Chapter Text
As they walked down the hallway toward the conference room, Remus saw through the glass wall that the dean, two associate deans, and someone from the university’s legal department were already there, seated in a straight line on one side of the table. All eyes fell on Remus as he and Dumbledore entered. Instinctively, Remus hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at Dumbledore.
The professor nodded in reassurance. Sit , he mouthed.
Remus obeyed, dropping into the closest rolling chair nearby. A moment later and a bit more gracefully, Dumbledore took the seat next to him. There was nothing on the long glass table that separated them from their interrogators except a sweaty pitcher of ice water and a stack of clear plastic cups. A single wilted wedge of lemon was floating on the surface of the water, and as Remus avoided making eye contact with anyone in the room, he found himself staring instead at a brown spot on the peel.
“Good afternoon, Remus,” the dean said. She was a small, elderly woman with a pair of bold blue glasses hanging from her neck by a chain. “I’m Dean Hopkirk. Help yourself to a drink, and then we’ll begin.”
“Oh,” Remus stammered, startled. He ripped his gaze away from the lemon wedge. “I didn’t – I don’t need – ”
“I will pour the water, Mafalda,” Dumbledore cut in, reaching over to pick up the stack of cups, “and in the meantime, you can begin. I’m sure we would all like to finish up here quickly and end our work day on time.”
The associate deans exchanged a glance, and Remus was surprised to see one of them nodding and the corner of the other’s lip curling sardonically. “That would be much appreciated, Albus,” the second one said. “My daughter’s soccer match is tonight, and it’s the playoffs. My wife will kill me if I’m not there, no matter what kind of tabloid emergency we seem to be having here.”
Dean Hopkirk shot her colleagues a reproachful look, but Remus could tell that her heart was not quite in it, either. The deans, he was now realizing, probably felt as awkward and ridiculous about dissecting a student’s romantic history as Remus felt about being there. And Dumbledore’s strategy, it seemed, was to remind everyone that they just wanted to get through the hearing and go home. Remus could only hope that maybe it would be less trouble not to expel him from school.
“We’re here today,” the dean began primly, “because we have been asked to separate the facts from the rumors, and to ensure that the university has initiated an appropriate and defensible response. Do I have that right?”
She looked over to the legal counsel for confirmation, who nodded gravely.
“Well, alright then,” she said, with the air of someone resigned to an uncomfortable fate. “To start off, Remus, could you please clarify for us, what is the nature of your relationship with Sirius Black?”
“He’s, uh, he’s my boyfriend,” Remus said. He cleared his throat, but the words still came out in a croak. “We’re dating.”
“I see. And when did this begin?”
Remus stared into space for a moment, drawing a blank. When had his life not contained – no, revolved around – Sirius Black? It felt like eons ago. “H-Halloween, I guess.”
“And prior to that, did you ever complete an assignment for him, or allow him to pass off your work as his own, in hopes that it would attract his romantic interest?”
“No!” Remus spluttered, feeling a hot blush blooming across his cheeks. “He asked me for my number. He asked me to tutor him, and to go skiing, and…”
“I understand, Remus,” Dean Hopkirk said as he trailed off into an indignant silence. “I just need to address each of the allegations that have been raised. Thank you for your patience. Now, when you began the relationship, did you complete an assignment for him, or allow him to pass off your work as his own, as a condition for entering into a relationship with him?”
“No,” Remus said flatly, crossing his arms.
“Have you ever done so to keep him from ending the relationship?”
“Never.”
“Or in exchange for romantic or sexual favors?”
Remus shook his head, a lump beginning to rise in his throat. Somehow, the sterile, bureaucratic language only made the questions sound even more humiliating. It was ironic that Remus had spent the majority of his life being mostly invisible, and now that people across the country knew his name, he had never wished harder that he could just disappear.
Dumbledore must have sensed his growing agony because the professor sat up straight in his seat and adjusted his beard. “I think that’s enough, Mafalda,” he interjected. “Surely you can see that there’s no substance to the allegations here. As the instructor of this course, I can tell you that Mr. Black’s written assignments are commensurate with his demonstrated learning in the classroom. There’s no sign that his work is anything but his own.”
The dean sighed. “I wish that could be the end of things, too,” she said, looking as if she really meant it. “But unfortunately, that only answers the question of previous assignments. The most important thing that must be addressed is the assignment mentioned in the video – the upcoming final paper.”
Dumbledore’s chair creaked as he leaned forward. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “What final paper?” he asked. He leveled each of the deans with a calm gaze from over his half-moon spectacles. “Sirius Black does not need to submit a final paper.”
There was a long, heavy pause in the room as the administrators started to frown. Remus felt his own brows contracting, too, but he tried to swallow his surprise and keep his face neutral. He had no idea what game Dumbledore was playing, but whatever it was, he wouldn’t be the one to ruin it.
“I’m sorry, but what do you mean?” one of the associate deans asked after a momentary silence.
“Exactly what I said,” Dumbledore returned mildly. “Sirius Black has already completed all the requirements for the course. There will be no final paper for him. In place of that assignment, he opted to take an oral exam with me instead.”
Dean Hopkirk gave Dumbledore a sharp look. “Now is not the time for nonsense, Albus,” she began, a warning in her tone.
“No nonsense here,” Dumbledore assured her. “Check my syllabus and you’ll see that the oral exam is an option for all students, though not a very popular one. I’m not sure why,” he mused. “I can be quite a delightful conversationalist, if I do say so myself.”
“And when and where did this oral exam take place?” the dean asked, raising an eyebrow.
Dumbledore smiled back. “Earlier today, in my office. I was almost late in escorting Mr. Lupin here for this meeting, in fact, because I was in the middle of such a stimulating conversation with Mr. Black.”
“And what was the oral exam content?”
“Precisely the content of the course,” Dumbledore replied. “The good life. How we know good from bad, right from wrong, what we should and shouldn’t do.” He took a sip of lemon water from the cup in front of him and then continued, “I presented Mr. Black with one philosopher in particular, a difficult one that has given me much trouble: Gellert Grindelwald. And from Mr. Black’s response, it was clear to me that, indeed, he understood the assignment perfectly.”
Assignment? What assignment? Remus wondered, bewildered. But he fought the urge to turn and stare at Dumbledore. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, where, miraculously, Dean Hopkirk was now exchanging uncertain glances with her colleagues.
“So, I think this changes things,” she said slowly. “If you’ll sign off on the previous assignments, Albus, and if there will be no final paper, and the alternative assessment was conducted with the student in person, then…I suppose there is really nothing for the university to investigate further. Right?”
She looked again to the legal counsel, who shrugged.
“Well, if that’s good enough for our press office, then that’s good enough for me,” the dean declared with a relieved expression. She placed her hands on the table with an air of finality and boosted herself to her feet. “Thank you for your cooperation, Remus. Your suspension will be lifted immediately and wiped from your record.”
Remus let out a long breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding. “So, that’s it, then?” he asked, the dread in his chest easing. He almost didn’t dare to believe it. “May I go now?”
The dean nodded.
Remus didn’t need to be told twice. He blurted out a halting thanks and made a beeline for the door. He was just tugging it open when he remembered Dumbledore.
“Professor!” he began, turning back around. “Professor, I – ”
Dumbledore was just rising out of his chair, his long, aged body unfolding slowly. He raised a hand and gestured to the door. “Go on, Remus,” he said with a small smile. “Sirius will be waiting, I think.”
And with that, the professor gave him another almost imperceptible wink, and Remus dashed off, making a mental note to show up at his office the next day with the biggest container of jellybeans that money could buy.
He had just left the building when, sure enough, he spotted a familiar head of long, dark hair walking across the quad in the distance. “Sirius!” Remus called out, breaking into a run. The relief of narrowly escaping expulsion had turned into a heady high that was threatening to bubble out of his chest, and it felt good to release it. All around him, other students were turning their heads to look curiously at him, but he didn’t care. He just kept shouting out, again and again. “Sirius!”
Sirius looked up at the sound of his name, squinting into the late afternoon sun. Once he saw Remus, he began to tear across the grass toward him as well. He was yelling something back, but with most of his voice lost in the wind, Remus couldn’t make out the words.
They converged on the path at sprinting speed and nearly crashed headlong into each other. Remus was breathless from running, and shouting, and – he belatedly realized – positively laughing with relief. Sirius was grasping at his arms, trying to hold him still long enough to greet him, but Remus couldn’t stop laughing and panting, his whole body shaking.
“You’re laughing!” Sirius exclaimed when he finally managed to wrestle Remus into something resembling a hug. He sounded as relieved as Remus felt. “So, everything turned out okay, then. Thank god.”
“Thank Dumbledore,” Remus corrected him, still gasping in between laughs. “I’m not suspended anymore. I’m going to be fine.”
He expected Sirius to press him for more details, but to his surprise, he didn’t. Instead, Sirius pulled away and spun him around so they were facing each other. His cheeks were flushed pink from his short sprint across the quad and, to Remus, he had never looked more beautiful. “Well, I have more good news,” he said, his eyes dancing. “While you were at your hearing, I’ve been busy.”
At this, Remus felt his giddiness subside a bit. “Oh, right, yeah,” he said, curious. He took a few slow inhales, trying to calm his breathing back down to a normal pace. “You said you had to go do something. But what was it? What did you do?”
Sirius grinned, the kind of devious grin that could still make Remus’s stomach swoop. “I made sure, once and for all, that they can’t send me off to Europe,” he declared. “I figured out how to cover the tuition for myself until I graduate. Come hell or Grandfather, I’m staying here with you.”
Remus stared at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean? How did you do that?”
His grin growing, Sirius reached into the pocket of his jeans. He dug around for a few seconds before extracting a ring of keys and dangling it playfully in front of Remus’s face. “Notice anything different?”
Flashes of sun bounced off the slivers of metal and straight into Remus’s eyes. He let out a confused grumble, squinting, and Sirius laughed at him, a big belly laugh that cut across the air in the quad like the bark of a dog.
“I sold my car!” he explained, his voice bursting with pride. “It was the one thing I had that was entirely in my name. They can’t stop me. They can’t do anything about it.”
Remus gasped. Of all the impulsive ideas he might’ve expected from Sirius, this was truly the last. “Your car?” he repeated, his high spirits faltering. Remus himself had an irrational hatred for the thing, sure, but everyone knew how much Sirius loved his Lamborghini.
But to his shock, Sirius continued to smile. “Don’t worry,” he said earnestly. “It’s just a car. It’s worth it, if I can stay.”
“I–I can’t believe this,” Remus stammered. “Don’t you want to take some time to think about it? I mean, what if we break up? Then, you’ll have done it for me, and it will have been for nothing – ”
Sirius shook his head. “It won’t be for nothing,” he said firmly. “No matter what happens with us, I had to do it either way. For me.” He took both of Remus’s hands into his own and gripped them tight. “My family is toxic as fuck, Remus. I realize that now. I couldn’t see it before, because I thought it was love and, you know, I–I loved them, too.”
He grimaced, and Remus felt a twinge of sympathy.
“But it’s so clear to me now,” Sirius continued. “No matter how bad things get, no matter how much I beg and plead and bend, they’re not going to change. It’s always been up to me to make the change. So, that’s what I decided to do.”
Remus wagged his head in amazement. “And just like that? You sold your baby?”
Sirius shrugged. “Yeah, I dunno. Hearing that story about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, I guess everything just clicked into place. I knew what I had to do. I knew what kind of life I wanted for myself.”
Remus felt his eyes widen. “The assignment,” he breathed, thunderstruck. So, there had been advice from the moral philosopher in Dumbledore’s story after all. The advice just hadn’t been for Remus. “That was the assignment, and you understood it perfectly.”
Sirius laughed. “I guess I learned more from this class than I thought,” he said, wrapping his arms around Remus and holding him close. “I learned that I want the good life. I want mini-golf, and making dinner with your mom, and you .”
Remus hummed happily and buried his face into Sirius’s hair, breathing in the clear, arctic scent of his shampoo, by now as familiar to him as his own. “I want you, too.” He allowed Sirius to rock him back and forth in a funny little dance as they swayed, still locked in a hug, unwilling to let go.
Finally, the sound of whispers from other students nearby cut through Remus’s happy haze, wrenching him back to reality. People were still watching, and they were still famous, and the Black family was still not going to give up on their heir. Reluctantly, he pulled out of Sirius’s embrace. “So, you get to stay here. But what about everything else? Your family’s not just going to leave us alone now, are they?”
“Probably not,” Sirius admitted, pulling a face. “But we do have one insurance policy we can use to keep them at bay.”
“What’s that?”
“You never signed that NDA. So, there’s always the looming threat that you might – what did Mother call it? Turn your pen against them one day?”
Remus gave him a wicked grin. “Oh, I’m way ahead of you. I already have the title of my expose picked out,” he said wryly. “And now that you’re on board as my primary source, it’s going to turn out even better. It will be invaluable to have your first-hand accounts to fill in some of the more lurid private details.”
“I’ll shop the manuscript around and get us a good book deal,” Sirius joked back. “But I’ll need to find a new agent first. I fired Pettigrew. It turns out, that traitor was the one who sent the video of us all around town last night. He was in Grandfather’s pocket all along.”
“That rat!” Remus exclaimed. “I’ll skewer him in the book for sure.”
Sirius reached for Remus’s hand and began to pull him toward the path that led away from campus and down to the main road. “Come on, we can discuss the outline of the book over dinner. I texted James and Lily. They’re meeting us at that Thai place on Maple Street.” He paused and glanced over at Remus, his expression uncertain. “We’ll have to walk there, though. Sorry. Is that okay with you?”
Remus couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing again. “Yeah, no problem. After all this, I think I can handle that.”