Hogwarts 2018 365 prompts — 205. Plot point: character runs away
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For Liza, as an eons late prize for getting second place in the Harry Potter Hunger Games. I hope you enjoy!
Prompt: I'm a pickpocket that stole your phone and your mum has called twenty times in the last hour because she's worried and frankly so am I. Where the hell are you?
The phone is almost his downfall.
Sirius has slipped past the scrawny, pale boy without any trouble, fingers dipping into his back pocket and removing a wallet and a smartphone and who keeps those in the same pocket? It's like asking to be robbed. But anyway. He has the phone, he has the wallet, he's on his way out and the kid hasn't even noticed and then the phone rings. Full volume.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone looks up at the sound of a common ringtone. It is a truth that Sirius hates.
Sirius looks around, putting the same wondering look on his face as everyone else, and he doesn't mean to look back at the kid, he really doesn't, but his gaze catches on panicked brown eyes and the way his hands are digging in his pockets and the frayed belt holding up a pair of too-large secondhand pants and Sirius feels a flash of guilt before he manages to hit the decline call button and vanish into the crowd.
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It wasn't like Sirius had ever intended to become a pickpocket. Especially not by the ripe old age of seventeen.
He just didn't have a lot of options after his mum turned him black and blue and kicked him out of her house. He wasn't sorry to see the last of her. And he'd been cocky and arrogant; he'd thought he could make it on his own.
He'd been wrong. London was wet and cold and expensive. He had fast fingers, though, and he learned.
.
He doesn't even make it one block before the damned thing is ringing again but at least he's out of sight of the kid. He pulls the phone out of his pocket, notes the MUM emblazoned across the screen, and rolls his eyes before holding down the power button. Sorry, mum. You can talk to your precious baby boy later. The phone goes dark.
Sirius has nicked three more wallets and a second phone by the time he gets back to his base. The phones are riskier, since he has to sell them rather than just using the cash from wallets, but they also tend to hold him over longer, so he strikes a balance.
He's forgotten about the boy with brown eyes until he cracks open a shabby brown wallet, faded and tattered, and he finds that face staring back at him.
Remus John Lupin, the provisional license says.
The kid looks so tired.
And, fuck, it's even his birthday today. Now Sirius feels kind of bad.
He shakes his head. He's a pickpocket. He doesn't get to feel bad. He turns on the two phones that he's nicked to see if he can get anything else off of them.
As soon as one finds signal, missed calls start loading in. It's up to six calls and three texts when it starts ringing, MUM flashing across the screen. Jesus Christ.
He turns down the volume and lets it ring out. By the time it's done, the phone has recorded twenty missed calls, four voice messages, and fourteen texts, all from MUM.
He checks the texts.
Remus?
Where are you?
You were supposed to be home by now.
Answer your phone.
NOW, REMUS.
You'd better not think this is a joke.
It's not FUNNY.
You're scaring me.
Remus?
I promise I won't be mad, just answer the phone.
Did you take your meds this morning?
Honey?
Remus, please.
I'm calling the cops, they can track phones, right?
"Fuck," Sirius says. "Fuck." He shuts the phone off so that it can't be tracked.
He's planning to ditch it as soon as he can, until he thinks about those panicked brown eyes, thinks about the kid having the world's shittiest birthday, thanks about did you take your meds?
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
He grabs the phone and the wallet, and heads back out, aiming for the street where he saw the kid. He doesn't have any reason to believe he might still be there, but it feels like as good a place as any to start.
And there, sitting forlornly on a step, even as it starts to drizzle, is Remus John Lupin.
Sirius stops on the pavement in front of him, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"What the fuck, kid?"
Remus looks up at him, his face a mask of confusion.
"What are you doing?" Sirius asks him.
Remus' face does not get less confused.
"Sitting?" he finally says.
"Yeah, oddly enough, I got that," Sirius drawls. "What, a pickpocket takes your shit and you just sit down?"
Remus shrugs. "Not really sure what else to do." He looks up at Sirius with sharp eyes, and Sirius knows he gave himself away by saying he knew Remus was robbed. "Maybe I was hoping he would return to the scene of the crime." His voice is wry, and yeah, he definitely knows.
"Christ's sake, kid. You're a fucking mess." He tosses the phone and wallet back to the kid, hoping he isn't going to regret this. "Call your mum, she's worried as fuck."
Remus is cradling the phone like it's something sacred.
"Thanks. But, uh. Why'd you come back?"
Sirius looks at how slim the boy's wrists are. Looks at his long pianist's fingers and the pallor to his skin and the bags under his eyes. In the end, he shrugs.
"Maybe I'm just too weak for a pretty face," he says, which is only maybe half a lie. The kid blushes from his cheeks all the way down his neck. Sirius grins.
Remus offers him an actual smile in return. "Do you want to come with me to dinner? My mum's making lasagne."
Jesus fuck, how is this kid real. Sirius raises an eyebrow. "And I look like the kind of guy you take home to your mum, do I?"
Remus looks at him in the same way Sirius just looked Remus up and down.
"You look like you could use some lasagne," he eventually says.
And fuck it all, but Sirius kind of likes this weird kid, and he hasn't had a home cooked meal in… too damn long.
"You'd better call her then, before she strokes out from stress and can't make anything."
Remus' smile could put the fucking sun to shame.