and i don't want the world to see me
cause i don't think that they'd understand
when everything's made to be broken
i just want you to know who i am
-
Before Remus even crosses the threshold to his flat, he can tell something is wrong. He can’t see anything off; no broken doors or windows, no misplaced items or obvious footprints, but he knows something is different from when he left.
He holds his wand out in front of him, gripping it tightly, and stays in his place for now, hoping to figure out what has changed before he is forced to confront it.
He doesn’t want it to be true, isn’t sure he could face it if it was, but the wolf inside him screaming pack pack pack mate mate mate assures him quickly that his gut feeling is correct: Sirius Black is in his home.
Sirius Black, who worked for Voldemort, who sold out James and Lily. Sirius Black, who killed sweet, anxious Peter, and twelve innocent muggles. Sirius Black, who betrayed him, betrayed all of them. Sirius Black, who spent all morning on his hair, just to let Remus mess it up. Sirius Black, who meticulously planned his friends’ Christmas gifts for years. Sirius Black, who cried when he held his godson for the first time. Sirius Black, who held Remus’ hand and kissed him: his lips, his cheeks, his scars.
But no, he reminds himself. That wasn’t really Sirius Black. It was fake, it had to have been. Because how could the boy who crawled into Remus’ bed after a nightmare in third year and played toy trains with Harry have been the same person who killed James and Lily? It was fake. All of it, pretend. A game, as tricky and delicate as exploding snap, but nonetheless, a game.
Remus steels himself against the memories, against the animal scraping against his chest, desperate to free itself from loneliness once again. He has to do this. He can’t be weak, and he won’t be fooled, not by the sad, grey eyes or that Sirius Black grin.
Remus knows who he is, now, and he won’t be tricked again.
He moves forward, slowly, keeping his wand arm out and his eyes moving, but nothing rushes towards him. No flash of green light, or feral, dark-haired man, or big, shaggy dog. He makes his way to the living room, and freezes.
Padfoot, curled as tightly as can be, is on his couch. His nose is pressed deeply into the cushions and his paws cover his eyes, looking very much like a frightened animal, and not the feral beast Remus had been expecting. At the sound of his shoes against the hardwood, however, the dog’s head snaps up, and before Remus can blink, the dog melds upwards and Sirius Black is stood next to Remus’s couch in tattered striped robes that hang off him at every angle, his hair a matted mess.
Remus lifts his wand higher, and Sirius flinches, ducking behind his outstretched arms, and huh, Remus wasn’t expecting that. And the hot twist of pleasure he feels burns out quickly, turning to a hard ball of guilt which settles heavily at the bottom of his stomach.
He expected a fight, brutal, with flying fists and scraping nails and loosened teeth. With wands and Unforgivable curses and screams. He expected manipulation, of the highest degree, full of cocky grins, and fake tears, and perhaps not so stolen kisses.
But Sirius looks scared, and against his better judgement, Remus hesitates. After a second or two, Sirius relaxes, the smallest fraction of relief slipping into his bones and muscle and sinew, and his head rises back above his arms enough for Remus to catch his eyes. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Sirius look so frightened, but then again, he’s not sure he ever really saw Sirius.
“Moony—” Sirius tries, breaking the tense silence, and snapping Remus once again out of his own head.
“Don’t call me that!” He demands, but the arm that rests at his side shakes, and his heart beats louder, faster, too full of memories to keep quiet: nicknames, and full moons, and sickly-sweet kisses over bars of Honeydukes chocolate.
Sirius flinches back again, but he nods. He doesn’t try to speak again, and Remus doesn’t know if it’s because he is truly as scared as he looks, or if he just wasn’t expecting Remus to be able to hold his ground this long.
“Why are you here?” Remus demands, trying to hold desperately to the anger that is slipping through his fingers, gliding through his hands the way Sirius’ hair used to, on the cozy red armchair in the Gryffindor common room, behind the thick curtains of their shared bed, across from the bonfire in Cornwall, in the cool windowsill of their own apartment.
“I—Remus—please, let me explain.”
And he shouldn’t. Sirius is a murderer, a blood purist, a monster. He should hex him, have him sent back to Azkaban, hand him to the dementors, hell, Remus should kill him himself.
But Remus was a monster, once. Still is, in his own eyes. And Sirius had let him explain, haltingly, from his bed in the hospital wing in second year.
He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t lower his wand arm, but he raises his eyebrows and Sirius takes the hint. His hands, Remus can see, are shaking quite violently as he lowers them to his sides. They grip immediately to the tattered prison robes, pulling and twisting them between fingers. Remus remembers this. It’s always been Sirius’ nervous habit. When his mother sent a howler in first year about his being placed in Gryffindor, Sirius dropped his forkful of eggs and fidgeted restlessly with his uniform robes while Walburga screeched for the whole Great Hall to hear. When he came out to James, his hand clutched at his (Remus’) David Bowie shirt, scrunching the material between his fingers. And when they found out James and Lily and Harry—sweet, sweet Harry—were in danger and had to hide from Voldemort, Sirius had gripped Remus’ sweater so tightly where it rested on Remus’ wrist that when Sirius had let go the pattern of the jumper had imprinted onto his hand.
Against his will, the gesture comforts him greatly.
“I know—I know you hate me, and you have every right, Remus! You do! But please, before you try and send me back, please let me explain what really happened,” Sirius looks hopeful, and the phrasing piques Remus’ interest, so he continues to stay silent, and Sirius once again takes his queue to speak. “It wasn’t me. Not the way you think. I didn’t sell out James and Lily, I didn’t even know where they were!”
“You were their secret keeper!” Remus feels animalistic, but somehow not like the wolf, which keens loudly for Padfoot, so close to the surface Remus can almost taste it. Remus fights against it.
“I wasn’t,” Sirius breathes, and Remus feels dizzy with it. If not Sirius, then who? And how is he supposed to believe him? Then it hits him.
“Peter?”
Sirius nods, frantic, and reaches for Remus, but he steps back and shoots his wand arm back out from where it had fallen as he listened. Sirius backtracks just as quickly, arms again raised in a feeble attempt at defence. Remus realizes, belatedly, that he must not have a wand.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t—I won’t do it again.” Remus nods, and he continues. “We—James and Lily and I—thought I’d be too obvious, that Snape, or any of them really would know it was me immediately. I just wanted them safe, Remus, I swear, so we switched it to Pete. But, that bloody rat, he was the spy the whole time,” he says, frantically, wet eyes pleading with Remus. “You have to believe me, please.”
“Why wouldn’t you have told me?” Sirius, if it’s possible, slumps even further, looking like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. As if he’s the one who spent twelve years mourning his best friends and the person he foolishly believed to have loved him. Sirius looks up at him, eyes hooded and guilty, and Remus feels a pit open in his stomach, sucking up the hard rock of guilt from earlier, and taking all his organs with it, stomach and lungs and beating heart. “You thought I was the spy?” At Sirius’ nod, he feels sick, but asks, “Did James?”
“No,” Sirius, looks down at the ground, and grimaces, before looking back up, “Guess I was always pretty overconfident, huh?” But the joke falls flat, landing dimly at Remus’ feet to be kicked away ungratefully. Sirius, however, plows on, “I was so stupid, Remus, I was so scared. You were always gone, and you couldn’t tell me where you were, and Peter, was always—always saying these snide little comments,” at this, Sirius’ hands raise to make finger quotes around his words. “’Remus has been gone an awful lot lately, hasn’t he?’ and ‘James told me Lily tells him about her secret missions,’ and on and on every time I was alone with him. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe they’d tortured you, or cursed you, or done something, but I didn’t know how to say it, so I just kept it from you. I kept everything from you, and I’m so sorry, Moony, I’m sorry, but you have to believe me, please, I can’t go back there.” Sirius’ breath hitches, becoming jumpy and erratic as he cries.
Remus, ignoring the now forbidden nickname, thinks as Sirius cries—quite pathetically, if Remus is being honest—in the middle of his dingy living room. Remus is reminded of the end of their fifth year, where Sirius cried softly outside Remus’ tightly closed bedcurtains after dark every night while James and Peter slept restlessly in their own beds.
He’d been sorry then too, hadn’t he?
Remus wants, desperately, to be able to believe him. He wants to know he wasn’t stupid for loving him, both then and now, no matter how hard he wished for the opposite. He wants to know everything was real. That it wasn’t a game for Sirius when they kissed in the Astronomy tower, or traded cigarettes back and forth in the windowsill of their dorm. But how is he supposed to know? He’s spent twelve years questioning everything, rewriting every memory. How can he suddenly put every ripped up, stomped on puzzle piece of them back together, on Sirius’ word alone?
There was a time, Remus remembers, when Sirius’ word had meant more to him than any truth potion ever could.
“I went to Godric’s Hollow, when I’d heard what happened, and, Merlin, I spent near twenty minutes throwing up in the doorway when I saw James before I could even make it inside and realize Harry was still there. And I never should have, but I gave him to Hagrid, and I went after Peter, but he already had a plan, and I tried to confront him, but he cut his own finger off and blew up the street.” Sirius gestures wildly with his hands, looking crazy, “He faked it all, Remus, and he’s still alive, as a rat, I saw him in the paper. I just—I need you to believe me. I didn’t do it, I’d never do that, I swear to you, I’ll do anything to prove it.”
Remus had never been good at potions, and veritaserum is a complicated brew. If this is the truth, then Sirius had never broken a promise to him before. He lowers his wand.
“Okay,” he says, and Sirius’ head snaps up so quickly Remus is afraid he might be adding to his laundry list of injuries. “Okay, Pads, I believe you.”
Sirius drops like a marionette with its strings cut, and Remus rushes forwards to wrap his arms around him. Sirius is so small around that Remus can feel every one of his ribs where they press into his stomach, but he ignores that for now. Sirius clings to him, and for the first time in twelve years, Remus lets himself breathe. Sirius smells like mud, and mould, but underneath it all, he still, somehow smells like himself. Not the cologne he wore, or the leather of his jacket, or the motor oil he used on his bike, but the baseline Sirius smell Remus has to assume he’d carried his entire life, since he’d had it as long as he’d known him. Sirius cries, and Remus doesn’t know how he ever could have believed Sirius had done it.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my love, I believe you,” he says, “I believe you.”
“Don’t let them send me back, Moony, please, I don’t want to go back.” Remus strokes back the matted hair on Sirius head, shushing him all the while.
“You’re not going back there. We’ll figure it out.” Sirius nods against his shoulder, clinging tighter still. Remus thinks hard, remembers who exactly he’d come from a meeting with. “I’ll talk to Dumbledore, okay? You said you saw Peter in the paper. Where?”
“Molly Weasley’s son. They were in the Prophet, and he was there, in the family photo, in her son’s hands.”
“Okay,” he sighs, but a quick glance towards the window forces him to realize this will have to wait until morning. “Okay, we’ll deal with this in the morning, Padfoot.” He pulls back, his hands on Sirius’ shoulders. “How about a bath for now, huh? Maybe I can restore your hair to its former glory.” He forces a weak smile, but the one Sirius returns is genuine, if a bit small.
They make their way to the bathroom, unwillingly to let go of each other entirely, and Remus, slowly but surely, starts repairing the broken-down puzzle of their love.