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The first of January, 1985, and Remus Lupin wakes up with a pounding headache and a weight pressed against his side. Sirius groans, long and low; Remus can’t help but smile. For all his promises the night before, swearing on Merlin and Morgana both that he wasn’t drunk, Sirius sounds like he’s perhaps had one too many.
“I’m never drinking again,” Sirius rasps.
“Is that a promise?” Remus asks. His eyes are closed against the daybreak light filtering in through their window, but he can picture Sirius’ face just as easily as if he were looking.
“A resolution,” Sirius says.
***
There’s a pack of centaurs in the forest, and Sirius is the only one of them fool enough to stumble up to them with a too-confident swagger, but the rest of them trail behind him, quiet and maybe a little afraid.
“Look up,” one centaur says to them. He motions up with one hand, fingers splayed toward the sky. “Mars has dimmed.”
Remus didn’t bother with divination; there’s no Third Eye lurking in his family tree.
The centaur looks down at Remus, eyes bright. “You should have four legs,” he says.
It’s seventy-six. The moon hangs full in the sky.
***
Remus is thirteen the first time he buys a Honeyduke’s chocolate bar. He tucks in his robe pocket. It’s dark cocoa, the expensive one in the blue wrapper, with goldleaf lettering on the front declaring it 85% Cacao.
He keeps it there, safe in his pocket, as December slips into January and the nights begin to grow shorter. It’s ages before he needs it, before he finally rips open the foil with careful fingers. He breaks off a thick chunk to offer to Sirius, sniffling in his bed with his knees to his chest.
“Eat,” he says, softly. “It’ll help.”
***
There are too many books for a young man to read in the Black family library. Too many for Sirius. Maybe too many for anyone. He wonders, sometimes, six and curious, if Grandfather and Mister Dumbledore are trying to read them all, bent as they are over the table in a darkened corner, lit by lamplight and murmuring to each other. They’ve got the big books, the ones he isn’t allowed to touch.
It isn’t his concern, his governess told him; his concern is latin and later, violin. But now he watches out of the corner of his eye. Curious.
***
Remus is a tiny thing, prone to toddling around the garden with his plush teddy. It’s going on dusk, the moon is rising over the horizon as the sun sets in the west.
Once, Remus Lupin forgets his teddy in the garden; he sneaks out to get it. There is blood, and teeth, and a little boy’s life lays shattered on the ground.
Once, Remus Lupin remembers. He plucks his teddy from the grass and comes in when his father calls, gets tucked up in bed and dreams of Hogwarts and unicorns.
Mars dims. A wolf howls over the hedge.