Mutualism
While the growing crowd watched the arrest, Maple kept her attention on her patient. He was pale, his pupils dilated and hands shaky. He was exhausted, but more than that. She doubted he'd ever admit it, but there was no question Mr. Black was terrified.
He held his own until Ms. Smallwood led Healer Abbott away to the Floo bank, and then he sagged against Mr. Lupin's shoulder.
“Let's get you back to your room, hm?” Mr. Lupin said, looping an arm around him.
“How much magic did you use?” Healer Zheng demanded. She crooked a finger at a wheelchair, which zipped toward them. “You know you weren't to cast anything—”
Sirius growled. He shifted against Remus's side, pointedly ignoring the wheelchair that nudged at his knee. “Forgive me if I was a bit busy getting my memories shot down like skeet by your little friend.”
“Sit.” Much to her surprise, he actually listened and—going back to bad habits—plopped himself in the wheelchair. But for now, she would pick the battles she could win. Maple held out her hand. “Wand, Mr. Black.”
“Don't know why you want it,” he said as he held Healer Abbott’s wand out for her to take. “I won it, fair and square. It won't answer to him anymore.”
“I'm not returning it to him; I'm taking it from you. I don't want you using magic until you're fit for release.”
Mr. Black beat her to the analogy she'd used several times during his stay. “It's like a balloon, it needs to be filled and released and exercised to increase its capacity, yeah. I know.”
Contrary fool. Maple beckoned an attendant to take him to his room.
“Examination, supper, bed,” she ordered. “Guests after. He's back on standing assistance until I'm satisfied he's stable. One word, Mr. Black,” she cut across him before he could protest, “and I'll revoke visitor privilege, too.”
Mr. Black shut his mouth with a snap. As the attendant wheeled him away, she turned at last to Mr. Lupin. She guided him to a seating area. Though the couches and chairs were designed for comfort, he perched on his as if it were made of razors.
“I don't say this often, but thank you,” she said to the taller man, seating herself across from him. “For all your assistance today and for coming.”
“Glad to be of help.”
Though his tone was pleasant, his eyes kept darting toward the corridor to Mr. Black's room. Maple patted his hand softly.
“I know you're worried for your friend,” she said. “I'm sorry I didn't realize what Healer Abbott was planning before it got that far, but Mr. Black will be well taken care of. I’m sure we’ll have an easier time of it, in fact, now that you’re here.”
Mr. Lupin's head cocked to one side, and he considered her carefully. At least she had his attention now. “I'm not sure I understand.”
“We may need to postpone it for a little while–I want to be sure Healer Abbott didn’t set our progress back too far–but I believe having you around would be good for Mr. Black. I would like you, if you’re able, to stay here with him.”
Mr. Lupin opened his mouth, worked it silently for a moment, and closed it again. He tried it twice more before, finally, he settled on, “I can’t. I’d love to, but I can’t. I spent every knut I had to get back here in the first place.”
“I thought you might say so,” Maple said, “but I believe I have a solution. Am I correct in assuming you’re familiar with the work of Healer Singh on the first floor?”
Mr. Lupin’s eyes went wide, his gaze darting about to be sure nobody had heard her words or the implication underneath them. “I’m not–” he started, and she raised a hand.
“You can identify charms and spells by scent. You’re Mr. Black’s age, but you look like you could be almost a decade his senior. Healer Rajan Singh’s specialty is niche enough that you would not have known their name unless you were already a patient of theirs. You timed this visit as near to the new moon as you could to allow maximum time for healing before your arrival and to give you ample time to get back to a safe location before your next change. I may not work with your kind often, but I know the signs; I would thank you to not insult me.”
Mr. Lupin, thankfully, didn’t argue with her observations. He ducked his head sheepishly and said only, “Most don’t take it well.”
“I understand that,” Maple said, “but you have nothing to worry about here. My concern is Mr. Black, not your particular ailments. As I’m sure you can understand, he’s something of a unique case. After the fall of You-Know-Who, we've experimented with dozens of treatments for grief and trauma, with varying degrees of success. Abbott, whom you had the displeasure of meeting, probably had the best methods of dealing with a single, isolated traumatic event.
“However, we've yet to find a way to reliably address sustained, long-term damage of the kind Mr. Black exhibits. We can't release him—certainly can't give him a wand—until we know he's not going to curse some poor sod to ashes just for saying the Potters' names.”
Remus's gaze drifted away down the corridor to Mr. Black’'s room. “How can I help?”
“He needs space to mourn, Mr. Lupin. Ideally, with someone who can relate to the depths of his loss. I’d like you to stay on, if you can, talk to him, help him process some of what he’s experiencing. In return, I believe I have a mutually-beneficial arrangement for you, a way to fund your stay in London.”
Mr. Lupin let out a short sigh and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He looked as exhausted as Maple felt, like he had lead weights in his bones. “I’d love to help him, but I don’t–” He paused, turned the words in his mouth, and said instead, “People like me, there are laws against working in places like this. Or most places.”
“Yes, but this wouldn’t be a job, per se.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Healer Singh has been working with a potioneer by the name of Damocles Belby. Are you familiar with his work?”
Something like hope lit Mr. Lupin’s face, and Maple took it for a confirmation.
“It’s ready for testing,” she said. "If it shows promise, possibly even distribution. I can put in a word for you and see if there’s room for one more in the study.”
The attendant who had taken Sirius off to his room emerged from down the hallway, and Mr. Lupin whipped about in his chair to look. Knee bouncing, he forced himself to stay in his seat. “I'll do it if you can get me into that trial,” he said at last.
Maple nodded. “I’ll reach out to them and let you know what I find out.”
With an appreciative nod, Mr. Lupin stood and strode away to finally go visit his friend.
~ ~ ~
By the time Remus was allowed in to see him, Sirius was already in bed. He poked idly at his dessert—some sort of lumpy bread pudding—without looking up.
“I'm eating it,” he grumbled, shoving another spoonful of the stuff in his mouth. He grimaced like he'd eaten an old sock and dug his spoon in for another bite. “So you can quit hovering.”
“What do you think, Padfoot? Is it as bad as the Animagus potion?”
Sirius's head shot up, and he shoved the bed-tray out of his way. Remus had expected him to bound up like an overgrown puppy, but instead he paused with his feet over the side of the bed and gave a small bounce.
“Thank Merlin,” he breathed, hopping to his feet. “They forgot to reactivate the alerts.”
“Alerts?”
Sirius waved it off like a zealous gnat. “To tell them if I stand up without an assist. Honestly. Half the Wizarding world still thinks I can blow up an entire Muggle block, and these people won't even let me take a piss on my own.”
“Well, I'm not so sure they're wrong, Pads. I've seen you when you're drunk.”
He laughed, and the familiar bark of it loosened something in Remus's chest. Even with his hair longer and his shoulders not quite as broad, no matter how long they'd been apart, despite what he'd been through, Sirius was still Sirius.
“Well, are you going to come in?” he asked.
Remus edged away from the door and let it swing shut behind him, but neither of them took another step to bridge the scant meters between them. This was supposed to be so easy, like magnets snapping together. Instead it was Peter Pan and his shadow, two parts of a whole that couldn't manage to meld the way they should.
“It wasn't me, Moony,” Sirius said, the words thick.
“So I read.” Remus swallowed against the choking lump in his throat. “You switched. Why didn't you ever say anything?”
Sirius's silence was answer enough, hanging in the air like a sour note. He couldn't even bring himself to meet Remus's gaze, focusing instead on plucking at his hospital ID bracelet.
“Because you thought it was me.”
Again, that awful, smothering silence. At last, not looking up from the tag around his wrist, he gave a shallow nod.
Sirius sucked in a shaky breath. “Moony, I'm sorry,” he said, the word so quick and quiet that Remus almost didn't catch them. “I am so sorry, I—”
And then the distance between them disappeared. Remus crushed Sirius to his chest, arms wrapped tight around his trembling shoulders. It was impossible to know whose knees gave out first, only that they ended on the floor as Sirius let go of all the tears and grief he had been holding in for Merlin knew how long. Over a year, and nobody had ever done this for him.
As the first mirroring burn began in Remus's eyes, it occurred to him that he hadn't had anyone to mourn with, either. But here, at last, they could both fall apart together.