking, some part of him instinctively knew Mr. Black was listening, that he somehow understood, that he looked upon Remus without judgement. Remus never met anyone like him before, and yet he oddly felt that his life had now gained something he had sorely missed all his days, without even knowing what it was. A sense of companionship that was different from his relationships with his parents, his sisters, his friends, his neighbours. Something that lurked deep in his gut and made him do all sorts of daft things, something that buzzed over his skin and turned him giddy and foolish and eager for more. Something that was all his own.
Side by side through the park they went, taking turns sipping from one of the bottles Remus had just purchased, exchanging idle words and watching ducks glide across the pond and shadows slowly lengthen. Remus was often quiet and let other man speak, content to watch the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed and the way the wine slightly stained his lips the more he drank. It was a perfect autumn afternoon, and the path they trode on was bathed in a warm, golden light. Remus watched with fascination the way the gentle breeze wafting off the lake playfully tugged Mr. Black’s hair away from his face.
Remus and Mr. Black polished off that bottle and began another while Mr. Black described the present he’d bought for his brother — “A book on astronomy, because what else is there to do in that bloody country than look at the sky” — and Remus felt his world grow fuzzy and sweet around the edges the more he drank. The late afternoon air really should’ve been too warm, Remus always ran hot, but the soft caress of breeze made everything around them feel deliciously pleasant. Sirius — he wasn’t sure when he’d started calling him by his first name in his head — fell silent then, gazing at Remus in a way that made him feel at once excited and self-conscious. “What is it?” he asked, embarrassed. Sirius just shook his head, almost dazed.
“Let’s take a rest here,” Remus said quickly, settling down on a grassy knoll near the lake. “This is the best time of day, in my opinion.” Sirius complied easily, laying down beside him in the tall grass. They were quiet for a few moments, though not for lack of trying. Remus’s heart was thumping rather uncomfortably and he kept trying to think of things to say but it was like all the thoughts had flown out of his mind until all that was left was the man beside him.
“Always liked birds,” Sirius said absentmindedly when a large flock took flight nearby, shrieking into the sky in their perfect formation.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. You don’t find these sorts of birds in the city much,” Sirius replied wistfully. “Where do you suppose they go in the winter?”
Remus turned his head to gaze at Sirius at that moment, savouring the contemplative crease in his brow and the quiet voice in which he spoke so that only Remus could hear him.
“Dunno,” he finally said. “Somewhere warm, I hope.”
Sirius nodded, expression still rather distant. When he finally turned his head to face his companion, Remus felt almost dizzy with how close they were — he hadn’t noticed before — and he began to regret how much wine he’d drunk. That must account for the pounding in his chest.
“And what about you, Mr. Lupin?” Sirius asked. “Where do you long to go?”
Remus turned his face back to the sky as he thought it over, watching wispy clouds float past. “I like England well enough,” he replied eventually, feeling Sirius’s gaze on him as he spoke. “I spent a few months in Scotland when I was young and enjoyed it immensely, so I suppose I’d like to go back there one day.” He paused. “I can’t see myself going far out of Europe, could you?”
Sirius shook his head. “Me either. When I was young, I always imagined I’d get as far away from England as I possibly could the second I turned of age.” He laughed awkwardly. “Who knew I’d still be hanging around here at twenty? But I’m oddly attached.”
Remus was intrigued to know why Sirius was so keen to leave, but thought it might be too forward of a question for new friends. Instead, he asked, “What stopped you?”
Sirius smiled wistfully, toying with a blade of grass. “Life, I suppose. Things seem so simple when you’re young.” Remus nodded seriously. “I know what you mean.”
They lapsed into silence for after that, both lost in their own thoughts. Sirius was the one to break it a few minutes later, with the admission of: “It was my brother, actually.” Remus waited patiently for him to continue.
“That kept me here, I mean. I couldn’t leave him,” Sirius explained quietly. He reached a hand up to the clouds, letting the blade of grass flutter back down to Earth and splaying his fingers to dissect the sky. “I’d like to leave someday for real, though. Bring Reg and James along, of course. Just get out of here. Make my own living and everything.”
Remus smiled, closing his eyes. Too much wine always made him drowsy. “It does sound lovely.”
Sirius suddenly brightened, pushing himself up on one elbow to grin exuberantly down at Remus. “You could come along too! You, Miss Evans, Miss Macdonald, Miss McKinnon, me, James, Reg, Dorcas… Out having wild adventures in the world! Freedom, all that! What do you say?”
Remus couldn’t help laughing at that, heart full to bursting with Sirius’s earnestness. “Well, it’s certainly—”
“No rules, no one telling us what to do!” Sirius happily continued, flopping back down beside Remus and knocking their knees together. “No one trying to force us to marry or settle down or any of that boring rubbish old people care about! Doesn’t it sound wonderful?”
Remus grinned up at the sky, clouds tinged pink as the day slipped into dusk and the stars began to come out. “It does.”
“I’d want you there, Remus,” Sirius said simply. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
For once in his life, Remus did not think before he acted. It was what his body wanted, it felt like the most natural thing in the world— It was monumentally stupid, but romance often is. Before another thought crossed his mind, Remus was rolling over and kissing Sirius sweetly on the mouth and it was so soft and gentle it could’ve just been a tender thing among friends except for there were giddy explosions of butterflies in Remus’s stomach and bees buzzing all over his body and Sirius’s skin was so warm and nice where it met with his and Remus thought maybe he finally understood all those poets and every naïve thing they ever wrote about because how could something ever feel so perfectly good? So right?
And then Sirius was cautiously pushing him away, eyes blown wide in shock, and Remus felt completely and entirely filthy, sick with shame. Suddenly he was springing to his feet and stumbling over patches of grass as he tried to flee and Sirius was saying something but Remus couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears and the sticky guilt consuming his body and then he was running away, basket and wine forgotten where he’d left them and he didn’t stop running until returned home, empty-handed.
He was in such a state when he finally arrived at Longbourn that nobody dared venture to ask where he had been all that time, nor what had happened on his errand. He retired to bed without a word to anyone.
—
It was a week before the residents of Longbourn received their Netherfield Ball invitations, and the news was received delightedly for all but one. The knot of dread and anxiety that had been wrecking Remus’s stomach all week tightened considerably, and he was nearly sick over his breakfast at the thought of seeing Sirius again. Remus had very carefully avoided leaving the house for the entire week, pacing around his bedroom and reading his books and tending to the livestock and thinking of nothing else but the look on Sirius’s face when he pulled away. This was all that Remus had feared it would be: his selfishness got the better of him and he wanted too much like he always did, and so of course he was disappointed. Sirius was the sort of rich, handsome bachelor who would probably marry the prettiest girl he came across the minute he was ready to settle down, and Remus was the sort of poor, luckless bachelor who was discussed by townspeople in hushed voices and behind shocked hands, the depraved sort that would never marry or have a family. It made perfect sense that Marlene should have whomever she wanted and do as she pleased, but it was so much harder to feel that way when it was Remus himself in question, Remus who still could not shake the feeling of self-disgust at what he’d done, and could even less so forgive his desire to do it again. For one perfect, blissful moment, it had felt as though Sirius had wanted to kiss him too, had wanted Remus right back in all his depravity, but it did no good to encourage such delusions. It was impossible to shake off the shame.
Lily was watching him with concern from across the breakfast table as they went over the post, but Remus felt too awful to reassure her he was fine, which he always did even when he wasn’t. “I’m not going,” he declared blandly, standing to clear his plate to the kitchen.
Mary flashed him an irritated look she rarely had to deploy on her brother. “Remus, don’t be ludicrous.”
Remus did his best to keep his voice steady and his expression measured as he tried to defend himself. “I don’t feel the best, Mary,” he explained. “Maybe I’ve caught something. You all go, have a lovely time this evening, but I’d rather just—”
Mary shook her head impatiently. “But you have to come,” she went on, dismissing Remus’s words with a wave of her hand. “He asked for you specifically.”
This gave Remus pause. “Mr. Potter?” he asked. Was it possible Sirius had told him what had happened, and he was summoning Remus to kindly ask if he could never call upon Netherfield again?
Mary shook her head again. “No,” she said. “Mr. Black. He included a little note at the bottom: ‘Please tell Mr. R. Lupin to come early, I need to speak with him.’ Lovely handwriting he has, don’t you think? Very elegant.”
Remus’s stomach gave another lurch. This was worse than he could have ever possibly imagined, to have to hear the man’s rejection for himself. Would he be angry? Hateful? Would he never want to see him again? Or worse: would he pity him? Would Sirius feel bad for the lonely, pathetic anomaly Remus represented and try to continue their friendship, as if he was some sort of charity case? None of the options appealed to Remus in the least, who still felt his heart flutter a little at the sight of his name in Sirius’s script, who still felt the blood rush to his cheeks when he thought of Sirius snatching the letter away from Mr. Potter right at the last moment to add his message.
Remus sat down again; this was the final nail in the coffin. If he hadn’t felt rotten enough before, this rendered him truly pathetic: some part of him already knew that he would go, that if Sirius asked to see him, even for the purposes of stating once-and-for-all how repulsive he found him, Remus would dutifully comply.
Lily nudged Remus under the table with her foot, gaze puzzled and pitying. Remus moved his leg away. He felt thoroughly disgusted with himself all over again.
—
Sirius checked his pocket-watch obsessively, every minute waiting on Netherfield’s back porch weighing on him like a lifetime. Would he not come? Was that how they were to leave things forever? Sirius couldn’t bear the thought.
It wasn’t that the kiss was bad, exactly. In fact, quite the opposite. It was only when Remus sank into him that Sirius realised the solid feeling of his body against his was all he had wanted since the very first moment he spoke to the man, first heard him laugh. The idea of Remus desiring him in any way was a thought Sirius had staunchly refused to enter his mind for some time now — His mind had skipped over it every time, as smoothly as if it had never been there at all. Now Sirius found himself dwelling on the subject near constantly, a terrifying, exhilarating rush of heat searing his stomach at the most inopportune of times whenever the notion saw fit to cross his mind. The thought that Remus had been the one to breach that line in the sand stuck to the inside of Sirius’s skull like molasses; it shocked, excited, and appalled him anew too frequently to count.
Needless to say, It had been an excruciating week since that day in the park, Sirius left alone with his thoughts, rethinking the scene over and over again endlessly, trying to imagine what could have happened differently. Perhaps if he had not invited him on the stroll then everything would be fine? If they had not gone down to the park, not smelled the earthy scent of the trees’ crimson leaves? If they had not drunk all that wine? If Sirius had not lain down beside him and longed for his touch, then perhaps they’d be contentedly idling the day away together somewhere and Sirius wouldn’t feel this ache in his chest. And if Sirius had not pushed him away, perhaps he wouldn’t be sitting alone on a dreary porch agonising over him while James and Dorcas were happily arranging the preparations for the party inside. There were a million ways that day could’ve gone. But it couldn’t be changed now. It was out there, and there was nothing Sirius could do to undo it.
It was another half hour before he saw Remus in the distance, hands in his pockets, head down, trudging over the hill from Longbourn. His suit was as shabby as always and his hair as ruffled, but Sirius was struck with the thought that he had never seen someone so devastating in all his days. He was like a character from a painting, silhouetted against the darkening evening sky and lost in a world of his own. Sirius stood as soon as he was close enough, almost giddy to see him again, but Remus’s clear anxiety quickly set him back on edge.
“Mr. Lupin,” he said, because he could think of nothing else. “You came.” Remus took a deep breath.
“Mr. Black, I am so, so sorry,” he began immediately, defences firmly in place. “I—” His eyes flicked down to the ground like he was too ashamed to even look at him. Sirius took a step closer. “I don’t know what came over me, of course I don’t— I mean, I’m not usually—”
“It’s fine!” Sirius interrupted uneasily, taking another step closer. He had no idea how to convince Remus how truly fine it was, that these things happened between friends sometimes, and all that was important was that they forgot about it and moved on, and that there would never again be a week were he didn’t hear from Remus at all and had no idea where they stood.
Remus shook his head fervently. “No, no, you don’t have to lie, I know it was out of line, I had just drunken so much, and you were right there beside me like I wanted, and you looked so— I’m babbling, but what I mean is, I was just feeling so—”
Sirius reached out a hand to cup Remus’s cheek, and then he breathlessly kissed him again. Firmer, deeper this time. He couldn’t help it. Remus’s arms came up to his back and pulled him closer at once and Sirius didn’t have time to think about how wrong it was or how scared he felt; all he could focus on was Remus’s lips against his and the way he smelled and how warm and solid his body felt in his arms, how natural. Remus’s lips parted and then they were really kissing; Remus groaned into his mouth and suddenly Sirius’s head was spinning with stars. And then a loud crash sounded from inside the estate and the spell was broken. Sirius tried to ignore the stab of hurt slicing through his chest at the way Remus broke away from him, breathing hard and once again refusing to look him in the eye.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Sirius carded an amazed hand through his hair. Two birds chirped to each other high in the trees over Netherfield. Further commotion continued inside. Sirius could feel his entire world screeching to a halt. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.
Remus, unpredictably, was the first to break the silence. “You should probably go check on that,” he said quietly, his voice still somehow deafening in Sirius’s ears. He could feel his heart constrict painfully at the obvious misery in the slump of Remus’s shoulders. This wasn’t the way any of this was supposed to go.
“Right,” Sirius said, running a hand through his hair again. “Right. I’m— I’ll just go check on that, shall I?” He cleared his throat, doing his best to affect normalcy. “Don’t go anywhere, alright? I’ll be— I’m coming back soon, okay? And we can, er—” He tried to slow his hammering heartbeat. “I’ll be, erm, I’ll be right back.”
Sirius spun on his heel and strode into the house as quick as he could then. Just before the door shut behind him, he could hear the quiet shuffle of Remus sitting down on the front porch step.
Sirius let out a long breath. Remus had stayed. Remus would be waiting.
—
It took a while for Sirius to return. So long, in fact, that Remus could hear music and laughter begin to sound from inside the estate, signifying that the party had officially begun. Remus touched two fingers to his lips. His sisters were probably wondering where he was. He squashed the toe of his boot into a bit of mud. As much as he wanted to go inside — or, more accurately, leave the premises altogether — something froze him to the spot.
More than anything, Remus was afraid. Afraid of what this all meant, afraid Sirius would return and tell him it was a mistake, afraid that if Sirius came back and kissed him again, Remus would spend the rest of his days chasing after the man and nothing would ever again be the same. If this was real, then Remus would want for nothing else and there would be no hope left for him. The floodgates would be open forever. Remus sighed deeply. What could be taking so long?
Then, suddenly, Sirius’s voice from behind him, startling Remus: “So.” Remus felt himself tense up again immediately. He hadn’t even heard Sirius approached, hadn’t had time to adequately prepare himself for the pang in his chest Sirius’s simple word produced. Remus stared down hard at his hands.
“So,” he echoed.
Sirius timidly came and sat beside him on the step, leaving a wide berth between them. “Madness.”
Remus somehow felt his heart sink lower. “Yes,” he murmured, “Yes, I know.”
“I wish I knew what to say,” admitted Sirius, letting out a weak half-chuckle that sounded all wrong.
Remus wrung his hands. “The feeling’s mutual.”
In the silence that followed, Remus worked up the nerve to sneak a peek at Sirius sidelong, noting that his cheeks had managed to return to their normal colour in the time since the kiss. A part of Remus wished he forget what they had looked like before, in that perfect, treacherous moment when Sirius had first leaned into kiss him, flushed and impassioned and desperate, cupping Remus’s face with such gentle, trembling fingers. Remus swallowed painfully. His gaze flicked back down.
Another song began inside, one Remus had heard Marlene play on the piano a million times. “I love this song,” he told him, just to have something to say.
Sirius cleared his throat again. Then he carefully stood, brushing dirt off the bottom of his coat. “Would you like to dance?” he asked, voice wavering slightly on the final word. He held out a tentative arm in invitation.
Remus was so shocked he almost laughed, whipping around to meet Sirius’s gaze for the first time. The bewildered smile slipped right off his face when he caught sight of the look in Sirius’s eye, terrified and genuine. ”What?”
Sirius did his best to put on a brave face. “What?” he replied.
Remus’s legs moved of their own accord; suddenly he found himself on his feet. “Are you daft?” he whispered, trying to fight off the absurd grin somehow creeping onto his face. “Think of all the people in there!”
Sirius shrugged, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. “So don’t go in there,” he said simply. He flashed Remus the tiniest of smiles, the conspiratorial look of someone trying to prove a point. “We can hear the music just fine out here, can’t we?”
Remus really did laugh then, because it was all so ridiculous and stupid and impossible and wonderful and the whole night was unreal, a pointless dream he might as well indulge while he had the chance. “Fine, you devil,” he said. “We’ll dance.”
He gently took the offered hand and placed his other on Sirius’s shoulder; Sirius’s arm slid around his waist and then they were waltzing. It wasn’t the proper dance for this song at all, but neither seemed to care. Remus wondered if Sirius even noticed. They let the muffled music from inside float over them, dissipating into the night air, and it wasn’t long before Sirius was carefully tugging him closer and Remus was resting his head against his chest. It was a long time before either of them spoke.
Remus could hear the frantic thump of Sirius’s chest as they moved in a slow circle around the porch. When he could resist it no longer, Remus whispered, “Is it wrong, do you think?”
It took a while for Sirius to respond. His breathing was shallow. “It doesn’t feel wrong,” he said finally.
Remus nodded, shutting his eyes. “It doesn’t feel wrong to me either.”
Sirius’s hand shook a little where it met with Remus’s. “I never thought it was wrong, exactly,” he murmured into Remus’s hair. “I just never thought it would be me.”
—
The next morning, Sirius was gone, off back to London without so much as a note. Remus wished he was surprised.