Chapter 19
James rocked back onto the hind legs of the patio chair, watching as his mum pruned herbs in the garden, and let out his tenth heavy sigh of the hour. The August heat was oppressive even in the shade of the ivy-covered pergola and both James’ and Effie’s brown skin was slick with perspiration. “Why can’t we go to the alley?” James whinged.
“I’ve told you, dear, I have a lot of work to do here. The lab just put in a big order for wormwood and Dad wants to start experimenting with the formula for Baruffio’s Brain Elixir.”
Unlike the Christmas and Easter breaks, his parents couldn’t take off work for the whole summer just to spend time with him. His Dad worked long hours at the lab, even though they had a fortune in the Potter vault at Gringotts passed down from his great-great-great-great grandparents. He supposed his father took pride in what he did, so much that he would come home from work and experiment on his own formulas. His mum was always around, of course, but she was often busy too.
“But there’s nothing to do here,” he moaned.
“Nothing to do? Well, if you’re so bored why don’t you go for a swim?”
“I’ve been to the lake every day this week. I’m going to be a raisin by the time school starts again.”
“You’d be a very handsome raisin.”
“Mum—” James protested.
“Well, what about that new broom we just got you?” She suggested. “And those goals we spent a fortune on?”
“It’s no fun flying on my own.” James moaned. He longed for some healthy competition. It just wasn’t the same when there was no one to compete with, no one to beat, and no one to show off to.
Effie chuckled. “Of course, it’s not. You could owl Peter, I’m sure he would love to come over.”
“Can’t,” James answered. “He’s visiting his nan in Barnton.”
“Ahh, I see. Remus? He’s always a pleasure to have around.”
“Working,” James said with a frown. He rocked back on the chair again, this time going so far back he would have fallen flat on his arse if his mum hadn’t caught him with a levitation spell and pushed him into an upright position. Stupidly, he tried it again and learned that his mum had also hit the legs of the chair with a permanent sticking charm. He huffed. Parents really were no fun sometimes.
“Well, why don’t you ring Sirius? I know Dad gave you those mirrors even though I told him not to.”
“I—,” James paused, not knowing what to say. Sirius had asked him not to ring him, but he couldn’t exactly tell his mum that, could he? Not if he wanted to keep his friendship with Sirius. She would ask too many questions, and James wasn’t sure if he had it in him to lie to her. She already knew he was stuck at home all summer, James had complained about it enough, and there was no excuse that he could give that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. “That’s a great idea,” he said finally, leaving the garden in an immediate haste.
He had toyed with the idea of telling his mum about the horrible practices in the Black home for years, but Sirius had sworn him to secrecy. There wasn’t much they could do anyway. His parents would offer their home to him with open arms, but he was sure Sirius’ parents wouldn’t let him go that easy. And with all of their connections at the ministry, he didn’t even want to think about what they would do to his parents if they tried to take Sirius by force.
He didn’t actually intend on using the mirrors, but by the time he trudged up the stairs to his bedroom, the idea was too tempting to ignore. It had been days since the last time they talked, and James was already starting to miss him. He was starting to worry about him, too. He was always worried about him, of course. He supposed he would be until the day he was able to leave that wretched place.
Would it hurt to check in on him?
James reached out for the mirror on his desk, then stopped. He didn’t want to get Sirius in trouble. Who knew what kind of terrible things his mum would do to him if she found the mirrors?
But what if he already was in trouble?
The thought made James’ skin crawl. He tapped the glass of the mirror with the pad of his finger once without a second thought and waited.
Nothing.
An image of Sirius lying on the floor bleeding out intruded his mind, and he tapped on the glass again. Once. Twice.
This time the glass clouded up and James’ heart nearly stopped in anticipation, but all he could see was blackness. Oh, no I’m too late, James thought in dismay. He’s dead.
But before James was able to act too rashly, a soft and echoey whisper came through the connection. “Prongs?” Sirius’ voice came in like the beam of a lighthouse through a dense fog. “That you?”
“Thank Merlin,” James breathed. He was careful to be as quiet as Sirius. “Yes, it’s bloody me. I haven’t heard from you in days.”
“Oh?” Sirius whispered. “What day is it?”
“The 10th of August,” James answered, ignoring the weirdness of the question itself. “Why is it so dark? I can’t even see you.”
“Light’s off,” Sirius answered, quietly. His voice sounded off, like he barely had the energy to get the words out.
“Can’t you turn it on?”
Sirius shook his head, then remembered that James couldn’t see him and whispered a soft ‘no.’
“Sirius,” James whinged. “I’m worried about you, just let me see that you’re ok.”
“I’m fine,” Sirius said, though it was hardly convincing. He sighed and tried again. “I’ve been banished to my sleeping quarters,” he explained in a teasing voice that was much more like the typical Sirius. “It’s shite but Kreacher brings me a bowl of gruel three times a day and I have all the books on dark magic that I could possibly want.”
“Alright, alright,” James said, though he still didn’t like the idea of Sirius being locked away in his room, but he still had his brother, right? His brother who had promised James he would try to look out for him. “But you can always come here if you need to. Flue’s always open.”
“I know and I promise I’m ok,” he told James. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Fine,” James wracked his brain for something else to say. “Did I tell you that Evans owled me? I mean I owled her first, but she responded, and it wasn’t even insulting.”
“Wicked,” Sirius let out a breathy chuckle. “What’s Red been up to these days?” His voice still sounded groggy, but James decided to ignore it. Maybe he had been sleeping when he called, yeah that would explain it.
James talked for a long time about Lily, then Remus and Peter, then his parents, anything he could think of, really. Sirius listened, humming every so often to let James know he was still there. It was clear to James that Sirius was in one of those moods where he didn’t feel like talking himself but couldn’t stand the silence anymore. So, James did what he did best and filled the air with incessant chatter.
“Can you play me a song?” Sirius asked when James finally trailed off to take a breath. It had become a regular thing for them to do that summer. Sirius requested a song and James would play it, holding the mirror up to the speaker for him to hear. The Potters’ music collection was limited but they had a few of Sirius’ favorites; Effie had picked them up for him to listen to when he visited. It had shocked Sirius when he stumbled upon them during Christmas break.
You’ve been holding out on me, Prongs, Sirius told him as he pulled out a copy of Sticky Fingers from behind the sleeves of countless wizarding bands Effie and Monty had collected over the years.
Those are Mums, she thinks she’s still hip, James said, sharing a wry smile with Monty.
It can’t hurt to stay on top of the current trends, Effie defended herself, but the wink she sent Sirius told them all what they needed to know. She had only gone out and bought them after Sirius had let slip on their first morning back that his parents didn’t allow him to listen to music while he was home.
You’re so lucky, James, Sirius had told him later when they were tucked into his bed that night. James didn’t even have to ask what he meant; he knew what Sirius was referring to.
James laughed, same old Sirius, always thinking about music before himself. “What would you like to hear?” he asked.
“When the Levee Breaks,” Sirius blurted out.
It took James a few minutes to locate the right album, then another moment to count the grooves in the record to find the right song and get it under the needle. Sirius was quiet while he did so, holding the glass to his ear to hear better, but he started to hum once the music started. His voice was quiet and when he started to sing along, it sounded scratchier than anything. It then dawned on James why Sirius had sounded weird to him. When was the last time he used his voice?
All last night sat on the levee and moaned
Thinkin' 'bout my baby and my happy home
The song came to an end and the two of them said goodbye as neither of them had anything else to talk about. James set the mirror down and sighed, he felt even lonelier than before.
Goin' down, goin' down now
Goin' down, goin' down-down-down-down-down
…
Remus wiped his hands on his jeans and went to check the newly posted schedule on the door of the manager’s office (it was more like a mop closet, but he supposed calling it an office gave his boss a feeling of superiority that he so desperately needed).
This can’t be right; he thought to himself.
He rapped on the door twice and let himself in when he heard his boss’ grunt from behind the door. There was a small desk in the closet office, littered with papers and invoices, a spinning chair that had holes in the cushioning, and a bright white light bulb that hung from the ceiling without a lampshade. There was an unmistakable stench of onion that Remus hoped was from the nearby kitchen but was probably from the man’s body odor.
“What you want kid?”
Remus cleared his throat, “There’s a mistake on the schedule, sir.”
“No mistakes.”
“Well, you see, I’ve already requested Wednesday and Thursday off—”
“I need you to work those days,” his boss interrupted.
“But sir, you approved the time off request,” Remus tried to keep his voice as even as possible. He was scheduled for a closing shift on the night of the full moon and a morning shift the next day. There was no way he could be there for either of those shifts, but it wasn’t like he could just tell the man that he would be too busy turning into a werewolf for the night. His boss would likely laugh in his face before having him committed.
“That was before Gene got sick, need you to work.”
“What if I’m sick?”
His boss looked him up and down. “You look fine to me. See you tomorrow.”
Remus walked home, dragging his feet the whole way and cursing his boss. He had done his due diligence in requesting the time off and there was nothing else he could do about it, unless they wanted Moony to go on a rampage in the middle of the pub.
On Wednesday, he didn’t bother calling in. His boss couldn’t really expect him to be there when he had requested the day off, could he? Instead, he slept until the afternoon and took the familiar bus route to the edge of town. The moon was awful. Remus woke up the next morning bloody and weak. The wolf’s anger at being tied up all night and away from its pack still lingered within Remus after he transformed back into his regular teenaged body and was difficult for him to shake in the days to come.
He rode home with his mum atop the stained towel, silent except for his labored breathing. He limped straight to his room and downed the rest of Pomfrey’s dreamless sleep potion, relieved that he had made it through the last moon of the summer, and fell face first into his pillow. He didn’t think about work at all. Not once.
On Friday, only the second day following the full moon, Remus was at work for a total of two minutes before his boss hobbled over to him on his gout-ridden leg and handed him an envelope.
“What’s this?” Remus asked.
“Your last check,” he grumbled. “You’re fired.”
Remus looked at the envelope incredulously. Part of him wanted to protest— he had requested the time off, damn it, he had even given more than a week’s notice, but part of him knew it was only a matter of time. The busboy gave him a smug look as he got his backpack out of the employee lockers in the back room, and Remus knew he was probably the one who had to cover for him during his absence. Remus didn’t say anything to him. If he was in his right mind he would have thanked him or apologized, but his blood was still boiling and the pent-up anger from the moon was making it hard to stay calm. He walked out the back door before he had the chance to jump the pimply kid, slammed it behind him, and lit up a cigarette for the walk.
Remus took the long way home, even though he was still in pain from the transformation. He felt like there was a knife digging into his knee with every step and his back felt like a gnarled mess, but he was desperately trying to avoid his mum. She had been getting ready for work by the time he left the house, and he hoped she would be long gone.
He groaned internally as he walked up the lane to his building and saw that his mum’s car was still parked out front. There was still time for him to turn around, he could fuck off to the park and wait for her to leave, but he had already walked to the pub and back and he could already feel his leg stiffening up.
“Remus,” his mum called as he came through the door. “What are you doing back so early?” She rounded the corner, coming out of the bathroom in her uniform and flesh-colored stockings while trying to put her earrings on.
Remus set his final check on the table near the door, next to the catchall dish where his mum kept her keys. “Fired,” he said, in a flat voice. He made a beeline for the sanctuary that was his bedroom, but his mum stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Fired? Remus you know I worked hard to get you that job,”
“They wanted me to work the full moon,” he snapped. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Figure it out is what you were supposed to do."
“I—” Remus threw his hands up in frustration. He knew he was acting like an insolent child, but he couldn’t help it. He just wanted her to understand that there was nothing he could have done differently. “Fuck.”
“Remus, how do you expect to support yourself as an adult if you can’t even hold down a job?” His mum pointed out in a shrill voice that was grating to his still-sensitive ears. “Now I have to go but you better believe we’re going to talk about this more later."
Remus’ lip was quivering before his mum was even out the door, and the tears flowed freely once the door was shut behind her. He couldn’t help but feel like it was a preview of his future. His mum was right— how did he expect to survive if he couldn’t even hold down a muggle job? It would be even worse in the wizarding world. Sure, it was easy enough to fool his schoolmates, but any experienced witch or wizard would take one look at him and piece together his secret, especially when accompanied by monthly unexplained absences.
He flopped down on his bed and tried to roll another cigarette, but his hands were shaking too much, and he had to stop before he spilled the baccy all over his bed. He forced himself to stop crying and was successful even though it made his throat burn.
While thinking about his future, his thoughts naturally turned to Sirius— they were soul mates after all. Had he doomed him to a life of poverty? He thought back to the morning of his birthday when he sat in his hospital bed and told Sirius he deserved to be with someone cooler and hotter than himself. He should have tacked on ‘someone with more financial prospects’ to that list.
He tried to shake the thoughts from his head. He knew if Sirius was there, he would say something that would put him at ease. What was it that he said that morning in the hospital wing? There’s no one else I’d rather be fated to. Remus turned the phrase over in his mind, repeating it to himself like a mantra until he believed it. It made him feel a little better. Sirius wasn’t an idiot, he knew more about the wizarding world than Remus would ever hope to, and he had to know what having a werewolf soulmate would mean for their future. He had to know what he was getting himself into.
He made sure he was out of the house by the time his mum came home from work. He had calmed down and had even washed his face, but the redness around his eyes and the hopeless thoughts of his future still lingered. He went to the park (he had been going there a lot, sometimes to pick up weed and baccy, but mostly just to get away from his mum when she was in the flat) and sat down on a bench directly under a streetlight.
It was a hot night, and the sky was cloudless and clear. The park was empty and silent except for the faint sound of the cars on the main road a few blocks away. Remus lit himself a cigarette and looked up to the stars, looking for Sirius amongst the few that were visible despite the light pollution.
He couldn’t find it; he didn’t even know if it was visible at this time of year— astronomy had always been a touchy subject for him, but he knew it was there, somewhere lightyears away. The thought brought him comfort.
It was half past two in the morning when Remus let himself back into the flat. His mum was fast asleep in the armchair, her head tilted awkwardly against the armrest, like she had been trying to wait up for him. He knew they would have to talk at some point, but for now, he was content to put it off as long as possible. He was glad there were only a few weeks left of summer; his mum was always easier to deal with from a distance.
He slipped off his trainers and tiptoed to his bedroom, but he didn’t go to sleep right away. Instead, he pulled out his trunk and went through the few items he had brought home from school.
…
It had been a lie when Sirius told James that Kreature brought him three meals a day. It was more like one if he was lucky. Not that he would know, the days had all started to blur together.
There was no natural lighting in his room. There were windows, covered with emerald velvet drapery, but revealed nothing but brick and mortar when pushed to the side. It was a side effect of how the wards on the house worked— they were hidden in plain sight, tucked in between numbers 11 and 13.
Regulus stopped coming to his room since Sirius had told him to leave that one night after dinner. He had mixed feelings about that night. He knew why Regulus said those things, but he was still angry at the way they flowed so easily from his mouth. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had seen him, even though he was starting to get better about keeping track of the days. He couldn’t apologize even if he wanted to.
The only people he saw nowadays were Kreature and Walburga when she came in to berate and curse him. It was always when she and Orion returned from wherever it was they went on an almost nightly basis, and she always had an increasingly sadistic look in her eyes. He could take the skin-slicing curses, and he was starting to get used to the binding charm—he found it wasn’t too bad if he didn’t struggle, but what really got to him was the ranting and the words that wormed their way into his psyche and made him second guess everything. Disgraceful. Pig. Unlovable. That last one was always a harsh blow. It's not true, he had to remind himself.
He still talked to James, and he tried to make his calls more frequently so as not to make him worry, but he still kept all of the lights off. He had seen himself in the mirror and it wasn’t pretty. He had lost a bit of weight, and it made him look like his cheekbones were protruding from his face and the nightmares that kept him up at night made the skin around his eyes turn dark, and not in the way he liked. He was too afraid to wear his hair down just in case Walburga decided to cut it all off just to spite him, so it kept it plastered to his head with hair-slicking potion.
He found himself clutching to Remus’ sweater constantly, especially after one of his mother’s impromptu tirades, when he needed to get her words out of his head. It didn’t smell like him anymore; it smelled like hair slicking potion He thought about the press of Remus’ lips on his forehead. The memory brought him solace, enough that he was able to drift off into a slumber unriddled with nightmarish dreams.
He didn’t realize it was nearing the end of summer until the day James told him that Effie had taken him, Remus, and Peter to Diagon Alley to buy their schoolbooks and supplies. Kreature had already picked up his and Regulus’ in mid-July, and Sirius had already read through the majority of his textbooks. James told him that Remus was on strict orders from his mum to get his books and come straight home because he was grounded for some reason he wouldn’t talk about, and that’s why he hadn’t stuck around to talk to Sirius on the mirrors. Sirius supposed it was for the best, he didn’t want Remus to question why he refused to turn the lights on.
Sirius breathed a sigh of relief when the mirror went dark. Three more days. He had made it through summer, and he could make it another three days. He pulled out Remus’ sweater from under his pillow and pulled it over his head. He let his mind drift to Remus, the memory of the chaste and humble kiss playing over and over in his head. He was sure he wouldn’t have survived the two and a half months without it. This time, he let the memory wander, taking it further into the realm of pure fantasy. Remus’ lips dipping lower and lower until he felt his warm breath on his cheek, his chin, and finally his lips.
He was so happy he could just die. He would see Remus in only three more days.