Chapter Text
When Remus Lupin was sixteen years old he became a death eater. and when he was eighteen he kissed Regulus Black.
Well, only one of that was technically true. It came in over the holidays, a full-body burning rage that Remus thought was the late onset of lycanthropy curse coming to kill him; he screamed and screamed and his parents didn’t dare to come close, his mother fell to her knees by the doorway and prayed to god not to take him.
The scarring left a burning sensation in his arm that lingered for weeks, but that was all it did. Perhaps it was because it was just a soulmark; or that it was precisely because it was a soulmark steeped in light magic, that there was no trace of dark and couldn’t form a connection to the Dark Lord. It was just as well, because Remus might have tried to gnaw his arm off.
His father recognized the mark, begged him to cover it up. Never confess. He kept it in a bandage tight under his sleeve. His friends assumed that it was another transformation-induced scar he’d given himself, of course, having little need to think much of the placement. It was one of those things, that you wouldn’t know what you were looking for, until you did.
Regulus Black met his eyes across the room: he was always watching his brother and by extension always Remus. He had glanced down at where Remus’s bandage was poking out of his sleeve.
When Remus graduated and his father died in a bombarda on the way to work, he convinced his mother that he would be fine, here, in London, without her, yes, she may return to her hometown in Yorkshire and leave him be, with his friends, who would treat him well. She took what meager savings they had and Remus hopped between several jobs that couldn’t keep him, and one day there was a knock on his door.
“Regulus?” Remus squinted. “What are you doing here? Sirius isn’t-”
“I came to talk to you,” Regulus said sharply. “Not my idiot brother.” He shoved his way in and stood in Remus’s little rental, breathing hard, and then he grabbed Remus’s left arm.
Remus protested and almost clawed Regulus in the face in the ensuing struggle to keep his limbs to himself. Regulus straddled him on the carpet next to his upturned coffee table and stared at Remus with burning eyes, then drew his own sleeve.
They made love on the floor with an urgency Remus didn’t understand because Regulus was convinced that he was a dying man. After that Regulus lay his heavy head on Remus’s sweaty shoulder and said, “I don’t have any of yours, yet, but maybe you haven’t gotten it.”
Something in Remus’s heart twisted at the thought of a scar so terrible that it would replace Greyback’s Bite, but for the moment he was just grateful he didn’t have to go looking for it on Regulus’s body.
They would tell Sirius, they decided, once the war was over, once Regulus destroyed what artifact he needed to destroy and killed the Dark Lord once and for all, and maybe Sirius would see that Regulus wasn’t like their parents, and Regulus would invite Sirius home, and even if he didn’t want to go home, they could have a new place, the both of them, and Remus could be there too-
But then Regulus died, and James and Lily and Peter did too, and Sirius was arrested for the ultimate betrayal -
In the end, Remus never got the chance to reunite the brothers.
Not three years after the end of the wizarding war did Severus knock at his door and hold him at wandpoint. How Severus tracked him down, Remus didn’t know, but it wasn’t as if he’d tried to make himself scarce - it was just that no one really looked for him these days, so he wasn’t aware that he was someone capable of being found.
Severus dragged him to Malfoy Manor (what?) and Remus met his alumni, an intimidating couple who were glowering at him as if he’d orchestrated a downfall that they seemed to suffer no ill-effects from. Out on the couch with his head in his mother’s lap was a small child in deep sleep, and with a single sniff Remus could tell it was an unnatural one - the kid was drugged to high heaven, oh dear.
“Do you know why we called you here?” Lucius growled, and Remus just shook his head, casting a glance at - well, for once in his life he sought even footing with Severus, who was at least his peer, but Severus was unmoved. He looked just as upset as the Malfoys.
“This boy here,” he pointed, “is Draco Malfoy, my godson, who is four years old.”
“Okay,” Remus said very slowly.
Narcissa put a hand on the sleeping child’s head and then brushed back his hair, and -
Oh, oh, it was horrible, that terrible bite mark that mirrored his own on the kid’s face, raw and red as the day Remus was bitten - because this was what must have just happened to the poor boy, his soulmark manifesting as if it was a scar experienced by him as well. Remus clapped his hands over his mouth and dropped to his knees but threw up anyway, all over his hand and trousers. When he looked up he saw Severus waving a wand to vanish the mess and inexplicably dropping on a knee next to him, to place a hand on his shoulder.
Lucius and Narcissa had no sympathy in their expressions, not that Remus would expect it. “You have to leave,” Lucius said, and Remus flinched, but he was right, Remus was thinking it before it was suggested. “Leave Wizarding Britain.” He looked Remus up and down and wrinkled his nose. “Whatever lifestyle you desire in whichever country you wish to relocate to - name your price. I will allow you to return no sooner than when Draco comes of age.”
“O-okay,” Remus agrees immediately, because - the implications - oh, of all horrific things - a four year old! And then a terrible realization dawned on him. “Malfoys are death eaters.”
Lucius stood up to his full height, enraged. “I was imperiused-”
Whatever the courts believed, not that Remus was going to refute it. He didn’t want to offend Lucius especially when they were to be - well. “No, I mean-!” Remus clasped his left forearm. Narcissa took in a sharp breath. Severus yanked Remus’s sleeve up and tore his bandages away and they all gasped.
“What does this mean?” Narcissa looked fearful. “Does this mean the Dark Lord is coming back? And we have to serve him again? Lucius, I can’t - our baby, oh no, oh no-”
Lucius looked ashen. “H-how old were you, when you-”
“Sixteen,” Remus whispered.
Narcissa buried her head in her hands and began earnestly sobbing. Lucius sat down hard on his couch and pulled little Draco onto his lap, and Severus pulled up his sleeve, to hold it next to Remus’s arms. They were identical.
“Well,” Severus said, after a long silence. “I guess Albus was right.”