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Remus had thought that he would sit alone on the Hogwarts Express. Now he was worried that he wasn’t going to sit at all. Dragging his trunk through carriage after carriage, he’d found that every compartment held laughing, chattering students. There was nowhere empty. Nowhere quiet. Even taking deep breaths, it was difficult to control his increasing panic.
Remus’s chest felt tight as he struggled to open the door to the fifth carriage from the back of the train and heave his trunk through it. Keeping his foot braced against the heavy steel, he yanked with both hands. His trunk jerked forward, and he stumbled into the carriage as a compartment door banged open just ahead. A red-haired girl stepped out looking both angry and slightly tearful. She moved past Remus without looking up, and a boy emerged from the compartment to follow her.
“See ya, Snivellus!” someone shouted as the compartment door whooshed shut behind him.
The boy with greasy black hair scowled and hurried after the girl, clipping Remus as he passed and knocking the school bag off his shoulder. Remus’s brand new books and quills, the ones he’d organised and reorganised with such pride all week, went spilling across the corridor carpet. The boy didn’t stop to help, glaring at Remus before hurrying through the door back toward the fourth carriage.
Remus dived to gather his school things as the train lurched left. He was not going to cry. He was not going to cry on this train full of loud noises and louder kids. He was not going to cry over his crumpled parchment or his broken quill or his bone-deep terror. He set his jaw.
The compartment door burst open again, and another dark-haired boy peered out, looking back along the train where the others had disappeared. He caught sight of Remus sprawled on the ground and stepped out into the corridor.
The boy made no move to help him up. Instead, he looked Remus up and down, taking in his shabby secondhand school robes, his scattered possessions, and finally the pinkish scars running along the back side of his right hand and up his wrist.
“What’s wrong with your hands?” the boy asked, cocking his head to one side in an almost dog-like gesture.
“Nothing,” Remus muttered, trying to pull his sleeves down to cover his scarred skin.
The boy’s grey eyes narrowed. He wasn’t even wearing his school robes yet, but his everyday robes looked like they’d cost more gold than Remus’s family made in a year. Remus’s stomach twisted.
He stared at his scattered books. There was too much at stake. This was his future—his only chance. His parents had warned him. People would ask. He had to be ready to keep secrets, and he had to start now.
The boy standing above him had no idea. He could stare if he wanted. He could ask, and he could sneer. But he couldn’t take this away from Remus.
Remus scrambled to his feet, forced himself to look this intimidating boy right in the eyes. He schooled his expression and, with a small smile and a shrug, replied, “You should see the other bloke.”
The boy barked a surprised laugh.
“Sirius Black,” he said holding out his delicate, unmarked hand.
“I’m Remus. Remus Lupin.”
They shook.
“Do you want to come and sit with us?” Sirius Black asked, gesturing to the compartment he’d just left.
Remus felt his heart leap.
***
In second year, Remus’s scars became harder to explain away. He returned to class after the October full moon with two newly-healed gashes running across the bridge of his nose from his lower left cheek to his right temple. They itched and pulled whenever he wrinkled his nose, making Remus hyper-aware of their presence.
Madame Pomfrey had dabbed at them with potions for three days, but like all of Remus’s full moon injuries, they were cursed wounds; scars couldn’t be avoided. Thankfully, he’d missed his own eyes. He had to be grateful.
When they saw him slip quietly into the back of the Transfiguration classroom, James sucked in breath through his teeth, Peter winced, and Sirius frowned. Professor McGonagall cleared her throat exactly once and continued her lecture on turning beetles into buttons. His friends spent the remainder of the lesson staring openly at Remus, trying to catch his eye, while he furiously took notes.
As soon as the class was dismissed, they surrounded him.
“What happened?” demanded James.
“Your face!” squeaked Peter.
“Remus,” Sirius added quietly.
As usual, Remus deflected, repeated the lie he’d thought up in the hospital wing about his mother’s fictional illness.
“Mum crashed our car on the way home from the train station after I arrived,” he found himself saying in a hollow voice. “She had another fit. She’s getting worse.”
The three gaped at him for a moment, at a loss. Then James took the school bag from Remus’s stiff, aching shoulder and slung an arm around him. Sirius dropped his gaze.
“It’ll be okay,” James murmured, adjusting the two bags. “She’ll be all right. Come on, let’s get to Charms before Flitwick has our heads.”
Remus’s rush of gratitude was so palpable that he didn’t trust himself to speak.
That night, he found Sirius watching him again as they brushed their teeth, taking in the angry lines slashed across his face. Remus felt his cheeks growing hot but busied himself with his toothpaste. When Remus made to follow James and Peter out of the bathroom, though, Sirius stopped him.
“You could tell me, you know,” Sirius said in a rush.
“Tell you what?”
Sirius shrugged. “I don’t know. Anything. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Remus had to laugh. “You told everyone that James once wet himself while using the floo. In Charms class. This morning.”
But his laughter died in his throat as Sirius took hold of his wrist, his thumb pressed against a deep scar along the tender skin at his pulse point.
“The ones that count, I mean.”
Remus shivered and said nothing.
“Did someone—” Sirius bit his tongue then tried again. “Is someone—?”
Suddenly, Remus’s blood felt like ice. His eyes grew wide.
“Sirius,” he breathed, taking one step toward him and then faltering. He watched as Sirius dropped his hand, balled his fists, locked his knees, his whole body radiating defiance. It was a common Sirius stance, but Remus was seeing it in a new light.
“Not everyone is nice,” he told Remus, his grey eyes like fire.
“No one hurt me,” Remus said quietly. He waited. “...Sirius. Are your—?”
But Sirius cut him off with a shake of his head and held the bathroom door open. Remus knew he had no right to expect Sirius to share his secrets, not when he was keeping so many of his own, but his chest ached with the pain of it.
***
On the morning after his thirteenth birthday, Remus woke to an empty dormitory. Blinking, he glanced at his friends’ empty beds. It wasn’t like them to get up early on a Sunday. He had resolved to find them, dressed quickly, and just about finished making his bed when the dormitory door creaked open. The three of them were standing there, looking nervous. Remus quirked an eyebrow.
“We know,” James said without preamble. His voice was flat and even.
“Know what?” asked Remus, forcing a laugh. He could feel fear unfurling in the pit of his stomach, creeping down his arms and up his neck. His eyes darted to the door behind them. If they attacked him, there was nowhere to run.
“That you’re a werewolf,” Peter piped up. He was clearly attempting to keep his tone casual.
As many times as he had dreamed this moment, Remus still wasn’t prepared. He swayed slightly. Sirius started forward to steady him, and Remus flinched away. Sirius blinked, and James looked back and forth between them.
“Please,” Remus pleaded, his voice breaking, his hands held out in front of him as if to hold them back. His head was spinning, but he was prepared to beg. “Please. I’ll go. You’ll never have to see me again. I’m sorry I lied to you. I—I’ve never wanted to hurt you. I know you won’t believe that now, but—just—please don’t tell everyone. They’ll...they’ll never let us be—my parents, they’re terrified. I’m begging you.”
James’s and Peter’s jaws had dropped. Sirius alone looked determined. As he reached toward his back pocket, Remus cowered, unable to bear the sight of Sirius pulling his wand and unwilling to defend himself.
He yelped in surprise when the next thing he felt was not the force of a spell, but the gentle touch of Sirius’s hand on his upper arm. Sirius was holding out a handkerchief, one of the stupid maroon ones James was always using to clean his glasses. Remus blinked at him. His brain felt stuck. He hadn’t realised that he was crying.
“Hey,” Sirius said very quietly. “I’m—I wouldn’t hurt you. You know that.”
Remus could feel the fight going out of him and, with it, his ability to stand. He sank onto his four poster, shaking all over.
With that, his friends converged on him. It took them over an hour to talk Remus down, to convince him that they weren’t disgusted and frightened by him, that they didn’t see him as a monster, that they wouldn’t try to have him expelled now or ever. By the time they had done it, Peter was sprawled on his own bed next to Remus’s, James was leaned up against the nightstand between the two beds with his eyes closed, and Sirius had managed to inch so close to Remus that their arms were nearly touching. Remus glanced between the three of them, feeling drained and stunned and somehow lighter than he could ever remember feeling before.
“So…” Remus found words tumbling out before he could stop them. He couldn’t help himself. He had to be sure. “So you still want to be my friends?”
Peter collapsed face first into his blankets with a moan of despair.
“You idiot,” James laughed, pushing himself up and stretching his spine. “What have we been saying? Of course we still want to be your friends. What kind of arseholes would we be if we abandoned you now? We’re...erm...here, okay? If you need us. And we always will be. You’re not getting rid of us that easily, Lupin.”
Remus didn’t know what to say. He attempted a watery smile which gave way to a sob. Rolling his eyes, Sirius shoved Remus sideways into his pillows.
“What a truly terrifying creature,” he deadpanned.
Then Remus was laughing, and then they all were.
At breakfast the next morning, when they overheard a first year whispering about Remus’s face, Sirius turned and said solemnly, “You should see the other bloke.”
Turning back, he winked at Remus, who couldn’t help but flush a little at the memory.
He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve Sirius, Peter, and James, and yet there they were anyway.
***
By sixth year, there was undeniably something going on between Remus and Sirius. It had started gradually. They’d begun sitting too close, finding excuses to be alone together. Over the Christmas holidays, when the grounds were deserted, they had held hands down by the lake, blushing and refusing look one another in the eye. By March, they often found themselves kissing in the dormitory when the others were out, and once, to Remus’s very great horror, they had snogged in an actual broom cupboard off the entrance hall.
What, exactly, was going on between them was something they had never discussed out loud. To Remus, it didn’t feel as though they were being secretive, exactly. His relationship with Sirius was not something he was trying to hide so much as something he was frightened might disappear the second he tried to name it.
That fear—that it was fleeting, that Sirius might come to his senses—gripped Remus hardest whenever Sirius reached for his shirt buttons. Three times, he had gently taken Sirius’s fumbling hands in his own and stopped him, his heart racing with barely controlled panic. He didn’t want Sirius to see the network of ugly, intersecting scars running across his chest and torso. He was certain that no one could continue to want him once they’d seen the mutilated shape of his body. The scars could only be a final reminder that he wasn’t handsome like Sirius was, that he wasn’t whole like Sirius was, that he wasn’t human like Sirius was.
Three days before Remus’s seventeenth birthday, the rumor started. Remus heard it whispered at breakfast and giggled about in the corridors between classes. Sirius had shagged Marlene McKinnon. Tall and beautiful, with unmarked skin, Marlene was everything Remus could never be. It stung so badly that Remus spent most of the day struggling furiously against the pricking of tears. He was so angry at himself. He’d been so stupid.
That night, he found himself alone in the dormitory with Sirius. While Remus was struggling to find the right words to broach the subject, Sirius came to sit much too close to him on the edge of his bed. Remus gaped at him. He was sure that Sirius wouldn’t have the nerve to pretend that nothing had changed between them.
But then Sirius leaned in and pressed his lips to Remus’s. He reached up to gently tuck a strand of Remus’s hair behind his ear. Remus could feel something inside himself splintering, could feel his face burning with a visceral shame as he kissed Sirius back. He couldn’t believe that Sirius was going to sit here and touch him after what he’d done with Marlene; he couldn’t believe that he was letting him. It was desperate and pathetic, and yet, Remus couldn’t stop himself.
Sirius hand was steady as it travelled to Remus’s shoulder and then down to rest briefly by Remus’s heart. He hesitated only as he reached to undo the top button of Remus’s uniform shirt.
It was this that made Remus pull away at last.
The words were out before he could second guess himself: “Did you sleep with Marlene?”
Sirius pulled his hand back as though he’d been scalded. He looked briefly confused and then stung.
“Marlene McKinnon?”
Remus nodded, not quite meeting Sirius’s eyes. He didn’t want to see hurt growing there.
“No,” said Sirius flatly, rising and taking several steps back from Remus’s bed. “You’re my—We’re—Why would you think I’d been with Marlene McKinnon?”
Remus didn’t need to hear the end of Sirius’s sentences about their relationship to realise how wrong he’d been. Where there had been anger and disgust, Remus could feel his insides filling with dread.
“I’m sorry. God, Sirius, I’m so sorry. It’s what everyone was saying all day, and normally I wouldn’t care, but...I just thought...” Remus struggled with the words, knowing how humiliating it would sound. “Why...why would you want me if you could have Marlene?”
Sirius gaped at him.
“Moony—” he breathed, but Remus cut him off.
“It wasn’t about you, I guess. Not really. It was more...me. And I’m sorry.”
Remus stared intently at his hands, feeling the mattress dip as Sirius came to sit beside him once more.
“But that’s why, isn’t it?” Sirius asked quietly after a few moments of silence. “That’s why you don’t want me to touch you. You think I’d do that to you.”
Remus watched as Sirius bit his lip and balled his fists. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never meant to hurt Sirius. It was the last thing he’d wanted. Sirius had enough people in his life who’d hurt him and made him doubt himself. Remus thought about all the times Sirius had covered for him, all the times he’d visited him in the Hospital Wing after the full moon. He thought about all the proof Sirius had given him that he could be trusted with Remus’s darkest secrets. He thought about all the things he hadn’t told Sirius yet—about how much he wanted him, about how much he loved him. Remus didn’t want it to end because he couldn’t tell Sirius the truth.
Remus loosened his tie. He could feel his heartbeat hammering in his ears. Carefully, with trembling fingers, he began to unbutton his shirt.
“This is why,” Remus said when his body was finally exposed. Sirius had frozen, his eyes wide. “This is why I didn’t want you to touch me. This is why I was scared you’d find someone else. You don’t have to pretend that it’s okay. I know how bad it is. It’s just, I’d rather lose you over this than because you think I d—”
Sirius cut him off with another kiss. Tentatively, he brought his hand up again to hover deliberately just above Remus’s bare chest. He pulled away to look Remus directly in the eyes, asking permission. Remus nodded.
Sirius gently traced a scar down the length of Remus’s breastbone. Remus shivered, and Sirius paused uncertainly until Remus brought his own hand up to cover Sirius’s. He held Sirius’s palm to the center of his chest.
Then they were kissing again. When they pulled apart, Sirius rested his forehead against Remus’s.
“You don’t have to keep things from me any more,” Sirius whispered. “I told you, back when we were kids. I’m good at keeping secrets. Let me.”
Remus smiled and pressed a kiss to the corner of Sirius’s mouth.
“Okay,” he said.