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Summer 1995
Charlie fidgeted uncomfortably as he made his way across Rue Montorguiel, feeling awkward in his muggle denims after so many months spent in the thick, flame repellent robes worn on the reserve. He had arrived in Paris that morning via International Floo, where he would be spending the next week or two on leave from work and making contact for the Order with a group of French witches and wizards who had been instrumental in the underground resistance against Grindelwald. However, his current destination - a small muggle beer garden whose address had been owled to him shortly upon his arrival - was not meant for Order business, but rather for a long overdue meeting with an old friend.
He looked up at the nearly full moon, reflecting on the fact that it had been nearly four years now since he’d last seen Remus in person. They’d continued writing to one another - most frequently in the initial months after Charlie’s move abroad, then less and less often until they only heard from each other every few months when something major had occurred in either of their lives (Charlie still smiled at the thought of the letter he’d gotten about two years back, which had contained only a small Daily Prophet clipping announcing that an R.J. Lupin had been hired as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts, under which Remus had scribbled simply, You were right). Charlie had been surprised but pleased when Remus had written a week ago to tell him that their time in Paris would be overlapping, since Remus was attempting to do some outreach with a group of Parisian werewolves towards whom the Order believed Voldemort had made overtures.
As he spotted the awning of the place where they’d arranged to meet, Charlie felt a brief pang of nerves that quickly dissipated as soon as he looked down and noticed Remus seated at one of the small tables outside the restaurant. Remus had not seen him yet - he was currently absorbed in a paperback book, a half-finished glass of white wine sitting on the table in front of him - but Charlie gave himself a moment to simply take in the sight before him, his heart filling with fond affection for the other man despite their years spent apart. Remus did have a few more gray hairs than when they’d last seen each other, and his clothes appeared similarly well-used and inexpensive, but to Charlie’s eyes he also looked happier somehow, as though some kind of weight had been lifted from his shoulders - not a look that Charlie was used to seeing in Order members during a time when tensions felt higher by the day.
As Charlie approached the table, Remus looked up and noticed him at last, a wide smile stealing across his face that Charlie imagined mirrored his own.
“Charlie! It’s so good to see you. My goodness, you’ve gotten older,” he said, laughing as he stood and pulled Charlie into a warm, friendly hug. “And you’ve got about three times more freckles than you had last time I saw you - must be all that time out in the sun. Come, sit, sit.”
Charlie sat down across from him, realizing that the grin that still spread across his face must look a bit silly at this point but finding himself quite unable to control it. “Remus. It’s so good to see you too. You look really, really well.”
“Oh, thank you. Well, I… I am quite well, actually, which feels odd to even say. Thanks in part to you, of course! Your ‘werewolf reserve’ is still operating perfectly, and that’s certainly helped me keep my health up in the months when I don’t have access to Wolfsbane. Oh, speaking of which, Lydia says hello! She’s doing well… she’s eleven now, can you believe that? And we’ve had two new werewolves registered since you left - an unfortunate thing, but they both acclimated beautifully.”
Charlie felt a proud warmth blooming in his chest at the thought that his work with the Department was still helping people, even years later. “Oh, that’s fantastic. Thank you for telling me.” He narrowed his eyes a bit at Remus, still smiling. “There’s something else. You seem… lighter, or something. What are you keeping from me, Lupin?”
Remus chuckled a bit, looking around to make certain no one at the nearby tables was listening in before continuing. “I should have known you’d see right through me. Well, to start with… how much has Ron told you about what happened at the end of his third year?”
Charlie raised an eyebrow, having an inkling that he knew where this was headed but not wanting to guess prematurely. “He told me a bit about it when I visited home last month, after everything that happened with the Triwizard Tournament. About how our rat Scabbers had turned out to be your old friend Peter, and... how Sirius Black turned out to be innocent. That must have been quite a shock.”
Remus gave a wry smile, taking another sip of his wine before responding. “‘Shock’ is putting it lightly, I’d say. But yes, he was innocent. And, well…” He paused a moment, as though trying to carefully gather his words. “He’s been in hiding for the last year or so, but since the start of the summer he’s been... staying with me.”
“Oh?” Charlie asked, smiling at the familiar blush he saw rising on Remus’s cheeks.
“Yes, and we’ve, well. We’ve picked up from where things left off, a bit. I wanted to tell you right away, just in case you had any… expectations around our meeting.”
“Remus, that’s wonderful,” said Charlie. “I’m so happy for you, truly. No expectations here. I’m just glad to see you and talk. So how have things been going with Sirius, then?”
“Obviously there are some adjustments we’re both having to make, and a lot of trust to be earned back. We’re both a bit… broken, I think, by the things that have happened to us, and that can make things difficult at times. But I also think that’s what makes us work well together. We’re both scarred in many of the same places, so neither has to feel like they’re weighing the other down.”
“Which was how you felt with me.”
“Which was how I felt with you, yes,” Remus said, not unkindly. “I know you disagreed, but there was never any way that I wouldn’t have worried that I was burdening you or holding you back from reaching your potential. And I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see how well you’re doing now. Promoted to the head of the Warding Team on the reserve, I heard?”
“Sounds like my mum’s been gossiping about me. Yeah, I’m quite chuffed about it. And for the record, I never would have considered you a burden, but I think I understand a bit better now why we had to break things off. I’m still glad it all happened, though. Glad I met you, and that we had that summer together.”
Remus smiled. “I’m glad too, Charlie. I don’t think I quite realized how dark my life had become until you brought a little brightness to it.”
Charlie laid a hand over Remus’s then, feeling the familiar scars there and thinking that there was no place he would he would rather be in this moment than here, reflecting on fond memories with one of the kindest men he’d ever known. They sat like that for hours, sharing food and wine and stories of how they’d spent their time in the last four years. At last, when the moon was high in the sky and the streets around them began to empty of passersby, they knew it was time to part and shared a tight embrace, the moment heavy with an unspoken awareness that it would likely be a long time before their paths crossed again, if at all.
“Once You-Know-Who’s been dealt with in one way or another,” said Remus before they turned to head their separate ways. “And if you’re back in the country, you ought to come visit Sirius and me for dinner sometime. I think you’d like him, and I know he’d like to meet you.”
“Yeah, I’d like that a lot,” said Charlie. “Goodbye for now, Remus.”
“Goodbye, Charlie. Stay safe.”
“You as well.”
And after a last shared look between them, they parted.