Chapter I
IN THE BEGINNING OF JULY, Sirius watched as Gideon Prewett wrapped his arm around the new goalie’s shoulder. The man, with his golden-kissed chestnut hair and freckled-kissed face, was even taller than Gideon himself. Sirius was vaguely aware of James muttering something next to him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the latest addiction to Gryffindor United. Remus Lupin. He and the rest of the team had spent the hours after the last practice watching tapes on the Spanish player, studying his technique, the slim and tall figure of his body jumping around like a cat, limbs stretching to keep the ball from going in the goal. Remus, Sirius thought, was even more mesmerising in the flesh.
James cleared his throat, forcing Sirius to look away, and raised his eyes at his teammate. “If you’re done ogling the goalie,” he whispered, “I would appreciate a little help with my situation.”
Sirius had the decency to blush. “I wasn’t ogling,” he whispered back. “And you don’t have a situation, Potter, you have psychopathic tendencies regarding anything to do with Lily Evans.”
The intense infatuation James Potter had for the coach’s daughter and media director for the club was old gossip around the training ground, and Sirius suspected that the only person oblivious to it was coach Evans himself, thank God. The fact that Sirius was bent, however, was a very well-kept secret that only he and James knew about, so the thought of him being obvious enough for James to call him out on it was upsetting, to say the least.
“I do not!” James feigned offence, bringing the hand that wasn’t gripping hard on the teacup to his chest. “I’ll have you know, she’s very close to realising that I’m the best thing in her life and that she’s unconditionally in love with me.”
“Christ, mate,” Sirius mumbled, shifting his gaze back to where Lupin stood. He was trying to gently shake Gideon off, looking miserably uncomfortable, but too polite to stop Gideon's rambling. Sirius remembered not knowing if the man actually spoke English or not. “You need a psychiatrist.”
“Keep being obnoxious and I’ll pick someone else to be best man at our wedding.” James pushed his shoulder. He opened his mouth to say something else at the same moment the locker-room door busted open and coach Evans barged in and the conversations died down.
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BY THE END OF AUGUST, Remus Lupin found himself perfectly integrated into Gryffindor United’s season. His style of play and guarding of the goal fit the team's needs like, well, a goalkeeper's glove. The fans adored him, the players had already grown fond of the quiet man. And Sirius was pathetically in love with him.
They didn’t hit it off well, at first. Lupin was nothing if not extremely guarded and not quite fluent in English. That, mixed with Sirius’s flamboyant personality and a particular distaste for real vulnerability was a recipe for dozens of heated locker room discussions during the first weeks of training. Aggressive shouting matches filled with words neither of them understood became routine. And if Sirius was unbearably energetic after fighting, the arguments seem to tire Remus to the core, leaving Sirius to deal with his guilt underneath all the fire. Because most of them were Sirius' fault, that much he would admit. He hated how magnetic Remus felt to him, how his eyes sparkled when he was playing, and how his laughter bursted out of him like the surprise attack of an orchestra. Sirius would have done anything to really hate him, seeked for anything that would stop forbidden feelings from ever manifesting. So he picked fights, criticised his plays, sent snarky remarks towards the freckled teammate. It didn’t work.
In the end, it was really James Potter’s fault.
And one could even blame Lily Evans too, even if indirectly. She was the one collecting players for the media sessions that Sirius despised, those stupid youtube videos that clubs posted to convince the fans that it was worth it paying forty pounds for a jersey with a name and a number on the back. James promptly offered not only himself, but Sirius as well.
“We’ll do it!” James said, eager and way too enthusiastic. No one ever questioned James for speaking for Sirius. Everyone knew they were more of an entity than a pair of people.
Sirius barely contained a grunt as Lily nodded with a pained expression, probably at the prospect of having to spend time with Jamie’s lovesick arse. “Okay,” she said, “well, Remus, you may come in as well, then. People haven’t seen enough of you. Gideon, you can come too, we need pairs.”
Gideon jumped to his feet and Remus’s face flushed red, Sirius noticed. “Okay, Lily,” he said, earning a striking smile from the redhead before she rushed out of the room.
James turned to face the goalkeeper so quickly his neck almost snapped. “What…what was that, mate?” He asked, his voice faint.
Lupin frowned. “What was what?”
“He means why did Evans smile at you like that,” Sirius said, with bitterness barely occult from his tone. Lily Evans didn’t really smile like that at anyone. Sirius thought she was actually kind of scary.
“Oh,” Remus said, “we’re friends.”
He said it like it was something very simple and Sirius watched as James’s expression turned from fearful to devastated. James got up and walked away, shoulders hunched and spark dramatically gone. Sirius rolled his eyes and went back to finishing lacing his boots up.
“Did I…did I say something wrong?” Remus had turned to Sirius after a moment, with that frown back in his face that Sirius wanted to physically wipe away. He looked really worried, as if the thought of upsetting James gnawed at him. Even if Remus and Sirius weren’t exactly best friends, everybody got along with James. And Remus seemed to tolerate James more than he did the rest of the team, to Sirius’s chagrin. Sirius’s heart frailed.
“No, don’t worry,” he managed to say, looking away from Lupin’s face. “He just gets weird about Evans. He likes her a lot.”
He heard Remus breathe out a huff of air. “Oh, we really are just friends. Met in Spain before. She’s… not my type.”
Sirius felt his pulse weaken. He looked back up at the goalkeeper and found the frown replaced by something else. Honesty. “Okay,” he heard himself say, but his voice sounded like it was somewhere far away from him, “I’ll let him know, mate.”
Standing up, Remus nodded. Sirius played the expression back in his head. It felt like it had more meaning than the one on the surface. It felt like a begging for truce. Like maybe Remus didn’t understand what all their fighting was for and wanted it done with.
“Look, can we just start over?” The Spanish accent reverberated all over Sirius’s body. “Be friends, sí?”
“Yeah.” Sirius cleared his throat. “Friends.”
Remus smiled and went after James and Lily, leaving Sirius to follow, having no regard for the way his legs felt like jelly and his heart felt like it would jump out of his shirt. But Sirius went their way, nonetheless. He went their way and found them waiting for him, and sat down next to the goalkeeper because Lily said the videos were always more fun if James and Sirius were up against each other, and they played pictionary for the stupid media session and Remus complimented his drawings, and they managed to beat Gideon and James by a lot and it was the best afternoon he had out of the field in a long time.
After that, loving Remus was comparable to looking up at the sky and seeing blue. There was no room for debate, it was just a fact. It helped that they started to spend a lot of time together. And it wasn’t that Remus was particularly angelic or impossible to dislike, either, Sirius came to learn. Remus was grumpy in the mornings, had a natural knack for playing by the rules (which, yes, to Sirius was a flaw), and was really, really shy, even if he didn’t act like it. It was just that Sirius realised that some things weren’t worth going to war with your own heart for. There’s no universe where Sirius could hate Remus and to put all his efforts into preventing his feelings to grow into something painful and wonderful seemed unfeasible. He knew the heartache it would cause. He knew he would just have to find a way to live with it.
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WHEN IT TURNED SEPTEMBER, it was the semifinals for the FA Cup. All they had to do was beat the Hufflepuff Badgers. They travelled from London to Liverpool for the game, and Remus sat next to Sirius the whole bus ride. He could smell the minty aftershave mixed with expensive cologne. Their shoulders were brushing. The blood rushing through Sirius’s veins felt like lead. They had a couple of weeks to grow really close, and the sight of Remus smiling and teasing and being important to him was now part of his routine. Remus started to sit with Sirius and James during lunch, and go out with them for drinks during break nights and go to Sirius’s townhouse to play Fifa, or watch movies or just talk under the orange tree in his garden. Sirius thought about them under that orange tree a lot. But right now, even with Remus so close to him, he was nervous for a whole other reason.
He was nervous for the game. It wasn’t usual. Sirius was hardly ever nervous for anything. But they had a real shot at this trophy, and if they went to the finals, they would have to play the Snakes. Sirius would have to go up against his little brother, whom he hadn’t seen since he ran away from home and the Potter’s took him in. He would have to play under his parents' hard gazes.
“Are you okay?” Remus asked after looking at his face, frown in place.
Sirius let out a shaky breath. “I… yeah, I’m fine, mate.”
Remus was quiet for a moment, biting his lip. “You don’t have to lie , sí? Not to me.”
“It’s just that…” He pressed his pointer to his temple. “If we win, we play Slytherin.”
“Right.” Remus answered as if he didn’t understand why that mattered.
“Their number eight is my… my brother,” Sirius explained. “We don’t talk. I don’t talk with my parents either. They weren’t… they weren’t good.”
Sirius usually steered the conversation away from his family, and Remus never asked before.
“Okay,” Remus said, like he got everything he needed to know from Sirius’s few words - a trick only James seemed to accomplish before. “But you have good now, right? You have James. You have me, too. Not to be… ah, what word? Presumido?”
“Conceited?” Sirius offered.
Remus laughed a little. “Sí, conceited. But you have me. Good friends, good things. Don’t need to worry about the things that aren’t good. Just do your best.”
“They scare me, Remus.” He never said that out loud. Not even to James, though he knew it already. But saying it to Remus was like cutting a tumour out of his heart and holding it under a magnifier for them to inspect. “I always feel lost near them. Like I’m not even inside my own body.”
“It’s not…justo?…Fair,” Remus said softly, laying his hand over Sirius’s , “to feel responsible for the pain your parents cause you, vida. But not your fault. And if you could end up good when they were not… It's special, Sirius. You’re special. Sí?”
He looked at their hands together. “Okay. Okay.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Remus asked him quietly, right before the bus pulled over next to the Hufflepuff’s Stadium.
Sirius managed a faint smile. “Our best.”
Remus let go of his hand and stood up. Sirius followed him out of the bus.