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The tricky thing about soulmates was—not everyone had them. And not everyone found them. And not everyone became a soulmate at the same time. There was no exact science. There was no telling when you’d be ready for your soulmate, or when they’d be ready for you. Sometimes it was dreadful, like standing in a crowd with your best mates, and suddenly the world exploded into colour.
The worst part was the shock, really. Ask any of the SMs—as they were called. Going your entire life not understanding colour, not seeing it, having no idea what it meant, then you’re violently thrown into a world that’s too bright and too much and it’s overwhelming. Many people went mad at first. Several of them had to be put on medications. An entire company came into being in order to produce pills that would ease the transition of SMs once everything changed.
It sounded romantic, to the Non SMs, having your world suddenly flare to life with a great applause, like a rainbow showering you with beautiful light and love. But it wasn’t, really.
Not so lovely.
For Sirius Black, he was determined to never meet his. Ever. Because who wanted to bother with boring old love, anyway? His parents were SMs and they were horrible to each other, and horrible to their kids, and to the rest of their family. Sirius was a spoilt child, he got anything and everything he asked for, except love and affection. But who needed that?
When he got his Hogwarts letter, he was unsurprised. He’d been doing accidental magic since he was two. He was on the train with his cousins at first, until they started taking the piss because they thought he was a bit of a nance for crying when Bellatrix got him with a stinging hex, and one boisterous boy Sirius recognised as a Potter, because who didn’t recognise the son of Fleamont Potter—started giving as good as Bellatrix did. Then he grabbed Sirius by the hand and dragged him to another compartment with five other people and for a second Sirius thought he just really loved this arrogant boy and maybe this was his soulmate? Maybe he’d see colour? What was colour, anyway?
He didn’t.
Instead he sat with Frank, Marlene, Remus, Peter, and James.
Frank was a bit weird, he was a second year, but more than happy to share his knowledge of the castle and the houses. He was Gryffindor—like most of his family. Marlene was mouthy and loud, but Sirius liked that about her. She knew more hexes than most of them—not as many as Sirius, but Sirius wasn’t anxious to draw attention to the fact that he was a Black.
Peter was quiet, unobtrusive, with pockets full of chocolate frogs he shared round the compartment. He watched James like James was a deity or something, which irritated Sirius because James was great, but…really?
Then there was Remus and he was the most fascinating of all. Because he was thin, poorly it seemed with his peaky face and dark circles under his eyes and scars just about all over. In fact, his eyes were all fogged up and he was holding on to a long white cane and when Sirius pointedly asked him what it was all for he said simply, “I had an accident when I was a boy and now I can’t see.”
“How old? I mean, you’re still a boy,” Sirius pointed out.
“Don’t be rude,” James chastised, but Remus smiled in spite of Sirius’ tone.
“I was four.”
“So you could see til you were four? Did you see colour?”
“I don’t remember. But I don’t think so.”
Sirius decided he liked him very much because if you could have your face clawed up by some accident and be blind and never see anything—not even colour so how would you even know if you met your soulmate—and still smile about things, well you had to be alright, didn’t you? And Sirius envied him too, because he just didn’t want it. He didn’t want a soulmate. He didn’t want to be loved or love so much because he knew very well that when you got attached to something and someone took it from you, that was the worst pain you could ever feel.
The problem was, Sirius Black was about to fall in love with his friends, and he didn’t realise it. And he was unprepared. He was unprepared for the fierce loyalty he’d feel for James Potter. How he’d do anything James asked mostly because it went the same way round. Or how he’d learn that Remus was a werewolf and had to transform blind and alone and tearing himself to pieces. And how that’s why he was blind in the first place because his first transformation he’d clawed his face to bits so badly, there were parts of him even magic couldn’t repair. And Sirius was wholly unprepared for the fierce burning need to keep Remus from hurting like that ever again. Or the way he’d enjoy watching the sunlight play off his face when he’d sit by the lake whilst the rest of them went for a swim. Or the tears in his eyes when his hands roamed round the muzzle and soft fur of a dog, and the massive antlers of the stag, and the small furry body of a rat when Sirius’ idea had come to fruition and they’d all mastered their animagus forms.
Sirius was unprepared for all of this, and yet took comfort in the fact that in spite of his love, in spite of how he felt, his world remained black and white.
***
Sirius was seventeen when it happened. He’s been with the Potters’ because he’d been hexed and disowned and burnt from the tapestry. He had no money, no possessions, and a smudge where his face once lay on something his mum told him was green—but of course he had no concept of green besides that the SMs could tell the difference in shades between leaves from the trees and the grass beneath them.
But what did he care.
He was angry. He was hurt. He was alone.
He made a mistake.
Snape had been in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong words, and Sirius snapped. His mouth moved before his brain caught up with him, and he told himself it was fine. Then he told James what he’d done because inside he was panicking and oh Merlin wouldn’t someone please just stop him?
James did, of course. He went and rescued Moony whose wolf form would be vicious at the unfamiliar smell of human and stranger—and might even recognise Snape for enemy and be particularly vicious.
Sirius hadn’t taken into account that the wizarding world was already unfriendly to blind wizards. They had none at Hogwarts as far as Sirius could ever remember. And the Ministry, Remus once told them, was just looking for a reason to put him down.
Sirius had vowed once to never let that happen.
Then his hot head nearly led to it becoming a reality.
James punched him. Then hexed him. Then punched him again.
Remus merely closed the curtains on his bed and refused to come out.
Sirius was aching inside because he knew what he’d done was so wrong and it was different with Moony because it was Moony and Sirius loved James but not the same as he did the teen with the tight, dark-tawny curls and too big nose and slight overbite which touched his bottom lip every time he smiled so wide.
Sirius could watch Remus read his bumpy muggle books for hours and hours, mesmerised by the way his fingers would move across the page and Sirius would scrunch up behind him on the chair with his chin on Remus’ shoulder and breath in his ear and say, “How does that make sense? How?”
Remus tried to show them all over the years, and James and Peter actually got decent enough at it to plan pranks through braille and no one could ever read it. They’d send notes in class and only Sirius couldn’t figure it out because he was always so damned restless. So Remus would read to him aloud from silly poets and classical literature which was so boring unless it was curving round Remus’ Welsh lilt.
And sometimes he’d curl up in Remus’ bed at night because he had nightmares and Remus would hold him tight. Sometimes Remus would touch his cheeks and his mouth and giggle a little because, “You’re so pretty, Sirius. Everyone’s always right about you, you know.” And Remus was the only one ever allowed to touch Sirius’ hair.
And yet everything remained black and white.
And yet Sirius sacrificed all of that to a fit of anger because Snape was a childish git.
Remus didn’t forgive him for three months. Three agonising months where there was no books or poetry, there was no night time escape from the nightmares, no fingers tracing his cheekbones or running into his hair.
And everything was so dull. Never had he been so profoundly aware of his lack of colour.
***
It was May, and whilst the fifth years and seventh years were panicking about their OWLs and NEWTs respectively, Sirius was up on the astronomy tower smoking because he was lonely and James was becoming less of a prat which means Evans had decided it was perfectly alright to study with him now, and Sirius was itching for a change but so afraid to do anything because he didn’t trust himself.
Remus stepped out, holding his cloak tight to him, and his cane out in front of him with a searching hand and the map sticking out of his pocket. “Prongs said you were up here. Please don’t hide.”
Hiding from Moony was as easy as not saying a word, not taking a step, and holding your breath. Sirius learnt early on not to do it, because it was cruel. Not that he ever set much stock in things like that. Except when it came to Remus. Something he was realising just now. Everything had always been different with Moony.
“I’m here. I’m not hiding, just having a fag.”
“Got an extra?”
These were the most amount of words Remus had spoken to him in three long months. He scrambled into his pocket for the pack of muggle cigarettes he’d nicked from Flich’s office. “I’m just in front of you.”
Remus walked over, hand still out and stopped when Sirius grabbed it. It was the first time he’d been allowed to touch. He pressed the cigarette into Remus’ palm.
“I’ll light it, if you like?”
Remus had always been pleased by Sirius’ wandless magic. He always claimed he could feel it, and Sirius had a trick where he could breathe heat right into the end of a fag and light it up better than any muggle flame.
“Alright.”
Sirius took him by the shoulders and let his breath ghost across the tip until it caught bright red, a plume of smoke ghosting from the top. He grinned a little when Remus sucked, his cheeks hollowed, the smoke coming from his nostrils like a dragon.
“It’s cold for May,” Sirius remarked. He didn’t say anything as Remus slid up next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder. “If it was November you could see me in the sky. My star.”
“Brightest one in the night sky,” Remus remarked, having obviously read it from a book, or heard it from one of Sirius’ drunken ramblings.
“Unlike me.”
Remus laughed, clenching the cigarette between his too-white, wolfish teeth, and he turned to Sirius. One hand reached out, searching, cupping against Sirius’ chilled skin. “Just like you, Sirius. Just like you. Even with my eyes, I can see you.”
Sirius felt his swallow get caught in his throat, and to combat the pressure he sucked on the cigarette hard. “Moony…I’m sorry.”
“Oh I know you are, Padfoot,” Remus said. His hand moved from Sirius’ cheek, trailing across his shoulder, down his arm. His long, large fingers cupped round Sirius’ elbow, then went down to press to his own hand, palm-to-palm. “I forgive you.”
Sirius blinked, and then as Remus sucked on the fag, something changed. Everything changed, actually. Everything was different. Bright, even in the dim light of the moon which made everything murky and strange.
“Fuck.”
Sirius had secretly hoped that if he did ever see colour, if it ever happened to him, it would be somewhere with a lot of people. Like the sorting feast or Halloween in the Great Hall. But no. It had to be now. Right now, with Remus holding his hand and breathing smoke into his face and the astronomy tower around them, and now the moon looked so white and Sirius knew by listening to others natter on that the end of the cigarette was red.
“Sirius?”
He licked his lips and laughed because there was a chance Remus was his soulmate, but he wasn’t Remus’. Or that he had been forever. Or that he wouldn’t be for some time. Or maybe…maybe…
“Do you think if I wished very hard, I could jump off the tower and fly?”
Remus clenched his fingers just slightly. “No. I don’t think even you’re that good, Pads.”
“Probably not,” Sirius mused. “I’m not saying that because I want to jump. Because I want to die, Moons.”
“I know.” Remus let his thumb trail along the lines of Sirius’ palm. “Lily Evans can see colour. It happened in the library last week when she was working on Charms with James.”
Now Sirius really did choke on the drag he took, and pounded his chest with his free hand. “And Jamie’s still all greys? That’s…”
“It’ll happen, I think.”
“D’you ever wonder if it happened for you already, and you didn’t know?” God he was so rude, so bold with Remus after everything he’d already done.
But Remus just laughed and tugged him closer. “Does it matter? How many people hate their soulmates?”
“How many people don’t?” Sirius challenged, because he realised he could never hate Remus. No matter what. “My parents don’t. They hate me, but not each other.”
Remus let his thumb trail up Sirius’ wrist. “I’ll never know. I mean, that’s always lost to me.”
Sirius dropped what was left of the cigarette and crushed it under his boot. He watched in silence as Remus finished his, then let it fall off the edge of the tower. Sirius tugged him closer and their bodies slotted together like they were always meant to be that way.
“I think I love you.”
Remus laughed, letting his hands fall on Sirius’ shoulders, gripping him tight. “Oh I know you do, Sirius. You’re not as subtle as you think you are.”
“Neither are you,” Sirius challenged, but in truth he was quaking inside, all the way to his bones because how had he never noticed? That Remus touched him more, touched him differently and how if it had been James or Peter that had betrayed him like that, forgiveness would have come. Weaker and faster. But for Sirius he had to be punished because it was so much more.
“Course I’m not. Was never trying to be, but you’ll know some day, Sirius. We could be together for ages and some day you’ll know and then what will happen to me?”
Sirius put his hand on the side of Remus’ neck, cupping the skin there gently with his slender fingers. “I see colour.”
“Sirius,” Remus said, sounding tired.
“Just now.” And maybe it was the tone in Sirius’ voice that made Remus freeze on the spot, and his face fall into a look of cautious optimism, but something shifted. “It’s all dark out here, and tomorrow it’s going to be horrible and I’ll have to take pills and try not to be ill from the shock of it all. But right now I could see the red on the end of your fag, and I can see the stripes on your stupid scarf, though I’m not sure which one is gold and which is maroon. Not that I care. All I care about right now is I want to kiss you.”
Remus trailed a hand up, cupping Sirius’ cheek, then let the side of his thumb brush along Sirius’ nose, down round his mouth, under his chin like he hadn’t done in so long it hurt. “Kiss me then, Pads. If you’re going to be stuck in hospital for the next four days trying not to claw yourself to bits as your brain rewires itself, we’d better pre-emptively make up for lost time.”
“You sound like a fucking dictionary,” Sirius said before he pushed forward and stuck his tongue in Remus’ mouth.
It was everything and nothing he’d ever imagined before, but it felt right. And maybe that’s what the price of it was. The price of pain, and overwhelming change, and going nearly mad. Because it meant every time you did this, held them and kissed them and felt their heart beating against yours, you knew it was right. You knew it was where you belonged.
“You taste like colours,” Remus said, breathing hard against Sirius’ mouth.
“Mm, I guess I wasn’t wrong then.”
Remus palmed his cheek. “No. I reckon you weren’t. But then again, I don’t know that you’ve ever been.”