Burning Bright

Yet if hope has flown away
In a night or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

(Edgar Allan Poe - A Dream Within A Dream)

Before anything else, they had been friends. Accepting each other had been as easy as grinning at McGonagall after a successful prank when she just couldn't find any evidence to blame it on them – despite knowing it had been them. After all, it always was.

"I could have had such a peaceful time at school," Remus would sigh every now and then, mock-glaring at his friends.

"You could have had such a boring time at school," Sirius would answer, grinning lazily.

I could have had a miserable, lonely time – or none at all.

And Sirius would pick up those words out of the – if only for a moment – heavy silence. And then he'd cock his head to one side as if saying: But you're here, silly, and I'd never let you go anywhere else.

Thank you, amber eyes would whisper.

Always

And that was that.

There love didn't start with butterflies and flushing cheeks and stumbling over words. It simply was, as if there had never been anything else (except one day it wasn't but to think about that meant tainting the picture-perfect time they've had.)

One day, they ran to Charms, shoulder to shoulder, but always several inches apart. The next, Sirius' hand had found its home in Remus'. And they didn't wonder, and they didn't doubt, because sitting there across from them was just another piece of their soul.

So their love wasn't about words and empty promises and trying to prove their worth. They just were.

(Only later they would regret that there hadn't been more words to hold onto, because it was just so much harder to remember with their hearts ripped out and that wonderful feeling of together gone.)

Remus always knew that Sirius wasn't the brightest star in the sky.

Long before their first Astronomy lesson, Remus had known about the two stars called 'Sirius', titled 'A' and 'B', and Sirius Black had never been the brighter one.

There was a darkness to him that wasn't really surprising, considering which family he had come from. It just stayed hidden most of the time, beneath his never ending rebellion and bravado and madness. But when it came out to play, Remus embraced it with all the rest.

So when Sirius pulled his little stunt in sixth year, Remus didn't just forgive him. He understood.

(And wasn't it great, that he wasn't the only one carrying darkness in his heart?)

Sirius loved Remus because he was a werewolf, not despite.

At times, they would hunt together, just them, dog and wolf, and they would leave the others behind, the stag not being made for hunting and the rat, well the rat was more like prey than anything else.

So they would run for miles, following this scent and that, and then just running for running's sake, exploring the world that lay at their feet.

And Sirius would bath in Moony's moonlight-covered beauty, because no matter how horrid the transformations were, how much grief they brought Remus, the wolf was regal.

In the morning after they had first run together, lying in a hospital bed, battered and torn and tired and unbelievably happy, amber eyes had locked with stormy grey.

"I … Padfoot, I remember," he had croaked.

And Sirius smiled. "Wouldn't want you to forget that."

Remus didn't pry.

He knew about secrets and he knew about scars. He knew about the painstaking, heartbreaking, bone shattering need to lock it all away, never to be found again – or at least to be pushed away again and again and again until it could be almost bearable.

That is why Remus didn't ask when Sirius froze in the doorway to the student's potion stock room, dimly lit and cramped and with no place to hide. He just nodded and stepped farther in, careful not to touch the other boy, and started their task for this umpteenth detention this term.

He led a mind-boggling conversation with the endless amount of flubberworms they had to prepare and acted as if nothing was amiss. "There was chocolate cake for dessert today, lucky me, just the right thing to get through this night." And "Four scrolls about the proper care and use of asphodel seems pretty unfair a week before Christmas." Or "Did you hear about that Hufflepuff girl and the Slytherin Quidditch team? Rumor says she dragged every single one of them into her favourite cupboard. I never knew the Puffs had it in them."

And when Sirius finally came, slowly and cautious, ready to flee at every given second, he just handed him a worm and a knife, speaking good-naturedly: "Billy here seems in a sudden hurry to leave this miserable life of him behind. I'm sure you can help him with that."

And later, Remus made sure to leave a light on in their dormitory. He slipped into his bed, his back turned to his friends, but he left his curtains open at the side facing Sirius, as if to say, I'm not going to watch you, but I'm here for you, nonetheless.

Sirius was caring.

Not in the Lily-Evans-way, blunt and pressing for a satisfying answer, combined with holding hands and suffocating hugs and lies of 'everything is going to be fine'.

Not in the Peter-Pettigrew-way either, insecure and not-meeting-the-eyes and 'if there is anything I can do'.

Nor was he like James, too loud and happy and pats on the back and making fun, as if hurting someone else could ever make anything better.

No, Sirius had his own way of caring: waiting at Remus' bedside without making it some special 'Look, I'm here for you'-thing; just being there, bidding him a good morning when he woke, and returning to whatever he was doing.

The line of his shoulders seemed to say: I probably can't help you to figure this out, but when you have, I'm here. And his grin: Brooding isn't complete without some chocolate. Have some.

And only his eyes said: I'm worried.

That was enough.

Remus would always struggle to find his place.

Sirius knew about prejudices and petty fears. His mother never told him bedside stories about bad werewolves who'd come and take him away if he wasn't good. She preached about all the lowly half-blooded scum, however, that crowded the earth.

Then there were all the 'dark' books in the Black Library and the headlines in the Prophet.

He knew how 'Dark Creatures' were seen in their world. So he knew that Remus would never fit in.

He wasn't like everyone else. He didn't lie and say: "We'll change things until you're accepted." There weren't pitying glances or useless rants about stupid politicians.

He just shrugged. "We'll manage, anyway."

Sirius would never grow old.

Everyone could see that: He was always first in line for some mission, the riskier the better. He never thought before rushing headfirst into danger. He had that annoying habit of dancing with death, baiting and taunting and feeling invincible.

Everyone could see that, one day, Sirius Black would fall.

Peter worried. Lily berated him. James tried to talk some sense into his almost-brother.

Remus endured.

He knew there was no use to arguing. Sirius was a fire, burning far too hot and far too bright, not meant to be limited.

He stayed at Sirius' side whenever he went out to fight, watched his back, kept him safe from all the things he choose to overlook, minimized the danger of getting himself killed.

But one day he would fall, and Remus promised himself he'd go with him, for he refused to be the cold ashes left behind, the mere leftover of a burnt out star.

(But in the end he was just that, left behind and lonely, ashes of the boy he had once been. And although betrayal tasted as bitter as the moon's call, he couldn't regret, because what they had, had been pure and perfect and absolutely worth dying for.)

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