Work Text:
“It's been a couple months
That's just about enough time
For me to stop crying when I look at all the pictures
Now I kinda smile, I haven't felt that in a while.”
Conan Gray - Memories
The cold breeze of September struck against Remus’ arms and scars. He was in the *DADA corridor, staring at the Whomping Willow. Shadows of the ones he had once called friends stumbling towards it appeared in his mind, as he remembered the old times. The next night would be like that. Except, he was now alone, only with his own flesh to destroy.
The sound of leaves rustling along the breeze that was hitting his face made music to his ears as he tried to forget, once more, that these corridors would always be some kind of pain to his soul.
The sweet, loud, and raw bells of Hogwarts Castle rang once, then a second time as students stepped outside of their respective classrooms and started wandering around the castle. The first students to enter his classroom were Miss Lavender Brown alongside Parvati Patil. He gave a small wave with his hand out of politeness, put his cane aside, and decided it was time to enter his classroom and make another small attempt at forgiving.
As the classroom flooded with new faces, he felt it more and more difficult not to just break down there crying, just when he saw a boy who looked exactly like him as a child sitting in the same place he used to.
His gaze traveled all around the room, and he felt joy when he found a boy with jet black hair, glasses, green eyes, and a ray-shaped scar in his forehead: Harry Potter.
This was enough to bring some encouragement to Remus; he didn’t see Harry. In fact, he saw James.
The presence of Harry brought him to some ease. He managed to give the class a proper lecture, and just as the bells rang once again, he felt a pain in his hip that said, ‘Grab your cane, you old man!’, The full moon was tomorrow, and he could feel it. Remus grabbed his cane just like the voice in his head had said and stumbled towards his office. The students had a free hour now, so that meant he did too.
Remus sat in his chair and brought his hands to his head when everything just collided into his head: Sirius escaped, he was coming to Hogwarts, it had been over a decade, he was now a teacher, and most important of all, he missed him.
He felt a lump in his throat grow when the thoughts of his gray-eyed lover came back to him. He missed the strong scent of leather, which now was probably of dust, he missed his soft lips, which now were probably ragged and cut, and he missed his dark hair, where his hands had traveled for hours, just over twelve years now.
He missed the tear between their shared lips after he had come back from the hardest mission of the order, and he just missed him; he missed Sirius.
** **
The day after that went by fast, with cold breeze and sudden remembrances of teenage lovers, which were supposed to be forgotten long ago.
When Remus went to sleep, he dreamt of him again. There was a dusty black dog, full of wounds, scars, lying in the ground, with a body going cold every minute that went by. In the dream, Remus had approached Padfoot, which had turned into Sirius, almost unconscious, with eyes heavy and blinking slowly, trying his best not to fall asleep forever. Remus realized that in the dream, he was naked, he looked up and saw the full moon, now fading away. In the dream, he had done that. He had killed Sirius.
Remus woke up sweating, a tear already streaming down his face, his own body cold with fear, and he felt the need to see him again. If only he could to.
He stood up and searched for a glass of water instead of running away forever to see the man he hadn’t seen in twelve years. He managed to drink four glasses; each time, the water found it more and more hard to get through the lump in his throat, growing bigger and bigger with nothing to calm it down.
Remus opened his old book bag and rummaged through his things until he found a pointy thing: A moon. A moon earring, to be exact. He kept pushing the books and quills around until he found another earring, this time a star.
He sat down on the bed and held both earrings in his hand; Sirius had once bought moon earrings to match with Remus, and Remus, accidentally, had done the same but with stars. Until the ’81, they both had used their moon and star earrings, then Remus found out, and Sirius’s earrings had probably gotten removed in Azkaban.
Remus fidgeted with the earrings in his hand, his thumb slowly stroking the star one, and he felt mental as he thought -How could he even miss a man like that? How could he miss Sirius? Sirius had killed James and Peter. But if Sirius hadn’t killed Remus, maybe… He cared about him? - He couldn’t help but think that; he couldn’t force himself to hate Sirius. How could he? How could someone ever hate his soulmate?
Remus lay on the bed once again, thoughts of gray eyes, pink lips, and black silky hair flooded his mind. He kept fighting the urge to cry until he fell asleep, with some old earrings in his hand.
** **
The next day, Remus kept lying in bed all morning, almost all day. The pain in his hip growing bigger and bigger; that would be his first full moon at Hogwarts after sixteen years. Except now, he was alone. The howls would come back, the scratches, and new scars would be plastered on his body, just like when he was eleven.
Remus noticed the hot earrings in his hand and decided, if he was going to be alone, at least bring a part of Sirius with him, so he put them on. As soon as both earrings were on his ears, he somehow felt more secure, loved, a part of Sirius might have been in those earrings after all.
Even if Sirius was kilometers away, it felt like he was just there. Taking care of Remus. The day of the full moon, just like he used to do.
Remus managed to put himself on his feet and decided to go to his office, rearrange some things for the night, and call it a day. After all, Severus was substituting for him.
On all his walk, every corridor he passed by, every door, every seat, every window frame reminded him of them; reminded him of the Marauders, and more specifically, reminded him of Sirius.
He arrived at his office almost shaking; the memories kept appearing in his mind, the voice of Sirius saying he loved him, the voice of James telling Sirius not to be late for practice, the screams of Peter begging Sirius not to kill him too…
Remus quickly shoved those thoughts; Sirius wasn’t coming back. Much less for Remus.
He grabbed the potion bottle Severus had left and let it go down his throat; it was awful. But it was more awful waking up alone with only new scars and the feeling of loneliness.
The day went by like a flash. He was just looking at his surroundings, watching students freak out about exams or spells. Who knew he was freaking out about being alone in the world once more? It had been twelve years; how could he get hit by it like that?
Before he knew it, it was already curfew. He put his coat on and went out of the castle by one of the back doors. Hopefully, the prefects were now more useful, and nobody would catch him going out of the castle on the night of the full moon. Probably someone already knew, anyway.
He had heard sounds, some pretty weird sounds, to be honest: He had heard a dog bark, a boy’s scream, and the sound of the Whomping Willow being aggressive. Maybe there was another werewolf at Hogwarts now. Maybe he wasn’t the only one.
He arrived at the Whomping Willow and felt like he was eleven once again. Everything was now calm. Maybe he had imagined it?
He let the thoughts go away once more, and instead slipped under the Whomping Willow. He kept walking and walking through the tunnel below it until he reached the Shrieking Shack, and then he heard it again: More commotion. This time it was real. A girl’s scream, a boy’s yell, and… Sirius’s voice.
He felt his whole body go cold: Sirius was alive; he had come.
He heard Hermione’s scream, “WE’RE UP HERE, WE’RE UP HERE! SIRIUS BLACK! ¡HURRY UP!”
Sirius Black.
That was all he needed. Remus went up the stairs in 4 quick steps. He tripped twice. And what did it matter? Sirius was there.
He entered the room and saw Hermione beside Ron, with a rat in his hands, Harry, and under Harry, once again, Sirius.
“How can we go back to being friends
When we just shared a bed?
How can you look at me and pretend
I'm someone you've never met?
The devil in your eyes
Won't deny the lies
You’ve sold…”
Sombr – back to friends
And god, he did look dreadful, with dusty hair that touched his elbows, a dirty face, chapped lips, pale skin, and yellow teeth. Remus could have sworn it was a corpse if he didn’t have that glint in his eyes; the same glint Remus had fallen in love with nineteen years ago now.
He almost looked the same, but in Remus’s eyes, Sirius looked just as beautiful as almost twenty years ago.
Remus just managed to think of something that offered no help in the current situation; Sirius was beautiful, once again.
“Expelliarmus!” he screamed instead of saying that out loud. Harry’s wand flew in the air and fell on Remus’s hand, who gestured for Harry to move aside. Remus approached Sirius carefully, still not letting him get up from the floor, and just like Harry, pointed his own wand at Sirius’s face.
“Well, Well, Sirius, looking rather ragged, aren’t we?” He approached closer. “Finally, the flesh reflects the madness within.”
“Well, you’d known all about the madness within, wouldn’t you, Remus?”
That was it. Remus was bursting with joy. It was Sirius. He couldn’t help it, not even to explain to the poor teenagers in the room. He grabbed Sirius's hand and pulled him up. In a room full of teens, Sirius would hug him. Wouldn’t he? That, of course, wasn’t what Remus wanted, but he believed it was the right thing.
“I will fall in love with you over and over again
I don't care how, where, or when
No matter how long it's been, you're mine
Don't tell me you're not the same person
You're always my husband and I've been waiting, waiting…”
Epic the musical – Would You Fall in Love with Me Again
But of course, as much as it was the right thing to do, Sirius Orion Black III was never and never would be predictable.
As soon as Sirius was up on his feet, he kissed Remus. He. Kissed. Remus.
At first, Remus leaned a bit backwards into the kiss, but quickly regained his posture. He realized what had happened; Sirius was kissing him. His lips were just as dry and ragged as he imagined them, and as much as Remus wanted to back out because there were kids in the room, he just couldn’t.
“Till I don't look for you on the staircase
Or wish you thought that we were still soulmates
But I'm still counting down all of the days
Till you're just another guy on The Subway…”
Remus cupped Sirius’s cheek with his left hand and intertwined his fingers with Sirius’s hair with his right hand.
Ron looked at Harry, whose chest was going up and down heavily from the attack he had almost made, then at Hermione, who was staring at the scene completely shocked, just like him. When Hermione looked back at him, he just shrugged and whispered so that neither Lupin nor Black would hear, “Reckon he’s washed his teeth?” Hermione shrugged and kept looking at the scene, just like Ron and Harry.
When Remus was running out of air, he let his right hand go to Sirius’s shoulder, he pulled slightly away from the kiss, and let the thumb from his left hand brush faintly right below Sirius’s ear, and then he felt metal; the earring. He let his thumb brush over there and whispered quietly, letting his breath hit against Sirius’s lips.
“They blamed you, they blamed you, you did nothing wrong, they blamed you, I love you.”
“…Made you the villain, evil for just moving on
I see your shadow, see it even with the lights off
I made a promise, if in four months this feeling ain't gone
Well, fuck this city, I'm movin' to Saskatchewan”
Chappell Roan – The Subway
Sirius kissed him slightly again and then pulled away. Remus had a tear going down his cheek, which he brushed off with the tips of his fingers, and then left Sirius to explain.
** **
When it hit midnight, the big clock from the great hall sounded, the birds flew, his transformation began, and that was the last thing he remembered from the day: The day Remus and Sirius got back together once again, because what they had was a red string, and just like the red string theory once said, the red string couldn’t ever be cut.
“Through your eyes I see
A smile you bring to me
To your joy, I tether
Not a lot, just forever
Intertwined, sewn together”
Adrianne Lenker – not a lot, just forever
When he woke up the next morning in the infirmary, there he was. Sirius. His fingers intertwined with his own. And of course, Sirius wasn’t a free man yet, only god knows how he was in the castle right there, holding Remus’s hand, but Remus wouldn’t give him a second thought: If Sirius wanted to be there, just for Remus, he would never argue.
Remus gathered his strength to pull Sirius into a kiss, intertwined his fingers with Sirius’s hair, and just leaned into the touch when Sirius cupped his cheek.
Sirius was there. He was alive. He was right beside Remus.
And as long as twelve years sound like, it was true, a lot of things had changed. But in Sirius, some things would never change. Sirius had kept his unpredictability, his manners, his way of caring, his earrings, and most important of all, his love for Remus.
Because as much as how things were meant to change, their love would be eternally there; forever, always, and for many years, Sirius and Remus would be together again, the stars would be brighter and the moon would be alive once again. And as much as the sun’s light had dimmed, in the night, the world would be brighter.