Written for Hogwarts' Arts and Crafts Assignment: Task 3 - Patchwork: Write about a couple trying to piece a relationship back together.
Also for the Auction Challenge: "Aren't you too old to be counting stars?", Couple Appreciation: Word - Affection, Film Festival: Plot - Write about a confession, Scavenger Hunt: Write using the genre Tragedy, Writing Club: Disney Challenge: Eeyore - Write a H/C fic, Amber's Attic: Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery, Book Club - Laura Moon: (word) cold, (color) gold, (time) nighttime, Showtime: Marilyn Monroe 3 - write about someone suffering from the after-effects of Azkaban, Days of the Month: Tea Day - write about someone trying to relax, National Astrology Day: Sirius Black, Lyric Alley: And I've been broken but I'm better every day, Ami's Audio Admiration: Don't Joke about the Full Moon - (character) Remus Lupin, Sophie's Shelf: Settings at Night - Set your story during the night, Television Show of the Month: Chris Miles - (character) Sirius Black, (dialogue) "I was perfectly happy killing myself but then you asked me to try.", (color) white, Unicorn Day: U - Unhappy, Bingo Challenge: 65 - Creature: Werewolf, Make an Easter Basket: Glue: write about something/someone holding something/something together, Guess the name: Pearl - Grimmauld Place.
Also for Lily — happy birthday!
Word count: 4841
reaching and catching stars
.i.
"Sirius, Sirius, where are we going?"
Regulus sounded out of breath already, even though they had only climbed a single flight of stairs and two others awaited them. He was trying to whisper, which at least showed that he was taking this seriously — ah! — but that only made his shortness of breath sound worse.
Sirius struggled not to laugh. Regulus probably wouldn't appreciate it — his brother was touchy about being made fun of — and it'd be too loud. The last thing Sirius wanted was to get caught.
He just let his smile widen as he pulled Regulus along. "It's a secret," he said. "You'll see, it's great."
Somehow, the perspective of a secret seemed to be what convinced his brother — not that Sirius was surprised by that. Regulus had never been able to resist a good secret.
They climbed the rest of the steps at a fast pace, excitement making Sirius' heart race in his chest. It was almost as though Sirius could feel it, banging against his ribs, begging to be let out.
Finally, they reached the door. It was simple — far simpler than the more ornate doors in the rest of the house — wooden with a small rectangular window on top, and it creaked a little when Sirius pushed it open.
He grinned when he heard Regulus let out a small gasp, and stepped forward. Even this late in the summer, the night air in London felt chilly on his bare arms, but Sirius didn't care.
He loved this place too much to care for such a small detail as the temperature.
It was a small garden. Magical and non-magical plants were blended artfully into something that had clearly been created for pleasure more than anything else, but magic had made it into something bigger than it had any right to be.
White and pink flowers, their petals closed now that it was night, climbed along the walls, and their sweet smell lingered in the air. The moonlight was their only light, and it bathed Sirius' little sanctuary with its pale rays, making the greenery shine almost silver.
It was really easy to see why whichever of their ancestors built this place did so in those moments, and even Sirius, who always liked to disagree with his family, found it hard to say or think anything when faced with such a sight.
Not that he'd ever tell anyone that, of course.
Quietly, making sure their footsteps stayed quiet, Sirius led Regulus forward into the garden, following a path made from hanging vines. It ended in a sharp turn, and the path opened onto a small courtyard where a small fountain guzzled up water slowly, tucked in between two white rose bushes.
The ground was paved with black and white marble. It was hard and cold to lie upon, but it gave the best sight of the night sky and its bright jewels.
"How did you find this place?"
Regulus' voice was soft, as though he realized, too, that this place was precious. Sirius had been right to share it with him, he thought — after all, Sirius couldn't be the only one to need an escape from their parents sometimes.
Even if that meant sneaking around in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.
"Luck," Sirius finally replied, because it was the only thing he could say.
And it was true, too. Sirius had spent nights wandering Grimmauld Place before he had stumbled upon the rickety stairs that led to this place. He might never have found them even, if not for the way he'd tripped over his own feet as he tried to dodge out of the eyesight of an old portrait.
"Well, you've always been lucky," Regulus replied, and though he was obviously trying to keep his tone even, something bitter still slipped through, an uneasy undercurrent that made Sirius' stomach twist.
But he didn't say anything, only pasted on a smile as he started pointing out the stars that represented people they knew — Regulus knew them too, of course, like 'any proper Black should' as their mother would say, and it turned into a game of sorts as they competed to find stars and constellations faster than the other.
(Sometimes, though, Sirius did wonder — what could have happened, what could have changed, had he said something to his brother then?)
.ii.
"Aren't you too old to be counting stars?"
Sirius startled, his hands slipping off the edge of the ledge he'd been sitting on — he felt himself fall, heart hammering in panic, when someone caught him by the back of his robes and hauled him back in.
Remus looked horrified, and Sirius would have laughed at his friend's face if fear wasn't still flooding his veins.
"Thanks," he managed to say.
"Don't mention it," Remus replied, eyes haunted as they stared at the empty darkness behind Sirius. "Please."
"I wasn't…" Sirius wasn't sure why he felt the need to justify himself — maybe it was the adrenaline from nearly dying, maybe it was that Remus looked… cautious, now, in a way he never had before. "I don't want to…" He couldn't get the words out, but it seemed to be enough anyway.
Remus' eyes seemed to drill a hole right down to his soul as he stared, and Sirius shivered. "You'd tell me if you did, though?"
"Yeah, of course," Sirius blurted out. "But really, everything's fine. This was just… an accident."
Remus' shoulders unwound, just a little, and Sirius felt his heart calm down as he started smiling back.
"You know," Remus pointed out, "if you wanted to look at the stars, you didn't have to sit so close to the edge."
Sirius shrugged, smiling half-apologetically. "It's not as much fun though."
He was pleased to see that it made Remus laugh, if only for a moment, before he started rolling his eyes.
"You and your 'fun'." Remus snorted. "It'll be the death of you one day."
He looked like he regretted it as soon as he said it — as though he couldn't believe his own words. He groaned, mumbling an apology, but Sirius was already laughing.
"Maybe," he finally replied when his laughter died down. "But wouldn't that be quite a way to go?"
Remus hummed, but he moved closer, slowly; until Sirius could feel his body heat, so warm in the otherwise chilly air.
He shivered. His eyes wandered back up to the stars, shimmering merrily above them — but somehow, that sight paled in comparison to the half-smirk playing on Remus' lips.
It occurred to him that he didn't know why his friend had wandered off in search of him in the middle of the night.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
Remus shrugged, his cheeks dusting a light pink as he turned his face away. He cleared his throat and he, too, looked at the sky above for a long instant before his eyes refocused on Sirius' face.
"Maybe I was in the mood for some stargazing of my own," Remus replied.
Sirius' heart tripped in his chest and he covered it with a wider grin. "Well, in that case, you're welcome to join me for as long as you want."
Remus' eyes didn't leave his face. "Thanks."
Sirius breathed out a quiet "You're welcome," and they together, in companionable silence — though further from the ledge than Sirius had been before.
It was nice, he thought.
He could get used to this.
.iii.
They weren't dating.
Remus was always very serious about that — he didn't do relationships. He didn't want to risk it, didn't believe he could ever deserve one.
It was a state of mind Sirius, James and Peter were slowly but steadily trying to beat out of him. Becoming Animagi had helped, but simply staying, merely being his friends helped even more.
It was still a work in progress, but, well, Sirius had time.
So what if Remus didn't want to say they were dating?
They still hung out together, just the two of them. They'd sneak out, to the Astronomy Tower or the Forbidden Forest or the Black Lake — or a hundred other places after Hogwarts — and watch the stars together and talk about anything and everything.
They still held hands and touched and kissed — Sirius still dreamed about the heat of Remus' skin against his.
They still woke up in the same bed sometimes, legs entangled as Sirius' heart swelled with an almost painful kind of affection that never failed to steal his breath.
So what if there was no label on this thing they shared?
It was still good.
It was still love.
.iv.
There were no stars in Azkaban. No light either apart from that slight sliver of moonlight Sirius could sometimes see, peeking through the tiny opening on his cell wall. It didn't deserve to be called a window, but Sirius called it that anyway. It was a small comfort, but Azkaban had taught him to take any he could find.
Sometimes, when he curled up on the cold ground as Padfoot and craned his head just right, he could almost see the sky.
Sometimes, when the Dementors were far enough away, he could almost dream about the stars, looking down upon him, and shining, shining, shining.
.v.
There were many things Sirius had forgotten about Grimmauld Place; small details he had only been too happy to bury deep in the recesses of his mind, never to think about them again.
Things like the way the third step in the staircase creaks, just a little. He and Re — he had learned to sidestep it young, the way people did when doing otherwise led to long and painful punishment for being caught out of bed at night.
Like how much the portraits liked to gossip, or how creepy the dead house elves' heads were.
But he remembered sneaking out of his bedroom for the kitchens or the gardens or the roof — anywhere that wasn't his oppressing room, with its four walls and the way Sirius could feel them closing in on him — his little brother always protesting and yet always right behind him.
Always following.
Maybe Regulus had been too good at that, in the end.
Or perhaps he hadn't been good enough.
There were other things he remembered, too. The Muggle pictures stuck to his bedroom walls had him smiling, even though it faded quickly as he remembered how he had gotten those pictures in the first place.
James had helped him.
James, who wasn't here anymore — James, who had been gone for over a decade now, while to Sirius the loss still felt raw and bleeding.
You'd think he'd be used to the feeling after all this time, and yet every night, there was a moment where Sirius forgot James and Lily were dead and that he'd been sent to Azkaban for their murder.
It was just a moment — barely half a second — but it hit him hard every time, like a punch to the stomach.
He never managed to go back to sleep after that, and so he wandered, a ghost in his own house.
In his second prison.
His steps inevitably led him to the roof garden. Sirius didn't remember which of his 'illustrious' ancestors had built it, but it was probably the one thing he had inherited from his family that he was grateful for.
That garden had been his refuge as a kid, his one safe place. Before Hogwarts, he had shared it with Regulus, but as the years passed and they grew further away, Sirius had found himself coming up there more and more often, and he came alone.
And even though their relationship had soured quickly, Regulus had never shared that secret with their parents.
Sirius had used to think that might mean there was hope for him still, but it'd figure that he'd been wrong about that too. He was a pretty bad judge of character, as it turned out.
Still, that small garden was perhaps the one place in this whole damned house that he had missed.
It felt odd, being back now that he had grown up. The place was overgrown — ill-cared for like everything else in this house, a far cry from the well-kept, almost idyllic garden of his memories — but lying on the cool stone ground the way he had as a kid, Sirius didn't feel like it had changed much.
The stars twinkled above, golden and bright as they watched quietly, and his eyes idly found his namesake.
He wondered absently what it'd be like to be a star, stuck in the night sky like this, watching, never interacting. Would it be better or worse than what he was feeling right now?
Sirius inhaled deeply. The air smelled of moss of wet earth, but more than anything it smelled like freedom. His eyes prickled with tears and Sirius forced himself to stare at the sky until that feeling went away.
He almost didn't hear the footsteps, muffled as they were by the earth. But he heard the unmistakable sound of dry wood breaking, and his heart clenched in his chest at the thought of someone intruding on his one sanctuary.
But then the person spoke, and its voice was unmistakable.
As were the words.
"Aren't you too old to be counting stars?"
Sirius was surprised to hear himself laugh, a rusty barking sound slipping between his lips before he can swallow it back.
He twisted his head, looking up and behind him. For an instant, the pale moonlight shining on Remus' face made him look younger. It erased the scars and the hard lines etched onto his skin, and it was almost easy to fool himself into believing they were back at Hogwarts, back to being teenagers who didn't what to do with themselves and their feelings.
And then Sirius blinked and the moment passed.
He licked his lips, suddenly finding them too dry. "Feeling nostalgic, Moony?"
Remus' expression was impossible to decipher, but then his lips pulled up, half-smile, half-smirk. He walked closer, until he was standing beside Sirius. Some leaves brushed against the top of his head. They almost looked like a crown like this, and Sirius' heart clenched in his chest.
"Maybe," Remus said. His amber eyes shone gold as he looked down at Sirius. "Would that really be so bad?"
Sirius' heart had started pounding in his chest. He couldn't remember when, but it was all he could feel now — that, and the weight of Remus' eyes on him.
"We did a lot of stupid things back then," he replied.
Remus' smile widened into something truer, a glimpse of the boy he used to be shining through the man he now was — and Merlin, Sirius' chest ached.
"We did," he confirmed. "But…" He knelt down. "Was it really so bad?"
Sirius thought back to all those times, to those collections of moments he had only just barely started to piece back together now that he was away from Azkaban. "No?" he said, though he was aware it came off as more of a question than he had meant it to.
Remus didn't comment on it and instead, he sat down next to Sirius, neck arched so he could look at the sky too.
They fell silent for a while, content to just watch.
"I never got what you found so great about it, you know," Remus said suddenly.
Sirius blinked, body freezing into a flinch. "About what?"
"Stargazing."
Sirius shrugged. He took his time to formulate an answer — the words danced in his mind, but every time he tried to shape them into an actual answer, the slipped through his fingers like soap.
"It's quiet," he finally replied. "Peaceful. Puts things into perspective, you know?" His lips pulled into an almost grin. "I guess I just like it."
Remus snorted. "Very eloquent answer, Padfoot."
Sirius smiled. "Well, we both know I've never been the best with my words, now, haven't I?"
Remus smiled, bittersweet. "I don't know. From what I can recall, you weren't half bad."
"Thanks." Sirius snorted. "Such high praise coming from you, Mister Defense teacher."
He regretted saying it almost instantly, when pain flashed through Remus' eyes.
"Not anymore," Remus replied, and Sirius' heart ached for him, even though this meant Remus had more time to spend with him.
His mouth ran dry. "Well, we all knew Snivellus was an asshole." It was hard to be properly mad in this moment though, golden and rare as it felt - even though Sirius never needed any incentive to hate Snape - and so Sirius let his eyes wander across Remus' face instead.
There were more scars than he remembered, and he wondered how and when they had happened. He had missed out on so much - there were so many things he could never catch up to.
(Harry, who had grown up without him and with whom he'd only been able to exchange a handful of letters so far - - too few letters to fill the gaping void between them.)
(Harry, the godson he didn't know anymore and who didn't know him either, not really, not yet.)
(And Remus, too, who was now a man Sirius could sometimes only barely recognize for all that they still clicked together.)
Azkaban had taken all that from him - - his chance at having a family, at building something.
Getting it back would be… Challenging, to say the least.
But then again, Sirius was a Gryffindor for a reason.
He had never been afraid to back off from a challenge.
And this challenge was perhaps the greatest of them all.
"You should move in," he heard himself say.
"Here?" Remus sounded surprised — not that Sirius could blame him. He was surprised too.
But even though he hated this house and everything it stood for, it was still the only house he had. Remus, knowing him, probably lived in a shack somewhere now that he had left Hogwarts, where his lycanthropy most likely was the only reason he hadn't died of some horrible sickness yet, and Sirius…
Well, Sirius was technically still on the run, even if the Dementors had been called back for a few months now. But with Harry getting stuck in that stupid Tournament, he had had to return to Britain, and Remus, who he had told about that, had convinced him that staying in his parents' house was still better than squatting caves as a dog and eating rats.
"You can't just spend your days as Padfoot," Remus had pleaded with him. "It's not good for you," he had said, and something in his eyes, in his tone, had pulled at Sirius' heartstrings until he had no choice but to agree.
"Yes, here," he finally replied. "Where else would you go?"
"I have a home, you know," Remus replied, but his lips were pulled up into a small grin that had Sirius fight back a smile.
(He still wasn't used to the freedom of simply being able to be happy.)
Sirius snorted. "Remind me, how many health violations are there in that place again?"
Remus winced, but the fact that he didn't actually protest told Sirius all that he needed to know.
"I know that this place isn't exactly… ideal either —"
"It's infested, you mean," Remus said, which, point.
"You could help with that," Sirius replied with a sly smirk. "I hear you're pretty good at Defense these days."
Remus glared at him, but there was no heat to it and Sirius just laughed.
"Come on, it'll be fun. Just like old times." His hands spasmed against his thighs and his smile faltered, but he kept staring into Remus' eyes, anchoring himself to the present.
"I think you and I remember those 'old times differently," Remus said, huffing out a laugh.
"Is that a yes I hear?" Sirius asked, grinning as he nudged Remus' side with his elbow.
Remus sighed: He sounded put-upon, but truly, all Sirius could hear was the same tone Remus had used to tell them James' and his prank ideas were stupid and they should definitely use his own plans instead.
The resulting chaos had frankly been awe-inspiring, and they had all silently sworn never to underestimate Remus again.
"Maybe," Remus replied, his eyes dancing — and suddenly, Sirius wanted to kiss him.
It hit him like a punch to the stomach, how much he wanted to.
They hadn't talked about it, not really — how did you ask the man you had thought guilty of murdering your best friends, your family, for over a decade if he had moved on from you, after all?
He blinked, slowly, and the want settled in his chest, nesting around his heart. It was familiar — Sirius had carried that want around for years as a teenager. It was like an old friend, sweet and light, with the kind of pain that came with stretching out in the morning to chase away the last remnants of a good night's sleep.
For the first time in a while, he looked away from Remus. His eyes drifted to the plants first, so green and alive even in the middle of the night before finding the starry sky again.
It was easier to say something when he wasn't staring at Remus, he found. Without being able to see and analyze Remus' reactions, the pressure in his chest eased and Sirius could as what he wanted to ask.
"Do you think we could go back to how we were?"
Remus stayed silent for what felt like forever. Sirius could hear his heart pounding in his ears, and he wanted nothing more than to say 'Sorry, forget it, my bad,' and pass off this whole thing as a joke, but he couldn't. The silence felt too important, too weighted, for that, and so he stayed silent too, and waited, eyes strained on stars he didn't really see.
"No," Remus finally said.
Sirius flinched and started to draw back, but Remus' hand on his arm stopped him before he could run away. "Hey, no, wait a minute, okay? It's not… It's not you —"
"Is this where you tell me 'It's not you, it's me?'," Sirius said, arching an eyebrow disbelievingly. "Cause let me tell you, those words have never helped anyone, ever."
Remus huffed out a frustrated laugh. "That's not what I — Well, yes, it is me, but it's also you." He paused, running a hand through his hair raggedly. "I'm not making sense."
"Not really, no," Sirius replied, shaking his head.
"Wow, thanks. I'm touched."
"You're welcome." Sirius couldn't resist leering for a bit, before Remus' unimpressed glare had him shaking his head a little. "And not yet, you're not."
Still, even though Remus was glaring at him, he was also smiling and shaking his head fondly.
It was an expression Remus had worn often, before, and it made something like hope rise in Sirius' chest, even if it was probably unwise.
But before Sirius could dwell on it for too long, Remus sighed again. "It's just… It's been a long time, Sirius. Things have changed. I've changed. Hell, you've changed too."
Sirius let out a bitter bark of laughter. "Trust me, I know how long it's been."
Guilt flashed through Remus' eyes but he forged on, an apologetic expression that Sirius could learn to hate now painted on his face.
"It's fine," he said before Remus could add anything else. "So, what's his name? Or hers?" He was trying not to be petty, but his voice came out as bitter nonetheless, hands now clenched into fists at his side.
Remus' touch startled him. His fingers were callused against Sirius' skin, but all Sirius could feel was the warmth, seeping in.
"There's no one," Remus said, eyeroll audible in his voice.
Sirius' head snapped to the side, disbelieving, but his what? died on his lips as soon as he saw Remus.
Remus, whose head was turned to the side in avoidance, and whose cheeks were now dusted pink, visible even in the pale moonlight.
Wild, unfettered hope burst forth in his chest and Sirius forced himself to swallow back his wide grin into something easier to witness, into something less enthusiastic and that wouldn't cry out desperation for everyone to see.
"Really?" he asked, hating how weak his voice sounded.
Remus huffed out a laugh. "Really," he answered. "I'm not exactly a catch these days, Sirius, if I ever was." His lips pulled into a bitter, self-deprecating smile, and Sirius frowned.
"That's not true," he replied, withdrawing his hand from under Remus' so he could cross his arms. He shifted until he was actually sitting up instead of half lying down, and he glared at his friend.
"You were the best thing that happened to me," he continued. He bit his lip, worrying on it for a moment before adding, "You and James."
(He didn't mention Peter.
Peter didn't deserve to be mentioned anymore.)
It felt too honest, too raw, but still Sirius wouldn't take the words back for anything in the world — not when they made Remus' eyes go soft as he looked at him.
"I was perfectly happy killing myself but then you asked me to try." The words danced on his tongue, ready to be said, but Sirius held them back.
That wasn't something he was ready to admit out loud, or even to himself.
Because the Marauders had saved him before he even knew he needed saving, but that was something he had already spent almost two decades trying not to acknowledge — he wasn't about to start now.
"You were the best thing that happened to me too," Remus said, voice so low it was almost a whisper.
Sirius shivered. "What changed?"
"Nothing, really." Remus shrugged, rolling his shoulders uneasily. "I just…" He paused and turned his head to face Sirius, smiling wryly. "I spent twelve years trying to hate you and hating myself when I failed. That's a little hard to get past that."
Sirius' heart clenched painfully in his chest. "I'm sorry."
Remus shrugged, fingers playing with the tired hem of his robes. "It's not your fault."
He swallowed hard. "But if I hadn't —"
"It's not your fault," Remus cut him off, eyes blazing. "You did the best you could with what you knew. It's not your fault it…"
"Crashed and burned?" Sirius suggested, arching an eyebrow at him sardonically.
Remus huffed out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, that. It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known — none of us did."
"I should have trusted you, though." It was a poor attempt at redirecting the conversation, but his chest felt too tight to keep talking about Sirius' poor judgment when it came to people and what it had cost them.
"I didn't really give you any reason to though, now, did I?" Remus' smile looked like it pained him, and Sirius wanted…
He wanted…
He didn't know what he wanted to do. He just knew he didn't want Remus to be in pain anymore — that whatever he and Remus had shared before had been good and that he wanted it back.
Sirius shook his head, dispelling those still half-formed thoughts. "You shouldn't have had to."
Remus thankfully didn't retort. Sirius wasn't sure if he could have handled it — he knew he was right about this, that he had been wrong in thinking, even for a moment (much less how long he actually had) that Remus could have betrayed them.
How had it been so easy to doubt the man he loved and trust a friend?
"Well, maybe we can be better this time," Remus suddenly said, pointedly not looking at Sirius and keeping his eyes strained forward. "Do it better."
Sirius felt his lips quirk up in a smile. "Oh?"
Remus shrugged. "We can try, at least." He licked his lips and something flashed across his face, too fast for Sirius to identify. "That is, if you want to?"
"I want to." The words fell from his mouth instantly. "Of course I want to."
They leaned in slowly, and when their lips met, it felt a little like finally coming home.
"Does that mean you're moving in then?" Sirius asked when they parted. For the first time in so long, he felt something like happiness bubble in his chest and his lips pulled up in a smile of their own accord.
He wondered if it looked as awkward as it felt.
Remus chuckled. "Maybe," he repeated, the way he had said it what now seemed like ages ago.
But now, it really sounded like a Yes.
Sirius couldn't resist — he leaned in again, helpless to resist the pull.
And above them, the stars shone on and on and on.