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The first time the coffee machine screamed, Sirius blamed the pureblood elite.
“The grinder is possessed,” he announced, flicking it sharply with his wand. “By the ghost of outdated aristocratic values.”
“The grinder is fine,” Remus replied calmly. “You’re the one overdosing it on the espresso.”
“It’s called generosity. Didn’t know you were such a loyal servant of the Wizengamot Beverage Lobby.”
They worked at Espresso Patronum—James’s brilliant, ridiculous idea—tucked between a second-hand robe shop and a Muggle bookshop in one of those magically saturated pockets of London. James had found the lease and declared it a “surefire way to launder money through friendship,” which Sirius thought was a perfectly reasonable way to describe a legitimate business. Remus, of course, found it a “deeply alarming phrase”, but he still stayed.
Honestly, Sirius had expected Remus to leave after the first week. Or after the first time Sirius accidentally glued himself to the pastry case with an experimental sticking charm. But he didn’t. He stayed, and Sirius tried not to think too hard about what that meant.
After the war, none of them had the faintest idea what to do with themselves. James, along with Sirius, kept pacing around his inheritance like it was a ticking bomb, muttering about not wanting to become “one of those bored rich gits who buys hippogriffs for fun.” Sirius agreed on principle, and opening a coffee shop was a surprisingly effective distraction from existential dread. And Remus… well. Remus deserved somewhere he didn’t have to justify existing to every employer in wizarding Britain. If Espresso Patronum gave him a place to land, Sirius counted that as a win.
It was now mid-October, and the rain had settled into a permanent drizzle that made everything smell faintly of soaked wool and burnt sugar. Exactly the sort of weather that made Remus look like someone had painted him in soft watercolours—hair damp at the ends, jumper sleeves pushed up, cheeks a little pink from the cold. Sirius tried not to stare. Tried and failed.
He glared up at the menu board instead, because pumpkin spice was clearly planning a personal attack on him.
“I’m just saying,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes at the chalk letters, “it’s not natural. Coffee shouldn’t taste like a candle Aunt Druella used to keep in the downstairs toilet.”
Remus hid a smile behind his hand, which was deeply unfair. Sirius always felt unreasonably hot in his uniform when Remus hid smiles. “The customers like it.”
“The customers are wrong, Moony.”
“They also pay our rent.”
Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but the coffee machine hissed in a way that sounded suspiciously judgmental. A burst of steam shot out like it was rolling its eyes at him, and the lights above the bar flickered twice.
Remus frowned. “Did you…?”
“That wasn’t me,” Sirius said immediately. “I haven’t even insulted the machine yet today.”
Though he was about to.
Something metallic clinked behind them; Sirius turned, and his stomach did a strange swooping thing. Every single teaspoon in the cutlery jar was now floating in the air, slowly spinning like a very unimpressive circus act run by a drunk acrobat.
Remus blinked, and Sirius had the very unhelpful thought that even confusion looked handsome on him. “Okay. That definitely wasn’t the grinder.”
One spoon dropped with a clatter; then another; and then all of them fell at once in a dramatic clang. On the far table, a napkin fluttered lazily to the floor, landing face-up.
Sirius stared at it. “Please tell me that’s your handwriting.”
“I don’t draw angry eyebrows on my letters, Padfoot.”
Sirius bent down to pick it up, already bracing himself. The napkin read, in jagged, furious letters:
STOP OVER-EXTRACTING THE SHOTS, FUCKFACE
There were, indeed, furious eyebrows drawn over the word “fuckface.”
Sirius squinted at it, vaguely offended, but also vaguely impressed at the same time. “Who—”
The lights flickered again, condescendingly—hell, smugly—, if that was even possible for lights to do.
Remus cleared his throat. “Well. That’s new.”
Sirius looked back at him and tried not to think the obvious, treacherous thought:
Great. As if Remus wasn’t distracting enough without paranormal assistance.
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It didn’t take long for Espresso Patronum to gain a reputation for being haunted, and Sirius wasn’t sure whether to be proud or concerned. Probably both. He was complex like that.
The regulars absolutely adored it. Suddenly, their mediocre latte art was “charmingly disturbed by poltergeist energy,” which was rude, because Sirius had been trying to improve. And the flickering lights during thunderstorms? Apparently, it was adding “authentic ambience.” Someone even started a rumour that the ghost used to work in Gringotts and had died of boredom, which Sirius immediately claimed as his favourite origin story.
“If that were me,” he told Remus one afternoon while wiping down the counter, “I would absolutely spend my afterlife ruining people’s coffee orders out of spite.”
“You do that in your current life,” Remus replied with a faint smile, not looking up from the mugs he was drying.
Sirius pretended not to preen at the sound of his voice. “That’s art. This would be vengeance.”
The ghost—who Remus insisted on calling the Bean Poltergeist, which Sirius found far too adorable a name for something that kept attacking him—seemed mostly fixated on sabotaging him. Personally. Vindictively.
Cups slipped an extra inch whenever he tried to stack them, shattering like wet paper. The milk steamer shrieked bloody murder every time he so much as mentioned his dislike for pumpkin spice. And once—once—when he declared filter coffee “the sad beige of beverages,” the entire bag of house beans tipped over his head with the force of a tiny caffeinated avalanche.
Remus nearly choked from laughing, like, actually choked. Sirius watched him bend over the counter, shoulders shaking, freckles creasing, and thought—unhelpfully—that Remus looked the hottest when he was making fun of him.
“This is workplace harassment,” Sirius said, trying to look dignified while picking beans out of his hair.
The lights flickered twice in what could only be interpreted as: Good.
What Remus didn’t tell Sirius at first (because Remus had a habit of Keeping Things To Himself in a way that made Sirius want to shake him gently or kiss him violently) was that the Bean Poltergeist seemed to be trying to seriously communicate.
Not words, apparently, but taps and little rhythms: a spoon knocking three times for no, twice for yes. Patterns on the counter that only Remus seemed able to decode, which Sirius privately found both suspicious and annoyingly attractive after he realised what was happening.
“So you think the ghost likes you,” Sirius said one slow afternoon, leaning on the counter and pretending he wasn’t watching the way Remus’s hands moved as he restacked cups. “Is that it?”
“I’m not saying he likes me,” Remus replied, smoothing a towel along the rim of a mug. “I’m saying he hates you specifically.”
“That’s hurtful,” Sirius put a hand to his heart for dramatic effect. “And also—he? We’re assuming the gender of our ghost now?”
“Feels masculine,” Remus said thoughtfully.
The nearest pendant light flickered once in what was unmistakably agreement.
Sirius gaped upward. “Oh, that is outrageous. You would side with him.”
A tiny puff of cinnamon erupted from the spice shaker on the upper shelf, drifting down like festive snow… directly onto Sirius’s hair.
Remus didn’t even pretend not to enjoy it. “Bless you, Bean Poltergeist,” he said dryly, and Sirius briefly considered dying on the spot just to escape how warm his face felt.
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Staff meetings happened on Friday evenings after closing, which was frankly a terrible idea because Sirius’s brain was not designed for “meeting mode” at any hour, let alone after a full day of caffeine fumes. James tried to be serious about them; Sirius tried to derail him out of principle; Remus tried to referee without letting either of them notice he was doing it.
“This quarter,” James announced, tapping his clipboard with the grim determination of a man who’d read exactly three business books and retained maybe six useful sentences, “we really need to talk about seasonal offerings—”
The lights dimmed ominously.
“Oh, don’t you start, Bean,” James said to the ceiling.
Immediately, the laminated menu slid across the table as if pushed by an invisible hand.
Remus, whose unofficial job title had become Head of Ghost Communications, leaned forward, squinting thoughtfully at the menu like it was a crossword. “I think he wants us to add something.”
Sirius narrowed his eyes. “If this is about bringing back pumpkin spice, I swear—”
The chalk levitated itself, floated toward the board, and scrawled a single elegant line across the Specials.
ADD MAPLE PECAN LATTE, COWARDS
Sirius threw up his hands. “I refuse—refuse—to be bullied by a dead barista.”
“Maple pecan sounds lovely, actually,” Remus hummed, which was an unforgivable betrayal.
“Traitor,” Sirius said, trying not to stare at the way Remus’s lips pursed when he was thinking.
James was already scribbling on the board. “Maple pecan latte…with enchanted leaf sprinkles. Brilliant. Thanks, Beanie.”
The lights flickered smugly.
Sirius scowled at the ceiling. “You’re encouraging him.”
Remus glanced up, too, an odd softness tugging at his expression. “He’s just…bored,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t you be, stuck in here all the time?”
For one dangerously unfiltered second, Sirius opened his mouth to say not if you were here, because Remus made even fluorescent lighting look poetic. He swallowed the thought so fast he nearly choked on it.
“If I die,” he said instead, aiming for flippant and landing somewhere near desperate, “I am absolutely not haunting a coffee shop. I’m haunting, like, the Minister for Magic. Or a very rich man’s shower.”
The chalk lifted again, slower this time; almost hesitant.
When it wrote, the letters carved themselves in a careful hand:
SOME OF US DIDN’T GET TO CHOOSE
Everything stilled.
Sirius’s breath caught. Something cracked open in him—something he buried fast, smoothing his expression back into his normal one. He’d had a lifetime of practice at pretending things didn’t hit as hard as they did.
James cleared his throat loudly, like he could cut the tension with pure awkwardness. “Right! Lovely. Good meeting. Beanie, congratulations on your promotion.”
The Bean Poltergeist wrote something new on the chalkboard:
YOU’RE CHEAP, POTTER
Remus huffed a laugh despite the tightness in the room. “He does have your sense of humour.”
“Great,” Sirius muttered, jaw tight, a tiny tremor hiding under his words. “A haunted mirror.”
He didn’t look up, but he felt Remus looking at him.
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The haunting got worse the following week. Or more specifically: it became personally offensive.
Remus had developed a worrying habit of pausing mid-task (mid-sentence, mid-sip, mid-eye-crinkle laugh, mid-handwash, mid-speaking to Sirius, which was the worst) because the ghost tapped something at him. Tapped at him, specifically. Never Sirius.
Sirius tried not to have feelings about it. He failed.
One afternoon, the tapping started again with an insistent tak-tak-tak pattern on the far wall.
“Oh—hold on,” Remus murmured, already crossing the room, brows knitted in concentration.
Sirius watched him go with growing indignation. “Unbelievable,” he muttered to the espresso machine. “I’ve been trying to flirt with him for years and I still get replaced by the sound of someone hitting a wall.”
“What was that?” Remus called over his shoulder.
“NOTHING,” Sirius lied, loudly.
Remus leaned in close to the back counter, listening like the taps were telling him state secrets. Sirius glared at the ghostly empty air as if it could feel the heat of his jealousy.
After a moment, Remus nodded. “Oh. I think he’s upset about the new grinder.”
“The grinder?” Sirius sputtered. “I was nearly mauled by a floating ladle this morning and he’s upset about the grinder?”
Another tap.
Remus frowned. “Two taps. That’s ‘yes’. I’m pretty sure.”
Sirius folded his arms. “Why does he only talk to you?”
Tap.
Remus blinked. “That was… a single tap. So, ‘no.’”
“Don’t defend him,” Sirius snapped. “He hates me.”
Another tap-tap-tap-tap. Fast. Sharp. Remus tilted his head. “He says you’re being dramatic.”
Sirius’s mouth fell open. “I am NOT—!”
The ghost flickered the overhead lights in a pattern that could only be described as “yes you absolutely are”.
Remus bit back a smile, and Sirius nearly combusted on the spot. Then, as if that humiliation wasn’t enough, the ghost gently pushed a pen off the shelf. It rolled across the floor, stopping right at Remus’s boot like a dog bringing a stick.
Sirius stared at the air, as if trying to will the Bean Poltergeist to materialise. “Are you flirting with Moony?”
Remus’s ears went pink. “Sirius!”
“I am serious!”
“Should hope so,” Remus murmured, trying not to blush deeper.
The pendant light blinked twice: a smug, unmistakable yes.
Sirius pointed wildly upward and spoke before he could stop himself. “OH, COME ON! I can’t compete with that! He’s got the supernatural advantage!”
Remus laughed softly. “He’s not flirting. He’s just…attached, I think.”
“To YOU,” Sirius insisted. “You’re his favourite. This is blatant favouritism. I’m being ghost-shadowed by a dead guy.”
Tap-tap. Remus listened. “He says you’re insufferable.”
Sirius threw his arms up. “I AM INSPIRED! There’s a difference!”
The ghost blew a soft puff of air at the back of Sirius’s head, ruffling his hair like an annoying older sibling.
“I’m putting up wards,” Sirius muttered. “Full defensive perimeter. Anti-poltergeist charms. Blessed salt. A very serious exorcism playlist.”
Remus shook his head, still smiling as he wiped the counter. “You’re jealous of a ghost.”
Sirius scoffed. “I am NOT—”
And then the lights flickered again once, twice; then a slow, taunting third.
“Yes,” Sirius groaned. “Fine. Yes. I’m jealous of the dead.”
Remus looked at him for a long moment, which made Sirius’s knees feel unreliable.
“Why?” he asked quietly.
Sirius swallowed.
Because the ghost gets your attention more these days. Because you laugh at his stupid chalkboard jokes more than you laugh at mine. Because I’ve been meaning to ask you out on a date, and I’m too much of a coward.
He picked the easiest answer instead.
“Because he’s rude.”
“So are you.”
“Yes,” Sirius admitted. “But I’m charming about it.”
Behind them, the pendant lamp flickered once in flat disagreement.
Sirius glared at it. “Shut the fuck up, Bean Poltergeist.”
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By the time the week of the storm arrived, Espresso Patronum had settled into its natural late autumn state: fogged windows, permanently damp counters, stray leaves on the ground from outside, and Remus wearing gloves so attractive that Sirius was starting to suspect Remus was taunting him on purpose.
“Those are new,” Sirius said one morning, nodding at the dark wool gloves as Remus unlocked the shop.
“Early Christmas present from myself,” Remus replied. “My fingers stopped speaking to me last week.”
“Weak fingers,” Sirius said gravely. “Couldn’t be me. My fingers are warriors. Very strong. Great stamina.”
The moment he said it, Sirius cursed himself for the pathetic attempt at flirting. The Bean Poltergeist seemed to agree because a sugar packet lifted delicately into the air and bounced off Sirius’s forehead like a tiny, floating judgment.
Remus smiled. Merlin help him. “He disagrees.”
The ghost had been extra irritating that week. He was knocking things over, flickering lights, throwing marshmallows and sprinkles at Sirius, but never Remus, of course. Sirius maintained this was blatant favouritism. Remus maintained that Sirius should stop antagonising the paranormal. Neither of them was winning.
The storm hit during closing.
One minute, the sky was a polite October grey; the next, it went full apocalypse. Rain hammered the windows so hard that Sirius thought the glass might give way and crack any minute. As the last customers practically sprinted out, James shouted something about “Lily said if I die she’s killing me,” and Disapparated on the spot.
Sirius flipped the sign to CLOSED, locked the door, turned around, and every light in the café went out in perfect, dramatic unison.
“Brilliant,” he said to the darkness. “Excellent. Love this ambience. Very murder-chic.”
Remus lit his wand, bathing them in soft golden light that made Sirius’s chest do something unhelpful. “Probably just a Muggle power cut.”
Lightning cracked outside, bright enough to silhouette the entire shop. Thunder followed like an angry god moving furniture.
Sirius stepped closer to Remus without meaning to, shoulder bumping shoulder. “Just for the record,” he whispered, “if we get murdered by a vengeful café spirit, please tell the Prophet I died tragically hot.”
“Noted. I’ll even specify the lighting was flattering.”
The door rattled; both of them froze.
“You locked that, right?” Remus asked.
“Yes. And I put the ward up. Properly. Not James-properly. Me-properly.”
The door rattled again, harder this time, like something was either trying to get in… or out. Every tea tin on the back shelf slid two inches to the right. The napkin dispenser rattled. The grinder howled.
Sirius clutched Remus’s sleeve. “Okay. No. That’s—fun is not the word.”
But Remus had lowered his wand a fraction, listening intently. Sirius hated loved when he got that expression: gentle and brave in that stupid way that made Sirius’s whole soul ache.
Between the storm noises, another sound emerged.
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.
The same rhythm that had been haunting them for weeks… but more insistent. It was coming from the counter right in front of Remus. Of course it was.
Remus stepped closer, brushing his fingers along the wood. “You’re trying to say something,” he murmured, voice low and careful.
Sirius felt irrationally jealous of the counter.
Three quick taps answered. Impatient.
“Just to be clear,” Sirius said, “we are now holding a séance with a fucking poltergeist and we are not even charging them for our overtime pay.”
Remus ignored him, which, honestly, was not helping the jealousy.
“Do you,” Remus asked gently, “have a name?”
The lights flickered weakly; something tugged at Remus’s sleeve. A loyalty punch card shuffled itself across the counter. Sirius raised his wand for extra light.
The card shuddered, then tilted-wobbled, and a pen dragged itself across the plastic, carving out letters in scratchy strokes.
REG
“Reg,” Sirius read aloud, already dreading what was coming next. “Your name is Reg?”
The pen moved again, more aggressively this time, like an offended schoolteacher correcting a student.
REGULUS
“Oh,” Remus breathed. “Regulus… as in—”
“Yeah,” Sirius said quietly. “As in my brother.”
The loyalty card jostled itself smugly against the sugar jar. The room seemed to expand and contract all at once: storm outside, hurricane inside. Another napkin drifted out of the dispenser and onto the counter.
TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH TO ASK
“He really is your brother.”
“Shut up,” Sirius whispered, though not unkindly, just because he suddenly didn’t know what else to say.
Another napkin floated down.
ALSO, YOU’RE A COWARD
Sirius gaped. “Hey!”
The lights flickered in clear laughter.
Remus tried not to smile. “What’s he talking about?”
Sirius wanted to say the real thing. He wanted to admit how terrified he was that he’d been misinterpreting the signs and that Remus would reject him if he finally worked up the courage to ask him out. But he couldn’t say any of that with Remus looking at him so… Remus-like.
So he said, “Probably the fact I survived the war and still manage to be emotionally stunted.”
A sugar packet launched at his head. Hard.
Sirius rubbed his forehead. “OW. Language, Regulus.”
The spice shaker rattled indignantly.
Remus stared at the air like it was suddenly sacred. “He’s…he’s really here.”
Sirius exhaled shakily.
Yeah. He really was.
And apparently still judging him from beyond the bloody veil.
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It turned out that having your dead younger brother haunting your workplace was… well, it was a lot. Sirius wasn’t sure whether to schedule therapy or an exorcism.
Regulus knocked things over whenever Sirius was being dramatic (which, to be fair, was frequent), turned the radio on only during inconveniently romantic moments (which Sirius deemed a targeted attack), and waged an escalating personal war against Sirius with the pumpkin spice syrup.
Sirius banned pumpkin spice twice.
Both times, it reappeared on the menu overnight without a single living soul touching the board.
One morning, Remus walked in to find PUMPKIN SPICE FOREVER written in cinnamon across the counter while Sirius stood there with the grave expression of a man personally betrayed by the world.
“He’s mocking me,” Sirius said, gesturing at the cinnamon graffiti wildly.
“I think he’s campaigning,” Remus replied, failing to hide a smile that should’ve been illegal before 9 a.m.
Regulus spelled FOLLOW YOUR HEART in cocoa powder.
“Snitch. Shut up.”
Despite the chaos, something else had shifted. Knowing the ghost was Regulus changed the whole atmosphere from “quirky haunting” to “Black family problem with extra steps”. Sirius kept glancing toward the flickering corners, and Remus noticed every time. He also noticed that Regulus’s aggression had softened into more… Black-brothers exasperation, which was to say: still rude, still judgmental, but now with affection buried under six layers of contempt.
And Remus definitely noticed that any time Sirius flirted with him, Regulus lost his damn mind, almost as if trying to be a wingman in the worst way possible.
It started with the latte art.
Sirius had been practising hearts in milk foam; at least, that’s what he claimed. They mostly resembled collapsing lungs. Remus, because he was cruelly perceptive, kept pointing it out.
“This one looks like a kidney,” Remus said, inspecting the blob with a grin that made Sirius’s ribcage feel too small.
“It’s a heart from the side,” Sirius insisted. “Some of us see it from unconventional angles.”
The light above the espresso machine flickered with such violent judgment that Sirius actually jumped. The next cup he poured had a foam pattern no living person present had created: a perfectly shaped skull.
Sirius held it up and squinted. “Did you just—art better than me, you smug fluorescent bastard?”
The skull appeared to wink.
Remus choked on a laugh. “I think he’s trying to say something.”
No sooner had he said that than the sugar shaker rattled and a thin trickle of sugar drizzled onto the saucer, forming crooked but clearly legible letters.
JUST KISS ALREADY
Remus froze, and Sirius went red enough to qualify as a seasonal drink.
“That could be about anyone,” Sirius said desperately, thrusting the cup onto the counter. “Like—general advice. Kiss the concept of life. Or—”
A stack of napkins lifted, sailed off the counter, and scattered dramatically onto the floor. On the top one, written in scathing handwriting:
I MEAN YOU TWO, GENIUS
Sirius stared. Remus stared. Regulus probably preened invisibly.
Sirius scrubbed both hands over his face. “I swear to Merlin, being haunted by my dead brother is some kind of cosmic punishment for being gay.”
A napkin fluttered off the stack and smacked him gently in the ear.
Sirius glared at the ceiling.
“DON’T MAKE THIS ABOUT YOU!!”
The pendant light flickered twice in undeniable agreement.
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James thought the whole situation was the funniest thing that had ever happened to him.
“So,” James said that evening, counting the till, “to summarise: your dead brother is haunting our business to drag you out of your emotional constipation, and also he’s a better barista than you.”
Sirius stared at him, then stared at the ceiling, which was safer than throwing the till at James’s head. “Why am I friends with you?” he asked the rafters.
As if on cue, the whiteboard marker lifted and scrawled across the sales chart in sharp, angular handwriting:
BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WOULD SURVIVE IT
Sirius made a strangled sound; James wheezed with laughter. Remus, wiping down tables, caught the look Sirius didn’t mean anyone to see—the hesitant fondness and painful guilt that always lived somewhere behind his eyes.
When James finally disappeared into the stockroom, Remus approached him carefully.
“You okay?”
Sirius shrugged, still staring at the board like it might bite him. “I was prepared,” he said slowly, “to spend years—decades—feeling guilty about not knowing what happened to him. About not saving him. About all of it.”
His throat tightened, but he pushed through it.
“And instead he’s here. Ruining my latte art. Calling me names. Sabotaging my…”
A flicker of warmth passed through Remus’s expression. “It’s a very Black way of saying he loves you.”
The lights flickered gently, almost shyly, like Regulus was admitting it despite himself. Then a napkin drifted down onto the counter, landing directly in front of Sirius.
Three small words:
DON’T WASTE IT
Sirius swallowed hard. “He thinks I’m wasting it,” he murmured.
Remus stepped closer. Sirius felt the warmth of him before the touch—always did.
“Sirius…you’re allowed to take your time. WIth anything.”
Another napkin floated down.
I DIDN’T GET TIME
USE MINE TOO
Something in Sirius’s chest twisted painfully: grief and love, all tangled into a knot he’d carried since he was a child.
Remus reached out, laying a gloved hand lightly on Sirius’s wrist “He didn’t,” he said. “But you did. And that doesn’t mean you owe him a perfect life. Just… a real one.”
Sirius stared at the hand on his wrist, then at Remus’s face. Then he looked at the napkins again.
“Reg,” he said quietly, to the empty air, “I am trying.”
The nearest pendant light flickered, then warmed. On the counter, the pen moved one last time over a napkin.
GOOD
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The storm rolled back into London on a Thursday. It was late, almost closing time. Only two customers remained: a student face-down in their notes and an elderly wizard nursing a tea he clearly hated but refused to abandon on principle.
“We should close early,” Remus said, peering out at the sheets of water.
“Cowardice,” Sirius declared loudly, handing the old wizard his change. “If Death Eaters couldn’t shut me down, a bit of dramatic weather isn’t going to—”
Lightning cracked directly overhead outside, and every light in the shop went out.
Remus sighed. “You angered the sky.”
The last customers raced out. James shouted something about “Lily will divorce me if I get struck by lightning indoors” and disappeared the moment the door locked, leaving Sirius and Remus standing in a storm-dark bubble. Again.
Candles sprang to life along the shelves, flickering warm honey-light across the counter. The radio sputtered and died; the windows fogged like breath.
“Well,” Sirius said, surveying the dim room, “this is cosy. And by cosy I mean if I see even one Victorian zombie child in the corner, I’m burning this place to the ground.”
Remus let out a quiet laugh. “Good luck getting Lily to cover that on the insurance. The lease definitely doesn’t include spectral toddlers.”
A menu floated out from the stack, landing on the counter.
Letters carved themselves across it:
STAY
Sirius raised an eyebrow. “We weren’t leaving, drama queen.”
Another word appeared, shakier:
TALK
“Talk about what?” Remus asked without thinking.
There was a pause, long enough that Sirius could feel the ghost judging them. Then the chalkboard behind them wiped itself clean and rewrote:
TODAY’S SPECIAL: SIRIUS BLACK’S FEELINGS
Sirius choked on absolutely nothing. “Absolutely not.”
The chalkboard underlined it three times like Regulus had been saving the gesture for a special occasion.
“You know,” Remus said, voice annoyingly steady, “for a dead man, he’s very invested in your mental health.”
“He’s not invested in me. He’s invested in being able to say I told you so.”
The front door rattled, and the wards hummed. Sirius felt his stomach drop.
“He doesn’t want us leaving,” Remus murmured.
“Of course he doesn’t. He has it out for me!”
The sugar jar tipped over in what Sirius had come to recognise as Regulus’s version of affectionate exasperation.
Thunder shook the windows. In the candlelight, everything felt smaller and scarier; cut off from the world. Just him, Remus, and the world’s most judgmental ghost.
Remus rubbed his hands together, tugged his gloves back on, and nodded at the front booth. “Come sit. If we’re trapped until your brother is satisfied, we may as well be warm.”
Sirius followed him into the booth and instantly shivered. “Why is it colder when the lights go out?” he complained. “This feels like brotherly revenge.”
“I can give you one glove?”
“What’s a single glove going to do, Moony?”
He kept shivering. Remus sighed, pulled off one glove, and reached across the table. “Give me your hands, idiot.”
Sirius hesitated for a fraction of a second—enough time for every fear in the world to flicker through his brain—then slid his hands into Remus’s. One warm. One gloved. Both safe.
“You’re frozen,” Remus murmured.
“That’s just my natural coolness,” Sirius said, though he didn’t let go.
Lightning cracked and candles danced. A napkin drifted down somewhere near the counter, but neither of them looked away long enough to read it.
After a quiet moment, Sirius cleared his throat. “Reg’s right about one thing.”
“Only one?” Remus teased.
Sirius huffed a soft laugh. “Don’t tell him I said this,” he murmured, “but… surviving and actually living turned out to be two different jobs. And I’m… not sure I’m doing the second one well.”
Something in Remus’s face softened, in that gentle way that made Sirius want to crawl under the table forever. “You’re doing better than you think. You opened a business with James. Everyone likes you. And you made a ghost angry enough to advocate for your emotional growth. That’s something.”
“That bar is in the Mariana Trench,” Sirius said, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him and lifted.
A napkin dropped right between them. Remus picked it up.
DON’T BE AN IDIOT
TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM
“Oh,” Remus said, face going pink.
Sirius read the napkin and went scarlet himself. He then whispered, “I have never hated him more. Or loved him more.”
“You know he can hear yo.,”
“Good.”
Silence fell again and Sirius became hyper-aware of everything: Remus’s fingers around his, the way their knees brushed under the table, the smell of coffee and storm-wet wool, the way Remus was watching him so full of hope. He was pretty sure this was his moment.
“Remus?” Sirius said quietly.
“Hm?”
“If I…” Sirius swallowed. Tried again. “If I wanted to… y’know.” His vague hand gesture encompassed the booth, the candles, the tension, the entire concept of wanting. “You wouldn’t…recoil, would you?”
“Not generally, no. As it happens, I’m quite fond of you.”
Regulus knocked something over so loudly that they both jumped.
“Subtle,” Sirius muttered.
He looked back at Remus; really looked at him.
“Can I…?” Sirius whispered.
“Yes,” Remus said, without hesitation. “If you’d like to.”
Sirius slid out of his seat and into Remus’s side of the booth, knee bumping thigh. Remus’s gloved hand tightened around his. Up close, Remus smelled like coffee and sugar and autumn rain and home.
“We’re really doing this in front of my dead brother,” Sirius whispered.
The napkin holder rattled in warning.
Remus’s lips curved. “Think of it as… posthumous encouragement.”
Sirius let out a breathless laugh and leaned in.
The kiss was a little clumsy, with their noses bumping and their half-gloved hands trembling. Sirius’s fingers curled into Remus’s jumper, pulling him closer, as if afraid he might slip away. Remus’s hand gently cupped Sirius’s jaw, his thumb lightly brushing against the stubble, sending a shiver down Sirius’s spine. Their breaths mingled, warm and sweet, as they lost themselves in the moment, the world fading away until there was only the two of them, hearts pounding in sync, lost in the tender chaos of their first kiss.
Somewhere above them, a single pendant light flickered back to life, then politely turned itself off, like Regulus had decided to avert his ghostly eyes.
When they finally parted, Sirius rested his forehead against Remus’s. “He is going to be unbearable,” he whispered.
“He was unbearable before,” Remus said.
A napkin floated down onto the table.
FINALLY
They stayed close for a moment, breathing the same warm, cinnamon-scented air, until Sirius pulled back just far enough to see Remus’s face properly. Remus was pink. Sirius was definitely pink. Even the candles looked embarrassed.
“Well,” Sirius said softly, “that was… overdue.”
A napkin immediately fluttered down from a shelf.
YOU THINK???
Sirius groaned. “Can’t even have one romantic moment without being harassed.”
Remus’s lips curved. “It wouldn’t be very Regulus of him to stay quiet.”
“Please don’t say this is some kind of brotherly blessing,” Sirius muttered. “I refuse to let my dead brother be the patron saint of my love life.”
Another napkin drifted down.
YOU’RE WELCOME
Remus snorted, and the sound went right through Sirius like someone ringing a bell inside his chest. Sirius tightened his hand gently in Remus’s jumper. “We should probably… talk? Or at least pretend to.”
Remus leaned in a little, brushing Sirius’s knee under the table. “Is that what you want?”
Sirius opened his mouth to answer, but Regulus knocked over the sugar jar in what sounded like impatience. “We are not kissing again just because he wants us to,” Sirius told the air.
The pendant light above them flickered indignantly.
“For what it’s worth,” Remus said, “you don’t need ghostly coercion. I’m…here. Fully voluntary.”
Sirius’s heart did an extremely undignified somersault. “Good,” he said, trying to sound suave and failing miserably. “Excellent. Brilliant. I’m very…voluntary too.”
“Consensually eager.”
“Merlin, help me.”
Sirius grinned, cheeks aching. “Look, this is my first romantic moment supervised by a restless spirit. I’m doing my best.”
He ducked his head, suddenly shy. “I’m…very fond of you, too. In case that wasn’t clear.”
Remus nudged his foot under the table. “It was. But I like hearing it anyway.”
The storm had softened to a steady whisper against the windows. Somewhere behind them, a candle burned itself a little brighter, as if Regulus had finally unclenched.
“Remus?”
“Hm?”
“Can we… do that again sometime? Without the spiritual commentary?”
“We can do it again now if you’d like.”
Sirius blinked. “Regulus is literally right there.”
The napkin holder rattled violently, as if offended.
Remus shrugged and leaned in anyway. “He’ll live,” he whispered.
Sirius laughed and kissed him again. The storm passed, and eventually the lights came back on. The door unlocked with a lazy click, like even the wards were finally satisfied. And in the corner of the chalkboard, hardly noticeable beneath the specials, a tiny message appeared in pale handwriting:
DON’T MAKE ME COME BACK EVER AGAIN
Remus saw it, huffed a soft laugh, and nudged Sirius’s shoulder. “He’s really rooting for us.”
Sirius pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “Of course he is. He wants the world to know he’s still in charge.”
The lights gave one last smug flicker and then settled into a steady, peaceful glow. Sirius felt it immediately: the change in the air, the absence of dramatic huffing from the ceiling. Regulus wasn’t gone; he’d just finally stopped supervising as if he’d taken one look at them, crossed his ghostly arms, muttered “good, you idiots sorted it out”, and decided he could finally take the night off.
Sirius laughed under his breath before pulling Remus in for another kiss.
Trust his brother to haunt him out of love and then disappear the second he got what he wanted.
Classic Regulus.
