that’s the art of getting by

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/27300139.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen, M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Character: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Harry Potter, Molly Weasley, Minerva
McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore, Arthur Weasley
Additional Tags: Post-Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Post-First War with Voldemort,
Raising Harry Potter, POV Remus Lupin, Remus Lupin Raises Harry
Potter, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Sirius
Black Free from Azkaban, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin Raise Harry
Potter, Slow Build, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Implied/Referenced
Child Abuse, First War with Voldemort, Alternate Universe, Unhealthy
Coping Mechanisms, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending
Series: Part 1 of more than getting by
Collections: Marauders, best fanfics ive read, golden boys who dont always shine,
Best things I've ever read, My fave Marauders, best marauders fanfics
ever, Other__Stuff, Canon Doesn’t Spark Joy, Fandom Classics,
Wolves and Stars, hp fics that have my heart
Stats: Published: 2020-10-31 Completed: 2021-07-25 Chapters: 17/17 Words:
40460

that’s the art of getting by

by sarewolf

Summary

“What do you want me to do?” Remus says, tiredly. All he wants is to curl up on his bed.
Smoke a pack of cigarettes. Get drunk. He can’t stop looking at Harry.

“Remus...” Dumbledore is gentle. Remus hates when he has that tone. Hates that he knows
it will hurt. “There is no one else left.”

A bitter laugh escapes him. “So you’ll curse the poor thing with a werewolf for a
guardian?”
 chapter one
Chapter Notes

Content warning: discussion of child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When you're young you don't think about

How good things have a bad side
You spend your time waiting around
For the fall not the goodbye
When you're naive and so green
It makes it hard to believe
How life works when you're older

- Laura Zocca, The Art Of Getting By

Remus knows that happiness isn’t natural to him. Oh, he’s had glimpses of it. For a few short years
he’d convinced himself that it was something he could hold in his hands, carve into his life like the
etchings on a map. He had laughed often, abrasively, disgustingly joyful. Loved recklessly.
Sometimes he can still feel the way it had sat in his chest and crinkled in the corner of his eyes.

But a life like his can’t contain joy for long. He’d sensed it even then, pressing on the windows of
Hogwarts. The outside slowly creeping in. James would smile it all away. It will be okay Moony,
he’d say. As long as the Marauders stick together. And he’d throw his arm across Remus’s
shoulders and reel him back into whatever scheme they were conjuring up.

After... after, Remus remembers the way Lily would try to smooth over any worry. Would hold
them together, tentatively, like they were all precious. Maybe she was the only one who knew how
breakable they were. It makes Remus want to cry, but then... he hasn’t done that in a long time
either.

When Remus apparates to his front door and sees Dumbledore and McGonagall waiting patiently,
he almost wants to turn around and walk the other way. He knows what he looks like. His clothes
are old, worn and wrinkled. He stinks of smoke and sex. He is scraped empty, a bag of bones and a
fresh scar on his face that catches the light. It’s been nearly three years since... and they have not
been kind years to him. Remus sighs, resignedly walks forward. Then he shudders to a stop.

Between the two professors is a little boy. He’s so small, Remus almost missed him hiding in the
robes that swarm around him. He has messy, jet-black hair and dark skin. His eyes are green and
round. His clothes hang off him and his face has a mottled, angry bruise across one cheek.

Remus can feel his breath leave his body. It’s been so long since he’s seen – before... fuck. His
eyes flash up to Dumbledore’s. He is wrenched apart and adrift and much too hungover to deal
with this.
“We have one last thing to ask of you, Mr Lupin,” says Dumbledore calmly.

Once he has a cup of tea in his hands – with an added splash of whiskey that has McGonagall
frowning at the bruises on his knuckles – he feels less like his world is falling around his ears.

Harry, Merlin it’s Harry, is playing on the floor, scribbling with some pencils that Dumbledore has
conjured up from who knows where.

“The boy isn’t safe with them,” Minerva says. “I thought as much when we dropped him off, that
terrible night. So I went back to check after Christmas, and as you can see...” she trails off.

Remus looks at Harry again, at the hand-shaped bruise on his face and the ones Dumbledore say
curl around his arms. Dursley did have big, meaty hands... that one time Remus met him. Anger
burns at the back of his throat as he swallows his whiskey-tea.

“What do you want me to do?” Remus says, tiredly. All he wants is to curl up on his bed. Smoke a
pack of cigarettes. Get drunk. He can’t stop looking at Harry.

“Remus...” Dumbledore is gentle. Remus hates when he has that tone. Hates that he knows it will
hurt. “There is no one else left.”

A bitter laugh escapes him. “So you’ll curse the poor thing with a werewolf for a guardian?” He
stands up, can’t bear to sit across from the two commanders of a war that he is still not recovered
from. “Surely Molly Weasley has a place in her home for another one?”

“She has a young baby and six other children, Remus.”

“The halls of Hogwarts, then.”

“Cold stone and no one to call his own?” Dumbledore looks over his half-moon glasses at him.
Delivers a deadly blow. “James would have wanted...”

Remus snarls. “Don’t tell me what Ja... don’t tell me what he would have wanted, because it
certainly wouldn’t be this.” He clenches his hands around his tea cup and looks at Harry. The boy
is staring at him now, wide-eyed. Remus forces himself not to think of Lily.

He turns back to the people who welcomed a young werewolf into their school. Made sure he was
warm and safe in Gryffindor tower. Assigned him to a dormitory with... he still can’t bear to think
of them. It still hurts too much, like a bad dream. Like another life, best to forget. But he can’t, not
with Harry staring at him.

“I have nothing,” Remus’s voice cracks. “Nothing left. You have given and taken it all.”

McGonagall frowns and Remus can’t bear the fucking pity of it. When Dumbledore looks at him
gravely, he knows that he is going to pull at the tatters left of his life anyway.

“Maybe it is Harry who will give something to you.”

Remus doesn’t really remember what happened after... after the night his whole fucking world
exploded. He has snippets of celebrations in the street. He’d poked his head out the window and
watched as wizards and witches cried in desperate, gasping happiness.
“Oi!” He’d yelled. “What’s happened?”

A young witch had looked up at him. Remus remembers that she’d been a vision of Lily. Her eyes
were filled with tears.

“The war is over! He is dead.”

Remus had wanted to cry. And laugh hysterically. Most of all he’d wanted to sweep James and
Peter and Lily and Harry and Siri... him, in his arms and say we made it, we fucking made it.
Bruised and angry but alive.

“How?” He had stuttered instead.

“The Boy Who Lived, that’s who.” Another wizard grabbed the girl in his arms and spun her
around. She laughed delightedly through her sobs.

“Merlin give thanks to Harry Potter!”

Remus remembers reeling backwards. He remembers the taste of vomit in his mouth when he was
sick on the floor. He remembers shaking at the smack of the paper delivered by an owl, as if it
were an ordinary morning. The war is over, it read, James and Lily Potter dead at the hands of You
Know Who.

He remembers the owls that filled the sky in tawny colours, drowning out the sun. The Wizarding
population couldn’t keep up – Remus couldn’t keep up, couldn’t breathe, the manic, laughing face
taunting him in black and white. Traitor Sirius Black arrested for the murder of 12 muggles. All
that is left of Peter Pettigrew is one finger...

He thinks it might have been a week of lying blankly in that room surrounded by sick and darkness
before anyone came. The key had rattled in the lock. Remus remembers the old, rusted clinking.
He remembers Moody grumbling should’ve remembered the boy sooner, Albus and Dumbledore
lowering his eyes.

Dumbledore and McGonagall leave with the promise of bringing more things for Harry. Remus
waves them away and sits on the floor next to the toddler. They stare at each other. What the fuck
am I going to do now? Remus thinks.

Harry is quiet... quieter than Remus remembers him being when he was a baby. He had been such a
little thing, learning to walk and babble. Clapping and smearing pumpkin mash on the walls with a
mischievous grin. Mumma! He’d say. Dadda and Padf... Remus shakes his head.

“I’m...” he pauses. He feels ridiculous for being scared. The boy is only four. There is very little
chance of him remembering the tired, world-angry twenty year old who popped so rarely into his
life between missions. But Remus had been at the birth, had held the child gently and looked into
his eyes. Had watched Lily’s fill with tears of happiness. And James, beaming. He takes a breath.

“I’m Remus,” he says. “I’m going to take care of you. Would you like that, Harry?”

Harry reaches out. Traces the new scar running from Remus’s eyebrow, across his nose and cheek.
Remus closes his eyes, and lets him.

“Okay,” Harry says, in a thin voice. He sounds just as scared as Remus.

“Okay,” Remus repeats. He breathes. And breathes.

Dumbledore sends Molly Weasley. She pretends not to look disapproving at the admittedly-
horrendous state of Remus’s flat. Falling apart, chipped walls and no personal belongings. All he
can afford, really.

“I know,” he says. “I suppose finding a new place is next.”

He tries not to sound overwhelmed, but she must sense the panic in his voice. He is twenty four.
He is looking after his dead best friends’ son. He needs a cigarette.

“Sit down before you fall,” Molly says. He slumps into the dining chair.

“Now I’ve brought you toys. Blankets. Clothes – Ron has grown out of these already and
Dumbledore said Harry is small for his age. I’ve also got books – for him and for you. Read them,
ignore the advice you don’t like and cling to the parts you do. Sleep when you can. Don’t forget to
eat,” she pauses, looks him up and down. “You’re too skinny, Remus.”

“Fuck, Molly,” he says. “How...?”

He leaves all the questions he wants to ask hanging in the air. How do I do this? How do I make
sure I don’t fuck him up? How do I look at him without thinking of them?

“I know,” she says. She puts her hand on his shoulder.

Remus gives Harry his bed. The boy looks like he’s drowning in the duvet, a tiny thing in a sea of
blankets. He doesn’t complain. In fact, he barely says a word.

“You okay, Harry?”

The boy nods his head.

“Okay, well... g‘night.” Remus switches the light off.

Later, as Remus quietly smokes a cigarette out his window and lets the cold air soothe the anxiety-
heat creeping up his neck, he hears a sound from the bedroom.

He stubs out his cigarette and quietly pushes open the door. “Harry?” He murmurs.

For a second, panic grips his body. Harry isn’t in his bed. Instead it lies empty, the duvet pulled
down so that it drips onto the floor. Remus follows it with his eyes, and sees Harry curled up
underneath the bed. They look at each other.

“Miss my cupboard,” Harry says sadly. He blinks at Remus tearily.

“Okay,” Remus breathes. Dumbledore – or McGonagall... someone in the blur of it all – had told
him about Harry’s last living quarters. A tiny boy in a tiny cupboard, hidden away. But not just any
boy. A Potter. James Potter and Lily Evans’s son. Remus can feel the sick rising in his throat.

While Remus had been drinking, screwing around with whoever would take his scarred body,
smoking in alleyways and forgetting, forgetting it all so desperately... Harry had been forgotten
 too.

What a monster I am, Remus thinks angrily to himself.

“I’m sorry Harry,” he says instead. “There’s no cupboard here. But how about I stay? Would that
make you feel better?”

Harry nods and Remus helps him back into bed. He tucks Harry in firmly, more like the cocoon of
his cupboard. He perches tentatively on the edge of the bed.

“Story?” Harry asks him.

Remus looks down at him and aches so sharply that he wants to cry – suddenly – like a child. He
swallows. “Have you heard the one about Babbity Rabbity?” He says.

Harry shakes his head.

As Remus starts to tell him the story, haltingly from memory, Harry snakes one arm out of the
duvet and holds Remus’s hand. Remus clutches it in return.

Chapter End Notes

Hello friends, this story has been floating around my brain for a while now. Not sure
how many chapters quite yet, but plan to update weekly. Feedback is welcome,
always. Hit me up with comments, theories or anything you'd like to see in the work.
 chapter two
Chapter Notes

Content warning: reference to child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Just breathing, my hearts with you

Thought we'd try to build a home
Turns out I was wrong
I was just leaving, leaving like I do
Leaving like I do

- Ryan Montbleau, I Was Just Leaving

Dumbledore urges Remus to flee somewhere remote. Hide in France. Or Ireland. But Remus... he
understands how it feels to grow up hidden. A shameful secret clawing in the basement, watching
other children from a distance. Wondering why the scars on his body had wrenched him from the
world.

His mother had tried her best — and he can't say he’d had an unhappy childhood, simply a quiet,
lonely one of books and cracking bones. Even when he was roaming the Forbidden Forest with
animals he called pack and boys he called friends, he felt that lonely child brimming beneath the
surface. An imposter who had snuck into the world craving friendship handed out like crumbs.
And love – oh, well he threw himself on that viciously.

He can’t create the same life for James and Lily’s child. Not when James had grown up bathed in
so much love yet refused to take a drop of it for granted. And Lily, who knew how powerfully love
could hurt but chose to wield it with kindness instead. Harry deserves that. He deserves more than
that.

Remus is an awful choice to give it to him.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, boy,” Alastor Moody says as smoke fills the crisp air
between them. He tilts sideways, sways a little as he rests on the wooden leg gained from a battle
Remus still feels he’s fighting.

Harry is already inside their new cottage, safe beneath the protection spells they’ve guarded it with
— Remus can hear him rummaging around, opening and closing cupboards curiously.

It’s an old Order safe house, nestled by the woods at the edge of a small Muggle village. They’re
not too far from the high street, where kids in school uniforms nick sweets from the corner shop
and gossip spreads like Fiendfyre. It’s disgustingly ordinary and Remus already misses the
anonymity of his dingy London flat.

“He can’t grow up in the Wizarding world,” Remus says. He wants to say, I can't stay in the
Wizarding world. “He’s too famous.” He takes a drag of his cigarette.

Moody scoffs. “And it’s too dangerous. See what happened to the Longbottoms?”

“Exactly. But I won’t...” Remus blows out a breath. “It can’t just be him and me. It isn’t fair on a
little boy.”

If he’s honest with himself, Remus knows it’s because he doesn’t think he has enough love to give
anymore. Harry can’t live on scraps and that is all Remus has left. He needs people. Children he
can laugh with, fight with, grow with. A village he can roam in freely, without fear. Oh Remus will
be there watching it all, patching up scraped knees and broken hearts. But Harry needs to be filled
with love. Overflowing with it.

“I hear the Weasleys will be taking him at least once a month.” Moody gives Remus a sideways
look.

“Yes,” Remus says tiredly. “I won’t have him anywhere near when...”

Moody flicks his cigarette to the floor, stamps it out with his wooden leg. “Oh I’m not concerned
about that shit. You know more protection and defensive spells than some of our best Aurors.”

Moody looks at the gnarled and twisted trees that overarch Remus’s new home, like he can see the
layers and layers of spells they’ve placed – some darker than others.

“This whole operation... it’s not secure,” Moody says. “He was meant to be with his mother’s
sister. Blood protection. Someone will go looking for him soon and notice that Harry Potter isn’t
where he’s supposed to be. And it’s hard to be vigilant when so many people know where and who
the boy is with.”

“Only people from the Order know,” Remus replies. “And even then, only a few.”

Moody barks out a mad laugh. “Because the Order is so good at keeping secrets,” he bites. Then he
glances at Remus. “You know better than anyone, Lupin, just how blind we are.”

Remus turns back to look at the cottage, sees Harry placing his toys in an orderly line across the
windowsill. Remembers the black dog plushie James had bought his son as a joke, in Harry’s old
life. Feels sick with the thought of his new one.

“I rarely make the same mistake twice.”

Harry likes burnt toast with thick honey. It drips onto his plate and smears his face golden. He runs
around with sticky fingers, he doesn’t put shoes on, he breaks things and cries, he is so quiet
sometimes Remus wants to shake him.

When he is not playing silently or roaming around the house, Harry watches him. His eyes follow
Remus accusingly around their disaster of a cottage, stares as he organises books onto shelves and
unpacks the mountains of blankets that Molly Weasley has knitted for them and mashes pumpkin
and folds socks.

Once, after a dinner that Remus has destroyed so badly the pan smokes and sputters, Harry’s eyes
seem to trace his pacing as he fights the urge to throw all the dishes out the window. Back and
forth, back and forth. Remus takes a deep breath.
You’re really fucking this up, every moment of silence seems to tell him. You have no bloody clue
what you’re doing, do you?

Remus tries not to let himself think of the past. After, after it all... he shut himself down. Barely
picked up his wand. Simply got up every morning. Went to a job at the pub. Or bookstore. Or
manual labour. Whatever was around when Remus inevitably got fired. He still brushed his teeth.
Dressed. It was habit, perhaps.

Occasionally Remus took too many drugs. He would drink and drink and drink and then have sex
with people who looked too much like... but didn’t that just prove there was still life left in him? It
was too simple to give up. Too easy.

He remembers begging Dumbledore, once. When he was dragged to a safe house and thrown in a
shower and told the full story. Are you sure? Remus had sobbed. It was the last time he cried. Are
you sure?

After that, Remus stopped seeing anyone from the Order. There was nobody left to see anyway.
But he wanted a clean break – like all other chapters in his life. Before the wolf. After the wolf.
Before Hogwarts. After Hogwarts. Before Halloween. After Halloween.

Perhaps that is how he knows to keep stumbling forward. One foot in front of the other. On and
on.

One night, Remus can hear Harry start to cry.

Remus is already awake, can feel his bones shifting beneath his skin with the pull of the moon and
the thoughts that circle endlessly like a record on repeat. In his old-new life, this would be when
Remus decided to get truly plastered, would follow the hand on his lower back leading him to bed.
Always someone different.

Instead there is a tiny boy with messy black hair crying alone in his bedroom next door. Remus
tries not to feel tired, already. Tries not to wish for the past. Or the past-past. He pushes Harry’s
door open slowly.

“A‘right Harry?” He asks. The boy is curled up, clutching his blanket and a rabbit toy with torn
ears that Molly has given him. His tears trail into the collar of his pyjamas.

“Scared of monsters,” Harry says sadly.

Oh there are plenty, Remus wants to say. Instead he settles into a calm, reassuring expression. “Let
me show you something,” he replies.

Harry clambers out of bed and together they put on slippers and walk outside. It’s dark, the moon
barely a sliver. The forest in their backyard sways in the breeze and the sound of it is an angry
rustle. It could be frightening, Remus supposes, if you weren’t so used to winding in the empty
spaces between trees.

“Watch,” he says. And he raises his wand so that all the forest is filled with light – the wards he
and Moody placed shimmering brightly. Rabbits jump, startled and birds shake from their nests
confused by the not-sun. Harry is wide-eyed, the green of the forest in the green of his eyes – like
damp-new, like seeing magic for the first time.
“This is our home,” Remus says fiercely. “And no monster can pass.”

Harry looks up at him in wonder. He shuffles closer and Remus picks him up. He settles Harry on
his aching hip and the boy’s black hair tickles his nose. Remus remembers how James would style
his when he was eleven – all sticking up and mad. How it would look after a night of frantic
frolicking in the woods.

“Well...” Remus amends, because he refuses to make promises he cannot keep. His eyes flick to the
pale moon. “Only the ones we know.”

When Lily had given birth, Remus and... Remus and Sirius had been there.

The cry had rung out. Harry’s first. Remus had tried not to think of the cries in battle, scared and
urgent. Or the howls of werewolves to the moon that ruled them. Sirius had turned to Remus. The
smile on his face had been golden and he had kissed Remus full on the mouth, like Harry was
theirs too.

That moment is etched, forever. As much as Remus tries to claw it out. As much as he tries to
understand how that much joy can turn to so much destruction.

Lily had looked tired, when they were permitted to enter. Tired but glowing and fierce and strong.
Her arms curled protectively around her baby. Her red hair falling to cover the child, like a charm
warning those who could hurt him.

Remus had smoothed a hand over her head and she had smiled up at him. He remembers the tears
in her eyes. He remembers James shaking. So young and scared. So desperately hopeful.
“Congratulations,” he had murmured as he kissed her temple.

Later, Remus had stepped outside alone.

The night air had been cool. Remus’s hands had shook as he fumbled a cigarette out of the pack
and lit it with a click of his fingers. The smoke curled in his mouth and he had blown it out in a
shape resembling a dragon, just like he used to when they were young and still learning not to
cough with each inhale. Remus remembers it all so clearly, even as he tries to blow the smoke of it
away.

James had snuck up behind him. “One for me?” He'd asked.

“Last one before you become a proper family man.”

James’s laugh had echoed in the empty night as he took the offered cigarette. “To be honest mate,
it still doesn’t feel real.”

“You and Lils are going to be stellar parents,” Remus remembers telling him. He had glanced at
James, saw how fearless and tired they all were. He wants to remember James like that, forever.
Glowing. “I mean that.”

James had smiled, nudged him with his shoulders. “Sirius will be wanting his own next,” he joked
as he took a drag of his cigarette.

Remus had looked away. “I’m leaving tomorrow," he'd confessed. James had known what it
meant. He watched Remus steadily. “Another mission.”
“Ah,” James flicked his cigarette. Let the ash drift to the ground.

“Haven’t had a chance to tell him yet. Not with...”

“I s’pose you’ll tell him while you’re packing again, will you?”

“James...” Remus had sighed. So many mistakes had been made, during the war. So many missed
conversations. So many raised voices. If Remus could go back... “You know I don’t want to,” he
had said instead.

“C’mon Moony,” James replied with a false cheer. “We both know how invaluable that brain of
yours is. Dumbledore will send you on a jaunty research trip and you can come up with another
brilliant invention like your Patronus messages.”

Remus had taken a deep breath. The missions that Dumbledore assigned him made him sick. And
scared. And he wasn't able to tell anyone even though the secret of it had already felt like it was
spilling out. Like it was already written on his body. He had been angry, so often. Helplessly angry
that none of them knew. It wasn't their fault. Remus was good at hiding. It was an art to him. But
they should have known.

“Will you be back for the moon?” James had asked.

“I’m not sure,” Remus remembers replying, even though he had been.

No, he did not return for that moon. In fact, he would end up missing a few moons, howling and
clawing it away with packs that destroyed Remus piece by piece. And when he did come back, it
would seem the world had shifted, slightly. Like he was out of sync with the Marauders. One step
behind. Even he had been different. Remus can see that now. Wishes he'd seen it then.

“Just come home, yeah?” James had said simply. He had put his hand on Remus’s shoulder.
Remus remembers feeling time slipping through James's curled fingers as he tried desperately to
hold on, to pull it back to harmless mischief in Hogwarts corridors. Friends safe and laughing by
the fire.

Remus had nodded. Inhaled smoke slowly. Exhaled slower. This time, a wolf leapt into the air.

The first time Harry laughs – a proper giggling, toddler laugh – Remus feels a knot unwind in his
chest. He lets the sound of it echo in him. He watches as the butterfly tickles Harry’s nose, such a
small thing to delight in. Such a wonder that this can still exist. He reminds himself that the war
didn’t take Harry like it did Remus.

He joins the boy outside to watch the fluttering of colour as more butterflies join the dance. Harry
chases them, runs around him, between his legs, bumping into him and yelling "Remy, Remy
look!"

His arms are skinny but the bruise on his face is nearly gone.

"Aren't they lovely, Harry?" Remus replies. He thinks of Lily and how she had looked at her son
like he was a miracle. Like she didn’t know what to do with something so precious. And James,
who cried in happiness. Laughed and loved in the darkest of times.

He hopes they can see Harry now. He hopes they can see that Remus did come home. Bruised and
 battered but carrying their child into some semblance of a life. He hopes they can see.

Chapter End Notes

How is everyone doing out there? Wolfstar fic is the only way to get through the end
of 2020 tbh. As usual, feedback is more than welcome, my friends.
 chapter three
Chapter Notes

Content warning: PTSD response, reference to child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

I want someone to grow with

Songs I can sing to
And a family to cling to
But if I can't get the things I want
If I can't get the things I want
Just give me what I need

- The Paper Kites, On The Train Ride Home

When Remus hears the charm alerting him that someone has apparated near their home, it takes
him a moment to find his wand. He kicks himself for not being more battle-ready, reminds himself
of his training.

But it's just Dumbledore. He ducks to enter the house, wearing a long, purple, pointy hat that
Remus hopes the neighbours didn't see. He fidgets as the man peers around Harry’s new home.

There is a burgundy velvet sofa that sags sadly in one corner. A fireplace with no wood. Mostly-
empty bookshelves. A colourful corner where Harry has run out of paper and moved to the walls
instead. A kitchen with only enough pots, pans and dishes for two. There is no cupboard under the
stairs.

Dumbledore looks at Remus gravely – at this barely-functioning home and life – and hands him
the key to the Potter vault.

"For you to take care of the boy," he says. "I know money is not..."

Remus thanks him hurriedly, exchanges pleasantries that he won't remember later and throws up in
the kitchen sink when Dumbledore leaves.

James had tried to give him money, in those long years of war when Remus and Sir... when they
were in a fight. Would hide it in bags, would turn up at his latest flat with groceries, would secretly
transfer galleons to his vault.

Remus remembers yelling at Lily one day, I’m not your fucking charity case, and Lily raising an
eyebrow, no Remus, you’re our friend so just bloody well shut up and go buy some vegetables.

Now Remus has their child and fortune. He vows that every coin will be spent on Harry. Not a
sickle for himself. And when the boy turns 17, Harry will be given back the vault that is owed to
him. A cruel exchange for a dead family.

*
Remus spends time in the garden. The cottage has been abandoned for so long that weeds and vines
have intertwined with each other on the dense floor. It feels like he is doing something useful,
when he digs his hands into the dirt and realises that there are still things in this world that grow. It
feels like repentance.

Harry helps. He puts his wellie boots on and totters around, jumps in mud piles and enthusiastically
rips out plants. He asks questions, endlessly. What’s this, Remy? What’s that? Watch this!

One day as they work in the front garden, a neighbour wanders past. Others have been curious,
some doing the circuit to reach Harry and Remus’s house at the very end of the lane. Few have
been brave enough to approach.

This woman is elderly, her cane tap tap taps and then comes to a stop. “Oh it’s nice to see this
place with life in it again,” she muses to herself.

Remus looks up. He knows she sees the scars, because her eyes trace his face. Then she flicks over
to Harry. The boy looks so different from Remus. Dark skin where Remus is pale. Short and
increasingly-stocky where Remus is bones.

“Yes, it will be quite beautiful when it’s finished,” Remus says politely.

“Have you and your wife moved into the area?”

Oh, Remus thinks. This is a gossip mission.

“Just the two of us,” he says, pointing to Harry. He stands up. “I would shake your hand, but...” He
looks down at his dirt-palms.

“No need dear.” The woman has a kind face. Her white hair reaches the middle of her back and she
wears a blue dress. “I’m Neris. I live a few streets over.”

“Remus,” he replies. “And this is Harry, my...” He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. He is
not Harry’s father. Not his legal anything. Certainly not his godfather. The son of my two dead best
friends. Killed by my...

“Remy looks after me,” Harry says quietly. He sidles up to Remus. “We make dirt. And soup. Dirt
soup. I like it.”

Neris laughs. “Well, nice to meet you both. If you need anything, we’re a friendly bunch. Make
sure you introduce yourself down at the market.”

As the woman taps away on her cane, Remus blows out a breath. He doesn’t remember the last
time he’d had a conversation so ordinary, so free of pain. He looks down at Harry.

“That didn’t go too badly, did it?”

Harry squints at him and dives into the mud headfirst.

They go to the shops the next day. Remus dresses a wriggly Harry in his nicest clothes so the pair
can make a semi-decent impression.

As they walk along the street, they hold hands. Harry’s eyes are wide. People cycle past and
teenagers smoke discreetly behind dumpsters. There is no magic in the air, and Remus’s shoulders
relax.

They pop into the market to pick up meat and vegetables and rice and pasta. Harry caresses each
carrot and potato before they choose it and Remus lets him, just to see the happiness on his face.

At the checkout, a young girl with wavy black hair scans their groceries and smiles down at Harry.
She gives him a lollipop for free and he clutches it in his hands.

“Say thank you, Harry.” Remus nudges him.

“Thank you!” The boy chirps.

“Cute kid,” the checkout girl says to Remus. Her name tag says Gemma and she smiles at him
shyly. “Just like his Dad.” She clumsily brushes a piece of hair off her face, looks at him from
under dark, soft eyelashes.

I’m being flirted with, Remus thinks distantly. He wonders why a girl so young would be interested
in a man with a face full of scars and a child. He studies her and quickly realises she is probably
only a few years younger than him. What a difference war makes.

“He’s not... I’m not...”

“Oh!” Gemma says. “Wait. You must be the two from End Lane. Gran said you’d be ‘round soon.”
The scanner beeps and Gemma hits a key without looking at it.

“Neris is your Gran?”

“Sure is. The old bat likes to wander in the woods. You’ll see her go past your house every so
often.”

“She seems very nice,” Remus murmurs.

Gemma smiles. “Oh yes, everyone here is nice. Even the yobs over there.” She tilts her head
towards the smoking teenagers and her eyes crinkle in a fond smile. “There’s rarely any trouble in
this village, you’ll soon see that. In fact, you two moving here will probably churn the gossip mill
for another few weeks at least. Thanks for that, by the way. Stops them talking about my
indiscretions.”

The girl winks. With her dark hair and grey eyes she looks too much like someone Remus used to
know. They leave the store hurriedly.

Gemma is right in her assumption that the villagers seem to be fascinated with Remus and his
young ward. They all stop and watch as the pair walk by. Harry cheerily waves and Remus nods
his head. Some people wave back.

When Harry plasters himself against the window of a sweet shop saying Remy, Remy, chocolate, a
mum with a daughter the same age smiles in commiseration. Harry can’t be dragged away until
they have a bag of sweets each.

Then in the charity store, an old man behind the counter grills Remus on the latest fashion in
London – as if Remus has a clue – and watches as Harry carefully picks out an orange shirt. “Not
that colour,” the man grumbles. He stands up, offers Harry a small, forest green sweater. Harry
clutches it to his chest, his eyes wide. “This one suits you much better, lad. Matches the eyes.”

And in the toy store, a plump woman with a kind face coos over Harry and shows him where toys
for the best behaving boys are. She smiles at Remus as Harry picks one from the pile.

“You can choose more than that,” Remus says. He’s at another shelf, selecting educational
products. Fuck I’m meant to be teaching him things, Remus thinks. Not just letting him eat dirt and
draw on walls.

He watches as Harry pauses. Makes another selection and looks back at Remus. Remus nods and
Harry smiles.

They have lunch in the pub. There is an empty booth in the corner. Remus tries not to imagine
Peter sitting there, already nursing a beer and waiting patiently for people he loyally calls friends
but seem to consistently let him down. They would miss pub nights so regularly, during the war.
Peter would be disappointed every time. Remus shakes his head and tries not to think of Peter at
all.

Harry and Remus choose a seat by the window. The village outside bumbles along and they both
watch, a little stunned at this new life they have found themselves in. Then they look at the menus,
Harry holding his upside down and pretending to read with a frown. It’s cute. It hurts Remus to
think that. He wishes he wasn’t the only one to witness it.

“What would you like?” Remus asks.

Harry gazes at him, confused.

“What do you like to eat, Harry? There’s bangers and mash. Fish and chips.” Remus points at the
pictures that are on the menu. Harry watches his finger. “For lunch.”

“Don’t know,” he says. Harry sounds small, suddenly. “Not allowed.”

Remus swallows. Oh.

“You’re allowed anything you want, Harry,” he replies gently. “Shall we try fish and chips? It
comes with mushy peas.”

Harry looks up at him and grins suddenly. “Mushy mushy. Like the green slime we found in the
garden, Remy?”

“But much tastier.”

When the pub starts to fill with locals and Harry devours an entire bowl of mushy peas, the
bartender switches the television to football. Remus watches men in red and gold run around and
remembers arguing with James that football is much better than Quidditch. But you fly, Remus!
Fly! I won’t have this slander.

Suddenly, a man behind them starts to yell. “Oi what does the ref think he’s doing!? Bloody
bastard!”

Remus flinches at the sound. He’s thrown back into a battle during the war, one of many that sneak
up on him in the strangest of moments. With green and red bolts of light. Bodies thudding to the
 floor. Maniacal laughter and dark red blood that drips from Remus’s neck.

Sirius screaming, you fucking bastard, in between curses and his friends out there – defenseless and
duelling and Remus can’t see them and Sirius pulls him back against him, hard, protects them with
a shield charm and... he takes a deep breath and a shaky sip of his beer. Tries to clear his head.

What he doesn’t miss, even in the midst of his own panic, is that Harry had flinched too. Harry had
flinched too. Had raised his arm to protect his face. The boy has tears in his eyes that he tries to
blink away. The man behind them is grumbling under his breath.

Remus reaches across the table towards Harry, touches his hand gently. “Hey,” he says quietly.
“How about we take all this home and crack open some toys, yeah?”

Harry nods.

That night, Harry crashes to sleep on the sofa. His black hair sticks up. His limbs are splayed and
every so often he murmurs to himself. Remus watches him in silence. Pulls a blanket over the boy
and reassures himself with every rise and fall of his little chest. Every breath. Every smile in his
sleep.

He goes outside for a smoke. The air is cold and the moon nearly full. Soon it will be time to drop
Harry at the Weasley’s and become a beast, once again. Soon it will be Halloween, and three years
since...

Remus looks up at the stars. It’s a clear night. He remembers Astronomy lessons in the tower,
James and... him, making mischief in the corner. Remus had been partnered with Peter. The poor
boy had been scared of the centaur that taught the class. His hands had shaken the telescope and
moved it slightly out of position. I can’t see, Peter had said despairingly. It’s all just darkness.

Not long after Peter had been killed, his mother had been given an Order of Merlin. Remus had
been drunk when he’d seen the picture in an old copy of the Prophet, her hands shaking as she held
the medal and tried not to cry. It was a very poor price to pay for betrayal.

“What I don’t understand,” Remus had pleaded with Dumbledore. “...is why? Why, why, why.”
His voice had been hoarse. He’d been yelling.

“We may never know, my boy,” Dumbledore had said.

“But he... he loved us.” Remus had been empty and angry. What he wanted to say was, but he loved
me. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. To say it out loud was to say the truth of the matter, which is that
maybe he never did.

Remus finishes his cigarette. He looks up at the sky one last time. And if he is drawn to the Canis
Major constellation and traces it angrily, hungrily, with his eyes... who is there to judge him?
Nothing but the darkness.

Chapter End Notes

Surprise! This chapter practically wrote itself, so I thought I would post it early. If you
have any feedback or just want to chat about the man that is Remus Lupin, comments
are more than welcome.
 chapter four
Chapter Notes

Content warning: drug use, references to sex, problematic coping mechanisms.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

They say that suffering will make a woman wiser

I hate being asked if I am some sort of survivor
But all I know is I have kept myself steady
I walk that line between the darkness and the ready

- Nadia Reid, High & Lonely

Remus can’t get out of bed. He can feel the pull in his bones, in the way they ache and splinter in
his body – ready to crack with the rise of the moon. A case of the monthlies, he thinks in a voice
that echoes from the past. Lily, by the fire.

Over the years, Remus has carved shapes out of himself. He doesn’t mean physically – though he
has done plenty of that too – but the necessary removal of parts that simply hurt too much. He tears
at them like the wolf tears at his face or gnaws at his foot. Get rid of the source quick, before it can
fester and gangrene and infect the rest of the body.

But when it is the moon. When the wolf hides beneath a single layer of skin, ready to hunt and
fight and feast and fuck and... the shapes he has carefully removed slam back in and the memories
overwhelm his senses, reverberate like pain up and down his weak, human body.

Shapes like Hogwarts. The slope of the grounds. The circle moon over the lake. And Prongs, their
steadfast leader galloping in joy. Or Wormtail, riding high on antlers. And, and... Padfoot. With the
wolf. By its side, nipping and playful and running and licking. Oh, on the full moon the pack
would run and it was recklessly free.

Every moon after, after, has been empty. And the wolf has been angry. It misses Padfoot in a
desperate amplification of all the ways Remus does. It misses home. It misses love and family. So
it takes it out on the closest thing there is.

Remus closes his eyes and takes a deep, trembling breath. Tries not to feel even as his body
shudders in a sick practice run of the shift. Tries to resist, like always. Fails, like always. He knows
he needs to get up. He needs to make Harry breakfast. He needs to watch him buzz about outside in
beautiful bursts of innocent energy and laugh and learn and, and, and...

Instead, Remus lies there. And eventually Harry finds him. He climbs up into bed and slips under
the covers. Rests his head on Remus’s chest. Harry seems to understand silence. It’s something
they have in common, even though Remus wishes desperately they didn’t. The need to be still – for
a moment. The pain that can choke a single second.

The tiny child opens a book – one they picked out from the store together. Remus sits up. He reads
the words but doesn’t hear them. Harry seems content. His weight anchors Remus. A centre point,
a fixture to the world that he will disappear from. Another person here, to hold his bones together
for as long as they can.

Pack, his mind whispers. Pack, pack, pack, pack...

Eventually, Remus and Harry stumble downstairs. It is late in the day, the afternoon sun is leaking
across the ground and warming the garden with a golden hue. They make sandwiches. Harry eats
five. Remus chews on one, doesn’t taste it.

“You know what’s happening, don’t you Harry?” Remus says. He won’t, he can’t lie. Not to
Harry. Not about this.

“Remy turn into a wolf,” Harry says. The boy looks up at him from under a dark fringe of hair.

I need to get that cut, Remus thinks absentmindedly. No, I need to ask him if he wants it cut. I need,
I need... he feels his stomach turn. He feels his body turn. Preparing, preparing...

“That’s right,” he replies instead. “You’ll be staying with Molly, you remember her? She’ll be
having you for a sleepover. You can play with her son Ron, he’s the same age as you. And in the
morning, I’ll come and get you. That sound okay?”

Harry watches him gravely. “Remy be okay?”

Oh Harry. Remus wants to hold him, suddenly. Wants to stay in their own pocket of the world that
they have carved out, together. Wants to put it in a pensieve and live it over and over, the heady
mixture of happiness and pain. Can’t bear to forget how they can coexist and make each other
sweeter.

“Yes Harry,” he says tiredly. “I’ll be okay.”

It is maybe the first lie he has told Harry. Maybe.

Darling, Remus remembers Sirius kissing into his ear in the morning after a full moon, when it was
just the two of them curled on a splintered, wooden floor. Darling, wake up. Sirius’s callused
hands had traced the new, open and bleeding wounds that dripped onto the ground. Had helped
patch the tears up tenderly, like they were something to still be loved, even when they hurt.
Especially when.

Remus blinks his eyes open. He is alone. His pain is his. It leaks unhindered onto the floor. He lets
it, for a long time. Doesn’t let himself think that maybe he likes it. Maybe he deserves it. For
letting himself have something so fucking beautiful and for letting war destroy it. For all the ways
he let Sirius down. For all the ways Sirius let him down. For not seeing it until it was too late, and
his friends were dead. For the fights. And the fucks. And the love. Oh, the love.

Molly takes in Remus’s haggard appearance when he arrives to pick up Harry the next day. She
shakes her head. Her eyes don’t leave the new scars that stretch across Remus’s throat in a
panicked swipe to remove a voice before it can howl out all the misery that is contained within.
“Remus...” She is soft. He hates it. Remembers why he avoids people around full moons. Why he
avoids people in general. Except, except...

Harry comes barreling into the Burrow. His face is bright with happiness and flushed from running
in the garden. He barges into Remus’s legs and Remus staggers backwards with a grunt. Clutches
the child to him in a desperate embrace. Oh. Oh.

Later that night, the adults have tea together. Arthur is home. Remus’s hands shake as he takes sip
after sip. His bones feel heavy, his skin still feels like it is rising and falling and shaping into
something monstrous. He is not himself, he is never himself. He used to have someone to remind
him who he was...

“Remus...” Arthur reaches across the table. “Why don’t you let Harry stay another night?”

Remus can see the boy snuggled beneath a blanket with Ron. There is a picture book between them
and their eyelids are drooping in big, comical blinks. He's my best friend, Remy, Harry had said as
he'd introduced Ron. The young pair of boys had held hands and Ron looked deliriously excited to
have a person of his own.

“Why don’t you stay tonight, my dear?” Molly adds.

He looks down at his tea. Wishes desperately that his best friend was here, to run a hand down his
back and bite his neck and work out the vestiges of energy that brim beneath the fingertips and toes
of a body so recently transformed.

“If Harry wants to stay, that would be lovely Molly. But I will return home,” he says blandly.

Harry is overjoyed at the prospect of one more night, though he checks and checks and checks with
Remus. Are you sure? You sure Rem? You sure? And Remus reassures him twice over that he is
sure, that he wants Harry to have fun, that tomorrow they will go home and no, the house won’t be
lonely and neither will Remus.

Arthur drops a heavy hand on Remus’s shoulder when he leaves. For a man so good at pretending
to be bumbling, so capable of slipping into the background, it should be unsurprising just how
much he sees. Remus is still startled.

“Don’t do...” Arthur stops himself. Steps back and smiles sadly. “See you tomorrow, Remus.”

Remus apparates directly to the entrance of a club hidden in the north of England. The bouncer tips
his head as Remus drops a couple of sickles into his hand and swipes the vial out of his palm.

Inside, the walls are black and bodies press against each other. Music blasts so loudly that it
shudders the shattered-and-restored bones of all who enter. It is for creatures of dark. Of night. Of
pain.

He never would have known about this place, if it wasn’t for the war and the missions that
Dumbledore insisted he take on. Where pack was made of fear. And fear turned to lust and hatred
and a toxic imitation of love. And these sick and scared people created places where they could be
sick and scared together, occasionally. Where they could turn to each other as human bodies,
where they could swallow potions that shut the world off for a blissful moment before they were
flung back into the wilderness of animals. It is an underworld nobody wants to talk about. An
underworld he had been sent into alone, with shaking knees and a schoolboy stammer.
Remus had been innocent, once. Had been a boy who collected books like friends and ate chocolate
by the handful and kissed sweetly. Yes, there had been darkness. Loneliness and so much pain
but... war. War was different.

In the middle, Sirius had told Remus that he’d changed. Yelled it, really. Another night, another
argument, another angry fuck with skin too tight and the moon too fresh.

Remus had known he was different. Had known that his soft edges were becoming sharp and hard.
Sweaters and laughter and gentle touches had been replaced by biting teeth and armour and dark,
wry humour and scars – more than ever before – more than he could explain away. He let himself
become the weapon he needed to be.

Sirius hadn’t changed. At least, Remus thinks as he takes a hit in one quick gulp and lets the green-
gold magic seep into his body, feels the pulse of the music and the eyes that follow him hungrily
around the room... at least not until it was too late to change back. Perhaps it had always lurked in
Sirius, like the wolf in Remus. Perhaps Remus had been blind.

But oh, he had been so bright and beautiful and daring. Sirius had glowed during the war, him and
James both. Reckless and stunning. The makings of legend. And they wore it with a humility so
unexpected, even as Remus and Peter had lurked in the shadows they cast.

There was darkness. Sirius would come home with blood on his hands. Or they would be separated
in battle, frantic and alone. Friends would die. Friends would nearly die. Sirius laughed a lot those
days. He cried a lot too.

“I’m scared for him,” James had confessed, one late night when Remus couldn’t stand the waiting.
“He’s too good at this.”

“Someone has to be a hero,” Remus had replied, and James had looked at him and looked and
looked.

That night, that argument, when Sirius had come home with blood in his mouth and a curse on his
lips and the names of dead friends and enemies-who-had-once-been-friends, Remus remembers
how Sirius spat out you’ve changed and how they bit and fucked and Sirius had cried.

“I need you,” Sirius had said. “I need you to stay soft and human. Don’t let me forget.”

Remus had gasped promises he couldn’t keep, stuttered into an orgasm that brought tears to his
eyes, knowing he had already betrayed him.

Now, he does the same. Lets a werewolf who has dark hair that curls behind his ears and a wicked
smile lead him to the bathroom. And lets them fuck. And lets his tired bones settle and rearrange
and settle again.

This time, Molly drops Harry at home. She surveys each room with a small smile, her hand in
Harry’s little one as he leads her around proudly. It is not the Burrow, none of the bustling energy
and character. But it is gentle. It is soft.

Remus watches them. His heart beats beneath the sweater he has thrown on. The wolf has receded
to the part of Remus it likes to lurk in while it waits for the moon to make its cycle once more.

When Molly eventually extracts herself and leaves with a gentle touch to the scar on Remus’s
cheek, he and Harry sit in front of the fire. Harry clambers onto Remus’s lap and looks at the
 pictures in the book they are reading. He traces each face that peers out from beneath the word
family contemplatively.

“Remy,” Harry says. “I like the Weasleys...”

Remus hums and turns the page.

“... And Ron is my best friend. And the twins are silly. And Molly said to call her Aunty Molly.
And Uncle Arthur is funny...” The boy pauses for a second. Then he twists to look at Remus in the
face. “But you’re keeping me?”

Remus looks down at Harry. Feels his world shake and settle once more. Hears Sirius spit you’ve
changed. Lets the comedown flow over him and all the knots that the wolf tried to untangle with its
claws come loose.

“Oh yes Harry,” he says fiercely. “We are pack.”

Chapter End Notes

Ooft, what a chapter. Don't worry, we're getting there. Major developments up next...
 chapter five
Chapter Notes

Content warning: discussion of child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

All I had was you and all you had was me

There was no tomorrows
We'd packed away our sorrows
And we saved them for a rainy day

- Tom Waits, Martha

Strangely, life settles.

Remus has never been one to hope for a quiet existence – has never had time to hope for any kind
of future, if he’s honest – but somehow it rests gently in his chest. He feels... not happy, but
content. He knows what to expect.

Every morning, Harry wakes as the sun does. Remus can hear the child stretch and yawn. He
knocks on the bedroom door and helps him get dressed. Or sometimes they don’t, instead
wandering to the kitchen in their pyjamas. Harry’s little dressing gown flutters behind him like a
cape as he jumps down each step.

He makes honey on toast for Harry. Or porridge. Or yoghurt. Harry learns to ask for what he wants,
and it makes Remus glow every time he says pancakes please in a small voice. He carefully
arranges chocolate chips in the batter, tapping them with his wand so they dance around on the
pancake. It makes Harry giggle every time.

They spend their morning in the garden. It’s starting to take shape, again. Seeds are dug into the
soil and bees buzz around happily. Harry gets stung by one and doesn’t cry. He says sorry to the
poor thing. Remus thinks of James and Lily... their incredible empathy for creatures capable of
pain. How James would visit him in the hospital wing and say, not your fault mate even as he
hastily healed the scratches on his arm. It doesn’t hurt as much, to remember them. Not when
Harry is there.

Occasionally, Neris walks past. She offers tips on pruning and planting. The soil round here is
tough, she says. But I think you’re a match. As a thank you, Remus makes her remedies to soothe
her aching joints. She bakes them biscuits in return. It becomes a trade that makes Harry very
happy.

When the weather is good, they go into town. They start to recognise more people. There is
Gemma, of course. She flirts shamelessly with Remus, even as he stammers like he is sixteen. Then
there is Sally, from the sweetshop. Old Julian, from the charity shop. And Tommy, from the pub.
Harry likes Tommy best, because he supplies the mushy peas.

Harry joins a group of Muggle children at the park. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday they play
together. Remus sits and watches him, smoking a cigarette. He thinks about friends, how tentative
and important they are. How they can save lives and break them. Harry looks ecstatically happy to
be jumping off equipment with other children and collecting bruises like they’re a trophy of play
well done. He’ll be good at Quidditch, Remus thinks wryly.

Every month, Harry spends a night at the Weasleys as Remus tears into his own flesh and lets his
blood drip onto stained floors. Harry is good at not being too concerned, but Remus knows the boy
watches him carefully afterwards.

Sometimes, Remus has a night off to visit a dark club and let desperate fingers dig bruises into his
hips and the haze of heady potions take away the world, for a while. But the next morning he
always returns, and the smile on Harry’s face repairs some of the clawed pieces inside of him.

“Am I doing this right?” Remus asks Molly Weasley one morning, when the early sun is casting a
glow over her back garden and he can hear childish giggling in the adjacent room. Remus knows
he’s still coming down from whatever he took last night, knows he’s not a perfect mother or father
like Molly and Arthur Weasley. He is young and tired and trying.

Molly takes a sip of her tea. “None of us know if we’re doing it right, Remus,” she says. “All we
know is that Harry is safe. And he’s happy. And he loves you.”

Remus looks away. He wants to say I love him too, but he doesn’t know how to speak the words
anymore. And then the conversation is dropped as Arthur Weasley runs in shouting about winning
a Daily Prophet competition. All the children clamber into the kitchen in an uproar, no pretence of
sleep as they bounce about in excitement.

“Holiday, holiday, holiday!” They clap together as a group, and Harry claps along with them –
excited for his friends and not the least bit jealous. Remus is so fucking proud of him.

When Ron shows Harry the picture of their family in the paper the following month, Harry looks
up at him, stunned. Ron, you’re famous, he breathes and Remus laughs and laughs and laughs until
he chokes and Molly Weasley has to thump him on the back. The smirk at the corner of her mouth
gives her away, though.

That’s not to say they don’t have bad times. Harry is a child like any other. He wants to understand
the edges of his world, explore where he’s been told not to and look into the face of the adult in
charge with a well, what are you going to do about it then?

Remus has been surprised by how quiet and calm Harry is. He hasn’t had an easy start to life, but
he seems to take yes and no and stop with grace. But now they know each other, and Remus can
feel frustration well up in Harry. He knows he is finally being tested.

The first time Harry throws a tantrum, it is over something so simple. It’s bedtime and Remus
wants Harry to brush his teeth.

“It’s important Harry,” Remus pleads to the stubborn child. “We do this every night.”

Harry crosses his arms. He stamps his feet. He cries. Remus tries not to get angry. It’s so stupid and
he’s tired and he wants to go to bed too. After nearly an hour of negotiation, pleading and not a
single second of tooth-brushing, Remus gives up and puts Harry to bed. He doesn’t read Harry a
story. Simply tucks him in quietly and leaves the room. Later that night, Remus hears his door
creak open and Harry crawls into bed. His breath is minty and he says sorry. Remus hugs him.
It continues. In town, Harry darts away from Remus suddenly. He is nearly hit by a cyclist, and
Remus chases after the boy. “Don’t do that!” He yells, breathless. He is scared, shaking. Harry
watches him.

“Sorry,” he grumbles.

Remus takes another breath. “Merlin, Harry. Sorry I yelled, but you scared the pixies out of me.
Don’t do that again, please.”

Then dinner is too hot. Or too cold. Remus jokingly calls Harry goldilocks and the child screams
“I’m not!” in a huge angry voice before he stomps away. He refuses to put shoes on. Or coats. He
hides in the woods until Remus sets up a barrier ward to keep him within the boundary of their
back garden. He hasn’t had to do that before, Harry always knew where he was and wasn’t
allowed. Remus doesn’t like it, it feels too much like a cage.

The last straw comes as they are cleaning up dinner. They’d always done this together, the Muggle
way. It soothes Remus to wash the plates by hand. Harry likes to play with the suds and Remus will
blow them into shapes that jump in the air. Tonight though, Harry is in a mood.

He grumbles as Remus hands him a small plate to dry. “Don’t want to, Remy,” he mutters angrily.
It has been a long day and the child must be tired, but Remus wants him to learn the value of
chores.

“C’mon Harry,” Remus replies with false cheer. “Just a couple of plates and then off to bed.”

“Don’t want to go to bed. I want to play.” He slams the plate onto the counter. Remus winces.

“We can play tomorrow, Harry,” he says, handing the boy another plate. “We’ll go to the park, you
like the park don’t you?”

Then Harry screams, “No!” His voice is filled with anger and he throws the plate on the ground at
Remus’s feet. It shatters between them, and the sound is violent and stark against the quiet of the
kitchen and the gentle suds that well up from the sink.

“Harry!” Remus finally yells. Not out of anger, but shock. The shards of ceramic are scattered all
over the kitchen floor. Remus frantically scans Harry up and down to make sure no jagged pieces
have hit him. He moves towards him. “Are you oka-”

But Harry flinches back, defensive. Tears burst from his eyes. Remus is astounded at the fear he
sees in them. At how small and scared Harry looks. Is this what it’s been about? Remus thinks.
Does he not know? Harry scrambles away to his room without a word. Remus takes a deep breath
and follows him.

The small, dark-haired boy is curled up on his bed. His breath is coming in huge, gasping sobs. It
is pitiful and makes Remus ache. He perches on the edge of Harry’s bed.

“Harry,” Remus says gently. He pauses. “Harry, I want you to know that no matter what you do, I
will never, ever hit you.”

Harry turns around to face him. He is streaked with tears and snot. Remus wants to kill the
Dursleys in a sudden, murderous rage. He takes another breath. He reaches a hand out tentatively
and Harry leans into it. Remus strokes his hair.

“We don’t hit in this house. We don’t touch anyone in anger. We don’t touch anyone if they don’t
want to be touched.”

The child shudders and Remus lies down next to him properly. Harry curls against his chest and his
sobs die down. “We can feel angry, or frustrated or sad. But we talk about it. We say why, okay?
We don’t hurt each other.”

“I’m sorry for throwing, Remy,” Harry says. His voice hitches, he still sounds scared. “I didn’t
want to hurt... I didn’t mean to... ”

“I know Harry,” Remus reassures him. “Sometimes our emotions want to explode. But when they
do, I want you to talk to me, okay? And we can go outside and kick a ball or we can run in the
woods or draw or play loud music, or... or we can go and yell at the trees, not that they deserve it.
Sometimes yelling can help, though.”

Harry giggles.

“And then we’ll go back and finish what we were doing. Okay?”

Harry nods against him. “Okay.”

With a groan, Remus gets off the bed. He feels the enormity of the responsibility he has, now. Not
just to feed and clothe Harry, but to help him be safe and kind and grow into a good man. To guide
and nurture. Remus doesn't know how a fuck-up like him will do it. But he's trying. Merlin he's
trying.

Together, they go back downstairs. Harry and Remus pick up each shard by hand – carefully –
because if you’re going to break something you are going to fix it, too. They finish washing the
dishes. They go to bed. And as Remus is tucking Harry in for the night, Harry reaches up and says
“I love you,” and Remus feels as shattered as a ceramic plate on the kitchen floor.

Halloween arrives. Remus spends the night smoking cigarette after cigarette until his mouth and
fingers and hands and everything smell of ash. The Potter home had been burnt to a crisp from the
force of the Killing Curse. Remus can taste it. Can taste the anger.

He watches Harry sleep, that night. The scar is stark on his forehead, a white line that splits and
multiplies through dark skin. It moves every time Harry breathes or frowns or smiles. Like a curse
moving through the air.

The other day, Harry had asked Remus if he had parents. “Amelia said that everyone has them,”
he’d enquired innocently. Remus had known the question would come, but he didn’t expect... not
so soon.

“Oh yes Harry,” Remus had replied. “You had parents. And they loved you very much. But they
died. Do you know what that means?”

And Harry did, because of books. And because he had friends who talked about such things, as
children do. Harry had cried as Remus held him and then he’d looked at Remus and said, “I have
you now,” as if that was enough. It wasn't. It isn't. Remus knows he is an incredibly poor substitute
for James and Lily Potter.

Now he thinks, I love you, I love you, I love you, desperately at a sleeping Harry because he can't
say it, only hope that it is half the amount of love that his parents had for him. Hopes that it will
help Harry dream well, even through the most terrible night.

Eventually, Remus goes back outside. He smokes more. He does not look at the stars.

Remus bitterly knows love cannot cure all. Because if love was enough, James and Lily would be
alive and desperately happy. Harry would be safe and free of scars. Peter would be badly singing
nursery rhymes. And Remus...

If love was enough, Sirius Black would not have killed them. He would have loved them enough.
Remus would have loved Sirius enough. But, he thinks angrily as he remembers harmless pranks-
turned attempted murders and angry fucks and cold arguments. Sirius was always very good at
hurting the people he loved.

Harry and Remus decide one morning to walk to the markets. They slip on their coats, wrap
scarves around their necks and Harry pulls on the giant red boots that Old Julian had saved
especially for him.

Hand in hand, they trudge up to the shops. They wave at Neris, who is sitting on her porch. She
smiles in return, but seems distracted by the radio next to her. Remus can’t hear what is being said,
but she looks worried.

Perhaps some bad Muggle news, Remus thinks. He has kept away from Wizard newspapers since
he and Harry moved to the village. He is too afraid that he will see Harry’s name pop up and the
anonymity of their small world will be shattered. If there is something to report, he knows
Dumbledore will tell him.

When they get to the high street, it is strangely empty. Remus feels something prickle at the back
of his neck. He pulls Harry closer to him. There are no mothers pushing prams or laughing groups
of gossiping locals. Instead people are hurrying to their next location or whispering in hushed
tones.

“Bad stuff,” someone mumbles to their friend as Harry and Remus walk past. “Serious...”

They’re gone before Remus can hear more. If he hadn’t been so comfortable in the village and in
desperate need of food, Remus would have turned back home. Instead, he and Harry do their
shopping quietly – clearly affected by the mood.

Gemma isn’t at the cash register, but the man who rings them up is distracted as well.

“It seems quiet around here,” Remus says to try and spark conversation. The man just grunts in
response. They leave the store quickly.

Outside, a group of smoking teenagers are clumped together. They’re muttering, half in excitement
and half in anxiety. One boy is telling what seems to be a particularly gruesome story and a girl hits
him. “That’s so not funny!”

“Oi!” Remus says before he thinks. He shields Harry behind him, who is looking up at Remus
worriedly. “Can any of you lot tell us what’s going on?”

The girl looks from Harry to him and back again. “Haven’t you heard?” She takes a drag of her
cigarette. Blows out smoke. “That crazy bloke from a couple of years back... the one who bombed
all those people in London? He’s escaped from prison. What a fucking riot. Got half of England
hunting him down.”
 Remus goes hot. Then cold. Then hot again. He drops all the groceries on the ground, yoghurt
splatters and fruit rolls away. Harry lets out a yelp. He clutches Remus.

“Watch it mate!” The girl yells.

Remus picks up Harry. He runs.

Chapter End Notes

Well, well, well. A new development is in town. As always, comments are very much
appreciated.
 chapter six
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

He operates on a low frequency

To take down the pillars of our society
Walking out of sadness, walking out of grief
He's walking out of badness and walking like a thief

- Johnny Flynn, Raising the Dead

Remus apparates directly into his living room with a violent pop. It looks obscenely normal.
Harry’s drawings are still scattered on the floor and blankets thrown on the velvet sofa. The fire is
on, the wood collapses in a giant crack and ash flies up the chimney.

Harry screams, clutching his ears.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Remus mutters as he holds the boy close to his chest. “It’s okay, fuck
Harry, sorry.”

He paces around the room, Harry in his arms. His cries soften as Remus shushes him. He shouldn’t
have apparated with a child so young – too dangerous, too painful for them – but he had to get out
of there. Had to get home – they were too exposed, too... fuck.

Remus stops. The wards are pulsing in alarm. He can feel the magic of them in his arms, vibrating
up his chest to choke him. He puts Harry down on the couch and crouches in front of him.

“I need you to stay here, okay? This is important, I need you to stay.”

Harry nods. He hugs a blanket to himself and cries silently. Remus kisses the top of his head, casts
a shaky protego around him and stalks outside the house. His wand hums in his hand. He hasn’t felt
like this in so long – adrenaline fired and desperate and scared – but he remembers how it simmers
in his body.

The wards in the backyard are glowing red. They swell angrily. Remus can see a person trapped
inside. Someone has tried to get into their home and Remus won’t have it, he won’t allow it. Not
now, not ever.

He makes a cut on the palm of his hand and holds it to the shimmering barrier. Blood drips. The
wards pulse again and again and... a body falls through. Lands with a thud on the garden floor.

Alastor Moody looks up at him. He’s lost an eye since he was last here – is the fight still on? Has
Remus been so blissfully unaware? Of course he has, because Sirius Black. Sirius fucking Black is
escaped. Moody’s new eye swivels around madly. It fixes on Remus. The man smiles, savage and
deranged.

“Added a couple of darker wards since I was here last, hey boy?”

*
“Who knows where we are?” Remus says, pacing back and forth in the kitchen.

Harry is settled at the table. He’s scooping up ice cream with his fingers. His face is still teary but
not as panicked. Moody watches in fascination as chocolate drips onto the table in front of the boy.
He looks like wants to laugh. Instead, he turns to Remus.

“Didn’t I tell you? I told you. Constant vigilance. Too many people.”

Remus slams his hand down on the table. Harry looks startled, so Remus takes a deep breath. When
you feel your emotions ready to explode, Harry...

“There’s me and you,” Remus continues. He had checked Moody with every diagnostic scan he
could think of. Had questioned him on things only Moody would know. Secret missions Remus
had been responsible for. Had given him potions to reveal polyjuice and veritaserum to confess his
true name. He was Alastor Moody. “There is Dumbledore. Minerva McGonagall. And Molly
Weasley. They are the only people who have set foot in this house.”

“Neighbours?” Alastor leans back on his chair. He swings carelessly.

“They walk past, but no one has been in. Not a single person has been through the wards. We’re
basically unplottable. Even if the townspeople were asked where we lived, any directions they
gave would be confunded. End Lane. That’s all they know. And they couldn’t tell anyone where
that is if they tried.”

“Neris knows,” Harry pipes up.

Moody’s eye swivels to him. Then back to Remus. “Neris?”

“She’s an elderly neighbour. Yes, maybe she has seen through the wards enough times. She could
probably give the most detailed description of our house and where it is. She walks past a few
times a week. They all know our names though. We talk to them. We... They...”

“Sloppy, Remus. Sloppy.”

“Don’t you think I...” Remus runs a hand through his hair. “I know, okay. I know. But how could
we expect... ”

Moody grunts. The front legs of his chair slam back on the floor with a solid thud. Remus leans his
palms down on the table and closes his eyes. He breathes. He breathes again.

“So you weren’t expecting him.”

Remus looks up at Moody, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll come right out and say it. You’re not working with Black, are you?”

Remus staggers away from the table. His back hits the sink. It bruises his spine in a sharp ache. Is
this what they think of him? Is that what Dumbledore has sent Moody to check? That he’s not
harbouring a criminal... that he’s not playing house with the man that killed Remus’s friends and
Remus himself, for a long time.

“After all this?” He breathes. “You think that after everything I have done for the Order, everything
I have done! And everything that he has done to destroy my life, you still think that I would work
with him?”
“We all know what he was to you, Lupin.”

The worst thing is that Moody isn’t even accusing Remus. His tone may not be gentle, but it isn’t
angry. Facts. Hard facts. Remus grits his teeth. He will be defined by this forever. His love will be
twisted and used to make him suspicious, forever. Just like the wolf. Another mark against his
name. He is so, so tired.

“I will never, ever let any harm come to Harry. Even if I have to...” He looks at Harry. The child’s
eyes are large, they’re flicking back and forth between Remus and Moody like he’s watching a
close Quidditch match. Even if I have to kill the man I loved.

Moody sighs. “Good to know.”

Remus gives Moody his bed and sleeps with Harry instead. Harry curls up against his chest and
shivers. Remus piles more blankets onto him.

“Harry, today was scary. And you’re allowed to be afraid,” he says into the dark of the night. The
wards have doubled, tripled in strength. Moody is assigned to the house and they have to stay
within the boundaries of it. Remus is glad, for once, to be away from the hunt. It hurts too much.
“I’m afraid too. But we will protect each other. You and me. In it together.”

Harry nods. Remus can feel tears soaking his shirt. He brushes Harry’s hair with his fingers, traces
his scar and hums.

“Why does the scary man want us?” Harry asks eventually. Remus had told Harry, gently, about
Sirius Black. Had sat on the sofa and blankly narrated the story like he was an outsider reading a
particularly gruesome tale.

He hasn’t told Harry that the mass murderer is his godfather. Only that he worked for bad people
and killed Remus’s friends – his family. And that Harry and Remus may be in danger. He hasn’t
mentioned Harry’s parents. Hasn’t mentioned what Sirius... what he was to him.

“We don’t know what he wants, Harry. But you’re... we’re important to him. So we’re going to
keep quiet and safe until he’s caught, okay? We’ll stay in the house.”

Harry lets out a small sob. “But... miss Neris. And Amelia. And Tommy.”

“We’ll see them again, Harry. When it’s safe.”

He doesn’t say I promise. He can’t make the words form in his mouth. He doesn’t know, anymore.
Too many things have been taken away from him and he can’t... he can’t let Harry be one of them.
This life, so tentative and new. It’s the closest he’s felt to settled, since... since.

Harry falls into a restless sleep. Remus lies awake and listens to him breathe.

It’s tense, in their tiny house on End Land. Moody stomps around, walking the perimeter. He
leaves in the morning and returns at night. Harry is fascinated by the man with a wooden leg and
magic eye. He calls him a pirate. Remus tells him it’s rude, but it seems to amuse the Auror.

Moody supplies food. Harry and Remus bake. They draw. They create stories. Remus shows Harry
small pieces of magic. Frivolous. It reminds him that there can still be good created with a wand.
More than blood wards, protection and war.

Harry is incredibly resilient. He cries before he takes his nap, but Remus sits with him and hums
mindless tunes. He understands the way fear can burst from a body.

One evening when Moody is back from patrol, the two of them drink whiskey at the kitchen table
in silence.

“You’re good at the kid thing,” Moody says. “Didn’t expect that.”

Remus sighs. He has sheltered Harry, fed him, given him a home and a scarred version of love. But
he has not been able to protect Harry from his greatest mistake. “Not good enough,” he replies.

For once, Remus lets himself remember the past. It has been so long since he has uttered the name
Sirius Black that the shape of it is foreign in his mouth. The memories, so carefully compressed
like coal, are starting to crumble back into existence.

He smokes cigarette after cigarette out open windows. He doesn’t dare step foot outside and it
makes him angry. Anxious. He can feel the wolf pacing around his body like a caged animal,
desperate to be free. Even now, Sirius can control his life.

Remus will never love anyone like he had loved Sirius. For seven years, his world shaped itself
around Sirius Black. He is the beginning and end of all Remus’s experiences – blissfully good and
unspeakably bad. His laughter still echoes in lonely nights when Remus finds another warm body
to fill his own. His anger still stings. Sirius was so, so alive.

The betrayal of it all had perhaps been so shocking in its abruptness because there was simply
nothing Remus could pour into the empty mould left behind. Remus found, suddenly, that he could
no longer be happy or unhappy. The person that had defined those emotions – who had created
plenty of them – didn’t exist anymore. Perhaps had never existed, in the end.

Their last argument had been silent. Polite, like two distant strangers. Remus had packed his
meagre belongings. He’d already had an apartment ready up north that he would use as a base for
his last mission. Remus and Sirius’s house was no longer a home, instead an empty vessel where
two angry people occasionally met.

They had looked at each other for a long time. Sirius had seemed tired. There was no hint of the
violence that was to come. Remus remembers wanting to cry, for Sirius to hold him and tell him
that it would all be okay. Instead, he’d said nothing. How do you tell the person you love in the
middle of a war that you don’t want to fight anymore? That you’re exhausted, when you know they
are too. That it hurts too much, when you know they are hurting too. That you simply don’t like it
anymore.

War had drained Remus. He was half man, half wolf. And Sirius hated him for it. All the
Marauders had looked at him differently. But Sirius had been two extremes too. Half violently
angry – every conversation bitingly sour and every fuck bruised. And the other half aristocratically
cold. A perfect Black. Too perfect, Remus now knows.

He feels the smoke of his cigarette curl in his mouth. He lets it fill his chest and breathes the rest
out into the empty, cold night. Sometimes, he thinks he can still smell Sirius in the air – the Sirius
he likes to remember best – wet, dog-nose, tobacco, teenage boy and a grinning spark of danger.
Just a spark... waiting to be lit.
 *

The Patronus lands in the kitchen with a brilliant blaze of power. Moody and Remus shield their
eyes from where they sit at the table – nursing their whiskey and pointedly not talking about all the
people who have died.

Sirius Black is at Hogwarts, it says in Dumbledore’s voice. Alastor, we need you here.

Moody grumbles as he gets up. He gives Remus a long look. His new eye swivels from Remus’s
clenched hand to the blank, straight set of his mouth. He apparates away without a word.

Remus takes a sip of his whiskey. And another. And another.

When Dumbledore appears at the front door, it feels like an omen. Moody is next to him. His
wooden leg thumps on the ground as they walk up the path. The pair are strangely somber. It’s an
echo of war, when they found Remus covered in his own sick. Empty, empty of everything.

Harry curls his arms around one of Remus’s legs and peeks out at the two men. His weight keeps
Remus on the ground. Otherwise, he would drift helplessly away.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Remus says.

“No,” Dumbledore replies. His eyes are calm behind his half-moon glasses. Time is floating,
ephemeral between them. Remus is scared to discover who he will be when it starts once more.
“He’s innocent.”

Chapter End Notes

It's all happening now. Buckle up!

 chapter seven
Chapter Notes

Content warning: unintentional self harm.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Keep your head up, hold your head up

Even though it's a cruel world
Count your blessings, you won't need them
When you're gone

- Active Child, Cruel World

The whole sordid tale spills out on the kitchen table. Remus can feel each word circle the room, the
agony of the past alive. The mistakes. Blame, thick enough to choke on. He watches Dumbledore
and Moody blankly. His thumb circles the edge of his favourite teacup. It has a chip, near the
handle. If he presses hard enough, it will catch his skin.

“You promised me,” Remus aches. Harry is seated next to him. He squirms, uncomfortable. But
Remus won’t send the boy away. When you are older, Harry. When you are older you deserve to
remember this part of your life.

Dumbledore says nothing. His face is calm, passive. Remus can feel the wolf ricochet around his
body. His insides twist. “I was never informed of the switch,” Dumbledore replies. “If I had been, I
can assure you...”

“I begged you,” Remus interrupts. His thumb continues to circle around the edge of the teacup. The
chip, still exposed. “I asked if you were sure. You promised me.”

“Now boy,” Moody walks around the kitchen. He can’t sit still. Too much of an Auror and not one
particularly good at delivering bad news. “We did the best we could with the information we had.
All evidence pointed towards Sirius. We all thought he was the Secret Keeper...”

“No,” Remus breathes. And breathes. “I was last to know, I was never in on any secrets...”

Dumbledore is gentle. “You thought he was the traitor too.”

Remus’s thumb presses too hard on the chip and his skin splits. Sharp, sudden pain. Harry makes a
small noise of concern. Remus watches as blood leaks from the cut in thick, fat drops. Obscenely
red. He wipes it away.

Dumbledore and Moody leave soon after with a quiet, we’ll keep you updated. Remus sits there,
empty. His tea goes cold. His world rearranges itself once more. Broken pieces lay shattered inside
him. Must he get on his hands and knees and pick them up again? Assemble them in the shape of a
man, make his mouth move and his eyes blink? Maybe now is the time he can finally leave them
destroyed on the floor.
Instead, Harry clambers up to sit in Remus’s lap. He is careful as he buries his face in the side of
Remus’s neck. They hug for a long time, just like that. A monster and a child, both chipped. Both
trying not to press too hard where it hurts.

The full moon is two days later. It’s a bad one.

Remus has been angry at Sirius for so long that he doesn’t know what to do with the excess that
spills out of him. With the guilt that replaces it. It’s so unfair, the whole disgusting story of it. It’s
so unfair it makes Remus want to howl at the moon until his voice gives out.

The wolf knows what to do. He carves long, thick lines into Remus’s face. His legs are chewed to
the bone. His torso broken, bloody, scratched and twisted. The scars on his body become evidence
of a crime scene.

Here, Remus wants to point at the gaping wound in his side, this is where my dead friends are. And
here is their betrayer. And here is the person I have betrayed. And here are all the people who
touched me when he was gone. And here is when I stopped loving him. And here is where I never
could...

When he apparates to Molly and Arthur’s home, he collapses. Molly gasps and catches him. Harry
bursts into tears.

“It’s okay,” Remus tries to say. “It’s okay.”

Instead, his voice is hoarse and comes out like a pained groan. Molly carries him upstairs. She puts
him to bed. She smooths his hair. She slathers potions onto each cut and hums as she does. Remus
tries not to cry. He blinks up at the ceiling.

“Molly,” he says eventually. Her hands pause for a moment. Remus turns to look at her. “I need to
see him, don’t I?”

He needs to. But he doesn’t want to. It’s a confession whispered in the dark. On a sick bed. Remus
has said his goodbyes. He’s grieved. He’s drank and fucked and coped. And now the past is back.
He’d thought he had buried it, like every other tragedy in his life. But Remus should have known
better. The past isn’t fixed and forgotten. It’s a cycle that rises and falls just like the moon. And
once you’ve been bitten, it can break you just as easily.

“Oh Remus,” Molly replies. He knows it’s a yes.

The halls of the Ministry of Magic are cold. When Remus exhales, he can see his frozen breath.
Last time Remus had been here, he was getting his registration number. He’d gone alone, pushed
fresh out of school into a world that didn’t want him. Sirius had been furious. Now he feels the
tattoo itch on the inside of his elbow – an echo of pain.

“It’s this way,” Arthur Weasley says. He glances at Remus. His eyes follow the fresh scars. But
Remus remains silent. He lets the black-tiled walls hug him in an icy embrace as he limps forward.
They see nobody. They don’t speak.

Eventually they arrive at a door with two guards.

“Do you want me to...?” Arthur asks.

Remus shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. Thank you, Arthur.”

The door opens and Remus steps through. It’s pure blackness. The long corridor is filled with
prison cells. Each bar hums with sharp magic. Remus hears his steps tap, tap tap on the floor as he
looks at the pitiful faces cut from their source of power. Some, he knows, will be innocent. Others
will be Death Eaters. It is near impossible to tell the difference, these days.

He reaches the cell he is looking for. In the far corner, a young man is curled up. His clothes are
baggy, filled with holes. His tears are quiet. What has become of them, the Marauders? That they
would end like this, stripped bare, when they started so blissfully unaware of their own happiness.
It’s cruel.

Remus wraps a hand around a prison cell bar but hisses as it stings his palm. The man looks up.
Oh.

Same sandy hair. Same wide eyes. But now his round cheeks are stained red with desperation. He
is young and scared. He is empty and angry. Remus chokes out the words...

“Hello Peter.”

Remus and Peter had spent a lot of time together at school. Softly hopeless. Unknowingly brilliant.
Oh, Peter had been the most human of them all. Where James and Sirius were loudly fierce, daring
and beautiful, Remus and Peter had a shared acknowledgement that they were both the moon to
James and Sirius’s shining sun. In the gentle moments, they would study together. Watch the
mischief unfold delightedly. Laugh together.

Now, Remus looks at Peter in the dark of his cell. The man is twisted, on his knees as he begs. The
dark mark is obscene on his forearm. His hair falls across his sweaty forehead. His nose twitches,
like a rat.

“Please Remus, you must believe me my friend. Oh, my Moony, please.”

He shudders. “Don’t call me that.”

“You know I couldn’t stand up to him Remus, you know, you saw. His followers, Remus. They
would have killed me.”

“Better to die then, Peter. I would have died for them.” Remus turns away. He feels sick rise in his
throat. The black walls are oppressive around him, each bar of magic vibrates in agony. He blows
out a breath.

Peter, Peter, did this. Quiet Peter. The one who cried when Remus showed him his registration
number. The one who hid chocolate frogs in his pockets when Remus had a bad moon. Who
laughed so beautifully. Who waited for them at every pub night. He had betrayed James and Lily.
He had killed them. He had nearly killed Harry. And he’d blamed it all on Sirius. How, how...

Was this Peter, this dark one, of their own creation? Had Remus, Sirius and James teased him too
much? Forgotten him too often? Let war ravage him in imperceptible ways? He had sought
approval elsewhere. He had found it in death. In betrayal.

“Tell me why, Peter.”

The man cries. His sobs warp, echo and mix with the cries of other prisoners. He presses his face
as close as he can to the bars and looks up at Remus. His eyes are the same, the same.

“I was scared.”

“Tell me!” Remus shouts.

Peter flinches. “He had... so much power, Remus. He gave it out like Honeydukes sweets. I wanted
a bite, I wanted to feel...”

“You wanted power. Dead friends for power you could never harness. Never control. You weren’t
capable, Peter. He could have given you all the power in the world but you couldn’t use it. Weak.
Weak...”

Then Remus sees it. Peter’s face changes. Unrecognisable. Not young. Not soft. Tears gone. Sharp.
Angry. His eyebrows pull in and his mouth clenches. His hands become gnarled. He is dark, dark
magic. He is blood promises and snake tattoos.

“Oh, not too weak to do it though, was I?” He snarls. Peter wraps both his hands around the bars of
his cell. He doesn’t even flinch. “It was so easy to be the spy. One word here, one word there.
Breadcrumbs that led to the big, bad wolf. Who would have suspected poor little Peter Pettigrew?”

Remus reels backwards. He hits the wall behind him. It doesn’t feel solid.

“Even Sirius, oh Sirius. He thought his beloved werewolf had finally betrayed him. It’s in your
nature, after all. And when he found it was me who killed them, me who turned them all against
you... you want to know what true power feels like, Remus?”

Peter presses his face against the bars. They leave bright, red marks. Like claw marks. Like
madness. “His face, in the street,” Peter laughs. “He was powerless and I was powerful Remus. For
one, beautiful moment. I was powerful.”

Remus and Harry return home. Molly has packed them a mountain of food. She kisses Harry on the
cheek. Take care of your Remy, she says to the boy. Harry nods seriously at her.

Somehow, Remus lives. He gets up every morning and makes Harry breakfast. They go outside.
The ground is frozen solid but they build snowmen with smiley faces that make Harry erupt with
laughter. He catches snowflakes on his tongue as Remus watches. They make dinner together.
They clean up plates. They go to bed and do it all over again.

At night, Remus sits in the backyard. He smokes. He opens the latest letter that Dumbledore has
sent him. Sirius is doing well. The trial is scheduled soon. Peter has confessed. It won’t be long
now...

His hands tremble. He doesn’t dare feel hope. It’s a fire too small to nurture, too broken to repair.
Instead he waits.

The newspaper arrives with a flurry of owl wings, ferocious pecks and a solid thud as it drops onto
the kitchen table. For a long time, Remus stares at it. It’s folded, the front page hidden. Harry is
happily eating cereal opposite him. The round, coloured loops jump up and down in the bowl as he
tries to catch them with his mouth.
 Remus reaches out a hand. It shakes as he opens the paper.

There, in black and white, is Sirius Black. Alive. Alive. He looks... not old – none of them are old
– but tired. Like the world has scraped him empty, just like it has for Remus. Lines wrinkle the
corner of his eyes. His hair is long and unkempt. He’s still so fucking beautiful.

“Who that?” Harry asks, his mouth full of sopping cereal. He’s never seen a picture of Sirius.

“He’s your godfather, Harry,” Remus replies softly. “The one who the Aurors – the Wizard police
– made a mistake about. Remember?”

Harry nods. He goes back to his cereal.

Remus watches the picture. Watches Sirius. He’s in front of a crowd. He seems bewildered.
Overwhelmed. None of the Black aristocracy. Just a young, scared man. Sirius's eyes gaze in front
of him, grey and stormy. The photo makes it seem like he is searching the reader. Secrets, exposed.
Remus desperately wants to catch his gaze. He can’t bear to.

Instead, he moves his eyes to the headline. In thick black font it screams the same three words that
have been on repeat since Dumbledore dropped them on his front step. SIRIUS BLACK
INNOCENT.

For the first time, it is real. Sirius is free.

There is a knock on the front door.

Chapter End Notes

I'm sorry, I know. Another cliffhanger. A huge thank you to everyone who has left
comments, they mean so much to me. I enjoy every exclamation mark and capslock
yelling. You lot are incredible.
 chapter eight
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Maybe I'm too young

To keep good love from going wrong
But tonight, you're on my mind so
You never know
- Jeff Buckley, Lover, You Should’ve Come Over

Remus fell in love with Sirius when he was thirteen years old. He can remember the exact,
ordinary moment. He was in Charms. Professor Flitwick had forcibly separated James and Sirius
that year, thinking it would make a difference to their mischief. It hadn’t. Instead, their jokes
spanned two tables and eventually the entire room.

Next to him, James had been slumped at his desk. His glasses had slipped down his nose as he
huffed out a breath in boredom. He and Sirius were brilliant, that was their problem. They mastered
each spell while the rest of them still twisted the shape of Latin around their tongues.

That day, James had used his spare time to create a flock of paper birds. With a flick of his wrist,
he had launched them at the back of an equally-bored Sirius’s head. They pecked his ears and
tangled in his hair.

Sirius had turned around. Remus remembers the way fragmented light had caught his smooth,
straight nose and halo of long, dark locks. He’d been laughing as he swatted at the birds, teeth
white and pointed. It was a peek of the man he was to become. More than handsome. Dangerously
beautiful.

In a sharp, sudden realisation, Remus’s stomach had sunk. Swooped, like the birds around the
room. Sirius’s eyes had slid to him. They’d looked at each other for a long moment. There was
something foreign and tense inside Remus’s body, not the wolf but worse. So much joy-hope-love
that it hurt.

Sirius’s eyes had bubbled with laughter. His lips had curled into a subtle half-smile in the corner.
He had raised a single, elegant eyebrow at Remus. A question. When he got no reply, Sirius had
winked. Turned away. And Remus was gone.

Now, Sirius stands at Remus’s front door. It’s snowing, the night blustery. His hair is sodden,
bedraggled around his shoulders. His eyes are dark and tired. He has lost his playfulness, his
mischief. They are twenty four years old and the world has taken laughter from them both.

“Moony,” he says.

Remus flinches back. Sirius looks startled at the reaction. His voice. His voice. Remus has dreamed
it so many times. Whispering dark, dirty promises in his ear. Shouting at him from across their flat.
Saying, I love you until Remus couldn’t bear to sleep from the fear of it.

His dreams had captured none of the nuance. Sirius’s voice is rough. From screaming in Azkaban,
perhaps. But it is deep and rich when he says Remus’s childhood nickname like that and... Merlin,
it is painful.

“Come in,” Remus replies hastily, stepping back into the warmth of his home. He feels... fuck. He
feels completely out of his depth. As much as he’d hoped... he still can’t say Sirius’s name – can’t
stand the way it would curl in the air.

Sirius pauses and looks at him. Remus doesn’t meet his gaze. Instead, he focuses somewhere in the
vicinity of his chest. Someone has given Sirius their old clothes. They’re loose around his
shoulders, none of the fitted leather jackets or Rolling Stones tees he’d worn to piss off his family.
He is skinny, gaunt.

“Remus...” Sirius sounds wrecked. His voice trails away and he takes a hesitant step forward,
closer to the house.

“You are...” Remus fiddles with the sleeve of his sweater. “You are here to stay, aren’t you?” He
hates that he is unsure. That he’s small and scared. Sirius is a living Boggart he can’t bear to
banish. Instead he invites him in, politely, like they are strangers and not friends-pack-lovers-
betrayers.

When they would fight – at Hogwarts and out of it – their friends were always there to hold them
together. Tentative strings that interwound them, pulling them close. Tying them back.

Now there is no James to sling his arms around their shoulders and smirk through the
awkwardness. No Lily to curl up against Remus in the library and tell him dirty jokes until he
chuckled. No Peter to... no Peter. Instead it is emptiness and ghosts and all the unsaid things that
lie in the valley between them.

Sirius steps properly into the house. His second-hand boots leave wet snow on the hardwood floor.
His chest rises and falls. He is here, in the shoddy home Remus has carved out of the ruins of his
life. He is here.

“Yes. Yes I would very much like to stay.”

The kettle whistles on the hob. It’s an old Muggle one from the charity shop, not one of those fancy
Wizard kettles that brew themselves exactly when you need a cuppa.

“Do you want to talk about...” Remus starts to say as he pours the boiling water. He feels braver
with his back to Sirius. Like he can pretend he’s talking to empty air. Do you want to talk about it?
Those years you were in prison, when I thought you were a traitor. Or the year you thought I was a
traitor. Or our dead friends, or...

“No,” Sirius interrupts. “It all still feels like a bad dream.”

“Maybe Hogwarts was the dream,” Remus replies. He turns back around and hands Sirius his tea.
Their fingers brush, for the briefest moment. It burns. He sits down at the table, his own hands
clutched around his teacup. Sirius is opposite him.

Outside, the snowstorm rages. It is dark, the only hint of light from the lamp and candles Remus lit
with a wave of his wand. Sirius had watched the movement with the same intensity he used to plan
pranks.
He’d been given his wand back, after the trial. It’s the only belonging he has on him. All the rest,
Remus knows, are sitting in the sealed and empty flat they had once lived. Or at Grimmauld Place.
Or destroyed in the wreck of James and Lily’s home. Remus has never been to any of those places,
has never wanted to see another relic of Sirius Black again. Now there is one in front of him.

“Sometimes, in Azkaban, I thought that was true. That Hogwarts was a dream. That I’d been there
for decades and gone mad with it,” Sirius takes a sip of his tea. He looks haunted. “Then I would
transform into Padfoot and know it was real.”

“Padfoot did always have a way of simplifying things,” Remus says.

He remembers, vividly, the moons they were together after the Prank. How the wolf took out its
anger on Padfoot. How they nipped and bit and scratched and whimpered. How it was months
before Padfoot submitted. How afterwards Sirius finally kissed Remus for the first time, fierce and
angry in the early light of their dormitory.

“Yes,” Sirius says simply. He seems to be remembering too. Then he looks up at Remus, whose
eyes shift to a point behind Sirius’s head. “Dumbledore told me that you have Harry.”

“I do.” Remus takes a sip of his tea.

“I won’t be intruding, will I? I thought I could help. It can’t be easy, looking after him by yourself
afte–” Sirius cuts his sentence short.

“Of course you can,” Remus replies. Of course, of course he’s here for Harry. “You’re his
godfather, after all.”

Remus gives Sirius his bedroom. The man looks like he is going to fall over. How long has it been
since he’s had a warm shower, a soft bed, a place that hasn’t had every ounce of happiness sucked
out?

“Thank you,” Sirius says awkwardly at the threshold of the bedroom. Young, brash Sirius had
never been awkward. He had worn his emotions on his face. Had laughed joyously. Hated
furiously. He has changed. Remus supposes he has too. “Where will you...?”

“Oh, I’ll bunk in with Harry,” Remus replies. “He doesn’t mind. He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah?” Sirius seems hungry for any information on the child. A man only just able to swallow
hope for the future. “Dumbledore said he looks a lot like...” He stops, choked.

“James, yes.” Remus finishes. “James with Lily’s eyes.”

There is a wave of grief. For the first time, Remus shares it with someone who knows. Who truly
understands the hollow place where James and Lily should be. Their past, their loss. It is
unimaginable to anybody but them.

“Remus...” Sirius says eventually. He hasn’t uttered Moony since the first time, when Remus
flinched. “We’ll talk in the morning, yeah? And I’ll... I can meet Harry?”

“Yeah,” Remus swallows. It’s all too much. They are strangers on the precipice. Known and
unknown. Different and terrifyingly the same. Perhaps there are too many words to say and not
enough time. Perhaps they have been broken too often. “Yeah okay.”
*

Instead of sleep, Remus goes outside to smoke. He holds the letter Dumbledore sent this morning
in one hand as the other drifts back and forth to his mouth, balancing the cigarette shakily between
his fingers. He hasn’t had time to read it yet. Now he knows what it will say.

Sirius has requested to stay with you and Harry. I have told him your location. I do hope that old
wounds can now be put to rest.

He feels bitterly, bitterly angry. Has every moment in his life been perfectly orchestrated?
Dumbledore, the conductor. He waves his wand and Remus is at Hogwarts. Then a soldier in war.
Then alone. Then the guardian of his dead friends’ child. Now this. Fuck.

Remus knew it would happen, of course he knew that he and Sirius would be reunited. He had
wanted it, in fact. Had hoped for it desperately as he bled out on the floor under the light of the
moon. But now the reality is here and it is much too soon.

He isn’t prepared to look at the past. To try and give it some meaning, a purpose. No. Remus has
stored it so neatly. Has clambered away from it with bloody hands. Has managed to stand on two
feet and run, to hold Harry as he goes, only to be thrown back to the ground again.

He takes a drag of his cigarette. The smoke lingers in his throat. Remus blows it out in a breath. As
he does, he whispers into the frozen night air like he is practicing the shape of the word so
beautiful in his mouth...

“Sirius.”

Harry wakes early. The morning light streams from his window and gives his dark skin a soft, rich
glow. His messy, black hair sticks in every direction, pressed against his pillow. He blinks slowly,
yawns. Curls into Remus’s chest.

“G’morning Remy,” he murmurs quietly.

Remus aches. He loves this child. Desperately. Has cultivated this home to keep him curious and
innocent and free. But now the time of just the two of them is over. Remus is afraid their quiet
existence will disappear. And Harry will too, like all pure things Remus has loved. He’s so scared
that he won’t be able to hold on.

“Harry,” he says. “Last night we had a visitor.”

Harry tilts his head to look at Remus. His eyes are a bright, vivid green. In the morning, when the
light hits them just so, he can see Lily in the common room by the fire. The flecks of gold that
would reflect off her irises as they studied together.

“Remember your godfather, Sirius? He’s come to stay with us.”

“Is he scary?” Harry’s voice is quiet. He clutches his soft rabbit toy and snuggles closer to him.
They are surrounded by blankets, cushioned, protected. Outside, the air is eerily silent with fallen
snow. As if their whole house is waiting.

Yes, Remus wants to say. He’s fucking terrifying.

“No Harry. He... he’s so excited to meet you.”

 *

They make breakfast. Harry has honey on toast. His small, sticky fingers leave prints on the table,
his face, Remus’s sweater. It seems they are holding their breath in anticipation for one man to
walk in and disrupt the easy routine of it all.

Eventually, they hear the sound of feet on the stairs. Sirius thuds down, heavy. He’s in the same
clothes from last night. He looks less tired, his black hair tied in a messy bun at the top of his
head.

When he spots Harry, he stops. For a moment, he wavers. Remus can see the panic in his eyes. The
past pulls him back, like it once did for Remus. Its grasp can tear at reality and make even the
smallest child your greatest fear.

“Harry,” Remus says softly. “Say hello to Sirius.”

His voice pulls Sirius out of his silent terror. The man takes a step closer. His hands tremble at his
sides as he scans Harry in wonder. Remus knows what a miracle it is, that this child exists. That
there is a living, breathing, laughing future for James and Lily. He knows the enormity of joy and
grief it contains.

For a long moment, Sirius and Harry stare at each other.

“All everyone... they were afraid,” Harry says eventually. He is matter of fact. Slowly, he moves
forward and reaches out to touch Sirius’s hand. To make him real. Just like he once had for Remus.
“But you’re not so scary.”

Once, Sirius would have been indignant. Would have stood tall, his leather jacket stretched across
broad shoulders as he twirled his wand and smiled with dangerous eyes.

Now, he softens. He curls inwards, towards Harry. His hair falls in front of his face as he looks
down at the small boy with instant love.

Remus knows that Harry is curious and kind. He has endured a terrible home, accepted a werewolf
as his guardian and joyously joined a brood of redheads. He cries as much as he laughs. He feels
with his whole heart. He is the best of James and Lily. The absolute best. There is no way he won’t
love Sirius just as much as they had. It terrifies Remus to the core.

“No Harry,” Sirius replies quietly. For the first time, his eyes are bright. “I hope not.”

Chapter End Notes

So we have finally made it to the Reunion™. This was a tough one to write. What did
you think?
 chapter nine
Chapter Notes

Content warning: PTSD, reference to child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

This house
She's holding secrets
I got my change behind the bed
In a coffee can
Throw my nickels in
Just in case I have to leave

- Gregory Alan Isakov, If I Go, I'm Goin

Somehow the house of two becomes an uneasy home of three.

Harry is enamoured by Sirius. As the man trudges around wearily and gives Remus tired looks,
Harry is on his heels, silent but aware. He absorbs every word Sirius says, soaks up this new
addition to their lives with an intrigued quirk of his head.

And Sirius responds beautifully. Even when the new wrinkles at the corner of his eyes stretch
painfully, he is interested and engaged. Harry clambers all over him. Pulls his hair and throws
snowballs at his back and pokes and prods with questions until he laughs. With Sirius, Harry is
rough and tumble in a way that he never is with Remus.

Suddenly, Remus realises just how similar they are. Both Harry and Sirius have endured horrors
only they can comprehend. Both crave joy, chase their fix of laughter. And even in the darkest of
times they are able to hold happiness safely in their hands. To protect it, nurture it. They know how
valuable it is.

But while joy thrives in the day, slow, quiet sadness fills the home at night. Suddenly Remus and
Sirius are solitary people who drift around the empty home. There are simply spaces they cannot
cross. Topics they refuse to enter, barred like closed doors and secret corridors.

Sirius is quiet, in the dark. Sometimes he is angry. His fists clench and he bites out words. He
doesn’t sleep much. Instead, he insists Remus take back his own bed and prefers to curl up on the
sofa as Padfoot. Without Harry, they are two men who don’t know how to speak anymore. Two
people who cannot see the other, even as they try to squint at the blurry outline of what they had
been.

Sometimes when Remus lies awake and stares up at the ceiling, he can hear the yips and cries of a
dog in distress. And then he’ll hear the sound of Sirius’s footsteps. And the kettle boiling. And
then the clink of two, hopeful teacups. But Remus doesn’t get out of bed. He lies still as the kettle
whistles. And the second cup is put away. And the night continues on, each man alone with their
fears.
*

Conversations start and stop like this:

Sirius has been home for less than a week. He tiptoes around the house but his presence soaks into
the fabric of every room. One evening, Remus is slumped on the sofa. Harry has fallen asleep
curled in his lap, but he can’t bear to move him. Instead, he brushes his fingers through the child’s
hair. Back and forth. Back and forth. He remembers the way Lily would rock her baby to sleep.
How James would run his thumb down Harry’s tiny nose.

Remus hears a noise behind him and turns his head. Sheepishly, Sirius shuffles into the room. He’s
wearing joggers and a soft t-shirt. His hair is in a bun, whisps curled around his forehead. He hands
Remus a cup of tea and looks down at Harry. The fire pops and crackles. Sirius breathes.

“Earl grey, splash of milk with one sugar, right?” He says. His eyes move from Harry to Remus.
They are grey and familiar. Sirius gives him a small smile.

And there is such a shock of lost routines and easy comforts that Remus has to swallow the burn of
it. Late at night, when they first moved into Sirius’s flat in London and Remus would lose himself
curled up with a book, Sirius would bring him tea. Slide his hand down his arm, kiss his neck and
draw him to bed. Away from fantasy and back into the warmth of their world.

Sirius hovers for a beat, waiting, like he is expecting the intimacy they once had.

Remus doesn’t say anything. Instead, he takes the tea and inclines his head. Looks back down at
Harry. Away.

Or:

Early one morning, when Remus wakes as the light only just begins to filter through the pale
curtains and give his scars a soft glow. He gets up with a groan and stumbles out into the corridor...
only to run into a shirtless Sirius still wet from the shower.

And Sirius looks at him. Because he’s Sirius. And Remus can’t catch his eye because it hurts too
damn much to remember all the places that mouth has pressed. Instead, he looks to the floor. But
not before he catches a glimpse of...

“You have a new tattoo,” he says dumbly. Two runes intertwined, solid on the top of his arm
where they twist like the branches of a family tree.

And Sirius’s face shutters closed as he steps back. “Yes,” he replies.

Remus opens his mouth to say something – anything – apologise, maybe, for prying or apologise
for not knowing this body anymore or fucking apologise for any of it. But Sirius keeps going.

“James and I got them... just before. During the war.” He looks at Remus. His face is hard, angry.
He bites out, “you would have known, if you’d been there.”

Or:

Late at night, when it is just the two of them at a safe distance by the fire. The silence is heavy and
wary between them. They are strangers who share a room and a past and now a child. Remus reads
a book as Sirius watches the flames.

“I want to show Harry Padfoot,” Sirius says. “Is that okay?”

Remus glances up at him. “Why wouldn’t that be okay?”

“You haven’t mentioned him yet. I wasn’t sure.”

Then the buried memory of the first time Sirius transformed hits Remus.

He remembers the angry, snarling almost-wolf backed into a corner who lashed out at his friends
because he was scared, because the moon was rising in less than an hour and why were they in the
Shrieking Shack and James’s laugh at the astounded look Remus had given the shaggy black dog
that had appeared in front of him.

And the tears that followed. And the fear and gratefulness and dread and love all wrapped in a
display of devotion too big to put a name to except pack.

Now Remus looks back down at his book. Thinks. Hurts. “Harry has been asking for a pet,” he
says, purposefully dismissive. Sirius flinches.

Or:

Harry and Sirius. Deliriously happy, they giggle together on the floor beneath the kitchen table as
Remus steps into the room. He opens his mouth to say something, but neither of them have noticed
him. Instead, he watches as Sirius gently pushes the boy’s fringe out of his eyes. His hand is big on
Harry’s face. Harry leans into it. Remus makes a small noise and they both turn to look at him.

Or:

Sirius asleep. Screaming.

Or:

Remus awake, peering into darkness. Hearing a dog pace around downstairs.

Or:

Long looks and half-words and no sudden movements and careful space between two bodies that
have already mapped the landscape of each other.

This is torture, Remus thinks to himself as he makes breakfast for Harry and Sirius, as if it is any
old morning. As if their friends aren’t dead, Harry’s parents aren’t dead. Or Sirius has never been
to Azkaban and Remus has never been alone. A dream. A new life.

Harry flings a cereal loop at Sirius, who catches it in his mouth and they laugh and laugh and laugh
until Remus wants to cry. I can’t... I can’t, I can’t.

Remus goes to visit Molly Weasley. He leaves Sirius alone with Harry for the first time and it
terrifies him to the core. Like Harry will forget him. Or he’ll be hurt or gone or dead like
everything Remus has loved and taken his eyes away from.

Molly reaches out across the kitchen table and takes his shaky hand.

“I can’t do this,” Remus admits painfully. It’s an echo of when Harry had first lived with him. I
can’t do this. I can’t do this.

“You can,” Molly replies. “And you will.”

“This is worse,” Remus says. He has to look away. Take a sip of his tea. It’s horrible to say the
truth of it. “This is worse than when he was gone. When... when he was in the past I could forget
about it... I could pretend that...”

“But Remus,” Molly interrupts. “Were you happy? ”

He doesn’t say anything. Outside, Arthur is playing with his kids. They’re in the field around the
Burrow, pelting each other with snow and laughing and little Ron is clinging to his father’s leg as
the twins taunt him and Percy is reading so intently that he fails to notice his older brother until
snow is shoved down the back of his jacket.

He looks back at Molly. “I don’t know.”

Molly looks angry. Not at Remus though. She is the one gentle thing that he can hold on to. The
one solid person that makes sense. “This is overwhelming. I understand. But James and Lily would
want you to be happy. Both of you. All of you.”

“I don’t know if I can be... I...” He hates that he stutters.

“You can. But now is the time to talk, Remus. Now is the time to live. Just talk to him, please.”

When Remus apparates back home, he pauses outside to have a smoke. It’s dark, the only light
shining from the antique lamp in the living room. Remus can see the window glow, like a warm,
buttery welcome.

Harry must be in bed already. Remus wonders if the boy missed his goodnight kiss from Remus or
if he hadn’t even thought of it in the excitement of Sirius’s stories. If Sirius knew how to stroke his
hair back and trace the scar until his eyes fell shut.

The air is so cold that it burns the back of Remus’s throat when he inhales, but he savours the
blissful pain of it and closes his eyes. Soon, Christmas will be upon them. Already the town is
bustling with baubles and tinsel, hurried shoppers hustling up the high street to buy last minute
gifts. He has bought Harry’s already, with his own meagre money. A toy that Harry had been
eyeing. A book for them to read together. And a photo of his parents, Sirius and Remus. They all
smile in it.

“Filthy habit,” a teasing voice says beside him. Sirius steps out the back door. His breath comes in
balloons of frozen white air as he looks up at the stars. At the Canis Major. Back at Remus. He
rubs his hands together.

“Want one?” Remus asks, holding out the packet.

Sirius shakes his head. His dark hair is tucked behind his ears. “Nah, gave those up when Harry
was born. Add a few years in Azkaban and the craving is truly gone...”

“Oh.” There is a long silence. That Sirius can joke about prison like that... Remus takes another
drag. He tries desperately not to think of stolen cigarettes behind the Herbology greenhouse. Of
smoke shared between two mouths. Sirius had been the one to introduce him to the joy of it. He’d
taught all the Marauders how to smoke. How to exhale into shapes that danced around your head.
He said it was so fucking cool Moony.

Now, Sirius stares at Remus’s hand where he holds the cigarette like it is poison. Then his eyes
flick up to Remus’s face. For a long moment, they look at each other. Remus breaks away. Back to
the stars. Thinks about what Molly said, he can’t, he can’t...

But Sirius has always been the brave one. “Are we ever going to talk about it?” He asks eventually.

“About what?”

“Everything. Fuck. Anything, Remus.”

Remus takes another drag. His stomach sinks. He has spent years avoiding the horrible truth of it.
Has fucked it away. Smoked it. The past was meant to stay there, but now Sirius Black stares him
in the face and demands it unearthed. If anyone has the power, it is him. If anyone has the
courage...

“Why would we do a thing like that?” Remus asks sardonically instead. Fuck, fuck.

Sirius’s hands clench. For a moment, Remus fucking dares him to have a go... but he lets out a
breath. Unfurls. Sirius takes a step back and looks at Remus. He blinks slowly and his eyes seem to
scan Remus like he is taking measurements for a new dress robe.

“I spent years with those Dementors,” Sirius says. His words are soft. “Every horrible, agonising
moment of my past was replayed on repeat. Every dread amplified. I have lived that pain, in my
mind, in my body. I know how real it is. But you know what seems even worse?” He meets
Remus’s eyes. “Not letting yourself feel it at all.”

Remus grits his teeth and looks down. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Sirius says. He rocks forward, closer to Remus. “I know you. You like to think I don’t,
but I do. I know every fucking inch of you inside and out...”

“And you still thought I was the traitor.” It is despicable in the cold of the night.

“There you are,” Sirius says, like he is relieved. Like he was waiting for it. Poking the wolf,
wanting a reaction. But Remus can’t... he can’t give it to him.

“I miss James so fucking much.” The pain seems to steal Sirius’s breath, for a moment. “He was
everything. And Lily. My family, you know? They were my family and I killed them. Don’t you
even miss them?”

Don’t you miss me?

“I miss everything,” Remus replies.

He wants to cry but he can’t. If he cries, he will never stop. He could spend a lifetime crying for
James and Lily. He could spend another crying for Peter. And for Sirius. For what they had and
what they lost. When do you stop? Is it even possible?

“They were my family too,” he says. “You think you’re the only one who loved them?” He can’t
get his words out. They choke him. Like when he was told they were dead and Sirius a traitor. Bile
spilling out his mouth. But now it’s an angry, black cloud of twisted emotion.

Peter’s mad confession reverberates in his mind. The wolf snarls. Did any of you ever really love
me?

Sirius watches him with dark, hungry eyes. Remus knows what he wants. For him to scream.
Scream and cry and yell and kiss him angrily like they used to fuck out all their arguments... but
Remus is empty. He is empty of it all.

Instead, he lets out a heavily-restrained breath. He looks at Sirius, who is wild and bruised. “And
you didn’t kill them,” Remus adds for good measure as he stubs his cigarette out against the wall.
“So stop saying you did. It doesn’t absolve you.”

He throws the cigarette butt into the ashtray and slams back inside.

As Remus lies in bed the next morning, he can see Peter’s face. Round, rosy-cheeked, happy. In the
quiet of the Hogwarts library, he would gently ask Remus for help. Call himself stupid. You’re not
Petey, Remus would say. You just solve things differently to others.

Now, all Remus can remember is his friend’s snarled, angry face pressed red into prison bars. How
easy it was to convince them it was you. Spitting. Scarred. Lashing out with bitterness and fear.
Solving it the way he knew how... by unraveling the truths that kept them together.

Inside Remus is a monster. He knows that. It howls and scratches and yearns. When he was young,
he thought that was all he was. A monster in boy’s clothes. It took the Marauders – the group of
people he loved most in this world – to show him that he was more than that. And to have that trust
taken away...

Downstairs, Remus can hear Sirius make himself a cup of tea. The kettle boils. Sirius’s feet patter
softly on the wooden floor. Instead of listening to the familiar routine, Remus gets out of bed. He
makes his way silently downstairs to hover at the kitchen door.

Here, in the quiet hour when the Earth still holds her breath with the possibility of day, Sirius is
extraordinarily beautiful. His tired eyes still have soft laughter lines that hint at mischief. His hair
twists delicately around his cheekbones. He has gained happy, healthy weight. He is young and
old.

Remus leans against the door. It creaks and Sirius turns. Freezes.

I can’t hate you, Remus thinks. He simply can’t hate Sirius. Not when he looks at him like that.
But he can be angry. And bitter. And sad. Sirius probably feels the same. Moreso, perhaps, with
the added darkness of Azkaban. Of seeing James and Lily dead. The betrayal of it all...

Just talk, Molly Weasley had said. As if it were the simplest thing. And maybe it is. There are so
many questions Remus has unanswered. So many hurts. If they had all talked before the war,
maybe this could have been avoided. Maybe... but it doesn’t do well to dwell on maybes. All he
can do now is plunge his fingers into the wound left behind and dig the hurt out, just like he
weeded the garden around his new home.

“Did they...” Remus pauses, hesitant. Sirius simply looks at him. He lets his arms drop to his sides
as his grey eyes watch Remus carefully, hopefully. Still sore from the conversation last night. “Did
Prongs and Lily... did they think I was the traitor too?”

There is silence. Outside, snow falls. The sun is a hint on the horizon, it catches on the windowsill
and spreads orange obscenely across the kitchen. Sirius is steady but sad. Honesty, now. That is all
they have left.

“Yes,” Sirius says.

 “Okay,” Remus replies, agonised, breathless. He didn’t think there was a part of him left to break,
but there was. Fuck, there was. “Okay.”

It is a start.

Chapter End Notes

Hey friends, happy new year! Big apologies for the delay between chapters. The
holiday season overwhelmed me plus writer's block really got to me ha. In the end it
took a lot of rewriting and reordering until it finally felt natural. Would love to get
your feedback <3

I have a few more chapters planned and then perhaps some one-shots if there's still an
interest. Next up... conversations Sirius and Remus need to have in order to move
forward.
 chapter ten
Chapter Notes

Content warning: reference to child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

I'm sorry I haven't been myself

And something's got me down
What it is, I cannot tell
I won't be satisfied with anything I've earned
Fear is just a part of love
And one thing I found
Is love is what you deserve

- Briston Maroney, Freakin' Out On the Interstate

Honesty comes in sentences pulled from the back of their throats. Involuntarily, like a howl to the
moon.

Remus feels bruised. But it is not the wolf that has laid siege to his body this time. There are no
claw marks to close, no salve that can be applied. Only more wounds, fresh. Picked at the scab
until they bleed and bleed.

He feels detached. He makes dinner. He plays with Harry. He escapes outside to smoke.

Sirius watches him, like a wretched ghost of a man. They are betrayer and betrayed, both of them.
Is it worse that Remus believed Sirius had actually killed James and Lily or that Sirius ever thought
Remus could? Perhaps they cancel each other out. Perhaps they are equally sinned and atoned. It
doesn’t feel like it.

Instead, in the dark of an evening when the clock ticks endlessly and the fire smokes and breaks,
Remus traces the edge of his whiskey glass and watches the amber liquid dance with the reflection
of the flames.

“Was it the wolf thing?” He asks.

And Sirius tilts his long neck up to look at him from where he sits on the floor by the fire. A dog,
curious and cautious. His eyes are dark. His lips are wet with beer. He raises an eyebrow.

“Was it the Black thing?” Sirius replies.

In the harsh snow-white of day, Remus has never seen Harry so excited. He hops around the house
putting up garlands of orange and holly. He insists Remus play the Muggle radio so that Christmas
music fills the home.
He is James, Remus thinks. Like James with joy. But then he can’t. His black hair sticks up just
like... his eyes exactly like... Oh, to feel angry at people he cannot be. It is hard to look at Harry. It
is even harder to look at...

Sirius’s grin is sideways – young – as he levitates a small, patched tree from the forest into their
living room. It bumps into the furniture. His eyes sparkle as he says oops with a look that says he
isn’t sorry at all. Harry screeches in delight and insists that he’s put on Sirius’s shoulders.

Together they fasten hastily transfigured decorations to drooped branches as Harry checks once
again whether they’re sure Saint Nicholas will know where I am.

“Yes Harry,” Sirius says patiently as Harry tugs at his hair. Sirius growls and pretends to bite at his
foot. Harry giggles and squirms, barely staying atop Sirius’s shoulders.

“Mr and Mrs Dursley said he didn’t know about children in cupboards,” Harry says. “But Ron said
Saint Nicholas knows everything...”

Remus swallows the lump in his throat. He looks down at the candles in his hands. When Harry
was a baby, Remus remembers how Lily would make them dance around his crib so that he could
follow the flames with his eyes. Oh, if she was here... if she heard...

Sirius pauses. “Harry,” he says with a disjointed tone. He takes a breath. “Harry, Saint Nicky
knows about you personally. I promise. That’s how damn good a boy you’ve been.”

“Really?” Harry peers over Sirius’s shoulder to look at Remus. Remus smiles at him. It hurts.

“Really.”

Later when Harry is in bed, Sirius and Remus hover in the kitchen. There is barely-light. White
shapes on tired, shadowed faces. Sirius drinks beer and Remus washes the dishes, slowly. Then...
honesty, again. Sharp.

“Why didn’t you get him sooner?” Sirius says.

Remus hunches forward. Closes his eyes.

It’s a double-ended wand, that question. He didn’t get Harry sooner because he couldn’t. It hurt too
much to think of the child. And when he did – between drinks and men and potions and claws –
Remus simply preferred the dream that Harry had a happy life compared to the stark reality that
without James and Lily, it was destined to be an empty one.

But that is not the question Sirius asks. No. And that is not the answer he wants either. Why didn’t
you get me sooner.

“You know why,” Remus says blankly.

There is a long silence. He hears the thud of Sirius putting his beer down on the table firmly. The
scrape of his chair.

“It seems that it must be very hard to feel sorry for someone else,” Sirius says. His voice is rough,
shaky. “...when you’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself.”

He slams out of the room. Remus scrubs the dishes, one by one.

*
In the darkness of past-midnight, Remus tries to remember the last conversation he had with James.
And with Lily. Had they laughed? Did he say that he loved them? Surely, in the middle of the war,
Remus had made sure to say that he loved them every time he walked out the front door. Did they
say it in return? He can’t remember. He can’t... he can’t fucking remember.

Two days before Christmas, Sirius corners Remus in the hallway. His eyes look somewhere in the
direction of Remus’s ear. His mouth is a straight line. They haven’t spoken since the last time.
Each word feels too much like blame. Is this... is this their life now?

“I need to go to London,” he says. “There is... a Christmas gift for Harry is there. At the apartment.
I just... would that be okay?”

“Would it be...” Remus is uncertain.

“To go,” Sirius finishes. “Just to... pick up the gift.”

And Remus is shocked into a jumble of honesty. “Sirius... you do know that... you do know that
you don’t have to stay here, right? You can come and go as you... we’re not. I’m not... this isn’t
prison...”

This whole time, Sirius skulking around the house. Late at night. Up at first light. Did he think he
was trapped? Too busy feeling sorry for myself, Remus thinks.

Sirius scoffs, but his shoulders loosen. “I know that.”

Then he looks at Remus squarely in the face. Sees something, maybe, in the way Remus can’t meet
his eye. He repeats firmly, “I know that, okay?”

“Harry, put your boots on,” Remus says later that afternoon, when Sirius is out of the house and it’s
just the two of them. “We’re going to visit Neris.”

Harry hurries and skips the entire walk. It’s been... it’s been entirely too long since any of them
have been out of the house. Remus has already broken promises to himself and to Harry. Not to
hide him away. Not to be outsiders. He wonders if there will ever be a time he doesn’t feel like he
is failing at this strange life.

On the way, Harry stomps in the snow and insists on holding Remus’s hand. Remus looks down at
him.

“Harry,” he says. The boy has grown, already. How has he grown? When did he go from a small,
scared thing hidden under a bed to this? Sirius’s words ring in his ears. Has he not paid enough
attention to him? “Are you... you like Sirius, don’t you?”

Harry smiles. “Sirius is the bestest. And Padfoot.”

“Good,” Remus says distractedly. “And you like... us all living together?”

“Oh yes,” Harry says. Then he pauses. Looks up at Remus uncertainly. “Is that okay? Sirius is...
he’s pack too, right?”

“Yes,” Remus swallows. “He is pack.” The words are heavy in the crisp air.
“Good,” Harry replies.

When they reach Neris’s house, it is covered in Christmas lights. A bright spark on the street. She
greets them at the door with a smile, gives Harry a hug and lets him roam the house. It is covered
in photos of family, fine china and ceramic ornaments of women dancing in beautiful dresses.
Harry touches everything, gently.

“It’s been a little while,” Neris says as she pours Remus tea. “You’ve been well?”

Remus smiles politely. “Yes, we’ve been keeping quiet at home, with the... snow.”

“Oh yes,” Neris says. “Terrible out there.”

There is a long, awkward pause as Remus takes a sip of his tea. He crosses his legs. Uncrosses
them. Crosses them again.

Neris leans forward. Puts her hand gently on Remus’s knee. “Child, I assume this isn’t just a social
call. As happy as I am to see Harry, there seems to be more on your mind.”

Remus sighs. “I have... someone staying with us. An old... a friend from school. He’s been through
a lot. He... well he recently got out of prison. Not that he’s dangerous! I mean... Merlin, I’m
fucking this up.”

Neris laughs. She raises an eyebrow. “You came all this way to tell me you have a gentleman caller
at your house?”

“It’s not like that! I mean... Sirius, is his name. He’s been in the papers a bit lately...”

“Sirius Black...” Neris breathes. “Oh yes, we all heard about his escape. And then they had a
closed trial, didn’t they? Innocent, they said. After all that time. Dreadful, dreadful. Honestly...”

“He’s been staying at my place. We’ve kind of... we’ve been hiding out there. But I don’t want him
to have to hide. For Harry to have to... I was hoping that you could, I don’t know... spread the
word?”

Neris laughs again. “Ah, you’ve come to start the gossip machine. I see you’ve been talking to my
granddaughter, Gemma. She’s usually good at this sort of thing.”

Remus looks down sheepishly. “I was hoping we could go into town tomorrow. I just... I don’t
want to scare anyone.”

“Not to worry,” Neris says briskly. “I’ll sort it out.”

The town is busy on Christmas Eve. Each shop is lit in brilliant rainbow colours. Beautiful yellow
lights overhang the high street as if the stars have come down to say hello. And carolers sing on
the corner. There is joy in the air, real joy. It’s a stark contrast to silent evenings at home.

Harry holds Sirius’s hand. Surrounded by the life and colour of the street, Sirius looks young. His
hair is tucked behind his ears. He’s neatened his stubble and is wearing a long black coat and scarf
that wraps snugly around his neck. He is a far cry from the man in the paper, but that doesn’t stop
the townspeople from staring. When they walk past, people turn away. Or whisper to each other.
But nobody is startled.
“I should’ve come as Padfoot,” Sirius mutters. “Safer. Easier.”

“This is our home,” Remus says firmly. Sirius looks sideways at him. There is something angrily
fond in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says.

Harry pulls them in whichever direction he chooses. To the sweet shop, where he gets a free
Christmas chocolate and the ladies coo over him while pointedly trying not to look at Sirius. To the
charity shop where Harry runs up to Old Julian to see their new collection of scarves. While Harry
makes his selection, Julian greets Remus and Sirius.

“Bad, that business with the coppers,” he says gruffly. “Good to have you here, boy.”

And then Gemma and Neris, in the street. They’re strolling together slowly, arm in arm. When
they spot Remus, Sirius and Harry, they veer over. Gemma looks scandalously delighted.

“Well, Remus Lupin has finally emerged. Who knew you’d bring more drama to our little village
than I ever could?” Gemma grins, reaches down to tug at Harry’s new scarf. “Hey kiddo.” And
then she looks up at Sirius. “No need for an introduction, Gran told me all about the new man in
town. The paper did you no justice, you’re much better looking in person.”

Sirius raises an eyebrow as Remus hurriedly explains. “This is Gemma and Neris.”

“Pleased to meet you both,” Sirius says politely.

Neris laughs, pats Sirius on the cheek with a mittened hand. “Oh no need to be so...”

“Serious?” Sirius smirks. “Don’t worry, that joke has been made plenty of times.” And Remus has
to stop himself from saying something ridiculous, like fuck I’ve missed it though. Because he
sounds like Sirius before war, when words weren’t used as weapons, instead for the simple
pleasure of making each other laugh.

Later, Harry spots some of the children he used to play with. They’re making snowmen.
Scrunching snow in their hands. Chasing each other. Harry looks at Remus and then back to the
playground, but he doesn’t say anything. Simply holds Sirius’s hand tightly, unsure.

“Go on,” Remus murmurs, giving him a nudge. Harry grins and runs to join them.

Sirius and Remus sit on a bench under a nearby tree. There are a group of mothers at the other end
of the park. They look at Sirius warily, but don’t approach. Remus reaches in his pocket and pulls
out a cigarette from his pack.

“I think I forgot,” Sirius says suddenly. “That there’s a world out here. Even before... Azkaban.
During the war. I forgot there were still people who went about their ordinary lives.”

“We all forgot,” Remus says. He takes a drag of his cigarette. In the before, it didn’t much seem
like there would be an after. Only endless days of battle.

“He’s a happy kid,” Sirius murmurs. “You’ve... you’ve done a good job.”

“I didn’t do anything, he did it on his own.”

“Remus, I’m trying to give you a bloody compliment here, okay?”

 Remus sighs. He looks down at the cigarette in his hand. The ash lands heavily in the snow. Sirius
wrinkles his nose. The cold bubbles around them, the town bustles, the children laugh.

To Remus, it all still feels muted. These realities, these lives, they never stay. Remus knows better
than anyone. Good fades. Until it is hollow and alone. He watches Harry fall backwards into the
snow. Get up again.

“James and Lily wouldn’t have wanted him with me,” Remus says. It is a bruise he hasn’t pressed
on enough yet, a pain he simply cannot heal. “If they didn’t trust me... he, he should be with you.”

Sirius, angry. “He is with me. And you.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t...”

“Don’t you fucking dare...”

He can feel the moon rise in his bones. Sirius breathes, heavily.

“It wasn’t the wolf thing,” Sirius says. He runs a hand through his hair. He looks at Remus
steadily. “I... It was so fucked up, during the war. You weren’t there. And fuck, I’m not saying that
to... whatever, I’m saying that because you don’t understand what they were like, at the end. What
we were all like. Afraid of our shadows. Doubting everything. Each other...”

“They didn’t doubt you,” Remus takes another drag of his cigarette.

“Because I was there. Within their line of sight, most of the time. The only thing they trusted was
what they could see with their own eyes. Fuck, most of the time you’d come back and couldn’t
look at us.”

He pauses. “I’m... I’m sorry, Remus. And I know... they would be sorry too. More than you can
know. You’re good with him, you love Harry. Don’t give that up because of that fucking war.
Don’t you dare.”

Sirius of the past would make a joke, right about now. Would bat his eyes and say pretty please
Moony. But they are changed. The past is heavy on Remus too. It lays within his bones like the
wolf. It tears just as angrily. It pulls with just as much hurt. He wishes he had the energy to grieve,
still. Maybe that would get it out.

“I’m sorry,” Remus chokes instead. “For...”

“I know,” Sirius says.

“It wasn’t the Black thing,” Remus says.

“I know,” Sirius replies.

Chapter End Notes

God, untangling these boys is a messy business. What did you think of the chapter? A
huge shout out to @swifty_fox on TikTok for recommending this fic, and thank you to
everyone who has commented. It honestly means so much to get your feedback and
yell about all the complicated emotions these Marauders inspire in us x
 chapter eleven
Chapter Notes

Content warning: reference to child abuse.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Don't tell me the truth

Tell me that it didn't happen
There's been a mistake
There's been a misunderstanding

- Aidan Hawken, Walking Blind

Christmas breaks bright and early. Remus pads downstairs just as the sun rises. Already he can hear
Harry and Sirius tear around the living room like nifflers on a hunt. He pauses by the door, catches
the scene.

They’re in their pyjamas. Sirius looks so much like he did the first Christmas in their new flat, his
face breathless with happiness. Then, it had only been the two of them. Sirius had bounced on his
toes by their shoddy Christmas tree, dressed only in his pants and a Santa hat. He’d said, looks like
Santa was good to you Moony. I think he deserves a kiss, and Remus had fallen into him with a
helpless laugh.

Now Sirius chases Harry yelling, ho, ho, ho! Harry laughs, shoves chocolate in his mouth. Bounces
on the sofa and does a loop around the room. When Sirius spots Remus, his face settles into an
expression Remus can’t place. Happy-sad. Yesterday’s apologies have gentled them.

He says, “Merry Christmas, Moony.” This time, Remus doesn’t flinch at the childhood nickname.

“Merry Christmas,” he replies.

Sirius is soft in the morning light. He smiles cautiously.

Just give us a day, Remus thinks. Then he stumbles awkwardly backwards, rocked by Harry who
has launched straight into him. Harry jumps up and down, hugs Remus’s legs.

“Merry Christmas Remy! Saint Nicholas was here. Sirius said he caught his bottom on fire. I think
he was lying. Are we going to open presents? You have to open yours. And Sirius said we could
have chocolate for breakfast. And then see Ron! And...”

Remus crouches down to wrap him in a proper hug. There are empty spaces around them, people
who should be here and aren’t. He breathes Harry in.

“Presents first?” He suggests.

Together they sit by the tree. Its branches already wilt and droop, but Harry doesn’t notice. Instead
he pauses at the small pile of gifts.
“Which one is mine?” He asks.

Remus and Sirius look at each other. Away.

“They’re all yours,” Remus says gently.

Harry turns wide eyes on them. “Wow. Thank you,” he breathes.

Harry unwraps each present reverently. There are not many, not like other children. But he is
incredibly grateful. His smile is brighter than the lights on the Christmas tree as he unwraps
drawing pencils, a book, a toy and a few clothes. Harry clambers over to squish his nose against
their faces. He laughs thank you, thank you!

When he opens Remus’s special gift – he looks at him uncertainly. It’s a photo album. The first
half is filled with photos. Of his parents, when they were young. Him as a baby. Sirius throwing
Harry in the air as James screeches. Lily asleep with Harry on her chest.

“It’s your Mum and Dad, Harry,” Remus says. Then he picks up the small camera that came with
the gift. Molly had pressed it into his hands a few days ago. “And this is for us to fill up the rest of
the book. With new memories.”

Harry touches the album, gently. He doesn’t understand now, but he will. “Thank you, Remy,” he
says.

Remus doesn’t look at Sirius. He can feel the man’s eyes on the side of his neck, burned. He
doesn't think of James and Lily, who trusted him until they didn't. Instead, he continues to hand out
gifts. Harry has made each man a card, clumsily-heartfelt drawings with love hearts and Christmas
decorations. Remus has to take a breath when he receives it. Tries to imprint the picture behind his
eyelids.

For Sirius, Remus bought a second-hand leather jacket. It’s soft and worn beneath his fingers.
Sirius smiles and hands Remus his present. A sweater of warm, blue wool. Memories pass between
them. Years unfinished.

Harry’s final gift is from Sirius. It’s clumsily-wrapped, awkwardly-shaped. Harry opens it and
laughs in delight. Remus blinks, rapidly. It’s the toy dog. The one that James had bought Harry as a
joke, to tease Sirius. Fluffy, black and harmless. James had said, it’s you, Padfoot. And Sirius had
said, fuck off I’m much scarier but insisted Harry sleep with it every night.

“It’s from when you were a baby,” Sirius says. “You left it at my house, once. Now I can give it
back to you.”

Harry crushes the dog to his chest, says, “Now I can take Padfoot everywhere.”

And Sirius says, “Yes, yes always, Harry.”

The Weasley house is overwhelmingly loud. Children scream and shout. Glass smashes to the
ground. Baby Ginny cries. As they step out of the floo, a Quidditch ball flies past their faces. The
twins throw it back and forth, clambering over furniture, knocking over ornaments.

Molly storms through, yelling, “Take it outside boys! I said no balls in the house!”
Sirius leans over. “Does she mean us?” He asks with a grin.

Remus shushes him as Molly wraps Remus and Harry in a warm hug. She smells like Christmas
cookies, a twitch of frantic magic and home. When she releases them, she rocks backwards to look
at Sirius for the very first time. Her eyes travel up and down, they soften.

“Merry Christmas Molly,” Sirius says. He awkwardly juts out the bottle of wine and homemade
skincare Remus whipped up. Molly sweeps them into her arms and then Sirius, too.

“Merry Christmas, Sirius,” she says with a catch in her voice. He looks slightly alarmed.

The noise starts up again and they are whisked away. Plied with wine and sat by the fire. Ron
rushes Harry to the kitchen to show him the presents he received. I got Bill’s old broom! The one
for kids, he exclaims excitedly. Molly makes them promise not to fly it alone. Or in the house. The
boys nod solemnly. Sirius gives them a cheeky wink as Remus raises an eyebrow.

But the biggest surprise comes when Arthur hands Harry his present. It's wrapped in brown paper.
One of the children has written HARRY in big sloping letters. Harry looks up at Arthur and Molly,
whose faces shine with joy. He tentatively opens the gift to reveal a red sweater with the letter H
stitched proudly. Harry immediately puts it on. His face is wide with a grin, he looks at Remus,
teary.

“You’re one of us now,” Ron says.

“Wow,” Harry manages to breathe.

As a child, Remus had barely been able to imagine friends. His family consisted of a distant father
and a mother desperate to do her best. He was lonely, a lot. He was sad, a lot. And he knows he
would be just as stunned as Harry to be surrounded by people who loved him enough to make him
one of their own.

He leans down, smooths Harry’s fringe off his forehead. “Say thank you, Harry,” he says.

“Thank you,” Harry whispers. Arthur ruffles his hair and Molly kisses him until Harry squirms
away with a laugh and Ron says, gross Mum!

Later, they sit around the table. It bustles with food and love. Sirius regales the twins with
Marauder tales in a voice that hides any waver of tragedy. He smiles at Molly as she pushes
another helping onto his plate. Gladly accepts more red wine from Arthur.

The children laugh with each other. Bill says, wait you’re saying that’s the Harry Potter until
Arthur quietens him. Charlie shoves a carrot up Percy’s nose that makes him cry. Harry and Ron
play catch the peas, a competition that involves throwing green projectiles into each other’s
mouths. Molly sighs and says, at least they’re eating their vegetables and Remus can’t help but
agree. He is warm with wine, soft with Christmas cheer.

Sirius watches him across the table. He watches Sirius.

When they get home, they slump onto the sofa. Even Harry can’t seem to move, only roll around
the floor saying I’m stuffed, Siri. I’m gonna explode! He picks at leftover chocolates and gives
them a swipe with his tongue. When he realises he may actually explode, Harry sadly puts them
back in the tray. Remus makes a note of which ones have been covered in kid saliva with a
reminder to feed them to Sirius later.
In the meantime, Sirius somehow manages to sniff out a stash of tequila hidden in the kitchen
cupboard. He raises his eyebrow at Remus and gestures with the bottle, you want some? Remus
nods in reply.

Together, the three of them sit by the fire. Harry wraps himself up between Remus and Sirius. He
has the photo album in his lap and flips through it like a storybook. Harry asks yawning questions
like, was my mum a princess? To which Sirius snorts and Remus says oh yes of course. And what
did he sound like? To which Sirius says, exactly like you.

And as they drink and reminisce and Harry’s eyes begin to droop, Sirius gets quieter. And his
expression slips. And he pours more tequila. And his breath shallows. What goes up must come
down, Remus thinks.

Harry eventually crashes into a chocolate-induced sleep. When Remus puts him to bed, he smiles.
His Weasley sweater is still stained with Christmas lunch and his arms wrap around the toy dog
that Sirius returned to him. Remus kisses his hair, traces the lightning scar that cracks through his
forehead.

“Merry Christmas, Harry,” Remus whispers. Sopped with tequila and memories, the words sound a
lot like, I love you.

When he makes his way back downstairs, Sirius is slumped. He has tequila in one hand and the
photo album in the other. He brings the bottle up to his downturned lips. His profile carves a
curved silhouette. Hunched, ached.

“Sirius,” Remus murmurs as he enters the room. He crouches down on the floor in front of him.

Sirius’s eyes are wet and furious. He doesn’t meet Remus’s gaze. Instead he watches the
photographs. Lily and James smile, obscenely-alive in each frame. Vibrant. So young that it is
revolting they ever spent a minute wasting it on war.

“It isn’t fucking fair,” he says. He throws down the album.

“I know,” Remus replies.

Sirius’s fist clenches. His nails bite half-moon crescents into his palm. Remus touches each
knuckle, gently.

“He would’ve...” Sirius is too angry to speak. “He would’ve fucking adored today. He would’ve...
it should be him. It should be him!”

He is despair, personified. Sirius’s eyes are endless, hollow pools when he finally looks. He is
emptied out of every ounce of joy and laughter. Used it up, for Harry. Smiled it out, for Molly.
Remus doesn’t dare breathe.

Here, with each other. They can be nothing. It’s what they have left, isn’t it? Dead friends. A dead
relationship. Dead memories. They look at each other. And look.

“I know,” Remus whispers. It should’ve. It fucking should have. Remus and Sirius both know, they
should be dead and Lily and James should be alive. The two of them would have made it. Would
know what to do, how to continue, how to breathe.

“Do you remember,” Sirius says. “Do you remember our first Christmas? At Hogwarts.” He takes
another swig of tequila. “Jamie stayed because my parents decided I needed to be punished that
year. Cause, Gryffindor. He... he stayed. And you stayed because of the moon, and... and...”
 “And Peter stayed, because he didn’t want to be left out,” Remus continues for him.

“That rat bastard,” Sirius says viciously. “But we ate so much food. And found so many tunnels.
Planned pranks. And we laughed. We spent the entire holiday laughing. Fuck, it was one of the
greatest Christmases I ever had.”

Sirius sucks in a breath. Memories are visceral, Remus knows that. He can see James. The way his
smile lit up an entire dormitory. And his joy was contiguous, infectious. That Christmas, he had
forcibly dragged every lonely child into the courtyard for the greatest snowball fight Hogwarts has
ever seen. It lasted for three days. Remus had seen the Professors placing bets.

And James... well, James was Sirius’s person from that moment on. Remus knows this as certainly
as he knows the moon will rise. They were more than brothers. Soulmates, sentences unspoken.
Remus and Lily would share wry smiles and winks. Would joke, why don’t you just marry each
other then, and Sirius would swoon into James arms and they would pretend to snog with loud-wet
sounds.

“In Azkaban,” Sirius says, shaking his head. “The Dementors... they take every good thing. They
take it all. What if I...? I can’t forget him, Remus. I can’t... don’t let me.”

He lets Sirius curl into him. He tucks his hair behind his ears and takes the tequila bottle out of his
hand. Sirius shudders.

“You won’t,” Remus whispers. “You could never.”

“I miss him,” Sirius says.

“I know,” Remus replies.

“And her,” Sirius says.

“Yes,” Remus replies.

“And you."

Sirius falls asleep on the couch. His lips still smell of tequila when Remus pulls a blanket up under
his chin. He imagines James, standing with his arms crossed next to him and joking with a crooked
smile, the drunken lush, aren’t you going to kiss him better, Moony? And Remus would elbow him
and say do it your bloody self.

Chapter End Notes

I'm sorry that I still had to make Christmas angsty. These boys. Also, wow you guys.
The response to the last chapter has blown me away. I have adored every single
comment, it means so much to hear what you think and that you're enjoying the story.
And a massive shout out to @aidanelizabeth for recommending and reacting to this fic
over on TikTok. It's so incredible. As always, comment below and see you next
chapter!
 chapter twelve
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

My friend is gone, he ran away

I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you I love him each day

- Sufjan Stevens, The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us

The space between Christmas and New Year is slipperier than melted snow. Days stretch and
retract. They slide from one to the other, content. Gentled, heavy with leftovers.

After the great tequila confession that we need not speak about Remus, a secret corridor opens
between the two men. They funnel memories surreptitiously, cautiously. They put down the ghost
of their pain, if only for a day or two. They let it rest.

Instead Sirius smiles when he talks about James. Remus tries to smile with him. When he can’t, he
reminisces. Do you remember how James snored? He describes the sound, a hoot, a snort, a honk
until Sirius laughs with tears. A piece inside Remus quakes and breaks back into place. It is
enough.

Sirius touches him more. Remus wishes he didn’t notice but he does. Wishes his body wasn’t so
tuned to the gentle fingers that brush his shoulder. Or the toes that touch his shin beneath the
kitchen table when Harry says something they’re not meant to laugh at. They circle the intimacy
they used to occupy. Remus retreats each time.

On New Year’s Eve, Sirius insists they have a party. A new start for all of us, he says. His eyes
ache and hope in equal measure. The three of them wear pointed party hats. They put up
decorations and pour wine. Harry takes to counting down at random intervals throughout the night,
bounding in happiness. Each time he reaches one, they cheer.

When the clock finally turns over to midnight, Harry is curled on the sofa. He sleeps peacefully
into their new beginning. His chest rises and falls. They follow each breath, five, four, three, two...
and raise their glasses in a silent celebration. They watch each other.

“Happy New Year Moony,” Sirius murmurs. His eyes are dark. Lips stained red with wine.

“Happy New Year,” Remus swallows.

For the first time, Remus thinks about the future. Another year of this. And as much as he tries not
to – he thinks, yes. Yes I could do this one more year. Yes, I could make something of this shoddy
mess. This broken and patched existence. Maybe, maybe...

But as always, the moon approaches. Remus can feel it drag his bones to a shudder and halt. His
body twists. His spine aches. Really, he should be used to the way it wrenches him from himself. A
sick, moon-led puppet.

He isn’t.
*

Sirius avoids Remus when he is Padfoot. Slinks out of the room. Distracts, yips and nips at Harry.
If they startle upon each other, his grey eyes turn away. His ears flatten back. He sinks belly-low to
the floor.

Human-Remus feels the same. It hurts to look at Padfoot. He is a creature of childhood. Blissfully,
angrily pack. If he could, he would lay on the floor too. Supplicate, humbly. Say, sorry for all the
hurt we've caused each other as humans.

But the wolf inside Remus yearns and hates in equal measure. It is angry. And Sirius can feel it.
How sick with need the wolf is. For stag, rat and dog. For child. They are so close to the surface.
Sunken into Remus's skin. Entwined in him. He knows that this moon will be a bad one. But still –

“You will go with Harry,” he says with false-calm to Sirius. “And spend the night with the
Weasleys. This isn’t up for negotiation.”

Now Sirius has none of the submission he has as Padfoot. He is furious, fierce. It’s an argument
they’ve had every day leading up to the moon. “You don’t just get to decide...”

“Yes,” Remus says, hard. “Yes I do.”

Sirius runs an angry hand through his hair. He snarls, “I thought we were equals here.”

Angry words catch on his teeth. Remus chokes them back. “Not about this.” His jaw clenches. “I
will not...”

“Accept help? Instead you’ll tear yourself up alone. Such a fucking martyr.”

“I will not risk you! Or Harry!” Remus stumbles backwards, takes a breath. In the other room,
Harry plays obliviously with toys. Remus will not subject him to another argument. He lowers his
voice, whispers angrily, “What do you think the wolf will do Sirius? I have been alone for so many
moons. Even before...”

He stops himself. Even before you were gone, hangs in the air between them. During the war there
had been endless lonely moons. Endless agonising ones. At one point, Remus realised that James,
Lily, Peter and even Sirius had forgotten to track them. They would look shocked, when Remus
returned. Shocked and – what Remus now recognises – suspicious.

Sirius raises his eyes. Traces the scars that stretch across Remus’s face. Throat. Arms. He is an
assembled, mangled body of mistakes. Remus can sometimes hardly believe he ever let Sirius
touch it.

“Padfoot can help...”

“Padfoot can’t look at me. And you think the wolf will be overjoyed to see you either? No. He’ll
kill you. Like he tries to kill me. If anything happened to you, Sirius. I couldn’t...”

Sirius is quiet. “I don’t agree,” he says. “I don’t think you would hurt me. I think you are better
with Padfoot. Don’t you want to try?”

“Think of Harry,” Remus says. “He needs one of us. Please.” He sags. Then asks again, the only
thing he can ask of Sirius. “Please.”

Sirius watches him. His mouth holds unhappy so beautifully. “Fine,” he says.
*

For days, the wolf paces like a shadow between them. Sirius tries to match its stride. He can’t keep
up.

At nearly-full, Remus sneaks outside with his pack of cigarettes. He watches the stars, can feel the
earth rotate as he barely holds onto the surface. It’s comical, really. How much the moon must have
seen. How small and scared and insignificant they must all look. His hand traces across the layers
of spells that arch over their home. The protections he has put in place to keep his family safe. It
doesn't feel like enough, anymore. What do you do when the monster is inside?

“Are you out here being bloody morbid again?” He hears Sirius ask behind him.

Remus hums. He inhales and exhales. “Only a bit.”

Sirius joins him in the garden. He leans back on the wall and digs his toe into the sogged ground,
kicks a rock with his shoe. The snow has dripped away to reveal the undergrowth. Come spring,
they will plant again. Grow once more.

“You don’t smile as much as you used to,” Sirius says suddenly. An abrupt, brutal conversation
starter. Around him, his hair tangles in the night air. The bright end of Remus’s cigarette is a spark
in the cold.

“Don’t I?” Remus asks.

“No. Sometimes I think you will. But then you stop short, like you don’t remember how.” Sirius
scrubs a hand across his face. “I really thought... I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

Remus looks up. Sirius watches him with furrowed brows, but when their eyes catch he skitters
away. The moon glows eerily on his face. It is unnatural on him. He should never be cast in its
bleak light.

“When I heard you had Harry, I had this fantasy I think. During my trial. Of you, happy out here.
But you haven’t been, have you?”

Remus wants to say something ugly. Like, how could you ever think I’d be fucking happy? Or are
you really that naive? But he can’t. Every day Sirius trudges towards the raw insides of Remus.
Soon he will open him up and gaze in disgust at the blackened, empty spaces left behind.

“It hasn’t been easy,” Remus replies blankly instead.

“Was there...” Sirius pauses for a moment, then plows ahead. “Did you have someone?”

Remus takes a drag of his cigarette.

“I’ve had many people,” he says. There is an object in his chest he can barely move around. It
hurts to speak.

Sirius flinches back. Exhales. “Nobody, then.”

Remus looks at him. “Sirius...”

“You’re so close to being you again. With Harry. The old you. Not the war one. Except for your
smile.”

“Fucking hell,” Remus replies.

The cigarette burns to ash in his fingers, Remus throws it to the ground with a hiss. In the dark,
Sirius is curved. His neck soft and vulnerable under the moon. Remus can see his breath crystalise
in the air. His hands twitch at his sides. They’re on the precipice. Both of them balanced wobbly,
neither wanting to fall.

“I promised you, when we first...”

“Yes,” Remus interrupts. He remembers the exact words. Sirius had kissed him. They were so
fucking young. And Remus had yelled, you can’t fucking do that, when you leave... when you...
And Sirius had kissed him again. Hard. You won’t ever be alone Moony, I promise you.

“I’m sorry you were the last of us left,” Sirius says. “But you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Remus closes his eyes.

During the war, he was secretive. He hid the festered, ugly, animal parts of himself. He even began
to enjoy the wild-freedom of a werewolf full moon. When he ran with vicious packs. When they bit
and ravaged each other. Even when... no, he had not enjoyed Greyback.

But Sirius still doesn’t understand who he became. Will never understand. Remus had told him, I
won’t let war change us, when he knew he was already changed. Then they were gone, and with
them the boy Remus had been. He'd thought, that's what I deserve for thinking I could keep them.
Now there are too many things that can be taken away. He won't let them.

“We've all made promises we couldn’t keep,” Remus replies.

"Please," Sirius says in a sick imitation of their argument. "Let me be there."

A pause. "I'm sorry," Remus says.

Sirius smiles a small, defeated smile. He wouldn't be him, if he didn't have one last stab at it. Now
he turns to go back inside. Says, “Don’t stay out here being miserable too long.”

Remus lets his eyes follow the slope of Sirius’s back in an old black sweater. His knobbly wrists.
He says, “Sirius?” And the man turns back around. His grey eyes, distant. Tequila, a memory
between them.

“I miss you too.”

The next morning, Remus can’t get up. His chest is leaden. Even soft, winter light is too bright. A
hand has dissected him and left him exposed, his guts spilled on the ground. He is numb.

“Oh,” Sirius says in understanding. He’s been summoned by Harry, who scampered to him when
he failed to rouse Remus from bed. “Oh, Moony.” His voice is gentle. It has been a long time since
Remus heard it like that. If he had energy, he would sob.

Instead Remus turns away. His body curls. His intestines knot inside him. His bones crack and
reform. His teeth grow, snap back. Shift and pull. Harry crawls into bed behind him. His tiny
fingers trace soothing, incomprehensible patterns along Remus’s spine.
 Sirius leaves, then returns with tea. The air smells of chamomile. In his heightened state he can
almost taste old-pack and he aches with want. A wide palm brushes his forehead. The soft hum of
transformation. Padfoot at his feet.

He feels only moon. Only beast. And this time he allows himself to succumb, lost in the agony of
pre-transformation. He disappears into pain. Savours it, relentlessly. Welcomes it. Despises it.

When it is time to go, Harry cries. It is a miracle Remus can hold himself up to watch them depart.
He leans heavy on the furniture. If even a feather landed on him, he would simply sink to the
ground. Watching Harry sob, he wants to anyway.

“Please don't,” Sirius says to Harry. Tries to hush and soothe his crying. It’s the first time he has
witnessed a proper tantrum. Harry struggles in his arms. Tries to leap towards Remus. Every time
he does, Sirius’s eyes harden. His mouth is straight and accusatory. Look at what you’re doing to
us.

Remus steps closer. “I will be okay, Harry,” he tries to reassure.

Harry cries harder.

“Look at me,” Remus is firm. “Look at me.”

Harry’s eyes meet his. They are swollen and red. His irises are a deep, vivid green washed with
tears. His breath shudders, stutters. Oh, Remus thinks. You and I are full of the same fear.

Instead he asks, “Have I ever lied to you?”

“No,” Harry murmurs.

“Then hear me now. Sirius will take care of you. Ron is waiting, like every month. And you will
see me tomorrow. I promise.”

Harry reaches out again and this time Remus lets him wrap his arms around his neck and bury his
nose in Remus’s hair. His face is wet. He smells of strawberry shampoo, the damp-dog of Sirius
and home. In there is the memory of Lily and James. Sirius watches.

“Go on,” Remus says. It breaks his heart.

Harry turns away. Calmer now, he presses his face to Sirius’s. Their black hair intermingles and
Remus thinks my pack.

At the hearth, Sirius pauses. He turns. His eyes trace Remus desperately, angrily. He opens his
mouth. Then closes it again. They have both begged enough. Both pleaded too much. Definitively,
Sirius scoops some floo powder into his hand and throws it to the ground. A flash of green
surrounds the pair.

“The Burrow,” Sirius bites.

And Remus is alone to face the moon.

Chapter End Notes

Wow, the start of some big conversations between the boys. And I know I say this
every chapter, but gosh your comments honestly blow me away. There's been such an
incredible response (thank you TikTok!) and I love all your keysmashes, angry
exclamations and headcanons. Big apologies for the delay, life got slightly in the way.
Next chapter is nearly done so shouldn't be too far away. Can't wait to hear what you
think of this one x
 chapter thirteen
Chapter Notes

Content warning: gore, self harm, drugs, references to sex, terrible coping
mechanisms.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

I'm a bad liar

With a savior complex
All the skeletons you hide
Show me yours, and I'll show you mine

- Phoebe Bridgers, Savior Complex

Remus wakes to the thick, metallic smell of blood. It slides slick and slowly from his body. Deep
claw marks have wrenched his skin open. The edges flap bare in the cold air of the bunker. His
arms are mangled and twisted around him. His legs gnawed to the bone. He can feel his belly
exposed to the elements, the way his transformed insides twist and turn back into shape. His eyes
are crusted shut with black blood. Every broken patch of him hurts. But he is alive. That is enough
for now. He lets himself fall back into darkness.

When he wakes again, his arms have snapped into place and the flesh on his body aches a raw pink
new. Blood has congealed and the stitch of fresh skin already itches. He sits up. Inside, the wolf
paces angry and fierce. It is not done with him yet. Where is pack, it asks over and over. Where is
pack?

Pack is safe, Remus thinks angrily in return. Away from you. And the wolf howls because it can
smell pack somewhere, close, why won’t you let me... And so Remus deliberately breaks a finger,
the sharp sudden pain of it interrupting any thought.

Young Remus would have quaked in the face of such an animalistic display. He had cried over
every split lip. Queasied at the sight of blood. Frankly, he had been terrified of the monster inside
him. But this Remus, who has killed before he could be killed, who has run under the moon, who
has bitten, who has fought, who has fucked, who has forgotten... this one knows that the horror of
the wolf and the man are the same.

In fifth year, Sirius (pack pack pack, the wolf howls) led Snape into a dismal tunnel under
Hogwarts and the wolf had chased the smell of meat. When Remus had woken in the Hospital
Wing it had been with sick, blood and fear in his nostrils, desperation and blind hunger.

And he had understood that he was no better than the wolf, because in him were the same dark,
twisted parts that hated Snape with an equal fury. Who wanted him hurt for the torment he
inflicted. Who wanted him scared. Perhaps Peter had been the only one to see the truth of the
matter, that inside him was an animal to be used and so he had and it had worked.
Now, he feels the wolf bite. Throw itself against his ribcage. Remus snarls in return. As long as he
is more... more angry, more stubborn, more animal, more... then the wolf will settle until the moon
sets it free once more.

When the battle within him has raged its last, tired howl, Remus lets himself free. He crawls out of
the trapdoor hidden in the thick of the forest and slumps onto the melted, snow-covered floor.

For a moment, he rests. He watches the way the sun arches across the sky, it’s shy beams bounding
through the treetops. Every day it rotates, endless and relentless in its mission to drive away
darkness. If Remus dreads and fears the moon, then the sun is a welcome refuge that illuminates all
the dark places inside him. Already he can feel how each golden spark licks across the new scars
on his face. How they twist and curl, owned by the mark of the wolf.

He could lay here forever, if he wanted. Let the forest floor cover his body, take it back home.
Before, he used to. Would ache in silence as he looked at the sky for hours until some hidden urge
forced him in search of water. Now he thinks, Harry. Harry. Merlin, beautiful Harry. It is the same
moment he wrestles with every month. And every month it is the same answer. This time it is,
Harry and Sirius.

Slowly, he crawls back to the house. He leverages himself up to push against the front door until it
creaks open with a long groan. His wand is on the hallway table next to neatly folded clothes. He
picks it up and traces the worst of his injuries, muttering well-practiced spells. Just to close them.
Just so he can stand.

He puts his clothes back on. It feels like a mockery, to dress. To hide the animal with a big sweater
and frayed trousers. As if he is human and soft. Now, now would be when he would usually
apparate to the dark confines of a werewolf clan. And he’d let another animal take all the pretense
away again.

Instead, he hobbles to the fireplace and gingerly floos to the Weasley’s home. There, the fire
crackles warm and inviting. He can hear children laughing. He can smell the faint spark of magic
that lingers in the air, tea and scones in the oven. It is another world, another life.

“Remus?” he hears.

On the sofa are Sirius and Harry. Harry looks tired. So does Sirius. His face is drawn, pale. His
hair hangs loosely around his shoulders. Their eyes reflect the flames back at him, and the tall
shadow of man-Remus that has stepped into their lives once more.

He forces a smile onto his face. He knows his teeth are bloody. “See?” he says, splays his arms
open wide as if to say, I’m totally fine. Blood trails towards the sleeves of his sweater, he can feel
the rivulets curve and descend down his forearm. His face stings.

Sirius does not look reassured. Instead, he is angry. “Yes, I see,” he says with gritted teeth. Harry
looks between the two men, his chin wobbles. Sirius takes his hand.

“C’mon, let’s go play outside while Remus properly cleans up,” he says. They leave without a
backward glance. Remus slumps. Too human, once more. Not human enough.

Later that night, Harry dozes against Remus’s chest in front of the fire. His head is tucked under
Remus’s chin, his socked feet pressed under his legs. Sleepily, the boy reaches up to trace the new
scar that curls on Remus’s forehead.

“Like mine,” Harry says. Remus smiles down at him. He runs his thumb along the lightning bolt
scar. Harry closes his eyes and drifts into a sleep free from monsters that haunt those who know
the world.

“It’s not, you know,” Sirius says quietly from the doorway. His mouth is still stubborn and furious.
His grey eyes burn. Remus has to look away. “His scar is born of sacrifice and hope and... and love.
Yours are...”

“I know,” Remus says quietly. His are animal and hatred and fear.

“Why won’t you let me... anyone...” Sirius begins.

Remus tiredly closes his eyes. He is young but his body is exhausted. Each bone is broken and
cracked. Each piece of flesh stitched and replaced too many times. Is there any of the old Remus
left?

“Not tonight Sirius,” he says. “Not tonight.”

And so it continues every month. Remus sends Sirius and Harry away. Sirius is angry. He bellows
and argues and stomps and sulks. When that doesn’t work, he forces Padfoot onto him. Bounds and
barks and curls up against Remus’s thigh late at night. A grim companion. A reminder. See, the
dog’s eyes tell him imploringly. Pack. See.

January turns to February turns to March. Harry flourishes under two pairs of watchful eyes. They
teach him the curved shape of letters and all you can say with them, the sharp order of numbers and
how they organise the world. At the Weasleys, he learns to share and play and imagine. Each week
he bounces home with excited ramblings about all he has discovered.

“He’s a nerd like you,” Sirius says with a smirk at the corner of his upturned mouth.

Remus runs his hand through Harry’s messy hair. “No. He’s like Lily.”

On Wednesdays they take him to a Muggle playgroup at the park. Sirius charms all the mothers
whilst Remus hides behind a tree with a cigarette in his hand. He fools neither Sirius nor the
women that surround him. Instead he lets the smoke twist in his mouth as he watches Harry learn
how to curb the accidental magic that sparks out of him. As he watches Harry understand that his
magic makes him no better or worse than any other child.

Occasionally they go to the pub. Remus pretends not to notice how Sirius presses his leg against
Remus’s in the booth. The arm slung around his shoulders. Or his hand on Remus’s thigh, tapping
to get out and order another drink. When Gemma joins them, she raises an eyebrow as Sirius slinks
towards the bar.

“Are you...?” She asks.

Remus shakes his head. He can feel every place Sirius pressed.

“Were you...?”
Remus grimaces and Gemma smirks slyly. It reminds him of friends at Hogwarts, the ones lost to
war too early. Their names stacked on top of each other in his memories. They weren't wrong then
and Gemma isn't now.

Because late at night, just the two of them, Remus dares to want. Sirius by firelight. Sirius reading
to Harry. Sirius crying. Sirius laughing. He is just as loud and vibrant and angry in the rebuild of
his life as he was in its destruction and Remus, Merlin, Remus loves... but he can't. He won't. That
road is trampled and it hurts.

Time marches on.

Remus celebrates his 25th birthday wrapped in a blanket on the sofa. He is surrounded by the
Weasleys, Harry and Sirius. His bones thump and the moon tugs at him. Sirius sings happy
birthday ridiculously out of tune until Molly slaps him on the arm and he settles back into his
classically Pureblood vocals, a lovingly sarcastic twist to the tone. Remus blows out the candles on
his birthday cake and tries not to notice how shallow his breath is. There is grey at his temples
already. He aches.

March to April. April to May.

Sirius continues to have nightmares. The new year has not robbed him of that. He wakes in cold
sweats and paces around the room. Remus listens to each footstep until he cannot bear the pain of
it anymore and creaks downstairs.

“Tell me,” he says gently. He presses a cup of tea into Sirius’s shaking hands. He guides him to the
kitchen table. Or when Sirius is furiously, justifiably angry he takes him outside so that he can
scream without waking Harry.

Sirius will talk or yell or both. About the dead blankness of James’s eyes. About Lily crumpled
next to the crib and the tears and snot and blood that ran down baby Harry’s face. About Peter,
who laughed even as he sliced his own finger to drop heavily on the floor, a gavel sentencing Sirius
to Azkaban without trial. About the Dementors. The cold flagstones of Azkaban. The prisoners
who raved. The ones who gloated. And the awful, slow suck of his memory, the selective misery
of his existence on repeat.

When it’s over and he has talked himself out for the night, Sirius will turn to Remus. Sometimes
his eyes will be wet. Sometimes there will be dread. Most often they search for something Remus
isn’t sure he can give. “Tell me,” he says. “Remus, tell me.”

And Remus will think blankly of the emptiness and the drugs he took and the bodies he let take
him and the moon that ruled him. What excuse did he have? To be so empty without Dementors to
take it from him. To be so angry without knowing true injustice. War made him who he was. The
silent destruction that followed, well Remus has nobody to blame for that but himself.

The next moon is too much. Instead of flooing to the Burrow, Remus sends a Patronus to Molly to
tell them he has an errand and escapes to a werewolf hideout instead. He lets the drugs disappear
him, the rolling of bodies, the teeth of sharp, sweaty animals. He lets a wolf with dark hair put his
hands on him.

“What do you want?” The wolf asks. His mouth scrapes against Remus’s neck. His eyes are grey
and hungry. “C’mon, tell me.”

Remus flinches. He pushes back from the man and weaves his way through the crowd, where
animals rut up against each other and blood has already spilled across the floor. Creatures roar.
Remus feels it rise in his chest. He apparates home.

Sirius is there. His head snaps up when Remus falls through the door. He watches Remus for a
long time. The way he scrambles to get himself in some semblance of order. To hide the bruise on
his neck and stem the flow of blood from scars that have torn open.

“Are you high?” Sirius asks incredulously.

“I... I don’t...” There’s no excuse. Remus can barely hold a thought. He is lost and barren. He
misses Sirius like he misses the bones in his body when they splinter and betray him.

“Fucking hell, Moony. Fucking hell.” But his hands are gentle as he helps Remus up. And he’s
steady as he leads him to bed. And his voice is soft as he traces his wand along the worst of
Remus’s wounds.

“I can’t do this for much longer,” Sirius says. His fingers brush through Remus’s grey hair. “You
can’t do this for much longer. Something will break.” His eyes say, you will.

Remus grabs Sirius’s wrist. He digs his sharp fingers into the bone. Feels the pulse that hammers
him home. Is reassured by it. Needs it. They look at each other for a very long time.

“I still do,” Remus tries to confess, drugs twisting the dark, ugly words out of his mouth. The ones
he hasn't been able to say, even to Harry. I still do love you, can’t you see this is for you? Can’t you
see you deserve more than this? His throat is thick with unshed tears. “Even when I thought you
were... when you’d... I couldn’t help but... Isn’t that fucked up... ”

“Shhh,” Sirius says. “Okay? Tell me tomorrow. Tell me.”

The next morning there is a letter tucked in with their Daily Prophet. Sirius shakes it loose as he
takes a bite of his toast and tries to stop Harry from sloshing milk on the table. Remus surveys the
scene before he carefully inches into the room. Harry says, Remy Remy watch this as the dragons
in his cereal start to bellow marshmallow fire and Remus smooths a hand down the back of Harry’s
head. Sirius gives him a small, tired smile. There’s a promise in his grey eyes. He looks back down
at the letter.

Remus swallows. He can barely remember... just the way Sirius had rested his hand on his
forehead. And the way his mouth had looked as he formed words. And his wrist in Remus’s hand.
He hopes he didn't. He hopes he did...

Instead Remus settles at the table and picks up the paper. He whips it open just as Sirius, low and
angry, says fucking hell. All of a sudden, Remus can feel bile rise in the back of his mouth. Days,
months, years-old sick. His body rattles empty. Harry says, Aunty Molly said that’s a bad word but
Remus can barely hear it.

He looks up at Sirius. Between them is their childhood, sunken and dark. The final broken piece
flung free. Sirius’s grey eyes are so hard and unforgiving it hurts. Remus looks back down at the
stark headline in black and white. He puts the paper down. Isn’t it awful that even after, after,
Remus had forgotten him. Peter alone at the pub. Peter alone in a cell.
 Peter Pettigrew to receive the Kiss.

Chapter End Notes

Poor Remus, this was a dark one. A bit of an extra long, timeskip character study to
make up for my tardiness. Would love to know your thoughts on the chapter, honestly
every comment and dissection and favourite sentence quoting fills me with such joy.
Next up is the chapter I've been building to for a while. It's always been known in my
brain as The Kiss. Can't wait for you to read it, see you soon x
 chapter fourteen
Chapter Notes

Content warning: detailed character death, sex

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Give me one more year to get back on track

Give me one more life to win you back
Smoke's in our eyes or in the distance
Either way, we're gonna miss it
When it's gone

- Matt Berninger, One More Second

Peter’s Kiss takes place in a stifled, closed room at the Ministry. It hums of dark, sick magic.
Remus can feel it shudder up his newly-healed bones. The walls and floor are made of curved,
black tiles. They shuffle in and sit on rows of stadium-like steps, let the cold soak into their backs
and thighs. There’s hardly any people to witness the devastation.

This is justice, Sirius had argued in the silence of their kitchen. The letter still clutched in his hand,
Harry still munching unaware of the turn of the Earth and the two men desperately trying to stay
on it.

It won’t bring them back, Remus had replied. For days that sat between them as they skirted around
the edges of their past and the people that used to be in it.

Now the Wizengamot members are stern, Dumbledore’s face appropriately grave, McGonagall an
ached frown and Peter’s mother sobs so wretchedly silent it’s like she has nothing left to give but
blank despair. She is closest to the chair in the middle of the room.

Remus can’t... he can barely sit still. He can taste the stench of Dementors in the air and the spark
of silver that the Ministry protects its walls with. His leg moves restlessly and he pokes at the worn
holes of his trousers until Sirius places a hand over his. They don’t look at each other.

Merlin, he wants a cigarette. He wants to escape. He wants to run and hide. He wants to turn back
time so that he never has to sit in this room with these people waiting for... but then it’s too late.

Peter is hauled in.

He is skinny, his prisoner garment torn and hanging off his limbs. His blonde hair is limp and
ragged. His eyes are empty pools and Remus flashes back to how scared and round they’d been on
their first night in Gryffindor tower, when the wind had howled around the dorm and James and
Sirius had laughed at the small, rotund boy whose cheeks went red with fear.

Remus had comforted him then. There’s a part of him that wants to comfort him now. There’s a
larger part that hates himself for that and hates Peter for still, still, invoking that base instinct in
him. Remus can very easily push away the bright and good. But the dark, the twisted, the
tormented. He wants to fold those perverse pack members into his arms and shake them until he’s
bloody.

“Peter Pettigrew, you have been found guilty of aiding and abetting the first-degree murder of
James Potter and Lily Potter,” says the head Wizengamot judge. Her voice is hard, firm. Remus
blanches at the cold, factual declaration that spins around the room. Sirius vibrates in restrained
rage.

“You have been found guilty of aiding and abetting the attempted first-degree murder of Harry
James Potter. You have been found guilty of attempted first-degree murder of Sirius Black III. You
have been found guilty of second-degree mass murder of twelve non-magical persons including
three children.”

Remus swallows, breathes. How, how?

“You have been found guilty of magic exposure to the non-magical public. You have been found
guilty of conspiring to commit murder on multiple occassions as outlined in witness testimonies.
You have been found guilty as a member of the outlawed hate organisation known as the Death
Eaters for which your atrocities know no bounds. For these crimes, we are here today to carry out
the sentence applied to you. The Dementor’s Kiss.”

If Dementors could feel any emotion other than hungry despair, the ones that swoop in behind
Peter would be positively gleeful. Their bodies and faces are like a black hole, twisting and
sucking all light and energy from the room. They circle around Peter, hungry animals ready for
their prey. They are cold, the air bounces off the tiles and is pulled out of their lungs in a sick
consumption.

Next to him, Sirius startles. His breath is shallow. Are you sure you want to do this? Remus had
asked him yesterday. The echo of Sirius’s screams in the dark of night reverberate around them. I
have to, Sirius had replied.

Now, Sirius leans forward. He controls his breath. And he looks, angrily, desperately at the
downcast face of Peter. What he wants to see, Remus doesn’t know. What he expects to find will
not be there.

Why? Remus had desperately asked Peter a lifetime ago. And Peter had looked him in the eyes and
had burned his cheeks against the prison bars and said, Sirius’s face, in the street. I was powerful
and he was powerless. Does he still feel powerful, strapped to a chair and starved and facing
soullessness? Has he left Sirius and Remus powerless still?

Remus wants to shake him, wants to ask again, what it meant, why he did it, how he could. They
have had everything wrenched from them. He wants to say it was Peter’s fault, but he knows,
perhaps better than Sirius, more logically, with a forced analytical distance, that the events of that
Halloween had been a long time coming. That Sirius made a mistake. That Remus did. That James
and Lily did. And that Peter did a hundred times over, blindly traitorous and grasping and scared
and angry.

“Do you have any last words?” the Wizengamot judge asks.

Peter takes a long time to look up. As if his head is too heavy, his body stiff and unused. He is
already detached from it, like he is water in a vessel ready to be emptied out into sea. When he
finally does, his gaze bypasses his weeping mother and focuses directly on Sirius and Remus.

He opens his dry, cracked lips. “I don’t regret it,” he says clearly.
Remus hears it like a claw to the stomach. Next to him, Sirius stands. He’s distantly yelling, you
traitor. You bastard! How dare you, how fucking dare you...

But Peter’s eyes skip over him. Attach to Remus again, clasped, like he is a Dementor and Remus
is the victim sentenced to drain slowly.

“Not a single moment of it.” And Peter smiles. And he is the boy he used to be. And war, and time
and betrayal seeps away. And in that twisted smile is a pool of sadness that has a depth Remus
can’t begin to reach and Remus doesn’t, doesn’t forgive him, how could he ever, even if they had
once called each other pack?

And Sirius is crying and yelling and furious but Remus knows that even he, Merlin, even he
wouldn’t dare change a single moment of their shared past because it had been so joyously happy.
Except for the end. The devastation that Peter brutally and vindictively chose for them all for no
other reason than that they made him feel what he never wanted to be. He had killed them for it.
He had orphaned Harry for it. He had decimated their lives.

The Dementors swoop closer as McGonagall grabs Sirius’s arm and hauls him back. With each
pass, Peter is sucked emptier and emptier. His eyes go glassy, like the first time he got drunk in
Hogsmeade and they had to carry him home. And his cheeks sallow like when he broke his arm
during his only attempt at Quidditch under James’s proud and concerned and laughing gaze.

And there goes the happiness, in the air. The sweets that Peter used to share when Remus was sad.
The pranks he could never quite come up with but jubilantly joined every detention for. The late
night laughter. His first kiss, the first of all Marauders, and the midnight pub excursions and the
letters home to his mother and the homework and the mischief and the heartbreak.

And there goes even the darkness, pulled into the destruction. The whispers of wolf in James and
Sirius’s ears, the dark mark stark on a pale forearm, the scared blankness of his lies and black
robes and alleys and the nights he waited alone for people who hardly ever showed but would have
when he needed, would have.

The glow of his soul is sucked slow and empty. It is terrible. Atrocious and monstrous to see it
stripped from him, even if he deserves it. Even when.

And then it is over. And he is powerless. And he is empty. And with that the past they once had
and the future he, they, all of them could have had together is empty. A strange, hollow grief settles
over Remus. He feels sick in his throat.

Slowly, they are ushered out of the room. Ministry workers flinch away from them.

At one point, Dumbledore talks to them. Something about a memory that was taken from Peter and
can I ask you please... one last time?

And Sirius turns to him, fierce and low and angry. “No,” he says. It brooks no arguments. He puts
his hand on Remus’s shoulder, steers them both away from these wizards who make judgements
like they have the right to play politics with people’s small and crumbling lives. “You have asked
enough.”

When they apparate back home, Remus vomits in the garden.

“That was awful,” Remus says. He can’t say anymore.

Sirius is bleak. His eyes have shadows that look like James and Lily. The outlines of their body on
the floor of the family home. The sick, snake-green of death. “Yes,” he says. “It was.”

They go inside. Their cottage is as it has always has been. Remus feels wrapped in its embrace. He
sees the corners where Harry has followed a crayon along the wall. Sirius’s book splayed open on
the sofa. A blanket tossed on the ground. Remus’s hands shake as he pours a whiskey for them
each.

“For James and Lily,” Sirius says. He raises the glass and looks over its rim at Remus. His hand
shakes.

And in his mind, Remus thinks, for Peter too. For the boy he had once been. The friend they had
loved. For Peter had died too, today and with every choice he made during the war. In small and
final ways. Now he is finally gone in an obscene pantomime of intimacy.

“For James and Lily,” he repeats.

When Molly drops Harry back home the next day, she puts her hand on each man’s cheek. Her
eyes are gentle. Remus remembers her brothers, the Prewetts. She has lost much to war too. She
was broken too. But the home she has built, the children she nurtures, she continues on.

“Be done with it now,” Molly says. She smiles.

They sit with Harry for a long time. They watch him. He is beautiful and alive and more powerful
in his gentleness and kindness than Peter Pettigrew could ever want or understand. He chases the
butterflies in the garden and laughs delightedly at the rabbits that spring from the forest.

“Do you think James and Lily...”

“I don’t know,” Sirius says. He looks lost and sad. “We do the best we can.”

When it is lunch time, Harry wanders over to the two men. He takes Sirius’s hand and they all sit
down for a picnic in the backyard.

“You okay?” Harry asks carefully. He looks shy. He may not understand what is happening but
they are family and Harry can tell. Harry knows. Perhaps that is what the word love means, Remus
thinks to himself, to know and be known.

Sirius bundles Harry into his arms. Remus nudges them both with his shoulder and smiles. It feels
right.

“Yes Harry,” he says gently. “We’ll be okay.”

Later, Sirius and Remus sit outside under the stars. Harry is safe in bed upstairs, tucked in his
blankets like ham in a sandwich, Remus says as he tightens the covers and Sirius smooths his hand
down Harry’s forehead. Their child. It is precious and terrible to have the privilege of Harry. To
love him and guide him and see him bloom into a future for James and Lily.

Now, the two men watch the silent night. Without Harry, words slip in the gaps between them,
conversations unfinished and pains unprodded. They have barely spoken since the night of the
moon. When Remus, drunk on pain and uninhibited, had nearly unearthed the terrible truth inside
of him.

“Do you remember when Peter...” he starts, taking a drag of his cigarette. And Sirius looks at him
with a deep, tired anger. They have hurt too much. Suffered enough.

“Don’t talk about him,” Sirius says. “I don’t want to hear his name ever again.”

“But he’s part of us, isn’t he?” Remus tosses his cigarette to the ground and wraps his arms around
himself. He is cold and dark. The Dementors still linger in his body, no amount of chocolate able to
drive away the terrible certainty of what they can take. To think Sirius spent years in their embrace
is too horrendous to linger on.

“No. If there is one thing I want to forget, it's him.”

And Remus shudders. Peter’s eyes haunt him, a ghost that drags Remus out like he is disappearing
into his own hollow kiss, the emptiness inside him enveloping his waking hours even as he tries to
count the precious time he still has left to live them.

“I can’t forget. I don’t want to,” Remus says stubbornly.

“Why?” Sirius asks. His voice rises. His mouth is clenched. “How can you feel sorry for him?”

And Remus looks at him for a long time. The way the wind rustles the trees of the forest and the
dark hair that whips around Sirius’s cheekbones. How the hollow indent of his cheeks leads to his
full mouth and the tattoos he used to know and the ones he still discovers. His eyes, gazing away
from Remus and into the sky where he and his family are etched in a terrible history that tries not
to repeat itself.

“Because I still loved you,” Remus says quietly.

Sirius blanches.

“He was my friend and he destroyed us and I want to forgive him but I don’t, I never will. Not like
I forgave you.”

“Remus...” Sirius takes a stumbling step towards him, but Remus flinches back. Oh, to open the
cavern inside you and let someone look at the emptiness. Isn’t this what he’d been scared of all
along? Now he hopes someone can finally see it before it’s all gone, kissed away like Peter was.

“You thought I was the traitor and you did the correct thing. You pushed me out of your life. You...
you stopped loving me because you loved James more and fuck okay, of course that’s okay. But I
thought you’d killed them and even then I couldn't... do you know how fucking selfishly grateful I
was when you were innocent? I loved you when I thought you were a murderer and... don’t you
dare say I shouldn’t try and do the same for him, don’t you dare...”

Sirius takes Remus’s face in his hands. His eyes are dark and rounder than the moon that
overhangs them and the shadow of the past it casts over their future.

“Remus...”

Sirius wavers forward. A gasp between them. His lips, startlingly close.

Remus kisses him.

It’s as easy as taking his next breath. As safe. As warm. Sirius groans and pulls him closer, one
hand tangles in the hair at the nape of Remus’s neck like an anchor. His fingers press into the soft
spot. He tastes the same. He kisses the same. Fierce and overwhelming and consuming. Sirius has
always been good at taking what he wants and now he slots back in like a missing piece, seamless.

“Moony,” Sirius murmurs against his lips. He leans back. Kisses his cheek, the vulnerable
underbelly of Remus's neck. His lips, again.

Remus slams his eyes shut. It’s too soft, too much like care. Instead he pulls Sirius’s hair and the
man takes a shaky breath. Sirius's eyes are dark and soft under the night sky. He is gentle. Remus is
not gentle. He is consumed and angry and he hates Peter and he doesn’t and he’s animal and he’s
not and he loves Sirius and sometimes he doesn't want to.

“Okay,” Sirius says. He knows him, isn't that the joke? It hurts to be known.

Sirius pushes Remus back against the wall. He gasps as Sirius bites bruises onto his neck, as they
pant into each other's mouths. His hands dig into Remus's hips, up the back of his shirt, the
waistband of his trousers. This, this is what a body is for. Not cracked pain, bones and blood. This.

“I want your... I want your...” Remus can’t think.

Sirius laughs into the hollow of his neck. He pushes Remus’s hair back from his forehead with his
giant, rough hands. Whispers darkly into his ear, “I know what you want, darling. I know.”

When they stumble upstairs and fall into bed, Sirius traps Remus’s wrists above his head. Slides
into him slowly, like he is breakable. He is not. Many have tried. Instead, he feels the wounds
finally starting to scab, to scar. Sirius pants in his ear. He thrusts harder, like he is starved, like he
never believed he could, like he never believed they would again. It is hot and consuming and he
claws at Sirius’s back and finally cries like he hasn’t since the first anonymous fuck after Sirius
was imprisoned.

“Oh sweetheart,” Sirius says. He wipes the tears away, kisses Remus again. His mouth is
everything. “I’ve got you.”

His lips taste like the salt. His face is so close that Remus can see every lash, every freckle. The
scar James gave him next to his ear. The one Remus did next to his mouth. The marks that said
they were there, once. They existed and it was real.

“I missed you,” Remus says. “I missed you, I’m sorry, I missed you.”

And Sirius replies in turn. “I did too, I’m sorry, I love you.”

Later when the sweat cools on their body, Sirius traces his hand down a long scar on Remus’s
torso. It’s new to Sirius. As are most of his scars. As are most of Sirius’s. They are learning each
other again.

“Tell me,” Sirius says. His eyes are shadowed and for the first time Remus doesn’t feel like he’s
talking to the ghost of the boy he’d once loved. No, instead it is the man. Sirius is grown and hurt
and angry and broken into pieces just like Remus is. They are changed, forever.

James is gone. Lily is gone. Peter is now gone. And the people that Sirius and Remus had been are
gone too, the relationship they had marred by too many betrayals. But this one, this family they
have created. It’s new and vulnerable and tender and painful.
 Maybe it’s time he grieved for what they had been and what they have lost. Maybe it’s time he let
himself accept this new reality. Every time he’d dared to hope, it had been taken away brutally. But
fuck, maybe it’s time.

Remus closes his eyes. He starts to talk.

Chapter End Notes

This chapter. Wow it's been a journey to get here. I hope it was everything you
imagined. Can't wait to hear your thoughts in the comments, it's such a joy to receive
them.

As you may have noticed, this fic officially has an end in sight. Two more left before
it's complete. But don't worry, I already have some future one-shots that I'd love to
write. Let me know if you have any requests.

Of course, I also want to do a shoutout to TikTok. You guys are incredible. The art
and edits and reactions mean so much. Big thank you to @swifty_fox,
@aidanelizabeth, @itslevihoesa and @m0nloup.

If you want to follow me over on TikTok or Tumblr my username is @sarewolf. See

you next chapter x
 chapter fifteen
Chapter Notes

Content warning: PTSD, discussion of war, past violence, past suicidal thoughts

See the end of the chapter for more notes

but here i am with arms unfolding

i guess it isn't quite the end
old partner in crime, i am going to try
to fall in love with you again.
- dodie, arms unfolding

Conversations start like this:

Curved, warm light across the aristocratic nose of Sirius Black. His dark hair splayed like scars
across Remus’s white pillow. His mouth, upturned. His eyes search Remus’s face in the golden
arch of sunrise and the grey sweep of them feels like a caress. Remus smiles too, teetering on the
precipice of sad. His wounds exposed.

“You’re beautiful,” Sirius says carefully. “I’d forgotten that.”

“You are too,” Remus replies. “I hadn’t.”

Kindness is something to be practiced. In their soft disheveled sheets as the sun rises, they are
gentle with each other. They are gentled.

And:

Harry, again. “Tell me about Mummy and Daddy,” he says.

Remus and Sirius look over his head at each other. Then back down at the photo book that Harry
has recently become more interested in, his tiny hands tracing the ghost of Lily’s smile and the
spark of James’s eyes. It aches, to think that maybe the time has come that he realises something is
missing. That perhaps they can’t cover the hurt, only soothe it.

Remus presses his hand to Harry’s cheek, who looks up at him with bright and trusting eyes.
Magic, Harry is. Pure, beautiful magic. “Well, the first thing you need to know about your Daddy
is he’s the most stubborn man I ever met, even more than Sirius here...”

Memories wrap between the three of them, embraced and warm and loved. James and Lily are in
every breath, in every laugh, in every tear. Sirius smiles.

And:

Remus, naked in front of a mirror. His scars are pink and raised. Wrapped around the hard, boney
edges of his body. Behind him, Sirius catches his eye. The rough pads of his fingertips trace a bite
over Remus’s hip. The indent of each tooth is brutally clear. A question.
“Six months, after... after everything,” Remus says. He looks away, remembers the sink of nearly-
werewolf teeth into his hip and the tongue that traced the blood that welled up before it entered his
mouth, sick and swollen. “I wanted it, I guess.”

Later Remus tells him about how he spent a month moving shit at a farm in Wales until he couldn’t
breathe without the fumes being ingested into his body but the mindless repetitiveness of the
shovel in and out stopped him from even thinking the names James, and Lily, and Peter, and
Sirius.

How he’d sat in sick and piss until Dumbledore and Moody remembered him. How he’d often
wished they hadn’t, that he sometimes thought they really might not have – and this was all a
dream, that he lay there still in a world that he could never imagine.

And he tells Sirius how some nights he’d look up at the crescent moon and think, again again how
can I do another... and so he would find a warm body that had dark hair like Sirius and dark eyes
like Sirius and a smile like Sirius and would feel found, for a moment.

How he would flinch when he saw a baby with green eyes. Or a man in round spectacles. Or a
woman with a sympathetic smile. And so he stopped being around people all together. His next
job, in a remote castle on a bleak, distant island, was based in a dusty underground cellar sorting
historic papers for an absent lord. He saw nobody and smoked cigarettes until his lungs burned and
fucked the blonde gardener and didn’t dare linger on the past for a second.

How he spent longer and longer lying in the brambles, on moss, in the dirt, after a moon. His body
empty and bleeding and decaying and aching until the ongoing trudge of his will to live kicked in.
How sometimes he wished it wouldn’t.

How he couldn’t look at the stars without thinking about Sirius.

How he was so fucking, unbelievably furious at James. And at Lily. And at Sirius. And at Peter.

So angry sometimes that it burned like the pull of the moon and how he was so afraid that his rage
would slink into his memories like a rotten, starved beast and tear right through them that it made
him helpless and hopeless and animal and...

And then Sirius tells him that it's alright, fuck, of course it's alright Moony, to be angry. Of course,
Merlin, of course. And Remus cries until he feels full again.

The war Remus cannot find the words for. It clings to the back of his throat until he wants to be
sick with the pain of it. So instead, Sirius says show me.

One evening when Harry is having a sleepover, please please Remy can I go, Ron promised me
we’d throw gnomes, Remus takes Sirius’s hand and apparates to the wilds of Scotland. He sits on
the ground, hard. Beneath his feet he can feel the memory of congealed blood and torn throats and
the sharp shudder of his fear, left like an echo in the dark abyss of the sky.

He looks up at Sirius, blank, empty. “Here is where I killed another wolf for the first time,” Remus
says.

Sirius inhales sharply. He reaches a hand out, then stops.

Remus looks away, bites his lip. “Dumbledore... he told me it was a secret mission. To tell you that
I was doing a research job. So I did. But every time I was called away it was to a different pack. To
ask them to join our side in the war. To run with them and...”

He takes a breath and lies down in the dirt to look up at the sky. Did the bones of the wolf he killed
stay here to decay, to sink into the mud with the winter rain? Distantly, he hears Sirius clamber
down to lie next to him.

“They were scared, mostly. Some of the packs were kids, kids...”

“You were a kid,” Sirius interrupts.

It startles Remus. He turns to look at him. Sirius’s eyes are hollow and fierce. He looks furiously
angry, despairing. Sick. Remus turns back to the sky.

“I suppose so,” he acquiesces. “Most of them wanted nothing to do with Wizard politics. The
young packs, or the family ones, or the hidden ones, mostly lived off the land. They were kind.
After a while, the Order told me to give up on them. To go after the... not so peaceful packs.”

Remus feels his fingers dig into the hard ground beneath his palm. “So I did. And I ran under the
moon with them. And I let them bite and I bit them and when it was over we would cower together
in the dark underground corners of their hideouts where they fucked and took drugs and cried and
hoped desperately for something better...”

He turns to Sirius, whose eyes glisten with tears. “I tried, Sirius, I really did. They were scared.
Their leaders were cruel. I worked my way up... I... so many died. I thought maybe, maybe if we
joined the war we could show the Wizarding World that we were more than animals. That we
could help, that we were good. Maybe they wouldn’t let powerful wolves take advantage of these
helpless ones...”

He shakes his head. “Then Greyback turned up,” Remus laughs ugly. It chokes him. “He was, fuck.
My personal nightmare. He looked at me all the time. He knew what I wanted, he knew what I
would risk to get it. He started to... play the wolves against each other. To whisper in their ears
about a new power they could have. The next time I turned up for the moon... one of the young
ones attacked me.”

Remus closes his eyes. “He was, Merlin, he would have only been 16. He leapt on me and it was
ugly and awful and... I killed him.”

Remus can taste the blood in his teeth even now. Can feel the way the boy’s bones cracked beneath
his palms and how the word monster sat smugly on his shoulders and had covered his body ever
since. How when he got home from that mission, Sirius had kissed him in greeting and Remus
flinched away for the first time. The beginning of the end of it all.

“Greyback laughed, when it was done. Clapped me on the back. Said, stronger than you look
Lupin, like a proud father. It was...” he looks at Sirius suddenly, desperate. “That’s not even the
worst of it, that’s not even... fuck, how can you look at me... how can you touch...”

Gently, Sirius kisses the words out of his mouth. Remus doesn’t flinch.

That night, Remus dreams. A memory.

He’s at the beginning of sixth year, when the Prank still hovers like an eclipse and the end of their
time at Hogwarts seems both impossibly far away and improbably close.
James slides smoothly into the seat opposite Remus, the library hushed and reverent around them.
His dark, black hair has grown wild in front of his eyes. Remus remembers how he’d twirl it around
one finger and shoot a wink at Lily when she dared to look. Somehow, James had grown serious
that year. The childish mischief that clung to him like baby fat had melted away in slow
contemplation.

In dream, in memory, he looks at Remus steadily from behind his glasses. His eyes trace the scar
that Remus knows runs deep at the side of his neck, the curled remnants of antlers.

“You love him, don’t you?” James says simply.

And his hand shoots out across the table, snags the sleeve of Remus’s sweater before he can fold
into himself and scurry away. Merlin, the four of them had known each other like more than
brothers, like soulmates, like they could anticipate each other’s moves before they’d even been set
in motion.

Dream-Remus freezes just like he did that day. Like a wild beast that knew it was outmatched. He
looks away, at the books that surround them with their impossible stories. To love Sirius was a
dangerous rebellion. To love him was hard. But he did, he did.

So Remus nods, and awful tears spring to his eyes. He shudders into James, whose arms wrap
protectively around him. And the silence of the aftermath of the Prank is broken with that last
destructive secret – that Remus could never stay angry at Sirius even when he should.

Remus’s dream lingers. And the candles of the library get bright when in reality they had melted
down into stumps before he’d disentangled himself from James. In his half-dream state, he can still
feel James’s arms on him, the soft curl of his hair.

“Tell him,” James whispers, like he did that day. Like he does now, in the dream. “Tell him you
berk, can’t you see he loves you too?”

When he wakes, it’s with Sirius’s arms around him and James’s voice in his ear. A beautiful echo.
An ache.

With the onset of warm weather, breakfast becomes an outdoor affair. They take a picnic basket
into the backyard, lovingly packed with outrageously sugary cereal and colourful fruit and a
thermos of hot coffee, and spread out on a blanket to eat under the delicious morning sun.

Harry’s skin and entire disposition glows in happiness and even Remus reluctantly starts to peel
and tan.

“It’s good for you,” Sirius laughs as he applies more sun cream to Remus’s shoulders. “Jamie
always said you’d turn into a ghost if you spent too much time indoors.”

Harry giggles. Remus rolls his eyes and puts a blob of sun cream onto Harry’s nose, who goes
cross-eyed trying to look at it before he gives up and scrubs it away.

They eat quietly, listening instead to the birds that chirp around them and the bees that Harry
imitates and the push-pull of the wind through the forest at the edge of their gate. The forest Harry
isn’t even remotely afraid of anymore, only curious, only gentle.

When Harry eats an entire piece of fruit by himself, they clap his achievement. When Remus's
fingers twitch but he resists a cigarette with his coffee, Sirius mockingly raises an eyebrow and
 claps him too. Remus sticks his tongue out and instantly regrets it when Harry starts imitating him
with mischievous interest.

In a moment of absolute clarity, Remus suddenly realises he has never felt this happy. Not since
school, when the Marauders would lounge next to the lake and Sirius would kiss him, lips still
warm and wet. Now, in this exact moment, he can see the new future that has appeared. And it
stretches forward endlessly and doesn’t feel empty. No, it seems pressingly full with wonder.

Opposite him, Sirius has gone still. Perhaps sensing a shift in Remus’s mood. He always had been
incredibly perceptive and he still is, Remus had forgotten that. How they could catch each other
across a room and how Remus could know in return and not just be known. He smiles at how it
feels. At how it fills.

“Harry,” Remus says. He crouches low. He looks at this wondrous boy, who has started putting
wildflowers in his hair and hums along with bees and runs with vigour and laughs, always. Gone in
his mind is the image of the boy who hid under a bed and shook. Who asked for a cupboard.
Instead Harry is radiant. And they will have the exquisite agony and pleasure to see him grow up.
To have their lives restored by him.

“I love you,” Remus says. His palm caresses the side of Harry’s head, catches on a flower and
holds there for a moment. "I love you."

And Harry, blindingly happy and oblivious, looks at him sweetly in return. As if it is no big deal
because he knows what love is and he’s received it in spades. It makes Remus want to cry. “I love
you too Remy,” Harry replies brightly.

Over his shoulder, Sirius watches. Sirius smiles. Sirius mouths, I love you too.

Chapter End Notes

Hey friends, gosh all I can say is big apologies for the long wait on this one! A lot has
been happening in life. I hope you like this chapter, it was so great to get back into this
world again. I've missed these boys <3

As always, a huge shout out to all the incredible commenters, people who make fanart
and video edits over on TikTok and everyone who has supported this fic. There's one
more chapter left, and I'm sad to see it end. You may notice, however, that I've added
this to a series. The hope is that I'll write a few one-shots about how I see the rest of
the story developing as Harry grows up and goes to Hogwarts. If you have any
requests, please let me know.

You can find me over on TikTok and Tumblr at @sarewolf or Twitter at

@sarewolfwrites x
 chapter sixteen
Chapter Notes

Content warning: Discussion of war, PTSD

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It gets easy to become blind to

The good things when times are rough
But when there's nothing left to try and do
It's okay to throw your hands up
'Cause there's no use in getting burned
From the same lessons that you learned
So carry them with you and be wiser

– Laura Zocca, The Art Of Getting By

Once, Remus believed that happiness was as simple as sailing across the Great Lake into the
outstretched arms of three boys he would call more than friends. That it was a path you could
follow on a map or the joyous adventuring of four animals in a forbidden wood.

Now he knows better. Remus has been betrayed and betrayer. He has seen death and caused death
and grieved death too many times. And happiness – he has learned – simply doesn’t come
naturally. It can be taken away in a flash of green. In a whispered lie and a cry. In the pause
between ragged breaths and a cracked werewolf neck.

But fuck, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t work for it every day.

To live, Merlin to really bloody live – happiness is simply a choice he must make. A deliberate
action he has to take. For Harry, who knows what it means to be unloved but chooses love anyway.
For Sirius, who was forgotten but chooses to remember. And mostly – and this is where it gets
tricky – mostly, Remus has to choose happiness for himself. He has to soak in it until the dried
cracks of his brittle bones break so they can finally be set right again.

In their beautiful, short existence, James and Lily had chosen happiness. In war, they had chosen
love. In death, they had chosen Harry’s life. And in darkness, they had chosen laughter. They had
laughed until they cried, held close in the knowledge that sometimes all you will have left is the
echo of it in your throat to remind yourself of just how happy you had really been.

And so he holds on. And he gets by. And when Remus looks at Sirius and Harry – at the home
they have built and the love they carefully tender – he laughs. And he lets the echo of it reverberate
out like ripples on the surface of the Great Lake as he glides toward the two people who showed
him that happiness may not be easy – but when the healing itch of pain subsides, there really is
nothing left to choose but the freshly laid future ahead, ready to sail once more.

*
One summer afternoon when the light is barely descending towards the horizon and Sirius –
shameless– has thrown off his shirt to bask in the sun and give the neighbours a show, the house at
End Lane is visited by a small tabby cat with very familiar markings around the eyes.

Remus hears the ward alarms sound and watches as the cat stops on the front path and observes the
scene with a haughty swish of her tail.

Harry – who has a tendency to run towards and affectionately squeeze the daylight out of any
animal he sees – fortunately hasn’t spotted her yet. Instead, he plays in the front garden like he did
so many moons ago, when it had just been the two of them and their helpless patch of dirt. Now it
heaves with vegetation and tumbles – quite literally in Harry’s case – with new life.

“Watch me, watch me, watch me!” Harry cries to Sirius as he jumps over plants and does a clumsy
half-forward roll.

Sirius has one hand over his eyes, shading them from the sun and deliberately not looking in
Harry’s direction. He has a smirk playing on the edges of his lips that Remus tries hard not to find
disgustingly attractive.

“I’m watching,” Sirius says, his eyes closed.

Remus laughs. He wipes his forehead and plucks herbs from the garden with a reminder to create
more tincture for Neris. And from the footpath, the tabby cat watches the scene play out in front of
her. She looks at Remus with eyes that blaze knowingly. Her whiskers twitch in the approximation
of a smile and she inclines her head once.

Remus smiles. He nods to her in return. Years – moons – an entire childhood – and this new life
that she gave to him one fateful, hungover morning – passes between them.

Then he whips around suddenly as he hears Harry scream and Sirius let out a humongous
“oomph!” Harry’s squeals turn to laughter from where he’s thrown himself bodily onto Sirius’s
stomach as Sirius catches his breath, clutching dramatically at his aching ribs.

“Right, I’m gonna get you for that!” Sirius laughs. Harry runs away, ducking to hide behind
Remus as Sirius launches to his feet with a mock growl. “I’m gonna gobble you right up!”

By the time Remus thinks to look for the cat again, she is gone. Satisfied that the home Harry lives
in now overflows with more love than the one she had visited so long ago.

Sadly, grief doesn’t simply go away. It catches them in the oddest moments. When Sirius teaches
Harry to play catch and the image of James’s sparkling eyes and hands outstretched in victory
threatens to overwhelm him. Or dinner at the Weasley’s, when Molly pulls her orange-red hair up
in a twist at the nape of her neck and sticks her wand haphazardly through it – not at all like Lily
but enough, enough that Remus has to swallow and excuse himself from the table.

Later, when Sirius is helping Arthur in the shed – with who knows what vehicular disaster they’re
sure to hear about soon – Remus and Molly make a cup of tea. The kettle whistles between them as
each mug hops itself down from the shelf, Remus’s favourite misshapen one toddling straight into
his hands.

“Does it ever stop?” Remus asks. He thinks of Molly and the twin brothers she adored, and the
children that surround her.
Molly twists to look at him. “Does what stop?”

He grimaces, throws a hand out. “The... I don’t know. The fear that it could all disappear
tomorrow?”

Molly laughs and it is bright and startling and obnoxious. “Oh Remus,” she says, shaking her head
as if he has told a particularly amusing joke.

They take their tea into the living room as she chuckles to herself. The entire Burrow sags in one
corner. Rugs are worn through with the patter of feet and the endless stars of the night sky are
visible through a haphazard window as Remus sinks down onto a dilapidated sofa.

This home is held together by three things: magic, love and Molly Weasley, who makes sure that
every crack and crevice is infused with years of laughter and tears and whines of “Muuuum!” that
descend down the stairs like an avalanche.

From where Remus sits, he can see the Weasley Clock. Last week, Arthur had added Harry, Remus
and Sirius to it. He had mentioned it casually, like it was no big deal. Like they were simply part of
the mechanics of their lives, forever turning together in endless time. It feels like a family he never
knew he was missing and for a brief moment, it is enough to hold the grief at bay.

“Yeah,” Remus says as he looks back at Molly. She’s smoothing a hand down Ron’s hair, then
switches to Harry so that they’re both equally showered with her affection. She watches Remus
with a smile. “Yeah I suppose it’s a bit like that.”

Sirius and Remus take Harry home much too late that night – way past his bedtime. He whines
when they tuck him in and he frowns in a way that makes his lightning scar shudder down his
forehead. Remus runs his fingers down each bolt and hopes that to Harry this scar is just another
part of him, a small, singular, painful part but not the entirety of who he is. Just like when Sirius
had looked at him and said softly to Remus, I barely see James and Lily anymore. Only Harry.
And it had felt like a release they hadn't known they needed. A permission.

Harry smiles sleepily at him. He snakes an arm out from under his duvet and holds Remus’s hand.
Remus smiles and clambers into bed next to him. Sirius follows, Harry sandwich between them
like the wheel that turns the hands of a clock.

“Tell me the story of Babbity Rabbity again, Remy,” Harry says, yawning.

Remus smiles and begins the tale, watching as Sirius and Harry’s eyes droop and the fear he feels
is only distant proof that he has something too precious to lose.

When the next full moon arrives, Sirius doesn’t ask. Instead, Remus is the one to gently touch his
shoulder and say, would you? Slowly, Sirius nods. And after they drop Harry at the Weasley’s,
they leave together.

It’s too dangerous to wander the woods yet, so they hurry into the bunker and lock the trapdoor
behind them. Sirius looks around the large room, his eyes lingering on the claw marks and dried
blood until his gaze lands back on Remus. He softens.

“What now?” he asks, as if their bodies don’t already know the routine.

They take off their clothes and reveal their animal underbellies to each other. Their knees press
together when they sit down on the cold, dirt floor. Remus can feel the pull of the moon in his
bones. His toes already start to bend and crack. He pants and whines and shudders until he falls
forward, his forehead on Sirius’s shoulder. Sirius traces his spine, up and down, up and down, until
it is all Remus can think. The single touch that reminds him he still has a body, that it’s his for now
and it will be his again.

And when he doesn’t, when his body is disappeared and his mind has run with the moon – when
the wolf takes over and is angry and searching and scared and hungry – Padfoot is there. And that
is Remus’s last coherent thought as he turns animal and falls into the soft, black fur that catches
him.

Padfoot is here.

When he wakes, it is to Sirius’s soft voice.

“C’mon love, there you go,” he says as Remus feels a blanket wrap around him. Then he is
levitated through the woods, his eyes barely open enough to peek at the sky, and deposited in the
soft comfort of their bed. He hears Sirius clamber downstairs, then back up again.

“A pain potion, yeah?”

He helps Remus sit up. Remus swallows the potion gratefully and looks at Sirius in the mid-
morning light. It washes his face golden, his lips where he smiles and the dark curls of his hair
twisted with leaves.

“I didn’t...” He can’t ask the question. Sirius looks... but who knows what Remus, what the wolf...

Sirius leans forward. He presses a kiss to the corner of Remus’s mouth. To his cheek. He tucks
Remus’s light hair – where it has grown slightly too long – behind his ear and lets his fingers linger
there.

“No sweetheart, I’m fine,” Sirius says. And as he does, Remus realises he’s fine too. Tired, maybe.
His bones ache and the transformation will shudder up and down them for at least another day, but
there are no permanent scars. The wolf had not turned on itself in loneliness, because for the first
time in many years, it was not. It had pack.

“I love you,” he says to Sirius. He kisses him hard. He draws him into bed. “Thank you.”

Life in their house and in their village continues on. It may not be quite the happily ever after they
had expected, but it is enough.

One afternoon, Remus goes to visit Neris. His hands in his pockets, lanky tall and shoulders
rounded. She welcomes him into her home with a smile as if she had been expecting him. Reaches
up to pat his cheek as he smiles. Maybe she is always this welcoming to strangers. Maybe Remus is
no longer a stranger who lives in an abandoned house on a shrouded lane.

As they sit for tea, Remus hands her jars of ointments and creams. If he had used a bit of magic
here and there, well nobody has to know Sirius, he’d argued as Sirius had laughed and riled him up
– secretly pleased that his Moony was breaking rules once more. Who knew arthritic joints were
what it would take, hey, Sirius had said.

They take their tea in the front room, surrounded by fine china ornaments. Neris smiles at Remus
in the space between a discussion about the weather and Gemma’s latest boytoy, a Scottish lad
who she is having an immense amount of fun with – and says gently, out of the blue –

“My sister was a witch, you know.”

Remus sits back in his chair. The cup of tea in his hand sloshes slightly. He can feel the way he is
gaping at Neris, his mouth open in stunned shock. He slams it closed.

“I... That is...”

“Oh Remus,” Neris laughs. “Do you think there would be a war around us and we wouldn’t
know?”

“Neris... you can’t know, it goes against... the safety...” Remus can barely get his thoughts in order.
The corner of Neris’s lips twitch as she seems to hold back laughter at Remus’s stumbling words.
In her, Remus can see Gemma for perhaps the first time.

“Oh love, don’t be naive. There are many of us out there that know about the world but don’t
participate in it. My sister was the only witch in our family and we were incredibly proud of her.
We grew apart, naturally, but I loved her dearly.”

Remus remembers Lily crying when another unopened letter to her sister was returned. For the first
time, he thinks about the people who are left behind. And the people, like Neris, who don’t let it
make them hard. Only soft, only understanding.

“What happened to her?” He asks warily.

Neris smiles sadly. “Gwendolyn died, early in the war. Not a big hero. A casualty in a big roundup
of... what do you call people like her? Mug... Oh yes, muggleborns. Her body was found in a house
with a group of those poor darlings. They told me it was a gas leak, but I knew.”

Her old, arthritic fingers trace the edge of her teacup as she looks at Remus.

“Sometimes when people die, an entire world mourns them,” she says. Remus flinches. “But other
times, other victims, it’s quiet. And there are only one or two people who know what an incredible
joy it was that they existed. My Gwen didn’t change the world. But she lived beautifully and she
died before her time. And for that, I suspect I share your sadness.”

Remus reaches forward. He takes her hands in his.

“You have a special boy there,” Neris says. “And a special partner. And special wards around your
house and a very special, very small village that will close around you now. So don’t hide away too
much, Remus. You are home.”

When Gemma barges through the door after her shift at the shop, throwing off her apron in disgust,
she tells Neris to stop nattering to the poor boy and that she’s taking Remus out for a proper drink.
Neris smiles and shoots a wink in Remus’s direction, hurrying him out the door and into the night
as if she hadn’t just moved the world around him.

At the pub, Sirius is already there with Harry – who has mushy peas smeared all over his face and
bounds over to Remus with an energy only evoked by too much fizzy drink. Sirius shrugs not even
remotely apologetically.

Gemma buys him and Sirius a round with a sly smile in Sirius’s direction and the declaration that
posh boy here can get the next three rounds. Sirius takes his pint with a huff and stalks towards the
dodgy jukebox, claiming that he needs to bring some taste to this backwater village. Harry follows
with a doglike loyalty.

“So, how’s it going with the two of you then?” Gemma asks with a raised eyebrow.

“You know,” Remus shrugs, tracing the edge of his glass. The notes of an old song – one that
James and Lily had danced to on the steps of Hogwarts as if the future was theirs, a memory the
world may not know but Sirius and Remus do – starts to play. Remus smiles softly, watching as
Sirius takes Harry’s hand to dance with him.

Gemma makes a face. “Ugh, disgusting,” she says over her pint. But her hand gently lowers to rest
on his arm, and her eyes crinkle at the corner in a reluctant, welcome happiness. Friendship feels so
warm and familiar. Remus had forgotten that.

“I know.”

At Hogwarts, Remus knows that he had experienced happiness so singular he could bypass the
moon to touch the stars. And he did touch them. Gladly. Irresponsibly. With a cigarette in one hand
and the other stretched in the air like he was invincible. He had been wondrous and reckless with
the knowledge that his scarred fingers would rarely get to dip into the sky.

Now, Remus has two feet on the ground. And the beautiful ordinary of it is what takes his breath
away.

The way Sirius still gets up in the middle of the night to make tea after a nightmare. And how his
hands tremble. And how a gentle kiss to the back of his neck is all it will take for him to slump and
the words to spill out of him.

Or that Sirius knows, even after all this time, the place to tickle Remus that will elicit the loudest,
highest squeak. That he will use it only once in front of Harry – but once is all it takes.

Or that Sundays are reserved for the Weasleys and that every burnt contribution they bring to the
table is met with a loud cheer that has Sirius bowing extravagantly and Remus shaking his head
with a resigned sigh.

Or that Remus knows how Neris takes her tea and her ointments. And how Gemma takes her beer
and her men.

Or that Harry still delights in the small everyday bursts of magic – the dragons that bellow
marshmallow fire in his cereal and the way that the sun creeps over the horizon in the morning to
wash their backyard like a watercolour painting, the beauty of it so routine that it becomes
perfectly ordinary for them to sit and watch it unfold in front of them.

They watch it now, their feet wrapped in fuzzed socks as the morning sun inches forward to reach
their toes. Sirius clings to his coffee like it is his only salvation and Remus despairs at the state of
Harry’s pyjamas – already covered in honey. But it is perfect. It is theirs.

Once, Lily and Remus had sat out by the Great Lake and hid for a brief moment of respite from
their rowdy friends. Her eyes had been a fierce green as she took in his tired, sloped shoulders. Her
round, dimpled face framed by gentle, red bangs. Remus had loved her fiercely then, and she had
loved him. They were soft with each other when not many people were.

And so as the water had lapped gently towards them and distant shouts of laughter echoed over the
 lake, Lily had put her hand over his scarred one like she could trace the constellations of them. And
she had said, you deserve to be happy, you know. And he had replied, I’ll try. Just like that.

He wishes she were here for one last sunrise. Just to see the way it would slip through her hair. Or
reflect on James’s glasses as they looked down at their son to marvel in the person they had created
more beautiful than any watercolour.

Remus looks at Sirius and Harry now. At how Harry smiles and tugs Sirius into a game that has
them running after each other, Sirius desperately trying to avoid sticky honey hands. How Harry’s
socks get wet with morning dew and he slips into the dirt, only to stand up with a laugh. Keep
playing. Keep loving. Keep laughing. And how the sun wraps around the trees of the forest and
sparks on the wards that protect them.

Remus knows that if he lets the happiness of them – of Harry and Sirius and the sunrise and the
stars – slip out of his hands, it will drain away like joy against a Dementor. So he clings on,
somehow still hopeful, that happiness will continue to rise after every fall. That there is more joy to
come, if he keeps his feet on the ground and his fingers reaching towards the sky.

Somewhere in the distance, Sirius laughs, “Oh c’mon that’s just cheating!” There is a squeal as
Sirius picks Harry up in retaliation and throws him over his shoulder. Then holds him high above
his head in the air.

“Remy, Remy, Remy!” Harry screams with laughter. “I’m flying!”

And so Remus picks himself up from the ground. He dusts his hands and looks to the sky once
more, where Sirius holds Harry high enough to touch the stars.

I’ll try, he promises Lily as he walks towards his happiness, their black hair wild and faces lit ever
golden by the morning sun. I’ll always try.

THE END

Chapter End Notes

The end is here and it has been an emotional journey. I'm so incredibly proud of this
fic – it has seen me through a very strange time in our world and also brought me
closer to an incredible community of fans and people. Thank you so much for
supporting this work. For your fanart, your edits, your comments, your kudos and most
of all, your shared enthusiasm over the characters that mean so much to us.

I can't wait to see what happens next in this series. There are so many small stories I
want to tell about their future. So many possibilities of how they turn out. So stay
tuned, and as always you can find me on TikTok and Tumblr at @sarewolf or Twitter
at @sarewolfwrites.

Thank you x
 cover art
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

So the incredible @VeloxVulpes3 has done the most beautiful cover art for this fic, which I just
had to share. It captures their home on End Lane, the glow of the future and the possibilities of
their characters so perfectly.

Please give @VeloxVulpes3 a shoutout on Twitter, support their art and bask in the glory that is
this beautiful masterpiece.

Thank you x
Chapter End Notes

My socials are @sarewolf on TikTok and Tumblr, and @sarewolfwrites on Twitter x

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