Rule #13

Remus has made it this far in life by staying out of other people's business. While he’s lacking in many, many laudable qualities, he likes to think his flair for keeping to himself makes up for it.

So when he walks into the Nurse’s Station back room and finds his supervisor half naked in bright blue panties on top of one of the counselors, Remus walks the fuck away.

“Remus! Remus , please, wait up.”

He keeps on walking, unwilling to face Lily after seeing her tits out. 

“REMUS,” she half-shouts, half-whispers. It’s the bite in her words, not the panic, that makes Remus stop in his tracks.

He turns around slowly, almost… scared to face Lily.

Her long red hair is tangled, and a robe three sizes too small is wrapped around her very naked body. She tugs it tighter around her chest. “Do not walk away from me when I’m speaking to you.”

A second later, Lily flushes, palm slapping her forehead. “I didn’t mean that as your supervisor, l just mean in general—I mean—it’s just—“ She sighs. “I hate it when people storm off.”

Remus can see Lily is struggling, so he throws her a lifeline. “Understood.”

Immediately, her shoulders relax.

Remus’ lips twitch. “I wasn’t storming off though, just giving you two some…privacy.”

“Oh.” Lily blinks.

“Are you wearing a camper’s robe?” He asks cause he’s not sure what else to say.

“Someone left it in the patient’s room last summer,” she mumbles. 

“Alright.”

Lily’s eyes are searching Remus’, a mix of frustration and joy flickering across her face. Is she…trying not to smile? 

“Agh.” Lily shakes out her head, hair whipping across her face. “This is insane.”

Remus steps forward. “Look, I’m not going to tell anyone about you and—“

Lily cocks her head in confusion, then nods. “Oh right. Well, yes. Um. Thank you.”

She looks around as if only now realizing that they are outside of the Nurse’s Station, near all four of the Gryffindor cabins.

“Fuck, follow me.” Lily starts in the direction of the offices and the kitchens.

Remus hesitates. It would be terribly stupid to follow his half-naked, possibly insane boss into her office on his first night on the job. 

But what’s the worst that could happen? Get fired and go back to ER shifts in Colorado? Remus is absolutely unbothered by the idea. Part of him even wants the excuse to crawl home.

After all, this camp means nothing to him.

He follows Lily into the dimly lit office, noting how she closes the blinds, locks the door, and turns on the string lights hanging off the wall instead of the overhead light. Yeah, definitely insane.

She opens her bottom drawer, rummaging through a mess of pens and papers until she finds a couple of shooters.

Without a word, Lily pulls out a Baileys and passes Remus a honey whiskey. They sit down, Lily in the office chair, and Remus in the stool across.

“How’d you know I’m a whiskey man?” he asks. 

Lily’s eyes widen in surprise, then she shrugs. “I’m Irish, I got the luck.”

“Oh is that how that works?”

“Yup,” she confirms. “We’re all leprechauns.”

Remus laughs, lifting his own shooter in cheers.

Lily does the same. “ Sláinte , Remus.”

“Oh.” He raises his brow. “So you’re actually Irish.”

“Nah, just had an Irish dad who loved to drink.” Lily throws back the Baileys in one go. 

If Remus weren’t so familiar with the dry, bitter humor tangled with the trauma of an alcoholic parent, he wouldn’t have said anything. But he does, so he asks: “No contact or did he pass?”

Lily’s eyes flick from her empty shooter to Remus. “No contact. I think. It’s been years, he could be dead for all I know.”

It’s a terribly vulnerable thing to admit to someone who is basically a stranger, but then again, Remus had asked a terribly vulnerable thing. He has also already seen Lily’s tits, so why not rehash childhood trauma?

“What about you?” Lily scoots forward in her rolly office chair.

Remus fiddles with the whiskey in his hands. “The same.”

Lily takes in the information, her fingers sliding up her right arm to brush an Omnipod. One of the more popular insulin devices for diabetes, Remus knows. 

He’s so busy recalling all the information he knows on the device, that Lily’s next question takes him off guard. “Was it their choice or yours?”

Remus pauses. It’s not a simple answer, and he isn’t sure he wants to launch into the gritty details with Lily. But she’d been so honest.

“In a way, it was my choice. I never knew my parents, but I was told I have one of them to thank for this.” He gestures to his face, the scar that slashes from his bottom lip to his Adam’s apple. “The medical records say I got it when I was thirteen.”

“So…” Lily swallows. “You have amnesia?”

Remus leans back. “You’re quick.”

Lily grabs the shooter and tosses it into the trash beneath her desk.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Remus.” Her face is mostly hidden, but he can hear the pain in her voice.

“Oh don’t pity me, I’m more than happy that I don’t remember.”

“What?” She breathes, whipping around to look at him.

“All I know about who I was is what my medical records say. I was admitted to the psych ward three times for suicide watch. Trust me, I’m a much happier person now.”

“You’re happy?”

Oh but Remus set up that question, didn’t he? He has no one to blame but himself here. 

“I’m getting there,” Remus tries and finds the words aren’t false. After all, he came here, willingly, for a respite in nature. He left the numbing chaos of the ER to face his demons in the wilderness. That’s a step in the right direction, no?

Only Remus knows grief doesn’t work like that. It’s neither linear nor simple. He might be here trying to move forward, but the absence of Ty will always hold him back. 

Remus frowns at the complicated expression on Lily’s face.

She clears her throat. “Sorry, alcohol makes me emotional.”

She straightens, brushing her tangled hair aside. “I’m glad you joined the Hogwarts family.”

Remus smiles. “From the looks of it, the family here is really close.”

She blushes. “Pandora and I have an…understanding. We’re mature enough to keep work and our personal lives separate.”

Remus holds his hands up. “Hey, not my business. Have fun.”

“Please don’t follow my example,” Lily whispers. “Rule #13 is there for a reason.”

Remus laughs, because who the hell would he fool around with here? Though, now that he thinks of it, the new counselor dressed head to toe in black was hot. He thinks his name is Regulus? 

“Oh, no, I know that look—“ Lily begins.

“How can you know that look when you’ve only just met me?” Remus retorts.

Lily freezes. After a couple of moments, she says, “It feels like I’ve known you a while.”

Remus can’t say the same. But he will admit that he likes Lily, and he’s not one to like his colleagues. Maybe that’s why he lies, “I feel the same.”

******

Based on his first night alone, Remus should have known that this job was fucking weird. After a night of drinking in Lily’s office, commiserating over student loans, and gagging about Donna Tartt, Remus got a full five hours of sleep before a loud, energetic fiddler woke him up.

It was a distant, rather pleasant melody at first, but now that it’s right outside his door, Remus is fantasizing about breaking the fiddle in two. He shoves off the thin sheets doused in bug spray, and stumbles to the front door of his cabin, which is a mere blue curtain. 

Of all people, it’s the Camp Director playing the fiddle. 

“Remus!” Dumbledore smiles, riffing the bow on the string. “Good morning.”

“Good morning?” Remus scratches his messy hair.

“This is the Rooster Call,” Dumbledore explains, the fiddle still resting on his neck. “Every morning each counselor will wake up their cabin in a new, creative way.”

Remus rubs his eyes, realizing he’s in his boxers and a Dolly Parton shirt. “Right.”

“I always wake the staff with a Rooster Call for the first day of training.” Dumbledore’s voice is all cheer.

“Great.”

“Well.” Dumbledore winks, and begins to fiddle once more. “I’m off to Hufflepuff!”

As the Camp Director walks away, Remus looks to his left, finding other staff members groggily shuffling out of their cabins. 

He spins on his heel and shoves his curtain door behind him. “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”

******

A couple of hours later, the staff are sitting in the lodge, listening to Lily give a PowerPoint presentation on the camp schedule. She’d told Remus the night before that she got a degree in Business, and today all her corporate onboarding skills are shining. 

Remus tunes it all out for the most part; he’s the nurse, and as long as he can patch up the boo-boos, he’s good. Really, he’s overqualified for this job, but Albus had been desperate and incredibly generous when he offered the position.

Remus had seen the opportunity for what it was. A chance to get out of their apartment, their ER, their home. A chance to try and live without Ty.

Everyone’s sitting in foldable chairs, a few taking notes, a few sleeping. Remus is in the very back, next to Evan the sous chef. Given how surprisingly delicious breakfast was, Remus decided he likes all the kitchen staff. Food is perhaps his favorite thing in the world, after Bowie and cigarettes. 

“And so,” Lily continues, “after two months with the campers, the last week of the summer will be just the staff once more, where we will pack up and debrief our successes and our failures.”

Evan giggles beside Remus. He’s quite a giggler though, so Remus is learning to tune that out too.

It’s when Mary the Activities Director (whatever the hell that means) starts herding people out of their seats that Remus pays attention again.

“Alright group 1: Remus, Sirius, Dorcas, Marlene, Molly, Dumbledore,” Mary lists off. She continues calling out the other groups, but Remus is already moving.

Remus barely recognizes any of those names, but he follows the ginger Chef Molly out of the Lodge. The group meets up in the camp garden, sitting in a circle on the dirt and grass.

Remus fumbles with his long legs as he sits beside Molly, and by the time he’s sitting semi-comfortably, someone is at his other side.

“Hi, Remus.” 

It’s one of the counselors, Remus knows, but he can’t remember his name. Something unusual. He does, however, remember their brother Regulus. The two siblings don’t look all that different, with sharp angles and soft black hair, only this one’s got a little mischief in their eyes. 

“Hey, remind me of your name?” Remus says. 

The counselor’s face falls in clear disappointment. But how is Remus supposed to know everyone? It’s only the second day.

“Sirius,” they eventually introduce themself. “Scorpio, all pronouns, queer, and devoted to Dolly Parton.” 

“Wow. Feels like I really know you now.”

Sirius smiles. “Yeah?”

Remus gives her a smile back, then turns to Molly. They met at breakfast, when Remus begged her for a cup of coffee. Hogwarts is strictly a tea camp, but luckily, Molly snuck him the goods.

She runs a catering business during the school year, with Evan as her sous chef year-round. Remus likes her food, of course, but he also likes her knack for silence. They spent nearly five minutes in the kitchen together, sipping coffee and not speaking a word. 

Sirius, apparently, is not good at silence. He interrupts Remus and Molly no less than three times as they wait for the group activity to start.

Eventually, Remus gives up, directing his full attention to Sirius. He’s rewarded with a brilliant smile. 

It’s a rather gorgeous grin actually, and Remus finds himself stunned by it.

“Where you from, Remus?” Sirius asks. 

It’s a simple question with a complicated answer. Most small talk is like that though, all the innocent get-to-know-yous are daunting when you can’t remember the first eighteen years of your life.

“Colorado,” Remus offers an almost truth. It feels like home anyway, cause he met Ty there.

Thankfully, the rest of their group sits down, preventing any more innocent, invasive questions from Sirius.

“The Star Chat is a critical part of the camper experience,” Dumbledore begins. “By ending every night with deep, challenging conversations, we invite our youngest to self-reflect and connect with those around them. Who wants to start?” 

Remus sinks back. He was absolutely not listening when Mary introduced this group activity so he’s no clue what icebreaker torture he’s in for.

“I’ll go.” The blonde across from Remus offers. “Um, I’m Marlene. And for me, it’d be As You Like It, a cherry coke, and Taylor Swift’s debut album on CD.”

The others in the group nod with smiles, while Remus racks his brain for what the prompt could be. Three things on a stranded island? 

Dorcas, a counselor with dewy brown skin and smooth cornrows, is next. “My goggles, fruit loops, and a true crime podcast playing in the background.”

Well then, probably not the stranded island icebreaker. 

As Molly (Henckels kitchen knife, cinnamon, her husband’s hair) and Dumbledore (pine, Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams , lemon drops) take their turns, Remus is still at a loss. 

So he leans into Sirius to whisper, “What’s the prompt again?”

Sirius moves their face, nearly brushing noses with Remus. “Three things to bring you back at a seance,” she says under his breath.

“Right.”

Remus goes next. If he were being blunt, he’d say something like this: a stethoscope, snow, and Tyler’s ashes. He’s not going to admit that in staff training, however.

“I guess Bowie’s Hunky Dory on record, Hubba Bubba bubble gum, and a guitar pick.”

Remus turns to look at Sirius, cause it’s their turn, and finds his eyes dazed and jaw slack.

“Those—those,” Sirius stammers. “Were my answers.”

If Sirius didn’t look so frazzled, Remus wouldn’t believe her. But it takes him a solid beat to recover. “I’ll—uh pick new ones. Peppermint tea, tie-dye, and Bridge Over Troubled Water. ”

Remus chooses not to dwell on the fact that peppermint tea is his favorite. Or that he’s currently wearing a tie-dye shirt under his sweater. Or that Simon & Garfunkel was the last band he played on record before he left for Hogwarts.

It’s eerie and spooky and magical, so Remus simply doesn’t think about it. He tunes it out.

******

The rest of the week passes in a blur of Lily’s PowerPoints, Mary’s staff bonding activities, and Remus avoiding Sirius Black at all costs. It’s a healthy reaction, Remus rationalizes. Strangers with that level of similarities are just looking for trouble. It’s a red flag to be like Remus, because, well, Remus is a red flag.

He’s an overworked, underpaid ER nurse recently widowed and stumbling through life on cigarettes. 

So Remus takes care to keep his distance from Sirius in the coming days. As a result of his avoidance techniques, he finds himself connecting with the rest of the staff in strange ways. He shares a morning coffee with Molly every day before breakfast, perched on milk crates in the back of the kitchens. He sits between Lily and James at meals, who are exes turned best friends, and between Evan and Barty during training, who are ‘secret’ fiancées (their words). Remus’ nights are with Regulus, as they’re apparently the two insomniacs of the staff. It’s mostly comfortable silence and cigarette smoke between them. Still, occasionally they discuss worldly topics such as how to intubate a patient in seizure and Regulus’ intricate 13-step plan to seduce James Potter.

Since Remus is not a counselor, and not on kitchen duty, he’s got more time to himself than anyone else. Sometimes he’ll go to the craft house and fuck around with Pandora’s stuff. Most of the time though, Remus wanders. 

He knows the camp incredibly well by the last day of training. Even in the Wayward Woods, Remus has memorized all the trails and hidden treasures. Foolishly, he doesn’t expect anyone else to know these secrets.

So when Sirius shows up in his favorite tree house at dawn, Remus nearly pisses himself. 

“Holy shit you scared me.”

Sirius shrugs. “I’ve been told I’m a scary person.”

Remus leans back into the wood of the treehouse, folding his long legs to make space. “You’re really not.”

Crouching through the small entryway, Sirius frowns. “I’m absolutely scary.”

“You’re…” Remus cocks his head, eyes running over Sirius’ soft hair, crisp blue eyes, and gentle smile. “I don’t know what you are,” he gives up.

“I’ve been told that a lot too.”

Sirius settles beside Remus, their shoulders and hips touching. 

“Woke up to see the sunset?” Remus asks.

Sirius sighs. “Never went to bed actually. Can’t sleep on full moons.”

Remus is curious, of course, but he isn’t interested in getting to know Sirius better, so he doesn’t ask. In fact, he should be leaving right about now. 

He does not leave. Maybe cause he can’t think of an excuse. Maybe cause Sirius is pressed against him, and it’s been a while since Remus has been touched like this. 

“Hubba Bubba?” Sirius offers, pulling a pink package out of her pocket. 

“Uhm.” Remus coughs. “Ok.”

They each unwrap a piece, popping the gum into their mouths at the same time. Remus looks away and pops his jaw as he chews. 

Despite the gum, Sirius hums, the tone airy but clear. Then the soft melody breaks off. 

“Are you crying?” Remus asks. 

“It’s just so beautiful.” Sirius sniffles. “The way the sun glides over the Wayward Woods, and spray tans the moon in a passionfruit pink.”

Remus pulls his eyes away from Sirius’ wet cheeks and realizes that, yes, that description isn’t far off. The sunrise is spectacular. 

“And then there’s you and me.” Sirius breathes heavily as more tears fall. “Two strangers—” they cough. “Two strangers sharing a sunrise in a rickety tree house, with the promise of an entire day before them.”

“Sirius?”

“Yea?” 

“Are you high?” Remus asks. 

Sirius runs a hand over her face. “Nah. Just nostalgic.”

”For what?”

Sirius laughs lowly. “Oh never mind me, Doctor Moony.”

“I’m a nurse, and my last name’s Lupin.”

Sirius scoffs. “I know, Dr. Moony.”

Then Sirius is off, sharing their life story. She speaks in paragraphs, not sentences, so Remus barely has a chance to process the tragedy. It’s a tale about two parents dead in a car crash, their kids strapped safely in the seats behind them. A tale of a rich, queer uncle holding Sirius’ and Regulus’ hands as they questioned gender. A tale of an inheritance, foster care, and a life wasted away. 

Then a tale of redemption and music. 

Remus’ eyes widen in shock as Sirius details their ‘day job’: songwriting and producing music for artists. She doesn’t name-drop which artists, but Sirius does let slip a name of a song or two. 

Remus is sitting next to the musical genius that produced Pure Heroine . 

“Your turn,” Sirius prompts.

Remus takes a moment to compose himself. His life seems very mundane in comparison.   

Sirius spits his gum into the wrapper and stares down Remus. “Please?”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Lie.” Sirius smiles. “There’s everything to say. You can start with your hometown, or perhaps your first broken bone, I’ll even accept your favorite Power Ranger—”

“I can’t remember my childhood,” Remus interrupts. 

Sirius’ lips open up in an Oh . Then they’re crying again. 

“Oh—well, don’t do that,” Remus stammers. 

“I’m so sorry.”

Remus huffs. He already went through this with Lily. “Look I’m not, so can we just move on?”

Sirius hesitates. “You don’t want to remember?”

Remus expects the question, he always does. “No.”

The sunrise is nearly over, morning daylight shimmering into the treehouse, and crawling up their legs. “Well then,” Sirius begins. “What about what you can remember?”

Sirius is prying, and Remus could so easily shut her down. He tends to shove people away. But like with Lily, Remus can’t find the heart to break Sirius’ trusting, open expression. That precious faith in an absolute stranger.

So Remus admits, “My husband died from Covid.”