After The Prank, Remus thinks he will never speak again.
He lies awake for the four nights after, in his bed, and listens to the breathing of the three other boys in the room with him. The two boys and one stranger who he doesn't know anymore. A stranger sleeping soundly, while he stares at his red curtains and seethes.
Remus had not known anger before. He had known temperamental blow-outs, sweeping storms, raging blizzards, that had him reeling for a few hours at most. This was nothing like that. This time, he would not forgive Sirius Black what he had done.
He was always forgiving Sirius. He hungered for it, really, that back and forth they had, where Sirius snaps at him and he snaps back and later, in the common room, Sirius would lean against him and everything would be okay again. He wanted the touch of his hand, his grin, his strong, silver eyes on him. Only on him. It was pathetic.
When he was tense with the pull of the moon, when it had his bones crawling beneath his bruised skin, Sirius' pure beautiful fucking force grounded him back to the world.
Never again.
For the first few days, James and Peter had begged Remus to talk. They, at least, had tried to prevent what had happened, he knew that, but James and Peter did not come without Sirius. They had begged him to just listen to Sirius, to hear him out, and Remus had charmed his curtains shut so that none of them could peer at him with those wide, worried eyes.
He knows exactly what is expected of him. He was rational Remus, forgiving Remus, bookish Remus, the Remus who folds when Sirius smiles and does anything Sirius wants. Remus thinks that was true, once. He would have.
When he did finally speak, a week after that awful Full Moon, it was an accident. Lily had asked him how many times their tattered Advanced Potion Making book told them to stir the cauldron, and he had replied with a hoarse, "Five times, anti-clockwise."
Even though she had asked the question, Lily stares at him in surprise for a few long seconds, like she hadn't expected an answer. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see James, Peter, and Sirius looking at him too, and his grip tightens on the handle of the sharp knife he is using to chop the squill bulbs.
The next day, as the Gryffindors wait outside History of Magic for Professor Binns to arrive, a pair of polished shoes appear in front of Remus. Remus' raises his gaze to find Sirius Black standing in front of him.
The hot, blazing spike of fury unfurled in his gut again, like a flame, and Remus really does want to scream at him to just fuck off, wants to cry, wants to run. It's all instinct, when it comes to Sirius.
"I'm sorry." Sirius says, and he's so very quiet, so very un-Sirius. His face is much paler, his bright grey eyes duller than glazed glass, but of course he's still beautiful. Remus wonders if he hasn't been sleeping either, even though he's not supposed to care anymore. Behind Sirius, James and Peter stand, watching tentatively from a safe distance. "Moony. What can I do?"
Remus fixes his gaze on the silver suits of armour glinting against the walls, and tightens his grip on the strap of his brown satchel, trying to swallow the rage back down before he explodes in front of their whole class.
"How am I supposed to apologize if you don't listen to me?" Sirius is staring at him, his voice trembling and on the very edge of desperate. "You can't just shut me out."
"I don't think you're in a position to tell me what I can and can't do." Remus snaps, and then immediately presses his lips together. That's the first time he's spoken to Sirius since. The first thing he's said.
Sirius' jaw clenches, jamming tight, and he rakes a hand through his hair, knuckles white. "I miss you so much it fucking hurts." He says, "I really can't stand it."
For the first time, Remus looks him in the eyes, without pretense, without flushing, without blinking, and he tells him in the coldest voice he can push through gritted teeth--
"I don't fucking care."
*
Three weeks pass by, and Remus falls into studying. He finishes his set essays and charts, he reads even further ahead, he commits to the library like a ritual, like a morning and evening prayer. When he trudges back to the dorm late at night, the room falls silent until he climbs into bed and shuts his curtains. He still doesn't talk much to anyone apart from Lily.
Once, he sees Snape in the corridor outside Potions, but the boy only lowers his head and walks on. Remus is glad.
Lily doesn't ask him what happened between him and the Marauders, and Remus is just as fucking thankful for that. He wouldn't know how to explain that to her without telling her about being a bloodthirsty werewolf, and he spends more time not trying to think about what happened than anything else.
If he had the guts to Obliviate himself, he thinks he might, he'd get rid of it all: every memory left of Sirius fucking Black. He'd be gone in an instant.
What would be the truth? He thinks while trying to sleep, what would I confess if I could?
I'm a werewolf. I am angry all the time. I don't think I fancy girls. I'm in love with someone who could have killed me. I'm in love with someone who would have made me a killer.
The Full Moon leers its ugly, shining head, and Remus wishes he could burrow under his sheets. He would, on any other night like this, but he can't bear being in the dorm room any longer than he needs to. On the day before the Full Moon, he drags himself out of bed, feeling like he might just collapse on the spot.
As always, Remus walks with the weight of the moon on his back today. When he eats his breakfast, jam and toast, he can taste metallic blood on the back of his tongue like a ghost of what is to come. When he tries to listen to McGonagall talk about vanishing spells, something whispers to him, calls, sinks deep into his chest and scratches away, hollows him out.
This will be his first Full Moon without the Marauders' animagi forms in a year. And it is going to hurt. He sits, stewing in that knowledge, miserable.
James had offered, of course. Kind, wonderful James, who had stopped him a few days ago and told him that they all still wanted to be there, all still wanted to help him through his transformations.
"I just can't." Remus had said. "Never again."
*
In Remus' last lesson of the day, Charms, he finds that he couldn't breathe. He knows it is the moon, the reason why his chest is tight enough to burst, why his throat is constricting. It's like he's twelve again. His control has slipped free. He excuses himself as fast as he can and paces out into the cold corridor.
In the prefect bathroom, Remus bends over the sink and stares at the chipped tiles, the green moss growing between the white porcelain cracks, and struggles to push down the bile rising up his throat. He pushes his stiff shirt sleeves up to his elbows and splashes freezing water at his face, wishing he could numb his throbbing pulse.
Sighing, Remus glances up at the steamed mirror, and it rises like a wave, shimmering. He waits for the crash that never comes.
Instead, in the hazy reflection, he catches a flicker of movement over his shoulder. Remus straightens, and twists his head to look.
Sirius stands there, by the back wall, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He is biting at his lip, and Remus has noticed, in the few moments he's allowed himself to stare, that it's a habit he's picked up only recently. It has left his mouth red and swollen. Sharp, Sirius' eyes are trained on him, pinned, like Remus is some sort of curious creature he's trapped beneath a magnifying glass.
His eyes make Remus' want to squirm. They make him want to yell.
"What are you doing here, Sirius?" Remus asks with a voice built from stone.
"Moony--" Sirius begins, carefully.
"Don't fucking call me that." Remus turns around to face him properly, and he feels so sick, but his fury is more important right now. His fury wants to speak. "What are you doing in here?"
"I followed you." Sirius says as if it's all very simple. "You didn't look-- you looked ill."
Remus levels him with a derisive look. "Did I?"
The swallow of Sirius' throat is distracting. Everything about him is distracting. His dark, curling hair, his clear eyes, his skin, his wrists, his collarbone slipping out from the open neck of his shirt. Remus hates him. He aches with hating him.
"Maybe you should go back to the dorm." Sirius edges nearer. "The full moon is tomorrow."
And suddenly, Remus no longer holds the reins and his fury goes dashing off, all bark and bite and gnashing teeth.
"Give it a fucking rest!" Remus hisses at him, ablaze with it all, exhausted and pulled to pieces by the moon. "You don't care if I'm ill. You don't give a shit, you're just desperate for me to say that you're a good person." He laughs and he knows it sounds unhinged. "That's the only reason you want me to forgive you!"
"That's not true." says Sirius, and he looks even whiter than before. "Remus. I care. I care more than anyone."
"No, you don't. You're obssessed with not being a Big Bad fucking Black." Remus takes one step closer, then another, and he wants to be cruel, so he is. "But guess what, Sirius? I'm not going to tell you that you're nothing like your mother this time."
Sirius flinches. "Don't. Don't bring my family into this."
"God forbid I upset Sirius Orion Black. I might get flogged."
"Please." Sirius is staring at him, quick gray eyes wide and wild as the moon itself, so maybe that's why Remus feels like screaming at him. Maybe that's why Remus wants to cry. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to show you. I'm so sorry."
"You can't." Remus closes his eyes, briefly. "I know exactly how you see me now. I will always be a werewolf to you."
"Do you really believe that?" Sirius asks, and when Remus doesn't say anything, he threads his hands through his hair, tugging at the dark roots. "Listen to me. Please. I'm sorry. I was a fucking stupid bastard. I was reckless and idiotic and selfish but I never meant to hurt you. Ever."
"Funny fucking joke."
Remus has had enough. He doesn't know where he'll go, the library, the lake, a broom cupboard, but it has to be away from Sirius. He shakes his head and strides for the door.
"You're my friend!" Sirius chokes on the words, and he catches Remus' arm before he can disappear, clinging on. "I can't fucking-- I can't go on like this knowing you hate me because of Severus fucking Snape--"
"I could have killed him!" Remus yells, louder than he's shouted ever, in his life. He slams his palm against Sirius' shoulder and he smacks back into the wall. "His blood would have been on my hands. And they would have put me down like a fucking dog!"
"Hit me." Sirius breathes, and he's gone very still now, not moving from where he's pinned.
"What?"
"Hit me." Sirius' trembling fingers clutch at his shirt, dragging him closer, and Remus stumbles against him, losing his footing. "Punch me, kick me. You want to. Do it."
Remus narrowed his eyes. This near to him, he can see Sirius' long eyelashes, his sharp nose, the curve of his cheekbone."I'm not hitting you, Sirius."
"Please, Moony." He says, and Remus realizes with a jolt that he's begging, gripping onto him and begging. "I won't-- I can't let you go until you do."
"Stop being fucking ridiculous."
"Please, you have to--"
Snarling, blinded, Remus pushes him back against the wall by his neck, fingers curling around the olive column of his throat. Sirius shuts up immediately, but his gaze has flooded all dark and grey clouds. His grasp of Remus' shirt tightens, twisting at the linen. Remus can feel the frantic flutter of his pulse.
When Sirius draws in a sharp breath, Remus kisses him.
He does it because he loves him. He does it because he wants to tear him to pieces. He is rough and prying, and he can feel Sirius gasp beneath him, lips parting, tongue hot. Sirius tastes like pumpkin juice. He sounds like he's falling apart. Remus' hand slips down from Sirius' throat to his hip, digging his nails through the fabric, fastening him in place.
In the second that he pulls back, he bites down on the spot between Sirius' shoulder and neck until he cries out, and he's beautiful. His own tongue runs over the red marks left behind, tasting him, the sweet salt of his skin. And Sirius is whining as if he's losing at something and shaking and yanking at his shirt, drawing Remus' head down so he can kiss him again, lick into his mouth.
It is only when Sirius whispers his name that Remus drags himself out of it.
No.
It is like breaking the surface of a lake after some time drowning in the dim depths. Light floods back in and Remus steps back, panting. His hand flies to his lips, heart sinking, down, down down.
It had been the wolf. He could feel it stirring in his gut again, hungry and angry, and oh, it really wants Sirius. It wants Sirius more than anything.
"Moony." Sirius says, and he looks almost drunk as he reaches out, breathing just as hard.
Remus turns on his heel and runs from the bathroom.
*
Of course, Remus had been right. The transformation had been fucking hell. It was like the wolf knew.
When he wakes the next morning, he throws up onto the rotting floorboards of the Shrieking Shack. Shaking, he can feel the new rips and tears stretching across his arms, slick with blood. He wants so badly to sleep, and when a fretting Madam Pomfrey ushers him up to the hospital wing, he passes out in one of the beds.
He isn't sure how long he had been out. He resurfaces from a dreamless darkness to the sound of low, terse voices.
"I'm afraid I cannot permit you entrance."
"Why the hell not?"
"Mr Lupin is sleeping--"
"I just want to see him!" It's Sirius. Of course it is Sirius. He can't even leave Remus alone when he is half dead with exhaustion. Why would he even want to see him after--
"I would suggest that you leave, Mr Black." Madam Pomfrey says, and there is an unfamiliar hardness to her tone. "Before I call Professor McGonagall to remove you."
There's a tense pause, and then a long sigh.
"Fine." Sirius spits out, like the word is poisonous. Remus listens to his fading footsteps, drifting back in a warm sleep.
*
Someone is watching him. Remus can feel eyes burning into him in every lesson, and he knows who they belong to.
When he had dragged himself back to the dorm after the full moon, Sirius and James had been sitting on their beds, deep in a quiet conversation. Remus ignores them both and pulls his jumper up over his head. As he leans to rifle through his trunk for his pajamas, he hears Sirius' sharp inhale, but he doesn't raise his head.
"Was it bad?" James asks into the silence that follows. Remus knows they have seen the bandages wrapping the length of his arms and he straightens, clutching his clothes to his chest.
"Yes." He says, and walks to the bathroom to change.
After that, Sirius had not stopped watching him. The teachers snap at him in lessons, the Slytherin's snicker at him, but his gaze still will not stray far from Remus. Remus struggles not to stupefy him whenever he catches a glimpse of his eyes, always staring.
He wonders if Sirius hates him now. He should have never kissed him.
Remus and Lily work in the library most days of the week, but on Thursday, it's Mary's birthday and she disappears off to celebrate. She had invited him, but he's tired and he doesn't really want to see anyone.
The clock is ticking closer to nine in the evening when the chair across from Remus is pulled back and someone sits down. Remus doesn't look up from his work, because he knows exactly who it is. He knows the smell of him, leather, earth, mint, the shape of his hands, the clean cut of his nails.
"Remus." Sirius says. "We need to-- can we talk?"
Remus scribbles out a wrong answer on his Transfiguration homework so hard that his quill breaks through the parchment. His heart is thumping in his chest, and he cannot stop thinking of Sirius in the prefect's bathroom, Sirius pinned back against the wall. He'd never lost control like that before.
Sirius sighs at his pointed silence. "I prefer it when you yell."
"Well, I've got nothing to say to you." Remus mutters, but he's staring at the same word on his scroll, not really reading it.
"Fine." Sirius snips, rather tersely, "Then can I say something?"
Again, Remus offers him no answer. He doesn't deserve answers. He writes the next sentence of his essay.
"You kissed me." Sirius says, and Remus flinches, closing his eyes. Fuck. He hadn’t wanted it to be said out loud. "I don't know why you did, but I think there's something I should tell you. I'm--" His voice shakes slightly. "I'm in love with you."
Remus' hand stills and he raises his chin to look at him.
"No." Remus replies, very, very quietly.
"No?"
"No, you're not in love with me."
Sirius blinks, mouth falling open. "What? Yes, I bloody am!"
Remus swallows, and something hard is lodged in his throat, his chest is stinging as he sets down his quill. "You don't love me. You just want me to forgive you."
"I do love you. I loved you before and I love you now." Sirius stares at him, cheeks flushing very pink as he leans further forwards across the table. "I love your jumpers and your voice and your laugh and I love your temper, even when it's inflicted on me." He chews at his lip, grey eyes darting across Remus' face. "It's nothing to do with forgiveness."
"You're being fucking cruel, Sirius Black." Remus snaps at him, and he jolts to his feet. He begins to pack up his stuff, cramming it all into his arms. "And you can fuck right off."
"I'm not lying, Moony."
Remus glares at him, fiercely. He knows his voice is rising: Madam Pince would have his head if she caught him. "You think just because I kissed you, you can pretend you want me and I'll roll over and tell you everything's fine. It's fucking disgusting!"
"That's not it at all--"
"Are you really that bloody determined to get what you want? You'd use any excuse, wouldn't you?"
"I couldn't tell you before, because I thought you'd hate me." says Sirius, and he's standing too now, his gaze wide. "But I've gone and solved that problem now, haven't I?"
Remus is already striding for the exit, biting at his tongue to stop from screaming, and of course, Sirius won't just piss off, but just hurries outside with him.
Once they've burst out into the corridor, Remus turns to him. The frosted windows have been thrown open and the air is bitter. "I know what you're trying to do, Sirius. I was always too transparent in my feelings for you and now you've finally decided to use it against me."
"Your-- your feelings for me--" begins Sirius, stammering, but Remus cuts him off.
"It doesn't matter anyway because it wasn't me." He says. "It was the wolf. I lost control."
"I-- I don't believe you." Sirius is still looking at him, but there's no other way to describe his expression apart from just upset. "I just thought, if you don't plan on ever speaking to me again anyway, you might as well know--"
"I swear to Merlin," Remus hisses at him, and he slips his wand out from the waistband of his trousers, letting it hang loose by his side. "I will hex you if you don't leave me alone."
"Remus." Sirius sighs. "I kissed you back."
Fingers tightening around his wand, Remus is seconds away from firing a spell at him, he can feel the magic singing through his blood, begging for an outlet.
But Sirius has fallen quiet, and he's walking away, and Remus knows he could never hex him when his back was turned.
*
"I was the one who told Rebecca Hickories that you were a monk last year."
Remus is curled up on a drafty windowsill on the fourth corridor with a book, an old classic by a Brontë sister that he's always loved. It's a Sunday, and he's feeling slow and sleepy, and he could just drift off right here if it wasn't for the selfish fucking idiot now standing to his left.
"What?" Remus says, and he really is exhausted, but he forces himself to look at Sirius. It's like he's being haunted. Sirius always knew where he was-- but he supposed that came with owning a magical map of Hogwarts.
"She wanted to ask you to Hogsmeade, so I told her you were celebate."
Remus remembers that rumour.
"Sirius--"
Sirius grins at him, albeit painfully, but Remus hates that he feels within his right to smile at him like that. "I couldn't bear the idea that you might like her. I had to get rid of her."
"This really isn't making me hate you any less." Remus turns another page of his book roughly.
"I know." Sirius says, softly, and the grin fades just as quickly as it arrived. "That's not why I'm telling you. I just want you to believe me."
"Go away." Hunching further down against the window pane, Remus doesn't want to meet his eyes. This whole thing is fucking painful, and he doesn't know why Sirius is insisting on it.
"I'm sorry for what I did, Moony. I'll always be sorry. And I'll leave." Sirius takes a step back. "But please don't think I'm just pretending to want you."
After he's gone, Remus stares out of the glass at the dark clouds collecting on the blue horizon, past the tall trees of the Forbidden Forest, the rising smoke of the groundskeeper's hut.
Remus knows Sirius is lying. Remus is just not the kind of person anyone would want. Not like that.
*
"You. Potter." Remus seizes James' collar as he passes him in the corridor. James yelps as Remus drags him into an empty alcove away from the crowd milling in the hall.
"Alright, Moony?" James says once Remus has let him go, eyeing him carefully as he brushes a speck of dust off his robes.
"Yes." Remus folds his arms across his chest. "I will be as soon as you tell your friend to stop harassing me."
"When you're referring to my friend," James begins, sceptically. "I don't suppose you mean our resident wet dog?"
"I mean Sirius fucking Black. Tell him to fuck off."
"Remus." sighs James, pinching at the bridge of his nose, and the sound of his actual name in his mouth is jarring. "He might be a dickhead, but he's trying to find the right way to say sorry."
"You might have fallen for his apologies, Prongs, but I haven't--"
"Hey!" James breaks through his angry tirade, loudly, his brown eyes flashing behind his glasses. "You don't know a thing about it. I'm furious at him, Moony. I haven't forgiven him for any of it. But he's still Sirius. He's my brother. He's my family. I can't pretend he doesn't exist."
"Fine." Remus says, "I don't care. As long as he cuts all this love crap."
James hesitates. "What?"
"He's saying he's in love with me." Remus falters slightly at the look on James' face. He had been half convinced that this had been another one of James' stupid ideas. "And it's not fucking funny."
To his surprise, James is now staring at him, intently. "You think he's lying."
"Obviously." Remus squints back at him, his heart squeezing painfully in his chest. "I'm not an idiot."
"Maybe you should just hear him out before you--"
"Piss off, Prongs." Remus huffs, and storms out of the alcove before he can open his mouth to excuse Sirius again. He's fucking done with all of it.
*
Because Remus isn't sleeping, he knows that Sirius isn't either. He had realised some time ago that he can't hear the familiar pattern of Sirius' breathing from his bed, or the occasional murmur from when he talked in his sleep.
In classes, James has to elbow Sirius awake. Sirius stares at the blackboard at the front of the room with blank, unseeing eyes, skin ashen. Remus wonders if he's having nightmares again. Before, when Sirius had a bad dream, he would climb into Remus' bed, wriggle silently under his blankets and curl into his side, as if he were Padfoot, seeking warmth.
Remus tries not to think about that.
*
It’s too early in the morning to work, but Remus has an essay about banishing for Charms due in two days that he knows he has to cram in around all his other studies. Hip twinging, he drags himself down the stairs at six, squinting into the blinding light streaming in through the window. He sits down at one of the tottering tables, most likely on its last legs from the number of times James had leapt up on it during a Gryffndor party, and begins to write.
The common room wakes up as the hours pass, sleepy first years huddled together and lazy fourth years sprawled across the sofas. Remus tries to ignore it all, but there’s a dull ache growing at the back of his skull.
His essay is nearly finished when a chipped green mug is placed on the table next to him. Steam rises from the brim, and he can smell his favourite cinnamon tea. Thank Merlin for Lily, he thinks as he reaches out to cradle it in his palm and glances up.
“Thank you.” He says, and then lowers the mug from his mouth when he sees Sirius standing there instead. Remus’ thumb drums against the smooth china, staring at the boy blankly.
“You looked tired.” Sirius replies, shuffling his feet a little and it’s so strange to not see him loud and strutting about like he owns the damn place. Remus doesn’t like it. He doesn’t speak, just grips at the cup, and Sirius narrows his eyes, just a fraction. “I haven’t bloody poisoned it, Moony.”
That’s better. More Sirius. Remus gives a short nod and takes a sip of the warm tea, because he doesn’t really think he can throw it in his face.
*
For a couple weeks, Sirius does not talk to him, and Remus is beginning to think that he has given up. He can't decide how this makes him feel. At first, pretty fucking bleak-- and then pretty fucking angry that he could still feel sad about someone who didn't care about him at all.
Only when Remus is walking to the Owlery to post a letter to his mother, does he realise how wrong he is. Sirius Black would never stop trying to talk to him.
"Moony." begins Sirius as he falls into step with him, and his eyes are bright, feverish almost. He's wrapped up in a worn sweater, given to him three Christmases ago by the Potters, but he's still shivering. "How are you?"
It's such a ridiculous, pointless question coming from Sirius that Remus really could have laughed out loud if he didn't want to jinx him. Remus shakes his head and takes a sharp turn up the winding staircase to the Owlery. A storm has been brewing over the horizon for days now, he can hear the rush of the wind echoing down from the top of the spire.
"I thought I'd remind you that I'm sorry." Sirius calls from behind him, and the stomp of his boots against the cold stone tell Remus that he's followed him up. "In case you've forgotten. That I'm very sorry."
"How could I forget?" Remus replies under his breath. He's starting to think he should steal the invisibility cloak just so he can walk around the castle without Sirius chasing after him.
Sirius must have heard this, because he's growing closer and asking, his voice so strained it had to hurt-- "What do you want from me, Remus? What else can I say?"
"I want you to help me understand." Only one step into the Owlery, Remus rounds on him, his letter now crumpled in his fist. "I want to know what the fuck was going through your head. I want to know why you did it."
"I don't know." says Sirius, almost helplessly, and Remus forces out a sharp bark of laughter, turning to search desperately for a spare owl. "He-- He just wouldn't shut up."
Remus twists his head back to stare hard at him. "What?"
"Snape." Sirius has trained a resolute gaze on the open skies, but his hands are twitching at his sides, curling and uncurling. "He wouldn't stop talking about you. He was saying these twisted, disgusting things about you and he wouldn't shut up--"
"He was taunting you, Sirius." Remus says. "You're clever enough to have realised that yourself."
"I know." Sirius murmurs, low. "But I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to be punished." He glances at Remus now, his eyes wide and blown out like the growing storm. "You were right, you know. I am like my mother. Sometimes I get so angry, I'd risk everything."
Suddenly, Remus felt quite cold. He looks right back at Sirius. "I used to think that you would never risk me."
"I didn't think I was. I meant to scare him." Swallowing, Sirius takes a step closer across the cobblestones. Around them, the birds hoot and whistle to one another, soft, strange noises. "I wished I could take it back as soon as I told him."
"That's not good enough."
"And there are no explanations I can give that will ever be good enough." There's something final about those words as Sirius says them. "I did it and I'm sorry."
It feels like a punishment. It feels like Remus is suffering this horrible, painful wound over and over, this uncertain certainty that Sirius Black could never be who he once was. He is not the boy who held his hand before the Full Moon, not the boy who slipped him chocolate and brought him tea, not the boy who would shout at him and go flying into a rage and then fall asleep with his face buried in Remus' shoulder.
Remus shoves the letter back into his pocket. He doesn't care about posting it anymore. He walks away from the Owlery, leaving Sirius standing there by himself.
*
Once, Remus had hated birthdays. Before Hogwarts, he had hated birthdays.
They had never celebrated it much. He had no friends back home, and none of his relatives ever kept in contact anyway, so he was never sure if his parents had told anyone he was still alive. Two years after he was bitten, the Full Moon had fallen on the seventh of March at one in the morning. A few days before his sixth birthday. He had been so sick that he had slept right through it.
In Hogwarts, with the Marauders, Birthdays were one of the most important events in the world, Birthdays were shouted from the top of the Great Hall, they were sacred. This year, Remus was dreading it.
He doesn’t mind that it’s quiet. James and Peter usher Honeydukes chocolate into his arms and ruffle his hair when he climbs out of bed, but everything is different now; there’s no parading him down to the common room. Lily gives him a tight squeeze around the middle and a pair of new socks, magically sewn with moving hippogriffs. His mother and father send a card. Remus goes to lessons, and he swears that Professor McGonagall smiles at him when she sweeps into her classroom, which somehow makes him feel a lot warmer.
When Remus gets back to the dorm, there’s a present on his bed. He prods at the plain wrapping paper, half thinking it might explode, but it doesn’t, so he sits down and tears it open. It’s a book, old, faded, a dark shade of red, and embossed with a gold title reading Frankenstein.
Inside the front cover, there’s a few scrawled lines of familiar writing.
I know you’ve read this. Thought you should have your own copy.
- S.
Remus holds it on his lap, finger trailing down the soft spine of the book. He and Sirius had spoken about this last winter. He had borrowed it from Sirius, but half way through, Remus had snapped it shut, feeling sick. Sirius had picked the book up from where it had been thrown at the bottom of Remus’ trunk, smoothed the cover, and looked at him.
“The monster isn’t really a monster, Moony.” He’d said, and he placed it back onto Remus’ knee. “He’s more human than anyone else in the book. It doesn’t matter what he is, it matters what he does.”
“But no one loves him.” Remus had mumbled.
“Well, that’s out of my hands.” Sirius had grinned at him. “There’s only so much of me to go around and I’m afraid my heart is rather devoted to you, darling.”
It had been one of those things that Sirius would just say. He liked throwing it out there to the world as if he expected someone to try and catch it.
That was then. This is now. Remus slips the book underneath his pillow.
*
In the middle of March, Sirius receives a letter from home.
When the post arrives, Remus is sitting with Lily and Marlene at the Gryffindor table in the great hall, frowning at his soggy bowl of cereal. A thoughtful Marlene is chewing at a piece of toast and Lily is stirring a steaming cup of coffee with the tip of her wand, her red head buried in her Potions book. The owls flood down from the ceiling, swooping low over the rows of toast and platters of bacon to drop packages on students' laps.
Sirius had been slumped on the bench, his eyes smudged dark, but when a stiff envelope drops onto his empty plate, he straightens to flip it over. Remus doesn't know why he's looking, but he watches Sirius' mouth tighten, his brow furrow.
It's a familiar expression and Remus knows what it means. A letter from Walburga Black.
James and Peter have stopped their loud chatter and their eyes are on Sirius, as he slides the blade of his dinner knife under the stamped seal and unfolds the parchment. He's quiet as he reads it, but his face drains of colour, and he's very, very still.
Remus pushes floating bits of cereal around with his spoon, but he doesn't stop staring even as Sirius slips the letter back into its envelope, rises from the table, and walks out of the hall.
Lily is peering over the top of her newspaper at Remus, but Remus only shakes his head and pushes his bowl away. He doesn't feel hungry anymore.
Before their first class of the day, Potions, James shifts to whisper in Remus' ear-- "His Uncle Alphard's died."
*
He's crying. Sirius Black is crying in the common room at three in the morning.
The day after the letter had arrived, Sirius hadn't been in lessons. Remus had glanced at his seat only once, and then tried not to think about it again. He had failed. That evening, when Remus had gone to bed, Sirius' curtains were already firmly shut.
Remus couldn't sleep. It was getting close to the moon again. He had been reading for a couple of hours, hoping to tire his eyes, but it had done nothing. He stares at the red canopy, listening to the high call of an owl outside. Eventually, he swings his legs over the side of his bed and pads across the room to the door.
He thinks he might sit in the common room and do some work, but when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, there is already someone curled up in the corner of his favourite lopsided sofa. The fire is burning low, crackling and spitting red sparks, but it casts enough of a warm glow through the dark for Remus to see that it is Sirius.
And Sirius is crying. His eyes are red-rimmed, and he looks young, very young, bare-faced and lips bitten raw.
Remus just stands there, in his pajama bottoms and his silly tattered jumper, because he can't just walk away. He's rooted to the fucking floor. Leave Remus. Just leave, right now. It sounds like his mother's voice.
He doesn't leave. Remus steps around the sofa and the cushions dip as he sinks down next to him. Sirius must have not heard him walk in, because his chin snaps sharply up at the movement.
"Oh." Sirius twists his head away, flushing. "Sorry. Go back to bed."
Remus raises an eyebrow. "Don't tell me what to do."
At the coldness in Remus' voice, Sirius falls very silent and doesn't meet his gaze. He shifts in his seat, pulling his knees up to his chest, folding up like he's a kid again.
"I'm sorry about your Uncle." Remus says, eventually, quietly. "I know you really loved him."
"I did. He was the only one left--" Sirius breaks off and sniffs, but he's still staring at the fire, the golden light from the dying flames flickering across his face. The line of his jaw and nose are softened in the glow, and he looks so beautiful that Remus' lungs ache. Shit.
Remus frowns. "You have James."
"James is angry at me."
"Not for long."
"Not as long as you." Sirius mumbles, blinking at nothing.
"Honestly," murmurs Remus, brushing his thumb under Sirius' eye to dry his wet cheek. He hates how easy it is for him to reach out to him, even now. "You can't even look at me. Am I that hideous?"
"No." Sirius shakes his head, and he chokes on a laugh. "You could never be hideous."
"I'm not sure you're thinking of the right Remus Lupin. You must have seen him around. 6'2, freakishly long limbs, horrible scar across one side of his face."
"It's not horrible." Sirius says, and his voice, although small, is quite firm. "It's part of you."
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Black." Remus replies, and against his better judgement, he actually smiles.
For some reason, Sirius bursts into fresh floods of tears.
And Remus is not sure he's ever seen Sirius cry like this. When he'd run away from home, it had been yelling and recklessness and then whole days of silence. So Remus doesn't say anything, just leans back against the sofa cushions and watches his shoulders shake. After a hesitant moment, he stretches out and cards his fingers through the dark hair at the nape of his neck.
"Remus," Sirius squeezes his eyes shut at the touch. "I really do love you."
At those words, Remus moves to pull away, but Sirius presses forwards and kisses him. He kisses Remus' mouth, and his jaw, and he's so careful and warm that Remus forgets to think in the split second he kisses back. It takes him longer than it should, but Remus pushes him back with a gentle hand, his heart clenching even as he did it.
"I think you're confused." Remus tells him, and he speaks soft, like he would to a wounded animal. "I should have never kissed you. I know how little you've been sleeping, Sirius. You're tired and you're upset and you think that missing me means that you're in love with me."
"No."
"Yes--"
"Stop it." Sirius snaps at him and his breaths are trembling, but Remus recoils slightly. "You don't understand. Forget your sodding forgiveness. I love you and I'm not giving it as a reason for you to absolve me of guilt."
"Give it up." Remus says, weakly. "It doesn't make any sense."
"It does. I've known since fifth year. I've known since I ran away to the Potters." Sirius is glaring at him, like he's the one who's angry, like he's going to yell, but he doesn't. "You came down to see me and you sat with me for hours and read me Pride and Prejudice, and I wanted to kiss you more than I've ever wanted anything. I would have been disowned a hundred times over for you to just sit there and tell me about your stupid books."
"Sirius, please," Remus presses his lips together. He can still feel Sirius on him. "This isn't fair."
"I'd rather you not forgive me at all than think I'm lying." Sirius says, tears still shining on his cheeks, "You can hate me until your last fucking breath, but don't ever think that I lied about this."
Suddenly, Remus can't sit here anymore. He can't listen to this. It makes him feel nauseous, like he's going to empty his stomach, or pass out right here, or something else embarrassing. Enough, he wants to shout at Sirius, enough enough enough! Remus rises from the sofa and walks back towards the staircase.
"Why don't you believe me?" Sirius asks quietly from behind him.
Remus pauses by the door and looks at Sirius. "If you loved me, I wouldn't have anything to forgive you for. If you loved me, you wouldn't have done it."
He climbs up the staircase to the dormitory.
*
Remus doesn't have to worry about Lily asking him what happened between him and Sirius, because Marlene traps him with the question in the Great Hall one afternoon.
"Why do you hate Sirius?" She says, in that way that she did, like she's mentioning the sunny weather or the colour of Professor Sprout's new robes. Lily smacks Marlene's shoulder with a rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet, but Remus sets down his goblet to frown at her.
"What do you mean?" He replies, because he can't think of any other answer.
"Oh, please. He used to be hanging off your arm at every second of the damn day and now you won't even look at him. He's a mess."
"He is not." Remus narrows his eyes, lowering his voice, despite the fact that the boy in question was not even in the Great Hall. Maybe it's because it feels like lying.
"This isn't really your business, Marlene." Lily sighs, prodding at her scramble eggs with her fork.
Marlene shakes her head and leans closer across the table. Her eyes are so blue. "Sirius might be an egotistical maniac, but I didn't think that there could ever be anything that would make you hate him."
Despite hearing it before, Remus blinks at the word. Hate. He had told Sirius he hates him. He had thought it over and over until he couldn't breathe. So why is it that it sounds wrong? Remus isn't sure he knows how to hate Sirius. He isn't sure he's capable. But he takes another sip of his juice and murmurs back--
"Neither did I."
*
Remus doesn't mind being a Prefect. It's a distraction from the forced silence of his dorm and he likes walking alone down the dark corridors, listening to the portraits snoring in their frames, stone floors dancing with candlelight. It reminds him why he loves magic. He needs that reminder, these days.
It's one of those late evenings that Lily and Remus have been paired up on one of the patrols. They talk quietly so Filch doesn't complain to McGonagall, and eventually split up to make the job quicker.
Remus is on the sixth corridor when he hears it. The rattle of something from down a narrow hallway, and a low voice from one of the classrooms. As Remus draws closer, the awful clattering grows louder, and he pulls out his wand.
When Remus yanks open the door to the room, there's a dead body on the floor. He staggers back, sucking in his breath. He has to call someone, get Lily or Dumbledore, but he can't tear his eyes away from the blood streaking the brown hair, the blank, amber eyes--
Against his better judgement and thumping heart, Remus moves closer, throat tightening as he sees the ghastly pale face.
It's him. It's Remus' dead body, gazing up at the ceiling, still.
"What--" Out of the corner of his eye, Remus catches his first sight of the boy standing behind one of the desks, his fingers white as they gripped at the edge of the wooden table. Sirius is silent, staring at Remus' corpse, and his own cheeks are drained of colour, just as bloodless, the lines of his shoulders tight. An animal caught in a snare.
He's terrified.
Gritting his teeth, Remus raises his chin and steps in front of Sirius. At once, the dead body shifts, twisting into dark figures, writhing shadows, before it rises towards the ceiling to take the familiar shape of a silver full moon.
The back of Remus' neck prickles, and he blinks up at the round, glowing embodiment of his fear. Beneath his skin, bones shift, crack, like they know. Behind him, he hears Sirius' shaken gasp, like he's woken from a deep nightmare.
Remus raises his wand and calls out, "Riddikulus!"
The hanging moon crumbles like sand, evaporating into the soft, white floss of a dandelion clock-head, tufted seeds floating up into the air. Remus smiles, thinking of Wales in spring and his mother, and takes another step closer. He blows out a breath and the seeds flurry away before fading into nothing. Banished.
When he turns back, Sirius hasn't moved. His eyes are spun like glass, and he doesn't look quite real like this, stiff and frozen, an ivory statue with his wand still clutched in his trembling hand. Glancing back towards the door, Remus stretches out for him and touches his arm.
At the contact, Sirius jolts back to life. His wide gaze snaps to Remus, and the fear is sinking away as colour floods back into him all at once. He clears his throat, but doesn't speak still, as if he's forgotten how to.
"It was a boggart." Remus tells him. "It wasn't real."
"I know." Sirius says.
Remus stands there for a second, then adds, unhelpfully-- "I was dead."
"I know."
"Remus?" It's Lily, red hair lighting up the doorway, her own wand drawn. Her green eyes flicker around the empty classroom and then between them. She hesitates. "Is everything okay here?"
"Yes." Remus nods, biting at the inside of his cheek as he twists away from Sirius. "Yeah. Sorry. Seventh corridor next, right?"
"Right." She raises an eyebrow, slipping her arm through his as they walk back out into the hallway, but Remus wants to stay. He doesn't want to believe what he had seen. He doesn’t know how to understand it.
Remus wants to ask Sirius how that could be his greatest fear.
It's not the kind of question you can answer anyway, he thinks as they leave, fear doesn't have a reason for being there. It just is.
*
That night, Sirius has a bad dream.
He hasn't for a while, but then Remus supposes he hasn't been sleeping enough for that. As he lies there, Remus can smell the nightmare.
It's only this close to the moon when he can taste dread like this, and it always makes him feel like he's sniffing for something more, something bloody. Fear was hot and dark and heavy and Sirius stunk of it, it clung to the air like black tar.
At the first small gasp, Remus twitches open his bed curtains to see that Sirius' red drapes were still a little ajar. His legs twisted in his white covers, tossing as if they were trapped. Remus wriggles out from underneath his blankets, his bare feet curling as they touch the cold floorboards.
He stands and crosses the three short strides it takes to reach Sirius' bed, pushing the curtain back. Sirius is curled on his side, in on himself, dark hair spread across the pillow, dark tangling ivy, his eyelashes fluttering as he turns again in his sleep. His forehead and neck are slick with sweat, and he's murmuring something under his breath-- he always did when he was like this.
Shivering, Remus settles down on the edge of the mattress and leans over him. He traces a finger from the place just between Sirius' eyebrows, down to the tip of his nose. Repeats the movement, once, twice, three times.
It feels silly, now, but he knows Sirius like the back of his hand, like a well-worn book, like the shadowed alleys back home. This is how you wake a sleeping Sirius Black. This is how you pull him out of a nightmare.
Sirius' eyes flit open, his pupils clouded for the moment before he realised who was sitting in his bed. He pushes stray locks of hair back from his face, his chest still rising and falling with stilted breaths.
"Nightmare?" Remus asks him.
“Nightmare.” He nods, lifting himself up from his bed by his elbows as he gazes up at Remus. At first, he is silent, but in the second before he speaks, his jaw is set. "You can't-- This isn't your problem. You shouldn't keep comforting me like this."
Remus watches him, fidgeting with the hem of his blanket. "It's an instinct."
Something about Sirius’ gaze is feverish again. His voice is low, straining not to wake any of their friends. "Then unlearn it."
"I wish it was that simple."
And it isn’t, but Sirius slumps back against his pillows like it is, arm pressing over his face. "You're too good, Remus." He murmurs into the darkness.
"No, I'm not." Remus says, shifting uncomfortably. He can’t see his expression, but he thinks maybe it’s better that he doesn’t when he speaks next. It feels like he’s blind and leaping off the Astronomy Tower. "I'm selfish. You don't deserve my forgiveness but I want to give it to you just so that I can have you back."
The quiet that follows is broken only by James snoring, which almost makes Remus smile. He ducks his head, beginning to wish he had never said it, but Sirius has lowered his wrist to stare at him again.
"You...you want to?" Sirius whispers, and all Remus can see now is the whites of his eyes.
"Yes." Remus stands. He couldn’t stay there, in Sirius’ bloody bed, he knew that. Still, there’s not a chance in hell that he will be sleeping now. "And I shouldn't. So please just--" He sighs, "Please stop trying to talk to me, Sirius. I've spent too long in love with you to stomach it."
Sirius is scrambling to sit up now, and he repeats it like it’s a question and an answer all at once– "You love me."
Remus just looks at him and steps away. "I'm going back to bed."
*
That morning, Sirius’ bed is empty.
He’s not in the Great Hall. Or the first three classes of the day. Then, in Herbology, he comes slipping through the green house doors ten minutes after the lesson has started, docking them ten house points. James is staring at Sirius for the rest of the time that Professor Sprout talks, but Remus watches as he shrugs him off, unreadable.
Over the bushy heads of the Shrivelfig plants, Sirius catches Remus’ eye and for once, Remus doesn’t look away. He doesn’t know why. It is only when Professor Sprout begins to call on students for answers that Remus tears his gaze from Sirius.
A familiar exhaustion is settling into Remus again. It’s an old, unwelcome friend. The next Full Moon is in two days.
*
In the shadows, there's a dog watching him.
Remus jolts up from the hard bed so hard that he nearly hits his head against the wall. The Shrieking Shack is still shrouded in darkness, the pale, rising sun, the only light streaming in from the cracked window. He draws the torn blankets up around his waist and peers into the black. He knows the wide, yellow eyes that stare back at him.
“Padfoot.” He says out loud, through gritted teeth. Last night’s transformation had taken its toll. His bones ache as he struggles to sit up, and warm blood drips from his hand; the red crescent where his sharp nails had sunk into his palm were still fresh.
Padfoot slinks closer with a low, soft whine, his dark fur as matted as ever. He lowers his snout to Remus’ fingers and licks at the wounds with his tongue.
“Sirius.” Remus mutters instead, turning his face away. “Turn back.”
When he looks back, Sirius is kneeling before him on the floor. He gazes up at Remus with those gorgeous eyes, curls pushed back from his face, and Remus’ heart buckles. He thinks of Sirius' terrified expression last week as he faced Remus' still corpse, how his wand shook.
"I was going to leave before you woke up." Sirius speaks, his voice clear, if a little hoarse.
"How long have you been here?" Remus asks, numbly. His head feels light, lighter than air, and he takes a deep breath to steady himself as the room sways. In his lap, his hands shake.
“I didn’t stay for the transformation. I know you don’t want us there.” says Sirius, quickly, and he still hasn’t moved from the floor, like he’s not sure he should. Once again, he is chewing at his lip. “I just wanted to check on you once the sun had risen. I was worried it would be worse, after last time.”
“You shouldn’t have come at all.” Remus swallows, and his throat feels like it’s on fucking fire. He must have been howling. “I told you to keep away from me, Sirius.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You mean you won’t.”
“I’m sorry, Moony.” pleads Sirius, shaking as he speaks. “I’m sorry I told Snape about the Whomping Willow. I’m sorry I led him to you. You know I have no excuse."
“Stop.” Remus tells him, faintly.
“Tell me.” Sirius is staring up at him, so hard, that Remus can feel the weight of it creeping over his skin. He cannot keep having this conversation. It will kill him. “Tell me how to prove it to you.”
"Why don't you become a fucking werewolf and see how you like it?" Remus snaps, worn from the moon and his tender bones and his blazing chest, and Sirius goes very quiet.
Nobody wants to be the Big Bad Wolf. Remus shakes his head and tilts his head back to the ceiling, fighting back the stinging tears.
"I would, you know." Sirius says. "If it meant you didn't have to be alone. I'd take the bite."
Remus jerks his chin back down to look at him, and he clenches his jaw so hard, he thinks his teeth might just break. His head isn’t feeling so light anymore.
"Shut up."
"I'd do anything." Sirius goes on, and he’s soft about it, open but soft.
"Shut up." Remus repeats, choking on the words, trembling with them. He grabs Sirius by his shirt and pulls him up from the floor to kiss him.
His mouth is urgent, and starving, and wants Sirius so bad it doesn’t know where to press first; the beauty mark on his temple, his cheek, his nose, his neck. He’s dragging Sirius into his lap, and the thin sheets wrap around their legs as his fingers squeeze at the curve of Sirius’ waist, stroke up his spine to tangle in his curls.
Beneath his touch, Sirius is shaking, as if he’s just plunged into ice water, hand braced against the wall over Remus’ shoulder.
“Remus?” He says as Remus traces a hot tongue down his throat.
Smiling, Remus shifts up again to catch his full bottom lip between his teeth and tugs, gently, until Sirius gasps out a lovely little noise. He presses their foreheads together, and his skin is so warm. He smells of dog, and pine trees.
"I'm still very, very angry with you." Remus murmurs.
"Oh." Sirius blinks, and his eyes are flickering and careful. "Okay. Good."
“The thing is,” sighs Remus, palm cupping his jaw. “I love you and it can’t be helped.”
“Well, if it can’t be helped–”
"Be quiet, and kiss me."
Sirius does kiss him. Like a tidal wave, he surges forwards and kisses him, taking his face in his hands and slipping his tongue into his mouth. His thumb traces the line of Remus’ collarbone, dips down his bare chest, and he crams himself even closer, like he can’t stand even an inch of space between them. Remus thinks his heart is going to fracture, breach his lungs and burst out of him. Everything is heat, and fire, and smoke.
"I'm really, really sorry." Sirius is whispering when he has the breaths to spare. "I'm so fucking sorry, Moony. I'll never stop saying it."
"I know." Remus says, and pushes him down onto the mattress.
*
Later, James raises an eyebrow when he finds them tangled around eachother in the dorm, wedged into Remus' narrow bed. Not that it matters, because neither of them see it: they're both asleep.