Characters: Sirius, Remus
Summary: He looked so old.
Pairings: None
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
The Shrieking Shack was darker than Sirius remembered it. The passage of time hadn't been kind to the place (Though Remus's teeth and claws hadn't ever been kind to it either). The old haunt was far more decrepit and in a more advanced state of decay than Sirius could ever remember it being. The furniture and the wood smelled of mold and rot and dust, pungent odors all, and Sirius couldn't remember it ever being quite so… dark in the Shack.
It was black—No, it was darker than black, even if he had set a small fire in the grate.
His mind snapped back to the present. The cat was perched heavily on his chest, putting itself between Sirius and Harry, who had his wand directed at Sirius's face where it had once been at his heart. Nothing, nothing the Dementors had done to him had ever hurt quite as much as looking at Harry's face and seeing murder written there, black, maddening hatred, twisting his lip.
He looks so much like his father. And his mother's eyes, too…
How was Sirius supposed to make him listen to him? How was he supposed to make him understand that it had been the rat, not him? His mouth wouldn't form the right words and Harry wouldn't listen, his shouts becoming increasingly hoarse and irrational. He… sounds like me, came that small voice, the stillness at the center of the storm.
He sounds exactly like me. And I… I sounded like that?
Good God, no wonder everyone thought me mad.
Sirius had little time to focus on that revelation as a point of philosophical discussion. Footsteps came from down below on the ground floor and on the stairs.
The brown-haired girl started to scream for the newcomer to come find them, and Sirius started to try to struggle free of Harry and the cat as the footsteps became quick and heavy on the stairs.
Then, in a fan of red sparks, the door swung open, slamming against the wall.
Three wands flew into Remus's hand, and Sirius could only stare at him.
He looked… old. He looked so old. As time hadn't been kind to the Shrieking Shack it hadn't been kind to Remus Lupin either. His hair was salted with gray—Good grief, even my hair hasn't started graying yet and I spent the last twelve years in Azkaban—and his face was absolutely moon-pale and starting to show lines around the eyes and mouth. The scars on his face, instead of starting to fade with the years, had only grown thicker and darker, or so it seemed in the flickering light.
Sirius couldn't understand it. How old was Remus now? Oh, yes, thirty-four, if he was keeping up with the dates. He had no right to look like a man in the net of late middle age, he had no right to look like a spent, tired man past his prime. He had no right to look so old.
He had no right to look like the years had done that to him.
Sirius couldn't understand it, yet he could, as the knowledge seeped over him and Remus's eyes swung on him.
Someone, someone had felt the years far more keenly than even Sirius. Someone had felt heavy hands on his shoulder, and known the pain of sleepless nights or restless nights saturated with nightmares. Someone had been alone, completely, utterly alone.
Someone had felt it all enough for his hair to start to gray and his face to become gaunt and stretched.
Those eyes were different too. And Remus's eyes were without a doubt the most ancient thing about him. They stared straight through Sirius as though he had become so thin as to be transparent and Sirius could tell, that Remus didn't want to look at him.
If he did, he would only become older.
Sirius couldn't fault him that.