Chapter Text
Remus Lupin returned to Britain when Draco Malfoy was thirteen years old because Sirius Black broke out of prison.
He had to make an appearance in front of the auror department, to speculate, as one of the few childhood friends of the man, everything he could assume on where Sirius could have gone to or what he would be after or what his personality was like or - well, Remus thought it was a load of rubbish especially when most of his answers were, I don’t remember, it’s been a decade, and it turns out I never knew him that well, anyway.
Then he had to beg for forgiveness for breaching his parole. It was a little useless to buy the Malfoys a gift with their money but he did so anyway. An elf had the flowers as the centrepiece of their tea-table the moment he sat down and Lucius took a big bite of a scone that was unboxed and presented far more beautifully than it had been packaged by the roadside bakery.
Narcissa, a sip of her tea. “Sirius was a cousin of mine, did he ever share about the wonderful times we spent together as children?” Remus shook his head; the saucer rattled when she slammed her cup down. “That is because we never had any! We were not close, and he was not a stable person to be around.” Remus winced.
“But, he was not a Death Eater,” Lucius tacks on. “He was a pureblood that we had identified as one so wholly unloyal to the cause that it would be a worthless recruitment. Instead, to get to the Potters, there was someone else.”
A cold wave washed over Remus. “Who?”
“Peter Pettigrew.”
“What? No, that can’t be - Peter is dead. Peter is dead!” Remus stood up from his chair, heaving in anger. “He! He… couldn’t have…”
“Yes, he may have sacrificed himself for the cause,” Lucius said, “but that only proved his upmost loyalty, in the end.”
Remus stood up and yelled, “then why didn’t you come forward, if you knew Sirius was innocent! Twelve years - he spent twelve years in Azkaban-”
“Because he had the Dark Mark,” Lucius said coolly, and looked at Remus’s arm. “It was an automatic sentencing, unless he could prove otherwise. But he never offered any evidence to the contrary.”
“...A soulmate?” Remus sat down shakily. “...He never said.”
“Neither did you,” Lucius said to him.
He lingered in Britain after that, trying to catch Sirius but with a different agenda, and then the prophet came out that he was in Hogwarts. Great. Great!
One full-moon night on a proper course of wolfsbane he went tracking in the Forbidden Forest and hunted down a big black shaggy dog. The dog skittered back on powerful haunches and growled, but Remus licked a paw and lay his head on them, watching the dog; who cocked his head and approached tentatively, tail wagging low. They ran around each other in laps until Sirius flopped over, and Remus lay next to him.
In the morning Sirius turned around to face him nose-to-nose. “Do you believe me? I didn’t do it, Moony, I know who did it, I know-”
“I know,” Remus soothed. “I’m here, aren’t I?” He stroked the side of Sirius’s head as he began to cry earnestly into the grass, before nuzzling Remus like a pup starved for affection.
After his wails calmed into hiccups, Sirius said, “by the way,” he seemed to be struggling between several conversation choices, “I saw your soulmate.”
“O-oh,” Remus said. “Are you s-sure it was-”
Sirius gave him a look that said, do you think I’m daft? “I was spying on our little Prongslet, and you’ll never guess who’s playing seeker against him in Quidditch. I’d recognize those scars anywhere. Moony.”
“I solemnly swear that I have never spoken to that boy in my life, Lucius Malfoy had me interrogated under veritaserum before putting me in an unbreakable, I don’t even live in Britain anymore!”
Sirius actually snorted.
“It’s not funny.”
“Actually, it’s hilarious - didn’t know you had it in you, cradle-snatcher. That kid’s my cousin, you know that, right?”
“Right,” Remus said glumly. “Are you going to give me the shovel talk on his behalf?”
“I certainly can’t give it to him, he’s thirteen-”
“Would you stop.”
Anyways, Peter Pettigrew was alive. It didn’t seem to be something Lucius was aware of, and Remus had no intention of letting him know, in case he decided to assist an old colleague in skirting the law.
How did Remus know about Wormtail’s involvement even, Sirius demanded, “How come you’ve never said anything before?” He looked devastated by the prospect that Remus would have left him to rot in Azkaban for a dozen years if he had the choice.
“It was a recent discovery - Lucius told me!” Remus spluttered. “That’s how I knew to come looking for you.”
“In-laws privileges,” Sirius scoffed, but he was mollified.
Remus couldn’t stay - skirting this close to Hogwarts was already treading on thin ice - so he left Sirius his Netherlands address. Sirius came to join him by the end of the academic year - Pettigrew escaped and Sirius abandoned his vengeance mission to join him in the little wizarding village in the Netherlands; because they spoke good English. He’d tried France at Lucius’s suggestion (he owned a property up in the countryside and granted Remus the key to the guardhouse,) but his butchered french earned him little camaraderie.
“Thought you should know,” Remus said, “you’ll likely see him again, if he’s truly a death eater.”
“Why?” Sirius made a face and growled like a dog. “He better be in Azkaban, or dead.”
“Well, you-know-who is probably coming back, so his most loyal would likely make an appearance,” Remus mused, still incredibly bitter.
Sirius sat up so abruptly he kicked the newspaper off his table. “What do you mean?”
“Here’s what Draco left me, just three years from now,” Remus said, pulling up his sleeve. “He’ll be sixteen, won’t he?” He didn’t say, your brother was sixteen, too. It was impossible to admit. Remus might begin to think, he should have had his whole life ahead of him. He thought about Regulus sobbing into his arms on the floor of his living room and wondered if Draco Malfoy knew the fate that was coming for him - Lucius and Narcissa did, and evidently - perhaps paradoxically - they would have enabled, or (generously interpreted) failed to stop it.
Sirius made a pained noise and grabbed his own arm. “Moony - Remy,” Sirius sobbed, and rolled up his shirtsleeves as well. He pushed their forearms together. It was a perfect match.
“Do you know who it is?” Remus prodded.
“...I don’t want to talk about it,” Sirius said.