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It had been a long mission, with a particularly rough full moon bang in the middle of it, so even the dark, cobwebbed hallway of Grimmauld Place was a welcome relief for him. He knew better than to call out with the portrait there, so after dumping his bag at the bottom of the stairs he poked his head first into the drawing room, and then the sitting room, and finally into the kitchen, where he found Sirius sitting moodily at the kitchen table, a newspaper in front of him and several bottles of beer.
His miserable expression brightened up immediately when he noticed Remus come in, who grinned back. ‘Evening,’ he said. ‘You’re up late.’
‘You’re back late. How was it?’
‘Rotten, as usual,’ Remus sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m getting any closer with them, they don’t truly believe I’m homeless like them.’
‘Maybe you should stop shaving,’ Sirius suggested.
‘I think it goes deeper than that,’ Remus replied, with a mild smile. He nodded at the newspaper. ‘Crossword?’
Sirius hummed and nodded, looking back down at the paper. ‘Stuck, though,’ he grunted. ‘Cryptic crosswords…’ He clucked his tongue.
‘What’s the clue?’
He sat by Sirius, craning his neck to look at the newspaper, eager. When they were young men, the four of them had stretched out crosswords for days, quibbling and arguing about suggestions they threw out randomly as they went about their days together.
‘A sunny gamble reversed to sell out,’ recited Sirius, tapping the nib of his quill against the table.
‘Huh,’ said Remus blankly, staring at the wall. There was a long silence. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘You and James were always better at the abstract stuff than me.’
‘That’s because we were high most of the time,’ said Sirius with a smirk. He raised his hands and wobbled his head slightly, grinning. ‘Free your mind, man.’
Remus laughed, shaking his head. ‘Merlin’s beard, tell me we weren’t that obnoxiously cliched.’
But Sirius was still grinning wickedly, his eyes brighter than usual. ‘Let’s do it again, for old times sake.’
Remus was still laughing. ‘You’re joking? No chance.’
‘Come on, it’s been, shit, fourteen years.’
Remus opened his mouth, still vaguely shaking his head in amusement, but stuck for something to say. ‘I’m… I’m too old for that sort of thing now.’
Sirius snorted. ‘Clearly. Look at you, refusing to have fun.’
Remus raised his eyebrows in mock offense. ‘I wouldn’t even know where to get any anymore. Or back then, as it happens, it was always you two that pressured me into it.’
‘My little cousin would probably know where to get some,’ said Sirius, smirking. ‘She’ll come running if I call her.’
A flash of irritation rose in Remus, but he swallowed it down. ‘I’ll get drunk with you,’ he conceded. ‘But my smoking days are well behind me.’
‘You really are very old and boring now,’ Sirius drawled, pulling a finger around the rim of his bottle of beer.
‘I was always boring,’ said Remus lightly. ‘All of you told me that regularly.’
Sirius summoned a large bottle of firewhiskey and two glasses. ‘Yes, but now you’re a proper grown up, aren’t you? A professor.’
‘Briefly a professor,’ Remus reminded him, as the bottle poured him out a healthy measure. ‘I always knew it would just be for a year.’ He took the drink and threw it back - it burned his throat pleasantly, leaving him shaking his head a little as he swallowed.
‘I bet you were a good teacher,’ said Sirius. His eyes narrowed. ‘Did you put my godson in detention?’
‘Didn’t need to,’ said Remus promptly, pouring out more firewhiskey. ‘He’s a good boy.’
‘I refuse to believe it.’
‘He is! He never gave me any trouble. A bit of chatter at the back of class now and then, but that was it. Brilliant essays.’ He grinned at Sirius’s crestfallen expression. ‘I wouldn’t worry, he was good in class, but you forget I did have to do some quick thinking to cover up his secret ventures into Hogsmeade, and confiscate the map off him.’
Sirius shook his head disapprovingly. ‘How could you?’
‘I’m a boring grown up now,’ Remus reminded him. He took another drink, and smiled. ‘It is funny, that it ended up back in his hands, isn’t t? Thankfully I think he mostly used it to get to Hogsmeade and left it at that.’
‘This is exactly why I should have been there, he came so close to going down the wrong path,’ said Sirius wildly, waving his arm so clumsily that firewhiskey sloshed out of his glass. ‘Though, a little birdy tells me he’s setting up an illegal defense club under Umbridge’s nose, so not all hope is lost.’
‘Is he?’ asked Remus approvingly. ‘Who told you?’
‘Dung. Apparently they were all planning it in the Hogs Head.’
Remus spluttered with amusement into his drink. ‘What on earth were they doing in there?’
‘Trying to be clever about it, I expect.’ They were drinking far quicker than was probably sensible - Remus was already feeling light headed and he was well aware that Sirius had a head start on him. It was perhaps no surprise that Sirius became reminiscent. ‘Do you remember when we went in there? In sixth year?’
‘No,’ said Remus, frowning.
‘Sure you do.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Yes,’ hissed Sirius in exasperated frustration. ‘You do - of course you do. Don’t you remember? We thought we’d have a better chance of getting served firewhiskey in there, because it was so dodgy. Peter accidentally offended that bloke who had some troll blood in him and James had to smart talk us out of a fight. Then after all that we didn’t even get served, and when we got back to the castle McGonagall was waiting for us - we didn’t realise Dumbledore knew the barman.’ He considered. ‘Stupid not to realise that, really.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ lied Remus. It really was such a long time ago, and there had been so many incidents of them getting into trouble. But Sirius was looking so misty eyed, and the firewhiskey was so quickly going to their heads.
‘Must have been a good year for you though,’ said Sirius, tilting his head back wistfully. ‘Back in that castle, running around the forest again-’
‘I didn’t do much running around the forest,’ said Remus. ‘I had wolfsbane potion, didn’t I? I would just transform and stay in my office.’
‘What, did you have dog basket or something?’ Sirius asked. ‘Chew toys?’
Remus sighed, now feeling too drunk and sleepy to entertain it. ‘Fuck off.’
‘Wow, you really haven’t lightened up about that sort of stuff after all these years,’ said Sirius, grinning and then taking a large gulp of firewhiskey himself. ‘You didn’t use the opportunity to run around the forest? Not once? Apart from, you know,’ he grimaced, ‘that night.’
‘No,’ said Remus. ‘It’s far less appealing when you have your own mind so can remember that you once had friends to do it with.’
‘Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine,’ snorted Sirius. Then he clicked, and pointed at Remus. ‘Sunny!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Ray.’
It took Remus a bleary second to understand what he was going on about. ‘Oh! Ray, ray…’ He pulled the paper towards him, and wrote ray in the margin beside the crossword. ‘And then gamble… Bet?’
‘Ray bet? Rabbit?’ said Sirius.
‘No, it says reversed, it…’ Remus gave a wry smile, and sighed. He chuckled darkly. ‘To sell out.’
Sirius stared at him. ‘Are you fucking joking?’
Remus shook his head, still laughing despairingly as he reached for his beer bottle. ‘A bit on the nose, isn’t it?’
‘Fucks sake…’ muttered Sirius, slumping back in his chair. ‘Betray… Merlin’s arsehole…’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Someone up there’s having a right laugh, aren’t they?’
‘Just unoriginal really,’ Remus slurred over his bottle. ‘Poor writing.’
‘Terrible writing,’ agreed Sirius. ‘I bet they thought they were really clever when they came up with it.’
Perhaps it was the alcohol, perhaps it was the ludicrousness of what they were discussing, but Remus fixed him with a sharp gaze. ‘Reckon there is? Someone up there having a good laugh?’
‘Dunno,’ said Sirius. ‘None of it seems very funny, does it?’
‘No, not really,’ said Remus. He winced. ‘It was much easier when we could pass round a joint and have a laugh about it all.’
Sirius tilted his head. ‘I told you. Source some, and we can do it again, for old times sake.’
‘I don’t think it would work anymore,’ said Remus. ‘Those old times were before we realised how wrong things could go. We can’t replicate that. It’s gone.’
Sirius’s expression had turned sour. He swirled the whiskey in his glass and nodded curtly. ‘Yeah. Sure. All we can really do is sit around waiting, isn’t it? There’s no point trying to make your life happier, Moony, why bother even trying?’
Remus said nothing, simply let the unhappy silence swirl like Sirius’s firewhiskey.
Finally Sirius closed his eyes, and sighed. ‘You weren’t there.’
‘What?’
‘The time we went to the Hogs Head. I’ve just remembered. You were ill because it was just after the full moon. I remember James saying we should try and smuggle some back for you.’
‘Oh.’
Sirius looked at him miserably. ‘Why did you pretend you remembered?’
The guilt tugged at Remus. He looked down at the table. ‘Seemed to make you happy,’ he said at last.
There was something different between the two of them now. The gap in their maturity had always been bridged by James, sometimes even by Peter. But neither of them were here now, and they had been replaced instead by twelve long and lonely years - frozen in prison for Sirius, constantly moving and trying to survive for Remus.
‘What’s the next clue?’ Remus asked him hoarsely.
Sirius stared at him for a moment, then looked glumly down. ‘Court painter defends working by himself.’
‘Hmm,’ said Remus. ‘Perhaps it’s an anagram.’
Sirius nodded. ‘Perhaps.’