Chapter 1
REMUS
FIFTH YEAR
Remus hoisted his leather trunk further into his arms, blowing a curl of dark blonde hair out of his eyes. He could barely retain a strong grasp on his luggage as the sleeves of his sweater slid down to the tips of his fingers. Tapping the toe of his boot against the pavement, Remus glanced around nervously, waiting for the banes of his summer existence to show their faces. Remus couldn’t help but flinch as the creaking Hogwarts Express pulled into the platform, delaying the moment that had kept him going for months. With one more glance around the station, Remus shifted his trunk under one arm and hurried onto the train. He would find his friends soon enough.
Readjusting his trunk with each step, Remus shuffled through the train corridors, glancing into the frosted glass windows of each compartment as he went. Finally, Remus noted a shimmering snitch glinting off the windowpane before drifting down again. With a sigh of relief, Remus shoved open the door and tripped inside.
“Moony!”
“It’s our favorite nerd!” Remus glanced down as a grin split across his face, falling into the seat next to Peter.
“Hey guys.” Remus tried to stop the weight of his summer crashing from his shoulders to show through his words, but he wasn’t sure he’d done a great job. “Pete,” he said with a nod, turning to grin at James who reached across the compartment to slap him on the shoulder. Remus’s eyes flitted to his blistered fingers before darting up to the boy across from him.
Sirius Black’s onyx dark hair was pulled back into a bun, pieces slipping out and brushing against his chin. Remus’s breath hitched in his throat as he cataloged each detail of Sirius’s face, noting his piercing gray eyes peeking from underneath his lashes, a fading cut along his sharp jaw, and - oh - the corner of his mouth upturned to form that Sirius Black grin.
“Moons.” Remus opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to respond before the door to the compartment crashed open again. There was a blur of yelling and hair and his breath leaving his lungs from being squeezed so tight before Remus was really able to see who had joined them. Marlene McKinnon was draped across James’s lap, the edges of her blonde bangs dipping into her eyes. Mary Macdonald nearly fell atop Sirius as the train swayed back and forth, and Lily Evans leaned down to give Peter a hug. Remus gulped and avoided looking back at Sirius, turning instead to Mary with a grin and patting the seat next to him. Mary bounced over, her tight dark curls brushing against her bare shoulders.
“Remus!” Mary gave him a hug before falling into the seat next to him. “How was your summer?” Remus only hesitated a moment before responding.
“Fine, thanks. Not too busy. And yours?” Mary seized the opportunity to launch into a story about a boy who had tried (and seemingly failed) to play her over the summer, and Remus couldn’t help but smile. He loved Mary. Her easygoing, talkative nature fit just right with Remus’s wish to listen rather than tell.
Despite the enthralling nature of Mary’s summer fling, Remus couldn’t help but glance back up at Sirius, eyes frozen on his slim knuckles and rose-dusted cheekbones. Fuck. Remus was never like this. He felt like a traveler of the desert finding a glass of water. Sirius replenished him and refilled the hole ballooned by Lyall and Hope Lupin.
Remus slapped himself internally, quickly turning back to Mary. What was wrong with him?
“Anyway, he was with Tanya the whole time and didn’t even have the balls to tell me. After the blow I knocked him, probably doesn’t even have the balls to piss now.” Remus snorted, drifting into the ease of his friends. He let Lily’s admonishments and Marlene’s new set of pins and Mary’s stories sink below the scar tissue stretching across his limbs, filling him with a warmth he’d waited months to feel again. Remus couldn’t help but laugh then, at nothing in particular. He didn’t explain the source of this but instead bit down on his bottom lip before another grin could escape his lips. He felt Sirius’s eyes on him, and could’ve sworn he even got a smirk out of him.
Remus tripped to the wall of the Gryffindor common room, rolling up the sleeves of his woolen sweater to bear the body heat simmering in the room. By fourth year, the annual Gryffindor welcome party was less of an afterparty to the Welcome Feast and more of it’s own highly anticipated annual event. Remus couldn’t really notice any parts of the function that were any different than the rest of Gryffindor’s bloody parties other than the energy. There was the same amount of alcohol, the same people, the same decorations, but being back together was really what made it important. At least, that’s what Remus had theorized. These parties weren’t what made Remus feel reconnected with his peers, but he supposed other teenagers did different things. Remus had always felt other in every way, but one thing that he knew he was not the only one to feel was relief at a return to Hogwarts. To some, maybe it was just being reunited with their friends, but for Remus - and he was sure many others - it was an escape from empty rooms and foodless nights. An escape from the same two people for months, eyes full of hatred and fear masked as worry for their son rather than themselves. Drinking until you couldn’t think and pressing your skin against another’s was just what some people did to escape.
At least that’s what Remus wanted to think. He tipped the contents of his plastic cup down his throat, feeling a relieving burn fill his chest. He nearly jumped as another body slumped against the wall beside him.
“Rem!” Remus nearly spit his drink back out as he was wrapped in a hug. He pulled back spluttering to find a girl with a gaunt face bouncing up and down in front at him. Her frizzy white dreadlocks were haphazardly piled atop her head, and the patchy skin around her mouth was tugged up with a smile. She wore no makeup but looked to be weighed down by her countless rope necklaces and ditzily heavy earrings.
“Dora! Oh my god.” Pandora Malfoy stood in front of him, and Remus couldn’t help but notice the bruises across her collarbone. Remus pulled her in for another hug before rational thoughts slipped into his mind. “Um - how are you here?”
“What do you mean?” Pandora tilted her head to the side, her eyes full and innocent.
“Uh - well - Gryffindor house party, you’re a Slytherin?” Pandora giggled, and Remus couldn’t help but smile through his confusion.
“Oh my dear, walls and doors can’t stop me. Aspirational groups don’t decide where I can and cannot get bashed.” Remus scoffed, taking another sip from his cup before remembering it was empty. “Oh, there’s Reg!”
“How many Slytherins did you manage to get - oh.” Pandora had already ran off, her layered tweed skirt trailing behind her. It always took Remus time to process what that girl said to him, and his drunken mind worsened the haze. It took him nearly a minute to realize that ‘Reg’ must have been referencing Regulus Black. Remus knew that he was Pandora’s best friend, but he couldn’t think of the last time he’d seen Regulus and Sirius interact. But knowing Sirius, he would be already too plastered to notice his baby brother, despite his alert awareness of any Black family members in the vicinity.
Remus took one last look at his empty cup before placing it on a side table. Remus didn’t know who cleaned up after these parties and felt kind of bad about it, but he was too tipsy to perform a vanishing charm without vanishing half the people in the room. He was just turning to go up to the dorms and unpack before he had to watch Sirius’s first fling of the year begin when a hand grabbed him by the wrist.
Lily Evans tugged Remus back into the crowd, and he sighed, shoving a hand in his pocket. Lily’s bright red hair was braided down her back, and a mischievous light danced in her eyes. She wore a loose spaghetti-strap tank top over a crocheted mini skirt, and some of Mary’s pink face glitter had found it’s way onto her cheeks. “It’s the first night back, Remus. No way am I letting you go to sleep.” Remus had always thought Lily was underrated as a goody-goody. She really did have a rebellious side that her friends treasured.
“Fine.” Remus let Lily drag him away from his corner, and no matter how hard he tried to look annoyed, he couldn’t help but smile at someone being so insistent on keeping him with them.
Someone had magicked an old muggle radio to play a wretched British band that Remus was sure nobody had ever heard of. Clearly whoever had the idea to play music in this form rather than just using a record player had no taste anyway. Exhausted and insistent on not dampening his first night by finding Sirius already in some girl’s mouth, with this screeching in his ears, Remus really wasn’t in the mood to party no matter how much he loved Lily. And yet, a moment later, he found himself shoved into a circle with a few sixth year girls he didn’t know and two guys from Hufflepuff. Remus really did wonder if these other Houses just had no parties themselves, because they seemed a bit too insistent to crash Gryffindor’s festivities. Not like Remus gave much of a fuck anyway.
Remus shook his hips a few times for Lily’s sake, but he was starting to feel out of breath from the heat pressing in on him from all sides. He wouldn’t take off his sweater - a shield of worn patterned wool - and he longed for the open window of his dorm and no one to see his scars. Remus was ready to slip away as soon as Lily turned her head, but stopped in his tracks as he felt a hip bump his.
Remus turned to find Sirius grinning at him. Again. Fuck.
“What do you think you’re doing Lupin? Did no one teach you how to dance in Wales?” Remus could barely fully roll his eyes before Sirius grabbed the sleeve of his sweater and tugged him out of the circle. Remus felt a blush beginning to creep up his neck before he noticed the bright red, damp state of Sirius’s lips. Of course. Why would Remus think Sirius had just been waiting around to dance with him? Had he learned nothing over the past four years?
“Hey, Sirius, I really think I’m going to head up to bed now.” Remus tugged his arm from Sirius’s grip and turned to the stairs before Sirius could reply. Remus felt eyes boring into the back of his head as he walked away, but he convinced himself he was just blowing everything out of proportions again. He wouldn’t get close to Sirius, not in that way. He couldn’t lose Sirius Black as a friend too, and Remus couldn’t handle the guilt of ruining everything for the marauders - his first and only true family.
Remus scrubbed at his face as he jogged up the spiral staircase. Less than 12 hours into his first term and he was already exhausted from the emotional toll Sirius fucking Black took on him.
Remus lay in his four-poster with the comforter pulled up to his chin. The cool fabric was a relief against his skin. Remus’s face was still damp from the bathroom sink, and a light breeze blew in from the window. Everything was fine. He was fine. Sirius was probably with some other girl right now, and that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Remus would just go to class, and tease himself into thinking he was anything more than a fire burning everyone he loved in his way.
A few minutes later - an hour or so after Remus first left the party - the door creaked open, letting a shaft of yellow light and a moment of music drift into the dorm. Remus kept his eyes closed, but he knew the sound of Dr Martens when he heard them. Sirius was never the first one back. Well, first other than Remus. Remus opened one eye to see Sirius running his hand through his hair, a shocked smile on his face. Clearly he’d had a lucky night. Remus closed his eyes again, turning his head away from the door. Sirius’s footsteps slowly neared his bed to the right of Remus, and stopped before there was any sound of Sirius sitting on his bed.
Then came the rough sound of fingers sifting through vinyls. Remus had unpacked his records onto the bookshelf beside his bed, and he knew that Sirius could never own one himself. Remus’s breath hitched in his throat, before he heard the familiar thump of a body hitting a mattress. Sirius let out a light breath of laughter. Still giddy from the party. Remus squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to replace the image of pale fingers sliding along his own cardboard record sleeves with a sharp jawline brushing against another that was not his.
Stop fooling yourself. It’s not you. It will never be you. You’re only the monster underneath the bed.