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Every other Saturday for the past seven or so months has gone the exact same way. It’s a part of Remus’s routine. His alarm goes off at quarter to seven which gives him fifteen minutes to stare at the ceiling and then five minutes to trudge to the bathroom and stand under the spray of the shower and brush his teeth before the four minute cycle of washing his body and hair and body again before staring himself in the mirror as he pulls back the shower curtain. That leaves with around forty minutes to eat some dry toast and think about coming up with an excuse for not visiting his aging mother the bare minimum of twice monthly. Except she’s not what one would traditionally consider aging , sixty-four is a far cry away from having one foot in the grave. But her mind is going quicker than Remus can process, like watching the fucking sand of the hourglass of her life slip between his fingers. And what kind of a horrible, useless son would he be if he didn’t at least make an effort to pocket some of it as memories and keep her company while he can.
Last time Sirius had waited for him on the front porch while he was gone, sat there staring at him with big, sad, doggy eyes in his human body as he drove off and pulled him into a sort of crushing hug, or as crushing as Sirius can manage these days, when he returned. They’d gotten drunk on cheap vodka in the middle of the afternoon and laid on their backs in the grass and Remus mumbled out whatever terse sentences he could manage about how the bitingly clever and immeasurably kind woman Sirius met in ‘75 became someone who at time forgets Remus’s own name.
“It was sort of overnight.” Remus turned his head to bury his face in the grass. “She was always weird, y’know, and it was hard to tell what was her just being her and what was...what was off.” Remus reaches for the bottle again from Sirius’s loose grasp and the liquor burns like a memory as he swallows a mouthful, and then two.
“Yeah,” Sirius muttered, rolling over to rest the hard jut of his chin against Remus’s shoulder. “I remember the first time I came over to your house and she showed me her collection of novelty teaspoons and put on some old Cass Elliot album.” He smiled a little fondly though his eyes were a little sad, the face that Remus recognized by this point as the one Sirius makes when he remembers something he thought he’d lost forever. “She was the first woman I ever met who very purposely didn’t wear a bra.” He grinned at him as Remus grimaced.
“Why would you say that, were you staring at my mum’s-”
“I was never staring at your mum’s tits,” Sirius laughed and swiped away Remus’s slap to his forearm. “I’m not, nor have I ever been, interested, it was simply an observation. I always thought it was badass, anyway.” He clambered a little drunkenly on top of Remus, covering his body and sticking his nose in the junction where Remus’s neck and shoulder meet. “Keep talking,” he encouraged, nudging him with his nose.
Remus just shrugged and wrapped his arms around Sirius on top of him. “Not really anything else to say. She still lives at home. Jude takes care of her for the most part but she’s still, I dunno, lucid enough to keep herself out of trouble well enough while Jude’s at work.”
“Who’s Jude?” Sirius spoke into his neck, breath hot against his skin.
“Right, you never met her,” Remus shut his eyes and tried to piece together the timeline of all the things Sirius had missed in twelve long years. “They got together sometime in ‘80 but mum didn’t tell me about it until they moved in together. Judith, her…” he hummed, “god, I don’t know what they call each other. Partner, maybe? Mum never liked ‘wife,’ said my dad ruined the word for her and that she couldn’t in good conscience call Jude the same thing that he...oh, what were her words?” Remus hummed again and tried to visualize the memory, the two of them in his mum’s crowded little kitchen in the dead heat of the summer in 1981. “Ah, the same title that her mealworm of a husband slung at her like a prison sentence.” And Remus allowed himself to smile at that, and at the laugh that burst from Sirius, surprised and unabashedly joyful that left him shaking on Remus’s chest.
“I fucking love your mum,” Sirius said once he’d stopped laughing. He pushed himself onto his hands and looked down at Remus, brushed their nose together once. “I’m coming with you next time.”
And what an enormous change to the routine that would be, a comfort with him but a huge fucking change all the same. “I’m not sure I want you to,” Remus said honestly. “I don’t know if I want you to, to see what she’s like now. It’s, I mean, she’s so different from before.”
Sirius lowered himself onto one elbow so he could rest his fingers on Remus’s cheekbone, his thumb stroking against his jaw. “I know. But in less than a month's time, I’ll be tucked away at Grimmauld and pacing the halls like the ghost of some sort of Victorian widow. So I wanna see your mum before I go mad in that house.” Sirius bit his teeth together hard for a moment but fought it away with a sort of fuzzy grin. “Besides, she always told me I was her favorite anyway when you weren’t around.” And Remus pushed him over into the grass, settling his whole weight onto Sirius’s body, and tickled his fingers across Sirius’s ribs until he cried from laughing.
So this Saturday, for better or worse, goes differently than those before. Sirius raises his head and blinks blearily as Remus gets out of bed but has breakfast ready for him by the time he’s through with his shower; toast, per his request, but coupled with a spread of jams that Remus didn’t realize he had, dug out from the very back of his cupboards. Arguably, the jam makes it a lot easier to force the toast down, even if it does have an off smell to it. Remus takes his time shifting through his cassettes as Sirius drags a brush through his hair and gets dressed even though he’s going as Padfoot and it doesn’t really matter anyway but Sirius insists that it does. Remus decides on Ladies of the Canyon , because he always brings something by Mitchell, and chucks Exile in Guyville into his bag as well, even though he’s not sure if he’ll play it. His mum would probably like “Glory” just on concept but he hasn’t been able to listen to “Divorce Song” in full without slamming the tape off until recently. He’s been wanting to show her Tracy Chapman again as well but he knows that would fucking wreck him, so he leaves it on the shelf.
Padfoot hops into the front seat of Remus’s red Yugo and sticks his head out the window as he pulls onto the road, tongue lolling and ears flopping in the wind. The drive from his little house in the middle-of-nowhere to her little house in a slightly different middle-of-nowhere is around thirty minutes down rough rural roads that’ll ruin his car’s suspension one of these days, so bumpy that at one point he has to reach over and grab a hand-full of Padfoot’s pelt to keep him from launching out the window. The dog just smiles up at him, as much as a dog can, thumping his tail and resting his head in Remus’s lap as they bumble down the road.
He parks the car in front of the crumbling stone cottage far too soon and Remus can feel his heart pounding in his chest and wants to smoke a quick cigarette or maybe crawl into the backseat and lie down for a bit but Padfoot is looking out the window, an excited whine emanating from his mouth, ears perked and his tail slapping Remus in the thigh in anticipation.
“Alright, alright,” Remus mutters, shouldering his cross-body bag and opening the door before Padfoot can vibrate out of his fur with excitement. Padfoot scrambles out of the car and bolts to the house in a playful bound, announcing their arrival in a series of loud barks. “Hey!” Remus calls once, sharply, and snaps his fingers. Padfoot looks back at him with put-on guilty eyes and Remus tries not to roll his own. “At least do your best to act like a semi-well behaved dog and not an over-enthusiastic maniac.” He crouches down to scratch under his chin and receives an apologetic lick on the back of his hand. He rises back up, the joints of his knees cracking, just as the door opens and he’s only got around half a second to prepare himself.
It’s only Jude though, smiling at him with that brash, sort of unimpressed look in her eyes. She stands nearly a foot and a half shorter than Remus and even a good few inches shorter than his mother but there’s always been something about her that makes her seem bigger than she is. “Who’s this, then? Who’s this little doggy,” she coos at Padfoot as he sniffs her, and it sounds sort of weird to Remus in her scratchy voice and Lancashire accent.
“He showed up at my doorstep a few weeks ago, looked pitiful so I gave him some supper. Can’t seem to get rid of him now, though.” Remus bites down on his cheek to keep from smiling when Padfoot whines in the back of his throat at his words. “He wanted to come for a ride this morning, figured he’d be well behaved around here. Mum always likes having animals around anyway.’
“Yes, she does.” She scratches behind Padfoot's ear and ‘aws’ at him as he tail begins to wag again. “She’s been saying we should get goats out here again, we’ve got plenty of room for them.” She sighs and rests her hands on her hips, studying the acre or so of land around the run-down house. “I’m just not sure I’ve got the time to take care of them, is all. Alright doggy, wipe your little paws, let’s come inside.” She turns back to the house and opens the door, ushering them both inside.
“A cat would be nice, though. Low maintenance and all.” Padfoot trots through the threshold, sniffing at everything but Remus takes the door from Jude and comes in last. This is always the hardest part for him, not knowing what he’s going to see the next time he lays eyes on his mother. It could be fine, just as good as the visit before, like he had just popped by the day prior. Or it could be like last time, he walks in and notices his mum is wearing thick fuzzy socks and sandals instead of the trainers he’s used to seeing her in because she forgot how to tie her shoes over the course of two week’s time.
“It’s a good day today,” Jude whispers at him as if she can read his mind. Or maybe, and more accurately, she can just hear that he’s grinding his teeth so loudly that they’ve started to sound like tectonic plates shifting deep inside himself. Remus just nods and forces a tight smile and tries to bite down on his tongue so he doesn’t shatter his teeth.
It does, though, look to be a good day once he steps into the living room. His mother is perched on the arm of the sofa, silver hair pulled back into a neat french braid, reaching her waggling fingers out for Padfoot to sniff. He licks them immediately, jumping up onto the couch to lap at her face in recognition and she’s laughing and Remus feels a little like he could shatter, like porcelain dropped from a great height.
“Hope,” Jude says in that soft sort of caretakery voice she reserves for Remus’s mother, the voice that he despises because of how placating it sounds, how othering. He tries to talk to his mum like she’s normal, like it’s two years ago and she could still finish a crossword puzzle in three minutes without even trying. But that’s not her anymore, he supposes, and fuck him if he didn’t use a similar voice when he was coaxing Sirius out of his shell when he showed up on his doorstep like a stray. “Remus is here and he brought this little fellow along with him.” She sits down next to Padfoot to ruffle the fur behind his ears. “What’s his name?” Jude looks at him and Remus simply shrugs.
“Hugh,” Remus says at random. Padfoot may strike a memory and he thinks the name Snuffles is stupid. Although, in fairness, Hugh isn’t much better. He doesn’t have time to think on it though because his mother’s eyes flick up at his voice and she smiles at him like she’s so genuinely delighted to see him and he feels as though he’s going to be sick in the pot of basil resting on the windowsill. “Hi,” he finally spits out.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says a little excitedly, eyes crinkling in joy at the corners. Her voice is different than it used to be, a little more muffled. She gives Padfoot a final pat on the head and shuffles towards him. She moves sort of like an old woman now, far older than she is. She takes a moment to brush the dog hair already gathering on her shirt and Remus realizes it’s an old Talking Heads t-shirt he grabbed for her at a concert years ago and it feels like the ground is moving beneath his feet.
“Have you?” He finally manages, taking her hand when she reaches for his. He swallows and he feels like it echoes through the room. “Do you want to go outside, sit on the porch? I brought my cassette player and I can bring you some tea out.”
“Coffee, I’d like coffee,” she says, nodding.
“Since when do you drink coffee?” Remus very nearly smiles at her, taken off guard.
Jude chuckles at him and sets off to the kitchen to put the kettle on. “I picked up a can of instant when I was in town the other day and she’s taken a liking to it. Is that alright for you, Remus? Instant?”
“Yeah, cheers.” He lets his mum pull him into the kitchen, Padfoot at their heels, while they wait for the water to boil.
“He’s not picky though, is he?” His mum smiles at him, teasing. “You’ll eat anything, always growing.” She yanks a little at his hand and swings their arms together.
Remus takes a breath, gives himself a millisecond to adjust to how her teasing has changed, more childlike, less sharp. But it’s her all the same. “Taller than you, though aren’t I?” He taps his chin on the top of her head.
The coffee is bitter and they’re all out of milk but it’s something Remus can fidget with, feeling the warmth against his palms and passing it from hand to hand as he and his mum sit on the old wicker chairs on the front porch. Padfoot sits between them, head on her feet and working through a bone of pork rib that Jude had pulled out of the stock simmering on the stove top as she got lunch going. He does have to hold back a smirk at the look in Padfoot's eyes as Jude smooths the hair back from his floppy ears, calling him Hughie. Remus sets the cassette player in his lap and pulls out the tapes, handing them both over to his mum. “We’ve got this one, don’t think you’ve heard it before. Just came out last year, sort of rough sounding. Then I brought Joni Mitchell as well, went with Ladies of the Canyon this time.”
“Not Blue? She holds the cassette just under her nose to study the track listing and Remus wonders for a moment if she can still read or if the words are just vaguely familiar shapes. He shakes the thought away though, bites on his tongue again.
“We listened to Blue last time, you’re going to wear the cassette out.”
But she just tips her head back against the worn wicker and smiles at him. “It’s the best one though. Maybe bring Clouds next time.” She taps her fingers against Ladies of the Canyon and hands it back to him to slide into the tape player, singing “A Case of You” under her breath. That’s one of the most remarkable things to Remus, that she sometimes has to struggle to remember how to hold a fork, forgets the fucking year, but the lyrics of a song that came out nearly twenty-five years ago still flow off her tongue like they’re the simplest things to recall. You're in my blood like holy wine, you taste so bitter and so sweet. Remus feels sick again, like the whole world’s been turned onto its side.
They don’t talk as the music plays, not really. Remus’s mum pats her hands lightly against her thighs to the beat of “Morning Morgantown” and Remus feels his hands shake as she starts to hum along as well. He thinks about pulling out a smoke, even reaches into his bag to grab the pack before he thinks better of it, and scratches his fingers through Padfoot’s fur instead.
“Can I have one?” Remus blinks up at her, follows her pointed finger to his open bag leaning against the chair, the crushed packet of cigarettes peeking out from an inside pocket.
“One of these?” He asks, picking up the pack. She nods and her mouth quirks up in a crooked smile, the face she makes now when she knows she’s doing something Jude wouldn’t approve of. “Is that...are you sure you should?”
And she sighs at him, over-exaggerated and playful. “Remus John, I’m your mother, you’re supposed to listen to me.” And Christ, the way she says it. It’s not often she takes this tone, only sometimes, only when it’s a phrase he’s heard her say time and time again what feels like a lifetime ago. When it’s not Hope Lupin at sixty-four with chunks of her memory missing in front of him but instead Hope Lupin at forty-four or fifty-four or even a little bit of sixty-three come back for a brief moment. It’s like someone bottled up an ounce of who Remus grew up with and pours out a thimble-full for him to fully remember what’s lost. It's the voice he knew, bright and crystal clear and so sharp it could cut him.
So he nods and pulls out two, lights them with a snap of his fingers, fuck the lighter, and covers his eyes as subtly as he can with one hand as tears fight their way out despite his best efforts and his mum hums at the swell of nicotine beside him. He inhales too hard and feels the smoke fuck up his throat, digging his heels into the ground and looking away when Padfoot tries to meet his gaze.
They take off down the road again after lunch, just like always, Remus tapping his fingertips against the steering wheel and Padfoot finally sitting still, looking at him with a tilted head. Remus feels the wave of magic wash over him and he glances over to see Sirius, buckling his seat-belt and putting a hand on Remus’s forearm.
“Thank you for taking me.” Sirius clears his throat once, voice always a little off after the transformation. “I...I liked seeing her again. I think she’s more the same than you realize.”
“I can’t,” Remus starts and he hears his voice warble, stuck in his throat. “Fucking hell.” He starts again. “Sometimes I can’t remember what she used to be like. It, it’s like the only her that I remember, the only version is the person who loses more of herself each time I see her. I don’t, I…” he punches the steering wheel once and Sirius jumps at the sudden sound of the horn. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to forget, y’know?”
Sirius hums and leans over to rest his head against Remus’s shoulder, squeezes a hand on his thigh. “Well,” he starts, “I remember lots, surprisingly enough.” Remus snorts and Sirius bites at his shoulder through his shirt. “I remember the time she stole that cat from the little shop down your road because she didn’t think it was getting enough attention. I remember the time she tried to lift you up and twirl you around once you made prefect and you both ended up in a Lupin-esque heap on the floor, full of ungodly sharp elbows and big noses. You’ve reminded me of all the shit I can’t piece together anymore. Let me give you this.”
"Okay," Remus nods, voice rough. He takes his eyes off the road to find Sirius's, wide and honest, a fucking promise. "Okay."