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Remus Lupin is not going to die.
Well, he amends, setting down his books at the foot of his bed and shrugging off his robes, he was going to die. They all were, someday. But not anytime soon, he decides. He makes his way across the dormitory to the window and opens it with a soft grunt. He’s glad to have found the room empty, which is not unusual for a Friday evening: James and Sirius have an obligatory extra Quidditch practice, and Peter has stolen off to the library with Adela Schwarz for “help” in Arithmancy, though Remus is pretty certain that Adela genuinely thinks that Peter just wants to study. Remus smiles wryly, almost pityingly, at the thought of Peter’s half-hearted attempts at subtlety, the way he always leans over the desk to look down his female classmates’ blouses. He hopes that Adela keeps her shirts buttoned to the neck.
Being alone in the dormitory allows Remus to sit in private and think. And smoke, fishing in his trouser pockets for a half-crushed carton of Sovereigns. He lights one with his wand and takes a deep drag, aiming the smoke out the window. He sighs as the nicotine settles in his lungs, an instant quieting of his nerves. James and Sirius don’t understand the Muggle trend of smoking, though Sirius has tried many times to start the habit, mostly out of a desire to rid himself of any purity left in his system. Peter once remarked that he had an aunt on his dad’s side who almost set herself on fire when she fell asleep smoking a cigarette, but Remus had only laughed. Remus’ mother has smoked obsessively since he can remember, a pack or two a day, and while James finds the smell that lingers in his jumpers and the curtains repulsive, Remus can’t help but think of it as comforting. It reminds him of his earliest memories, of sitting in the garden against his father’s chest, watching the porch lights flicker with insects. In the memory, his mother comes out of the house, holding a glass of wine in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, a cigarette sitting delicately in between her rosy lips. She sits next to them and places the beer in his father’s outstretched hand, taking the cigarette out of her mouth to sip at the wine and grin at Remus, small in his father’s lap. Remus wishes, with a violent fierceness that sometimes scares him, that he could go back and tell his younger self to savor the quiet peace that enveloped them, before. How could he have known? How could any of them known, his father’s hair still only showing the faintest glimmer of grey, his mother’s irrepressible grin still present on her face? He thinks he hates his younger self for wasting those few years.
This is why he has decided he is not going to die. He’s toyed with the idea before — more than toyed, really — after all, what makes a person crave death more than having just narrowly escaped it? If the moon’s arc across the sky is a second pulse beneath the thin skin of his wrist, death is a third one. A constant thrumming at the back of his mind. A desire stronger than lust or hunger. Remus knows death, has felt it in between his teeth. But he will not be a tragedy the way they expect him to be. That sad look in Madame Pomfrey’s eyes as she administers Healing potions, the softness of her palm as she pats his shoulder: Remus recognizes it as a pity reserved for tortured animals and the slowly dying. So he will be neither. He fiddles with the cigarette between his fingers. He knows that if he were to die, there would be people who would miss him. He thinks of Peter, who is still so like a boy he can’t really imagine him as a proper adult. Peter would miss Remus as a mediator, his unfailing solidity and solidarity. James, who has gotten quieter since the summer. People assume it’s because he’s taking his position as Head Boy seriously in an attempt to pull Lily Evans, but Remus knows that looking after Sirius has made him more introspective, prone to melancholy. Remus imagines that Sirius’ presence in his home is like a specter of the kind of cruelty that exists but that James will never have to endure. His whole affect is far more stoic than it has ever been, but there is still the brightness in his face, like a lit match casting a warm glow upon his skin, when he tells stories, often grand tales of how he imagines the future. James would miss Remus, his patience, his dry humor. Lily, whose freckles are so dense in places they make Remus’ own spots seem like tiny planets in wholly different solar systems. Lily would scold him for thinking such thoughts, her hand on his, eyes flashing with equal parts concern and anger. Sometimes he thinks of Lily, how they might have loved each other. How they continue to love each other, in a way that James can’t understand. Lily would miss Remus, surely.
Remus thinks of Sirius. His wide wet eyes, the way he looks when he knows when he has done something wrong. The frustration set in his jaw as he strains to remain oblivious to the consequences of his own actions. Now it feels like Remus knows forgiveness as intimately as death, something you accept into your life for the sake of moving on. He thinks of Sirius in the rain, his mouth open in a laugh or a howl. He thinks of Sirius in the sea. He thinks of Sirius in bed, asleep. He thinks of Sirius as the dog and the uncanny way it looks at Remus, eyes boring into him, an animal that isn’t an animal. Sirius would miss Remus, but he would not forgive him for dying.
He is ashing his cigarette against the inner lip of the window sill and considering lighting another one when he hears the door slide open. Remus tries not to start, but his body still flinches at the sound, like he has been caught doing something naughty. Which he sort of has, but he shouldn’t feel guilty in front of Sirius, of all people.
Sirius walks into the room. He is wearing a T-shirt and jeans, hair still wet from his after-practice shower. He smiles when he sees Remus, but his eyes drift to the cigarette dangling from Remus’ upturned hand.
“Sorry, I know you lot don’t like it when I smoke in here,” Remus says, but he lights it anyway. Like the least Sirius could do is allow him this. “Where’s James?”
“With Lily,” Sirius answers, making no effort to mask the irritation in his voice. He drops his bag bulging with Quidditch gear on the floor and perches on the sill opposite Remus. “And it’s alright. James is the only one who really minds. I kind of like the way they smell.”
“You just want to seem cool,” Remus tells him, not unkindly. He offers the cigarette to Sirius, who takes it. Their fingers brush and Remus wants to roll his eyes at the dull ache in his own stomach. At first, Sirius hated borrowing from them, unused to the concept of charity or human kindness, refusing even the offer of extra socks. Then he learned to take freely. It isn’t that Sirius expected things to be given to him, but he did anticipate the offer, of uneaten sweets, homework answers, general gossip. Since moving in with the Potters, Sirius has somewhat reverted to the boy he was in first year, convinced that every small gift or loan was a damning I.O.U. Remus knows he doesn’t want to be a charity case, but there are times when Sirius looks so small that he can’t help but feel sorry for him.
“Do I seem cool to you?” Sirius asks, laughing, sucking on the cigarette. Remus does roll his eyes then. “Do I look glamorous?”
“It’s hard to seem glamorous when you still smell like shit from practice,” Remus replies.
“Hey!” Sirius protests. “I took a shower afterwards.” He shakes his head so his long hair sends droplets of water flying. “See?”
“You are such a dog.” Remus reaches for the cigarette. “Do you remember that book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?”
“The Muggle one about that awful prick of a kid? Yeah, why?”
“I dunno. I was thinking about that scene where they go to their own funeral.” Remus exhales a large cloud of smoke, watching as it gently distorts Sirius’ features. “Don’t you ever wonder what people would say if you died?”
“I don’t have to wonder,” replies Sirius. “I already know what they’d say: ‘Here Lies Sirius Orion Black, Blood Traitor of the Highest Order. He will be remembered for the innumerable ways in which he disgraced his family.’ That’s if they’d even acknowledge me.”
Remus levels a gaze at Sirius. He talks about his family enough that he’s become good at feigning nonchalance, but Remus can still detect a flicker of angry confusion, a glimpse of that small child unable to understand why it was he who had to be born into such madness. Sometimes Remus wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him, saying, You were hurt. You still hurt. You have hurt others. You need to fucking admit it to yourself. But Remus stays quiet.
“You know what they’d say about you?” continues Sirius. “'Remus John Lupin. Son. Marauder. Prefect. Friend. Dark Creature. Professional wet blanket, but occasionally knew how to have a bit of fun.'”
Remus smiles in spite of himself. In moments like these, he realizes how much he misses Sirius, misses the time before. When they were younger and looking at Sirius reminded Remus of the way he used to sit cross-legged in front of the hearth and stare into the fire until his eyes ached. The dizziness he felt when Sirius affixed his gaze on Remus’ face, looking at him with an intensity usually reserved for practicing complicated hexes. Before Remus had the language to understand how he felt. Before he knew to feel ashamed. Before Sirius had to bollocks everything up with his utter stupidity.
“That’s a lot to carve into a tombstone, you know,” says Remus. “I hope you’re willing to shell out a lot of Galleons for that kind of epigraph.”
“Nothing but the best for you, Monsieur Lupin.” Sirius grins so that Remus can see all of his teeth and takes one last drag of the cigarette before pressing it into the windowsill. “Really, Remus, I —” He pauses, presses his lips together. “People will miss you.”
Remus is seized by a nearly overwhelming wave of emotion for Sirius, for the way that he just knows, can peer into his fucking brain and see him for what he is, which is a coward. He thinks he may hate him for it, more than he thought he hated him for the prank, for the dozens of time Sirius has fucked up in the past and will continue to fuck up in the future. He looks at Sirius without blinking away, another thing he has had relearn in the past months. “I’m not going to kill myself, Pads,” he says, trying to gentle his voice, hyperaware of the use of the nickname. I am not going to die.
“Okay,” says Sirius.
“I could have, you know,” says Remus. He wants it to be a threat, but his voice splits. He is so tired.
“I know.”
“But I’m not.” Remus closes his eyes. “I’m not going to die. We’re not going to die.”
Sirius smiles, lopsided. “Well, we’re all gonna die someday.” He shifts. Remus tries to discern if he is nervous or just readjusting his position. Sitting on a windowsill for an extended period of time isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, after all. Remus hopes that Sirius knows that he isn’t just talking about his own sadness — he’s also talking about the war that looms like some sickly cloud, a greening of the sky before a storm. The static in the air, the way people will look back and say they felt it all along, that unnatural shift in the atmosphere. He thinks of his parents in their cottage, the garden, the shed. He sighs.
“It’s gonna be okay, Remus,” says Sirius. “If I can make it out of that house, and you can survive the full moon every month, nothing can touch us. We’re fucking Marauders, yeah?”
Remus wants to think that Sirius believes this. He hands the pack of cigarettes to Sirius. “Here. You can have the rest. The Muggle government says that they can kill you, but it will take a while, so you’ll be fine.”
Sirius shoves the Sovereigns into the pocket of his jeans. “We’ll be fine,” he echoes.