Chapter Text
Remus had been pacing for the last twenty minutes.
Back and forth and back and forth across Lily's living room, never quite reaching the wall before spinning on his heel and retracing his steps.
His fingers kept dragging through his hair until it stood in every direction, his jaw clenched so tightly it ached. Every few seconds he glanced at the clock as though staring at it hard enough might somehow stop time from moving.
Lily didn't interrupt him. She sat comfortably on the sofa with one leg tucked underneath her, lazily swirling the ice around in a glass of Coke before taking another sip.
Her eyes followed him as he marched past for what had to be the hundredth time, a faint smile threatening at the corner of her mouth. Remus always did this. If something was wrong, he couldn't sit still long enough to think about it. He had to wear himself out first.
The carpet had probably developed a permanent groove by now. Remus's route never changed; six steps towards the window, turn, seven back towards the kitchen, turn again.
Occasionally he'd stop dead in the middle of the room, rub both hands over his face, mutter silently to himself, then immediately resume pacing as though standing still had only made the thoughts louder. His frustration seeped into every movement, making each turn a little sharper than the last.
Lily simply watched, taking another slow drink. She wasn't amused by whatever had Remus so worked up, but she was undeniably amused by how predictable he was. He always convinced himself the world was ending before he'd even tried to solve the problem. Give him another ten minutes and he'd probably start glaring at completely innocent pieces of furniture as though they were somehow responsible for his problems.
Remus stopped abruptly beside the window, folded his arms, unfolded them two seconds later, shoved his hands into his pockets, immediately pulled them back out again and resumed pacing. His shoulders were tight, his expression permanently fixed somewhere between panic and irritation. He looked like someone trying desperately to outrun his own thoughts, except they stubbornly matched his pace no matter how quickly he walked.
Lily settled further into the sofa, completely content to let him continue. She'd learnt years ago that trying to interrupt this ritual was pointless. Remus had to reach the end of his own spiral before he was capable of hearing anyone else.
Until then, she'd sit there with her Coke, quietly observing as he slowly transformed the living room into his own personal racetrack.
Remus threw his hands into the air.
"McGonagall is cutting shifts at the school so we can all pay for stupid Molly's maternity leave and it's like her hundredth child! Not that I'm against maternity leave, but… Lily, you know I'm a feminist, but come on! Why does that mean I lose my shifts? I don't even dislike Molly, I really quite like her! But come on!" He barely paused for breath. "She's lovely. Arthur's lovely. Their kids are lovely. They're all lovely, but every time she announces she's pregnant the timetable gets turned upside down. Somehow I'm always the one who ends up with fewer hours. I don't understand it."
He started pacing again.
"I've covered for people. I've worked evenings. I've taken every last-minute shift they've thrown at me. I've stayed late marking essays because no one else wanted to do it. And now suddenly I'm the expendable one? Brilliant. And the worst part is I can't even be properly angry because she's having a baby! If I complain, I sound like the world's biggest arsehole. I'm not angry she's pregnant. I'm angry that McGonagall's solution is apparently to cut my wages."
Lily watched him for another few seconds before setting her glass down on the coffee table. "Slow down, Remus. So you're upset you're losing shifts?"
Remus stared at her as though she'd just asked whether water was wet. "Lils, if I don't work then I can't afford my bills!"
Remus finally dropped onto the armchair with a heavy sigh, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His leg bounced relentlessly, one hand rubbing absent-mindedly over the back of his neck. A fine sheen of sweat clung to his forehead despite the room being cool, the familiar result of winding himself into such a state that his own body struggled to keep up.
"Remus...I can loan you some money."
"No."
"Remus-"
"No."
"It wouldn't be charity."
"Sure."
"It would be a loan."
"Sure."
"You'd pay us back whenever you could."
Remus shook his head, staring down at his hands. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't."
Lily sighed softly. "You know James and I don't mind. And we're not exactly struggling."
"I know."
"So why won't you let us help?"
Remus swallowed, his fingers twisting together. "Because if I start borrowing money from my friends every time life gets difficult..." He let out a quiet breath. "...then I stop feeling like your friend."
Before Lily could reply, the sound of the front door unlocking echoed through the house.
A second later it swung open, bringing with it a gust of cool air and the gentle patter of rain from outside. Heavy footsteps crossed the hallway.
James Potter appeared in the doorway still wearing his police uniform, his dark curls completely windswept into every conceivable direction. Tiny droplets of rain clung to the ends of his hair, and his glasses were speckled with water, making them glint beneath the living room lights. He looked thoroughly soaked and entirely unbothered by it.
A grin spread across his face the moment he spotted Lily.
"My gorgeous sweet Lily Pad! I'm homeee!"
Lily couldn't help laughing as he crossed the room in three long strides. He leaned down to kiss her, lingering just long enough to earn an affectionate smile before pulling away.
Only then did he notice Remus slumped in the armchair.
Without missing a beat, James bent down, pressed a quick kiss to the top of Remus's head, and ruffled his already untidy curls for good measure.
"What's got our lovely little Moony in such a pickle?"
"Nothing," Remus muttered sulkily, folding his arms across his chest.
Lily gave him a pointed look. "Remus is worried about money," she told James. "And about paying the rent on his flat."
James's expression softened immediately. "We can give you some money."
"No!"
"Remus-"
"No," he repeated, firmer this time. "I'm not charity."
"Nobody said you were," Lily replied gently. "How much are you actually going to lose?"
Remus hesitated, clearly hating the fact he even knew the number.
"I worked it out this morning." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I'll be losing out on about... six hundred pounds over the four months."
"Rem, we can loan you the money."
"I said no!"
The words came out sharper than he'd intended, hanging awkwardly in the room.
James raised both hands in surrender. "Woah. Calm down, Moons."
Remus shut his eyes for a second, immediately regretting snapping, but he still didn't apologise.
James crouched slightly so he was more at Remus's eye level.
"Listen," he said. "The station's running a research programme with the local university and hospital. They're looking at how alcohol affects things like reaction times, memory, coordination and decision-making in a controlled environment."
Remus frowned.
"They're short a volunteer. Participants come in for a few supervised sessions, medical staff monitor everything, you do a few tests before and after drinking measured amounts of alcohol, and that's about it."
"...They're paying people to get drunk?"
James grinned.
"When you put it like that, it sounds a bit less scientific."
Lily rolled her eyes. "A bit?"
James shrugged. "The official version sounds much better."
Remus's eyebrows knitted together, then looked at James with the sort of scepticism usually reserved for people trying to sell miracle cures or convince him that instant coffee was just as good as proper coffee.
"...You're serious?"
"As a heart attack."
"There has to be a catch."
"There isn't.”
Remus leaned back in the armchair, still unconvinced. "So the police are just... paying random people to get drunk?"
James laughed. "Not exactly. It's a supervised research study. There'll be doctors, nurses, researchers... I will be there because we're part of the behavioural observation team."
"The behavioural observation team?"
"Fancy way of saying we make sure nobody does anything daft."
Remus snorted despite himself.
"There'll be three other volunteers alongside you, and it's two hundred pounds a session. Every Thursday night for the next month."
"...Two hundred?"
James nodded. "Yep."
"So..."
Remus did the maths almost immediately.
"That's eight hundred pounds."
"Correct."
Remus's sceptical expression faltered, replaced by one of reluctant consideration. James noticed immediately and couldn't help smiling.
"See? Now you're thinking."
"I don't like that you're right."
"I know."
____
Barty had been talking for the better part of half an hour, and somehow the conversation had never strayed further than his boyfriend.
Reggie apparently hated mushrooms, loved horror films despite screaming through every single one, insisted on stealing Barty's hoodies instead of buying his own and had once managed to burn instant noodles.
Remus had contributed little more than the occasional nod, but by now he felt as though he'd known Reggie for years. He was fairly certain he could pick him out of a crowd despite never having laid eyes on him.
As Barty enthusiastically launched into yet another story, Remus found himself studying the younger man's hair instead.
It was dyed jet black, the ends fading into a deep forest green that caught the light whenever he moved. It looked ridiculously cool. Far cooler than anything Remus would ever have the confidence to pull off himself. He briefly wondered what it would be like to dye his own hair before dismissing the thought almost immediately.
It suited Barty. On Remus, it would probably just look like a mid-life crisis that had arrived a decade early.
There was something quietly humbling about sitting behind the library desk at twenty-five years old while Barty, all of seventeen and still at the local college, happily explained that his wages disappeared almost exclusively on disposable vapes, late-night kebabs and cinema tickets for him and Reggie.
Barty treated every payday like a reason to celebrate.
Remus treated his like a reminder that rent was due.
He wasn't embarrassed by working in a library. He liked the library. He liked the quiet, the books, the regulars who smiled when they came in every Tuesday. But he couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that somewhere along the line he'd expected to be... further along. More settled. Less anxious every time his bank balance dipped.
Listening to Barty cheerfully budgeting for date nights while he mentally calculated electricity bills made him feel older than twenty-five in all the wrong ways.
Remus had worked at the library for three years now. Three years of shelving returned books, recommending novels to pensioners, helping children find books on dinosaurs and space, and pretending not to notice teenagers sneaking into the history aisle to avoid doing any actual revision.
It wasn't glamorous, but it had been steady, and steady had always been enough.
Usually, his shifts were made infinitely more enjoyable by Molly or Marlene.
Marlene had disappeared travelling around Europe with her new girlfriend, Dorcas, filling the staff group chat with photos of mountains, beaches and expensive-looking cocktails.
Molly, meanwhile, was on maternity leave after having her sixth son. Remus was genuinely happy for her, she adored being a mother, but every time he looked at the rota and saw another shift missing, it became increasingly difficult to separate his happiness for Molly from the knot of anxiety sitting permanently in his stomach.
Sometimes he caught himself envying how carefree Barty was with money.
Not because Barty had loads of it, he absolutely didn't, but because the stakes were so different. Barty could spend half his wages on utter bullshit without a second thought because his rent wasn't resting on every payslip.
Remus had already given him the usual lecture more than once, insisting university was a waste of time, that student debt wasn't worth it, that getting a job straight away made more sense. Barty had simply rolled his eyes and informed him that Reggie's older brother had already delivered exactly the same speech, almost word for word. Apparently it was becoming a tradition for twenty-something year olds to tell them they were making terrible life choices.
The email sat unopened in Remus's inbox for the rest of the afternoon.
Every time he glanced at it, he found another reason to ignore it. It sounded ridiculous. Volunteering to drink alcohol in front of complete strangers for money felt equal parts desperate and absurd. There had to be a catch James hadn't mentioned. There always was. Nobody handed out two hundred pounds for a few hours' work unless there was something unpleasant hiding in the small print.
By the time he got home, he was still thinking about it.
Six hundred pounds.
The number kept repeating itself inside his head. Six hundred pounds he wouldn't earn. Eight hundred pounds he could. Rent. Gas. Electricity. Food.
Suddenly the embarrassment of signing up seemed considerably smaller than the embarrassment of explaining to his landlord why he couldn't pay on time.
Remus let out a long sigh, rubbed both hands over his face and reached for his laptop. James's email was still sitting there, untouched. He hovered over the link for several seconds before finally clicking it. The application wasn't nearly as intimidating as he'd expected. Name. Address. Emergency contact. A few medical questions.
Before he could overthink it again, he ticked the final box, pressed Submit and watched the confirmation page appear on his screen.
There.
It was done.