Chapter Text
Soot sprayed from the fireplace and onto the living room carpet as Remus arrived back at his cottage by the Floo Network. He shook some of the remaining soot out of his hair as he made his way towards his kitchen, intent on procuring a cup of tea while he sat down and finally contemplated all that had happened in the past few days.
The last few days had proven to be eventful, to say the least. One friend, presumed dead for over twelve years, was revealed to not only be alive and well but to have orchestrated the deaths of his friends. The other, presumed mass murderer and escapee from Azkaban, turned out to be innocent of the crimes he was believed to have committed. For a few shining moments, everything seemed to have fixed itself. Pettigrew would be arrested, Sirius would be acquitted, and Remus wouldn’t be alone anymore. But the universe had a different course set for that night.
Steeping a tea bag into a cup of boiling water, Remus sat down at his kitchen table. His already neglected cottage had gone nearly ten months without its occupant and was looking rather sorry for itself. The soot from the floo littered the floor in front of the fireplace, dust had collected on nearly every surface in the room, and a rather impressive cobweb had taken up residence in one of the ceiling corners. A deep-cleaning of the cottage was in order and frankly, Remus was glad to have something to take his mind off the events of the previous days.
After waging war against the cottage and its collection of dust, spiders, and a multitude of other wear and tear issues for the best part of a week following his return home, Remus managed to restore order to his cottage.
On account of Dumbledore’s wishes and no small amount of bribery and persuasion by those such as McGonagall or the Trio, Remus had agreed to remain in his position as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for the following year. Thankfully, the incident that had occurred the night Pettigrew escaped had been contained, due in large part thanks to Dumbledore preventing any so-called slips or leaks from that night. Thus, Remus’s condition was not publicized for the whole of Hogwarts or indeed the Wizarding World to know. He had fought hard to get Dumbledore to allow him to resign, but the headmaster knew better than to let the best Defense professor to have graced the classroom in a long while to leave if he had any say in it. And as headmaster, Dumbledore had quite a lot of say in the matter.
So Remus would remain as a Hogwarts professor for the following year at least, much to the disdain of Severus Snape, who had wanted him gone from the moment he stepped foot in the castle.
In preparation for the soon approaching fall term, Remus set to work revising and adapting his syllabi, shifting lessons around, and adding or removing curriculum based on his experiences of the last year. He knew of the plans for Hogwarts to host the Triwizard Tournament and also knew that not only the events but the excitement surrounding them would inevitably affect all of the classes at Hogwarts - from the additional students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to the Ministry officials and reporters to the tasks themselves, it was sure to be an eventful year for all involved.
By the last week of July, it was soon approaching the full moon. It weighed heavily on Remus, feeling extremely tired and achy by the day itself. He did not, however, stay in bed where he should have been, as he was feeling anxious and restless. Thus, in a last-ditch attempt to calm his nerves in the hours before sunset, Remus found himself rummaging through old boxes in his attic. He wasn’t searching for anything in particular. He hadn’t gone through these boxes in years, as many of them contained painful memories of the past, full of fierce friends and youthful ignorance of the world ahead. But the discovery of Sirius’s innocence prompted Remus to open himself up again to some of those memories.
Remus eventually found some old books and photographs from his and Sirius’s apartment after they had graduated from Hogwarts. He smiled softly as he remembered the trouble the two had to try to arrange and decorate the apartment, especially as Sirius feigned Shakespearean-worthy faints of exhaustion any time Remus wanted to do a task Sirius would rather have not done. It hadn’t annoyed Remus, though, as Sirius would always help eventually and just his presence had been nice enough for Remus in those days anyway. He wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t thrown these out when Sirius was arrested. He remembered trying to throw the lot of them out a few months after James and Lily’s deaths but had found himself unable to, choosing instead to stuff them into boxes and ignore them.
A clattering thunk in the garden gave Remus pause and he stood to look through the attic window what could have made the sound but saw nothing. He cautiously made his way down the attic stairs, pulling his wand out as he walked towards the door. With all the shielding charms he had performed on the house, in theory, there shouldn’t be anyone or anything that could have made that noise. However, memories of the war and the constant fear of ambush arose in his mind as he prepared himself to deal with whatever might be out in the garden, even if it was only a fox or something equally innocent. He cast lumos as he opened the front door, as dusk was beginning to set as the sun lowered over the horizon. He stopped just outside the door frame and pointed his wand across the garden, its light revealing nothing obvious that would have made a noise.
A small whine came from the bush next to the door, startling Remus for a moment before he could fix his eyes on the animal. A big, black dog sat patiently in the bushes, staring at Remus much more intently than any real dog ever would. The dog stood and slipped through the gap between Remus’s legs and the doorframe. He stood gaping for a moment looking at the now empty spot where the dog had been in the bushes and where it was now sat, thumping its tail, in the middle of his living room. He shut the door quickly and closed the blinds on the windows with his wand. Assured that they would not be seen, the dog transformed back into his human form, that of Sirius Black.
“Hey Remus,” Sirius said croakily. He cleared his throat and stood awkwardly in front of his friend, waiting for him to say something.
Remus, however, was too busy gaping silently at him, trying to figure out why and how Sirius had arrived at his cottage.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Remus asked, having finally regained his speech. “You’re a wanted man and you decided to come here? Are you trying to get caught!?”
Sirius stared at the floor, resembling a dog being scolded by its owner, and mumbled something incoherently.
“What?” Remus asked frustratedly.
“It’s the full moon tonight,” Sirius said softly.
“Sirius, this is dangerous!” Remus exclaimed. “The Ministry of Magic, the entire Wizarding World is looking for you! You should have left the country weeks ago!”
“I’m sorry,” Sirius apologized. “But I had to see you. I didn’t,” Sirius paused. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Remus sighed, simultaneously frustrated and exhausted by his friend, not to mention the full moon in the next hour or two. He ran a weary hand over his face and looked back at Sirius, still standing rather stiffly in the center of the room.
“Sirius,” Remus began.
“Please Remus,” Sirius interrupted. “Look I’m here now and I want to help you.”
“If you tell me to sod off tomorrow, then I will, I promise,” Sirius continued. “Just let me help tonight?”
“I’ve been through more than enough full moons on my own Sirius,” Remus said. Sirius winced slightly at his friend’s words but knew that they were true nonetheless. More than one hundred and fifty moons had passed since Sirius’s arrest, all of which Remus had faced alone for the first time since he was fifteen. Remus was more than capable of facing one more without Sirius, he told himself. He didn’t need him there. Didn’t he?
“I know,” Sirius whispered faintly. “I’m sorry.”
The pair stood silent for a few moments while they waited for Remus to give his answer. It was dangerous and reckless for Sirius to have come, but he couldn’t exactly throw him out on his backside now, Remus thought to himself.
“Fine,” Remus said finally. Sirius’s neck snapped up to look at him expectantly. “Stay tonight.”
A small smile appeared on Sirius’s face. Remus fought the urge to smile back at him, too annoyed by his reckless actions, instead turning towards the kitchen to make a cup of tea. He offered Sirius a cup and told him to sit down, which Sirius did. The two sat quietly and drank their tea, Sirius building up the courage to start a conversation while Remus seemed intent on avoiding said conversation.
“How long until,” Sirius’s question lingered in the air.
“Probably an hour yet,” Remus checked his watch. “The sun’s only just begun to set.”
“I hope Moony’s not mad at me,” Sirius deviated suddenly. Remus furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
“Why would he be mad?” Remus asked. They often referred to Remus’s transformation in the third person as Remus hated feeling connected to the wolf.
“We got in a bit of a tiff,” Sirius explained vaguely.
“It’ll be fine, I’m still taking the Wolfsbane Potion,” Remus said.
“That potion Snivellus makes you?” Remus gave Sirius an unimpressed look. “When did that come around?”
“Back in the eighties, but I’ve only been taking it this past year,” Remus explained. “If I take it the week before the full moon, it allows me to keep my mind during the full moon.”
“That’s good,” Sirius said. “So no Moony tonight?”
“No Moony,” Remus repeated. “Just me. I usually go to sleep, so you won’t exactly have much to do.”
“Dunno Remus,” Sirius said with a slight grin on his face. “Looking after a sleeping werewolf seems like a pretty tall order to me. Think I can handle that?”
Remus snorted into his cup and rolled his eyes at Sirius, glad to see some of his old personality rise to the surface. Azkaban had changed Sirius, but the grin plastered on his face was the same one he’d always had.
“After I left, what happened at Hogwarts?” Sirius asked after a few minutes of silence, the question having weighed heavily upon his mind since he escaped the last month.
“Not much honestly,” Remus said. “The Minister was furious that you had escaped again, but Dumbledore sent him away. The Dementors were removed. Pomfrey was able to heal Ron’s leg and Harry and Hermione were alright as well.”
“That’s good to hear,” Sirius nodded. “I was worried that they might connect you or the kids to my escape.”
“They didn’t, though by what I heard Snape tried his damndest to,” Sirius’s face set angrily. Remus jerked his arm as if to place his hand on Sirius’s, but thought better of it. “He didn’t, don’t worry.”
“You’re sure?” Sirius asked. “What about your job, you weren’t...”
Sirius obviously wanted to know if the incident had gotten Remus sacked from his job, not that there was much Sirius could do about if he had been. But he just might have strangled Snape in his sleep if he thought the bastard had cost Remus his job.
“Sacked? No.” Remus said. “Dumbledore managed to keep the whole night under wraps, somehow.”
“You’ll stay on as a professor then?” Sirius prompted.
“Yeah,” Remus replied. “For the time being at least.”
Remus avoided discussing the finer details of his own deliberations on resigning or staying after the incident and Dumbledore, McGonagall, and the Trio’s valiant efforts to get Remus to agree to stay. Maybe someday he might find the patience or willpower to tell the story to Sirius, but with the full moon only an hour or so away, he found himself without the energy to explain further.
“That’s great Remus,” Sirius smiled genuinely at him. “You always wanted to teach. I’ll bet you’re a great professor.”
Remus hummed at Sirius’s comment, though he wasn’t entirely sure how to continue the conversation. He could tell Sirius wanted to talk more but couldn’t think of a subject free of emotional turmoil for either of them. Remus grinned to himself when one particular memory floated to the front of his mind.
“What’s funny?” Sirius asked.
“Something that happened this year,” Remus said. He explained the story of the Marauder’s Map viciously insulting Snape while Harry had looked on in a mix of horror and awe, along with his hurried explanation to save the both of them from Snape’s wrath. Sirius burst out into laughter while Remus grinned broadly back at him.
“It didn’t seriously tell him to ‘keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business’, did it?” Sirius wheezed with laughter when Remus nodded. “How the hell did he even find it, I thought Filch nicked it at the end of seventh year?”
“I think the Weasley twins might have had something to do with that,” Remus said. “Those two give the Marauders a run for our money, I’m telling you.”
Remus was about to tell Sirius about the infamous Boggart story but he hissed in pain suddenly, feeling sharp, stabbing pain across his body. Sirius sat up sharply and peered over to look at Remus’s watch. It was within half an hour of the transformation. Remus rubbed his neck in an attempt to ease the pain that had begun to course through his body, but it didn’t do much to help. Nothing could ease that kind of pain, not even the Wolfsbane Potion. It helped him to keep his mind, for which he was eternally grateful, but the pain of his transformation was always the same, with or without Wolfsbane.
“Do you need to take the potion?” Remus shook his head, having already taken it earlier.
“Where do you need to go?” Sirius asked.
“The basement,” Remus replied.
Remus’s body felt the all too familiar stabs of pain as he stood up to go down into the basement. Sirius quickly put their cups into the sink and helped Remus down the stairs. Sirius belatedly realized that he had no idea of what to expect of a Wolfsbane full moon versus a normal full moon.
“Do you need any bandages?” Sirius asked. “For tomorrow morning?”
“I shouldn’t need any,” Remus replied as he began to undress. “But they’re in the bathroom, under the sink.”
Sirius hurried back up the stairs and into the bathroom, finding the aforementioned bandages, as well as some healing potions under the sink as Remus had said. He returned to the basement, shutting the door behind him, and setting the supplies on the top steps so that he could grab them quickly the next morning if needed. When he returned down to the cellar, Remus was sitting with his back against the wall, covering himself with a blanket while he waited for the full moon to begin.
Sirius had always hated seeing Remus in pain as a result of his condition. Pre-transformation pain varied for Remus from moon to moon; sometimes it was a dull, throbbing pain that left him aching, other times it was a sharp, stabbing pain that left him in agony, as it seemed to be this night. Despite the uncomfortableness of those pains, they were nothing in comparison to the pain during the transformation. Remus knew all too well the feeling of the excruciating pain of the transformation, like white-hot knives stabbing every inch of his skin, his bones shifting and changing, and the terrifying loss of control as the wolf took over and he lost consciousness.
As Remus had been taking the Wolfsbane Potion that week, Sirius needn’t worry about having to control a full-fledged werewolf. But that didn’t stop Sirius looking at his friend with concern, feeling absolutely useless and wanting nothing more than to ease his pain.
“Padfoot, now,” Remus groaned. Sirius did as he was told and turned into Padfoot.
Remus fought the urge to cry while it happened, but he still groaned in agony, digging his nails into his palms and screwing up his eyes tight. Padfoot sat miserably in the corner and whined while watching Remus transform, frustrated and upset. When it had finally finished, Padfoot was left with an exhausted Moony who laid on the floor pitifully. Padfoot whined to get his attention and Moony gave him a small nod of the head to indicate he was alright and settled back down again. Padfoot padded over to his friend and laid down next to him. Moony had already begun to drift to sleep and the basement was full not of the growling or howls of a werewolf, but soft snores and shallow breaths. Sirius had never seen Moony like this before; he had seen angry Moony, playful Moony, hurt Moony, but never calm, sleepy Moony. He was thankful that Remus could finally have some peace of mind when he transformed, safe in the knowledge that he could control himself during a full moon.
Padfoot didn’t sleep that night, keeping vigil over Moony as he slept on without issue. The summer sun rose early in the morning and Remus transformed back into himself, but wasn’t quite yet conscious again. Sirius turned back into himself and grabbed the blanket to cover Remus while he checked him over for any injuries, not from the wolf but the transformation itself. Remus had once dislocated his shoulder after transforming back, which James and Sirius had tried to fix themselves but eventually left it to Madam Pomfrey to fix. Thankfully, Remus seemed relatively unharmed by this full moon, simply exhausted and in need of bed rest.
Remus managed to regain enough consciousness and strength after a few minutes for him and Sirius to make their way up the stairs and into his bedroom. Sirius tucked Remus into bed and gave him a pain-relieving potion he had found in his bathroom.
“How’re you feeling?” Sirius handed Remus a glass of the potion.
“I’m alright,” Remus said softly after drinking the glass’s contents. “Tired is all.”
“Go to sleep then,” Sirius said. “Call me if you need me.”
Remus hummed his acknowledgment and fell back asleep almost immediately. Sirius resisted the urge to brush the stray hairs out of his face or cuddle in bed next to him, choosing instead to go into the kitchen and see if he could find anything for breakfast. He made some toast and flipped through a book of Remus’s that had been laying on the kitchen table, a muggle one by the looks of it. Sirius read for a while before Remus appeared in the kitchen, showered and clothed, and looked a hell of a lot better than he had first thing that morning.
“Morning,” Remus greeted.
“Morning,” Sirius replied. “Feeling better?”
“Much better, thank you,” Remus said, giving him a small smile.
“I made some toast, I hope that’s okay?” Sirius asked. “You want some?”
“You and a toaster?” Remus asked sarcastically. “I thought we agreed years ago that you and muggle technology didn’t mix.”
“That was one time!” Sirius exclaimed. “The oven was fine in the end!”
“Correction, the oven was on fire until I extinguished it,” Remus laughed.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Sirius grumbled. “It was a small fire.”
“Flames were literally protruding from the oven door, Sirius, that’s hardly a ‘small’ fire,” Remus grinned.
“You put them out in the end,” Sirius replied. “Besides, look. Your precious toaster is just fine.”
Remus rolled his eyes as he walked over to make some toast for himself while Sirius sat grinning at him. It felt comfortable, him and Sirius, ribbing at each other and laughing. It felt like how it had all those years ago when he and Sirius had lived together during the war. Well, it almost felt like that. Because they weren’t teenagers anymore, they were in their thirties, and they weren’t living together, as one was a lone werewolf professor and the other an escaped prisoner on the run.
“Can I ask you something, Remus?” Sirius asked. Remus nodded. “Could I stay for a bit?”
When Remus didn’t give him an immediate answer, Sirius launched into an impromptu rambling explanation.
“You don’t have to say yes, of course,” Sirius began. “It’s just that we haven’t seen each other in a while and…”
“And I need to figure out where to go to get away from the Ministry anyway and I figured you’d be better at thinking of hiding spots than I would be,” Sirius continued after a brief hesitation, having thought better of what he might have said instead.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius began to stand from his chair. “That was a stupid question, you’ve got enough to deal with. You don’t need an escapee on your hands as well.”
Sirius gave a self-deprecating laugh as he stood from his chair, but he didn’t make it any further before Remus reached out to grab his forearm to pull him back down into his chair.
“Sirius, sit,” Remus said softly. Sirius sat down and looked, a tad worriedly, at his friend.
“I’m not about to kick you out,” Remus said. “You can stay tonight if you want.”
“You sure?” Sirius asked.
“I’m sure,” Remus replied.
“Thanks, Remus,” Sirius smiled gratefully. Remus gave him a small smile in return.
“Well, that was all quite sappy,” Sirius laughed in an attempt to diffuse the intimate moment. “Getting sentimental in your old age are you?”
“You’re one to talk,” Remus laughed lightly.
“I’m glad you’re here Sirius,” Remus said after a pause. I missed you.
“Glad to be here,” Sirius said. I missed you too.
“Well, uh,” Remus cleared his throat. “We can start looking for some secluded hiding spots later today or tomorrow if you want? There’s a library nearby I can get some maps or travel books from.”
“It’s a da-,” Sirius began before stopping himself short. “Plan. That’s a good plan.”
“Right,” Remus said, slightly disappointed. He would have liked to hear what Sirius had been about to say. “I’d better be off to the library then.”
“You sure you’re alright to go?” Sirius asked as Remus pulled his jacket on. He always worried about Remus’s wellbeing after the full moon.
“I’ll be fine,” Remus said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“See you then,” Sirius smiled softly and waved as Remus left out his front door.
It felt strange, Remus thought to himself, leaving his house knowing that someone would be there waiting for him when he came back. He had been annoyed at Sirius’s recklessness and lack of self-preservation, but it also gave him a reminder of the Sirius he had known when they were young. The Sirius who would enchant a motorbike to fly or attempt to fistfight the Whomping Willow on a dare from James. But better still were the memories Remus had of returning to their shared apartment to be greeted by Sirius. When they would make dinner, or if they were feeling particularly lazy order take-out, and relax in each other’s company until they went to bed. Those were the memories Remus cherished most of all, just him and Sirius together.
He knew Sirius would have to leave soon. They couldn’t remake the home they had in that apartment, not yet. But God if Remus didn’t hope that, one day, they’d be able to have that again, to have that sense of love and security again.
One day, he promised himself. One day, they could have that again.