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A little boy with ruddy, freckled cheeks and flaming red hair goes running down a wide country lane on unsteady feet. He's laughing, green eyes set in half moons from smiling so wide. He's missing a front tooth and his curls are bouncing off his forehead as he goes. Close behind him is a little girl of around the same age, with long, unruly hair in that same shade of red, and a muddy, green frock. They look like a matched set as they run off towards the barn on the other side of the hillock, a small black lamb chasing them all the way.
Remus stands and watches as the moving images in the magical photo on his mam's fridge reset back to the start—the same boy running back around the corner and sprinting down the old country lane, the girl chasing behind. He smiles, a small and gentle thing. He supposes he's still that boy—add thirty-or-so years, more than several feet, and a short, wiry, red beard to match his fiery red hair—complete with a smattering of silver strands, a gift from father time. Time has also given him more scars. They bisect the galaxies of freckles that cover him head to toe, like lightning bolts amongst the stars.
Sirius had traced those same scars with gentle fingertips the night before as they lay in the guest bedroom of his mam's cottage. They had spent the entire day in the fields, helping to take care of the animals and mending some broken fencing around the edge of the property—only taking breaks for Hope's lovely sandwiches on thick white bread, served with tall glasses of sweet, fizzy lemonade. Sweaty and puffed out by sundown, they took a cold shower and crumpled together on the guest bed—nestled under an old patchwork quilt, atop an exceedingly lumpy mattress. Though they were flat out with exhaustion, they still spent hours talking and laughing about everything and nothing, hands roaming aimlessly—just to touch and be touched. At some point in the wee hours of the morning, Sirius had run a reverent hand through Remus’ graying beard, thumbing at his cheek and tittering, calling him an old, handsome fool—his ancient, frailing muppet, with the lovely salt and paprika beard. Remus couldn’t let such slander go, and was forced to pin Sirius to the mattress and show him exactly what an old, frail man could do. When they finally began to drift off into sleep, sated and bleary, it was the rise and fall of Sirius' chest under Remus' large palm that brought him there—heart a steady thrum. When the cock crowed a few hours later, Remus pressed a kiss to Sirius’ brow and got himself up, out of bed and into the cold of the room. He threw on an old sweater and staggered down the stairs to make himself a cup of builder’s brew. He stood admiring his mam’s old photo while it steeped.
Remus hadn’t been home for a long time, and never with Sirius. He had missed muggle Ireland—nowhere else in the world filled his heart and soul in the same way. Even Sirius with his easy smiles, warm heart and boisterous laughs couldn't quite manage to fill this particular void. Remus missed his mam’s lamb stew. He missed the hot, and slightly spicy cups of Punjana tea with his buttery toast in the mornings. He missed Sunday mass. He missed the frosty bottles of Bulmers cider, and properly poured pints of Guinness from the small, local pub, packed to the brim with lads from the village—some auld boys in the corner, clad with fiddles, pipes and bodhráns, playing an impromptu rendition of Whisky in the Jar. He missed the sesh, the craic of it all—the laugh. He missed hearing a lilt that matched his own. He missed standing outside the pub in the Easter drizzle, packing the tobacco for his roll-up as his socks grew increasingly more damp in his trainers.
He has missed, and missed, and missed for so long that it's become an inextricable part of him—the missing. It’s different from the way his British friends seem to miss their old muggle lives. It cuts so much deeper, right to the core of him. It’s like having a piece of your heart carved out of you—like you're forever longing for something that is both inside of you, and that you'll never find again. It's the knowledge of truly belonging somewhere that’s just out of reach—a place that carries that carved out part of you. He wonders sometimes if the land feels his absence as viscerally as he does.
He talks to Lily about the missing sometimes—the other small figure from the picture in his mam's kitchen. She makes him feel less alone in his longing. Less guilty that he can't make Sirius fit into the empty spaces, because she can't make James fit into them either. While they do speak of it from time to time, they don't spend a great deal of time reminiscing—talking about home only serves to make it feel impossibly further away. Talking about it makes the gnawing ache in their chests feel solid and calcified—impossible to ignore. So they have each other, and it's nice, but it's not always enough.
When Sirius eventually wakes and finds him later that morning, Remus is sat on a crate under the kitchen window smoking a roll-up. It feels strange to have him here amongst all the things that feel like home, but also not that strange at all. Almost like having everything that feels like home in one place finally brings a sense of quiet to his restless heart. Remus sets about rolling Sirius his own feg, and they sit together watching wind rustle through the rich green grasses in the field for several long minutes. It's quiet, a comfortable and welcome silence. When Sirius has smoked his fill, he tosses the butt under his boot, before picking it up and depositing it in the designated clay pot on the windowsill. He looks at Remus warmly, running gentle fingers through his ginger curls. "The village market is today. Think we'll still have time to go?”
Remus checks his watch—it's still early yet. "Yeah, I think we'll make it."
"Do you think they'll have that lovely soda bread with the dried berries and orange peel, like your mum brought home on Thursday? It was fucking heavenly—all warm, and with the fresh butter? Christ. I would happily eat that until I die."
Remus huffs a small laugh, and looks at Sirius, then—really looks at him. The man he's married to, and the man who has stood by him for nearly twenty years. The man who may not fit in the same space in his heart as this place, but who his heart calls home nonetheless. He smiles, it reaches his eyes and breaks open his entire face.
"I think they might."