Chapter Text
“Prongs? James? I swear if you’re fucking with me, I will kill you.” A boy, no, a man with shaggy black hair and devilish good looks whispered into the night to seemingly nobody. He sighed after a second of silence and leaned on a wall of a nearby stone cottage. He looked up at the sky to see the stars twinkling down at him. As if they were mocking him for losing his best friend and partner in crime. He glared at them and felt for the smooth stone in his pocket. At least that was still there. He had a sudden urge to throw the stupid pebble into the black night.
He was told that it had magical properties, which was why he and James stole the stupid thing in the first place. It was heavily guarded enough that they believed it. But now that the man was holding it, it felt useless. Was there perhaps a certain way to activate it? A spell or incantation? The old man at the pub made it seem believable enough at the time but now, looking back on it, there was something off about the way he spoke. He spoke in a mystical way that sounded outdated. Like he was meant to be in some much earlier and more sophisticated time period. Something about the way his blue eyes sparkled from behind his glasses seemed almost mesmerising. He told the two boys, no, men , about a magical stone that the king had locked up in the depths of his castle. He said that the stone was highly valuable and had unique magical properties that one would kill to get their hands on.
But moping about it wasn’t doing any good. The moon’s position in the sky told him it was past midnight. He would never make any progress looking for James in the dark when his stomach was grumbling frustratingly and his body was aching for a rest. He looked into the window of the small stone house that he was resting against. The inside was dark and empty. He walked around the house and tried the doorknob of the wooden door. It was unlocked. He figured that if nobody lived there, it would be fine if he slept there for the night. He stepped into the small cottage and the wooden floorboards creaked under his feet. The door slammed shut loudly behind him and he flinched. He looked back at the door but nothing was there. He shivered in the warm summer night as he moved forward.
A nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him something wasn’t right. And that suspicion was proven correct when he came face to face with a frying pan. He staggered back in surprise at the sudden confrontation with kitchenware.
“Alright, I don’t know who the fuck you are or how you found me but you better step the fuck back unless you fancy yourself dead.” A voice came from the other end of the frying pan. It was hard to tell who the person was in the darkroom but it was unmistakably a male’s voice.
He took a step back and held his hands up in surrender, “Dead? Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” He asked facetiously.
“Think you’re funny, do you?”
“A bit.” He confessed. “Now, why don’t you lower that before you hurt someone, more specifically me , and we can talk this little misunderstanding out like men. Yeah?” He offered.
The boy scoffed, “Misunderstanding? You mean it’s a misunderstanding that you want to give me up to the King?”
“What? Why would I want to do that?” He asked. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I have no idea who you are and I can promise you that I would be the last person that would turn you over to the King.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He sighed impatiently. This was going nowhere. “Kid,” He addressed him in an exasperated tone. And though the boy sounded as though he was around his own age, he still felt the need to exert some form of dominance over him. “I’m on the run from the King myself. So it would be pretty hypocritical and downright stupid of me to hand you over.”
The boy seemed to consider this for a second and his grip on the frying pan loosened. “If you’re not here to capture me, then why are you here?”
He hesitated for a brief second before deciding it was probably best to tell the truth. “I was being chased, I saw this seemingly empty house and went inside. End of story.” It wasn’t exactly a lie . He just wanted to spare this boy all the sordid details of his predicament. Namely the reason he was being chased.
The boy sighed and lowered his frying pan. There was the sound of a match being lit and the small room they were in was aglow with a dim orange flame from a candle.
“Well, this house isn’t empty. So you can leave now.” The boy stared him down with warm brown eyes. He had a head full of light brown curls and was quite tall. He was all shadows though in the candlelight so it was hard to see much else.
“Can’t I stay the night? I’ll be gone before dawn, I promise.”
“And get arrested for harbouring a fugitive?” The boy asked, “I don’t think so. Get lost.”
“By the sounds of it, you’re a fugitive as well.”
“It’s...complicated.”
He smiled, “Then we can be on the run from the law together.” He walked past the boy and into the small kitchen. “Anyways, I’m starving. Do you know how to use that thing for something other than murder?”
The boy followed him into the kitchen, “Hey, wait! I never said you could stay!” He protested.
“Do you think it’s too early for eggs and bacon?” He wondered aloud, searching the pantries for something that looked edible.
“You can’t just come into my house and eat my food!”
“Can and will. What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t.” The boy said reluctantly.
“That’s a nice name. Your mum give it to you?”
The boy huffed impatiently, “No. That is not my name.”
“Then would you be so kind as to tell me what your name is rather than what it’s not?”
“Remus. You?” The boy, Remus, seemed to have given up trying to force him out of the kitchen and sat on top of one of the counters.
“Sirius. How do we feel about bread for an early breakfast?”
“Plain bread?” Remus asked.
“Well, it’s all I could find. You’re a terrible host, you know that?”
“And you’re a terrible guest. There’s jam in the cupboard.”
Sirius smiled, pleased that Remus was complying. He wondered what James would think about the predicament he had gotten himself into. James was usually a lot better with situations like this than Sirius. But he thought he was doing alright. He sliced some bread and spread some of the jam that Remus pointed out on two stale pieces of it. “So, what’d you get yourself in trouble for? Bad hospitality?”
Remus rolled his eyes and picked up his slice of bread. “Maybe I’d be more hospitable if my guest didn’t break into my house in the middle of the night.”
“Didn’t answer the question.” Sirius pointed out after taking a bite of his breakfast.
“Nothing gets past you, does it?”
“Not usually, no. Now, are you going to murder me in my sleep?” Sirius asked.
Remus hummed contemplatively, “Thinking about it.”
“Could you at least do it quickly? I don’t have the time for a slow and painful death. Got places to be.”
“I don’t usually take requests but I’ll see what I can do.” Remus quipped nonchalantly. He lit another candle and Sirius finally got a good view of his face. Remus had a long jagged scar that ran across the bridge of his nose. Along with one that dragged across his right cheek and stretched to his neck. There was a sprinkling of freckles dispersed across his tan skin and the light from the candles danced on his skin in a way that made it almost impossible for Sirius to look away.
Remus looked at Sirius with a puzzled expression. “What’s…” He went to ask but then he reached up to touch his face and frowned. “Oh.” He said in a disappointed sort of tone and got down from the counter. Sirius realised just then that he fucked it up. He didn’t know what he fucked up. But he knew that it was irreversibly fucked up. And he had no idea what to do about it. But after a brief second of panic, he realised that it’s not really his problem. Why would he care if he hurt this stranger’s feelings? “There’s a bedroom down the hall you can sleep in. You have to be out by midday.”
“Got it,” Sirius said and gave a kind of awkward nod, staring down at his half-eaten bread. He lost his appetite. He placed the slice on the counter and tried to knock some sense into himself. Remus showed him to an empty bedroom and left. There was a warm draft coming from the open window in the darkroom. Sirius sat on the bed and sighed, making a mental promise to himself that he would set off and find James when he woke up. If he’s still alive. His brain provided unhelpfully. He blinked and shook his head to try to get that awful image out of his head. He sighed and laid down, hoping for sleep to come over him quickly.