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Remus woke to a modest campfire. He pulled the tattered coat tighter around himself. As he sat up, he engaged its sleeves and wrapped it in front. He looked around. He nodded slowly to the half asleep hippogriff nearby.
The hippogriff turned its head away with a restful sigh.
Remus took a stick from under his thigh and stoked the fire with it. In return, it provided a comforting ward against the cold, damp dew and served as a reminder that the wolf was gone for now.
Twigs snapped in the fire and under approaching footsteps.
"Good morning," Sirius greeted Remus as he returned with an armful of wood.
"Yes, good morning." Remus watched him get situated.
Of all the space available around the campfire, Sirius sat down next to Remus.
"About last night," Remus started. He stopped. He looked down with a touch to his head. "Where to begin…?"
"Harry and the other children are safe," Sirius assured him.
Remus looked up. He nodded slowly.
"When they brought me this hippogriff, I immediately went looking for you," Sirius continued.
Remus covered his mouth. "I remember fighting Padfoot," he whispered. "Did I hurt you?"
"No. The nurse back at the castle patched me up while they decided what to do with me."
"So, which is it?"
"I'm fine now," Sirius insisted. When it was clear Remus wouldn't argue, he continued his recap. "Once we spotted you, Buckbeak and I waited on that outcropping up there while your wolf repeatedly failed to climb the rock wall beneath us or find another way around."
Remus's gaze followed Sirius's gestures to the mossy scenery.
Sirius leaned back, resting his weight on his palms. "It was only a matter of time before the moon set, the sun rose, and here we are."
Remus admired Sirius's ability to sum up a catastrophe so plainly. "Listening to you tell it, I would think last night was merely another Marauder's plot gone horribly wrong."
Sirius chuckled.
"Like the incident with the tapestry," Remus reminisced.
Sirius's eyes narrowed. He couldn't quite place that one.
Remus turned to Sirius. "You remember, don't you? When you, James, and--" Remus interrupted the relaxed atmosphere as if it had been a spell cast by Sirius's nonchalance. "What about Peter?"
"I'll find him next. You come first."
Remus blushed, turning forward again. "Thank you."
"How are you feeling?"
"Sore... Exhausted..." Remus's eyes met Sirius's. "Relieved."
Sirius smiled.
Remus placed his hand over Sirius's. "I'm glad you're back."
"Me too."
"Do you have a place to stay?"
"Do you?" Sirius asked incredulously.
Remus scoffed. "Not likely after last night." He eyed Sirius. "I don't suppose we could find a place together."
"I don't see why not." Sirius raised his eyebrows. After a moment of reflection on their current states-- Sirius, wild haired, filthy mouthed, and still in his prison uniform; Remus, sporting a tousled bed-head look and, save for Sirius's dingy coat, absolutely nothing else-- he looked aside. "Eventually."
Remus smiled. "It won't be easy."
Sirius shrugged. "It'll be fine. Once we clean ourselves up and I figure out how to get some money out of Gringott's, we could rent a flat or buy a cottage in a remote muggle town somewhere." Sirius leaned his head to the side. "I'll mostly be traveling, of course. But having a home to return to would be a welcome change."
Remus nodded.
Sirius looked sidelong at him. "Promise I'll be back for the full moons."
"Promise?" Remus chuckled nervously.
"That's what I said."
Remus fidgeted with the fire. "I'll be alright."
"I'll see to it you're better than alright," Sirius boasted.
"Since I've been handling it on my own all this time--"
"You shouldn't have had to." Sirius's tone carried more weight than usual.
"And you shouldn't have been sentenced to prison!" Remus shouted. He collected himself quickly. "Living like that day in, day out, for so long… I suffer a few days in a month. Every day for over a decade-- I can't even imagine what that must have been like."
"Bloody dreadful, don't get me wrong. But it's over now."
"Is it truly? Have you moved on so quickly?"
Sirius frowned.
Remus held his head. "I'm sorry."
"It's not about pity, if that's what you're thinking," Sirius assured him. "Nor is it to feel better about myself."
"What, then?"
"Devotion."
The fire cracked. Remus poked at it some more. Sirius grabbed a handful of sticks and dropped them on top of it.
"I do occasionally have nightmares about Azkaban," Sirius admitted. "Would you comfort me only to boost your ego?"
"No," Remus declared quickly.
"Why, then?"
"Because it's something that should have never happened to you."
Sirius leaned back from Remus enough to spread his arms in a gesture of, "Don't you see it's the same?"
Remus looked away again with a bashful smile, as if to say, "Point taken."
"After all that time wasted I have no interest in playing coy," Sirius muttered.
"You wouldn't object, then, to my joining you on your journey," Remus suggested.
"Not at all." Sirius relaxed his posture. "We'll retreat to our home whenever it feels appropriate. If that happens to coincide with the full moon, all the better."
Remus snickered. "When have I heard that before?"
Sirius's brows knit with a quick tilt to his head. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "When would you have?"
"When you started insisting we live together once we graduated Hogwarts."
"When was this?"
Remus blinked. "In our fifth year," he said softly. "After you stole my first kiss. I demanded you take responsibility as a joke but you took it seriously. Living together was your solution." He edged closer to Sirius. "You don't remember that either, do you?"
Sirius looked aside. "You'd think I would." He managed a pained smirk while imagining it.
"The dementors," Remus concluded solemnly. "With so much time they must have taken quite a bit."
"I have no way to know." Sirius shook his head.
"Are you able to summon a patronus?"
"I haven't tried."
"Well." Remus wrapped his arms around Sirius's shoulders. "No matter how many happy memories they took from you, we can always make more."
Sirius rested his head on Remus's shoulder.