The Dogs
Remus Lupin found it ironic about his only remaining best friend; regardless of how much he despised his roots and his past, Sirius never left it.
Sirius had never been able to shake off his past as a Black, never able to throw off the stigma and the image; one of the reasons why even Remus had believed the worst when his old friend was accused of the murder of those muggles, was because of the legendary and terrifying truth that the Blacks, on the whole, were considered insane.
And now, because he simply didn’t know how or lacked the drive to try to regain some semblance of turning over a new leaf, Sirius just refused to leave 12 Grimmauld Place; when they were teens attending Hogwarts, Sirius had bored them to tears about the house he was relieved to escape from, but now he was here, the werewolf understood only too well how depressed Sirius was. But what he couldn’t grasp was why Sirius hadn’t tried buying a flat.
He was well off enough and could afford one easily and he could live and decorate it however he wanted, but he seemed determined to just stop his life.
Remus knew why. Ever since Harry was proven innocent, it was like Sirius had fallen down a hole and just refused to climb out of it. Over the last year, he’d been tech and angry, acting out. He blamed himself for allowing Harry to become dark, and then when the truth came out he spiralled into an uncontrollable depression because he knew how Azkaban was; Sirius had no qualms about people like the Death Eaters being put in prison, but an innocent child was something else.
What made it worse was Harry’s general condition when he was taken out of prison; he had been emaciated and starved and his body was hanging by a thread, and he’d sounded ill before he’d gotten into that duel. Remus had no idea how Harry had drained the Death Eaters and their master of their magic to rebuild his body, which was a risk as there had been a chance Fudge would have just locked him back inside. Still, unlike Dumbledore and several others, the werewolf felt it was a fitting punishment for their crimes.
They should have known Harry was not going to forgive them; he was never the little saint Dumbledore wanted to begin with and he had made it clear to Lupin and Sirius that he’d give them just one chance, but even then his relationship with them was shaky.
Throughout his time as a DADA professor, Lupin had tried to keep his distance from Harry; some of it stemmed from how Dumbledore had told him to keep away, and he had listened to the lies the old headmaster had told him, that Harry was happy.
Unlike Sirius, Remus was able to differentiate between Harry and James because the boy had a much softer appearance which he’d inherited from Lily. Something told him Sirius was still addled by Azkaban because he’d still mistaken Harry for James when in the past he’d be sharper.
The rest of it was because Remus was a coward, and he was scared of how Harry would react to him being a werewolf. Some of it was valid enough, as many witches and wizards believed the lies about werewolves, although werewolves' reputations were ruined by Fenrir Greyback.
He and Sirius had accepted it happily, and they hadn’t bothered looking into the boy’s home life when it was clear he hated it and was having problems. But they were both blind to it.
But no, the boy had been abused; seeing the memories of Lily and James, and the love they’d had for their child, their only child, had shattered the werewolf. When he had seen the memories of Harry’s time with the Dursleys, he knew Dumbledore had lied to him, and it made him wonder what else was a lie.
And then Remus had come to the fateful conclusion when he saw the truth.
Harry was never going to forgive them. Any of them. He would likely try to escape the country as soon as he could, and perhaps that was better for the boy in the long run. Remus didn’t see the point in Harry remaining in Britain, but Dumbledore disagreed. Surprise, surprise, Sirius was once more proving how short-sighted he was. He wanted Harry to remain in Britain. He couldn’t stand the thought of him leaving. He wanted Harry to forgive, marry someone and have a third generation of marauders. Remus knew it was never going to happen.
Right now he was worried and more than a little irritated that Sirius was getting wasted by drinking. Sirius had always preferred boozing to face his problems.
“I’m….sorry, Lils, Prongs,” Sirius muttered to himself as he guzzled down the full bottle of Firewhiskey.
Well, not today.
Taking out his wand, Remus summoned the bottle out of Sirius’s hands, earning drunken grumbles, but the werewolf was not about to let up. Casting many spells to cure Sirius of the hangover, and to freshen up the air and Sirius himself, Remus sat down.
“What did you do that for?” Sirius demanded.
Remus kept the bottle out of reach. “This is not going to help, Sirius. Drowning yourself is not going to help you at all.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Remus Lupin had spent a whole year facing down recalcitrant teenagers, he had lots of experience with Sirius and James. “This has to stop, Sirius,” he said, “it's time to face reality.”
“What do you mean?”
Remus knew he had to choose his words carefully. “Harry is not going to forgive us, Sirius. It's time to back off.”
Instantly Sirius was on his feet, glaring down at the werewolf, his expression giving credence to the Black madness. “Are you crazy?! We can’t let him go! He’s suffered enough!”
“And what makes you think that Harry is going to forgive us, Sirius? We abandoned the boy to the Dursleys, you were thrown in prison because you preferred going after Pettigrew? Why?! You did it out of pride more than anything else!”
“Shut up!”
“No, you need to hear this. Drinking yourself to death and feeling pity for yourself is something you and I have in common, but it's time to face the music, Sirius. Harry hates us. You saw those memories of how he was abused, now we know why he was so determined to leave the Dursleys, and why he gave us those ultimatums,” Remus struggled to keep his temper in check as he kept his cool, “I’ve faced facts, Sirius. When Dumbledore and Fudge came up with that plan to keep Harry in Britain and to make him go back to Hogwarts, it was the final straw. Harry is not going to forgive us for that when he wanted to emigrate for America.”
“We can’t let him do that!”
Remus was struggling to keep his patience; arguing with Sirius was always a problem. His old friend was dangerously stubborn.
“Why, because then we need to remind him to forgive? It’s not going to happen!”
“How could you know that?” Sirius’s sneer lost its effectiveness because his lips wobbled.
‘Oh, give me strength, Merlin,’ Remus realised he’d have to explain the facts of life. “We abandoned Harry to Azkaban, Sirius, just like we abandoned him to the Dursleys. And now, forcing him to return to Hogwarts and stopping him from meeting the MACUSA has made it worse. It's the last straw, as far as Harry’s concerned. Why are we stopping him from knowing his American family? Go on, answer me that, Sirius. It’s wrong, Sirius,” he said. “We’re putting our own needs above his; if we go any further, he will just lash out. We need to back off.”
“No, we failed him once, I failed him once,” Sirius continued stubbornly. “Lily and James made me his godfather, and it's my job to look after him.”
“You didn’t do a good job of that, did you? You gave into your anger and you spent yourself sulking in Azkaban,” Remus snapped, instantly regretting it but he knew he had to get to Sirius to make this work.
But Sirius didn’t lash out; he didn’t have the mental energy to go that far, for which Lupin was grateful. But if it worked, Remus didn’t know. What worried him was what Sirius might have in mind to try to make Harry forgive them, and he was worried Sirius was going to do something that they’d come to regret.