If he were asked now, Remus wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the moment he’d fallen in love with Sirius Black.
There were moments before, for certain.
He’d lived eleven years without the Marauders at his back, before he’d ever understood what friendship was—what love really was.
They were years coloured grey, ensconced in loneliness and shame, scared of the scars that marked his body, of the monster that lurked under his skin. He remembered the silence most clearly, the creaking of the floorboards in his parents’ small house in Wales, the way that voices always seemed so hushed, words so practiced that even the most raucous laugh seemed devoid of happiness. He remembered his mother’s smile, the one that grew tighter with each day that drew closer to the full moon. He remembered the appearance of guilt on his father’s face, compunction hidden behind minute expressions and rigid shoulders.
There were bright patches too, of course. Memories of time spent with his mother, humming along to a vinyl as it spun away on its player; of the more careful moments spent in his father’s company, of television and the occasional show of magic. Those memories, though cherished, often seemed to fall to the side, as, with distance grew fondness or disdain and—for these formative years—Remus had drifted toward the latter.
From the first moment that he stepped onto the Hogwarts Express and entered into the compartment that would become so familiar over the next seven years, Remus' life changed in ways he never imagined it might. That day, the Marauders had offered him something he never believed he could have, never dared to hope for: a family.
Lyall and Hope Lupin loved their son, make no mistake, but there had always been something hesitant about the way they cared for Remus. Something in the way they danced around him, standing at such careful emotional distance—whether it was shame, fear, or something else entirely, he would never know.
The Marauders had been the first and only people to love every part of Remus, to see the Wolf not as an affliction to be afraid of or as a weapon to be forged and manipulated, but as an extension of Remus' self. They’d, despite protestations, had become animagi to make sure that, even during full moons—even on the nights when his transformation was at its most grotesque—Remus was never alone. Through each bone-breaking transformation, they didn’t flinch at the ugliest parts of him, not at the Wolf, nor the scars he left behind. Rather, they supported him, loved him, made him laugh in moments where Remus thought he might never find a hint of a smile. They brought him clothes, tried to make sure he was as comfortable as he could be—both before and after.
Pack, the Wolf had whispered during that first full moon in the Shrieking Shack, as he’d howled with the black dog, chased the stag.
Family, Remus had dared to think the next morning, looking up at the three boys that stood before him, all warm smiles and worried glances over the scratches left on his skin. They were paltry wounds compared to those sustained in the nights that came before it, but he allowed them to fuss anyway.
§§
Over the years they were at Hogwarts, the Marauders had solidified their role in his life, each becoming an irreplaceable figure who he’d come to lean on more than he’d ever realized.
At least, until they were gone.
In James, Remus had found loyalty without bound, a boy who knew only how to love with his whole heart, who couldn’t imagine what life without it might be like. He was vibrant and shameless, able to make Remus burst into riotous laughter with a single word or gesture, while, at the same time, managing to be more doting and protective of him than Hope Lupin had ever been.
In Peter, he’d found soft laughter and quiet bravery; he’d found trust in a boy who often went forgotten but was always listening—even if no one else was. He’d found a boy who knew what it felt like to be an outcast, to stand on the outside of inside jokes while others around him laughed; who stood with a graceful smile on his face and little resentment in his heart. He’d found an intelligence that was as unnoticed as he often was, though was more of an asset than any one of them, Remus included, ever gave him credit for.
In Lily, he’d found a kindred soul, a confidante who always seemed to know what he was going to say before the words left his lips, who always knew what he needed without ever having to ask. He’d found a gentle, but unforgiving soul, a woman willing to go to the ends of the earth to protect the ones she loved, no matter the cost to herself.
And in Sirius—
In Sirius, he’d found a bright but broken boy with so much love buried inside him. He’d found a man so beautiful that it bordered on cruel to look at him, one graced with the kind of smile that made you feel proud to earn it. He’d found someone whose presence made even the most mundane moments feel excitable, one that both demanded attention and brought him a deep sense of comfort. In Sirius, Remus found an appreciation for the loud and ridiculous, for the silent and lovely. He’d found quiet kisses and soft murmurs against hot skin, unrestrained laughter and tangled limbs.
In Sirius, Remus had found a part of himself he hadn’t known he was missing: a best friend—a soulmate. He’d found a man who kissed his scars, who traced them with long, delicate fingers. He’d found someone who’d made him feel beautiful for the first time in his life, for, how could he not when Sirius’ mouth was on his—when he was in Sirius’ arms?
For Sirius, Remus had learned to be vulnerable, had allowed himself to both love and be loved.
For Sirius, he had bared his soul.
§§
When things began to change between them, he didn’t know. It was something that, over the years, he’d dedicated a lot of time to thinking about, but had managed to come up short each time.
For too long, he’d been looking for a moment, one single exchange that changed everything—a soft whisper through the haze of cigarette smoke, a casual touch taken for something more intimate—but after searching for so long he’d been unable to identify one. Now, he wasn’t quite sure if it was just one moment of stark realization, but rather a gradual shifting of emotions over a longer period of time.
But what he did know, however, was that he had loved Sirius long before he’d been able to put a name to the feeling, longer than he’d allowed himself to consciously acknowledge. To Remus, the very idea of Sirius had become so deeply entwined with loving him that he couldn’t separate the two if he tried. It was as much a part of him as anything else, perhaps as much so as the Wolf. Doing so felt like something he’d always known how to do, felt like breathing—and—did a person remember when they learned to do such a thing?
From the moment he’d met him, Remus' life had become dictated by Sirius' movements as much as the moon’s, living and dying by his touch, his presence, even if he’d been unaware of it at the time. Sirius was magnetic, and Remus was powerless to do anything but gravitate to his side.
Sirius often told him, in the sanctuary of each other’s arms, that Remus made him feel quiet, that he made all of the things spinning around inside of head of his still, if only for a few moments. It was only after he was gone—until he was left with nothing but noise for company—that Remus realized that Sirius had done the very same for him.
Without him, the silence of the flat had become louder than any argument or slammed door could ever hope to be. Rather, it was cold and unforgiving, and Remus, Merlin help him, was drowning in it, his head mere centimetres from total submersion.
It had faded slowly, Remus recalled.
Where some, as James and Lily did, grew closer as the war became more gruesome, Remus and Sirius were left scrambling for the blind sort of love they once had, for any semblance of familiarity to grasp onto. They were no longer the teenagers they had been, fumbling under bed sheets, sneaking around in broom cupboards, knocking knees in the Great Hall. They still loved each other, still cared deeply, but, as the war progressed, gentle caresses were steadily replaced with distrustful glances, comfortable silences turned colder, and were more lonely than they’d ever been.
They held each other’s hands out of obligation, rather than desire; they said ‘I love you’ out of muscle memory, empty words instead of the sweet promise they had once offered. Even on full moons, the Wolf had sensed the shift, had noted the change in the black dog’s behavior toward him. He’d wondered if it had been out of an innate sense of responsibility that Sirius had continued to come at all.
Remus supposed he’d never know now.
They had argued some, but often, they were too tired to do even that. Their interactions became limited to clipped responses and terse silences, a shadow of what they’d once had. They no longer shared sated whispers or quiet confessions whilst twisted in bedsheets. Remus was only grateful he still had Sirius at all.
When it came down to it, it was simply easier to be together than it was not to be; it was one of the few familiar things they had left as they and the people they loved began to be used as cannon fodder, as the world turned darker by the day and the news of death came as calmly as one might discuss the weather, or the past night’s quidditch scores.
They’d drifted away from each other before Remus had even become aware of it, and by then, it had been too late to do anything other than to cling to the dregs. By that time, he couldn’t remember the last time that Sirius had kissed him and meant it, couldn’t remember what it felt like to be touched for the sake of being touched, what it had been like to run his fingers through Sirius' hair until he sighed contentedly into Remus' neck, or what it had felt like for Sirius' long fingers to trace the scars that marked Remus' body. By that time, it was rare that Sirius would reach for him, even under the cover of night—that he would kiss him at all.
In the end, he hadn’t been able to recall the last time Sirius had called him ‘Moony’. Now, it was unlikely anyone would ever call him by that name again.
Who had been the last one to say it, he wondered.
Remus had always assumed that once the war was over, there would be time to fix his and Sirius' broken relationship, to rekindle the love and deep understanding they’d once shared, to reconstruct their lives around each other. The wedge the war had driven between them was wide, but Remus had believed that when it was all over, he might be able to repair them, might be able to pull Sirius back to him and never let go. When the war was over, they would be able to discuss the things they were forced to keep secret—the missions, the prophecy, the meetings—for, in the end, it had been secrets that broke them.
Perhaps, if they hadn’t been forced to be so guarded, they might not have relied so heavily on reticence as a means of communication. Perhaps without the secrets, Remus might have noticed when Sirius began to stray from him, would have noticed when furtive glances became ill-natured, when languid conversations over shared cigarettes turned silent. Perhaps without the missions, which would leave Remus gone from their flat for weeks at a time, it might not have been possible for Sirius to have drifted so far. Perhaps, he’d have been able to clasp onto Sirius—his Sirius—before he slipped away forever.
It did not do to dwell on ‘what ifs’, on what might have happened if only he had said something differently, did something differently. In all the years since that night, since the war, Remus had learned that it only brought more suffering, that no amount of wondering would fix what had happened. No matter how much he wished for it, there was nothing to be done: his friends were dead, and had been for a long time now.
§§
He’d been told that Sirius was laughing when they finally caught him, sick amusement found in the most horrible crime. Apparently, he had been so hysterical that he’d been unable to utter a single word. What few knew, however, was that Remus had laughed too that night.
It had been a mirthless laugh, one that left his gut aching for reprieve, his hand pressed so hard against the curve of his mouth that he drew blood. It was a laugh born of disbelief and horror, of adamant denial and eventual surrender; a laugh that ended with a heave of his stomach and tears in his eyes, a single word on his tongue.
Why?
It was a question that Remus would ask for many years to come, but would likely never receive answers to.
Why did Sirius do this to Lily and James and Harry, to him? Why, after all he’d endured under his family’s thumb, would Sirius succumb to their whims, becoming exactly what they’d always wanted him to be?
Why, after everything, would Sirius leave Remus alive, leave him alone to carry the curse of memory, the lonely legacy of the last standing Marauder? To remember the very best of those which he had loved so dearly, to remember the small things; the way James' glasses would sit crooked on his nose no matter how many times he adjusted them, the way Lily’s whole face would scrunch up when she laughed, the way that Peter would often chew on the nib of his quill when he tried to concentrate, leaving his bottom lip stained for days at a time, the way that Sirius—no.
Despite everything—despite how wrong it was—Remus wanted nothing more than to fold himself in Sirius' arms, for the man he loved to tell him that everything was going to be alright the way he had so many times before.
Because, though he was the source of Remus' suffering, of James and Lily’s demise, he couldn’t help but love Sirius. It was something that was painful to admit, something that he knew he might never be able to say aloud, something that made him feel gross and shameful.
But the simple fact was this: Remus still loved Sirius because he didn’t know how not to love him, how not to miss him, no matter how much his insides riled against it.
Because he did miss him. Deeply.
For many years, there would not be a night that he didn’t dream of Sirius, that he didn’t reach out blindly in the bed they once shared in search of a familiar warmth, that he did not look up at the night sky and search for its brightest star. Nor a full moon where the Wolf did not look for its companion, when it did not howl in anguish at the loss of its pack.
He would wonder for years to come how he could feel this way. How he could miss the man who’d done so many horrible things, who’d betrayed his own best friend and murdered another with his own hand. It made him sick to even consider those feelings, hating himself for every second he spent dwelling on Sirius, knowing all that had happened.
He would wonder if Sirius had ever loved him at all, if anything was true of the man he gave every piece of himself to. He would wonder if that love was what caused Sirius to leave him alive when the others had died so cruelly, or if this act of supposed mercy was born of something more sadistic.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
But, if it had been love that Sirius had felt for him—the love Remus had been more sure of than anything else, even as they watched the world fall apart around them—there was no trace left of it now.
Rather, with that love gone, Remus was left with nothing but silence and an empty flat, the echoes of broken and tainted memories curled into every crevice and corner.
He could still feel the echoes of it now: the laughter, the shouting, the kisses pressed carelessly against mouths, the evenings spent swaying in the kitchen as forgotten dinner sat cold on the table. It’d been so long since the walls had seen anything but sorrow, but despair and regret. It’d been just as long since he’d last placed a record on the player, the ones he couldn’t bring himself to touch even now, not allowing even Mary to move them when she’d come to help clear away Sirius' things in the weeks or months that followed that night.
Even with his belongings gone—with his leather jacket missing from the hook by the door, his combat boots no longer strewn haphazardly about the living room—Remus could still feel every inch of the space Sirius had once taken up in his life. Remus could swear he felt the weight of him on the sofa late at night, smell the scent of motor oil that clung to his clothes and fingertips, hear his soft humming as he tinkered away on his motorbike.
His presence infiltrated Remus' life now as much as it had when they were fifteen and falling in love. Only now, the things that had once brought him such deep contentment carried the kind of pain that burrowed itself into your bones, your lungs, and refused to let go.
He was more lonely—more miserable—than he’d ever remembered being. Those formative years spent with his parents, though companionless, were ones spent in ignorance, the life of a sad and naive boy with no knowledge of the love that was to come in his life. But now, Remus had been given a taste, had for years taken advantage of the love and comfort given to him so freely by his friends only for it to vanish so suddenly.
Before, he hadn’t ached because he didn’t know that there was something more, but now that he’d seen it—had become so intimately familiar with it—Remus ached for companionship like a missing limb. Living without it—without them—felt as if all of the color in the world had been ripped away from him, the songs he loved deaf to his ears. It felt as if he couldn’t breathe, as if, each time he sucked in a breath, he could only take in enough to keep him alive, but not enough to stave off the burn of suffocation.
In the time since, Remus had tried and failed to find reprieve in the company of others, hoping that they might bring him one step closer to forgetting, to moving on. It worked, in the few moments where he could close his eyes and forget anything other than his most banal needs. But when the haze of pleasure faded, every encounter ended the same way: with Remus on the floor of the flat he’d once shared with the man he loved, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a cigarette in the other as his body shook with sobs, the image of Sirius Black imprinted behind his eyelids—forever mocking him for his foolishness, forever reminding him of the ache in his chest that refused to fade.
It was in those moments that Remus allowed himself to miss him. It was in those moments where all the sickening thoughts he’d had about Sirius would bubble up with no hope of suppressing them: the smell of his skin, the way it had felt to peel their tangled bodies apart on most mornings, the way Sirius’ lips had felt against his neck—against the shell of his ear.
It was in those moments where he allowed himself to mourn.
§§
It had been almost twelve years now since he’d lost them, and not for a moment had it become easier. With each day that passed came the fear of forgetting—forgetting the good alongside the bad, forgetting the faces of those he loved to be reminded only by the photographs he kept in a box under his bed.
Now, in his hand, Remus held a letter addressed to him in delicate script—one that had been sent to him by a too-familiar owl, the sight of which was enough to send him spiraling—to remind him of missions assigned, of people lost. The contents of it, however, were much worse.
Sirius had escaped Azkaban, and, after twelve years alone, Remus had received a summons from Dumbledore—a job offer of sorts. The old man was afraid that Sirius would come after Harry, to try and finish what he put into motion that Halloween night so long ago.
Remus had scarcely spoken to Dumbledore since the funerals, having ignored his feigned attempts at condolences in favor of detaching himself from the Wizarding World almost entirely. He didn’t need Dumbledore’s empty words; so much of what had happened during the war was his fault, after all.
Instead, Remus had locked himself away, wrapping himself in the comfort of the ordinary. He took jobs in the muggle world, packing boxes, serving in restaurants—all mind-numbing tasks that had the power to make him forget himself. He wasn’t a bad employee, but companies often got tired of all the time he’d take off each month, so he’d never been able to keep the same job for longer than a year. It was hard, but inevitable. It wasn't as he could find a job in the Wizarding World anyway; no one wanted to hire a werewolf for any backwater job, let alone have any sort of reputable career.
And now, Dumbledore wanted him back, wanted him to come teach at Hogwarts, not because of any skill or knowledge that Remus has, but in order to both protect Harry—and out of some sick sense that Sirius might still care enough about him to want to seek him out.
The latter of which, he truly doubted.
Remus flicked his cigarette over the ashtray he had set on the table and took a drag from it. He tried to imagine what Harry would be like now, the boy now a teenager, older than James had been when Remus had met him. He wondered if he were anything like his parents, if he had James’ hair or Lily’s kindness. Though the idea of James and Lily living on through their son sounded like a good one, Remus wasn’t sure he could handle walking into a room and hearing a laugh that sounded so much like James’ that he had to stop and look, seeing eyes so green and kind that he had to swallow back his tears.
A professor, Remus thought, a gruff laugh bubbling up in his throat.
Sirius had always told him he’d make a great teacher, had told him time and time again that, once the war was over, he should see Dumbledore about a job.
He thought back to the hours he’d spent, pouring over coursework with Peter or James, trying to help them understand Goblin Rebellions and the principles of Gamp’s law of elemental transfiguration. As frustrating as it had been at the time, some part of Remus missed what it had felt like to teach. He missed the rush he got when, after hours of explaining the same concept in different manners, they finally understood.
Now, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to walk through the halls of Hogwarts after all these years, truly alone for the very first time. He wasn’t sure if he could weather another full moon in the Shrieking Shack, greeted by no one but cold air and the creaking of the floorboards when he came to in the morning. He wasn’t sure if he could step foot in a dorm room or classroom without thinking of shared cigarettes, of notes passed, of gentle caresses, and unrestrained laughter.
Most of all, he couldn’t imagine what would happen when he saw Sirius again.
Would he scream, letting out all of the rage that had built up inside him over the past twelve years? Would he hit him, curse him, for what he’d done to James, Lily, and Peter—for what he’d done to Remus himself?
Would he be able to move at all—say anything at all?
The truth was, Remus was scared, the fear in his chest for once louder than his grief.
He wasn’t sure if he could handle any of it, but he wasn’t sure he had a choice. In the letter, Dumbledore had made himself very clear: this was Remus’ decision to make, but when he thought about it, it wasn’t very much of a decision at all.
He had to go back, had to protect what was left of his friends from the man he had given everything to, had loved with every fibre of his being.
He couldn’t say no, and Dumbledore knew that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked at all.
He had failed to stop Sirius twelve years ago, and look what that had cost him.
He wouldn’t fail again—he couldn’t.
Even if it broke him. Even if it meant killing the person he loved most in the world.