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“I saw the way she looks at you.”
My knee follows the rhythm of the old, tickling watch above one of my mother’s shelf, in the living room of Grimmauld Place number 12, London. I am Sirius Black and I’m seriously – you can bet your ass that every pun was intended – irritated. Right in front of me, seated at the mahogany table that was a wedding gift for some sort of my grandmother that was probably already too old when Brutus killed Julius Caesar, there is Remus Lupin. He is reading his copy of the Daily Prophet. It is Sunday. The sky is too sunny for my taste.
Sunday, bloody Sunday.
Ironically enough I’m wearing my U2 t-shirt that I bought somewhere in London during the glorious 70s. Probably Carnaby, when they were still at their beginning. Oh how I loved to sneak out there during the endless summers that I was forced to spend with my biological family.
Remus turns his face slowly at me. His hands are joined, his elbows are on the newspaper. He is probably bothered by my distracting him while he’s reading about nothing really important.
“What are you talking about?” he says, frowning.
I think about how much time has changed us. It is easy to think about these things when you missed twelve years in the life of your dear ones and whilst you remembered a Remus with a barely scruffy chin, the man in front of you has moustaches – moustaches – some white hair e many wrinkles. And you are an old man yourself, dressed in your teenage clothes ‘cause they are the only ones you have here in that stupid house. In the house you wanted to leave, the house now you’re forever stuck in. No doubt that Mrs. Walburga Black is probably having the time of her life… death, right where she is. Hell can’t hold her, I’m sure and Heaven surely is not her place. Maybe she never left. She is hiding herself somewhere, torturing me with her presence.
“Sirius? Are you there?” Remus wakes me up. He always does. His hands are now on the newspaper too, lined with the elbows. He’s impatient and he would like to come back reading.
“My niece. I saw the way she looks at you.” I answer, taking my hand to my forehead. A silver plate shows my face, deformed, on one shelf. God, I grew old.
Remus rolls his eyes. “So what?”
He is doing that: he is trying to keep calm so I won’t have any right to jump and start a fight. I can read his body language so well and I’m sure Ninfadora cannot. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to calm me down.”
And he sighs. “You are doing it all by yourself, Sirius.”
Ok, at some degree he has got a point. Does it mean I am not right? Hell yeah I’m right. I get up and my steps drive me right next to him that is now reading an article about the admission of Dolores Jane Umbridge as Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher at Hogwarts. I put my hands on the newspaper. “Do not do that.”
He raises his eyes slowly to my face. “You’re a child. Please, let me read!” and, hopefully, he tries to look again at the article. Pretty useless move, since my hand is still there and I think it looks like he does not want to leave its place.
“Fine.” Remus says, folding the newspaper and putting it out of his reach. “Here, do your show!” he is starting to lose patience. He became less tolerant since he grew old, or maybe is just the fact that the full moon is only sixteen days away now.
“I came back two years ago, Moony -”
“I can keep the track of time, thank you very much.”
“And we are still not together.”
Silence falls. Our relationship is not a subject Remus treats without any worries. Even at the time where we were all happy and together, when James and Lily were still alive, even at the time he did not want to talk about it. Now we are thirty-something and still it seems to me that nothing has changed, except for our physical appearance.
Remus still keeps calm. Some would say he does not care so much, but I know different: he knows that all the Beast needs to come over is a tiny sparkle, and he chooses to give none to it. With his left hand, takes a small chocolate square from an old Cadbury’s chocolate bar we bought in the nearest Tesco - we sound so much like a married muggle couple... and that’s my win against you, mummy – and, after having munched it a little, clears his throat and then speaks, calmly.
“Are you saying that Voldemort is arisen, the world is in danger, Harry is in danger… and all you can care about is that you do not have a boyfriend? Is this what are you saying?”
He’s got his point. He looks at me, his left hand is now at the side of his face and all I can think about is that his eyes do not seem older: they’ve always been like they already felt all the pain in the world, and I used to feel sorry for that although I know it’s not my fault.
“Yes, Moony. I’ve been twelve years locked in a cell, I spent two years as a dog eating rats just to help Harry as much as I could and during this bloody, sunny Sunday I’m asking why on Earth my soulmate, my companion, has not yet talked about us” and I point at both our chests “together again. Is it so selfish just to look for the only thing in my life that could make me happier now?”
I am afraid I’ve raised my voice more than I should have. It’s not my fault anyway, it happens when I’m too involved and he knows I’ve no control over that, still he doesn’t like it.
“Full moon is in sixteen days, Pad.” He says, looking away from my eyes. Outside our nearest window, the street seems just another world we don’t belong to. “Grow up Sirius. No one is happy.”
And I know, I do know that he says this because he is uneasy, almost sick right now. I can tell by the scratches in his hands and the pale reflection in his eyes but I am a selfish bastard and I have to talk again, I cannot stay silent and someday this thing is going to have me killed.
So, not knowing how it ends up like that, my fists hit the wooden table. The tickling watch is the only thing that does not seem surprised and keeps tickling on and on. “It’s you that has to grow up, Remus; I do not give a fuck if you are a damn bloody werewolf or a unicorn that shits rainbows out of his perfect ass.”
He turns his face. He looks at me. I can almost feel his angry words coming out of his mouth when the sound of a laughter comes right to my ear and, somehow, it breaks the wall that was here since I passed the threshold. Remus is laughing. Hands on his mouth, bowed head, and wrinkles at the side of his eyes. He is actually laughing. How long was it since I last heard him laughing like that?
And I am currently an idiot that is pointing his finger against another idiot who is laughing. “What? I was damn serious, Moony.”
“Damn right you’re Sirius.” He says, going on a pun like he was the true marauder after all. Damn bastard.
I am laughing too, now. Arms on my bellies, hair on my face and a great urge to kill my Remus. That, of course, meant it all was well.
“A unicorn? Perfect ass? You’re hopeless. Pad.”
I know he’s right and while I sob, I let my body fall back onto my father’s armchair. It smells like old velvet and – surprisingly – I like that and I rub my hand onto its arms. “It’s this house. It drives me mad.”
Remus gets up and disappears a while in the kitchen, from where I can hear some water running. I hate arguing with Moony, he is my only strength left now and I know that all that each other has is us. If James were here and saw us arguing like that he would have gone mad, with little doubt: he always cared about our getting along. Or he would have laughed too, maybe earlier than we had.
There will ever be a day when I won’t miss my best friend?
“Here, have some tea.”
Remus comes back with a huge cup full of hot tea that leans into my hands with his pale scratched hands and I can’t help but thinking about all these years and all the full moons he had to pass without a friend by his side.
“Thank you mommy!” I say teasing him and he does nothing but sighing and going back into the kitchen to take his cup.
And everything I know in that moment is that I love him. And I don’t want to disappoint him… damn, am I really that old?! Twelve years happen in a blink when you are locked up, don’t they?
Remus comes back and sits down. He takes the newspaper and tries to go on with his reading but I am a mess and I need to speak again while the hot cup spreads its warmth onto my hands and onto my lap. “Did you really believe that I could’ve betrayed James and Lily? Even just for a second?”
He stops reading, but doesn’t look at me. He looks somewhere, maybe in his past – recent past – and before answering me, takes a long sip out of his white cup. I bite my lower lip and hold my breath because his answer is really important to me and I can’t think that I haven’t asked him until now.
Finally, he speaks. “I guess I had to believe it for a while. I had no other options and, you know, Dolores Umbridge kinda gave me a hard time with his decrete so… I had to be angry at someone.” He bites his lower lip too. Actually he begins torturing his lips, both of them, biting them, licking them, scratching them with his teeth. Then his face turns and looks at me. “But when I saw you again, in the Shrieking Shack, it was impossible for me to believe it. I guess I never really did it.” And he sips again like the old English professor we predicted he would become. That’s one for you, Prongs, wherever you are.
I nod. I don’t know what I would have done if it happened to me: all alone with no one to trust and all my certainties shred up in pieces like a broken mirror.
“You are so strong, Moony. I love you.” And now it’s me looking away from him or I would cry. And I still don’t like doing that.
“I love you too, but you are such a child sometimes.” He says.
And I know, just as it was when we kissed the first time, I know we are okay. We are still Remus and Sirius and we don’t really need to say, to tell out loud that we are together or not because… because, really, there is no other way. I’m on his side just like he’s on mine and he will always be my boyfriend but not for long.
As soon as I can, I will marry that boy. Man, that man: we are thirty-six now, I tend to forget it.
“Anyway, she is only a kid to you. Don’t… just don’t. Okay?”
Remus tries to hide a smile. “I’m telling you, Pad, the only reason I could be with her is if you are not here anymore.”
“In that case, you can. Only because she’s my closest relative that’s not married yet.”