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The new Moon had left him shaken.
It was why he was at the Potters now, lying on the soft Persian carpet and listening to James’ rambles about one of his precious quidditch teams instead of at home, having coffee with his mother. He’d needed to get away from the Lupin cottage for a bit, because he couldn’t stand her; she always worried for him after the Moon, but she’d been terrified after this one.
He hadn’t been ready for it, really. It wasn’t the first Moon without his friends, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, since Sirius’ stunt a few months ago. But it had messed him up. His face had been salvageable, at least, but the rest of the damage was something only time could heal.
And it sucked. That he had to wear long sleeves and several layers to hide the disfigurements in the suffocating summer heat, that he had to stay inside because he couldn’t do shit with his bum leg, that he couldn’t stretch his hands too high above his chest or he might rip his stitches.
This hurt that I'm holding's getting heavy
But I'ma keep a smile on my shoulders 'til I'm sweaty
It was a bad situation. And the worst thing was how he had to keep up appearances; he had to explain his pale skin and tiredness with a bad immune system—even though the wolf made it so he never got sick, no matter how powerful the virus was. The wolf was stronger. He had to lie to Euphemia Potter's face, when she asked if he was injured because he was walking wrong.
He had to grin at James, speak softly to his mother, listen to his father explaining what happened at work that day like he hadn’t ripped himself to shreds just last night. Like he wasn’t covered in bandages.
He had to keep smiling, keep denying. Just deny deny deny.
Wasn’t that what Sirius always told them? He got them into all sorts of trouble at school, costing them house points and favour from the teachers, as well as their grades, sometimes. And whenever they got caught, or Filch got suspicious and his damn cat followed them around campus, he’d whisper in Remus’ ear, deny deny deny.
Beggin' on my knees
Screamin', "Someone come and help me"
‘It always works for me,’ Sirius would give a noncommittal shrug, as though what he was saying didn’t upset him, not at all, ‘ if you admit to it, it’s even worse. It’s like saying I did it and I’m proud of it. They hate that the most.’
They were always Sirius’ family. They were a mystery. Remus knew Sirius hated them, that much was easy to figure out. Everything the Blacks hated, Sirius would adore, and everything the Blacks stood for, Sirius would crush under his heel.
If Remus kept secrets, if he hid his problems from his friends and tried to solve them himself, then Sirius was the opposite. He cried or yelled or punched. And yet he never said he was upset, or what his family was like. He just did things and expected to be understood.
There had been yelling, screaming, fights, even tears, one time. And yet Sirius didn’t talk about it.
But by the time they're there
I've already hid the body
He never did. By the time the marauders were there, Sirius had already wrapped it all up and hid in his sleeve. ‘ Stop fretting, Remus! There’s nothing to worry about.’
Remus was so tired of it. He was ready to leave Hogwarts and live out his days in the Muggle world. Maybe become a freelancer. That was what people did when they were Werewolves and couldn’t keep up a consistent schedule, right? Was there a manual for this kind of thing?
My breath's gettin' short and I'm unsteady
Wellin' up in tears as I lay upon your belly
He hated how weak he was. He hated his tears, and how he couldn’t stay in his own house for fear of punching a hole through the door in his room every time his mother came in, coffee or mushy, stale biscuits on a tray in her hand, her eyes swimming in worry, her gaunt face framed by dull, matted hair.
He couldn’t bear it. So he came here, which was only marginally better. James handled his stress by talking—so, so much talking—which should irritate him as much as his mother had, but he always talked, and there wasn’t really a way to differentiate.
James’ confused sentences and grammar comforted Remus, in a way. It reminded him a little too much of Hogwarts, but there were no dry, witty comments, no sarcastic compliments, no hand playing with his hair or straightening his clothes. No Sirius. Which made it all the better, actually.
It was time to stop acting like he didn't need anyone. He needed his friends, he needed his family. He just didn't need Sirius, because he was neither.
Telling you, "I'm fine I don't really need nobody"
But you say through a sigh
That I said that lie already
James had called Peter a while back, and so he’d joined their informal little party too. Euphemia was baking a cake in the kitchen, and Mr. Potter and Peter were playing chess on the couch, so James and Remus had chosen the carpet in front of the fireplace, even if it had taken a bit of maneuvering on Remus’ part to lie down without breaking anything.
The AC was blasting, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out James’ voice, or James would have turned it off and Remus would have faced an early death by a heatstroke.
He hadn’t told his mother he was coming here. Hope probably just thought he was taking a stroll through the garden or the nature outside the Lupin cottage, since he’d done that quite a lot last year. Hope didn’t know that Remus could Apparate. In truth, he’d spent the entirety of last year running around the field outside James’ house or swimming or making a flower crown, as corny as that had been.
It was comfortable here. It was nice.
Just needed company now
Yeah, I just needed someone around
It was better than being stared at by his mother and ignored by his father. It was better than having his parents for company and yet feeling so, so alone at the same time.
Remus just needed this. He needed James’ voice, scratchy after hours of nonstop talking, Peter’s deep concentration as he tried to get himself out of the trap Mr. Potter set for him, and the absolute mess that Euphemia made in the kitchen whenever she tried to make anything in there.
Yeah, I don't care what song that we play
Or mess that we make
Just company now
That day was no exception. The counter top was covered in flour. Every towel and rag Euphemia had in the kitchen was either crusted with egg yolk, or covered in cake batter. And the sink wasn’t much better; dirty bowls and spoons were stacked on top of eachother haphazardly, and the whole thing was covered in brown colored liquid, from tap water mixing in with the cake batter. It was disgusting, yet Euphemia was humming a cheery toon. She didn’t care if things weren’t perfect, not even if they weren’t good.
(She didn’t want Remus to be good, or fine, or alright.)
Comfort crowd
Comfort crowd
There was a loud whistling from the kettle, and Peter sighed as James leapt up to pour them tea, “Finally.”
“Yeah,” Remus said dryly. It would go completely against James’ core values to have them eat his mother’s special cake without chai, even though the cake in question was still baking in the oven.
He doesn’t ask Remus how he takes his tea; James has it memorized better than his own social security number, at this point.
Remus spent most of this year’s summer here, just like last year, lounging around the Potter’s house, feeling useless and like a burden and yet so wanted at the same time.
Two years ago, he’d begged his father to let him stay with the Potters, promised him up and down to behave, to be normal, and he still wasn’t allowed to visit. It was too dangerous.
Not now.
We rot, thinkin' lots about nothing
Yeah, I could spend a lifetime
Sitting here talkin'
He couldn’t give less of a shit about what his father thought of him now. He’d learned how useless people’s ideals were, and just how useless he was at performing them. If he wanted to seek refuge in James’ house, and Euphemia and Mr. Potter didn’t kick him out… then he would.
It wasn’t like they were doing scientific studies at James’ place, though. They mostly just sat there, playing chess or Monopoly—which Remus had gotten increasingly frustrated trying to explain the semantics of to James—or having rather one-sided conversations. The first few days were the worst, when James was silent and they’d just look at each other, can we still exist like this, without him ?
Him. Remus hadn’t known they could ever get used to not having Sirius there all the time, but they had. They’d gotten quite used to it, how to dodge any mention of him in conversations and tip-toe around the fact that the Potters had been planning to adopt Sirius after he turned seventeen this November.
That the room Peter was currently staying in had been Sirius’, even if the boy himself hadn’t known yet.
It was technically still going to be Sirius’. James had lied to Sirius that night—his parents had no idea what Sirius had done, they didn’t even know Remus was a Werewolf. They weren’t ‘disgusted by what Sirius had done’ because they had no clue what had happened. All they knew was that James and Sirius were going through a ‘rough time’. They weren’t very subtle about it.
But the Potters and their bleeding hearts would still take Sirius in, no matter how James or the rest of the Marauders felt about him.
No matter how Remus had asked James not to invite Sirius over that summer.
And even if I cry all over your body
You don't really mind
Say you like your shirt soggy
If it was anyone other than James, Remus would assume it’d be awkward, being brothers with a boy who’d betrayed your friend’s trust. But it was James; he could never hate Sirius, because no matter what he said, Sirius always came first, deep down in his heart.
He would always be second best to Sirius; the Pureblood heir to the Noble and most Ancient house of Black. A crippled, scarred Werewolf with barely a penny to his name? Remus couldn’t even compare.
But if James or the Potters expected him to actually be kind or God forbid, have compassion about Sirius’ situation, he would actually get up, leave, and shut the door in their face no matter how much he loved them.
Euphemia and Fleamont were one of the best people he’d ever met, and James had been with him through so much, even becoming a goddamn animal to help him, but he wasn’t ready to forgive Sirius. He wasn’t ready to forgive himself for a lot of things; for being a Werewolf, for hating his father, for being gay, for loving Sirius, who he knew would eventually break his heart, one way or another.
Yeah, I just needed company now
Yeah, I just needed someone around
“Here’s tea,” James handed Remus a steaming mug, “Just how you like it, might I add. They should give me a medal, really, I mean…”
It was a ridiculous thing, the mug; a bright yellow with some positive message painted on it in a swirly, childlike font. It looked like the sort of thing Effie would see in a market and fall in love with.
Remus sipped the tea, letting the warmth of the tea seep into his hands and through his skin, close to his heart. Nothing mattered, not Mr. Potter’s unsuccessful attempts at muffling his swearing whenever he lost a chess piece, or the mess in the kitchen, or the fact that James had given him the wrong damn cup.
Yeah, I don't care what song that we play
Or mess that we make
Just company now
He needed this, needed his friend's company. He wasn’t sure where he’d be without it.
Comfort crowd
Comfort crowd
“James, you’ve given me the wrong mug.” Remus sighed when the sugar became intolerable, “This is yours.”
James stopped talking—a miracle!—and he opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish out of water. A dead fish, that would be, “I…”
“I keep telling you to wear your glasses, and you wonder why,” Euphemia sighed as she ran a towel over the counter, pouring all the flour to the floor absentmindedly.
We mess around
And laugh too loud
And make the sounds
We try to hide when people are around
“I think I’m the one who has Remus’,” Peter grimaced, “damn, that’s bitter.”
“But! I mean, they look a bit similar, don’t they?” James gestured at the mug he’d given Remus and Peter’s.
Remus laughed. He wasn’t sure he’d be capable of that after the rancid night he’d had yesterday, but this was stupid enough to crack him up. The mug in Peter’s hands was a bright, neon pink with ‘Barbie’ written on it in New Times Roman.
“I don’t know how you can mess those two up,” Remus shook his head, “just give it to me, Peter,”
“But I’ve already sipped it—”
“Mate, I’m sure our spits have interacted in far grosser situations than this, I don’t think drinking from the same mug will be an issue.” James said, patting Peter on the back and giving Remus a knowing look.
Fleamont laughed, and Peter choked.
“I suppose alcohol was involved?” he joked.
It had been.
By blood we're bound
Through ups and downs
There had been quite a lot of alcohol involved, actually, enough to make them forget the whole thing until now. Peter was so red, Remus worried for a second if he was feverish.
It was a funny story. On any other day, Remus would have leapt at a chance to tell it. It would have been a story worth telling if Sirius hadn’t been there also, and if he hadn’t been the one to give Remus his first kiss.
Through smiles and pouts
Comfort crowd
They had a lot of these stories. Stories filled with laughter and hiding behind bookshelves from Filch and raiding the Kitchens for snacks. They’d gone through so much with each other, and not all of them were pretty, or funny, though.
They’d gone through the revelation that had been Remus’ Lycanthropy, and they hadn’t run away. They hadn’t outed him to the whole school. They’d gone through Sirius’ fits in the dormitory and reckless fighting with the Slytherins, they’d gone through the hardships of becoming an Animagus and making the marauder’s map.
Remus just wondered if they could get through this.
You can always count
They sipped their tea in silence, James seemingly too shocked from his eyesight’s failures to keep up the chatter. The cake still wasn’t ready, but James always made at least three liters of tea so they had enough to last them through the evening.
It would have been a perfect, pleasant, lovely evening, even though Remus would have to go home in a few hours. It could have been perfect.
Yeah, I just needed company now
Yeah, I just needed someone around
But of course it was not.
Because just as Euphemia took the cake out of the oven with a pleased little sigh, the wood in the fireplace lit up a familiar shade of green with a roar and Remus had a sinking feeling everything was going to go downhill from there. And it did.
A rather short boy burst into the living room through the fireplace, almost landing on Remus’ tea if not for James grabbing the newcomer’s shoulder at the last second. The boy had dark, silky black hair and pale skin, and these features would have meant absolutely nothing to Remus if they weren’t accompanied by striking silver eyes.
It wasn’t Sirius. Thank god it wasn’t Sirius.
But maybe that wasn’t the blessing Remus was hoping for.
Yeah, I don't care what song that we play
Or mess that we make
“He’s dead!” Regulus shouted, and raised his head to stare at James. It was like all the blood had drained from his body, but there weren’t any wounds on him. Only dirt. A lot of dirt.
“Who.” James said, but it wasn’t a question.
“Sirius.” The name was nothing more than a sob, “They finally did it.”
And Remus had no doubt in his cold little heart about who ‘they’ were.
He was so stupid, thinking he could have a good evening without Sirius. Sirius was always there. He’d always ruin everything, even…
Even in death.
Just company now
Comfort crowd
“But I think I can bring him back.”