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Remus always knew that it was going to be emotional, having to go through his things and clear out his home, in order to make room for Tonks to move in with him. But he couldn’t have prepared for just how much it was going to hurt, finding boxes full of memories, things he had stuffed into the back of the wardrobe, forgotten things thrown into the attic, never to be looked at again. He had given it several tries, but every time he had come close to taking out the boxes, or going up to the attic, tears had filled his eyes, and he had been overtaken by emotion, by grief.
He had had years to try and find a way to cope with what had happened to James and Lily, with Peter’s betrayal. With his feelings about Sirius being sent off to Azkaban. He had convinced himself that he had spent enough time grieving, that he had, in a way, gotten over everything that had happened.
But when he had gone back to Hogwarts, and he had gotten a chance to get to know Harry, and he had seen Sirius again, he had come to realise that the pain of what had happened that night in October of 1981 was still just as raw as it had been all those years ago.
Sure enough, there was comfort in seeing Harry, in knowing that he had grown up to be such a wonderful young man, but every time he looked at him he was reminded of everything they had lost that night. And seeing Sirius again, it should have filled him with joy, but the Sirius he had known and loved, he was gone. Being faced with that reality, it felt like a dagger to the heart.
Sirius might not have been the same man he had once known, but still when he had watched him go through the veil, he had been ready to follow him. If it hadn’t been for Harry, he is certain nothing, and no one would have stopped him from jumping through after him. But Harry needed him, and his love for the boy had been what had pulled him through.
With everything that was going on, the last thing on his mind was finding love. But somehow he had found himself falling for Tonks, the beautiful, feisty young woman who reminded him so much of the young man he had once known. But when she had told him she loved him, he had rejected her. He was convinced he was too old for her, too broken. He came with far too much baggage, and he did not want to burden her.
Tonks hadn’t given up though, and although it had been a bumpy ride getting there, in the end they had finally decided to give things a chance. They had even decided to move in together.
Remus had smiled at the suggestion, and he hadn’t hesitated to start getting the house ready. But there was only so much fussing he could do in the kitchen and the living room, and he knew he would have to face the harsh, painful reality sooner or later.
Just as he was about to take the boxes out of his wardrobe, Tonks had shown up to help. And although he wanted to be the one going through his old things, he appreciated the help. She had understood, and she had offered to clear out the bathroom cupboard instead.
He can hear that she was ready within seconds, and that she is now just sitting there, waiting for him to tell her he is done. But as he goes through his old things, he finds an old notebook he, Sirius, James and Peter had filled with ideas for pranks. Even now he can still read the code in which their ideas were written down, and although it brings a smile to his face to read it, it breaks his heart to see his friends’ handwriting.
He puts the notebook down, and he picks up a jumper, one he had almost forgotten about. Sirius had taken it off and given it to him, just weeks after they had met. It had been a particularly bad full moon, and Remus could not stop shivering, his body still not feeling right, even days later. Sirius had noticed, and he had given him the jumper off his back.
“What’s that?” Tonks asks, and it makes Remus jump up. “Sorry, if you want me to leave you to it…”
“It’s just a jumper.” Remus shrugs, but by the look on her face he can tell that she knows that he is hiding something. “I can’t throw any of this out. These are things from when we were at Hogwarts.”
“Then put them back in the box,” Tonks says, flashing a reassuring smile. “and put them back where they came from.”
“But I have to make room for…”
“I’ll throw out some shoes. Don’t worry about it.” She winks, before coming over to him and giving him a hug. “Are you okay?”
Remus wants to lie and tell her that this means nothing to him anymore. These are just objects, silly little memories from when he was a kid. But he can feel tears forming in his eyes, and he clings onto her, scared that if he lets go, she’ll disappear too.
Remus wanted to keep going through his things, but Tonks had dragged him down to the kitchen, where she had made him a cup of tea. It had made his emotions settle down a bit, but just thinking about all the things up in the attic, it sent him right back to the verge of tears.
So Tonks had offered to help him, and this time he had accepted her help. They had gone up to the attic, and Remus had grabbed a box of clothes he knows he should have thrown out years ago. He didn’t even remember putting them here, and he didn’t have to look through them, because they were all ready to be thrown out. But going through them was an easy, unemotional task.
Tonks had grabbed another box, but Remus hadn’t looked which one it was, trying his best to keep his mind off it all for as long as he could.
But when he hears her humming a tune he remembers all too well, he turns to look at her, and he finds her standing there with an old record in her hands.
“These are great.” Tonks smiles, but the smile quickly leaves her face when she sees the smile on Remus’ face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“Sirius gave them to me.”
“Oh…”
“He loved music,” Remus says, and Tonks gives a small, knowing nod.
Remus gets up, and he takes the record from her hands, and although it is dusty and faded by now, he still remembers the day Sirius had given to him.
“Did you two have a song?”
“A song?”
“You know… couples sometimes have a song. Something that was playing during their first kiss, or the first time they met, or…”
“What?” Remus laughs, but it’s nervous laughter. “I don’t… how do you…”
“I know, Remus. About you and Sirius. I’ve always known.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I figured you’d open up about it when you were ready.” Tonks shrugs. “I know how much you loved him, and what it did to you when he died, so…”
“You…,” Remus tries, but he is too surprised, shocked even. So he sits back down on the floor, his legs having gone wobbly, and Tonks joins him. “You don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” Tonks says, flashing a reassuring smile. “I have to admit that it’s a little weird, knowing that you went out with my cousin… that he was probably…”
“Was what?” Remus asks, when he sees the blush on Tonks’ face.
“Your first,” Tonks admits, and it makes Remus lets out an embarrassed chuckle. “Was he?”
“Would it matter?”
“Not really.” Tonks shrugs, before taking the record from Remus’ hand. “So, did you two have a song?”
“No. He gave this to me on the day we had our first kiss,” Remus remembers. “I was… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“You should. I want to know about him. He’s a part of who you are, Remus. So tell me about him.”
Remus opens his mouth to tell her how he had gone in for a hug to thank Sirius for the record, and how Sirius had kissed him instead. How that’s how their relationship had started. But not a word comes out of his mouth, and he can feel that cold, empty feeling washing over him again.
“Were things serious between you and him?”
“I was going to spend the rest of my life with him,” Remus admits, the words having come out before he has even thought them through. But when he sees Tonks avoiding his eyes, a pained look on her face, he quickly reaches out for her. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“I know.”
Last night they had left the attic for what it was, but this morning they had gone back up there. Last night’s conversation hadn’t been mentioned, but when Remus finds a box with Sirius’ name on it, he can feel Tonks’ eyes burning a hole into the back of his head.
“Do you want me to leave you to it?”
“I have nothing to hide,” Remus sighs. “What I said last night… you know I love you, don’t you?”
“I do. But sometimes I wonder if you are only trying to replace him.”
“I’m not.”
“I see the way you look at me, Remus,” Tonks says, finally speaking the words that have been on her mind for weeks, if not months. “I know you see him in me.”
“You remind me of him, of the man he used to be,” Remus admits. “With some of the things you say… how you grab life by the…”
“I’m not him.”
“I don’t want you to be. You could never replace him, not even if you tried,” Remus says, quickly realising just how harsh those words truly are. But he can tell that Tonks understands, because she nods, as she sits down with him.
“He was your first love.”
Remus nods, before opening the box in front of him. He takes out a photo album, but he puts it to the side, not ready to face it just yet. There are tickets in there too, from shows they had seen together, receipts Sirius had kept from when they had gone out to dinner together. Not because he cared about how much it had cost, but because he wanted to keep them as a memory, as a keepsake.
“What’s this?” Tonks smiles, as she takes a flyer out of the box. “A costume party?”
“It was some Halloween event at a bar in London.” Remus shrugs, but he can’t stop himself from smiling at the memory of Sirius dressed up as Frank-n-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“Who did you dress up as?”
“I don’t remember,” Remus chuckles. “I probably wore one of Sirius’ band t-shirts with his leather jacket over it.”
“So you matched?”
“Not exactly.” Remus smiles to himself, the image of Sirius in his heels and stockings still making him blush after all these years.
“Do I want to know?”
“No,” Remus laughs, before taking out an antique jewellery box, and setting it down in his lap.
After Sirius had been sent to Azkaban, Remus had gone to his home to clear out the place. Remus had taken most of Sirius’ clothes, still hopeful that he would be out by the next month, and he’d be able to then give them back to him. He had also found most of the things from this box at Sirius’ home, and it had killed him to go through them. Just knowing that there was a chance that he would never see him again, that there would be no more tickets, no more receipts, no more flyers or photos. This would be all that was left of their relationship.
“I should have given all of this back to him,” he sighs. “But I didn’t even think about after he came back. He seemed so different… so broken.”
“Did you and him… what happened after he came back?”
“We swore to look after Harry.” Remus shrugs. “He was our priority. The rest would come later,” he says, fully aware of what happened to later.
He opens the jewellery box, ignoring Tonks’ looks of pity, and he carefully takes out the rings. It has been years since he had seen Sirius wearing them, but even now he can still see them on the teenager’s hands. How he had used them to stand out from the crowd.
Back then they had looked like beautiful family heirlooms, but when Remus sees them now, he can tell that they are nothing more than cheap, tacky things. He can’t say he’s disappointed though, it only makes him smile, as he slides one of them onto his own finger.
“They looked better on him,” he says, self-consciously, but Tonks wraps her hand around his, and she gently brushes her thumb over the ring.
“You should keep it on,” she says, and it makes Remus look up from his hand, a confused look on his face. “As a reminder.”
“I don’t need a reminder.”
Tonks nods, looking a little hurt, because she was only trying to help.
“What I’m trying to say is…,” Remus quickly explains, “… that I don’t need this to remember him. I will never forget about him. I can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
It’s been hours since they had finished clearing out the attic, or rather, going through the boxes before putting everything back in its place. Simply stacking them up had created enough place for Tonks to store her things there too, and although Remus had felt guilty for not being able to throw much out, she hadn’t complained at all. In fact, she had been the one to tell him to put everything back in its place, before he’d regret getting rid of something.
He knows he should be relieved, but he still feels emotionally drained, and being reminded of the life he once it had, it has left him feeling raw.
So he goes back up to the attic, and he takes out the box with the things he had taken from Sirius’ home. He had ignored the photo album this morning, but now he opens it, and the first photo is one of him and Lily. They are both laughing out loud, and Remus still remembers James pulling silly faces, trying his best to distract them.
He flips to the next photo, one of him and Sirius, cuddled up in front of the fire together. They had been kids, and it had been long before they had both become aware of their feelings for each other. But even now, Remus can tell that the bond between them, it had been stronger than the bond with their other friends. He doesn’t even know how it happened, perhaps it started when Sirius had given him his jumper. Perhaps it happened when Remus had lain in bed, weak and wounded, and Sirius had climbed in with him without saying a word, without asking questions. He had simply held him until he had fallen asleep.
He flips to the last photo, but it’s only halfway in the album. The rest was left empty, and being reminded of this, of everything that was taken from them, it fills Remus’ eyes with tears.
He stares down at the photo of him and Sirius, of the two of them standing in the snow. Sirius has his arms wrapped around Remus’ waist, and he kisses his neck, making him giggle. Remus had been so embarrassed when the moment had been caught, but now that he sees it, he is glad that he still has it to look back at.
But the longer he stares at it, the more it hurts. So he closes the album, and he takes out a small black box which he had tried his hardest to ignore earlier that day. He had only seen it opened once before, and he hadn’t been able to face it since.
He carefully opens it, and when he sees the ring in it, his heart breaks all over again.
It had made him fall down to his knees when he had first found it at Sirius’. Realising that Sirius was going to propose, that they had been so close to getting everything they had dreamt of together, it had been too much to handle.
Even now, it’s something he doesn’t know how to deal with emotionally.
He carefully takes the ring out of its box, and he slides it onto his finger. But where the ring he had worn this afternoon had simply reminded him of his friend, of what he had worn, what he had looked like, this is different.
This time when he looks down at his hand, he sees things as they should have been. Sirius should have proposed, and he should have been given this ring to wear for the rest of his life. There should have been a wedding, kids… Remus has to stop himself from thinking about it any longer, because he knows that if he lets himself go there, he will fall apart again.
But as he tries to takes the ring off, he realises that he can’t. It’s not that it’s stuck, or that an energy is forcing him to keep it on. But he just can’t get himself to take it off. It feels like he would be betraying everything Sirius and him had shared, everything they should have shared. It feels like he would be saying that he has somehow moved on from the man he had once loved.
But he knows that he could never move on from Sirius.
Not even if he tried.