Unhealthily Hopeful
As Mrs. Potter had predicted, Sirius regained his strength almost completely after just a few days. His emotions were still hatefully erratic, but most often he was just overcome with giddy fits every time he realized he was truly staying with the Potters. Darker feelings rattled around his mind sometimes too, particularly at night, but he did his best to avoid those.
Once Sirius was pronounced sufficiently healed, he and James were, finally, finally, allowed to ask Remus and Peter over. Both of the other boys had been updated (through letters from James) about Sirius’ situation, but they were both eager to see him for themselves. Sirius hoped they were at least, based on their pleading to let them visit before term started.
On his part, Sirius was equally dreading and eagerly anticipating seeing his friends again. It had only been a few months, but it had felt like a very long time and so much had happened. He worried they would fuss over him and even more so that they’d want to hear about everything that had happened. He didn’t like thinking about it.
On the other hand, all he’d wanted through his whole dark summer was to see his friends again, and he was amazed and delighted that it would finally be happening. James was wonderful, but it would feel good to have them all together again.
Five minutes before Remus and Peter were supposed to be flooing in, Sirius was still doing his best to look as healthy and happy as possible. If he maybe wanted to look good too, well who didn’t? That didn’t keep James from teasing him.
“Mate, we’re not even leaving the house. You don’t need to fix your hair for what, the fifth time?”
Sirius sighed. “It’s just such an ugly length right now.”
“It’s the same as mine.”
“Precisely.”
With an indignant “ugh!” James smacked his shoulder. It was gentler than James usually was, but Sirius still felt just a little spike of terror. Furiously reminding himself to be normal, he pounced on James, wrestling until voices started calling for them from downstairs.
They both jumped up immediately, Sirius took a second to straighten his clothes and hair one last time, and they ran to the living room.
Remus and Peter were both standing in front of the fireplace, dusted in ash. Remus had a new scar on his neck, nothing big, and Peter was sunburned to the point of peeling, but overall they looked alive and well and real, and Sirius, despite knowing they’d both had perfectly fine summers, had never been more relieved.
“Moony! Wormy! Welcome back to my palace.” James shouted and flung himself onto both of them at once.
Sirius hung back a little, not entirely sure what to do now that he was actually seeing them. What would they say? How would they treat him, now that he also had some scars, both physical and not? Since he’d left Grimmauld Place, he’d been desperately wanting everything to be normal, but no matter how hard he tried it just wasn’t.
Remus escaped James first, smiling gently as he moved towards Sirius. He stopped suddenly, asking “how healed are you?”
“Fully!” Sirius assured, though he knew it was a bit of a lie.
Remus hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry I never got the chance to fucking destroy them.” He murmured, slightly muffled against Sirius’ shoulder. “I had a special knife all picked out.”
Sirius laughed a little. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I hate that I worried everyone so much anyway. I’m so sorry.”
Letting go of him to shake his head ferociously, Remus said “No. You have nothing to apologize for. We all knew what might happen and we let you go there anyway, and-”
“Moons, I’m okay now.” It was more true than it had been all summer, likely all of his life.
“I know. I’m glad. Regulus said you had quite the escape; I’m very proud of you.”
“Reg?” Sirius asked, surprised. He hadn’t heard from his brother at all in the five days since he’d left. He knew it was to keep him safe.
Remus nodded. “Didn’t he write to us all? He said he didn’t know if you were with me, but he told me you had managed to get out, and that he was pretty sure you’d be alright. He doesn’t want to know where you are, but he hopes you’re feeling better.”
“Oh. That’s good.” Was all Sirius could say. Regulus had saved him, and he’d done nothing for him in return.
“He didn’t write to James?”
“No.”
Remus shrugged and smiled at him again. Then he was chuckling. “You look like James now.”
“A great improvement, isn’t it?” James chimed in.
Peter offered an akward little wave to Sirius, and he beamed back while they all chattered. It was so good to have them there.
They had a wonderful day. They played quidditch until it started raining too hard and then went in to eat as only active teenagers can. Mrs. Potter eventually had to confiscate their cards after too many rounds of exploding snap had nearly burned down the house, so they switched to rather childish games of hide and seek and tag that involved a lot more tackling than anything else.
No one asked too many questions. There were a few “Alright, mate?”s from James, which Sirius appreciated even if it made him feel like an invalid, and Peter had a few rather insensitive curiosities, but even those were rare. Remus just watched him, smiling more than was usually necessary. Mostly, it was the same as it always had been.
That night they all settled onto the floor of James’ room, despite the many spare bedrooms of Potter Manor. It was comfortable and peaceful, but Sirius still found it hard to fall asleep. The dark made it impossible to escape his own thoughts, and the guilt he’d been vaguely feeling all day only got worse and worse the longer he thought about Regulus.
Besides that, he kept imagining he felt, like he did every night, little bursts of the same blood-burning pain he’d endured under his father’s curse. He hoped it was imagination at least, he hated the idea that something could still be physically wrong inside of him.
The others had all gone quiet at least an hour before. After the sixth bout of searing pain and once again imagining the marks on both of his brother’s arms, Sirius decided to find light. He got up quietly, untangling himself from the blanket he was sharing with James, and slipped through the door, headed towards what had been deigned his own room.
A few steps down the hallway, he heard James’ door open again, and Remus silently slipped through. It was always disconcerting how very little noise his feet could make.
“Sorry Moons, did I wake you up?” Sirius whispered.
Remus shook his head. “Want company?”
“Of course.”
They settled onto a pile of blankets on his floor, with the bright magical light filling the whole room and making Sirius feel more sane.
“I hate to sound like James, but are you alright?” Remus asked once they were comfortable.
“Yeah, just hard to sleep sometimes.”
“I’m sure the Potters have sleeping potions in their cabinet.”
“I don’t want to need them.”
“I understand.” Remus assured. Of course he did; Sirius felt so ridiculous. He’d had one bad night, at least unusually bad, and he couldn’t even handle that. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to handle being a werewolf, sure that Remus was ten times stronger than he ever could be. He settled deeper into the blankets.
“They were talking about you the night I got disowned, you know.”
Remus’ eyes got wide. “Who?”
“My family.”
“What were they saying?” He was fidgeting.
“They don’t know you’re a werewolf I don’t think. Reg does, but he promised they won’t.”
“Oh. I knew that he knows.” He sounded very relieved, and Sirius realized that had definitely been the wrong way to start it. “What were they saying then?”
“I’m not very sure. They said you were infected, which I assumed… but Reg said it wasn’t that. Mother said you were one of Xenophilius’ crowd, and Reg agreed.”
Remus blinked at him for a few seconds. “Oh.” He said again, sounding like he had a cough.
“Do you know what they meant?”
“No.” He said quickly. “I know Xenophilius, but we’re not even friends really.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Everything they say is shite.” Sirius said bitterly. Whatever they’d been saying, it had obviously been an insult, and there was no one in the world less deserving of insult than Remus. Besides maybe James’ parents.
Remus nodded slightly, staring at the wall. “Did Regulus tell you anything else about Xenophilius once you knew they were friends?”
“Not much. He didn’t think he’d be happy about his engagement, and I have reason to believe they’re not friends anymore.”
“That’s a shame. They seemed… good for each other.”
“Merlin, Moony. How much have you been hanging around with them?” Sirius asked, glad for the chance at a happier subject.
“Not a lot.” Remus said, shrugging. “We’ve studied a few times.”
“Boring.”
“Some of us like studying.”
“Boring.”
Remus laughed loudly, and Sirius was strangely grateful he was still alive to hear it.
“I take it you haven’t done your essay?”
Sirius snorted. “Of course not. I refuse to do school away from school.”
“And the werewolf project?”
“Obviously much more important. Reg even packed the chocolate in my bag.”
Remus beamed and, a little like a toddler, grabbed at the air with his hands.
Sirius rummaged through his bag. “If you insist.” He sighed dramatically, handing Remus bar after bar of chocolate.
“Merlin, Sirius. I can’t take all this; I’ll never run out.”
“It’s for school Moony.” Sirius insisted, giving his best glare.
Remus sighed, grinning at his stack. He picked one up then, giving it a funny look.
“This one’s written on.” He muttered, looking fixedly at the wall again.
“Hm?” Sirius wondered, squinting at the bar Remus handed over. True enough, in black ink nearly the same shade as the dark wrappings, was Regulus’ neat cursive.
For full moon moping
“From Reg?” Remus asked quietly.
Sirius nodded.
“What’s it mean?”
Sirius smiled. It was slightly embarrassing sure, but he didn’t think Remus would mind. He already knew full moons were hard for them too, when they couldn’t be there to help.
“I miss you on full moons sometimes. Eating things you like makes it feel more like I’m with you, and you always especially love chocolate near the transformations. Really it just means I’ve been eating your chocolate, so I’m sorry.” He laughed.
“No, that’s… That’s very sweet Sirius.” Remus stuttered. He was staring again and Sirius felt jittery under the gaze.
“You’re nicer than Reg; he was laughing at me. I think it was only because I’d been sort of laughing at him too, for eating salted oranges all pathetically when Xenophilius wrote him.” Honestly, Sirius was extremely touched Regulus had remembered and packed it, even if it was just to tease him.
“He thought it was the same thing?” Remus was being very strange. He hadn’t blinked in quite a while, and he was breathing differently. It reminded Sirius a bit of his fever dreams. He was very likely nervous, Sirius decided, knowing how casually Regulus discussed his lycanthropy.
“Yeah. Isn’t it? I really don’t think he’ll tell anyone else about your furry little problem though Moons, sorry if it bothered you.”
Remus finally blinked a few times, not looking away. “No, it’s really fine. Like I said, I knew he knows. I don’t mind.”
“Good.” The jitteriness continued. “You’ll have to let me borrow some of that at school so I can turn in the project.”
Remus slid the pile closer, giggling and looking more like his usual self again. “Or you could actually do the project properly.”
“You should know by now that I never do anything properly. I’m surprised you haven’t given up hope in my education completely.”
Remus glanced back down at him, smiling almost sadly. “I’m an unhealthily hopeful person.” He murmured.
It was the last time, for months, that Remus looked him in the eyes.