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Sirius doesn’t hate his flat, really. He hates a lot of things about it, for all the stories they provide, but he doesn’t hate the idea of it and the initial sense of rebellious pride, of the mineness of it all. And he even loved it at first, a little, when it was one mattress on the floor and his trunk from Hogwarts stuffed by that time with six odd pairs of James’ socks and one of Peter’s gloves and a wool vest he stole from Remus that spring to get him to stop fucking wearing it and embarrassing everyone, man, I swear to god. He had, originally, three forks, nine spoons, four teacups (which matched, which were from Mrs Potter), one plate, one slightly larger plate, no knives, one frying pan, and a kettle (which he bought that summer in the junk shop down the road from the Lupin farm and sang something like “God Save the Queen” when it boiled). He had no furniture, save the mattress, and a lumpy armchair salvaged from behind Ollivanders, until later that summer when James floo’d in with a folding table and Sirius took six well-spent hours thankyouverymuch attempting to find the best and most artful arrangement of spoons, teacups, forks (no knives), two plates, and a frying pan to put on top of it.
There are three rooms, and a small balcony, and a loo, which is very tiny and mostly does what it needs to, except when it doesn’t. The tub has now, over the months, on any number of occasions, done at least all of the following: run the taps too hot; and then, when the mirror made a disparaging remark one morning, run the taps too cold; made horrible, distraught, coughing noises from somewhere in the depths of its piping; refused to drain any water at all, and then later, swallowed the drain stopper so completely and inexplicably that Sirius was left to transfigure a warped magazine (Quidditch Lass Quarterly— Peter’s, probably) into a new plug; and then finally, when it seemed to have it up to here with any and all of Sirius’s efforts, belched one great steam geyser up through the drain, sending the pinup pages scattering like confetti and plastering them across the room.
“It’s mad,” he says, peeling a scrap of damp Harpy bosom off the ceiling. “Completely mad. What have I ever done?”
“So many things,” demurs the mirror.
And yet.
Things are acquired. At first, it is all of Sirius’s things from Hogwarts, after they leave. Banners and posters and bits of paper and books and jumpers three sizes too small and old assignments and essays and texts and his potions cauldron (which he uses to brew coffee, and then later to ash his cigarettes into), and then other things. Pieces of furniture, sheets for the mattress, several strangely embroidered pillows, a shell from the holiday at Brighton that first summer after leaving, several scraps of newspaper clippings from the Prophet, increasingly ominous, and then shoved in a drawer to be forgotten about out of necessity for self-preservation, a small wardrobe which is soon stuffed with boots and jackets and his broom, and bits of motorcycle parts, and then a bookshelf which is only used to hold used muggle lightbulbs (which are fascinating), and then the sprig of willow and cabbage-rose from the wedding, and the copy of his speech (stained with wine, tucked inside a book).
It acquires stranger things, like shadows, and moods. It has corners, where he thinks he sees things, sometimes. Not ghosts, or boggarts, but flickers of ideas, like dust accumulated in the very particular shape of things he is trying to forget, trying to ignore. It acquires, in time, dreams: bad dreams, sometimes even nightmares, where he wakes and forgets he is not asleep at the foot of Regulus’s bed, or in the cellar of Grimmauld Place, or in his own childhood room, still sluggishly bleeding from the lashes the night before. He is terrified. He is lost. He stomps about the flat at three in the morning, throwing spoons and smashing old lightbulbs against the ceiling because he has had a dream where he has had to step over James Potter’s broken lifeless body, and now it won’t leave him alone. He tries, for several evenings, when he is magnificently drunk, to cast expecto patronum at the tea kettle, and fails.
He is basically miserable most of the time, and probably going mad, he thinks, and then gets horrifically angry about all of it and leaves the flat for days on end until Lily eventually kicks him out from the cottage under the pretenses ofadulthood or some other equally rubbish concept.
And then, somehow, the flat acquires even stranger things, still. Like Remus Lupin, who starts to spend the morning after the full moon ensconced in the lumpy armchair, and the afternoon making tea and poking at things about the flat which are none of his business. But Sirius never has the heart to tell him off, what with the recent self-mauling, and the fact that he always looks so irreparably charmed by all the lack of order and general madness of the place.
And after the third, or maybe the fourth, month of the flat having acquired an intermittent but increasingly stalwart Remus Lupin, Sirius Apparates them home in the early morning, when the sky is still prickling with faint stars and the color of a new bruise. And Remus is bloody—in his hair, his mouth, across his shoulders and neck and ribs and seeping through his clothing and even the cloak they wrapped him in—and he is battered and barely awake. And Sirius sits him down in the loo, on the edge of the tub, and starts picking at the buttons on Remus’s shirt. (He is still shaking from the adrenaline of the night, and the lack of sleep.)
“Mate, by the way, this is not the time for mischief,” he says, off-hand, to the tub.
“M’wassit?” mumbles Remus, lifting his chin a little. He winces when Sirius wrestles his arm up to get the shirtsleeves off.
“Not you,” says Sirius, and taps the faucet with his wand to get the water going, hard enough (he hopes) to be another warning. “The tub. You couldn’t even manage vaguely rapscallion right now.”
Remus makes a noise like he is perhaps offended by that, but lifts his legs obediently when Sirius tugs his trousers off.
“Right,” Sirius is still eyeing the tub, as he gets his arm around Remus’s shoulders and maneuvers him into the water. “Up you get, you horrible, massive beast.”
“Th’ tub?” Remus cracks open an eye, the smile pulling at the edge of his mouth shows off a broken tooth.
“No, you, you stupid –“ Sirius gets him sitting, and then tests the water with his fingers. It’s pleasant – perfect – he feels a sting of pride, a sting ofsomething. It hits him like the jab of a sharp palm, right between the gap in his ribs, in the center of his chest, and he has to steady himself against the wall.
“The tub’s fine,” he finishes. He feels amused, suddenly lightened.
Remus sighs, sinking down. His eyes are closed, the curve of his bottom lip is just touching the top of the water, the fringes of his lashes collect little droplets. He exhales, lifts a hand to rub weakly at his face, and the water is slowly swirling with the rusted rivulets of old blood.
“Okay?” says Sirius, and feels the center of his chest grow even tighter.
“S’vry’nice,” Remus murmurs, as if to be somehow, despite everything, encouraging.
Sirius casts a wary eye at the tub. He’s complimenting you, he thinks, somewhat manically, behave yourself this is very important. He is watching the way Remus’s skin, slowly, is gathering life again, pinking with the warmth, his scars and his scrapes and his bruises unfurling like a strange, whispered language as the dirt and the blood comes away.
And he thinks again, helplessly and unbidden: this is very important.
He cups a handful of water and raises it, slowly, lets it drip down over Remus’s hair. He presses his palm there, on the top of Remus’s head, and lets his fingers spread, curling through the damp hair. He lets his thumb rest against the curve of Remus’s ear, against his temple, and he can feel there the strength of a pulse returning, through the thin layers of skin, like each beat is his own.
“Yeah,” he says, quietly (and the tub gurgles, almost fondly). “It is, isn’t it?”