Work Text:
They arrive with the soft crack of Apparition that seems too loud for a place like this. The wind takes the sound and scatters it at once, as if even magic cannot linger here.
Remus steadies himself on uneven ground, his shoes sinking slightly into sandy soil. The wind is constant: cool against his cheeks, tugging at his sleeves, carrying the clean, mineral scent of the sea. When he looks up, the sky seems impossibly large—an expanse of pale, endless blue streaked with slow-moving clouds—and below it the house stands alone at the edge of everything; its stone walls faded to the colour of old bones, its windows flashing with reflected light. Beyond it there is only sea to the east—an endless pale sweep of sand with waves folding in on themselves in small, patient sighs—and to the west a stretch of green fields dotted faintly with sheep that look like miniature clouds fallen to earth.
There is no other sound but the sea and the air moving through grass. No voices. No hint of the world they left behind. For a breathless second, Remus can only stand there, heart pounding, thinking that they have stepped not just out of sight, but out of time.
Sirius laughs beside him—bright, startled, almost boyish—torn from him by the sheer scale of it all. He is still gripping Remus’s arm, fingers warm and firm around his sleeve. “Moony,” he says, half-laughing, half-breathless, turning in a slow circle as his hair whips into his eyes. The sunlight catches in it, turning it almost silver at the edges. “Look at this.”
Remus looks, but because Sirius doesn’t specify what this is, Remus looks at him. There is colour high in his cheeks, and a wild brightness in his eyes that he hasn’t seen since they left Hogwarts, since the congratulations and the whispered conversations and the word war passing too often between too many mouths.
“Come on,” Sirius says, and he doesn’t wait for agreement—just laces their fingers together and starts forward, boots crunching against gravel and dry grass, tugging Remus toward the house as though it is something they have been invited into rather than something they have “borrowed”.
Sirius doesn’t slow until they’re nearly at the door, skidding a little on loose stones and laughing when Remus stumbles into him. Up close, the house is even more unremarkable than it looked from afar: low-roofed, one window slightly crooked in its frame, wooden door weather-worn and salt-streaked, the brass handle dulled by years of sea air.
It is, objectively, nothing special.
It is, however, perfect.
“Oh, this is brilliant,” Sirius says, breathless, pushing his hair out of his eyes with their still-joined hands. “Tell me this isn’t brilliant.”
Remus can’t help it—he laughs too, soft and disbelieving, the sound pulled from somewhere low in his chest. “It’s falling apart,” he says, though there’s no real criticism in it. He reaches out and presses his palm flat against the stone wall. It’s cool and sun-warmed at the same time.
“That means it has character,” Sirius declares, digging in his pocket for his wand. “Like us. Perfect match.”
The lock gives with a stubborn click and the door swings inward on a gust of wind. The interior is dim after the brightness outside, shadows pooling in corners, light filtering through small windows in thin, dusty beams. There’s a narrow staircase tucked against one wall, a small kitchen with mismatched cupboards, a table scarred by years of use, a sofa that has seen better decades, and a fireplace.
Sirius steps inside first and Remus follows—the floorboards creaking under their weight—and closes the door behind them. The wind dulls at once, reduced to a distant hush against stone. For a long moment they just stand there, shoulder to shoulder in the dimness, taking it in. There are no portraits muttering on the walls. No voices down the corridor.
It’s brilliant, Remus thinks.
Sirius turns slowly, then breaks into another grin—so bright it is almost painful to look at. “Our home, Moony,” he says, clapping his hands once as if beginning a grand project.
Remus raises an eyebrow. “For a month.”
“For a month,” Sirius agrees easily.
And something warm and reckless rises in Remus’s chest—an unfamiliar, dazzling kind of relief. A month of shared mornings. A month of cooking badly and arguing about nothing. A month of pretending the world beyond the island has politely forgotten them.
He shrugs off his coat and drops it over the back of the chair.
“Darling, I’m home!” he calls, pitching his voice lower, grand and theatrical, as though returning from a long day at some imaginary Ministry post.
Sirius blinks at him for half a second, then bursts into laughter so bright it seems to light the dim room from within. “Already?” he says, pressing a hand to his chest in mock surprise. “And I haven’t even put the kettle on.”
Remus steps further into the room, affecting an exhausted sigh. “It’s been a dreadful day at the office. Terribly important paperwork. Heroic things. I shan’t speak of them.”
“Of course not,” Sirius replies solemnly, sweeping past him toward the tiny kitchen. “You work too hard. I simply don’t know how you bear it.” He moves with exaggerated grace, all sweeping gestures and dramatic turns, trailing his fingers along the edge of the table as if it were polished mahogany instead of scarred pine.
Remus leans against the doorframe, watching.
It is ridiculous.
It is perfect.
Sirius opens a cupboard and peers inside as though inspecting fine china. “We’ll have guests, of course,” he says over his shoulder. “Tasteful dinner parties. You’ll sit at the head of the table and pretend to understand wine.”
“I do understand wine.”
“You absolutely do not.”
“I understand that it is… quite good.”
Sirius laughs again, delighted, and something in Remus’s chest loosens further. They’ve only just arrived and already it feels like they’ve slipped into a life they were meant to have—easy bickering, shared space, the casual intimacy of standing too close in a kitchen too small.
He crosses the room and catches Sirius gently by the waist, tugging him back from the cupboard. “And what, precisely,” Remus murmurs near his ear, “does my devoted husband do all day in this charming seaside cottage?”
Sirius doesn’t miss a beat. He turns in Remus’s arms, hands coming to rest at his shoulders, eyes glittering. “I pine,” he says gravely. “I gaze wistfully out at the sea and await your return. Occasionally I bake.”
“You can’t bake.”
“That’s not the point.”
They’re close now. Close enough that the teasing begins to soften at the edges. The theatrics fade not abruptly, but gently, like laughter dissolving into quiet.
Sirius’s hands slide from Remus’s shoulders down his arms, lingering at his wrists. “I could get used to this,” he says, still smiling, though there’s something almost wondering in it now. “You coming home to me.”
Remus feels the words settle somewhere deep and steady. “For a month,” he says lightly, because that is safer. Because the alternative is too bright to look at directly.
“For a month,” Sirius agrees.
Remus brushes a strand of hair back from Sirius’s face, thumb grazing his cheek in a gesture so instinctive it startles him with its tenderness. Sirius leans in first, or perhaps Remus does—it’s impossible to tell, as it always is. Their foreheads bump lightly, and they both laugh again, softer this time, breath shared between them. The kiss that follows is unhurried and warm, tasting faintly of salt air.
For a while they just stand there in the middle of the small, imperfect kitchen, arms wrapped around each other, the world reduced to the steady rhythm of each other’s breathing.
Remus closes his eyes and holds him tighter, as if by doing so he can anchor this moment in place.
He wishes—quietly, fiercely—that they never leave.
***
The days slip into one another so easily that Remus stops trying to count them.
Every morning, Sirius is the first awake, which is… odd. Remus worries he isn’t sleeping at all except, if that was the case, he wouldn’t be in such good spirits—Remus knows that much—so he figures the change of scenery is being good to him. Sirius wakes up first and throws the bedroom window open with unnecessary drama, announcing the weather as though delivering important news to the nation. “Windy,” he’ll declare, hair already a mess, voice bright with sleep. Or, “Positively tropical,” on the rare mornings the sun pours in unchallenged. Remus groans into the pillow and reaches blindly for him, catching only cool sheets and laughter drifting down the narrow staircase.
They fall into habits without meaning to. Sirius insists on making breakfast in the old stove even though he nearly burns the pan every time, and Remus takes over with long-suffering sighs, steering him away from the open flame while Sirius leans against the counter, stealing bits of food and kisses in apology. They eat at the small table by the window, knees knocking, sunlight pooling over their hands.
By the second week, the house begins to feel rearranged around them. Their jumpers drape over chair backs, Sirius’s boots live permanently by the door, and there’s always a book lying open on the arm of the sofa, face-down, waiting for Remus to return to it. The air smells faintly of salt and peat smoke and whatever they attempted for dinner the night before.
They walk everywhere. Down the makeshift road toward the harbour, shoulder to shoulder, close enough that their sleeves brush with each step and their hands drift near each other more than once. Not touching. Never touching. Not in plain daylight, under a wide sky.
Except—there is not another soul in sight, only fields and long stretches of pale sand.
He doesn’t look at Sirius when he reaches over—at least not at first. He just lets his fingers slide deliberately against Sirius’s palm, hesitant for half a heartbeat before lacing them together properly, firmly, like it isn’t terrifying. They have held hands before, of course—under tables at the Three Broomsticks, in the dark corners of the common room, quick and hidden and half-covered by shadow.
This is not hidden. This is a very bright afternoon and miles of empty land. No one is watching. He knows there is nothing here but sheep and wind and distant water, and still, his pulse jumps and Sirius falters mid-step when they touch.
Remus feels it through their joined hands—the surprise, the stillness—and then the answering pressure as Sirius tightens his grip. When Remus finally glances sideways, Sirius is already looking at him, something wide and startled and almost unbearably soft in his expression. The wind pushes at their coats, Sirius’s thumb brushes once across Remus’s knuckles, and then it’s not terrifying at all.
They keep walking hand in hand in broad daylight, along the beach where the sand is pale and fine and seems to stretch beyond reason. Sirius runs ahead sometimes, turning back with a grin that dares Remus to chase him. Remus pretends not to, then does anyway.
***
In the long evenings, when the sun refuses to set properly, they sit outside on the low stone wall.
Sirius rests his head in Remus’s lap, eyes closed, face turned toward the light, and Remus threads his fingers through his dark hair, watching the sky fade from blue to gold to a soft, lingering grey that never quite becomes night. There is a stillness in those hours that feels almost enchanted, as though time itself has decided to tread more quietly around them.
Sometimes they talk about nothing at all—about the sheep in the fields, about how they would improve the house if it were truly theirs, about whether Sirius would tolerate curtains with flowers on them. Sometimes they talk about the future in broad, easy strokes. A flat somewhere. A pet. They speak as though these things are inevitable, and every so often, in the middle of some ordinary moment—washing dishes together, or folding laundry—Remus catches Sirius looking at him with open, uncomplicated happiness.
It is such a simple thing, that look.
Remus holds it carefully, like something warm between his hands.
***
Toward the middle of the month, the wind changes. It comes sharper from the east, tugging harder at the windows, carrying a damp chill that seeps into the stone. The sky lowers, heavy with clouds, and for the first time since they arrived the sea is no longer patient and mild but restless, folding over itself in darker, rougher lines.
Remus wakes before Sirius that morning.
The house is quiet in a different way—less sunlit, more enclosed. He slips from the bed carefully and pulls on his jumper against the cold, padding down the narrow staircase with the softest steps he can manage. The kitchen feels smaller without the morning light spilling through it.
The wireless sits on the counter where he left it weeks ago, mostly untouched. He brought it out of habit more than intention, but now he can’t help himself but to turn it on. The sound crackles to life, low and uneven. Static first, then a voice—measured, distant, speaking of incidents in the south. A village attacked. Names withheld. Remus stands very still, one hand braced against the table, as though the floor might shift beneath him.
He doesn’t hear Sirius come down. He only realises he isn’t alone when the static sharpens and the voice cuts abruptly to silence. The wireless clicks off with a swoosh from Sirius’s wand.
They look at each other in the silence. Sirius’s expression isn’t angry. It isn’t even sharp. It’s something quieter than that—tired, perhaps. Closed. He withdraws his hand slowly, and pockets his wand again.
“It’s July,” he says at last. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
Remus swallows. “I know.”
Sirius nods once, curt and contained, and steps away. He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t tell him to stop. He just doesn’t look at Remus again for the rest of the morning.
They spend the day moving around each other carefully, as if they have grown fragile overnight, and only later, when Sirius pulls on his boots without a word and heads for the door, does Remus get the courage to reach for him.
He’s almost successful. The door shuts hard against the wind, and a few seconds later, there’s the familiar shift of magic in the air—the ripple that means Padfoot has taken Sirius’s place.
Remus goes to the window and watches the dog run fast, dark against the pale sweep of sand, heading straight for the roughened edge of the sea where the waves are beginning to crest white. The wind flattens his fur as he tears along the shoreline, reckless and untethered, chasing nothing and everything at once. He watches until Padfoot becomes a blur against the horizon. Watches the sea strike and retreat and strike again. Watches the sky press lower.
He knows Sirius needs the space. He tells himself he does too, so the day passes like that—quiet, suspended—with neither of them quite willing to pull the thread.
It’s only after midnight—when the mattress dips beside him—that Remus feels the shift of weight, the careful warmth of Sirius sliding beneath the blanket, the familiar press of a knee against his thigh. There’s the faint scent of salt and wind in his hair.
They lie apart until Sirius moves closer. An arm winds around Remus’s waist, hesitant only for a fraction of a second before tightening properly, and his forehead presses between Remus’s shoulder blades. Remus covers Sirius’s hand with his own.
They don’t speak about the radio, or at all.
Outside, the wind worries at the stone, and the tide turns somewhere in the dark.
Inside, they curl together and pretend, for a few hours more, that nothing happened at all.
***
The full moon rises late and enormous, pale and watchful. They have known it was coming, of course. Counted the days quietly.
There is no Shrieking Shack here. No reinforced walls. No Whomping Willow guarding secrets. Just the house at the edge of the fields and miles of open land beyond it.
“I could take you farther inland,” Sirius suggests that afternoon, trying for casual. “There’s nothing for miles.”
Remus shakes his head. “There’s sheep.”
“They’ll survive.”
“I’d rather not test it.”
In the end, they choose a hollow in the dunes, far enough from the house, shielded from the road by a rise of grass and stone. Sirius walks it twice as Padfoot before sunset, nose low, checking the air with a seriousness that makes Remus’s chest ache.
When the moon climbs high enough, Remus changes beneath open sky.
It is different here. The wind does not care. The sea does not recoil. The sky does not turn away. There is pain, yes—there is always pain—but it feels smaller somehow without walls to contain it. The sound that tears from him is swallowed by the wind and carried harmlessly out over the water.
Padfoot stays through all of it—circling, steady, solid and dark against the pale sand. When the wolf runs, he runs beside it. When it snaps, he absorbs it. When it howls, he answers.
There are no splintered doors. No frantic scratching at wood. No distant villagers wondering about the noise. Only the two of them under an endless sky.
By dawn, when the moon is fading into something thin and uncertain, Remus wakes on cool sand, human again, every muscle trembling with the familiar aftermath. The first thing he feels is weight—warm, heavy, grounding. Padfoot is pressed along his side, flank rising and falling steadily. A moment later, the dog shifts and shrinks and Sirius is there instead, breath ghosting against Remus’s temple.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, voice rough with exhaustion.
They lie there without moving as the sun pushes slowly over the horizon, light spilling across the dunes in soft, indifferent gold. It catches in Sirius’s lashes. It warms the sand. It turns the sea from iron-grey to blue.
No one comes running. No distant shouting. No horrified whispers. No doors slamming shut. The sheep in the fields continue grazing. The tide keeps its patient rhythm. The sky shifts colour as it always does.
He changed beneath the open sky: bones shifting, skin tearing, something wild and ancient rising to the surface of him. He ran beside the boy he loves—no, the man—and did not have to hide his teeth, or his hunger, or the sound of his own voice.
The world did not recoil. The sea did not turn black. The sun did not refuse to rise. The earth did not crack open to swallow him whole.
It is not the sky that calls him monstrous, he realises. It is not the wind that looks away when he reaches for Sirius’s hand. The world itself does not demand secrecy or shame. People do. Curtained houses, ministry decrees, careful glances in crowded rooms, the subtle tightening of mouths when they hear the word wolf, the even subtler silence when Sirius’s fingers linger at his waist too long in public.
Sirius shifts closer in his sleep, fingers curling loosely into the fabric of Remus’s torn sleeve. There is no hiding in the gesture. Just instinct. Remus turns his head, presses a quiet kiss into his hair, and lets himself feel it fully—this simple, unhidden rightness. Lets himself accept, just for this morning, that there is nothing broken in him or the way he loves. He knows Sirius knows it too.
Soon they will leave this island, they will step back into rooms where hands are withdrawn too quickly and full moons require locked doors, they will remember how to lower their voices, how to endure, but here, now, with sand in his hair and salt on his skin and Sirius breathing evenly against him, Remus does not feel like something that must be managed. He feels like himself. And the world, vast and indifferent and bright, allows it.
***
Their last evening arrives without announcement.
The sky clears as if in apology, the wind gentler than it has been in days. The sea has softened too, rolling in slow, even breaths that barely disturb the fine stretch of sand. The light is golden and thin, stretching long shadows behind them as they walk down to the beach for what they do not call the last time.
They don’t speak much. There is nothing left to discover here. They know the dip in the dunes where the grass grows taller, the patch of sand that sinks unexpectedly underfoot, the exact place where the tide reaches at its highest.
Sirius brought the camera. It dangles from his neck as they walk, bumping lightly against his hip. He lifts it now and then without warning—captures the sea, the horizon, Remus half-turned with the wind in his hair. “For evidence,” he says lightly when Remus squints at him. “For when I’m convinced I dreamed this.”
Remus rolls his eyes but doesn’t protest.
At the water’s edge, Sirius presses the camera into his hands. “Your turn.”
“I’m dreadful at this.”
“You’re fine. Just don’t cut off my head.”
Sirius backs up a few steps, hands in his pockets, grin soft rather than sharp. The wind catches his hair, pushes it back from his face. He looks younger like this. Unarmoured. The vastness behind him makes him seem almost weightless. Remus hesitates for a fraction of a second before lifting the camera. Through the lens, the world narrows. Sirius stands framed by sea and sky, trousers rolled slightly at the ankle, boots abandoned somewhere up the beach. There’s laughter in his mouth, but it’s quieter than usual. He looks happy. Not performing it. Not insisting on it.
Remus takes the photograph.
Sirius doesn’t wait for the paper to fully develop before he’s waving Remus forward. “Come here. Let’s do one together.”
He takes his wand and levitates the thing until it’s perfectly steady on their eye level and, content with the result, turns to Remus.
Sirius’s arms come around his neck, and instinct makes Remus pull him in around the waist. He doesn’t think much about it. He takes one look at Sirius and crashes their lips together.
The camera clicks.
“Sirius,” Remus mumbles into his mouth, startled.
“What?” Sirius smiles. “It’s for me. Won’t show it to anyone. Promise.”
When they kiss again, they don’t stop for a couple of minutes, and it’s only then that Remus notices the camera is no longer in the air, but lying on the sand.
They don’t move right away.
The sun sinks lower, bleeding gold into rose, then into a soft, uncertain violet that never quite becomes dark. The horizon blurs. The world feels edged in something fragile.
“We’ll come back,” Sirius says eventually, not looking at him. His voice is quiet, almost conversational, as though commenting on the weather. “After.”
Remus watches the tide slide forward and retreat. “Yes,” he says. He doesn’t add anything else.
The silence between them is full, heavy with everything they are not naming.
Then Sirius turns his head to him again and rests his forehead against Remus’s. For a long moment, they just stand there with the sea moving around them, the sky fading, the last light stretching stubbornly across the water.
Remember this, Remus thinks. The exact colour of the sky. The weight of his hand at the back of your neck. The sound of the tide. Remember this.
They walk back slowly, the waves smoothing over their footprints and their fingers intertwined without hesitation.
The house waits at the end of the narrow path, small and solid and briefly theirs.
