Chapter Text
Remus was back— not home, this place hadn’t been home in a long time— but back. Back in London and twisting his key into the sticky lock, jiggling it slightly to the left in that ever-familiar way and forcing the door open.
He stepped inside reluctantly, dropping his luggage to the ground and collapsing onto the seat in the entryway. He pried his shoes off with the end of his cane and sat there, in the dim hallway of his poky flat, eyeing the year-old dust covering the surfaces and wondering, painfully, how it had come to this.
Going to teach at Hogwarts was supposed to be his fresh start. He was supposed to be making a difference, teaching, mentoring, being someone, someone to Harry, even. At least being anyone other than the person he’d become since the winter of nineteen-eighty-one. The winter that everything he knew was snatched from him and he was alone. Utterly alone.
Sometimes he tried to filter through his memories of those twelve years. The first few years were the worst, hazy vodka-stained recollections of hitting walls, of waking up from nightmares to a somehow worse reality, of transforming alone month after month for the first time since he was fifteen and waking up bloodied and littered in new gashes.
None of the memories were all that clear. The alcohol he’d sought comfort in had blurred the edges and all that was left was a skewed montage of desolation. Remus was grateful for it in a way. Why would he want to remember the worst years of his life?
Then, after that, there were the ‘slightly better’ years as he referred to them in his head. The years when he’d been able to start leaving the house again, to stop drinking, to stop wishing that he had died too– or at least stop wishing it every day.
They were the years when he found the strength to frame a photograph of James and Lily on the mantel. The two of them on James’ eighteenth birthday, both in party hats with Lily tucked into James’ shoulder as he looked down at her beaming and pressing a hand to the top of her head. And another one of he, Lily and Harry on the day of his christening, Lily in a floral dress and Remus in an ill-fitting brown suit. He was smiling at her and she was looking down at her son, eyes filled with love and wonder.
They were also the years he began to unbox the belongings and mementos that he’d stored away in the loft and remember the story attached to each item. Sometimes he could even smile at them.
He could hold James’ quidditch jersey and imagine him out on the field, the wind in his hair and his eyebrows furrowed with concentration as he battered the quaffle through the goal. He could summon fragments of James’ face exploding into a grin as the audience roared and applauded, and the way he’d turn to scan the Gryffindor bleachers to wave and dramatically blow kisses.
And he could hold Lily’s sketchbook, remembering how in spring of sixth year, she’d dragged him down to the Black Lake to draw fluid, inky sketches of him jumping into the water. He could let his fingers trace the water-warped edges of the book from where he’d splashed her and remember the warmth of the lake and her laughter.
There were boxes he still couldn’t open and yet had never thrown out, all labelled Sirius in thick black marker. They’d been untouched since the day he’d hysterically flung everything into them, trying not to break down at the way Sirius’ cologne hung on to the graphic band tees or the dark stains on his mugs from never taking milk in his tea. Everything had been boxed. Remus didn’t want— couldn’t stand—to see any reminder of him.
By the end, the flat had been almost empty, and over the years, if Remus didn’t look too closely at the paw-scuffed floorboards in the hall he could almost pretend Sirius had never lived with him at all. Almost.
He didn’t think he’d ever be able to open those boxes again, and yet here he was. Standing inside his old flat, their old flat, knowing Sirius was alive. Knowing that he wasn’t a traitor.
It had been four days since the incident at the Shrieking Shack, and he was still struggling to mentally align the facts: Sirius was not the man who had ruined his life. Pettigrew was.
His brain short-circuited every time he thought about it and wound up repeating the same wicked mantra of twelve years, twelve years, twelve years. Twelve years that Sirius spent rotting in Azkaban. Twelve years that Remus spent torn between wanting to obliviate Sirius from his mind and wanting to feel his fingers on his skin, through his hair.
Twelve years that they could have had together. Twelve.
Now, the number of years they’d known each other, known every curve and scar and flicker of emotion, were outweighed by those twelve that they’d lost. Did they know each other at all anymore?
Three days ago, he’d had Sirius back within his grasp, and now he was gone again, on the run for however long it took to get his name cleared. If his name ever got cleared.
Remus felt bile rise in his throat as he deliberated if it would have been better to never know the truth. To have been able to continue barring Sirius from his mind, exiling his boxes to the darkest corners of the loft, and never entertaining the thought of having him, holding him, kissing him, ever again. He regretted the thought almost immediately.
He’d looked into his eyes and held him once more as an innocent man, and maybe that had to be enough.
He moved through the flat, limping without his cane and running a finger through the thick layer of dust that had settled on the tops of the dining chairs. He’d thought he would have more than just the one year at Hogwarts at least, it had gone by so quickly. And Harry… He’d barely broken the surface of all the things he wanted to tell him, all the things he should have told him growing up. Harry was meant to know him, know James and Lily and Sirius. They were a family. It was never meant to be like this. He didn’t know it was possible to bear the weight of so much guilt and regret.
A sudden rage coursed through Remus’ body. It was foreign. He’d felt so calm, almost too calm, all year but now he was back and it was like the flat and every bad memory attached to it had possessed him.
A sharp pain shot through his foot as he jerked forward and kicked the kitchen cabinet. His body felt numb, like it was barely his own, and he kicked it again, harder, desperate to feel something. He let the pain rocket up his leg until it overpowered the familiar pain in his knee and hip.
A groan escaped his lips and he sank down, letting his leg dissolve into sharp pins and needles and wishing the cold tiles would swallow him whole.
***
Remus woke up to the rhythmic tap of an owl on a window elsewhere in the flat. He glanced over at the clock, nearly midday, and scowled. The last few days he’d just been sleeping, waking to take a pain potion, using the bathroom, then returning to bed. There was nothing he needed to be doing and no reason to be awake, and therefore, it seemed going through the charade of routine was futile. He had nobody to prove himself to, nobody to chastise him for wasting away in bed.
He half considered just turning over, pulling the pillow over his head and ignoring the tapping, but a minute later the bird seemed to have navigated to his bedroom window and began insistently knocking against the pane. He sighed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed with a wince, wiping the sleep from his eyes and reaching an arm out to unlatch the window.
The owl flew in immediately landing on the bedpost. It was a skinny, tawny thing and not one he recognised as belonging to anyone he knew. He frowned as he untied the envelope from its leg and it promptly flew away. He hoped the letter wouldn’t be requiring a reply, he was in no mood to traipse to the Diagon Alley owl-post office.
Glancing down at the neat, looped handwriting on the envelope, Remus felt something akin to dread pool in his gut— Albus Dumbledore. He gulped involuntarily and sliced his finger through the seal.
Dear R. Lupin,
I do hope you made it home safely.
It is with regret that I reflect on the way things ended for you here at Hogwarts last week. Your departure comes as a great loss for us, though I understand why you see it to be necessary.
I must reiterate, our deal vis-à-vis your wolfsbane potion is still active and I can ensure you are able to access it each month if this is still something you desire.
In any case, there is another, more pressing matter that I wish to inform you of. I have made contact with Padfoot, though I remain uncertain of his exact whereabouts. I have ordered him to lie low at yours for a while for it is simply not safe enough for him to be outdoors or living without wards. He should hopefully be with you soon.
I trust that this arrangement will be acceptable for you, however, should you need anything, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards,
Albus Dumbledore
Remus read it all once, then twice, then again.
Half-asleep still and half-naked in sweaty sheets, Remus willed his brain to jumpstart and form some sort of opinion, put names to the multitude of feelings flitting around his mind like mosquitos. Sirius was coming to stay with him? Shit. Sirius was coming to stay with him.
He sank down back into the bed and thought about the nearly-three years that the two of them had shared it. How they’d brushed their teeth together, smiling at one another in the mirror and giggling like schoolchildren as toothpaste trickled down their chins before climbing into bed. Remus on the left side, Sirius on the right, always. How Sirius would wake him up in the middle of the night by tugging on the duvet that Remus had cocooned himself into and calling him a greedy git. How Sirius’ back felt pressed against his stomach, warm and soft in the right places and so, so tangible. It was routine, familiar, loving.
It might have been the first time in over a decade that Remus had let himself remember, actually allowed himself to welcome the memory in, rather than having it creep up on him guiltily on lonely, sleepless nights.
And now Sirius was coming back and nothing was predictable.
He let himself stay in bed a bit longer, brooding in the afternoon light slipping through the crack in the curtains. He wished he knew what to do, what to expect, but mostly he just wished he didn’t feel so fucking sad.
***
Remus is in the middle of reading a book or rather, he’s staring at the words and drifting off into his mind, combing through explanations and excuses and apologies. He wasn’t sure there was any combination of words that he could say to Sirius, maybe something like I loved you and then I hated you. But really, I still loved you… the whole time. And I still do actually. I know I left you to rot for twelve years but— and that’s where it suddenly gets very tricky. There simply was no but. Remus had given up and resigned himself to believing that the love of his life was a murderer and a traitor. Unforgivable.
Dumbledore hadn’t known Sirius’ whereabouts, but as it turned out he can’t have gotten too far in the last week, because eight hours after Remus receives the letter, there’s a gentle bark at the front door.
His body froze, the hairs on his arms standing on edge. He placed the book on the coffee table, grabbing his cane and preparing himself for what lies on the other side of the door.