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The first time Sirius Black climbed the Astronomy Tower, he did it for the same reason he did most things in his life: because he was angry and restless and seventeen floors up seemed like a good place to put that feeling where no one else can see it.
He had received a letter that afternoon, the sort written in his mother’s elegant, slanted script, the sort that smelled faintly of something cold and floral and suffocating. Sirius had not read most of it. He had skimmed just long enough to recognize the familiar words of, “disgrace, blood, family, shame”, before crumpling the parchment in his fist and shoving it into the bottom of his trunk like something dead he did not particularly want to look at again.
The problem with anger, Sirius had discovered, was that it sat inside his ribs like a swarm of bees. It buzzed and it crawled beneath his skin. It made the walls of the Gryffindor dormitory feel too close and the laughter of his friends feel too loud, and so eventually he did the only thing he could think of doing with it: he climbed.
The Astronomy Tower was quiet at night. The stones were cool beneath his palms as he pushed open the narrow door and stepped out into the open air, the sky spread wide and black above the castle like a sheet of velvet pinned with stars. Sirius leaned against the railing and exhaled, long and slow, as if he could breathe the anger out into the night.
It took him a full thirty seconds to realize he was not alone.
Someone was already there, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor with a book balanced on their knees. In the dim glow of the tower lanterns, Sirius recognized the sandy hair and slightly hunched posture of Remus Lupin.
Remus glanced up when the door creaked, blinking at him through the dark as though Sirius was the surprising one in this situation.
“Oh,” Remus said mildly. “Hello.”
Sirius considered leaving. The tower had seemed like the sort of place that belonged to no one, a quiet space where he could drop the mask he wore around everyone else, but the presence of another person complicated that. Especially when the other person was Remus Lupin, who had an unfortunate habit of noticing things.
Instead, Sirius walked over and leaned against the railing with what he hoped was a casual sort of swagger.
“Didn’t realize this was your secret hideout, Lupin,” he said. “Should I have brought a password?”
Remus huffed a small laugh and returned his attention to his book. “You’re welcome to stay.”
Sirius watched him for a moment, vaguely irritated by the calmness of the invitation. Most people would ask questions. Most people would want to know why Sirius Black had appeared at the Astronomy Tower in the middle of the night looking like he might punch something.
Remus did not.
He simply sat there, turning a page, the faint lantern light catching the edge of his cheekbone.
Sirius found himself staying.
•••
By fourth year, the Astronomy Tower had become something like a habit.
Sirius did not mention this to anyone, of course. That would’ve defeated the purpose. The Marauders shared almost everything, secrets, jokes, the occasional illegal magical experiment, but the tower remained Sirius’s private territory, the one place where he did not have to be loud or charming or reckless in order to occupy the space around him.
The funny thing is that Remus kept appearing there.
Not every night, but often enough that Sirius began to suspect the boy has some sort of schedule. Some evenings Sirius arrived first and sprawled across the stone floor watching the stars until the door creaked open and Remus slipped through with a book tucked beneath his arm. Other nights Sirius pushed open the door to find Remus already there, exactly as he had been the first time, cross-legged and quiet and somehow perfectly at ease in the dark.
Neither of them ever commented on it.
It becomes an unspoken routine. Sirius leaned against the railing, or lay flat on his back counting constellations he half remembered from Astronomy lessons, while Remus read or scribbled notes in the margins of whatever textbook he had brought with him. Occasionally Sirius made some sort of remark, something sarcastic or ridiculous, and Remus hummed in quiet amusement without looking up from the page.
Sirius discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he liked the silence.
It was a different kind of quiet than the one he grew up with in Grimmauld Place. That silence had always been brittle and watchful, the sort that made him feel as though every breath might shatter it. This quiet was softer, companionable. The sort that stretched comfortably between two people who did not feel the need to fill it.
One night, sometime near the end of fourth year, Sirius arrived at the tower to find Remus staring up at the sky instead of reading.
“Doing astronomy homework?” Sirius asked, dropping down beside him.
Remus shook his head slightly. “Just thinking.”
Sirius tilted his own head back to follow Remus’s gaze. The stars were bright that night, scattered across the sky like spilled salt.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Sirius said after a moment. “Thinking, I mean. It’s meant to look more tortured.”
Remus smiled faintly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Sirius glanced sideways at him. “What are you thinking about?”
Remus hesitated for a fraction of a second, then shrugged. “Nothing important.”
Sirius knew that tone. He recognized the careful neutrality of it, the way Remus folded certain thoughts neatly out of sight. Sirius felt a strange flicker of irritation at the idea that Remus might’ve been hiding something from him, even though Sirius himself had built half his personality out of carefully concealed truths.
He nudged Remus’s shoulder with his own.
“Terrible answer,” Sirius said. “Try again.”
Remus looked at him then, really looked, his eyes reflecting the faint lantern light.
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “that the stars always look the same from up here. No matter what’s happening down below.”
Sirius snorted softly. “That’s because they’re stars, Moony. They’d be terribly inconvenient if they started rearranging themselves every time something dramatic happened in the castle.”
Remus laughed under his breath, the sound warm and quiet in the night air.
Sirius did not mention that he keeps returning to the tower partly because Remus is there.
•••
By fifth year, the world had begun to feel heavier.
There were whispers about Voldemort now, rumors of strange disappearances and dark magic creeping through the edges of wizarding society. Sirius pretended not to care about these things— pretended that the future is a distant, abstract concept that had nothing to do with him— but sometimes the weight of it pressed uncomfortably against his chest.
The Astronomy Tower became a refuge again.
One night Sirius stormed up the spiral staircase in a foul mood after a particularly spectacular argument with Severus Snape. His knuckles still ached faintly from where he slammed them against the Slytherin’s desk, and he had the distinct impression that Professor McGonagall will be assigning him detention in the very near future.
Remus was already on the tower.
He was sitting with his back against the stone wall, his sleeves pushed up and a thin line of blood visible along one forearm.
Sirius stopped short.
“What happened to you?”
Remus glanced down at the cut as though noticing it for the first time. “Oh. Nothing.”
“That’s not a convincing answer,” Sirius said flatly.
Remus sighed and fished a handkerchief out of his pocket. “It’s just a scratch.”
Sirius crossed the space between them before he could quite stop himself. He crouched down beside Remus and took the handkerchief from his fingers, pressing it gently against the cut.
“You’re terrible at taking care of yourself,” Sirius muttered.
Remus watched him with a slightly puzzled expression. “You just got out of a fight.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
Sirius opened his mouth to respond, then realized he did not actually have an answer.
He settled for glaring at the cut until the bleeding stopped. Remus’s arm was warm beneath his hand.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
Then Remus cleared his throat softly. “Did Snape deserve it?”
Sirius grinned, the tension in his chest loosening just slightly.
“Oh, absolutely.”
•••
By sixth year, Sirius had begun to notice things he could not easily explain.
He noticed the way Remus’s hair fell across his forehead when he read, the strands catching the lantern light like pale gold. He noticed the faint crease that appeared between Remus’s eyebrows when he concentrated, and the way that crease disappeared whenever Sirius said something particularly ridiculous.
He noticed that Remus was often tired, especially during the days surrounding the full moon. Sirius had known about Remus’s secret for years now, of course, knew it well enough to spend those nights running beside him in the forest as Padfoot, but there was something different about seeing the aftermath in quiet moments on the tower.
Sometimes Remus leaned back against the wall with his eyes closed, breathing slowly as though he was trying to gather his strength piece by piece.
Sirius pretended not to watch.
One evening in early spring, Sirius climbed the tower with the vague intention of clearing his head after an argument with James about Quidditch strategy. He pushed open the door expecting to find Remus reading as usual, but instead Remus was sitting at the railing with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring out across the grounds.
The wind lifted the edges of his hair.
Sirius paused in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary.
Something about the scene made his chest tighten in a way he did not entirely understand.
“You look like you’re brooding,” Sirius said finally, striding over.
Remus glanced back at him. “Do I?”
“Terribly. It’s quite embarrassing for the rest of us.”
Remus smiled faintly and shifted to make room on the railing.
Sirius sat beside him, their shoulders brushing lightly.
They watched the grounds in silence for a while. From this height the castle looked peaceful, the lights glowing warmly in the windows, the Forbidden Forest stretching dark and mysterious beyond the edge of the lawn.
“Do you ever think about what happens after Hogwarts?” Remus asked suddenly.
Sirius made a dismissive noise. “Not particularly.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Sirius said, leaning back on his hands, “the future is terribly boring. Full of responsibility and sensible decisions.”
Remus studied him with an expression that was both amused and strangely thoughtful.
“You’re not afraid of it?”
Sirius hesitated.
The truth is that he was afraid of many things. He was afraid of becoming like his family, of waking up one day to discover that the darkness of the Black name had somehow settled into his bones. He was afraid of losing the fragile sense of belonging he had found among the Marauders.
But he did not say any of that.
“Of course not,” Sirius replied lightly.
Remus looked back out at the grounds.
Sirius wondered, briefly, if Remus knew he was lying.
•••
By seventh year, Sirius had stopped pretending that the Astronomy Tower was simply a convenient place to escape.
It had become something else entirely.
A habit, a ritual, even just quiet space carved out of the chaos of Hogwarts life.
And, more than that, it had become the place where Remus Lupin existed in a way that felt strangely separate from the rest of the world.
One night near the end of term, Sirius climbed the familiar spiral staircase with a restless sort of energy humming beneath his skin. The castle was unusually quiet; most of the students were busy preparing for exams or celebrating the approaching end of the school year.
Remus was already on the tower.
He was leaning against the railing with his elbows propped on the stone, gazing up at the sky as though he could read something in the patterns of the stars.
Sirius walked over and stood beside him.
“You know,” he said casually, “I came up here the first time because I wanted to get away from everything.”
Remus glanced at him. “Everything?”
“Family. School. People.”
Remus considered this.
“And did it work?”
Sirius looked out across the grounds. The lake glimmered faintly in the moonlight, and the forest stretched dark and endless beyond it.
“Not exactly,” he admitted.
Remus’s mouth curved slightly.
“Why not?”
Sirius hesitated.
The truth was simple in a way that made it difficult to say out loud. Somewhere along the way the tower had stopped being empty. It had been filled with quiet conversations and shared silences and the steady presence of a boy who had become far more important to Sirius than he ever intended.
Sirius glanced sideways at Remus.
“You kept showing up,” he said.
Remus blinked.
“Oh,” he said softly.
They stood there for a moment, the night air cool against their skin.
Then Remus leaned his shoulder lightly against Sirius’s.
“You know,” he said after a while, “I came up here the first time because it was quiet.”
Sirius snorted.
“Terrible reason.”
Remus laughed.
The sound echoed softly across the tower, warm and familiar and impossibly comforting.
Sirius tilted his head back to look at the stars.
For years he had climbed this tower searching for a place where the noise of the world could not reach him, a place where the anger and the fear and the weight of his name could fade into the background.
He had thought he was escaping. Instead, he had found something else.
Beside him, Remus’s shoulder pressed steadily against his own.
Sirius did not move away.
For the first time since he’d arrived at Hogwarts, the quiet did not feel like something he needed to fill.
And when Remus glanced at him in the lantern light, his expression soft and uncertain and hopeful all at once, Sirius realized with a strange sort of certainty that the Astronomy Tower was never really the thing he had been searching for.
It had only ever been the place where he found Remus Lupin waiting.