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Sirius Black tried very hard up until the age of 11.
Walburga and Orion Black had never been known for their kindness—a fact which Sirius was well aware of—but he had tried to be a good enough son for them. He took his classes in the Library of the Black estate at Grimmauld place, he practiced charmwork in the basement with his brother and, much to his chagrin, attended all of his family’s societal functions. In short, Sirius was a dutiful son to his parents in public, despite hating their ideology.
Behind closed doors, however, Sirius might as well have been a vagrant. His energetic behavior was punished, his curious tendencies beaten out of him, and any physical blemishes that appeared as a result of his parents’ discipline or otherwise were implied to be entirely his fault.
Case in point: His eyesight. Sirius was the first Black in decades to have issues with his vision, but the rest of Pureblooded society wouldn’t have known that. His parents had realized early enough in his childhood that Sirius almost couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been ushered into the bathroom at an ungodly hour and forcibly held against the wall as Kreacher administered eye drops into his eyes. What began as a routine of kicking and screaming eventually mellowed out, and before long Sirius was waking up before sunrise to stumble towards the bathroom and emerge minutes later, seeing clearly.
There was a single conversation about the eye drops between Walburga and Sirius—one was enough, and indeed, perhaps one too many. That was the first time his mother had used magic against him, and Sirius would never forget it—and not only for the physical mark it had left upon his body. The small faint scar that graced his temple could easily be explained away as a result of accidental magic, a fall from the upper levels of a tree, or a duel gone wrong between him and his brother, that much was easy. It was the memory that remained vivid in his mind; an indelible mark forced upon his innocence, bringing about a stark personality shift from the inquisitive boy he had been before.
After his attempt at discussing the eye drops’ discomfort with his mother failed so miserably, Sirius never breached the subject again. He was still living under his parents’ roof, and as such he would adhere to their rules— even if those rules resulted in shoddy eyesight from eight o’clock in the evening on as the drops wore off. Instead, he made his best efforts to stay out of trouble. He tried, as well as he could, to be the son his parents wanted, at least in appearance.
James Potter changed everything for Sirius, though. A number of details stood out to Sirius about his new friend, from his glasses to his already developed and proudly displayed morals. Sirius still tried hard, but it wasn’t the same. He didn’t tout his pureblood superiority at school the way he had been taught to, nor did he renounce his house and its inhabitants. Sirius Black was an expert at surviving, and so he did what was necessary to do so, as long and as well as he could. At school, he was one person; at home, he was another.
He learned quickly enough not to discuss his friends while at home. The holidays were for keeping his head down, at least for the first few years. Each time Sirius returned to Hogwarts, however, the nights seemed darker and the summers nearer than before. He hated the transitions, the dread that he couldn’t seem to shake when he unpacked his trunk in his dorm, despite the happiness that rolled off of his friends in waves. He’d had enough practice with smiling and nodding at appropriate moments, but it felt awful to do it among the people he cared most about. He was a muted version of himself in the first few weeks of a school year, and as his roommates said nothing to him about it, Sirius was happy to assume that they hadn’t noticed. He was trying to hold the fabric of his life together while the edges frayed, and he was grateful none of his friends had noticed. Except they had.
Remus was the first to observe that something seemed off with Sirius at the start of their second year. He hadn’t known the boy for long, but he couldn’t think of a reason that anyone would return from the Summer holidays with such a blank look on their face. As soon as Sirius caught the Welsh boy staring at him over dinner, he adopted a smirk and tossed a roll across the table. Remus caught the bread deftly, despite his initial surprise at his friend’s change of expression, and made a mental note to ask Sirius about it after the meal. To his dismay, however, that moment never came. The boys were so wrapped up in matches of gobstones and discussions of the upcoming Quidditch tryouts that Remus couldn’t have gotten a moment alone with Sirius if he tried. By the end of the week, Sirius was seemingly back to normal and Remus, well...Remus wasn’t one to pry.
By the end of their third year, all of the Marauders knew the routines of the others. Remus’ lycanthropy had been determined by the end of the second year, due to a bit of Sirius’ investigative work in the library. As a result, the three other boys had spent the majority of their free time that year researching ways to ease the burden that their friend bore. That year, it was James who noticed the odd periods of woodenness from Sirius. It was also he who raised the conversation with him in the dorm one night when Remus and Peter were off studying with a couple of their housemates.
“Sirius, mate,” a voice drifted over from James’ bed, and Sirius yawned as he responded.
“What is it, James?”
James took his glasses off and placed them on his nightstand before responding. “What happened?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Why have you been so quiet?” Sirius froze at the question, before abruptly turning to face away from his friend.
“I don’t know what you’re on about.”
James sighed, before continuing. “It’s happened before and I didn’t think much of it at the time. But it’s every time we come back after the holidays. So what happened? Is everyone in your family alright?”
Sirius snorted. “More than alright, I’d reckon.” He paused. “But it’s nothing, James. Really. I just don’t like being home all that much. Takes me a bit of time to readjust to school and everything, you know?”
James mumbled his assent, a slurred “If you say so, mate,” before drifting off to sleep, exhausted from the grueling practice they’d been put through earlier in the evening. Sirius, on the other hand, lay wide awake in his bed. The idea of being seen, of being known like that, was terrifying. When Remus and Peter arrived nearly an hour and a half later, Sirius was still awake, staring at the ceiling and counting backwards under his breath to ground himself. In his state, he didn’t notice the troubled look that Remus shot at him upon entering the room, nor the subsequent increasingly concerned glances that were directed at him before the lights went out.
As he grew older, Sirius’ deception felt less forced. He carefully dodged questions about his home life, instead choosing witty comebacks and sarcastic comments as the four friends went about their lives. By the time they had reached their fourth year, Sirius’ mood shifts were practically imperceptible to his friends, ‘practically’ being the operative word. As the boys became more comfortable with each other, Remus noticed little things about Sirius that brought him pause—a flinch here, a forced smile there—but he brushed it off, thinking they were all just spending too much time together.
It was after their fourth year that Remus realized he didn’t notice those things about the others. Only Sirius. The one who’d discovered his lycanthropy, the one whose bizarre dedication to finding a way to help had led to his friends—his brothers —becoming animagi for him. He remained quiet on this realization, not sure how to process it. It was more than a slight bit of attention paid to his friend—it bordered on an obsession. He saw when Sirius returned from holidays, the nearly flawless veneer of composure that he applied as he stepped through the entryway of the great hall. He saw the way the hugs that the Quidditch team threw around after a victory seemed to offend him. He saw the hurt in Sirius’ eyes when James jokingly told him that no one would want him as a boyfriend.
Remus saw these things and observed them just the same. Which is how, when he and Sirius were locked in the bathroom by James to “make up or sleep in there” after a particularly nasty verbal altercation in the spring of their sixth year, Sirius ended up in tears and Remus found himself gently stroking his friend’s head as it rested in his lap. Remus saw past the front, Sirius knew, and so Sirius had trusted him enough to share one of his biggest secrets: his aversion to touch.
They began dating by the end of the month. Remus, a bundle of nerves held together by coffee, chocolate, and well-worn sweaters; Sirius, a mess of a young man held together by Remus and their friends.
They became each others’ lifelines, and Remus wasn’t entirely sure if that was a bad thing. He found his heart swelling when Sirius chose to sit next to him on the couch in the common room, and it very nearly felt as if it would burst when Sirius glanced up at him with a hesitant look in his eyes before reclining against his shoulder cautiously. Of all of the things he wanted to throttle Walburga Black for (and there were many ) this was the first on his list. His friend—his boyfriend —shouldn’t live in fear of touching others.
Remus lived a life that hinged on tactile experiences—his clothes were chosen for the way they felt; the aged wool on his skin, the comfort of a slightly worn pair of pants, the delicious softness of the blanket that his roommates had gotten him for his birthday back in second year. His heightened senses felt every contact with his skin, no matter how minute. When Sirius leaned against him, Remus felt the muscles in his boyfriend’s back loosen, albeit slowly. It was exhilarating, knowing that the person he loved trusted him so completely, despite his history. That rush of pleasure didn’t abate how infuriated he was with Sirius’ mother, however.
He desperately wanted to be able to convey the love and pride that he felt towards Sirius, but doing so was no easy feat. It had taken him months to work up the courage to ask for a kiss from his boyfriend, and certainly not for a lack of desire. They’d been sitting at a table near the fireplace; Sirius wearing his Quidditch sweater and the glasses that Remus had gotten him for his birthday the year before, Remus in an oversized jumper and jeans. While the two had started the evening working on a charms project, Sirius hit the threshold of his attention span after about a half hour. He’d moved his chair around to come alongside Remus’ while the tawny-haired boy continued scribbling ideas onto their shared parchment.
The chair moved closer, and so did Sirius. Soon enough, Remus felt a warm body pressed up against his side and shivered involuntarily as he glanced over at his boyfriend. With half of his hair pulled up into a bun and the shadows from the fire dancing on his face, Sirius looked practically ethereal. Looking away took an extraordinary amount of restraint, and Remus attempted to distract himself by tilting his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. Sirius looked up questioningly at his boyfriend.
“You alright, Rem?”
Remus stole a quick glance at Sirius and sighed before shaking his head abruptly and refocusing his gaze on the notes in front of him and marking down an adjustment.
“All good, Sirius. All good.”
Sirius stared on for a moment before gently taking the quill from Remus’s hand. The action forced his boyfriend to look at him, if only to roll his eyes while a smile played at the corner of his lips. Sirius’ heart did something funny when he saw that expression, but he pushed it aside to continue his questioning.
“Come on, what’s the matter?”
The smile that had been teasing the edges of Remus’ mouth vanished abruptly, replaced instead by an all-too-familiar nervous apprehension.
“Remus?”
Remus glanced down at his hands for a moment, before staring at a spot beyond Sirius.
“There’s something I’d like to do with you, Sirius.”
Sirius quirked an eyebrow, and Remus spoke again, more nervously than before.
“I mean, only if you’re okay with it...I wouldn’t want to pressure you or make you uncomfortable, that’s not—that’s never what I’d want to do, I’d always want you to feel safe and you know I’d never—”
“Merlin, Remus, slow down. What do you want to do?”
Remus took a deep breath as if he was steeling his nerves, before shifting his gaze resolutely to Sirius’.
“Can I...I mean, would it be alright by you if I...Oh fuck it,” he shook his head before trying again.
“Sirius, I want to kiss you.”
Sirius blanched, and Remus’ back immediately stiffened as he moved to turn away.
“Sirius, I—” he paused. “I didn’t mean to be so direct about that, I’ll just head up to bed and you can forget I said anything about—” Sirius silenced him with a word.
“Okay.”
Remus’ eyes widened and he stumbled over a response.
“Sirius, are you...Are you sure? We’ve never done anything like that, and I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do. I know you’re not the most comfortable with being touched by people, and really....” Remus trailed off as Sirius smiled shyly at him.
“Yeah, but you’re not ‘people.’ You’re Remus Lupin.” Sirius looked at the floor for a moment, a bit worried to meet his boyfriend’s eyes.
Remus saw Sirius’ clenched fist on the table and his heart broke a bit. His eyes shifted back to the fire as he placed a hand atop Sirius’ slowly, and gently ran his thumb over the ridges of his boyfriend’s knuckles.
“Sirius, we don’t have to do anything. I’m not going to love you any less if we never kiss.”
Sirius tensed under Remus’ hand and the taller boy snapped his head up to meet Sirius’ gaze, expecting to see fear in his slate-grey eyes, based on the physical reaction.
Instead, he saw something equally as compelling. The mixture of shock and tenderness there barely registered before Sirius flung himself onto his boyfriend, arms clinging tightly around Remus’ neck.
“Sirius?”
His boyfriend’s face was buried in his neck (and for the first time, Remus was cursing the glasses he had gotten him), but Remus made out the words “you love me?” and smiled widely.
“Of course I do, Sirius. Of course.” he murmured into Sirius’ ear softly before wrapping his arms around the boy already holding fast to him.
Sirius pulled back and Remus loosened his grip to view him properly. Sirius had a sort of awed lovestruck expression on his face, and Remus suddenly couldn’t imagine loving him more than he did in that moment.
“Remus,” Sirius started, before leaning in until their foreheads were touching. Remus murmured his assent. “Remus, I love you too.”
Their breaths were fogging up the base of his glasses now, but Sirius couldn’t have cared less. Remus’ pupils were blown wide, and Sirius imagined that his own looked similarly. He closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the comfort of Remus’ autumnal scent before whispering “and you can kiss me now, or whenever you’d like.”
He felt Remus smile, and then it was happening, in clumsy movements and awkward angles. Unpracticed and chaste and flustered, but somehow exactly right. Sirius hadn’t known what to expect from a first kiss, but he knew he could trust Remus. And suddenly trusting Remus meant more than just having someone to talk to in the evenings during a late night revision session. It was being seen, being known—fully and deeply and surely—and being loved because of that knowledge, not in spite of it.
When they broke apart, Sirius’ eyes were wet and Remus was glowing. Both wanted to say something meaningful to the other, but neither wanted to break the spell of the moment. Instead, they looked into each others’ eyes and smiled, and then giggled, and then laughed. For a moment, everything else disappeared and the two were exactly as they appeared: a pair of teenagers in love, who didn’t need to worry about wars or battle strategies because they had each other.
The moment faded, as all moments do. But the love in their eyes remained, long after the laughter died and fire dwindled into a pile of smoldering ashes. And if the next morning, James found the two boys inextricably tangled together in Remus’ bed, he didn’t say anything.
Because Sirius and Remus were trying, and who was he to stop them?