Chapter Text
It happened a week after he left Hogwarts. He had reliable correspondence from Dumbledore that had informed him that Sirius was still in hiding, somewhere in the Scottish mountains. Dumbledore had promised to have Sirius out of the country soon enough – but for now, while the ministry was carefully monitoring travel, it would be impossible for Sirius to leave through magical means. Remus didn’t know what Dumbledore was planning, but he had decided to trust the old man, despite his misgivings.
He returned to London, to his battered old apartment. It was a small thing – he’d bought it after selling his parents’ belongings. It helped, not having to pay rent. Of all the jobs he had taken up, the best one so far had been school teaching. His old neighbour, Eileen Corner had been collecting all his correspondence. She worked at his old school, so she had promised to look in and find positions if there were any.
Working in Magic was a dead end. He couldn’t get a job without telling everyone of his condition, and by that time, people already wanted him out. It was easier to work in the Muggle world – especially with the Wolfsbane potion, since the transformations didn’t exhaust him enough to not continue teaching Macbeth to fifteen year olds. It was manageable.
By the time he had secured a position and settled into his apartment, Dumbledore’s patronus came. He told Remus – in code, of course, that Sirius intended to come to London before he took the Muggle ferry to France. Papers had been faked, a convincing story had been made up. And from France, it would be easier to take one of the Muggle contraptions out of the continent and even further.
Remus wasn’t looking forward to this visit. He didn’t know why, but he knew he had to open the box that he had never wanted to open again. Nevertheless – it was a conversation that had to be had.
Sirius arrived – he looked worn, and underfed. Some clever wandwork had been done to disguise him, but it was already wearing out. The gauntness was beginning to show.
“Remus,” he said, by way of greeting.
“You’re late,” said Remus. He had the oddest sense of déjà vu.
Sirius opened his mouth to complete the second half of a forgotten moment, and then shut it again. “Sorry,” he said softly.
“It’s alright,” said Remus, a lump in his throat. It felt unfamiliar. He stepped aside to allow Sirius in. The house was a little bare.
“I moved back a few months ago. Still haven’t gotten everything working the way I like,” offered Remus. He removed the large pile of mail from his old armchair, making room for Sirius. Sirius sat down himself, taking off his coat. It was a warmish day, after all.
“It’s good to see you,” said Sirius. “I was worried – the transformation –”
“It was fine,” said Remus, flinching.
“I wrote to Harry,” said Sirius.
“Oh?”
“Yes. He must have been heading off on the train when he got the letter – his reply was a little dashed.”
“Well.”
The silence that fell was unnatural. Remus didn’t know how to operate around Sirius anymore. All the times before had been tense stand offs, moments where panic and stress had reigned supreme. He hadn’t seen this man in years – since – since the death of James and Lily. His heart constricted.
“I’m sorry for imposing, Remus,” said Sirius.
“I’m sorry things are – like this,” offered Remus half-heartedly.
Sirius gave a short, barking laugh. Remus grinned.
“Who would think we were best friends?” Sirius asked the room.
Remus flinched again. “You were. Are.”
“I know.”
More silence. Less loaded, but still quiet.
“Where will you go after this?” asked Remus.
“I don’t know. Somewhere a little far. I might come back for Harry’s sake, however.”
“He’s a lot like him, isn’t he?”
“Painfully,” admitted Sirius. “Looks more like him, though. Behaves a lot like Lily. All of that sensible, good, and responsible behaviour. Besides, being friends with someone like that girl.”
Remus smiled. “I thought you liked Hermione.”
“I do!” said Sirius. “Of course I do. But even you would have to perform some mental gymnastics to imagine that James might have been friends with Hermione when he was thirteen.”
It was Remus’ turn to laugh. “Lily would have loved her, though. They’d have gotten along like a house on fire.”
“Her reasoned arguments to a werewolf and a mass murderer would have made her the apple of Lily’s eye.”
In a flash, Lily became real. Lily, with her dark red hair and pretty smile.
“No, I suppose James wouldn’t have been friends with her,” murmured Remus, in an attempt to push away the image of a sixteen-year-old Lily.
“I don’t think I would have either.”
Remus stared at him sceptically.
“What?” asked Sirius.
“June,” he pointed out.
There. She had been named.
Sirius looked away, brooding. Now that she had been named, Remus had to do the important thing of opening the box.
“June and I,” he said, ploughing through. “June and I collected your stuff from your place in Wimbledon. After you were sent to Azkaban.” He got up, and from the cupboards under the windowsill – pulled out a box. “These were yours.”
Sirius almost didn’t seem to want to look through all the stuff.
“I’ve given away most of your clothes, unfortunately,” said Remus. “And Hagrid has your motorbike. I only kept – kept your letters, your books. That sort of thing. And some photographs, I think.”
He seemed determined to ignore this.
“June said you’d come for them. She made me promise not to throw anything away.”
Finally, he looked at Remus, steadfastly ignoring the box. “She wrote to me, you know. When I was in Azkaban.”
Remus stared at the contents of the boxes, unable to face Sirius.
“I was angry with her – we had been fighting a lot, before James and Lily died. For years. Not – not for anything silly, either. It was many things – my recklessness on the field, the amount of time we had together. But mostly – mostly she didn’t understand why I suspected you. She told me categorically that the evidence didn’t line up.”
“I suppose it was the McKinnon murders?” asked Remus heavily.
He nodded. “Was it the death of Dorcas Meadows, for you?”
“Yes,” said Remus.
Sirius sighed. “I wrote back a few times. Here’s all the stuff she wrote –” he pulled out a sheaf of letters from his robes. “Carried them with me. I didn’t want to write back to her, or for her to write to me. I was angry that she believed me, when no one else did. I was angry because it would have been easier for her to forget me, for her to not put her faith in me. To not believe me. She would have come to my trial, if it had happened – and even that made me angry. She stopped writing in a few months. Never knew what happened to her, and we don’t really get newspapers in Azkaban. I heard rumours that she was attacked and then some of the death eaters hinted she was gone. Worried myself sick over it. Then Freegood wrote to confirm."
Remus swallowed. It was time. “I'm sorry."
Sirius was really avoiding his gaze now. “I know,” he said tonelessly.
“It was – she wasn’t in the Order, but she had been connected to Lily. Voldemort’s supporters were everywhere, and anyone who knew James and Lily was a target. Luckily, Sarah Freegood got away because she wasn’t directly friends with Lily, the way June was.”
Sirius’ fists were tight. His veins seemed to be throbbing.
“She wrote to me,” added Remus. “She’d – she’d left me all this stuff in her will. She had meant for all of it to go to you or Sarah, but since you weren’t there, I was the one who was allowed to take yours.” He bent again, and pulled out another box. Sirius took a sharp breath. Remus opened the box, trying his best to get through this conversation in one piece. From the top of the box, he picked out a white envelope. “There was a letter.”
Remus remembered the contents of that letter by heart. Sirius opened it, his eyes moving with the words.
And that was when Remus noticed the half tears. Half grief, of the ruined kind. He’d already spent two or three years in Azkaban mourning her.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” continued Remus. “I didn’t.”
“I know,” repeated Sirius. The letter slipped from his hand and fluttered down – Remus glanced at the opening line – Dear Remus, you may not believe me now – but you’re the only person who loved him like I did. I know you did. He didn’t do it –
But that was as far as he could go without feeling like something had grasped his heart and squeezed.
“She’d been trying to reason out your innocence,” added Remus unnecessarily. “Made her more of a target, honestly.”
“Idiot.”
“She loved you.”
His head fell to the side slowly. “Idiot,” he repeated.
“She’s left all the letters – of your sixth year, your Christmases. Everything. And – and her copy of Pride and Prejudice.” Remus handed him the book – heavy and complete, with June’s writing on the margins. Sirius opened the book, his fingers tracing the writing.
“We buried her in her hometown. There was a nice graveyard near the church, where her grandmother was buried. I go once or twice a year. On the anniversary her death, and on the anniversary of James and Lily’s. I would go to their graves, but it’s usually crowded on their death day. People come to pay their respects.”
Sirius snorted.
“Did you miss her?”
He hated himself for asking it, but he was still – after all these years – half-hopeful.
“I tried not to,” confessed Sirius. “Of course I loved her. When she was sixteen, when she was seventeen, when she was twenty. But those are happy memories. Dementors fucking love that. Had to avoid thinking of her too much, or I’d have driven myself mad.”
Remus looked away. “I missed you.”
He thought Sirius might not respond. “I missed you too,” he said. “Couldn’t push you away from my head.”
Even now, even now – his heart thrilled, like he was sixteen again.
He had meant what he said to June all those years ago. He hadn’t been able to give his heart to Sirius when he was sixteen, when he was struggling with his transformations, when there was a war going on. But his heart remembered where it had almost gone.
“Keep these,” said Sirius, handing him the letters June had written to him during Azkaban. “Along with the things she left. I don’t know if I’ll have the storage space, where I’m going.”
Remus laughed. “I miss her sometimes. We weren’t very close, but after James and Lily died – and you were in Azkaban, she really tried. I was less receptive, but she really did try. She even arranged for me to attend college and get the necessary qualifications to become a Muggle teacher. I only went through with it after she died because she had insisted. It’s been easier earning a living thanks to that.”
Sirius was staring at the letter on the floor. The one she had sent Remus after Sirius had been locked away. Remus collected it and pressed it into Sirius’ hands. “Keep it. Something to remember her by.”
“I have enough for me to remember her,” sighed Sirius.
“Everyone needs to jog their memory sometimes,” insisted Remus.
Sirius held the letter tighter. Then he stowed it away in his robes.
“I remember her funeral,” said Remus. “Very few of us were left by then. Sarah Freegood organised it. Hagrid and I came. Some of her muggle friends – I’ve forgotten their names. And her mother. I still see them sometimes, when I visit her grave.”
“That horrible woman?”
Remus nodded. “Yeah. Cried the whole time. No sign of her father.”
Sirius’ lip curled. “If he had come, I might have actually broken out of Azkaban early to send him away.”
Remus began putting away the letters and the book. “I stayed somewhat in touch with Freegood. Not for very long. She made a joke about how I got all of June’s money at the funeral.”
Now he was surprised. “You got her money?”
He shrugged. “She said I needed it. It wasn’t much, but it got me through a few months.”
“Smart girl.”
There was a silence. Remus watched the long shadows of evening, lying in his apartment – touching his belongings.
“Will you take me to her?”
It was asked softly. The golden-orange of the evening sun dripped from Sirius’ lashes. Remus nodded.
The stars had emerged by the time they reached. Sirius had gathered some flowers from the corners of the graveyard, tied them haphazardly with a ribbon. And he stood in front of her grave. Sarah had picked the epigraph. It read simply:
JUNE WILLIAMS
The best friend you could ask for.
Sirius put his flowers down on her grave. The grass and the evening sun was pretty, but all Remus felt was an emptiness. He had never been very close to June – despite her trying, particularly after James and Lily’s death. He missed her in abstraction – some of her as a real person. Some of what she represented – a happier time. Some of what he felt for Sirius. But one thing he knew: he had loved her. Not in the same way, perhaps, as her friends had, or as Sirius had. But he had loved her – for being there for him, for loving him, for recognising his feelings for Sirius. For knowing when to be there for him, to be there for Sirius.
He had mourned her. He had remembered her. He had tried to stay in touch with Sarah for her sake. But they were both mourning too many people. Half their year had died in the war. They knew too many families, too many people who had been massacred before Harry had put a stop to it.
Sirius dropped to his knees and cried. It wasn’t the half grief of someone who had already conducted their mourning – but the full one. Remus stood by him, even as the stars started peering through twilight.
They still had too many boxes to open, between them. They hadn’t even touched Lily and James – that was almost too painful. At least there, some of the story was well known. June had no one to remember her by, while practically everyone knew the story of James and Lily Potter. They’d open those boxes, too – one by one. Wrench one knife from the heart, and then the other. But for now – there was the twilight, the grave, and the bits of grief they had collected together.