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Sirius curls up on himself one night in Grimmauld, turning his hands inwards, his fingernails carving crescent moons into the centre of his palms. He wants to turn into Padfoot, because he feels safer as Padfoot, but he cannot risk Kreacher finding out and reporting to his mother. He wants to write James about his dreary summer, but he’s already sent seven letters with that theme and sending another one is certainly pushing it. He doesn’t want to sleep, not when every night now he’s dreamt of Remus, and he would like to undream him. The more he denies it, the more undeniable it feels. Sirius has feelings for Remus, big feelings, all-consuming feelings; the kind of feelings that James has for Lily. And this is a problem of utmost priority.
The problem is not that Remus is a boy or that Remus is a werewolf or that Remus is a half-blood or that Remus is most probably straight. No, the problem with these feelings Sirius finds himself harbouring is more complex – defined by the Black blood in his veins, blood of corruption and ruin. Sirius sees his mother in his eyes when he is angry, the way the grey looks in the light, like silver disks of steel in a knife-sharpening machine – cold and relentless. He sees his father in the slant of his jaw, in the set of his hands, in the way he knows how to make his face look emotionless when the time calls for it. He hears his father’s ruthlessness and his mother’s wildness in his laugh, and he knows that he cannot escape them. He can run to James, he can stare at the Gryffindor red on his ties, but he cannot change whose roof he lived under, who neglected him, whose genes are in his blood, his dirty Black blood with a lineage of inbreeding and insanity. Sirius hates the cards he’s been dealt in a way that James and Peter cannot understand, he hates the horror that makes him who he is. There are things he’s been through that he can never tell anyone about, like the certain knowledge that his parents would rather see him dead than happy. Sirius knows he’s fucked up in a way that will probably never go away.
And Remus? Remus, despite his hardships, is kind and caring, never callous or cruel though it would be so easy for him to be. He’s distant in the way that people afraid of being hurt are, and tired in a way that James and Peter cannot understand, but Sirius thinks he can. Remus is his best friend in a way that James isn’t, in the sense that Sirius knows that Remus knows what it feels like, doubting your own humanity, being full of shadows. Remus is gentle in a way that Sirius doesn’t think he himself can ever be, the sort of gentle that comes from knowing the value of love and holding it close. Remus can forgive someone without needing to break a dozen pieces of glassware first, and even when he’s angry, he holds it inside. Remus is controlled in a way that Sirius’s parents tried to train him into being, in a way that goes against Sirius’s very existence. Sometimes, Sirius thinks that if they weren’t best friends, he would hate him.
This makes the feelings worse. Remus is good and pure, not tainted in the way Sirius is, Sirius who doesn’t know when to stop, Sirius who everyone considers “too much”, Sirius whose boggart took the form of his Uncle Alphard and said, not unkindly, “Boy, you don’t know what love is.” Sirius thinks the most scary part of that is the truth within it. What would a Black know about love?
And he closes his eyes, and he thinks of Remus, Remus with his amber eyes and strong hands and scribbled handwriting, Remus who used Muggle inkpens because he didn’t like quills, Remus who could eat more sugar than the rest of their year put together, Remus who’d laughed so hard he nearly cried when Sirius told him about the Great Ghost Capture of 1968 even though it wasn’t that great and they hadn’t captured any ghosts. Remus, his best friend, the only person he knows who might be as fucked up as him.
“One day, when this is over, we’ll get therapy,” Remus had said to him, once. It was strangely cryptic, but undeniably truthful.
“Sounds like a plan,” Sirius had shot back. It had been a really beautiful day, softly sunlit and everything. Remus’s hair had been glowing golden at the tips, and his eyelashes looked like little beacons of light. Sirius couldn’t look away. He’d wanted to kiss him then. He sometimes wonders why he hadn’t.
Sirius turns over in bed, eyes still closed. He knows he needs to leave Grimmauld as soon as possible. Not only have his parents gotten worse, he’s also being offered multiple ultimatums that include things he would rather die than do, such as marrying a cousin or getting the Dark Mark. He promises himself that he will leave. He thinks of Remus’s hands in his, the way he’d whispered, “Thank you,” the morning after the full moon, and he reminds himself that he can be brave. That he doesn’t have to stay in this house forever. He decides that he will leave as soon as possible, just show up at James’s unannounced and refuse to go back. Maybe even spend summers as Padfoot. Anything would be better than Grimmauld.
Sirius wishes Remus were there with him, so that he could confess. Whisper out a “Moony, I’m scared,” and get back a “Padfoot, I know.” Instead, there’s nothing; just the silence of his family home, awful and unnatural enough to be a mausoleum. Sirius wants to leave, but he knows somewhere deep inside, that he will carry memories of this house to his grave. That there’s no way of getting free, really.
He opens his eyes, looks out of his window into the familiar view of London at night.
James, he thinks, and then, surprising himself with the urgency in his head, Tomorrow.
He blinks, stares into the quiet night sky for a moment. Something akin to desperation is filling his lungs. He gets up abruptly, aware that he isn’t going to get any sleep. His skin still crawls with the after-effects of a Crucio, but it sends his mind into prime survival mode. This is nothing new.
He stares at the broom in the corner of his room, and manages a wry smile.
James, he thinks again, mounting the broom. Careful not to make any noise, he squeezes out of his bedroom window. He isn’t sure if he knows the way to the Potters’ Cottage, but there’s only one way to find out.