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“They like you,” said Sirius as he watched Remus intently over the brim of his glass. An hour ago, the kitchen had been filled with voices, but now it was just him and Remus left, like it had been the previous night before the Weasleys had all arrived at Grimmauld Place. The fire danced on the amber liquid in his glass, illuminating the left side of his face and painting the kitchen in specks of red and gold. He took a sip, slowly, still watching Remus. “They respect you.” He lowered his glass, lips twitching. “Of course they got the completely wrong measure of you.”
Remus hummed, eyes set on the fireplace. “That wouldn’t be my fault.”
“Of course not,” said Sirius. The smile was audible in his voice.
“It isn’t.” Remus barely suppressed his own smile. “I used ‘Waddiwasi’ on Peeves on one of my first days,” he said, eyes flickering to Sirius. He thought of third year when it had been a marble, not gum, that Sirius, not Remus, had shot up Peeves’ nose.
If Sirius’s expression was anything to go by, he thought of the exact same thing. “I’m sure he had it coming.”
“He messed with Filch’s broom cupboard,” said Remus, fighting the urge to fiddle with the strap of his tea bag, an urge that left him a little confused. To say the last fourteen years had been challenging was like saying Dumbledore was a rather talented wizard, but at least adulthood had made him a little calmer. He hadn’t picked at his nails for over a decade and hadn’t even felt the urge to. But now… Now it felt like his fingers were twitching with the need to do something. And he didn’t know why.
Sirius just raised an eyebrow. “And?”
Remus exhaled and the twitching in his fingers stopped. He was sure he would have got away with his explanation with anyone else. But this single word, this simple syllable, tugged at something inside him.
Of course they got the completely wrong measure of you.
And Remus bent like a blade of grass, and willingly so. He smiled at Sirius and took a sip of tea. “He called me loony, loopy Lupin,” he told his mug.
“How dare he,” said Sirius, but there was no heat in it. His eyes had gone completely soft. “I should think that nickname would be reserved for a very exclusive club.”
Remus smiled to himself, thinking of first year when Peeves had come up with that nickname after having watched Remus have a conversation with one of the portraits - Sir Cadogan, at that. How James had made an effort to 'reclaim' it, never mind that there was no reclaiming a nickname that had never been Remus’s before. How Sirius had joined in eagerly. How both he and James had got really mad when some other Gryffindor had dared call Remus it. How Peter-
“Very exclusive indeed,” said Remus, forcing himself to lift his eyes again. Sirius was still looking at him and had been for a while, as far as Remus could tell. There was a strange flutter of nerves in his stomach, and it made no sense that it was there now because now it was just the two of them.
This was just Sirius.
Remus pushed it down, chalked it up to the exhausting evening they had had with too many people, and to narrowly escaping death during their ‘cleaning,’ then said, “But I’d appreciate it if its remaining member wouldn’t pick up that old habit. I feel it might undermine the respect thing a bit if I was called ‘loony Lupin.’”
“I won’t,” said Sirius without missing a beat. “As long as I get to keep ‘Moony’.”
It was the first time either of them addressed the nickname thing that seemed to be drifting between them ever since Sirius had called him ‘Moony’ a few days ago when they had still been back at Remus’s and not in this gloomiest of all houses.
The thing was that it wasn't just a nickname. The names were heavy with memories of better, brighter times when it hadn’t just been the two of them left. They sounded like James’s laughter, tasted like the Halloween feast at Hogwarts, felt like a warm ray of sunshine down by the lake.
But they weren’t only happy memories - as with everything, it came at a price. Two other names, one of which they never used, clung to them.
And still, Sirius asked him whether…
Sirius raised his eyebrows, very slightly. But enough to emphasize.
This was a statement. A choice and a promise alike.
It won’t drag us apart. Not this time.
Remus met his eyes. The strange flutter was back. And the words fell from his lips.
“You know you’ll always have ‘Moony.’”