Fic: Double Exposure
Double Exposure
By Minnow
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Era: MWPP, post-Hogwarts.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Love and estrangement.
Will be cross-posted on remusxsirius and marauders_slash.
Double Exposure
Sirius wasn’t exactly looking out for him, but naturally he noticed that Remus came in late and sat down on the other side of the room, as usual. Of course, they hadn’t saved a place for him, but he could have sat a bit nearer if he'd wanted to.
Sirius was never sure how offended they ought to be when Remus seemed to avoid them at meetings. He was always one of the first to leave afterwards, before Sirius even managed to see him go; they were hardly about to linger for refreshments and a chat while Voldemort was sowing hell around them, but it would have been nice to talk to Moony occasionally, hear how he was getting on. After all, the four of them had sworn to remain friends forever. It seemed a slightly girly thing to do, but he, James and Peter had certainly meant it.
He was aware, though, that Moony’s distance might be partly his fault. At school, they were close; more than close. But after school, though Sirius really wanted to stay in touch, the exciting world of flying bikes and girls and escapades with James had intervened; though James had settled down since he and Lily got engaged.
For a moment, seeing Remus looking so alone, Sirius feel a pang of guilt about the way he’d neglected his friend. But, he reasoned, Moony was pragmatic. Moony gritted his teeth and bore things. If the other three didn’t contact him for months, if he had to pass full moons all on his own - and Merlin knew how he managed that, and where - Moony would withdraw into his shell. He wasn’t one to impose, and that was what it would feel like to him.
*
They were sitting on the other side of the room as usual, and of course they never saved a place for him. Remus told himself he didn’t really care. Why should his friends, with their exciting, vivid lives, have to worry about him, with his existence so colourless these days now school was over?
He did miss Sirius. He missed him a lot, though it had only been a fling, a way of passing the time until they left and found girlfriends. They could have done that at Hogwarts, of course, but somehow it had never happened while they were absorbed in breaking all the rules, discovering so many different ways to make love with each other. He knew now that it had been wrong, and he was stupid to keep brooding about it.
There was a girl now, a very sweet girl called Jenny, who would have sat next to him at Order meetings, not at the other side of the room the way his friends did. The only reason she wasn’t there next to him was that she was a Muggle, blissfully unaware of wizarding ways and wars. So far, their relationship hadn’t progressed beyond the odd cuddle on his bed in the shabby bedsit that had been his home until that morning. Somehow, doing things with a girl didn't feel right, not the way it always had with Sirius.
But it would get better. It was fine. He’d have to tell her about the wolf thing at some point, of course, difficult if not impossible with a Muggle, but he’d manage.
As for having been thrown out of the bedsit… He wasn’t going to think about that, the ugly scene when he got home to find the lock changed - which was illegal - and his few possessions downstairs in the shabby hallway. There was nothing he could do about it. He certainly couldn’t afford to take his landlord to court, not when he hadn’t even been able to pay the rent for some time now.
*
It wasn’t easy to concentrate on McGonagall’s long report on dwarves when he kept wanting to look across at Moony on the other side of the room.
He and Remus hadn't exactly broken up, no, but they'd tacitly decided not to continue. Perhaps the decision wasn’t quite mutual, but he’d been pretty sure Remus was also okay with it. After all, he hadn’t made a fuss or tried to take things further after school.
All the same, he still liked to look at Moony; objectively, of course. Because he’d always thought that he was so beautiful, with his delicate bones and wide eyes and his mouth that could kiss like no other mouth he had come across in the universe of girls after school. Oh, there were girls everywhere for Sirius Black. It was just that none of them had golden-brown hair or a sweet, tentative smile; not one of them was a mere fraction less tall than him, or as easy to hold and touch as Remus was. But Sirius didn’t often admit to himself that perhaps the adventures of life in the real world were a bit disappointing after the build-up.
He had a girlfriend at the moment, a girl who’d been a year above them in Gryffindor. Sarah was easy-going and funny, and undemanding, unlike some of his girlfriends. She didn’t come on too strong, either. She didn’t mind that he wasn’t really ready yet for a whole big relationship with a girl. James and Lily scared him: so serious, planning a wedding, like adults, though they weren’t quite nineteen. He didn’t want to start putting down roots, getting involved.
He didn’t want to sleep with a girl either. Not yet. Some day. He was hardly a virgin, after all, so there wasn’t any great rush to overcome that hurdle. Plenty of time to have as much fun as possible, while he still could, without complicating things. Though if this meeting were anything to go by, they’d all be dead anyway by the time the year was over.
He noticed that Moony was listening attentively to the reports, not even glancing over at him. For some reason, that hurt a bit. He’d have liked it if Remus was at least acknowledging that he was there.
*
He risked a glance at Sirius, who was now absorbed in an account of a mission that sounded rather dreary, actually. He thought Sirius seemed a bit tired and strained. They all did, probably, what with the Order work. The last he’d heard, Sirius didn’t have another job at the moment; so many schoolmates had gone straight into the Ministry, but that wasn’t a Sirius sort of job. Sirius hated constraints and working hours and being forced to do things by a higher authority.
But he was still looking wonderful, handsome and a bit sulky. For a moment, Remus slipped back to the old days, remembering how it felt to take a sulky Sirius and try to make him smile, or better, laugh, or best of all, cry out in passion and abandon. Remus smiled himself, involuntarily, at the memory. Well, at least now he could concede that it was just a schoolboy crush, though it was pretty intense while it lasted. And he minded when he realised it was over.
He’d told his parents about it during the summer, when he hadn’t seen Sirius for a while. He didn’t know why he did it. For some reason, he just wanted to talk about Sirius to someone who’d listen.
It was when his mother started dropping hints about girlfriends and grandchildren. He wasn’t sure if werewolves were allowed to have children, actually, but he didn’t want to spoil his mother’s rosy dreams. Which was, of course, why he not only spoilt her dreams but managed to freak her out completely.
He still felt bad about that. His mother had said, ‘Don’t forget, dear, you’re always welcome to bring home a girlfriend.’
Remus replied, quite abruptly, ‘I don’t know about girlfriends. I’ve got a boyfriend at the moment.’
Oh, he saw his mistake after his mother dropped a pan full of cooling stew all over the kitchen floor, wrecking the pie she was making, and burst into tears. So he panicked, and added, ‘It’s just a joke, Mum! We’ve been friends since First Year, and I thought it would be funny to put it like that.’
And perhaps it was his flippancy that had ruined things, because this was only about a month after school, and he’d still assumed, stupidly, that he and Sirius would go on as they were. He even sometimes daydreamed that they could live together. Or at least share a flat. It was technically still the summer holidays, and he’d been sure that in autumn they would get together again.
But they hadn’t.
Maybe that was why, once he’d mentioned the word ‘boyfriend’ to his mother, the floodgates were opened, and he found himself babbling about Sirius non-stop. The name ‘Sirius’ seemed to spill from his mouth just about every other word. He’d tell anecdotes about Sirius and James’s pranks - he glossed over his own role in those - and how Sirius was so brilliant at Transfiguration, and, without giving away any secrets, how helpful and caring he was after full moon nights.
He didn’t always notice the moment when his mother compressed her lips, or his father, who was also in the firing line of his confidences, caught her eye and looked a bit alarmed. His father would then clear his throat, embarrassed, and Remus would abruptly stop whatever he'd been saying. At those times, he was actually quite glad that Sirius hadn’t been in touch, so his parents would continue to believe it was all a bit of a laugh.
He owled Sirius once or twice, casually, so as not to seem clinging or needy. Sirius owled back by return, equally casual and light notes. He told Remus about his new girlfriends, and how he and James were going to Muggle clubs and rock concerts. He didn’t invite Remus to join them.
*
He wondered if Moony had a job at the moment. He’d tried, discreetly, to keep track of how he was doing, not interfering, just making sure he didn’t need any money or anything.
But it was quite hard. Moony had got through a lot of jobs in the first couple of months after Hogwarts. While he was still living with his parents, he’d worked in a pub for a while, a Muggle pub. Then he’d been in a library, cataloguing books, which seemed a more suitable job. He was an assistant in a bookshop for a couple of weeks, and then he was on a till at Tesco, a Muggle supermarket. And at the end of October he left home, and everyone lost contact with him. Including Sirius.
After the summer holidays, he toyed for a while with the idea of asking Remus to come and share the flat. But he didn’t want him to take it the wrong way. They’d outgrown the games they played at school; they were both of age now, in the Muggle world as well as the wizarding one. They should be doing more adult things, focusing on girls rather than each other.
But it was hard to envisage him and Remus interacting like normal friends, perhaps going on double dates together: that was one of the things James liked him to do. In fact, before he met Sarah, he’d been on lots of dates with James, Lily, and some girl or other, all of whom he’d seen again, but not on any regular basis. Not on any physical basis, of course, because if he wasn’t ready now, he certainly hadn’t been ready then.
And yet he'd not only been ready but ecstatically happy to sleep with Remus. He knew he shouldn't still be thinking wistfully about the days when they couldn't wait to be alone, to kiss and to cling together. But sometimes, he simply couldn't help it. Recently, he'd even wondered why they'd gone their separate ways in the first place.
He really didn’t want to blame James and Lily. It was just that James loved Sirius and he loved Lily, and he wanted his best friend to find a wonderful woman as well. He didn’t know about Remus; he’d come in to the dorm a couple of times when they were fooling around on Remus’s bed, and they’d always pulled apart in time; if James retained some faint impression, he didn’t speak about it.
It was just… When Sirius mentioned Moony, which he did quite often, because after all he’d been a major part of all their lives at Hogwarts, James would look sort of closed, would sometimes turn away or change the subject abruptly.
He’d have thought Lily would be okay to talk about Moony. They’d been prefects together in Fifth and Sixth Year, and they’d been quite friendly. Sirius was still convinced that it was thanks to Remus’s relentless selling of James that Lily had finally agreed to go out with him. But Lily also skirted the subject of Remus, and Sirius wondered what exactly she and James had discussed between them about Moony, why James acted as if he’d never even been part of the group, let alone one of their best friends.
It made him quite angry. He finally confronted Lily with it, when she was cooking Sunday lunch for him and his latest girlfriend, and James, and Peter, who was between girls at the moment. And Lily bit her lip, and said hesitantly, ‘It’s just…James prefers not to get involved. He’s uncomfortable with it. And I love him and we’re engaged, and I can’t be disloyal.’
If Sirius secretly thought James was the disloyal one, he kept it to himself. But he did ask, ‘Uncomfortable with what?’
Lily turned that green gaze directly on him. ‘Well, the whole - gay thing. You know. Remus likes boys.’
‘Remus liked me,’ Sirius said, indignant. ‘And he’s not gay. It was a phase. He has a girlfriend now, someone told me. So what if he is gay, anyway? You’re a Muggle-born. You’re supposed to be tolerant.’
‘Sirius, I am. I don’t give a damn what you and Remus do, or did. D’you understand? But James isn’t happy with it, and we’re going to get married.’
That was when Sirius stopped liking Lily so much, and decided to spend a bit less time with her and James. Sure, he missed James. But when it came down to it, he also missed a laughing boy whose touch was like silk and fire, whose eyes were full of mischief and, yes, love, and who had, for a while, made his life tolerable. And however much he tried to pretend they’d both moved on, he found the lack of Moony never quite went away. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to make up for negligence and lost time.
He felt they all owed Moony an apology. Well, he owed Moony an apology.
*
He decided that after the meeting he would at least go and say hello to Sirius, see how he was doing. That was the adult, the mature thing to do, wasn’t it? Now they could meet as two grown-ups and be friendly, without the spectre of that thing at school coming between them whenever they spoke to each other.
He’d introduce Sirius to Jenny. Sirius would like Jenny; and certainly Jenny would like Sirius, probably too much. He didn’t actually mind. He would, he thought, be more upset if Sirius liked Jenny too much. Which was silly, because he wasn’t completely out of touch with the wizarding world - he was a vital member of the Order, for goodness’ sake. He’d heard through the grapevine that Sirius was involved with a Gryffindor girl who’d been a year above them. Well, maybe they could all go out together. Or maybe he and Sirius could go out on their own and have a proper talk at last.
He didn’t care that he had nowhere to sleep that night, unless he Apparated to his parents’ house, which really was the last resort. He just knew that Dumbledore was closing the meeting, and he was going to prove his mettle and talk to Sirius, and then perhaps the world would be at rights again.
*
He decided he would beard Moony after the meeting. If he was fast enough, he’d catch him, say hello to him. It seemed suddenly so ludicrous that there’d been this long period of silence between them. Perhaps the double date idea wasn’t so bad after all. Remus and that girlfriend of his could get together with him and Sarah, and go out for a meal, or to the Muggle cinema. Moony enjoyed the cinema. It would be good to hear him laugh again. Or perhaps they could just go out on their own, or even stay at home.
He felt worse than ever that they’d never included Remus in any of their outings. He just hated knowing that he had to choose between him and James. To be honest, now that James was settled and happy, Sirius sometimes thought, rebelliously, that he would choose Remus anyway. Remus always had time for him. Remus always listened. He cared. And he, Sirius, cared about Remus too, when all was said and done.
Dumbledore was just finishing. Sirius half-rose, looking across the room at Remus again. Their eyes met. Moony didn’t look away, so he smiled, and Moony smiled back. Sirius couldn’t wait to talk to him, to find out everything he’d been doing. Perhaps he could ask him to come and stay at the flat for a while, sleep on the sofa, and they could go and explore London together. Bring the city to life at last.
*
He got up and walked towards his old school friend, who was walking towards him. They met in the middle.
By Minnow
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling and various corporations.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Era: MWPP, post-Hogwarts.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Love and estrangement.
Will be cross-posted on remusxsirius and marauders_slash.
Double Exposure
Sirius wasn’t exactly looking out for him, but naturally he noticed that Remus came in late and sat down on the other side of the room, as usual. Of course, they hadn’t saved a place for him, but he could have sat a bit nearer if he'd wanted to.
Sirius was never sure how offended they ought to be when Remus seemed to avoid them at meetings. He was always one of the first to leave afterwards, before Sirius even managed to see him go; they were hardly about to linger for refreshments and a chat while Voldemort was sowing hell around them, but it would have been nice to talk to Moony occasionally, hear how he was getting on. After all, the four of them had sworn to remain friends forever. It seemed a slightly girly thing to do, but he, James and Peter had certainly meant it.
He was aware, though, that Moony’s distance might be partly his fault. At school, they were close; more than close. But after school, though Sirius really wanted to stay in touch, the exciting world of flying bikes and girls and escapades with James had intervened; though James had settled down since he and Lily got engaged.
For a moment, seeing Remus looking so alone, Sirius feel a pang of guilt about the way he’d neglected his friend. But, he reasoned, Moony was pragmatic. Moony gritted his teeth and bore things. If the other three didn’t contact him for months, if he had to pass full moons all on his own - and Merlin knew how he managed that, and where - Moony would withdraw into his shell. He wasn’t one to impose, and that was what it would feel like to him.
*
They were sitting on the other side of the room as usual, and of course they never saved a place for him. Remus told himself he didn’t really care. Why should his friends, with their exciting, vivid lives, have to worry about him, with his existence so colourless these days now school was over?
He did miss Sirius. He missed him a lot, though it had only been a fling, a way of passing the time until they left and found girlfriends. They could have done that at Hogwarts, of course, but somehow it had never happened while they were absorbed in breaking all the rules, discovering so many different ways to make love with each other. He knew now that it had been wrong, and he was stupid to keep brooding about it.
There was a girl now, a very sweet girl called Jenny, who would have sat next to him at Order meetings, not at the other side of the room the way his friends did. The only reason she wasn’t there next to him was that she was a Muggle, blissfully unaware of wizarding ways and wars. So far, their relationship hadn’t progressed beyond the odd cuddle on his bed in the shabby bedsit that had been his home until that morning. Somehow, doing things with a girl didn't feel right, not the way it always had with Sirius.
But it would get better. It was fine. He’d have to tell her about the wolf thing at some point, of course, difficult if not impossible with a Muggle, but he’d manage.
As for having been thrown out of the bedsit… He wasn’t going to think about that, the ugly scene when he got home to find the lock changed - which was illegal - and his few possessions downstairs in the shabby hallway. There was nothing he could do about it. He certainly couldn’t afford to take his landlord to court, not when he hadn’t even been able to pay the rent for some time now.
*
It wasn’t easy to concentrate on McGonagall’s long report on dwarves when he kept wanting to look across at Moony on the other side of the room.
He and Remus hadn't exactly broken up, no, but they'd tacitly decided not to continue. Perhaps the decision wasn’t quite mutual, but he’d been pretty sure Remus was also okay with it. After all, he hadn’t made a fuss or tried to take things further after school.
All the same, he still liked to look at Moony; objectively, of course. Because he’d always thought that he was so beautiful, with his delicate bones and wide eyes and his mouth that could kiss like no other mouth he had come across in the universe of girls after school. Oh, there were girls everywhere for Sirius Black. It was just that none of them had golden-brown hair or a sweet, tentative smile; not one of them was a mere fraction less tall than him, or as easy to hold and touch as Remus was. But Sirius didn’t often admit to himself that perhaps the adventures of life in the real world were a bit disappointing after the build-up.
He had a girlfriend at the moment, a girl who’d been a year above them in Gryffindor. Sarah was easy-going and funny, and undemanding, unlike some of his girlfriends. She didn’t come on too strong, either. She didn’t mind that he wasn’t really ready yet for a whole big relationship with a girl. James and Lily scared him: so serious, planning a wedding, like adults, though they weren’t quite nineteen. He didn’t want to start putting down roots, getting involved.
He didn’t want to sleep with a girl either. Not yet. Some day. He was hardly a virgin, after all, so there wasn’t any great rush to overcome that hurdle. Plenty of time to have as much fun as possible, while he still could, without complicating things. Though if this meeting were anything to go by, they’d all be dead anyway by the time the year was over.
He noticed that Moony was listening attentively to the reports, not even glancing over at him. For some reason, that hurt a bit. He’d have liked it if Remus was at least acknowledging that he was there.
*
He risked a glance at Sirius, who was now absorbed in an account of a mission that sounded rather dreary, actually. He thought Sirius seemed a bit tired and strained. They all did, probably, what with the Order work. The last he’d heard, Sirius didn’t have another job at the moment; so many schoolmates had gone straight into the Ministry, but that wasn’t a Sirius sort of job. Sirius hated constraints and working hours and being forced to do things by a higher authority.
But he was still looking wonderful, handsome and a bit sulky. For a moment, Remus slipped back to the old days, remembering how it felt to take a sulky Sirius and try to make him smile, or better, laugh, or best of all, cry out in passion and abandon. Remus smiled himself, involuntarily, at the memory. Well, at least now he could concede that it was just a schoolboy crush, though it was pretty intense while it lasted. And he minded when he realised it was over.
He’d told his parents about it during the summer, when he hadn’t seen Sirius for a while. He didn’t know why he did it. For some reason, he just wanted to talk about Sirius to someone who’d listen.
It was when his mother started dropping hints about girlfriends and grandchildren. He wasn’t sure if werewolves were allowed to have children, actually, but he didn’t want to spoil his mother’s rosy dreams. Which was, of course, why he not only spoilt her dreams but managed to freak her out completely.
He still felt bad about that. His mother had said, ‘Don’t forget, dear, you’re always welcome to bring home a girlfriend.’
Remus replied, quite abruptly, ‘I don’t know about girlfriends. I’ve got a boyfriend at the moment.’
Oh, he saw his mistake after his mother dropped a pan full of cooling stew all over the kitchen floor, wrecking the pie she was making, and burst into tears. So he panicked, and added, ‘It’s just a joke, Mum! We’ve been friends since First Year, and I thought it would be funny to put it like that.’
And perhaps it was his flippancy that had ruined things, because this was only about a month after school, and he’d still assumed, stupidly, that he and Sirius would go on as they were. He even sometimes daydreamed that they could live together. Or at least share a flat. It was technically still the summer holidays, and he’d been sure that in autumn they would get together again.
But they hadn’t.
Maybe that was why, once he’d mentioned the word ‘boyfriend’ to his mother, the floodgates were opened, and he found himself babbling about Sirius non-stop. The name ‘Sirius’ seemed to spill from his mouth just about every other word. He’d tell anecdotes about Sirius and James’s pranks - he glossed over his own role in those - and how Sirius was so brilliant at Transfiguration, and, without giving away any secrets, how helpful and caring he was after full moon nights.
He didn’t always notice the moment when his mother compressed her lips, or his father, who was also in the firing line of his confidences, caught her eye and looked a bit alarmed. His father would then clear his throat, embarrassed, and Remus would abruptly stop whatever he'd been saying. At those times, he was actually quite glad that Sirius hadn’t been in touch, so his parents would continue to believe it was all a bit of a laugh.
He owled Sirius once or twice, casually, so as not to seem clinging or needy. Sirius owled back by return, equally casual and light notes. He told Remus about his new girlfriends, and how he and James were going to Muggle clubs and rock concerts. He didn’t invite Remus to join them.
*
He wondered if Moony had a job at the moment. He’d tried, discreetly, to keep track of how he was doing, not interfering, just making sure he didn’t need any money or anything.
But it was quite hard. Moony had got through a lot of jobs in the first couple of months after Hogwarts. While he was still living with his parents, he’d worked in a pub for a while, a Muggle pub. Then he’d been in a library, cataloguing books, which seemed a more suitable job. He was an assistant in a bookshop for a couple of weeks, and then he was on a till at Tesco, a Muggle supermarket. And at the end of October he left home, and everyone lost contact with him. Including Sirius.
After the summer holidays, he toyed for a while with the idea of asking Remus to come and share the flat. But he didn’t want him to take it the wrong way. They’d outgrown the games they played at school; they were both of age now, in the Muggle world as well as the wizarding one. They should be doing more adult things, focusing on girls rather than each other.
But it was hard to envisage him and Remus interacting like normal friends, perhaps going on double dates together: that was one of the things James liked him to do. In fact, before he met Sarah, he’d been on lots of dates with James, Lily, and some girl or other, all of whom he’d seen again, but not on any regular basis. Not on any physical basis, of course, because if he wasn’t ready now, he certainly hadn’t been ready then.
And yet he'd not only been ready but ecstatically happy to sleep with Remus. He knew he shouldn't still be thinking wistfully about the days when they couldn't wait to be alone, to kiss and to cling together. But sometimes, he simply couldn't help it. Recently, he'd even wondered why they'd gone their separate ways in the first place.
He really didn’t want to blame James and Lily. It was just that James loved Sirius and he loved Lily, and he wanted his best friend to find a wonderful woman as well. He didn’t know about Remus; he’d come in to the dorm a couple of times when they were fooling around on Remus’s bed, and they’d always pulled apart in time; if James retained some faint impression, he didn’t speak about it.
It was just… When Sirius mentioned Moony, which he did quite often, because after all he’d been a major part of all their lives at Hogwarts, James would look sort of closed, would sometimes turn away or change the subject abruptly.
He’d have thought Lily would be okay to talk about Moony. They’d been prefects together in Fifth and Sixth Year, and they’d been quite friendly. Sirius was still convinced that it was thanks to Remus’s relentless selling of James that Lily had finally agreed to go out with him. But Lily also skirted the subject of Remus, and Sirius wondered what exactly she and James had discussed between them about Moony, why James acted as if he’d never even been part of the group, let alone one of their best friends.
It made him quite angry. He finally confronted Lily with it, when she was cooking Sunday lunch for him and his latest girlfriend, and James, and Peter, who was between girls at the moment. And Lily bit her lip, and said hesitantly, ‘It’s just…James prefers not to get involved. He’s uncomfortable with it. And I love him and we’re engaged, and I can’t be disloyal.’
If Sirius secretly thought James was the disloyal one, he kept it to himself. But he did ask, ‘Uncomfortable with what?’
Lily turned that green gaze directly on him. ‘Well, the whole - gay thing. You know. Remus likes boys.’
‘Remus liked me,’ Sirius said, indignant. ‘And he’s not gay. It was a phase. He has a girlfriend now, someone told me. So what if he is gay, anyway? You’re a Muggle-born. You’re supposed to be tolerant.’
‘Sirius, I am. I don’t give a damn what you and Remus do, or did. D’you understand? But James isn’t happy with it, and we’re going to get married.’
That was when Sirius stopped liking Lily so much, and decided to spend a bit less time with her and James. Sure, he missed James. But when it came down to it, he also missed a laughing boy whose touch was like silk and fire, whose eyes were full of mischief and, yes, love, and who had, for a while, made his life tolerable. And however much he tried to pretend they’d both moved on, he found the lack of Moony never quite went away. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to make up for negligence and lost time.
He felt they all owed Moony an apology. Well, he owed Moony an apology.
*
He decided that after the meeting he would at least go and say hello to Sirius, see how he was doing. That was the adult, the mature thing to do, wasn’t it? Now they could meet as two grown-ups and be friendly, without the spectre of that thing at school coming between them whenever they spoke to each other.
He’d introduce Sirius to Jenny. Sirius would like Jenny; and certainly Jenny would like Sirius, probably too much. He didn’t actually mind. He would, he thought, be more upset if Sirius liked Jenny too much. Which was silly, because he wasn’t completely out of touch with the wizarding world - he was a vital member of the Order, for goodness’ sake. He’d heard through the grapevine that Sirius was involved with a Gryffindor girl who’d been a year above them. Well, maybe they could all go out together. Or maybe he and Sirius could go out on their own and have a proper talk at last.
He didn’t care that he had nowhere to sleep that night, unless he Apparated to his parents’ house, which really was the last resort. He just knew that Dumbledore was closing the meeting, and he was going to prove his mettle and talk to Sirius, and then perhaps the world would be at rights again.
*
He decided he would beard Moony after the meeting. If he was fast enough, he’d catch him, say hello to him. It seemed suddenly so ludicrous that there’d been this long period of silence between them. Perhaps the double date idea wasn’t so bad after all. Remus and that girlfriend of his could get together with him and Sarah, and go out for a meal, or to the Muggle cinema. Moony enjoyed the cinema. It would be good to hear him laugh again. Or perhaps they could just go out on their own, or even stay at home.
He felt worse than ever that they’d never included Remus in any of their outings. He just hated knowing that he had to choose between him and James. To be honest, now that James was settled and happy, Sirius sometimes thought, rebelliously, that he would choose Remus anyway. Remus always had time for him. Remus always listened. He cared. And he, Sirius, cared about Remus too, when all was said and done.
Dumbledore was just finishing. Sirius half-rose, looking across the room at Remus again. Their eyes met. Moony didn’t look away, so he smiled, and Moony smiled back. Sirius couldn’t wait to talk to him, to find out everything he’d been doing. Perhaps he could ask him to come and stay at the flat for a while, sleep on the sofa, and they could go and explore London together. Bring the city to life at last.
*
He got up and walked towards his old school friend, who was walking towards him. They met in the middle.