Work Text:
August 24, 1995
Tonks was the last one to go, leaving Sirius with a kiss on the cheek and Remus with a friendly wave before disapparating from his front doorstep. Remus had half a mind to make them some tea, but he returns to the sitting room to see that Sirius has found his bottle of Firewhiskey and two mugs.
Yeah, that’s a much better idea.
They sit in silence for a while, save for the occasional cough as the Firewhiskey burns in their throats. After the long day they’ve had, Remus’s mind feels clouded, heavy, but becoming clearer with every sip.
It almost felt like old times, today – his sitting room crowded with grave faces, Dumbledore lecturing and planning, Moody’s eye scanning the room with its usual menace. But that only made the many differences more jarring – Severus Snape sitting in Peter’s old chair, the unfamiliar faces of Kingsley Shacklebolt and Hestia Jones staring at him from where Marlene and Dorcas used to stand. The Weasley brothers, almost the spitting image of the uncles they hardly knew, squeezed into the armchair that James and Sirius used to share. And Sirius, no longer the bright center of the room, but a gaunt shadow in the corner.
Remus looks to him now, sitting with his legs draped over the arm of his chair, staring vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. However draining and confusing and emotional today had been for him, it must have been infinitely worse for Sirius. Dumbledore hadn’t told everyone he’d invited to the first meeting of the re-formed Order of the Phoenix that Sirius Black would be there, much less that he was innocent. Remus could tell that it was only their trust in Dumbledore that kept most of their guests from cursing Sirius on the spot. The air had been thick with tension as Sirius explained himself. Remus stood beside him the whole time, itching to take his hand.
There had been some good moments. Kingsley had burst out laughing the minute he saw Sirius – it turned out he’d just that morning been put in charge of the Ministry’s hunt for Sirius by the Minister himself. Molly and Arthur had greeted him warmly enough. And Tonks had leapt up to hug him once he’d finished his story, delighted to have her favorite uncle back. She’d stayed back to talk long after the meeting had ended, finally leaving with a promise to bring her mother around to visit soon.
As if reading his thoughts, Sirius says, “It’ll be good to see Andromeda again soon. You remember her, Remus?”
“I do.” Remus had met her once, in the summer before their third year. Sirius had stayed with her and her husband for a month that summer, and he’d invited Remus over for a weekend. He remembers Sirius had been ecstatic to hear that she’d had a baby girl the year after that.
“Tonks wasn’t even ten the last time I saw her,” Sirius continues, bitterness in his voice. “And now she’s here, our age, in the same fucking position we were in, fighting the same war we fought.” He takes a sip. “It’s… it’s just…
“Dispiriting?” Remus offers.
“You and your big words,” Sirius laughs a little. “I was thinking ‘bullshit.’”
“That’s a much better word,” Remus chuckles.
Sirius falls silent again.
“What else were you thinking about?” Remus asks after a minute, hesitating at the brooding look on Sirius’s face.
“We were going to change the world,” Sirius says quietly, still gazing into the kitchen. “It’s so odd to remember that now. I have my memories back. But it’s like I’m watching them play out from under water. How passionate I was, how… alive I felt. It’s all… muffled, now, and dull.”
Remus doesn’t know what to say to that. When Sirius glances at him, he can only nod at him to go on.
“It wasn’t just defeating Voldemort, remember? We were going to kick his ass,” he chuckles, “and then we were going to build a better world. One that was safer for Muggle-borns, more tolerant of Muggles. Better for werewolves.” He looks at Remus now. “And for half-giants, merpeople, centaurs. One where the pure-blood elite didn’t essentially run everything however the fuck they wanted. But then…” he trails off, thinking.
“Well, then it all went to shit, didn’t it?” Remus suggests.
“Yeah,” Sirius sighs. “It did. And now it’s thirteen years later, and I’m a mass murderer.”
“You’re not –
“I am, though,” Sirius insists. “Not to you and about a couple dozen other people, but to most of the world, yeah, I am. That’s what I’m known for. Betraying my best friends in the whole world, blowing up a dozen innocent people. And either way, it’s my fault that any of that happened. Don’t say it,” he holds up a hand as Remus opens his mouth to protest, “You know it’s true.”
“Sirius –
“And now there’s a whole new generation fighting the exact same fight. Dora. The Weasley boys. Neville Longbottom. And Harry,” he says bitterly, “the one we did everything for, the one James and Lily” – his voice breaks. He looks down at his hands clasped tightly in his lap. “He’s right at the center of this fight. It’s…”
“Unfair,” Remus finishes. “It feels pointless. Hopeless.”
Sirius nods.
“I know. I feel it too. I felt it, today. But.” Remus does what he couldn’t do earlier today, and kneels in front of Sirius’s armchair, taking his hands in his own, “we keep going. We keep fighting. That’s all we can do. We can still change the world, leave it better than we found it.”
“I know,” Sirius says. “It’s just… hard. Sitting here today – it was like nothing had changed, but also everything had changed.”
“I know.”
“And, I was also thinking…” Sirius hesitates, looking down at their hands. “About us. You and me. And, if nothing has changed but also everything has changed, then… who are we, to each other?”
Remus tilts Sirius’s face up, looks into his eyes. “I don’t know,” he says slowly, and he truly doesn’t. “But… we’re all we have left.”