a/n: I don't own Harry Potter.
It's funny, because whenever Remus Lupin tries to recall Sirius Black, he comes up with an image of Sirius, slumped laughing in an armchair, tie missing and sleeves pushed up over his elbows. His dark eyes are dancing wickedly, and his hair falls into them with a kind of lazy elegance. His face holds a red flush of triumph after what must have been a very successful prank, possibly involving Severus Snape, several hundred flobberworms, and a very long and very pointy stick. Remus never associates the gaunt, waxen-faced man in the ministry photographs with his memories of Sirius. Perhaps it is the elbow-length hair. Remus knows that, if forced to keep his hair that unbearably long, Sirius would at least comb it, never let it get so matted and tangled and frankly, appalling. Maybe it's the whole deadness of his appearance, as it contrasts so harshly against Remus's Sirius.
He wasn't quite sure exactly why it is, but Remus does know something for a fact:
That is not Sirius Black.
It's not the man who would give his life for a friend, not the disgraced boy wreaking havoc in first year, nor is he the illegal Animagus who kept Remus company on his lonely nights as a werewolf. That man, no matter how much he resembles Sirius, even though he shares his name, is not Sirius. Remus cannot allow it.
Remus is passive. He always has been. He quietly fumes over things instead of being confrontational. He will take things lying down, and he supposes that this is because he is shy, and not brave enough to strike out on his own, and be persecuted as well. But he cannot believe that he did not stand up for Sirius. All the evidence was pointing straight at Sirius, but Remus knew. He knew that Sirius was innocent. The Sirius he knew would never do those things. James and Lily and Peter were closer than siblings to Sirius, and Harry…
Sirius loved his godson more than anything. More than life itself, even. He'd planned to train Harry into a carbon copy of James and himself, yet another one of them, of the Marauders, to terrorize the school when he was old enough. He looked at Harry like he was the most precious thing in the world, and, when Harry was in a sulk, Sirius was the only one who could play with him and cheer him up almost instantly. And vice-versa. Harry and Sirius were always toddling about together. Sometimes, James would worry that Harry loved Sirius more than his own father.
There was absolutely no way that Sirius would do anything to hurt any of them. Especially Harry. It was simply impossible.
But, Remus being Remus, no matter how much he wanted to protest against the arrest, no matter how much he wanted to wave banners proclaiming Sirius's innocence, he couldn't.
Because Remus is Remus, and Remus is passive.
Even though he was inwardly insisting that this all was ridiculously wrong, a small part of Remus's mind thought, but what if it is true?, and this niggling part of his brain multiplied, finding reasons for why Sirius had been so strangely distant before That Thing had happened, and why Sirius had become Secret Keeper for James and Lily, and his knowledge that Sirius really did not kill three of his best friends and try to kill his beloved godson retreated to that small, niggly corner of his mind, to collect dust and only to be brought out on special occasions, like Sirius's birthday and Christmas.
Remus came this close to sending an owl to someone to find out if he could visit to Sirius in Azkaban. But then he remembered that Sirius had betrayed him in the worst possible way, and Remus ripped up his letter. The niggly belief was banished back to its corner.
Remus remembers the night when it all happened, and feels nauseous. Nauseous from loss and sorrow and uncertainty and confusion, and, to put it simply, Remus Lupin is lost. He has no one to turn to, and nothing to hold on to, except his hopeful, and slightly naïve self-reassurance that everything will turn out alright. Because a small part of him still believes that, soon, he will wake up to see Sirius tickling Harry on the rug in the Potters' living room, the small child squealing in delight. James and Lily would be washing the dinner dishes in the kitchen together, and Peter would be telling Remus about Sunday night's Chudley Cannons quidditch game.
Remus lies to himself a lot. He just wishes that he could believe him.
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