Remus had always loved the stars. From a young age, it pleased him to know that the moon would never get lonely, not when thousands of little iridescent stars peppered the night sky along its side.
From a young age, Remus Lupin had made a habit of wishing on stars. Although his fondness for the moon had been steadily decreasing as time went on, he never quite shook his connection to the stars. How beautiful they were at night, and their predictability. You could always find Ursa Major if you knew exactly where to look.
At age eleven, when Remus walked through the doors of Hogwarts for the first time, and met Sirius Black, he found that for some reason, it was difficult to contain the wide smile on his face. The same smile that, for the following several years, Sirius would be the very reason for more often than not.
As time went on, and Remus really began to know Sirius, he found it ironic that the boy named after a star could be the exact opposite of one, and completely unpredictable.
At age fourteen, Remus found himself sneaking up to the astronomy tower when everyone else seemed to be asleep, if only to just watch the night sky, and enjoy the peace of being up alone at such a late hour.
Remus would find himself doing this for years to come. When the moon was too close, and his entire body ached, when his head throbbed and he felt helpless to do anything about it, he went to the astronomy tower, and sat in silence.
At age fifteen, on one of his more memorable trips to the tower, Remus had heard shuffling from the corridor which he’d just come from, looking curiously and waiting for whatever- rather, whoever, was there to emerge from the shadows. When Sirius finally did, Remus allowed himself to relax the slightest bit.
He remembered Sirius coming over to where he was sitting, and he remembered how the other boy had told him he’d known about his sneaking out for a while. Most memorable of all, however, was what Sirius said next. Before they sat there together all night as Remus couldn’t sleep, Sirius had told him that he didn’t want him to be alone, and that he would always be there to help carry some of Remus’ load off his shoulders.
Sirius did follow through on that promise, or at least, tried to.
For every night onwards that had come to pass when Remus couldn’t sleep, or just wanted to see the stars instead of toss and turn all night, his own star would come up with him to the astronomy tower, and allow him to feel, above all else, not alone. Sirius was always good at that.
When Sirius’ hand accidentally brushed Remus’ one night as they sat alongside each other looking out at the stars, Remus felt something indescribable in his stomach. Something fluttery, carefree, and light.
When Remus fell asleep in Sirius’ arms one night beneath the stars, after a rather bad nightmare, Sirius felt the same airy lightness, and promised himself that he would never let Remus suffer through anything alone again.
The astronomy tower was no longer just a place to see stars, but rather a place where the terrors of the world did not exist, and Remus and Sirius could pretend that nothing else mattered, aside from each other.
When Remus Lupin kissed Sirius Black for the very first time, it’s in what he’s come to know as their spot. Up in the astronomy tower, with Remus’ beloved Ursa Major in the night sky in her usual spot.
The tower had become a safe haven for them both, somewhere to escape to whenever Sirius got a cruel howler from his mother, or whenever Remus felt as if his bones were too stiff to do anything other than lay in Sirius’ warm arms.
At age seventeen, when Sirius does something unpredictable again and tells Remus that he loves him for the first time, Remus feels the opposite of afraid. He embraces Sirius tighter than ever before, and doesn’t hesitate in telling him that he loves him right back. That particular night’s kiss left Remus feeling lightheaded and so unbelievably gooey inside, his lips kiss swollen and perfectly pink to Sirius in the moonlight.
At age eighteen, Remus and Sirius haven’t slept apart in ages, and are always a tangle of indistinguishable limbs in the morning as the sunshine sneaks in through the bed curtains. Sirius always found that he loved falling asleep to the sound of Remus’ heartbeat, and Remus found that just having his boyfriend there eased his tension in a way that no healing potion ever could.
Even after Hogwarts, and throughout the war, through endless amounts of doubt and suspicion, Remus’ heart always felt tethered to Sirius’, and vice versa. Sirius did not know life without Remus Lupin anymore, and the fear of losing him gripped his every decision.
For years, Sirius and Remus had loved without care or consequence, too wrapped up in eachother to ever consider the possibility of heartbreak, but as many know, with love, comes inevitable loss.
When Sirius is dragged to Azkaban against his own free will and must watch the moon every night, he thinks of Remus, and how he had broken his promise to himself of never allowing him to suffer alone. This time, Sirius feels nausea at the thought, and has to stop himself from being sick.
When Remus spends his first night without Sirius in years, he thinks that the stars must look impossibly duller, somehow. After all these years, perhaps it was Sirius’ presence next to him that allowed the stars to light up as much as they did whenever they were together.
When Remus spends countless full moons alone and in agony, Sirius can do nothing but watch the night sky and hope that the minutes pass quicker than they do, for the sake of his one love so far away and beyond reach.
When Remus sees Sirius again after years and years on the floor of the shrieking shack, he has to stop himself from rushing over to him. From hugging him too soon or apologizing for how he could ever doubt him. It does not matter, for Sirius throws himself into his arms at the first chance, and years of pain and miscommunication wash away at the feeling of his heart being whole once again. The feeling of the stars finding their strength again.
When Remus kisses Sirius for the last time, it’s beneath the stars once more, albeit covered by the ceiling of Remus’ bedroom and not visible to their eyes, yet still always watching over the two of them. The kiss had been soft, in a bed they had both grown to consider theirs , under bed sheets that held so many promises that had yet to be broken, and so many things left unsaid.
Timing was never their strong suit.
When Remus sees Sirius slip into the shadows of the veil, he can do nothing other than force his sobs down, and watch as his love is forcibly ripped away from him for the second time in his life.
Remus can not bring himself to watch the stars that night, or any other night after that, but knew that wherever he was now, his star was probably watching over him.
When Remus is reunited with Sirius for the final time, he does not let go for what feels like hours. Sirius does not complain, for now, they did not need to worry about time. Not now, not ever again.
They had forever now, together in the night sky.