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Remus first grew concerned when Sirius returned for Sixth year. Over the summer, Remus had received an increasingly alarming set of letters detailing the Black family’s pure-blood activities, bigoted politics, and painful punishments. It wasn’t uncommon to not hear from Sirius for days, even weeks, only to receive stilted and hurried letters late at night. All of this cumulated in his running away, disownment, and being burned off the Black family tapestry.
When they returned to Hogwarts, the Potters now in charge of dropping off both James and Sirius, it was like nothing had happened. Sirius was full of wide smiles and bold antics. When Remus tried to bring up his parents, he was always brushed off.
“Why are you talking about the outside world, Moony?” Sirius would respond with a grin, “everything I need is right here.” He would gesture to the grand building around them, the friends by their side, and he would keep his eyes on Remus a little too long. They had broken up after The Prank and though Remus had forgiven him, it had left the two of them in a weird place. Remus wanted to tell Sirius that he could talk to him, but he knew Sirius wouldn't take him up on it.
Instead, Remus went to James.
“I don’t know what to tell you, man. He’s been like that ever since he arrived at my house with his trunk in hand.”
“He wasn’t upset at all?” Remus asked James.
“For a few days he was real sullen, but he bounced right back. Happy to be out of that house, I bet.”
“But still…”
“Look, Moony, he’s happy. I don’t see what you’re worried about.”
Remus tried to be comforted by that, but he could just sense something was off. He knew what a real Sirius Black smile was. It wasn’t the dazzling one he flaunted with pride nor the smirk he gave all the girls who looked his way. No, the real Sirius Black smile was the one he would give Remus when they would share a bed and fall asleep in each other’s arms. It was soft and small and reached his eyes. It was one he hadn’t seen in months.
Remus’ concern only grew when the drinking began.
It wasn’t uncommon for the Marauders to throw parties. In fact, their parties were so legendary that they had been unofficially put in charge of every post-Quidditch game party. The firewhiskey would flow, the music would play, and the teen laughter would fill the air. James and Sirius loved these nights and even Remus found himself enjoying them.
But since the school year started, Sirius was always aching to party. He would think of any excuse - the start of the year, a good Quidditch game or even a bad one, the birthday of any Gryffindor he could think of. If he couldn’t find an excuse, he would just pull out a bottle of firewhiskey he kept by his bed and declare a Marauders dorm party - smaller, often just the four of them and maybe Lily and her friends - which Remus loved but grew weary of Sirius’ constant need to be drunk every weekend.
At big parties, Sirius would drink until he couldn’t see straight. He would drink and dance and sing and drink again. He would drink until the walls swirled and a warm feeling overtook him so much that nothing else mattered. He often blacked out, waking up in all manners of places: couches, stairways, hidden passages, but rarely his own bed. It drove Remus mad looking for him with the map every Sunday morning.
Small dorm parties were only marginally better. Sirius wouldn’t drink as much - not with his friends' watchful eyes and no mass of partygoers to hide his own erratic behavior. They would all laugh and joke but as the night wore on, Sirius would go silent, lost in his mind. Once everyone would go to bed, Sirius would climb into Remus’ bed.
The first time it happened, Remus had half the mind to kick him out and let himself rest, but then Sirius wrapped his arms around him and started to cry quietly.
“What’s wrong?” Remus whispered as he put his arms around the other boy.
“Can I please just stay here tonight?” Sirius said softly, his voice breaking.
Remus glanced at the canvas above him. Sirius Black was going to be the death of him. “Of course, Pads. Whatever you need.”
Sirius snuggled into him and Remus ran his fingers through the other boy’s hair until his breathing evened out and he too fell asleep.
Remus didn’t mention it to anyone. James and Peter both had too much of a hangover to realize that Sirius had spent the night in his bed. Soon, it became a habit. Every weekend, Sirius found his way to Remus’ bed, drunk and stumbling. Sometimes crying, sometimes just silent. Remus held him no matter what.
Every weekend soon turned to every night when Remus realized Sirius wasn’t getting much sleep during the week. He always came to breakfast with dark circles and yawns and it wasn’t until after a dorm party one night that Remus realized why.
Sirius was spending the night in Remus’ bed as he did every Saturday evening. It was the early hours of the morning and Remus had been woken up by Sirius mumbling and twisting beside him.
“Please Mother…” he whispered desperately. There were tears streaming down his cheeks, “You can’t force him to join… stop… no… please… not the crucios Mother please…”
Remus jostled Sirius until at last, he awoke, gasping and terrified.
“Sirius, it’s okay. I’m here. You’re at Hogwarts. You’re safe.”
Sirius looked at him with wild eyes and nodded until his breathing returned to a normal speed. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
Remus shook his head, “Don’t be,” He grasped Sirius’ hand, “Nightmare?”
“Yeah,” he said, voice dry and raspy.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked gently.
“No, I’d rather not.” Sirius looked outside the curtains, checking what time it was by the early morning sky. “I’ll go back to my own bed. I don’t think I’ll be getting back to sleep.”
“No, stay,” Remus said, pulling him back down on the mattress, “just lay with me.”
Sirius looked at him with an unreadable expression, “okay.”
Remus was greatly relieved, “okay,” and they settled down into the bed.
They didn’t talk about it in the morning, nor did Remus mention the nightmare to James. Instead, the next night after everyone had gone to bed, Remus padded over to Sirius’ bed and pulled back the curtains. Sirius was lying above the covers staring at the canopy, not even trying to sleep. The bottle of fire whiskey laid by his pillow.
“You could lay with me, if you want,” Remus said quietly.
Sirius glanced over at him, “alright.”
After that, Sirius spent every night in Remus’ bed. It didn’t take long for James to notice. At breakfast one morning, he grinned at the two of them as they sat down.
“You two back together then?” he asked quietly but excitedly.
“No,” Remus said in a way that closed all further conversation. Sirius changed the subject to Peter’s transfiguration essay and James dropped it. Still, Remus would catch the way James eyes’ would trail after them if they ever went anywhere together or the way he would stare when they sat next to each other on the couches in the common room.
Remus wanted to shout at him, I don’t know what’s going on either! but, he didn’t. He still felt like he was walking on thin ice around Sirius and trying to rekindle a relationship right now might just break him.
Then Sirius started taking walks. Sometimes Remus would join him, but mostly he went alone. He often went out after he woke from a nightmare and couldn’t get back to sleep, or if he had seen Regulus in the halls that day. He would often disappear without telling anyone and Remus thanked Merlin for the map or else his worries would be much worse.
One night, Remus hadn’t seen Sirius for hours. He had skipped potions and hadn’t been at the feast either. As the night stretched on and Sirius had yet to make an appearance in their dorm, Remus decided to go find him. He stole the invisibility cloak and the map from James’ side table and ventured out into the halls.
Remus had never liked the castle at night. Between the poor candlelight and the long shadows, it felt even more haunted than usual. It always reminded Remus of the muggle stories his mother would tell him. The ones where the knight saves a princess from a dragon in some old decrepit castle. He always wondered what that girl felt like waiting for someone to save her in an ancient, broken down tower with only a monster for company. He felt like that every month when he would wait in the Shrieking Shack in those terrible last moments of lucidity before the wolf overtook him.
Remus found Sirius on the Astronomy tower. Normally, it was a place for couples to come to make out, but it was blissfully empty tonight, save one dark-haired boy looking up at the stars.
“Trying to find yourself?” Remus called to the other boy as he walked towards him. Sirius was sitting on top of the ledge, his legs dangling off into the drop below, but didn’t even flinch at Remus’ intrusion on his thoughts. Remus stood next to him and placed his arms on the stone.
“Mother had us memorize the constellations since I was five. It was a part of our long and arduous teachings on the Black family tree.”
It was the first Sirius had truly mentioned the Black family months, apart from his mumbled dreams.
“So that’s why your astronomy marks were always better than mine.”
“You didn’t do too bad for yourself if I remember correctly.”
“Well, you can’t have your best mate named after a constellation without at least knowing where it is.”
“I’m named after a star, mate. Maybe you’re not as good as I thought.”
“Well, let’s see,” Remus said staring at the night sky, “Well there’s Mars.” He pointed up at the planet, “there we have Jupiter and over to the left, the big dipper.” Remus shifted closer to Sirius, “and over there,” he said pointing to the other boy’s namesake, “that’s where you’re shining.”
“Impressive.”
“I've always known how to find you.”
Sirius looks over at him. For a brief moment, Remus hoped he might see a smile, but not tonight. It was that same complicated expression Sirius had worn for months. It was the face of someone who had just said goodbye.
“I’ll give the naming tradition one thing,” Remus said, “the night sky always reminds me of you.”
“Funny that,” Sirius replied, “I was gonna say the same thing about you.”
Remus followed his gaze up to the moon and then looked back down. He’d rather not face his old enemy right now. Remus stared down at the ground below them. It must have been at least a hundred feet up. Sirius’ very precarious sitting position dawned on Remus all at once. You don’t sit on the edge like that if you don’t want to fall at least a little bit.
“Why are you up here, Sirius?”
Sirius just let out a long sigh. Remus could tell he didn’t want to answer but he forced himself to stay staring at Sirius until at last, he spoke.
“It’s just like…” Sirius looked out at the ground spread out beneath of him, “I lived my whole life telling myself I could never be their perfect son and that when I get out, it will all be better. That once I escaped, I could finally be free. I mean this was everything I’ve wanted since I was eleven years old. And yet…” Sirius trailed off.
“Yet what?” Remus whispered into the cold night air.
“Yet it still hurts so much. And it shouldn’t. I mean they were awful to me, Moony. Unbelievably cruel. The things they did to me, the things they wanted me to do, the things they’ll force Regulus to do… It was the definition of evil and yet, it killed me to leave. To leave Reg there.”
“Regulus can handle himself. You’ve told me they’re better to him.”
“Still. I gave him a decision though. I asked him to come with me.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“He said no. Well, he didn’t say anything, but that was enough of an answer.”
“You’re better off living with the Potters,” Remus said and reached his hand over Sirius'.
“I know. I know that. It’s just - they were my family. It wasn’t all bad. Not when we were kids. Sure it was stuffy and Mother could be severe, but we had fun. Reg and I used to play pranks on our cousins all the time and even Mother seemed to enjoy having me around even when I was being rambunctious. After my sorting, that all changed, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had tried harder. If I had been that perfect son they always wanted me to be.”
Remus didn’t know how to respond to that, so he said the only thing going through his mind, “Sirius, get down from the roof.”
Sirius let out a humorless laugh, “I’m not going to jump, Moony.”
“Good, because if you did, I’d be right there next to you.”
Sirius looked over at him sharply, “don’t say things like that.”
“It’s true. Remember what you said to me in Second Year after you found out I’m a werewolf. I was packing to run away and live someplace else and you said to me, ‘don’t you dare, wherever you go, I’m going.’ So if you want to jump, you’re pulling me down with you.”
“Stop talking like this!” Sirius' gaze was sharp on Remus'.
“Well, then get down! Because I swear to God, Sirius, if you jump, I’m jumping. There is no me without you.”
Sirius stared at Remus for a moment and then pulled himself around and landed firmly on the stone floor of the astronomy tower.
“Oh, thank Merlin,” Remus breathed out and enveloped Sirius in a desperate embrace, “you pull that shit again and I’ll kill you myself.”
“Sorry,” Sirius said into Remus’ arms. As Remus finally let go, Sirius stepped back and stared straight at Remus, “thank you though, for being here.”
“Of course, where else would I be?”
Sirius gave Remus a smile and for the first time in months, it was a genuine one. The soft and sweet one that Remus thought had disappeared forever. Remus smiled back and then very gently placed his sides of Sirius’ head and placed a kiss on his forehead.
“Come on,” Remus said, “it’s cold up here.”
Sirius nodded and Remus placed the invisibility cloak over them. It was a little small for the two of them but neither of them minded much. Sirius took Remus’ hand in his and gave it a squeeze. It would all be okay, as long as they had eachother's backs.