Chapter Text
{Moony}
“Let’s do it!”
He blew in like a blizzard in December and swept up all the tranquillity of my afternoon reading. He always had a habit of turning up just when I had relaxed.
I barely look up from my page, “Do what?”
“Let’s become vampire hunters!”
That was when I was interested enough to meet his gaze and, sure enough, his dark eyes were blown wide with excitement and anticipation. Clear as day, I could see the great adventures being plotted in his mind and the ideals of fighting and hunting down mythical creatures. Of course, as the good friend I was, this was the part where I had to shut him down and pull him back into reality.
“Vampires don’t exist Sirius.”
“But they could!” He was already too far gone. “And we could apprehend them and rescue people from their…” He gesticulated wildly and scanned the open air for the right word.
“Villainy?”
“I was thinking more like… evilness!”
I snorted quietly but he was too busy going on to hear. “Yes, we will save them from the vampires’ evilness and become heroes, famed all over the world!”
“Which would be splendid if vampires actually existed,” I rolled my eyes and flipped the page. Knowing him, if I showed even a hint that I could be swayed to follow him, he’d never give up and that would be my whole evening gone. Best to just ignore him and not let my curiosity get the better of me, even when I really wanted to know where this came from.
“But they do exist!” He flopped rather ungraciously down next to me under the shade of the tree and stuck his head in front of my book, trying to meet my gaze. I finally gave up and closed the book, meeting his stubborn stare with one of my own.
“According to who?” I turned childishly, in a way only he brought out of me, against my own will.
“According to me!” He smiled even more immaturely and shoved my shoulder, entirely tipping me over and getting grass all in my hair. I called him a bastard and shoved him back and soon we were just rolling all over the ground, tugging and pushing at each other like children, laughing like old men at a reunion. Green and brown and black swirled as we tipped our foreheads against each other, in that way we invented when he first moved here.
He had turned up all at once and definitely not in a quiet way.
It was Autumn, I was eleven and had just started secondary and like every other immature juvenile I was annoying and a know-it-all and since my father was mayor, I thought it was my job to know everything that happened in our little hideaway-town.
For the most part, I did. Whenever someone was born, died, or moved away (no one ever moved in) I usually was one of the first to find out. That was until Sirius. Halfway through the Autumn Term, he just appeared like the sudden snows that late October. He was in all my classes, but we never spoke and no matter who I asked, no one knew anything about him.
He had his fair share of rumours surrounding him, which of course he did, and they only grew when someone followed him home once and saw him head to the Tonks’ house at the edge of town. Somehow, we all questioned his presence there more than the fact that someone was stalking him, and that’s when the rumours soured. He had gone from a mystery and a spectacle to a curse and a plague merely by association.
At that time, everyone had believed the Tonks’ house to be cursed and a headquarters of Satanic rituals and that is why it was so far removed from every other house; why they farm never wielded any crops; why no one had ever seen Ted’s wife. People also blamed her for it all as Ted was a town busybody before he married and was one of the most social of ours. After a private wedding that no one knew happened until it was over, he rarely left his home and so people thought that his wife was a witch and she had used her power to “suck his soul” or other nonsense along those lines.
Unfortunately, critical thinking skills seemed to be a scarcity in our town, so I was one of the only ones who didn’t believe in the tales. I did go over once or twice before to say hello and I had seen Andromeda, Ted’s wife, in passing and she certainly didn’t seem like a witch. She was far too warm and bright for evil to have been rooted in her heart and Ted was certainly too lively to have had his soul sucked from him.
So, when we found out Sirius seemed to be living there, many thought he was an extension of the curse or a wicked creature masking as a boy, brought by Andromeda to eat us all. Honestly, they would believe that the ground rose up and ate people at night if the right pastor or church lady said so. I didn’t though.
One school lunch, it was packed with snow, and everyone was scattered around the field, throwing snowballs, or making snowmen. I spotted him in the far corner, all alone under a tree. I decided that, whether he was a curse or not, it was too cold to be lonely. I balled up some soft snow into my palm and crept up behind him. He was too busy staring into space to even notice.
I wound up my arm and raised it to hurl the snow at his head. Then, all of a sudden: he turned around. I barely had time to notice the snowball in his hand before it was flying into my chest. The force of it knocked me off my feet and I fell, face first, into the hard packed snow.
I heard him get up behind me and begin to laugh. I wanted to be upset about it, but I couldn’t; his laugh was just so open and bright, I couldn’t resist joining in, I still grabbed his ankle and pulled him into the snow next to me as revenge. Still, we laid in the snow and laughed together until we could no longer breathe.
Then he turned to face me, his smile still tearing through his face. He stuck his hand out confidently and grinned: “My name’s Sirius, what’s yours?”
I took his hand firmly and shook it, “Remus” .
Since then, we had been inseparable. No one ever saw one without the other and slowly the rumours thawed, and people began to welcome him into their hearts. Soon enough, no one could remember a time without him causing trouble in our streets and making us all laugh. There never had been a Remus without Sirius, and no one really cared to know anything else.
I had only asked Sirius once about his life before, but the way he reacted taught me to never ask again. He only said:
“I was in a place I needed to leave, so I did.”
His expression entirely soured so I clammed up, choosing instead to flick the lines of worry that had creased on his forehead.
“If you keep making that face, it will get stuck that way.”
He laughed suddenly and leaped over to me, pinning me to the grass.
“Yeah, I’d bet you’d know a lot about that, Moony.”
I gave him a quizzical look at the random nickname that seemingly came out of nowhere. Without me having to say anything, he already knew what I wanted to ask.
“Moony: cause you seem all secretive and serious sometimes and that scar on the side of your face,” he trailed his hands down the old pink pit on the side of my jaw – I almost blush at the sudden, gentle, intimate touch - like he was tracing designs on a stained glass window, “It kinda reminds me of a moon crater.”
I laughed openly at him and flipped him over so that I could look down at him.
“Fine then, but I’ll have to come up with a name for you too.”
For summers and winters, we went on like that. Playing and jesting with each other and growing together. Babysitting baby Dora when she was born; helping each other get through the most boring of Latin lessons; celebrating at all the school festivals; and eventually finishing our Church-funded studies. We went from young and flighty to awkward and gangly teenagers before we knew it.
Sirius suddenly shoved me, knocking me out of my reverie.
“What are you thinking about in that big head of yours? Because, unless its about how to hunt vampires, you’d better focus on me,” He smirked stupidly and would be almost handsome if he weren’t trying to send me up.
“I’m trying to figure out why vampires and not werewolves or whatever else?” I leaned my head back against the rough bark of the tree.
Neither of us really had concrete plans for the future, so that summer when we were both sixteen, Sirius would come to me each day with a new grand idea. At first, travelling farmers (“We could feed everyone everywhere”) then witchfinders (“The King pays them well and we would be so powerful, no one could stop us”) and even circus performers (“Wouldn’t it be fun to make people happy and get paid for it too?”).
Those all had prompts though: he had either been trying to help Ted in the fields or he had seen the procession of witchfinders passing through the county or a circus had come to town. To my knowledge, no vampire attacks had been reported anywhere nearby and there hadn’t been any plays or books about vampires recently either.
He suddenly got up and rolled his back uncomfortably, like he was shaking off the question. “Just because they’re bad…. and eat people and- that isn’t good,” he muttered entirely unsure of himself. He was never good at lying.
I was almost hurt that he wouldn’t tell me the real reason, but I knew it was because it had something to do with where he came from. The only times he lied to me or kept secrets had to do with his past. Naturally, it hurt that my closest friend didn’t trust me, but I trusted that he would tell me about it whenever he was ready. After all, it wasn’t like I had told him everything about my life before him either.
“How do you plan on becoming a hunter then?” I watched him relax as I changed the subject, “I mean isn’t there training you have to go through for that? Our Church doesn’t offer any education above 16.”
“Well, you’re really smart and practically live in the library-” I shoved him and called him an arse before he continued, “There has to be some kind of book called Vampirism or The Hunter’s Guide to Blood-Sucking Creatures of The Night.”
I rolled my eyes but finally decided it was better to give in than to fight him on it. I got up and dusted the grass off my trousers and walked towards town. Sirius stood baffled behind me, “Where are you going?” he called.
Without looking back, I yelled. “Where the smart people live!” I didn’t have to look back to hear the unsteady footfalls as he ran to catch up with me.
~
Our town was as old, quiet, and small as any other town in the British countryside. There wasn’t anything special about us: same large Church building in the centre, same rows of market stalls with the same bustling crowds haggling for prices and the same plain-faced people wearing plain clothes and living in plain houses. Even the skies were the same bleak grey that everyone in this country looked up to, cloudless and still shrouded.
All of it unremarkable, save for the wanted posters depicting superstitious monsters and highway men or the King’s addresses for more knights and witchfinders bordered with Bible excerpts stuck all over every stone wall. Our town was one of the few furthest enough from a central city to still be plagued by mythical creatures and dark magic – which was all made up of course and yet we all believed in them so fervently to the point where there were council-mandated curfews and guards patrolling the edge of the forest bordering us, in case of any monsters getting out and stealing children.
The only haven safe from this superstition was the library, run by one of my favourite town outcasts: Ms McGonagall. I always thought it was because she wore trousers and didn’t go to church, but she said it was because she “refused to conform to the procession of lemmings that was the adult world.” My mother called her a “freethinker” but always in such a way it felt like she was pitying her for it. Either way, this meant that most town gossip and hearsay was blocked at the door and that it was a safe space for curiosities like Sirius, and me as well I suppose.
“Good morning Remus,” she smiled at me when I walked through the door brightly but that immediately soured when she saw Sirius behind me.
“Mr Black,” she grimaced at him, which he just laughed off.
“Always a pleasure, Minerva,” he winked at her which had annoyed us both the first twenty times but by then we had gotten used to it.
“It seems you haven’t learned manners overnight, no matter,” she turned away to sort through her desk, “As long as you learn to return your books before they are overdue, that is.”
“I will, I’m simply caught up in the glory of research, Minnie.” Her frown deepened immensely at the nickname and if I had even a little less common sense I would have laughed out loud. Instead I watched them awkwardly as they locked into a staring match, each testing the other as to who would break away first. There was something strange about it though, that rather than their usual jest of frustration there was some sort of secret conversation passing along a rapport between their eyes. It felt almost like I was intruding on something important.
“Yes, well we were looking for a book on vampires, miss,” I spoke out abruptly, breaking their focus. “We were wondering if you had anything on the topic?”
Ms McGonagall shook her head rather violently and turned away again to the shelf of books behind her desk. “Vampires?” she asked in an unreadable voice, “Why the sudden interest?”
“We’re going to be hunters!” Sirius piped up brightly.
At that she stumbled and dropped the books in her hands and turned to us eyes wide with something that wasn’t quite fear but not entirely disbelief either. I had never once seen her with that look on her face before or after, for that matter. Her hands shook as she reached to grab my shoulders, almost as if to shake me back to my senses, but she thought better of it and instead bent down to pick up the books she dropped.
Sirius and I gave each other an equally concerned look as we tried to help her but she firmly refused us. “I’m all right, I’m not quite so old that I need help to stand yet boys,” she said, her voice slowly becoming more steady.
“It’s only that…” her voice trailed off and I swore I saw her eyes glisten over and become misty with unshed tears, “Well, it’s just I haven’t heard anyone do such a thing in a long while. It is rather a surprise to hear of new hunters.”
“Were you a vampire hunter, miss?” I asked timidly, still poised to hold her if she suddenly grew faint again although that didn’t seem the case anymore.
“Me? No… I could never have,” Sirius rolled his eyes as he felt the beginning of an old story which wasn’t missed by the librarian but just ignored.
“It was my husband. We weren’t married very long as he wasn’t quite that good of a hunter. “Killed whilst in pursuit” they said and that was all.” She paused briefly to wipe the overflowing tears from her eyes, “Still he really seemed to love it when he was alive and he managed to do great things in the time he had. He saved a great many people and was a hero in his own right; it made me even more glad to have known him.” She trailed off wistfully.
“I told you vampires were real!” Sirius butt in excitedly, pointing at my face, self-satisfied.
“Yes, they are real!” She scoffed exasperated, “Dangerously so! I have half a mind to send you both home right this moment to keep yourselves well out of harm's way!”
Sirius opened his mouth to object but she cut him off curtly, “However, knowing you, young Mr Black, I know you’d just go off anyway, dragging Mr Lupin with you into all kinds of mortal terror. As a librarian, I cannot stand to see my favourite customer disappear,” she sent a soft motherly look, “And as a conscience, I refuse to be complicit in sending you both to your deaths without at least offering what help I can. It’s not what my Elphy would have wanted anyway…”
Sirius chuckled un-quietly and nudged me rather un-subtly at the words “my Elphy” which made me quite proud that I could keep the laughter bubbling in my cheeks. Still the entire conversation shook me: were vampires truly real? I went there to hopefully dispel Sirius’ fantasy so he could move on to his next grand idea; I hadn’t expected for Ms McGonagall to have such a visceral reaction to what I thought was just a silly plot. I was still rapping my head around it when she opened the counter and gestured for us to follow her into the room beyond.
Through the door connecting the front desk, there was a long, dim, empty corridor with only one small window at the end. To our right when we entered was a small oaken table that held only a stack of half-burned candles and a box of matches. Scorch marks and scratches textured its circular surface from where she had likely stricken the matches to light the candles several times before. Leading off of the corridor there was only a winding set of stairs going up to the left and an ornate stone door with a large iron padlock over it.
Stark images of iron blades and wine glasses all painted blood red were carved into the doors centre and, the closer we got to it, the more I felt deeply repulsed by it, like there was an indescribable and absolute force pushing me back from whatever was behind that door. As we stood right in front of it, I saw the unmistakable effigy of a stereotypical vampire looming from above the door, jaw open wide as if to eat all those who entered.
Just as I started to second guess it all, McGonagall had reached out a small skeleton key from her pocket and was slotting it through the small hole in the padlock. The large door creaked open slowly, gaping wide into what looked like an endless pitch staircase winding down into a lightless cold emptiness. She held up a candle she had grabbed from the table and lit it in one swift habitual movement before turning back to face us both, grave lines creasing her forehead.
“Once you go through here, you can never go back. Do you understand?” She asked solemnly, still holding the candle out through the door.
“We understand!” Sirius said, eagerly stepping forward boldly, ready to brave the dark and so sure and unafraid. It was only my grip on his sleeve and the unwillingness of my feet to move that held him back. Feeling my weight pulling against him, he looked at me quizzically, “Moony?”
“Padfoot,” I said in a hushed tone, quickly pulling him away from the door into a far corner not wanting McGonagall to hear us. I shuffled and avoided his eyes while still keeping my fingers firmly wrapped around his arm. It felt to me that if I let go I would lose him to whatever evil hid in the darkness beyond that ominous door.
“It’s just that…” I trailed off knowing exactly what he thought of my hesitation, “Well I’m not quite sure we should do this.” I watched as his mouth slowly widened and his brow creased but he still said nothing. “It’s just that until this morning, I didn’t even believe vampires existed and now what? We’re just going to walk into this potentially dangerous situation without even thing about it first?”
Pained stabbed from within my chest as I saw his lips turn into a firm frown that I’d only ever seen him give village gossips and concerned mothers. “All I’m saying is that we should take time and think about this.” I finished as strongly as I could, finally looking him in the eye and choosing to stand by my convictions. What I saw in his gaze was withdrawal and a cold look of both embarrassment and pain. I refused to believe he was that angry with me until he pulled his arm from my hand and stepped backwards from me. The solitary sound of his shoes clacking against the cobblestone floor echoed throughout the silent hall.
“Fine!” He raised his hands up and turned away, already rushing off back to the door. “You take as much time as you need, I’m going!”
Just like that, I watched him grab the candle from McGonagall and step down and out of my sight. As he disappeared into the darkness, I felt as if my heart was being torn out of my chest and there was nothing I could do but watch it as it slowly stopped beating.
~
That picture of my heart followed me out of the library, all through town and back to my home. No matter how hard I tried to reason with myself and reanalysed that conversation over and over, knowing I was right for feeling unsure – I still had a sinking feeling that I had made the wrong choice, leaving Sirius to go in there alone. But it wasn’t like I wanted to leave him! No, I wanted us to leave that place together, both safe and sound and as far as possible from whatever evil lurked in the darkness.
“It was his fault!” I told myself as I slammed open the door to our house’s entrance corridor. It was a grand open plan with a dark red carpet running all down the centre of the oaken polished floors: all perks of a mayoral salary which allowed us many luxuries most in our village couldn’t dream of. All of it was ornamental; the pearl marble pillars stretching up to the arched ceilings painted as a flower garden by my mother. My father had only allowed it in exchange for having his own office room to decorate as he pleased, much to my mother’s disappointment. Unfortunately, my father had a preference for garish yellows and striking greens when it came to wallpaper and furniture.
“It throws off the house’s atmosphere,” she lamented whilst painting the white rose bush in the left corner of the ceiling.
“It’s a waste of paint, really,” my father scoffed as he set up his artichoke green head chair. Still they were both happy enough in the end.
I walked down that hallway and through the kitchen, out to the main gardens where I knew I would find my mother as it was her favourite place in the house. She always said that the flowers had a peculiar way of speaking that she wanted to learn. That and, she refused to let a single weed “desecrate” her beautiful plant beds.
I sighed loudly, announcing my appearance and sprawling down beside where she was tending to the perennial geraniums.
“What has that Sirius boy done now?” she smiled at the flowers as if they were sharing a private joke at my expense.
“It’s just that he is so stubborn and obstinate and boldly stupid! He refuses to recognize reason and jumps head first into danger! It’s reckless and frustrating!”
“I always knew you cared a lot for that child, your Borage flower,” she grinned knowingly, reaching out to smoothen my hair, a small and familiar gesture of comfort.
“What do you mean Borage flower?” I leaned into her side, the warmth radiating from her pulling me closer.
“The flower of courage,” she laughed quietly, “I’ve only been lucky enough to see it once, it doesn’t grow well in this country’s horrid weather. It was given to Roman soldiers when they were sent off to battle. It means “to act on something from the heart” in Latin or “of course”. That’s what that boy is like for you,” she stated matter-of-factly but it still felt as though she meant something more by it.
“You are more of an Aster: wise and loyal and valiant. Which is why you are going to go back to the boy right?” She looked at me with gentle curiosity. I nodded slowly, finally understanding. It would hurt a lot more for Sirius to be hurt because I left him alone than for me to be hurt for yielding. “Good,” my mum turned back to her flowers, “do see your father to say goodbye before you leave and ensure to pack well.”
I looked at her in shock and opened my mouth to speak but she silenced me with her palm, “Hearing all this, it’s obvious that this kind of battle the Borage is going into will not over be in a day and you will go with him. It is about time you saw something outside of this small backwater town anyways,” she wiped her eyes, still facing her flowers. She then rose and wiped her hands down her front. “I am very proud of how you have grown and will be looking forward to letters of all the wonderful things you will be doing.”
That is when the tears started forming rivers down the crevices of her cheeks but she still held me back with her hand to stop me from hugging her. “I know you are a young man now but this may be the last time to help pack for my son, so I will do it and you cannot stop me.” She began to walk back off to the house, “Now go on, at least tell your father before you leave on this adventure.”
She was gone like that. It was all happening so fast for me and yet she accepted it all like she had been waiting for this moment. As much as it pained me, she was right: Sirius was probably already preparing from what he had gotten from McGonagall anyway and I couldn’t let him leave stubbornly without me. So I walked down the corridor and knocked on the far maple door to my father’s private withdrawing room.
He called for me to enter so I pushed against the door and it swung on its hinges, loudly creaking accompanied only by the sound of a pen frantically scratching against paper. As usual, my father seemed hard at his work forming some new legislation to protect the people or the environment or the livelihood of our townsmen; after all it was him who had allowed Ms McGonagall to set up the library despite the backlash he received for it.
“Son!” He smiled widely, removing his reading glasses from the bridge of his nose. “I was just about to look for you! You see, I know you have been looking for some work-”
“Father-” I tried to stop him but I couldn’t get a word out between his optimistic ramble.
“Well, I had asked around, even if you didn’t want me to, just in case there was anything and guess what-”
“Father-”
“You can apply for a place at the council office with me! I’m no fan of nepotism so it isn’t a sure hire but there is a spot helping with the books and you have always had quite the knack for mathematics-”
“Dad.” He finally stopped looking at me curiously as he searched for a reflection of his excitement at the opportunity. “Mother said I should come say goodbye to you.”
He stopped in his tracks, the smile dropping from his face like rain on a window pane as he set down his spectacles and stood up from behind his desk. He spoke as he walked closer to me, “Black, isn’t it?”
“Yes, quite. It seems we are going on an adventure together. Possibly without a return.” I stepped back slightly as he continued to walk closer to me without stopping.
“An adventure?”
“Vampire hunting it seems.”
At that, he stopped. He was less than an arm’s length away from me but his head was still turned down so I couldn’t see his face, his cold and empty voice spoke volumes to his feelings in its place, “Vampires?”
I started to ramble nervously, prattling on about how surprised I was and in how I hadn’t believed in them either and what a shock it was for me too to be proven wrong. I was so out of breath from my ceaseless chatter, his sudden and forceful embrace barely winded me.
“Oh my dear son, you have grown too much and too fast,” he almost cried into my shoulder, “Those evil, soulless monsters deserving of painful deaths have come for you once more.”
I stuttered, confused at his tone and phrase. What did he mean by “once more”? I had never seen hair nor hide of the creature in my life.
“I always knew this day would come,” he withdrew from me and turned aside before I could notice the wetness of his eyes. “I have prepared for this moment for a long time. Come.”
I followed him as he led me to the safe behind his office desk that I had never once seen opened before and had spent my childhood evenings speculating about what mysteries could be hidden inside. He revealed a thin chain from around his neck that had a single cross key hanging from it. Twice in that day had I seen peculiar doors being opened by concealed keys and I had already bored of it.
As he turned the key into the lock, the door sprang open to reveal a dust-coated small pile of books. He blew against them and dusted them softly before holding the copies out to me: “Vampirology: First Edition”, “The Vampire Hunter’s Companion Guidebook” and a small title-less, leather bound notebook.
There was so much I wanted to ask in that moment, when those old books passed from his hands to mine. However, my mother chose that moment to tumble in with my half-opened suitcase that looked rather reasonably packed; neither too heavy with over abundance or too light with arrogance.
“Ah yes the books,” she unceremoniously took them from my hands and packed them in to the bag with my clothes, “ I left just enough space for them.”
“I don’t understand…” I trailed off looking at the both of them, aware that they knew much more than they were letting on. The weight of it unsettled me; exactly how much had my parents shielded from me over the years? Why?
“You will understand in time, Remus,” my father slapped my back heartily and smiled what he must have thought was a convincing grin of confidence.
“Go on, my Aster. Your Borage won’t wait for you forever,” I tried my hardest to memorise all the soft features of her gentle beam as she leaned in to kiss my forehead and handed me my suitcase.
“Ah yes, that Sirius lad,” my father spoke tersely, “do be careful with him. Not all the world will look on you as we do and well…” his cheeks suddenly flushed, “Don’t go getting yourself in unnecessary trouble! And if he ever hurts you, you tell us straight away, understood?”
I blushed profusely at the wild assumptions it had become clear he had made and wanted to yell indignantly at the horrid implications of his warnings but I only stood gaping. “Lyall!” My mother giggled softly pushing against his chest playfully. It seems both my parents shared this wild fancy of imagination.
“I’m leaving.” I turned rapidly, desperate to remove myself as soon as possible from the embarrassment of the situation. “Goodbye Mother, Father.”
“Write us, Remus!” I heard my mother call happily as I walked off into the uncertain future. I reached and opened the door out of my home and almost to my surprise: there he was.
Sirius held a similar valise, probably filled with his clothes and belongings and was wearing a warm coat over his usual ensemble. He stood frozen in the action of knocking on the door. For a moment we stopped and looked at each other awkwardly, still reeling from when we last spoke. I hadn’t really realised how dark his eyes were before then, as dark as a midnight sky.
Then he smiled, “Did you really think I’d leave without you?” he grinned.
“You’re kidding! Not a chance!” I smiled back at him, “There’s no Padfoot without his Moony.”
“You’re certainly right about that.”