Fic: This is the Life (from shaggydog_swap 2011) Part 2
Title: This is the Life - Part 2
Author: xkeijukainenx/1electricpirate
Rating: R
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Words: 16,116
Summary: After the war, Sirius becomes an uptight, high-ranking Ministry official; but when an old childhood friend comes unexpectedly back into his life, he learns what it is to let go, live, and love once more. The question is, will Remus let him?
Author's Notes: Written for shaggydog_swap from calico_lupin's fabulous art Almost Blue. Also inspired by Amy Macdonald's This is the Life (hence the title and lyrics). Many thanks to heartofspells for the fabulous beta work.
Disclaimer: They are not mine, they are Rowling's. If I could have them, I would. But I cannot. Sad.
Originally posted here. Part 1 here.
It was another month before he saw Remus Lupin again.
This time, Sirius had been unable to get his friend out of his mind. Their night on the balcony was all he could think of; what Remus had said then, what Remus had done, the look in Remus’s eyes when they had said goodbye.
He trawled the Muggle papers with particular care, just in case, the words “I’m going to jump” echoing endlessly in his ears.
But there was no news, and while no news was good news, Sirius couldn’t get those amber eyes with their peculiar haunting, hunted glint out of his head.
He was on one of his seedier business trips the night he bumped into Remus again, accompanying a group of Asian officials to a particular high-class entertainment establishment - which was more or less a trussed up brothel.
This was all par for the course for Sirius, of course, who had been on one of these trips on his first week of the job. The people he was assigned to entertain were the richest and the best, and he knew from firsthand experience that the richest and the best were often the most despicable and the most corrupt.
He’d been arranging things with the owner of the establishment when a familiar voice sounded in his ear. “Well well well. Mr. Sirius Black. Fancy seeing you in such an upstanding establishment.”
“Remus,” he breathed, spinning around and losing his breath all over again. Remus was dressed in very little but the shiny oil he’d smeared across his golden skin. In the lights of the club Sirius could see what he could not see before, that night on the balcony - a criss cross mesh of scars that covered nearly every inch of his body. Sirius knew he was staring but did not find he could stop, not even after Remus made some lewd and flippant remarks about liking what he saw.
His thoughts - or perhaps better put, his lack of thoughts - were finally interrupted by the owner’s sly remarks. “Mr. Black? Would you perhaps like some time alone to talk with young Mr. Lupin?”
“Would you, Mr. Black?” Remus echoed. There was a coyness in his voice that Sirius hated, instantly. It was the same he used to talk people into deals. “I’m sure we can work out a decent price.”
“Perhaps Mr. Lupin would consent to letting me buy him a drink. We can talk while I make sure my colleagues are enjoying themselves.”
“Sounds good to me,” Remus quipped, cutting off his boss before she could even start to speak. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll get Amy to make you my favorite drink. It’ll knock your socks right off your feet.”
“Gods, Remus, is there anywhere you don’t work?”
“I take offense to that. I don’t work in the government, for instance, which is one blemish I’m sure my upstanding character could do without. I don’t do anything boring like working at Tesco either, thank God. So yes, there are many places I don’t work.”
“You’re bloody infuriating, you know that? Don’t you ever slow down?”
“I’ll slow down when I’m dead,” was Remus’s flippant reply. Sirius shuddered and turned to the bar, ordering two tumblers of whiskey.
“You talk about dying too much,” he said, shortly.
“You don’t talk about living enough,” Remus countered, and Sirius found himself without an answer. “Ha. See? We’re just as bad as each other, you and I.” Remus picked up his drink and downed it in one gulp, motioning for another. “I live too much and you don’t live at all. I wonder which of us is doing it right.”
“Maybe neither of us are.”
“No, that’s a boring answer.” He drained the second tumbler before grabbing Sirius’s hand and pulling him away from the bar. “I want to dance. Come on.”
But Sirius was no longer paying attention to him. His attention had been grabbed by a shadow, by the door - fleeting, but definitely there, and there again, by the end of the bar.
“Bugger,” he whispered. “Not here.” The war was over but the enemy was by no means eradicated - and among some circles there was more than a decent price upon Sirius’s head. Not to mention the fact that he was with some of the most powerful people in the Muggle world tonight and if a Death Eater wanted to cause trouble, it would be a fantastic place to start.
He was so absorbed in tracking the shadow that he didn’t feel Remus tense beside him. The shadow was moving, but Sirius nearly had a fix on it and frankly, he had learned it was much better to hex first and ask questions later. He was about to pull his wand out and start the hexing when suddenly Remus was grabbing him and shoving him forcefully into a backroom, slamming him against the wall and holding him there while he struggled to get free.
“Not here, you enormous idiot!” Remus hissed.
“Let me go, you prat, you don’t understand, I’ve got to...”
But Remus was stronger than he looked - in fact, his grip was like a vice - and he slammed Sirius against the wall again, hissing very loudly in his ear. “I understand perfectly well that you were about to hex the bollocks off someone in the middle of a room full of Muggles!”
Sirius gaped. “You... What?!”
“Muggles! A room full of them! I understand you’re a bit trigger happy what with the war and all that but honestly, Sirius, even you wouldn’t be able to explain away a whole room full of politicians suffering from amnesia!”
“How do you know what a Muggle is?!”
Remus slammed him against the wall once more. “Shut up, shut up you twat, that is clearly not the most important thing right now. Stop panicking and think. What did you feel?”
“What are you on about? Merlin’s bollocks, this makes no sense, how do you know what...?”
“I said shut up! Even I know about the infamous Sirius Black and his freakishly strong powers of intuition. Think. That shadow. Did it give you a feeling?”
Sirius closed his eyes and tried to remember, shoving the panicked questions out of his mind. It was hard going, but suddenly he remembered and he was very, very sure of himself.
“There’s someone here that shouldn’t be,” he said quietly, “and I think it’s a Death Eater. If you even know what that is. But you seem to know about hexes and invisibility cloaks and my weird magic and Muggles which makes no sense since you are one, aren’t you?”
“You pillock.” Once more Sirius found himself slammed against the wall. He was beginning to wonder what he’d done to deserve it. “I know what a Death Eater is. You’re not the only bastard that’s been to war. What I want to know is what would a Death Eater want here?”
“If you’ve heard of Death Eaters,” Sirius began, feeling more than slightly hysterical. Nothing was making the slightest lick of sense any more. “Then you know I’m related to most of them. They probably want revenge.”
“Such a narcissist, even in moments of peril,” Remus scoffed, but he seemed almost impressed. “Alright. This is what we’re going to do. Get your wand out - Sirius if you look at me like that one more time I’m going to punch you in the nose. Merlin’s beard. Any idea who it might be?”
“Might be Lestrange. I killed his wife. It looked about the right shape to be him. Or maybe Avery.”
“Tactics?”
“Idiotic. Not a single brain cell between the two of them.”
“So we could draw them out?”
“Yeah. Okay...” Sirius’s brain was racing, suddenly thrown back two years in time to his days as a soldier in a war that seemed like it would never end. “Here’s what we do. I go out there, make a big fuss about going out for a smoke. They’ll follow me out and you follow them, and then just... Get the hell out of the way. You don’t want to get hit by a hex.”
“I’m not completely useless, you know,” Remus grumbled, but he didn’t object.
“Didn’t say you were. Look, I don’t understand what’s happening right now. How do you know all this?”
Remus looked both exasperated and scared at Sirius’s question, but he seemed to cave - if only for the sake of expediency. “If you survive this, I’ll explain later. Promise.”
“Alright then. Merlin, I wish James were here.” He was about to start back into the bar proper when Remus caught him by the hand and spun him round, crushing their lips together for an instant before letting go and pushing Sirius out into the bar.
Sirius decided that later he would spend a very long time raging about the mindfuck that was Remus Lupin. First, though, there was a Death Eater to take care of.
The Death Eaters had never been the cleverest of enemies and now they were leaderless, they might as well have been brainless. The shadow allowed itself to be drawn outside all too easily and Sirius was soon duelling his dead cousin’s husband in the abandoned alley next to the brothel. Lestrange was angry but Sirius was nimble and clever and had more magic at his disposal than most wizards could boast between three of them. Remus watched from the entry to the alley, entranced, but waiting to jump in at a moment’s notice.
It wasn’t necessary. Lestrange was soon bound and gagged and Sirius left Remus with him while he Apparated for the MLE.
When Sirius returned with the MLE officials and after he had signed the various bits of paperwork and vouched for ‘taking care’ of Remus’s memory, he turned to his friend without a word and, with the barest of touches to his wrist, Apparated them both into his flat.
“Sit,” he bit out, pointing at one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Remus, to Sirius’s surprise, did as he was told. Sirius gestured angrily at the kettle and it boiled over immediately. Cursing, he vanished the mess with a wave of his hand and summoned mugs out of the cupboard with another. Remus watched him with awe (as many wizards who were unused to this kind of easy magic would have) - but not quite enough of it to satisfy Sirius’s expectations.
Once tea was made, he levitated it over to the table and it plonked down in front of Remus angrily, but without even spilling a drop.
“Honestly, Sirius, you don’t have to get into a strop.”
“Don’t I?”
“I don’t see what you’ve got to be angry about.” Remus sipped his tea and burnt his tongue on the scalding liquid. He waved his hand over the cup and sipped it again, smiling this time. Sirius stared at him with an open mouth.
“You’re a wizard,” he said, incredulously.
“Not quite,” Remus said wryly, and this time there was no doubt about it - his eyes were sad. “Sirius... Remember what I said the first night we met?”
“What, about me not knowing James Bond?”
“No, you prat. About people never having any fun if they only did what they were allowed to do? Well. I wasn’t allowed to speak to you. Too dangerous. My parents thought if your parents found out we’d been talking... If they found out what I was... They’d have us all locked up or killed.”
“What in Merlin’s name are you on about? Your Da’s a butcher.”
“My Da’s an ex-Auror,” Remus corrected, quietly, his hands tightening around his mug. “My mum’s a squib, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Your Da’s never an Auror,” Sirius spat, frowning. None of this made sense. He felt like his entire world was being turned upside down by this boy he barely even knew any more.
“He was. But now he doesn’t even use magic, unless he has to.”
“What? Why?”
Remus looked up at him, really looked at him, locking their eyes together with a grim expression on his face. Sirius felt his heart sink in anticipation of whatever Remus was about to say.
“When I was four or five, I guess, my Da made the mistake of arresting a member of a prominent werewolf pack. We used to live up near Birmingham, you know, in a cottage in the countryside. I don’t really remember it, except that night.”
Remus stopped to take another drink of tea, but that was all Sirius needed to hear. All of a sudden, he knew exactly what Remus was about to say. A million tiny things fell into place and Sirius finally understood the boy that had been a mystery to him all his life.
“You don’t have to go on, Remus, I think I understand...”
“Do you?” Remus asked, his tone biting. “Because I don’t. I remember playing in the moonlight, thinking it was fantastic I was allowed outside after dark, and then I remember the wolf. The way it’s breath stank in the night air. The way it knocked me over with its muzzle so it could bite me square on my thigh. It wasn’t a crazed, bloodthirsty wolf - it was cold, and calculating, with the eyes of a human.” Remus shuddered and Sirius felt utterly and completely helpless.
“Da used to lock me in the meat room,” Remus continued. “It was the only time he used magic, and I so desperately wanted to see magic. I knew what you were before I even met you - my parents used to warn me never to even look at you. They thought you would be like your parents, but you never really were, were you?”
“I tried not to be, where it really mattered,” Sirius agreed. Remus nodded.
“Just so. I had a book... Mum smuggled me a copy of Hogwarts, A History, and I wanted so badly to go - and when you told me you were going I was so jealous, Sirius, I hated you more than I’ve ever hated anything.”
“That’s why you didn’t come in December?”
Remus nodded again. “Dumbledore came to see us once. Said I could come to Hogwarts, if I wanted, be trained as a wizard, but Da wouldn’t have any of it. Not all werewolves have magic, you know, but I do.” He lifted his fingers and flexed them and Sirius could feel as well as see the sparks of magic that flew between his fingertips. He watched in a sad sort of wonderment as Remus screwed up his face with effort and managed to levitate his teacup an inch off the table.
“I could teach you,” SIrius said, suddenly, and the teacup came crashing down to the table. Remus stared at him. “I can teach you magic, proper magic, like we learned at school.” He meant it, too, he would have spent the rest of his days teaching Remus if it meant he would be happy. But Remus was laughing a cold, bitter laugh that stung Sirius to his core.
“Too late,” Remus said through a smile that broke Sirius’s heart. “Most werewolves only live until thirty. I’m not going to waste what little time I have left with a world that doesn’t want me.”
“So you’re going to spend it selling yourself to the highest bidder instead?” Sirius sneered. Remus’s face fell instantly into stoney anger, and Sirius wondered if this time he’d gone too far.
“Fuck you, Sirius, you don’t know shite about my life.”
“I know enough,” Sirius retorted.
“Fine.” Remus stood up abruptly, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. “Fine. Have it your way.” He stalked towards the door, obviously about to storm through it before seeming to think better of it. He turned on his heel and stared Sirius hard in the face.
“You act as if you’re the only one that understands what that war was like, Sirius, but you’re not. I fought in that war just as much as you did, for a side that doesn’t even acknowledge me as human, much less see me as worthy of praise. My life has been hell since I was five years old. I did things in the war you never even dreamed of doing, things that still give me nightmares, but I’m man enough not to let the past rule my future. You’re a coward and a fool to hide behind those memories instead of allowing yourself to live.”
Sirius’s blood was boiling now, too. He stood and stalked over to Remus, pressing one finger hard in the middle of his chest. “You say you did so much for the war effort but I was practically leading it, at the end at least, and I’ve never even heard your name.”
“You fucking prat,” Remus cursed, “as if Dumbledore would be stupid enough to name his spies when there was a leak in the Order. Even you must understand that. I used to be so in awe of you, Sirius Black with his fantastic powers, defying his family and risking his life to win an honorable war, but you’re just as bad as the rest of them. Sad and pathetic and lifeless, hung up on the same meaningless bullshit.”
“You don’t know shit about me,” Sirius snarled, very much aware of the ironic parallels even before Remus spat back:
“I know enough.”
The door swung open in front of him as he stalked towards it before he turned, once more, and said quietly. “I would have let you catch me, Sirius Black.”
“Apparently not,” Sirius replied, crossing his arms huffily, “since you don’t seem to realize when you’re falling. You don’t know what’s good for you.”
“And you do?”
Sirius thought of the German minister and the Italian artist, an oiled abdomen covered in scars and pockets full of drugs. He thought of his secret friend grinning up at him through the dogwood blossoms. His heart sank when he realized that this was all Remus had dared to think he could amount to. Sirius might not be the best at living, but he was very good at not dying, and he knew a crash course when he saw one. “It’s not this, Remus, anything but this. You’re so much more than this.”
“As are you,” Remus answered, coldly. He seemed to have made up his mind, finally, and walked through the door, pausing only to call over his shoulder, “And my real friends call me Moony.”
---------------
So you’re heading down the road in your taxi for four
And you’re waiting outside Jimmy’s front door,
But nobody’s in and nobody’s home ‘til four
So you’re sitting there with nothing to do Talking about Robert Riger and his motley crew
And where you’re gonna go and where you’re gonna sleep tonight
And you’re singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
It was three days before Remus’s parting words clicked in Sirius’s mind.
There had been a time in the war where it became clear that there was a leak within the Order. It was particularly hard to identify as the Members never knew everyone that was involved; secrecy was necessary but at the same time, secrecy bred mistrust.
Dumbledore had just as many spies as Voldemort; when Voldemort spread his hands towards a particular group of people, so would Dumbledore. There were secret agents working across the world for Dumbledore’s Order. One, in particular, was instrumental in identifying and eliminating the leak in the Order, foiling Voldemort’s grandest plan for their destruction and ultimately saving not only Sirius’s life, but the lives of James, Lily and Harry as well.
The agent’s name, Dumbledore told them after they had won their most decisive battle and Peter, the rat, had been destroyed, was Moony.
Sirius’s mouth went dry as the memory came rushing back to him all at once.
“Sirius? What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate,” James was saying to him, but Sirius wasn’t listening.
Dumbledore had explained to them that Moony was a werewolf spy working for the Order, trying to counteract Voldemort’s attempts to recruit the werewolves by infiltrating the packs himself. It was dangerous and brutal, but in the meantime he’d picked up some of the most vital pieces of information the Order had access to. Werewolves were generally loyal only unto themselves, something that Voldemort had yet to understand, and information that was leaked to them to make them feel special rarely stayed a secret.
“Bollocks,” Sirius cursed, standing up from the table in the canteen suddenly.
“What? What’s bollocks?”
“Remus,” he said, distractedly, stalking out of the room and hurrying towards his desk. James was following him, obviously confused, but Sirius paid him little attention. “Merlin, I’m a prat,” he muttered to himself.
“Well you’re not wrong there,” James panted, having to jog slightly to keep up with him. “But would you mind telling me what brought on this particular bout of self-loathing?”
“Remus,” Sirius repeated, as if it should have been obvious.
“Your Muggle best friend?”
“Not a Muggle,” Sirius explained curtly, rounding the corner into his office and starting to rifle through the papers on his desk. “Werewolf.”
“Your Muggle best friend is a werewolf?”
“Mmm. Aha!” He found the report he’d been looking for in a pile of paper on the floor under his desk and shoved it in James’s face.
James scanned it quickly. “Werewolf casefile blahblahblah, Attacker... Greyback... Blahblahblah. Name, redacted. Alias - Moony?” He looked up for confirmation from Sirius, who nodded curtly. James continued. “Blahblahblah ah, here we go, Notes. Instrumental figure in Order of Phoenix. Exonerated from routine detainment on attaining age twenty-three due to outstanding accomplishments and soundness of character.” James looked up at Sirius again. “You’re trying to tell me that the person that saved all our arses is your Muggle best friend who is now a paid escort?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Sirius said. “Dumbledore sent me this ages ago, I always assumed he just wanted me to acknowledge the person who’d saved my arse, so I ignored it mostly, but I guess he was trying to tell me something. Smug bastard. Open the file.”
James did as he was told. A picture fell out and landed on Sirius’s desk, and sure enough, it was Remus’s face that was staring up at them.
“Bollocks, James, I thought he was lying about being in the war just to show me up.”
“So what’re you going to do about it, now that you know?”
Sirius heaved a sigh and sank down in his chair, covering his eyes with one hand.
“Nothing,” he said finally. “There’s nothing I can do. I don’t even know where he lives. I don’t think he even lives anywhere.”
“You could use some kind of tracking spell,” James suggested, but Sirius shook his head. Remus was the kind of person that did not like to be found; Sirius knew that much about him at least. Tracking him down and forcing him to listen to whatever pathetic apology and thanks Sirius could give him wouldn’t help matters at all.
“No. Never mind. At least now someone knows it was him.”
“If you’re sure, mate. I’ll help you find him, if you want.”
“I know, Jamie. Thanks.”
Sirius walked home from his office at the Ministry that day, thoughts swirling in his head. He felt guilty that he’d been so clueless about Remus and everything they owed him, and unsettled that he’d never realized that his friend was magical, and ashamed of his disparaging comments against the work Remus was doing to keep himself alive. Most of all, though, he was terrified that he wouldn’t find Remus until it was too late and he’d never have the chance to apologize.
He kicked a stone down the street and into the gutter. There had always been something intoxicating about Remus and his big brown eyes and the way he didn’t care for the rules at all. He had been like a wild animal, even at eight years old: fierce and fearless and free. Sirius, who had spent his whole life caged - at first by his family and then by his own instinct to survive, both in his family and in the war - realized he had always been intensely jealous. What must it be like not to fear anything?
He supposed, though, that kind of fearlessness only came with a particular kind of knowledge: the knowledge that you might die any day, for instance, or that you are shunned by society for something that wasn’t your fault - or both of those things combined.
Sirius had never bought into the Pure Blood classifications and prejudices. It had never mattered to him whether someone was a Muggle or a half-blood or a banshee, for that matter. He had been shocked to realize what Remus was but it didn’t disgust him. It made him sad, and full of pity.
So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he didn’t realize he was outside his flat until he was tripping over something on the stairs.
“Ow, bloody ow, you great oaf, watch where you’re stepping!”
“Remus?” Sirius scarcely wanted to believe his eyes. But sure enough, it was Remus, sitting on the stairs of his building. He’d obviously been asleep against the door, huddled down in a cardigan that looked ten years old, with patches in odd places on the sleeves. Sirius recognized it as something he’d donated years ago to Dumbledore’s clothing drive. Help to keep the unfortunate and the ones dispossessed by this war warm, Dumbledore had said. Not everyone fighting for us can transfigure themselves a coat.
“Where’ve you been, anyways?” Remus muttered, standing up and dusting himself off. “It’s bloody freezing out.”
Sirius didn’t make a move to open the door, though. He tightened his grip around the watch in his pocket and stared at his friend. He realized it was the first time he’d seen Remus in real clothes, not some costume or other, since they were boys. “Why are you here?”
Remus shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Too tired to work tonight,” he said. Sirius realized that the night before had been a full moon, and wondered how he could have forgotten it. “Thought maybe I could kip on your sofa. Unless you’re still angry with me?” He looked vulnerable, wide eyes staring at Sirius from under his fringe.
Sirius shook his head. “Of course not,” he said. “You saved our lives.”
“Figured it out, have you?” Remus scoffed, but there was no anger behind it.
“Reckon I’ve been a bit of a twat,” Sirius admitted.
“Yeah, well, maybe I have as well.”
They stood like that, Remus on the steps and Sirius still on the street in front of him, drinking each other in for a few seconds before Remus interrupted the moment with a wide grin that lit up his eyes.
“So, that magic of yours, can you use it to undress blokes without a wand?”
The tension broke as Sirius snorted, and the door swung open behind Remus. “It can do more than just undress a bloke,” he teased boastfully. Remus quirked an eyebrow playfully.
“Promise to show me?”
“Tea first,” Sirius replied, pushing Remus through the door and up the stairs. “You look like shite.”
“Such flattery!”
“A Black never lies,” Sirius chorused. He pushed Remus down on the sofa, locking the door behind him and fetching tea quickly.
“That’s the biggest load of shite I’ve heard all week, and I spent the night with a politician two days ago.”
“We’ve got to get you over this grudge against politicians.” Sirius sank down on the sofa next to Remus, who threw his legs over his lap and burrowed back into the cushions happily.
“We’ve got to get you over your grudge against whores,” he retorted.
“I don’t have anything against whores,” Sirius said quietly.
“Then what?”
“I just don’t like the idea of you putting yourself in danger.”
“Everything’s dangerous, Sirius. Walking out of your door is dangerous. What’s life without a little danger?”
“Longer,” Sirius replied. He sighed and set down his tea, taking Remus’s from him and doing the same. “I have a proposition for you,” he said, looking his friend in the eye.
“I told you already, old friends get a really good discount. Maybe even a few freebies.” From the tone of his voice, Remus was clearly joking, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He seemed tired today, and fragile, whereas before he had always been full of boundless energy, seemingly invincible.
“Stop,” Sirius said, placing one hand over Remus’s mouth to shut him up. “I want to teach you magic, and I want you to move in with me. In return, I think you should teach me how to live again. It’ll be a full time job and definitely enough payback for the lessons,” he continued quickly, keeping his hand clamped over Remus’s mouth when it looked like he was trying to interrupt. “And I won’t keep you from going out and having fun of your own, as long as you always come home. All I want is to know you’re safe and not sleeping in a gutter somewhere. You can say something now.”
Remus’s eyes were wide and wary when Sirius took his hand away from his mouth.
“I’m not doing anything that isn’t a fair trade,” he said. “I don’t want you taking pity on me. I can take care of myself.”
“Trust me,” Sirius said, leaning closer, shifting so he was essentially on top of the other man, speaking under his breath. “I never do anything that isn’t beneficial to myself. I’m a selfish bastard and if I didn’t think this was a good deal for me, I wouldn’t be offering it.
“I’m not going to be your live-in whore,” Remus replied, and Sirius noticed with a thrill that ran down his spine that he was breathless. “I’m not going to be your lover.”
“Of course not,” Sirius whispered, rubbing his nose along the smooth line of Remus’s cheek. “Horrific concept. Wouldn’t dare ask.”
“Quite,” Remus gasped, his hips pistoning slightly under Sirius’s body.
“What do you say?” Sirius murmured, hovering millimeters above Remus’s lips.
Remus moaned and tangled his hands in the hair on Sirius’s neck. He tried to pull Sirius’s head down to his but Sirius resisted, a sly look coming over his face. “What do you say?” he repeated, pressing his hips down just as Remus’s came up again.
“Merlin, yes, just kiss me, you bastard.”
Sirius did as he was told, lowering himself over Remus and kissing him deeply. Remus opened his mouth to let him in immediately, moaning low and deep in his throat - and then gasping when he realized, a few minutes later, that their clothes had disappeared. Sirius smirked into his lips, his hands greedily covering Remus’s skin, and then whispered another spell in Remus’s ear that had him writhing and mewling, disturbingly like a kitten in his ecstasy. It was an easy thing, then, to position himself and push in, burying himself in the wet, warm heat of the beautiful creature in his arms with one sure stroke, and Remus’s body seemed to welcome him home.
They moved together slowly, languidly on the sofa; Sirius intensely aware of the striking fragility that Remus had hidden from the world for so long, taking great care not to hurt him, no matter how many times Remus assured him he was alright. It was delicious and languorous, and when Remus arched his back and cried out, Sirius was right there with him, holding him close in his arms and gasping his name out against his neck.
“Mmmmm,” Remus hummed, burying his face in Sirius’s neck. “You’re fantastic at that, for an amateur.”
“You’re not bad yourself,” Sirius replied contentedly, kissing a line up Remus’s neck to his earlobe.
“Only one problem,” the golden haired boy - for boy he was in this moment, and it still fascinated Sirius how he could flick so quickly between one and the other - remarked.
“What?”
“This bloody thing’s been digging into my back the entire time,” he complained, fishing Sirius’s wand out from the cushion beneath him.
“Oh. You found it!” Sirius grinned and rolled off of him slightly to the side, propping his head up on one hand and watching him closely.
Remus held the wand in one hand, wonderingly, twirling the dark length of wood between his fingers. “It feels...”
“Right?” Sirius supplied; Remus just nodded, looking entranced, and Sirius smiled gently. He remembered his first time holding a wand. It wasn’t something one was likely to forget. “Want to try your first spell?” he asked.
“I thought each wand only works for one wizard.”
Sirius pressed a kiss to the top edge of a scar on Remus’s chest. “Hmm. Magic doesn’t live in a wand,” he explained, tracing a path down one scar and across another with a gentle finger tip. Remus shivered slightly underneath him. “You know that, of course, you can do magic without one.”
“Only a little,” Remus protested. Sirius shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve still got it. A wand just makes it easier for a wizard to gather his magic. It acts like a conductor, you see. It takes this,” he lifted his hand from Remus’s chest and let sparks dance between his fingers, “and magnifies it. Most wizards need that.”
“But you don’t?”
“Not always. Not for small things, like summoning tea cups and making your clothes disappear, for instance. Sometimes, if I’m angry or scared, it can do more serious things. But my magic has always been odd. Most of the professors thought I was some kind of inbred freak.”
“You are an inbred freak,” Remus teased, and Sirius let some of the sparks fall and dance on his chest for his insolence. “Ow, prat!”
“The point is, my wand is odd, just like I am. I think it’ll work for you. It already knows you, anyways.”
“How?”
“It’s made from the tree that was in your garden,” Sirius said quietly. Remus looked at him with obvious surprise written across his face. “Dogwood almost gives a wand a sense of humor. It seems to live for mischief and rule breaking and fun. It’ll work for you, I’m sure. Try it. Say Lumos.”
Remus looked nervous but he held the wand in his hand and repeated Lumos almost reverently. A burst of light shone from the end of the wand and Remus yelped, staring at it in shock.
“I did it!”
“’Course you did.” Sirius grinned. “Now say Scourgify.” Remus did and the stickiness that had covered them disappeared. Sirius realized that Remus’s hand was trembling when he realized what he’d managed to do and covered it with one of his own. “I told you it would work.”
“You could get in so much trouble for teaching me this,” Remus whispered, eyes wide once more. It was true, of course - Sirius knew as well as anyone else did that teaching a werewolf to do magic broke at least eighteen separate Ministry laws and regulations, and was punishable by years in Azkaban and, in some cases, death. Sirius knew all this, and yet there was never a single question in his mind as to what he would do about it.
“What’s life without a little danger, eh?” he joked, and laughed loudly when Remus, dropping the wand on the floor, tackled him and covered him in kisses.
-----------------------
Epilogue
Sirius watched with bated breath as Remus stared up at the castle in front of him. For a year and a half, they’d made do with their original arrangement. Sirius had given up his soul-sucking job and learned to let go once in a while, and Remus was learning magic. But for all that he was incredibly talented at actually doing magic, Sirius was not a born teacher. Remus needed proper lessons, from proper teachers - and there was only one place that could give him that.
“What do you think?”
Remus turned to him, a look of awe and - was it fear? - on his face.
“What are we doing here?”
“I have a proposition for you,” Sirius said softly, pushing down his nerves. He had a Plan - but he wasn’t sure what he would do if things didn’t work out as he thought.
The Plan had hatched on one of the horrible, horrible nights that happened before every full moon. Sirius had noticed it the very first month they spent together; in the days leading up to the full, Remus grew antsy and crotchety, and his eyes began to flash with a wildness that had scared Sirius the first time he saw it. The night before the full, Remus had disappeared without a word.
It happened every month, without fail - even after Sirius showed Remus Padfoot, explained that he didn’t have to be alone anymore, that full moons didn’t have to be death warrants. Somehow, the concept that he wasn’t alone was something that Remus couldn’t grasp. No matter how hard Sirius tried, no matter what he offered to do, Remus would not give up his days of drugs, abuse and turning tricks.
So Sirius decided to use the one tactic that he knew Remus did respond to: Bargaining.
“I want to propose a change in the terms of our arrangement.”
Remus, sensing what was about to come, scowled at him.
“Sirius, we’ve talked about this. I’m not your pet, and I’m not your boyfriend. We agreed - you don’t get to tell me who I do and don’t get to sleep with when I want to.”
Sirius felt his blood boil at the thought of Remus with his tricks, but he pushed it away and focused on his plan.
“Look. I know that you hate the concept, or that somehow you can’t seem to grasp it, but I care about you, Remus Lupin. I’m in a fair way to loving you and you can’t stop me.”
“We said, we said from the very beginning we wouldn’t be lovers!”
“No, we agreed you wouldn’t be my lover. We never said anything about the other way around.”
Remus opened his mouth to protest, but Sirius waved his wand at him quickly, silencing him effectively.
“Shut up. For five seconds in your life, shut up and listen to what I have to say. We can keep doing this thing we’re doing, living in denial of what we are together, and you can keep sleeping around and blowing your mind on drugs and I promise, I will never say another word against it as long as you keep coming back to me - as per our original arrangement. Or, and this is my offer to you, you can promise me never to turn another trick again and accept my help and my feelings for you, once in a while, and in return you can come and work at Hogwarts in the library with Madam Pince. You will live at Hogwarts, in your own rooms, and in the evenings and at the weekends the Professors will teach you magic. We will apply for a license from the Ministry so you can spend the full moons with me, legally, in the Shrieking Shack, which Dumbledore has bought for you and I have outfitted with the appropriate, Ministry-approved wards and spells.”
Sirius paused to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Remus’s wide eyes kept flicking between him and the castle, awash with amber lights and glittering with fresh fallen snow. He was, as usual, utterly unreadable. Sirius sighed and ploughed on.
“I just want you to be happy, Remus, and I want you to be safe. I promise, if you turn down my offer, I won’t mention it again, but I’m asking you to take a chance on this and on us. I think we could build a life together, but only if you let us. I... Well, that’s all. You can talk now.”
He lifted the silencing spell but to his surprise, Remus didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he merely stood there, staring at Sirius as if he had never met him before.
Sirius shifted uncomfortably. “Remus?”
But Remus still didn’t say anything. He turned, slowly, to stare up at the castle again. Sirius followed his gaze. Sirius loved London, but Hogwarts was still his home in so many ways. He wanted Remus to experience it, as he always should have, but he didn’t know if Remus was brave enough to reach out and take what was being offered him. His worst fear was being caged, but Sirius hoped he could see enough to realize that Sirius wasn’t trying to cage him, he was trying to set him free.
It was a long time before either of them broke the silence. Remus turned to him, finally, and, taking a deep breath, said the last thing that Sirius was expecting him to say.
“But what about you?”
“Huh?”
“What... What do you get out of this? You’re offering me everything but... What do you get?”
“I told you,” Sirius said, a soft frown on his face. “I get to see you being happy.”
“And... And that’s enough for you?”
“Well, I get peace of mind from knowing you’re safe and not being infected or beaten or abused by some punter, or overdosing on a bad batch of drugs.”
“I don’t...” Remus paused, worrying his lip for a second before looking back up at the castle. He spoke again, never moving his eyes. “You’re offering me everything I ever wanted, but I can’t... I can’t agree to something I’m not sure I can pull through with.”
Sirius put his hand gently on Remus’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “What do you think you can’t go through with? What are you worried about?”
Remus turned suddenly to face him again and Sirius smiled at him, uncertainly, pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against Sirius’s and closing his eyes. Sirius reached up to cup his head, thumbs rubbing gentle circles against Remus’s temples.
“I think,” he said, after a few minutes, “that for some reason, you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t deserve the things other people deserve, or that you’re not capable of them. I also think that’s bullshit. You are stronger than that, Remus. I wish you would let me show you. I think you should let me show you that you are, you know, capable of love, and happiness, and being content with your life.”
It was several more minutes of them standing there, shivering slightly in the cold, before Remus looked up at him and said, once more, “What about you?”
“Didn’t we just do this?” Sirius smirked, placing a kiss on the top of Remus’s red-tipped nose.
“I meant... Where are you going to live? While I’m at Hogwarts. I know Professors can have familiars but you can’t spend years as a dog...”
“Idiot,” Sirius snorted, but he was grinning. His plan had worked, his plan had worked and he could hardly believe his luck. “James and I are buying Zonko’s. We always wanted to when we were younger and now we can so... We’re doing it. Lily’s not best pleased but Harry loves the idea, and that’s good enough for Prongs. So... I’m going to live in Hogsmeade, we’re going to fix your rooms with a direct Floo connection, and I got you something for your Christmas present which means that until you can apparate, you’ll always be able to get to me when you want - and vice versa.”
He placed the small present in Remus’s hands and encouraged him to open it. A few seconds later the pocket watch lay, gleaming, in Remus’s palms. It was an exact copy of the watch that his Uncle Alphard had given him, rendered in white gold with a tiny pattern of moons and stars around the outside. “I charmed it to act like the Weasley’s old grandfather clock, so you always know where I am,” Sirius explained, gesturing at the shining silver face with multiple ticking arms. “And if you click the button on the top, it acts like a portkey and brings you to wherever it’s partner is.” He pulled his own watch out of his pocket; it had also been charmed with the tracking spells, and to act as a portkey. It had taken all of his willpower to resist using it for months.
“So...” Sirius continued, slightly nervously. “Do we have a deal?”
Remus stared at the silver-colored watch, gleaming in his hand, and then looked up at Sirius again with eyes full of happiness.
“You’ve given me everything,” he said, slowly. “I don’t know why you’re doing it, but I’d be stupid to turn it down. I... I’m going to try, Sirius, I really will.”
Sirius smirked, smug as if his heart hadn’t been in his throat just two minutes earlier. “You’re going to try what, exactly?” he goaded, pulling Remus’s scarf tighter around his neck.
“Berk,” Remus muttered, but Sirius noted the blush on his cheeks with glee. “I’m ... I’m going to try and be, you know... A good... boyfriend, or, whatever...” he finished with disgust, scrunching his nose and glaring up at Sirius. “I hate you sometimes.”
Sirius laughed and kissed him full on his mouth. Remus resisted for a second but Sirius when felt him melting into it and when Remus’s hands came up to tangle in his hair and grip at his hip, as if holding on to him for dear life, Sirius knew that Remus loved him just as much as he loved Remus.
“Happy Christmas,” he whispered against Remus’s lips, kissing him one last time before grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the path that lead up the hill to Hogwarts. “Come on. Dumbledore’s invited us to the feast.”
“Insufferable git,” Remus grumbled at him, but he was smiling when they reached the door, and when Sirius tried to yank him over the threshold he stopped in his tracks and pulled Sirius towards him, kissing him fiercely. Sirius was about to ask what that had been for but Remus placed one finger against his lips and said, “Thank you, Sirius, for saving my life.”
“Any time,” Sirius said, and he meant it. “Ready for this?”
“No,” Remus said, eyes wide with fear. “I’m terrified.” He swallowed, hard, and Sirius had to resist the urge to sweep him up in his arms and carry him far away from what ever it was that was troubling him. “I’m going to jump, Sirius Black,” he continued, and Sirius smiled, remembering that night on the Italian artist’s balcony, all those years ago.
“I’ll be there to catch you,” he replied, and the smile he got from Remus in return lit up the night, and Sirius knew in that instant that they were home.
Author: xkeijukainenx/1electricpirate
Rating: R
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Words: 16,116
Summary: After the war, Sirius becomes an uptight, high-ranking Ministry official; but when an old childhood friend comes unexpectedly back into his life, he learns what it is to let go, live, and love once more. The question is, will Remus let him?
Author's Notes: Written for shaggydog_swap from calico_lupin's fabulous art Almost Blue. Also inspired by Amy Macdonald's This is the Life (hence the title and lyrics). Many thanks to heartofspells for the fabulous beta work.
Disclaimer: They are not mine, they are Rowling's. If I could have them, I would. But I cannot. Sad.
Originally posted here. Part 1 here.
It was another month before he saw Remus Lupin again.
This time, Sirius had been unable to get his friend out of his mind. Their night on the balcony was all he could think of; what Remus had said then, what Remus had done, the look in Remus’s eyes when they had said goodbye.
He trawled the Muggle papers with particular care, just in case, the words “I’m going to jump” echoing endlessly in his ears.
But there was no news, and while no news was good news, Sirius couldn’t get those amber eyes with their peculiar haunting, hunted glint out of his head.
He was on one of his seedier business trips the night he bumped into Remus again, accompanying a group of Asian officials to a particular high-class entertainment establishment - which was more or less a trussed up brothel.
This was all par for the course for Sirius, of course, who had been on one of these trips on his first week of the job. The people he was assigned to entertain were the richest and the best, and he knew from firsthand experience that the richest and the best were often the most despicable and the most corrupt.
He’d been arranging things with the owner of the establishment when a familiar voice sounded in his ear. “Well well well. Mr. Sirius Black. Fancy seeing you in such an upstanding establishment.”
“Remus,” he breathed, spinning around and losing his breath all over again. Remus was dressed in very little but the shiny oil he’d smeared across his golden skin. In the lights of the club Sirius could see what he could not see before, that night on the balcony - a criss cross mesh of scars that covered nearly every inch of his body. Sirius knew he was staring but did not find he could stop, not even after Remus made some lewd and flippant remarks about liking what he saw.
His thoughts - or perhaps better put, his lack of thoughts - were finally interrupted by the owner’s sly remarks. “Mr. Black? Would you perhaps like some time alone to talk with young Mr. Lupin?”
“Would you, Mr. Black?” Remus echoed. There was a coyness in his voice that Sirius hated, instantly. It was the same he used to talk people into deals. “I’m sure we can work out a decent price.”
“Perhaps Mr. Lupin would consent to letting me buy him a drink. We can talk while I make sure my colleagues are enjoying themselves.”
“Sounds good to me,” Remus quipped, cutting off his boss before she could even start to speak. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll get Amy to make you my favorite drink. It’ll knock your socks right off your feet.”
“Gods, Remus, is there anywhere you don’t work?”
“I take offense to that. I don’t work in the government, for instance, which is one blemish I’m sure my upstanding character could do without. I don’t do anything boring like working at Tesco either, thank God. So yes, there are many places I don’t work.”
“You’re bloody infuriating, you know that? Don’t you ever slow down?”
“I’ll slow down when I’m dead,” was Remus’s flippant reply. Sirius shuddered and turned to the bar, ordering two tumblers of whiskey.
“You talk about dying too much,” he said, shortly.
“You don’t talk about living enough,” Remus countered, and Sirius found himself without an answer. “Ha. See? We’re just as bad as each other, you and I.” Remus picked up his drink and downed it in one gulp, motioning for another. “I live too much and you don’t live at all. I wonder which of us is doing it right.”
“Maybe neither of us are.”
“No, that’s a boring answer.” He drained the second tumbler before grabbing Sirius’s hand and pulling him away from the bar. “I want to dance. Come on.”
But Sirius was no longer paying attention to him. His attention had been grabbed by a shadow, by the door - fleeting, but definitely there, and there again, by the end of the bar.
“Bugger,” he whispered. “Not here.” The war was over but the enemy was by no means eradicated - and among some circles there was more than a decent price upon Sirius’s head. Not to mention the fact that he was with some of the most powerful people in the Muggle world tonight and if a Death Eater wanted to cause trouble, it would be a fantastic place to start.
He was so absorbed in tracking the shadow that he didn’t feel Remus tense beside him. The shadow was moving, but Sirius nearly had a fix on it and frankly, he had learned it was much better to hex first and ask questions later. He was about to pull his wand out and start the hexing when suddenly Remus was grabbing him and shoving him forcefully into a backroom, slamming him against the wall and holding him there while he struggled to get free.
“Not here, you enormous idiot!” Remus hissed.
“Let me go, you prat, you don’t understand, I’ve got to...”
But Remus was stronger than he looked - in fact, his grip was like a vice - and he slammed Sirius against the wall again, hissing very loudly in his ear. “I understand perfectly well that you were about to hex the bollocks off someone in the middle of a room full of Muggles!”
Sirius gaped. “You... What?!”
“Muggles! A room full of them! I understand you’re a bit trigger happy what with the war and all that but honestly, Sirius, even you wouldn’t be able to explain away a whole room full of politicians suffering from amnesia!”
“How do you know what a Muggle is?!”
Remus slammed him against the wall once more. “Shut up, shut up you twat, that is clearly not the most important thing right now. Stop panicking and think. What did you feel?”
“What are you on about? Merlin’s bollocks, this makes no sense, how do you know what...?”
“I said shut up! Even I know about the infamous Sirius Black and his freakishly strong powers of intuition. Think. That shadow. Did it give you a feeling?”
Sirius closed his eyes and tried to remember, shoving the panicked questions out of his mind. It was hard going, but suddenly he remembered and he was very, very sure of himself.
“There’s someone here that shouldn’t be,” he said quietly, “and I think it’s a Death Eater. If you even know what that is. But you seem to know about hexes and invisibility cloaks and my weird magic and Muggles which makes no sense since you are one, aren’t you?”
“You pillock.” Once more Sirius found himself slammed against the wall. He was beginning to wonder what he’d done to deserve it. “I know what a Death Eater is. You’re not the only bastard that’s been to war. What I want to know is what would a Death Eater want here?”
“If you’ve heard of Death Eaters,” Sirius began, feeling more than slightly hysterical. Nothing was making the slightest lick of sense any more. “Then you know I’m related to most of them. They probably want revenge.”
“Such a narcissist, even in moments of peril,” Remus scoffed, but he seemed almost impressed. “Alright. This is what we’re going to do. Get your wand out - Sirius if you look at me like that one more time I’m going to punch you in the nose. Merlin’s beard. Any idea who it might be?”
“Might be Lestrange. I killed his wife. It looked about the right shape to be him. Or maybe Avery.”
“Tactics?”
“Idiotic. Not a single brain cell between the two of them.”
“So we could draw them out?”
“Yeah. Okay...” Sirius’s brain was racing, suddenly thrown back two years in time to his days as a soldier in a war that seemed like it would never end. “Here’s what we do. I go out there, make a big fuss about going out for a smoke. They’ll follow me out and you follow them, and then just... Get the hell out of the way. You don’t want to get hit by a hex.”
“I’m not completely useless, you know,” Remus grumbled, but he didn’t object.
“Didn’t say you were. Look, I don’t understand what’s happening right now. How do you know all this?”
Remus looked both exasperated and scared at Sirius’s question, but he seemed to cave - if only for the sake of expediency. “If you survive this, I’ll explain later. Promise.”
“Alright then. Merlin, I wish James were here.” He was about to start back into the bar proper when Remus caught him by the hand and spun him round, crushing their lips together for an instant before letting go and pushing Sirius out into the bar.
Sirius decided that later he would spend a very long time raging about the mindfuck that was Remus Lupin. First, though, there was a Death Eater to take care of.
The Death Eaters had never been the cleverest of enemies and now they were leaderless, they might as well have been brainless. The shadow allowed itself to be drawn outside all too easily and Sirius was soon duelling his dead cousin’s husband in the abandoned alley next to the brothel. Lestrange was angry but Sirius was nimble and clever and had more magic at his disposal than most wizards could boast between three of them. Remus watched from the entry to the alley, entranced, but waiting to jump in at a moment’s notice.
It wasn’t necessary. Lestrange was soon bound and gagged and Sirius left Remus with him while he Apparated for the MLE.
When Sirius returned with the MLE officials and after he had signed the various bits of paperwork and vouched for ‘taking care’ of Remus’s memory, he turned to his friend without a word and, with the barest of touches to his wrist, Apparated them both into his flat.
“Sit,” he bit out, pointing at one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Remus, to Sirius’s surprise, did as he was told. Sirius gestured angrily at the kettle and it boiled over immediately. Cursing, he vanished the mess with a wave of his hand and summoned mugs out of the cupboard with another. Remus watched him with awe (as many wizards who were unused to this kind of easy magic would have) - but not quite enough of it to satisfy Sirius’s expectations.
Once tea was made, he levitated it over to the table and it plonked down in front of Remus angrily, but without even spilling a drop.
“Honestly, Sirius, you don’t have to get into a strop.”
“Don’t I?”
“I don’t see what you’ve got to be angry about.” Remus sipped his tea and burnt his tongue on the scalding liquid. He waved his hand over the cup and sipped it again, smiling this time. Sirius stared at him with an open mouth.
“You’re a wizard,” he said, incredulously.
“Not quite,” Remus said wryly, and this time there was no doubt about it - his eyes were sad. “Sirius... Remember what I said the first night we met?”
“What, about me not knowing James Bond?”
“No, you prat. About people never having any fun if they only did what they were allowed to do? Well. I wasn’t allowed to speak to you. Too dangerous. My parents thought if your parents found out we’d been talking... If they found out what I was... They’d have us all locked up or killed.”
“What in Merlin’s name are you on about? Your Da’s a butcher.”
“My Da’s an ex-Auror,” Remus corrected, quietly, his hands tightening around his mug. “My mum’s a squib, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Your Da’s never an Auror,” Sirius spat, frowning. None of this made sense. He felt like his entire world was being turned upside down by this boy he barely even knew any more.
“He was. But now he doesn’t even use magic, unless he has to.”
“What? Why?”
Remus looked up at him, really looked at him, locking their eyes together with a grim expression on his face. Sirius felt his heart sink in anticipation of whatever Remus was about to say.
“When I was four or five, I guess, my Da made the mistake of arresting a member of a prominent werewolf pack. We used to live up near Birmingham, you know, in a cottage in the countryside. I don’t really remember it, except that night.”
Remus stopped to take another drink of tea, but that was all Sirius needed to hear. All of a sudden, he knew exactly what Remus was about to say. A million tiny things fell into place and Sirius finally understood the boy that had been a mystery to him all his life.
“You don’t have to go on, Remus, I think I understand...”
“Do you?” Remus asked, his tone biting. “Because I don’t. I remember playing in the moonlight, thinking it was fantastic I was allowed outside after dark, and then I remember the wolf. The way it’s breath stank in the night air. The way it knocked me over with its muzzle so it could bite me square on my thigh. It wasn’t a crazed, bloodthirsty wolf - it was cold, and calculating, with the eyes of a human.” Remus shuddered and Sirius felt utterly and completely helpless.
“Da used to lock me in the meat room,” Remus continued. “It was the only time he used magic, and I so desperately wanted to see magic. I knew what you were before I even met you - my parents used to warn me never to even look at you. They thought you would be like your parents, but you never really were, were you?”
“I tried not to be, where it really mattered,” Sirius agreed. Remus nodded.
“Just so. I had a book... Mum smuggled me a copy of Hogwarts, A History, and I wanted so badly to go - and when you told me you were going I was so jealous, Sirius, I hated you more than I’ve ever hated anything.”
“That’s why you didn’t come in December?”
Remus nodded again. “Dumbledore came to see us once. Said I could come to Hogwarts, if I wanted, be trained as a wizard, but Da wouldn’t have any of it. Not all werewolves have magic, you know, but I do.” He lifted his fingers and flexed them and Sirius could feel as well as see the sparks of magic that flew between his fingertips. He watched in a sad sort of wonderment as Remus screwed up his face with effort and managed to levitate his teacup an inch off the table.
“I could teach you,” SIrius said, suddenly, and the teacup came crashing down to the table. Remus stared at him. “I can teach you magic, proper magic, like we learned at school.” He meant it, too, he would have spent the rest of his days teaching Remus if it meant he would be happy. But Remus was laughing a cold, bitter laugh that stung Sirius to his core.
“Too late,” Remus said through a smile that broke Sirius’s heart. “Most werewolves only live until thirty. I’m not going to waste what little time I have left with a world that doesn’t want me.”
“So you’re going to spend it selling yourself to the highest bidder instead?” Sirius sneered. Remus’s face fell instantly into stoney anger, and Sirius wondered if this time he’d gone too far.
“Fuck you, Sirius, you don’t know shite about my life.”
“I know enough,” Sirius retorted.
“Fine.” Remus stood up abruptly, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. “Fine. Have it your way.” He stalked towards the door, obviously about to storm through it before seeming to think better of it. He turned on his heel and stared Sirius hard in the face.
“You act as if you’re the only one that understands what that war was like, Sirius, but you’re not. I fought in that war just as much as you did, for a side that doesn’t even acknowledge me as human, much less see me as worthy of praise. My life has been hell since I was five years old. I did things in the war you never even dreamed of doing, things that still give me nightmares, but I’m man enough not to let the past rule my future. You’re a coward and a fool to hide behind those memories instead of allowing yourself to live.”
Sirius’s blood was boiling now, too. He stood and stalked over to Remus, pressing one finger hard in the middle of his chest. “You say you did so much for the war effort but I was practically leading it, at the end at least, and I’ve never even heard your name.”
“You fucking prat,” Remus cursed, “as if Dumbledore would be stupid enough to name his spies when there was a leak in the Order. Even you must understand that. I used to be so in awe of you, Sirius Black with his fantastic powers, defying his family and risking his life to win an honorable war, but you’re just as bad as the rest of them. Sad and pathetic and lifeless, hung up on the same meaningless bullshit.”
“You don’t know shit about me,” Sirius snarled, very much aware of the ironic parallels even before Remus spat back:
“I know enough.”
The door swung open in front of him as he stalked towards it before he turned, once more, and said quietly. “I would have let you catch me, Sirius Black.”
“Apparently not,” Sirius replied, crossing his arms huffily, “since you don’t seem to realize when you’re falling. You don’t know what’s good for you.”
“And you do?”
Sirius thought of the German minister and the Italian artist, an oiled abdomen covered in scars and pockets full of drugs. He thought of his secret friend grinning up at him through the dogwood blossoms. His heart sank when he realized that this was all Remus had dared to think he could amount to. Sirius might not be the best at living, but he was very good at not dying, and he knew a crash course when he saw one. “It’s not this, Remus, anything but this. You’re so much more than this.”
“As are you,” Remus answered, coldly. He seemed to have made up his mind, finally, and walked through the door, pausing only to call over his shoulder, “And my real friends call me Moony.”
---------------
So you’re heading down the road in your taxi for four
And you’re waiting outside Jimmy’s front door,
But nobody’s in and nobody’s home ‘til four
So you’re sitting there with nothing to do Talking about Robert Riger and his motley crew
And where you’re gonna go and where you’re gonna sleep tonight
And you’re singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
It was three days before Remus’s parting words clicked in Sirius’s mind.
There had been a time in the war where it became clear that there was a leak within the Order. It was particularly hard to identify as the Members never knew everyone that was involved; secrecy was necessary but at the same time, secrecy bred mistrust.
Dumbledore had just as many spies as Voldemort; when Voldemort spread his hands towards a particular group of people, so would Dumbledore. There were secret agents working across the world for Dumbledore’s Order. One, in particular, was instrumental in identifying and eliminating the leak in the Order, foiling Voldemort’s grandest plan for their destruction and ultimately saving not only Sirius’s life, but the lives of James, Lily and Harry as well.
The agent’s name, Dumbledore told them after they had won their most decisive battle and Peter, the rat, had been destroyed, was Moony.
Sirius’s mouth went dry as the memory came rushing back to him all at once.
“Sirius? What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate,” James was saying to him, but Sirius wasn’t listening.
Dumbledore had explained to them that Moony was a werewolf spy working for the Order, trying to counteract Voldemort’s attempts to recruit the werewolves by infiltrating the packs himself. It was dangerous and brutal, but in the meantime he’d picked up some of the most vital pieces of information the Order had access to. Werewolves were generally loyal only unto themselves, something that Voldemort had yet to understand, and information that was leaked to them to make them feel special rarely stayed a secret.
“Bollocks,” Sirius cursed, standing up from the table in the canteen suddenly.
“What? What’s bollocks?”
“Remus,” he said, distractedly, stalking out of the room and hurrying towards his desk. James was following him, obviously confused, but Sirius paid him little attention. “Merlin, I’m a prat,” he muttered to himself.
“Well you’re not wrong there,” James panted, having to jog slightly to keep up with him. “But would you mind telling me what brought on this particular bout of self-loathing?”
“Remus,” Sirius repeated, as if it should have been obvious.
“Your Muggle best friend?”
“Not a Muggle,” Sirius explained curtly, rounding the corner into his office and starting to rifle through the papers on his desk. “Werewolf.”
“Your Muggle best friend is a werewolf?”
“Mmm. Aha!” He found the report he’d been looking for in a pile of paper on the floor under his desk and shoved it in James’s face.
James scanned it quickly. “Werewolf casefile blahblahblah, Attacker... Greyback... Blahblahblah. Name, redacted. Alias - Moony?” He looked up for confirmation from Sirius, who nodded curtly. James continued. “Blahblahblah ah, here we go, Notes. Instrumental figure in Order of Phoenix. Exonerated from routine detainment on attaining age twenty-three due to outstanding accomplishments and soundness of character.” James looked up at Sirius again. “You’re trying to tell me that the person that saved all our arses is your Muggle best friend who is now a paid escort?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Sirius said. “Dumbledore sent me this ages ago, I always assumed he just wanted me to acknowledge the person who’d saved my arse, so I ignored it mostly, but I guess he was trying to tell me something. Smug bastard. Open the file.”
James did as he was told. A picture fell out and landed on Sirius’s desk, and sure enough, it was Remus’s face that was staring up at them.
“Bollocks, James, I thought he was lying about being in the war just to show me up.”
“So what’re you going to do about it, now that you know?”
Sirius heaved a sigh and sank down in his chair, covering his eyes with one hand.
“Nothing,” he said finally. “There’s nothing I can do. I don’t even know where he lives. I don’t think he even lives anywhere.”
“You could use some kind of tracking spell,” James suggested, but Sirius shook his head. Remus was the kind of person that did not like to be found; Sirius knew that much about him at least. Tracking him down and forcing him to listen to whatever pathetic apology and thanks Sirius could give him wouldn’t help matters at all.
“No. Never mind. At least now someone knows it was him.”
“If you’re sure, mate. I’ll help you find him, if you want.”
“I know, Jamie. Thanks.”
Sirius walked home from his office at the Ministry that day, thoughts swirling in his head. He felt guilty that he’d been so clueless about Remus and everything they owed him, and unsettled that he’d never realized that his friend was magical, and ashamed of his disparaging comments against the work Remus was doing to keep himself alive. Most of all, though, he was terrified that he wouldn’t find Remus until it was too late and he’d never have the chance to apologize.
He kicked a stone down the street and into the gutter. There had always been something intoxicating about Remus and his big brown eyes and the way he didn’t care for the rules at all. He had been like a wild animal, even at eight years old: fierce and fearless and free. Sirius, who had spent his whole life caged - at first by his family and then by his own instinct to survive, both in his family and in the war - realized he had always been intensely jealous. What must it be like not to fear anything?
He supposed, though, that kind of fearlessness only came with a particular kind of knowledge: the knowledge that you might die any day, for instance, or that you are shunned by society for something that wasn’t your fault - or both of those things combined.
Sirius had never bought into the Pure Blood classifications and prejudices. It had never mattered to him whether someone was a Muggle or a half-blood or a banshee, for that matter. He had been shocked to realize what Remus was but it didn’t disgust him. It made him sad, and full of pity.
So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he didn’t realize he was outside his flat until he was tripping over something on the stairs.
“Ow, bloody ow, you great oaf, watch where you’re stepping!”
“Remus?” Sirius scarcely wanted to believe his eyes. But sure enough, it was Remus, sitting on the stairs of his building. He’d obviously been asleep against the door, huddled down in a cardigan that looked ten years old, with patches in odd places on the sleeves. Sirius recognized it as something he’d donated years ago to Dumbledore’s clothing drive. Help to keep the unfortunate and the ones dispossessed by this war warm, Dumbledore had said. Not everyone fighting for us can transfigure themselves a coat.
“Where’ve you been, anyways?” Remus muttered, standing up and dusting himself off. “It’s bloody freezing out.”
Sirius didn’t make a move to open the door, though. He tightened his grip around the watch in his pocket and stared at his friend. He realized it was the first time he’d seen Remus in real clothes, not some costume or other, since they were boys. “Why are you here?”
Remus shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Too tired to work tonight,” he said. Sirius realized that the night before had been a full moon, and wondered how he could have forgotten it. “Thought maybe I could kip on your sofa. Unless you’re still angry with me?” He looked vulnerable, wide eyes staring at Sirius from under his fringe.
Sirius shook his head. “Of course not,” he said. “You saved our lives.”
“Figured it out, have you?” Remus scoffed, but there was no anger behind it.
“Reckon I’ve been a bit of a twat,” Sirius admitted.
“Yeah, well, maybe I have as well.”
They stood like that, Remus on the steps and Sirius still on the street in front of him, drinking each other in for a few seconds before Remus interrupted the moment with a wide grin that lit up his eyes.
“So, that magic of yours, can you use it to undress blokes without a wand?”
The tension broke as Sirius snorted, and the door swung open behind Remus. “It can do more than just undress a bloke,” he teased boastfully. Remus quirked an eyebrow playfully.
“Promise to show me?”
“Tea first,” Sirius replied, pushing Remus through the door and up the stairs. “You look like shite.”
“Such flattery!”
“A Black never lies,” Sirius chorused. He pushed Remus down on the sofa, locking the door behind him and fetching tea quickly.
“That’s the biggest load of shite I’ve heard all week, and I spent the night with a politician two days ago.”
“We’ve got to get you over this grudge against politicians.” Sirius sank down on the sofa next to Remus, who threw his legs over his lap and burrowed back into the cushions happily.
“We’ve got to get you over your grudge against whores,” he retorted.
“I don’t have anything against whores,” Sirius said quietly.
“Then what?”
“I just don’t like the idea of you putting yourself in danger.”
“Everything’s dangerous, Sirius. Walking out of your door is dangerous. What’s life without a little danger?”
“Longer,” Sirius replied. He sighed and set down his tea, taking Remus’s from him and doing the same. “I have a proposition for you,” he said, looking his friend in the eye.
“I told you already, old friends get a really good discount. Maybe even a few freebies.” From the tone of his voice, Remus was clearly joking, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He seemed tired today, and fragile, whereas before he had always been full of boundless energy, seemingly invincible.
“Stop,” Sirius said, placing one hand over Remus’s mouth to shut him up. “I want to teach you magic, and I want you to move in with me. In return, I think you should teach me how to live again. It’ll be a full time job and definitely enough payback for the lessons,” he continued quickly, keeping his hand clamped over Remus’s mouth when it looked like he was trying to interrupt. “And I won’t keep you from going out and having fun of your own, as long as you always come home. All I want is to know you’re safe and not sleeping in a gutter somewhere. You can say something now.”
Remus’s eyes were wide and wary when Sirius took his hand away from his mouth.
“I’m not doing anything that isn’t a fair trade,” he said. “I don’t want you taking pity on me. I can take care of myself.”
“Trust me,” Sirius said, leaning closer, shifting so he was essentially on top of the other man, speaking under his breath. “I never do anything that isn’t beneficial to myself. I’m a selfish bastard and if I didn’t think this was a good deal for me, I wouldn’t be offering it.
“I’m not going to be your live-in whore,” Remus replied, and Sirius noticed with a thrill that ran down his spine that he was breathless. “I’m not going to be your lover.”
“Of course not,” Sirius whispered, rubbing his nose along the smooth line of Remus’s cheek. “Horrific concept. Wouldn’t dare ask.”
“Quite,” Remus gasped, his hips pistoning slightly under Sirius’s body.
“What do you say?” Sirius murmured, hovering millimeters above Remus’s lips.
Remus moaned and tangled his hands in the hair on Sirius’s neck. He tried to pull Sirius’s head down to his but Sirius resisted, a sly look coming over his face. “What do you say?” he repeated, pressing his hips down just as Remus’s came up again.
“Merlin, yes, just kiss me, you bastard.”
Sirius did as he was told, lowering himself over Remus and kissing him deeply. Remus opened his mouth to let him in immediately, moaning low and deep in his throat - and then gasping when he realized, a few minutes later, that their clothes had disappeared. Sirius smirked into his lips, his hands greedily covering Remus’s skin, and then whispered another spell in Remus’s ear that had him writhing and mewling, disturbingly like a kitten in his ecstasy. It was an easy thing, then, to position himself and push in, burying himself in the wet, warm heat of the beautiful creature in his arms with one sure stroke, and Remus’s body seemed to welcome him home.
They moved together slowly, languidly on the sofa; Sirius intensely aware of the striking fragility that Remus had hidden from the world for so long, taking great care not to hurt him, no matter how many times Remus assured him he was alright. It was delicious and languorous, and when Remus arched his back and cried out, Sirius was right there with him, holding him close in his arms and gasping his name out against his neck.
“Mmmmm,” Remus hummed, burying his face in Sirius’s neck. “You’re fantastic at that, for an amateur.”
“You’re not bad yourself,” Sirius replied contentedly, kissing a line up Remus’s neck to his earlobe.
“Only one problem,” the golden haired boy - for boy he was in this moment, and it still fascinated Sirius how he could flick so quickly between one and the other - remarked.
“What?”
“This bloody thing’s been digging into my back the entire time,” he complained, fishing Sirius’s wand out from the cushion beneath him.
“Oh. You found it!” Sirius grinned and rolled off of him slightly to the side, propping his head up on one hand and watching him closely.
Remus held the wand in one hand, wonderingly, twirling the dark length of wood between his fingers. “It feels...”
“Right?” Sirius supplied; Remus just nodded, looking entranced, and Sirius smiled gently. He remembered his first time holding a wand. It wasn’t something one was likely to forget. “Want to try your first spell?” he asked.
“I thought each wand only works for one wizard.”
Sirius pressed a kiss to the top edge of a scar on Remus’s chest. “Hmm. Magic doesn’t live in a wand,” he explained, tracing a path down one scar and across another with a gentle finger tip. Remus shivered slightly underneath him. “You know that, of course, you can do magic without one.”
“Only a little,” Remus protested. Sirius shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve still got it. A wand just makes it easier for a wizard to gather his magic. It acts like a conductor, you see. It takes this,” he lifted his hand from Remus’s chest and let sparks dance between his fingers, “and magnifies it. Most wizards need that.”
“But you don’t?”
“Not always. Not for small things, like summoning tea cups and making your clothes disappear, for instance. Sometimes, if I’m angry or scared, it can do more serious things. But my magic has always been odd. Most of the professors thought I was some kind of inbred freak.”
“You are an inbred freak,” Remus teased, and Sirius let some of the sparks fall and dance on his chest for his insolence. “Ow, prat!”
“The point is, my wand is odd, just like I am. I think it’ll work for you. It already knows you, anyways.”
“How?”
“It’s made from the tree that was in your garden,” Sirius said quietly. Remus looked at him with obvious surprise written across his face. “Dogwood almost gives a wand a sense of humor. It seems to live for mischief and rule breaking and fun. It’ll work for you, I’m sure. Try it. Say Lumos.”
Remus looked nervous but he held the wand in his hand and repeated Lumos almost reverently. A burst of light shone from the end of the wand and Remus yelped, staring at it in shock.
“I did it!”
“’Course you did.” Sirius grinned. “Now say Scourgify.” Remus did and the stickiness that had covered them disappeared. Sirius realized that Remus’s hand was trembling when he realized what he’d managed to do and covered it with one of his own. “I told you it would work.”
“You could get in so much trouble for teaching me this,” Remus whispered, eyes wide once more. It was true, of course - Sirius knew as well as anyone else did that teaching a werewolf to do magic broke at least eighteen separate Ministry laws and regulations, and was punishable by years in Azkaban and, in some cases, death. Sirius knew all this, and yet there was never a single question in his mind as to what he would do about it.
“What’s life without a little danger, eh?” he joked, and laughed loudly when Remus, dropping the wand on the floor, tackled him and covered him in kisses.
-----------------------
Epilogue
Sirius watched with bated breath as Remus stared up at the castle in front of him. For a year and a half, they’d made do with their original arrangement. Sirius had given up his soul-sucking job and learned to let go once in a while, and Remus was learning magic. But for all that he was incredibly talented at actually doing magic, Sirius was not a born teacher. Remus needed proper lessons, from proper teachers - and there was only one place that could give him that.
“What do you think?”
Remus turned to him, a look of awe and - was it fear? - on his face.
“What are we doing here?”
“I have a proposition for you,” Sirius said softly, pushing down his nerves. He had a Plan - but he wasn’t sure what he would do if things didn’t work out as he thought.
The Plan had hatched on one of the horrible, horrible nights that happened before every full moon. Sirius had noticed it the very first month they spent together; in the days leading up to the full, Remus grew antsy and crotchety, and his eyes began to flash with a wildness that had scared Sirius the first time he saw it. The night before the full, Remus had disappeared without a word.
It happened every month, without fail - even after Sirius showed Remus Padfoot, explained that he didn’t have to be alone anymore, that full moons didn’t have to be death warrants. Somehow, the concept that he wasn’t alone was something that Remus couldn’t grasp. No matter how hard Sirius tried, no matter what he offered to do, Remus would not give up his days of drugs, abuse and turning tricks.
So Sirius decided to use the one tactic that he knew Remus did respond to: Bargaining.
“I want to propose a change in the terms of our arrangement.”
Remus, sensing what was about to come, scowled at him.
“Sirius, we’ve talked about this. I’m not your pet, and I’m not your boyfriend. We agreed - you don’t get to tell me who I do and don’t get to sleep with when I want to.”
Sirius felt his blood boil at the thought of Remus with his tricks, but he pushed it away and focused on his plan.
“Look. I know that you hate the concept, or that somehow you can’t seem to grasp it, but I care about you, Remus Lupin. I’m in a fair way to loving you and you can’t stop me.”
“We said, we said from the very beginning we wouldn’t be lovers!”
“No, we agreed you wouldn’t be my lover. We never said anything about the other way around.”
Remus opened his mouth to protest, but Sirius waved his wand at him quickly, silencing him effectively.
“Shut up. For five seconds in your life, shut up and listen to what I have to say. We can keep doing this thing we’re doing, living in denial of what we are together, and you can keep sleeping around and blowing your mind on drugs and I promise, I will never say another word against it as long as you keep coming back to me - as per our original arrangement. Or, and this is my offer to you, you can promise me never to turn another trick again and accept my help and my feelings for you, once in a while, and in return you can come and work at Hogwarts in the library with Madam Pince. You will live at Hogwarts, in your own rooms, and in the evenings and at the weekends the Professors will teach you magic. We will apply for a license from the Ministry so you can spend the full moons with me, legally, in the Shrieking Shack, which Dumbledore has bought for you and I have outfitted with the appropriate, Ministry-approved wards and spells.”
Sirius paused to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Remus’s wide eyes kept flicking between him and the castle, awash with amber lights and glittering with fresh fallen snow. He was, as usual, utterly unreadable. Sirius sighed and ploughed on.
“I just want you to be happy, Remus, and I want you to be safe. I promise, if you turn down my offer, I won’t mention it again, but I’m asking you to take a chance on this and on us. I think we could build a life together, but only if you let us. I... Well, that’s all. You can talk now.”
He lifted the silencing spell but to his surprise, Remus didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he merely stood there, staring at Sirius as if he had never met him before.
Sirius shifted uncomfortably. “Remus?”
But Remus still didn’t say anything. He turned, slowly, to stare up at the castle again. Sirius followed his gaze. Sirius loved London, but Hogwarts was still his home in so many ways. He wanted Remus to experience it, as he always should have, but he didn’t know if Remus was brave enough to reach out and take what was being offered him. His worst fear was being caged, but Sirius hoped he could see enough to realize that Sirius wasn’t trying to cage him, he was trying to set him free.
It was a long time before either of them broke the silence. Remus turned to him, finally, and, taking a deep breath, said the last thing that Sirius was expecting him to say.
“But what about you?”
“Huh?”
“What... What do you get out of this? You’re offering me everything but... What do you get?”
“I told you,” Sirius said, a soft frown on his face. “I get to see you being happy.”
“And... And that’s enough for you?”
“Well, I get peace of mind from knowing you’re safe and not being infected or beaten or abused by some punter, or overdosing on a bad batch of drugs.”
“I don’t...” Remus paused, worrying his lip for a second before looking back up at the castle. He spoke again, never moving his eyes. “You’re offering me everything I ever wanted, but I can’t... I can’t agree to something I’m not sure I can pull through with.”
Sirius put his hand gently on Remus’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “What do you think you can’t go through with? What are you worried about?”
Remus turned suddenly to face him again and Sirius smiled at him, uncertainly, pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against Sirius’s and closing his eyes. Sirius reached up to cup his head, thumbs rubbing gentle circles against Remus’s temples.
“I think,” he said, after a few minutes, “that for some reason, you’ve convinced yourself that you don’t deserve the things other people deserve, or that you’re not capable of them. I also think that’s bullshit. You are stronger than that, Remus. I wish you would let me show you. I think you should let me show you that you are, you know, capable of love, and happiness, and being content with your life.”
It was several more minutes of them standing there, shivering slightly in the cold, before Remus looked up at him and said, once more, “What about you?”
“Didn’t we just do this?” Sirius smirked, placing a kiss on the top of Remus’s red-tipped nose.
“I meant... Where are you going to live? While I’m at Hogwarts. I know Professors can have familiars but you can’t spend years as a dog...”
“Idiot,” Sirius snorted, but he was grinning. His plan had worked, his plan had worked and he could hardly believe his luck. “James and I are buying Zonko’s. We always wanted to when we were younger and now we can so... We’re doing it. Lily’s not best pleased but Harry loves the idea, and that’s good enough for Prongs. So... I’m going to live in Hogsmeade, we’re going to fix your rooms with a direct Floo connection, and I got you something for your Christmas present which means that until you can apparate, you’ll always be able to get to me when you want - and vice versa.”
He placed the small present in Remus’s hands and encouraged him to open it. A few seconds later the pocket watch lay, gleaming, in Remus’s palms. It was an exact copy of the watch that his Uncle Alphard had given him, rendered in white gold with a tiny pattern of moons and stars around the outside. “I charmed it to act like the Weasley’s old grandfather clock, so you always know where I am,” Sirius explained, gesturing at the shining silver face with multiple ticking arms. “And if you click the button on the top, it acts like a portkey and brings you to wherever it’s partner is.” He pulled his own watch out of his pocket; it had also been charmed with the tracking spells, and to act as a portkey. It had taken all of his willpower to resist using it for months.
“So...” Sirius continued, slightly nervously. “Do we have a deal?”
Remus stared at the silver-colored watch, gleaming in his hand, and then looked up at Sirius again with eyes full of happiness.
“You’ve given me everything,” he said, slowly. “I don’t know why you’re doing it, but I’d be stupid to turn it down. I... I’m going to try, Sirius, I really will.”
Sirius smirked, smug as if his heart hadn’t been in his throat just two minutes earlier. “You’re going to try what, exactly?” he goaded, pulling Remus’s scarf tighter around his neck.
“Berk,” Remus muttered, but Sirius noted the blush on his cheeks with glee. “I’m ... I’m going to try and be, you know... A good... boyfriend, or, whatever...” he finished with disgust, scrunching his nose and glaring up at Sirius. “I hate you sometimes.”
Sirius laughed and kissed him full on his mouth. Remus resisted for a second but Sirius when felt him melting into it and when Remus’s hands came up to tangle in his hair and grip at his hip, as if holding on to him for dear life, Sirius knew that Remus loved him just as much as he loved Remus.
“Happy Christmas,” he whispered against Remus’s lips, kissing him one last time before grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the path that lead up the hill to Hogwarts. “Come on. Dumbledore’s invited us to the feast.”
“Insufferable git,” Remus grumbled at him, but he was smiling when they reached the door, and when Sirius tried to yank him over the threshold he stopped in his tracks and pulled Sirius towards him, kissing him fiercely. Sirius was about to ask what that had been for but Remus placed one finger against his lips and said, “Thank you, Sirius, for saving my life.”
“Any time,” Sirius said, and he meant it. “Ready for this?”
“No,” Remus said, eyes wide with fear. “I’m terrified.” He swallowed, hard, and Sirius had to resist the urge to sweep him up in his arms and carry him far away from what ever it was that was troubling him. “I’m going to jump, Sirius Black,” he continued, and Sirius smiled, remembering that night on the Italian artist’s balcony, all those years ago.
“I’ll be there to catch you,” he replied, and the smile he got from Remus in return lit up the night, and Sirius knew in that instant that they were home.