Chapter Text
The first full moon is the worst.
The creature scratches at his throat and his eyes; his lips that’s tainted with betrayal and mistrust, every inch of his body that has been touched by him before, but his heart the most. It rips apart his own ribcage, trying to get the hurt to stop. In every beat, his heart sings with poisoned love. It lives the pain over the over again, with no relief. It doesn’t want the pain to stop. The pain gives it something to focus on as it howls and destroys.
Molly talks Remus’ head off when he transforms back. His ribcage looks like a rag doll’s, sliced open, bleeding, weeping. You can’t go on like this, Molly says, in a tone that could be considered as motherly. Remus wouldn’t know; he never had a mother.
He leaves the house at dawn, with no one to see him limp and hiss with agony, with no one to see hot tears streaming down his face as he tries to take another step. Every movement is white, hot pain; and every second his eyes are closed, he sees him, smiling. The cuts and slashes don’t compare to the pain he feels when he opens his eyes, realizing that he’s not really there.
Of course not, the voice in his head says, sounding suspiciously posh and dripping like honey. He’s betrayed you, his dear, his darling, his loup. You cradled a nightmare in your arms, kissed a monster as the sun rose, loved a terrifying creature with every beat of your heart. You can’t get rid of me that easily, love, you know it better than me. I’m the reason for every breath you take since you were naive enough to believe you were still normal. If you want to get rid of me, rip your heart out, rip it out…
He downs another drink. His mouth feels like it’s bathed in acid for a while. The ugly taste distracts him from the fire on his heart for a breath. He digs his nails to his palm when he remembers the bitter taste of fire whiskey.
It doesn’t even taste that bad, he would urge him, downing another glass. Grey eyes would look at him with wonder and amazement and so much more, and Remus, even for a little while, would feel like a God under his gaze. He’d always have that power over people; his big, big eyes, thick lashes, and soothing gaze would make anyone feel like they were doing something important, something beautiful. The girls would swoon over it, saying how dark, how beautiful, how meaningful it looked. But Remus knew better. Remus would know that those eyes could cut you like a steel knife, not showing you an ounce of mercy, ripping your heart out of your ribcage with a breath that smelt like fire-whiskey and hands of gold.
Sighing, pulling, shaking; he would pull you apart and put you back together with one word, one touch, one look. Remus was terrified from the start, if he’s being honest. Because he knew, that if the boy had told him, ‘kill for me,’ he would step barefoot onto the moonlit sky, and destroy everything that got in his way. He would burn down cities and build them all in one day if he said the word. He would scream on top of his lungs at the dining hall, would tell everyone individually, that he was a savage, a creature, a terrifying being, at his one whisper.
He had shown Remus mercy, and Remus doesn’t know whether that was a blessing or a curse.
He learns soon enough that creatures don’t stray alone at night. They come together, they fight, they fuck. His mind melts away, piece by piece. He kisses someone and fights them a second later. The moon starts showing itself behind the clouds as their fight turns into something more canine, something wild. They claw at each other, and Remus ends up broken and bleeding, but not from his skin. His tears mix with the soil, the rain, and all the broken hearts that lie there.
Oh, Remus… Molly says, every order meeting. Kingsley looks at him, pitying, wondering where the gentle soul that roamed the Hogwarts corridors went. Funny enough, Remus often wonders the same thing. This is a nightmare, Arthur would say sometimes, his voice drowning in despair, and Remus would think no, Hogwarts was a dream. This is real life.
Minerva stops by sometimes, every word mourning the old Remus. Remus, who made the library his home. Remus, who thought he was lucky enough to have found a family that loves him no matter what he turns at night; Remus, who made himself believe his youth was eternal and his love immortal, his humanity made of stone, unmoveable. That little young boy with a fresh smile on his face, untainted by death and betrayal, and that grin that can only be explained by the ecstasy of youth. Quiet, reserved, brilliant, loyal, untamed. Minerva stares at the paleness of death around the boy’s eyes. He is so young, her every word screams. Twenty-four, with a heart made out of shattered stone.
Remus learns not to look at her face. All he sees is his youth and carelessness.
His apartment is infested with bugs and rats and many other little creatures that cover his sink, his excuse of a mattress, his walls. He swore an oath to not take a dime out of his vault, and he obliges, finding the last ounce of pride somewhere inside him. Considering working more than three weeks is impossible, some paycheck is always lost, something stolen, never really enough. He tries teaching, (not kids, never kids), but can’t take a break from drinking and sleeping and staring at the wall for hours on end. You’re fired, every letter says, or sometimes they don’t even bother sending one. He doesn’t blame them: a waste of paper, indeed, considering he doesn’t check his mail. There is no one he’d like to receive a letter from except one, and he doesn’t think the most infamous prison in wizarding history supplies its inmates with pen and paper.
He’s twenty-seven as his joints ache like they’re on fire, but they’re nothing compared to his blazing roaring heart. He wonders, after all those years, why does he still feel? The fire must burn out at some point.
He’s thirty-one as he sees Harry for the first time in ten years. It’s a shaky photo, taken at the train station Remus knows all too well, and he weeps, he weeps like he hasn’t wept for years. He crumbles down the hardwood floors of his apartment, his body shaking and quivering with sobs. Everyone in the Order sees James, with the same grin he had supported in his short life, but all Remus can see is the wilderness and fierceness of Lily Evans, looking at him for the first time in years. He claws at his ribcage like he tries to get his heart out, and he fails, like he had failed for years. It burns like iron to a bleeding wound.
He moves out at once, get’s a decent job that involves a whole lot of pretentious writing and deadly hours, but it’s a start. He eats something other than fags and stale bagels, drinks water rather than cheap liquor. The bags under his eyes lighten by day, his joints make him stand a little taller, a little prouder. His heart, still a roaring blaze, doesn’t hurt as much. His raincloud, his Harry, poor Harry.
‘He’s lucky to have Uncle Moony!,’ Lily laughs, poking Harry’s little nose. Harry makes a delighted sound.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Remus says shyly, carrying Harry in his arms, his arms wrapped around his little figure. Harry traces his little fingers around his scars, staring with wonder at his Uncle Moony’s face. His eyes are the greenest Remus has ever seen, a green that would even put his beautiful mother to shame.
‘He is,’ Lily assures him, so simple. And when it’s Lily Evans who says it, Remus believes her. Remus believes her with his whole being so much, it hurts.
‘Well, I don’t know about his Uncle Moony, but his Uncle Pad-‘
No, something inside Remus whispers. Too painful, stop.
Remus obliges, and fills the empty space with Bolsheviks and other Russian names that are foreign on his tongue. Foreign is good for him.
Without surprise, Harry does something painfully heroic by his first year, and when Remus sees him in the papers, he can’t help but let out a strained gasp.
He looks horrifically young.
Were we just as young, he questions, his eyes not leaving Harry’s for a second. Were we just as young when we fought in a war we could’ve never won? When we were raised as soldiers, growing up tainted by battle and death, did we look just as painfully happy? Were we just as clueless, as this child is?
Dumbledore tells them it will be hard, like it’s news. Remus counts on it. War is one of the few things he’s acquainted with, that doesn’t leave a bitter taste on his tongue. War is not personal. War doesn’t betray you, you know it’s ugly, you count on it. It’s people that betray you, and Remus doesn’t have anyone else left to betray him.
Thirty-two with aching joints and a killer headache, Remus hears a single tune that sends him to a spiral for a week. I can dim the lights, and sing you songs, full of sad things, his voice says, dripping like honey and twice as sweet. He runs away from the coffee shop, a large, boiling stain on his pants and cold sweat on his forehead. He doesn’t even register the pain as he starts running, runs until his legs give out on him, landing on the hard ground. Remus curls up to a ball, bites his lip, and screams as loud as he can.
Darling, his voice says. Mon loup, mon cher loup, mon beau loup…
He wakes up cold and shivering, his coat, wallet, and shoes gone, covered in scratches and bruises. He doesn’t bother finding his way home and makes his way to the outskirts of London until he hears a familiar howl. Damn you, he screams inside, running around trees and leaving prints on the mud. Fuck you. Get out. GET OUT!
Mais mon cher, he says with his sickly sweet voice, I’m not even here.
***
One day, as fall rolls away, leaving trunks of dead trees and blood-red leaves covering the grounds of Weasleys’s garden, Dumbledore comes to him with a cup of tea. Remus doesn’t bother taking it. He watches the mountains and the large sky, tracing Canis Majoris with his eyes, hating himself for it. He talks to stars about him. The stars look at him with pity.
As the words leave Dumbledore’s mouth, he feels his knees give out under him, clutches to the rails like they’re his lifeline, feeling his blood freezing in his veins. Not guilty. Innocent. Peter. He understands, right? (He doesn’t understand.) Help him? (He doesn’t know what help means at this point.) Dumbledore gives him a simple pat on the back and says ‘sorry’. He doesn't look it at all.
The words taste bitter before leaving his mouth. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’, he asks, not really waiting for an answer. Dumbledore doesn’t give him one.
***
‘Would you wait for me, if something happened?’ Remus asks, releasing a cloud of smoke to the night sky.
‘I would wait lifetimes for you,’ Sirius answers him, his voice steady.
***
Harry looks painfully like his mother. Remus stares at him from the teacher’s table, his hands tightly knit together. For the first time in years, he feels like he’s home between the huge pillars and the smell of roast. But the home is hollow without the fire at its heart.
It’s been years since he saw Snape. Snape looks like him like a ghost of a man he once knew. Remus thinks that’s true enough. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mutters between corridors, knows the other has heard him, but doesn’t push him. The first time he’d fully understood he was just not human enough was that night, and he doesn’t know whether to thank Snape or curse him for that. He’s tired of cursing people.
The castle is as warm as he remembers, as lively as it is in his memories, as alive as expected. He wants to scream it to children’s ears: live! Live when you have the heart. This is the dream, live before you wake up in the real world and there’s nothing else left, before everyone else is a ghost of somebody you once knew. But that’d be just cruel, wouldn’t it? He knows that knowledge is both freedom and a curse. Like he always does these days, he lets someone else decide which one it will be.
He sits at one of the high pillars one night, staring at the endless sky.
‘We are too close to the stars,’ Sirius mutters, alcohol intoxicating his every word. “We’re gonna get burned, Moony, we’re gonna get burned…”
“I wouldn’t let them,” Remus tells him simply, and captures his mouth in a simple kiss, watching him shiver underneath him when he freed him from his shirt. A cold breeze rushes past them, leaving both of them gasping. Or maybe it isn’t the breeze. “I would never let them burn you.”
…
They all sit at the grand table, everyone clenching their jaws, holding their breath, squeezing their fists. There is an eery silence as they all watch Sirius. Sirius only watches Remus.
The ghost of Sirius, Remus thinks. Watching the ghost of me. We’re both wondering wherever our bodies went.
Remus is thirty-three and he’s tired. His heart screams louder than ever, but his throat is hoarse from it. He wants to wake up to a warm bed with the sun shining on Sirius’ jet black hair, his porcelain skin, his blood-red lips. He wants to watch him as he sleeps just for a little while, pretending that he could be his forever. That their love alone would fix a fucking war.
Remus is thirty-three now. He knows better.
Minerva hugs both of them gently, with the gentleness of a mother. Sirius doesn’t hug back for a few seconds, and then, like he’s drowning, clutches to her and buries his face at the crook of her neck. Remus wants to sob, but he doesn’t have any tears left on him, so he only watches with the pain of what could’ve been and what was.
“Oh Minnie, please!” Sirius shrieks, following their professor through the crowded corridors. Behind him, James and Peter are throwing rose petals while Remus charms some magic instruments to play a romantic ballad. Since the most romantic song he knows is Your Song by Elton John, the instruments are playing an off-tune version of it.
“Mr. Black, I am this close to giving you detention!” Minnie says, but there is laughter behind her words and a knowing grin on her lips. She stops abruptly, and Sirius only escapes walking into her by a second. He smiles his signature grin and hands her a red rose, (he had stolen it from the greenhouses) which she frowns upon.
“Minnie, will you go to the Winter Ball with me?” Sirius asks, laughter decorating every word. James and Peter make the petals rain. Elton John’s voice sounds like he’s been smoking for a millennium.
“Detention,” Minnie says simply, smiles, and goes on her way with the same stoic walk. The students beside them laugh and whoop, used to the beautiful enigma that is Sirius Black. Sirius, shoulders slumped, but a mischievous smile still on his lips, looks at the rose for a little bit. Then takes a step towards Remus.
“I guess I’ll have to make do with you, then,” he says, a smile behind his words, and nothing had sounded sweeter.
…
They’re two people who don’t know how to be around each other anymore.
Azkaban has taken the light in Sirius’ steel eyes, leaving a horrifying blankness. He looks at the hardwood floors of his childhood home, his eyes trained on the floor and his body as small as it can get, like he’s trying to hide. Like he’s scared.
Of me? Remus questions. Then quickly realizes; why wouldn’t he be, when I’m terrified of him.
“They thought…” Sirius spits out with his scratchy voice, and stutters, like he’s surprised to find out he has one. There is nothing left from his sweet voice that sounded like singing when he was simply talking, that was so alive with youth, like he was young forever already. “They thought you were the traitor.”
And nothing had hurt so blindingly.
“You were always on missions, never coming home anymore, always staring at them like they were already inside their graves.” Remus finds his voice too late. They thought he was the traitor. Before dying, they thought he was the one who was going to kill them. “You looked like you were...you were not Remus anymore.”
He feels like a giant black hole has ripped open his heart. All he can do is laugh.
Sirius looks at him, terrified.
Not like Remus. And what was I, exactly? The silent boy who fell in love with you, the man that was poisoned with war, or a wolf, ready to attack? “And you?” Remus asks. Sirius looks down, but no, Remus wants to hear it. Remus wants to hear everything. “And you?!” He screams this time, tasting blood. He watches him shake like a leaf, and… and enjoys it. A few beats pass. Sirius sobs.
“Yes.” He whispers, only loud enough for a werewolf to hear.
Remus smiles bitterly. “Well, glad we were on the same page then,” he says, just to see Sirius hurt. He looks like a knife has been stuck to him; eyes squeezed, mouth a thin line. He knows, he knows Sirius has been hurt enough for a lifetime, but he wants him to hurt the same way as he did. The same way Remus had hurt when he left him alone. “Now you know why I wasn’t coming home.”
Then, he gets up, and gets ready to face the moon.
***
‘Mon cher loup’, his sweet voice whispers, cleaning the worst of his wounds. Remus struggles to keep his eyes open, just to see his beautiful face. ‘Mon beau loup. Mon Moony… Je t’aime…” His voice feels like he stitches all his wounds open, just to stitch them back again. He knows, that Sirius will always stitch them back. Sirius would never leave him hurting. “Je t’aime…” he repeats, his words feeling like sand that escapes from the cracks of Remus’ fingers. “Oh, my beautiful love, my darling, mon loup…”
He wakes up sobbing, clutching to his chest, and sees a quick shadow beside the door, disappearing with the darkness of the house.
…
They start small, as one does.
Sirius doesn’t remember how to make tea, staring at the tea bags with confusion on his face. Remus silently takes it, and adds a second cup beside his. He never turns around, but feels Sirius’ cold eyes nailed to the back of his head. He leaves the other mug on the counter, takes his, and gets out of the old kitchen. He has to fight himself to not look back.
A day later, as Remus wakes up, he finds a piping hot tea on the table, just like the one he had made. He feels another shadow passing beside him, the only sound in the empty house, but doesn’t bother looking for it. He knows it will come searching.
He makes breakfast. Sirius does the same dish the next day. Kreacher doesn’t do much but sulk around, and Remus isn’t in the mood to scold a house-elf, so he takes things slow, piece by piece, tries to remember what it was like when it was normal. He finds a hot meal some days, feels the shadow getting closer. Some days the shadow never shows its face, hiding in his room. Remus senses the muffliato; he used it countless times, trying to muffle his sobs.
One day, as he cooks, something happens.
He doesn’t leave the kitchen. He sets out two plates and two forks. He sits at one of the wooden chairs, and he waits.
Minutes later, Sirius shows up.
…
“Merlin Moony, slow down,” James complains, trying to grab some steak for himself. The full moon is less than a week away, and Remus never feels full. He grabs three at the same time.
“Leave the lad alone, it must take a lot of energy being that brilliant,” Sirius says, taking small bites out of his steak. Once a Black, always a Black, Remus would think normally, but he’s painfully hungry and the only things he’s focusing on are eating and (occasionally) breathing. “Breathe,” Sirius reads his mind as he does. “Steak isn’t going anywhere, and even if you finish it, we’ll steal some from the Slytherins.” They all laugh at that, and Remus can’t help but smile between bites.
“I think I chipped a tooth,” Peter announces, holding something that’s distinctly white and covered in gravy in his palms.
“Ew, Pettigrew!” Sirius shouts, and tosses a napkin.
…
“The rice is a bit dry,” Sirius comments, his voice a distinct haze. Then, opening his eyes, he turns to Remus, scared, “Oh Merlin, I didn’t mean it like that, I mean-“
“I know,” Remus tells him, his lips forming around a little smile. He sees Sirius’ shoulders sag down to his normal posture, maybe his back straightening a bit. He turns to his meal, but his eyes don’t seem all that empty. “You were the best cook among the two of us.”
He smiles a full smile then, and Remus realizes, horrified, he’s still so damn beautiful.
“You bet your ass I was, Lupin.”
His heart starts beating for the first time in twelve years.