As full of the unexpected as his life has been, Sirius Black has never imagined that he'd be spending his first summer out of prison hiding under the Fidelius charm in the home of a werewolf. Granted, he is on the run, and the werewolf is his best friend, but neither of those facts change the very odd circumstances in which he finds himself on this fine June day. He is seated in Remus Lupin's loo, in front of the mirror – one of the few Sirius has encountered that doesn't make snide remarks at the looker – having his hair cut.
"There," Remus says with a final snip of the scissors, and surveys his handiwork. "How is that?"
Wary grey eyes meet calm blue ones in the mirror. "I feel naked." Remus smiles as Sirius runs his hands over his newly shorn head. Several years' worth of long black hair lies in piles at his feet. "At least I don't look like an unhinged banshee anymore." He gives a single bark of laughter. "I nearly died of shock when I looked in your mirror this morning."
Remus's smile widens but he says nothing.
Sirius feels his hair one more time. "Cheers, Remus. It's not a bad job, you know. Ever considered becoming a barber?"
"If I did, I'd never hear the end of it… from you!" Remus replies wryly.
"You're right, I suppose." Sirius gives another laugh. "Pity you're not an artist, though. I expect you could fashion some fine brushes with that lot," gesturing to the hair on the floor.
"Sirius, who paints with foot-long brushes, I'd like to know? And besides, most of this is too matted to serve for anything but a rat's nest."
"I never said you couldn't cut it into shorter bits," Sirius says with mock outrage. "Rat's nest indeed!" And suddenly, they are both helpless with laughter.
"You know what it would be good for?" Remus suggests between chuckles. "A wig."
"Oh yes, the perfect costume … if you want to look like an escaped murderer!" Sirius scoffs. "Or that singer bloke everyone used to be so keen on. You know, that muggle with the dreadlocks."
"Bob Marley?"
"That's the one!"
"Bob Marley?" Remus repeats, and the look on his face sends Sirius into fresh peals of laughter. He bends over to catch his breath and catches sight of the makings of the would-be wig on the floor, then looks back up in the mirror at his friend's reflection. It is true that Sirius looks naked, Remus thinks as he attempts to regain sobriety. The hermit's beard Sirius had acquired is gone, along with his Rastafarian hair. He is clean-shaven and washed at last, and though he looks kempt and decent, there's no denying that he appears more vulnerable without the filthy black locks to hide behind. The entirety of his face is exposed and he now looks like a man rather than a creature, but Azkaban has left its mark. His eyes are huge in his sunken face, cheekbones jutting out like spare elbows, jaw line and nose all straight lines and sharp angles. It is like a physical blow every time Remus looks at him.
Sirius stops laughing, noticing the troubled look in Remus's eyes and senses a shift in mood. His lips purse of their own accord, his face expressing his desire to get away from himself – from the sudden discomfort of tension. The change of atmosphere in the room is almost palpable, and Sirius has no desire to dwell on touchy subjects. He marshals assertion.
"I can tidy this up, if you'd like," he says, bending down to collect the hair on the floor.
"No need," Remus says lightly, and banishes it with a flick of his wand. Sirius straightens and looks away, subconsciously reaching into the pocket of his robes, but his fist closes on empty air rather than the comfort of smooth, slender wood. He fights to clear his mind, aware that Remus is looking at him. An uncomfortable stillness descends. The moment of mirth is gone, and with it the miraculous disappearance, however temporary, of all their concerns and tribulations. Sirius feels wistful. He begins to sigh hugely, then catches himself and disguises it with a cough. Remus's gaze is searching. Sirius raises his eyebrows with as much innocence as he can muster.
"I'll make us some tea then, shall I?" Sirius says.
Evenings with Remus were always quiet affairs, and Sirius finds that at least in that regard, his friend remains unchanged. As soon as it is safely dark enough to escape the confines of the house without changing to Padfoot, Sirius goes to the shed in the backyard to feed Buckbeak. Although the hippogriff is far from happy about being stuck in a shed, at least he seems to understand that staying hidden is a matter of life and death, and Sirius is glad of the overtures of companionship this commonality appears to be orchestrating between them. He is not glad, however, of being in the shed itself. When they arrived the night before, Remus immediately had Sirius lead the beast to the small wooden structure behind his house, and amid the haste and danger of the situation, Sirius did little more than register it. Now he can see the deep gouges in the walls, the reinforcements on the door, the tattered blanket folded up like a bed in the corner and imprinted with the unmistakable shape of canine. This is the wolf's lair. This is where Remus goes to transform once a month, and if the state of the walls are any indication, it is where he has been going for the majority of the past twelve years. Sirius stares at the gouges in the wood and swallows hard, counting in his mind the number of years Remus had to endure his transformations alone before the discovery of the Wolfsbane potion. He multiplies the years by the number of months per year, and the product causes a coldness to grow in his chest. He shudders and strokes Buckbeak with a shaking hand.
How like Moony to say nothing, to treat the shed as though it were nothing more than a space for storing garden tools and runaway hippogriffs. Sirius gives Buckbeak a last pat and then leaves for the night, closing the iron-fortified door behind him. A glow from the lamps in the parlour spills out across the garden, and Sirius pauses in the shadow of the shed, watching. He can see his friend through the window, shuffling papers on the desk in the corner. Remus is the worse for wear after his near-disastrous transformation of a few nights ago, but not once in the past twenty four hours has he brought it up and Sirius knows better than to mention it himself.
Sirius knows that he himself has aged in prison, and has little hope of ever regaining his Black family good looks, but his own appearance seems trivial when he looks at Remus. Even on a good day, Remus had always been pale, and after seven years in school seeing him in various states of repair and disrepair, Sirius came to hardly notice his friend's pallor. He suspects he should have guessed that Remus would age the fastest of the four, and yet even this isn't enough to accustom him to the streaks of grey in Remus's hair, to the now permanent circles around his eyes, to the premature worry lines on his otherwise young face. It feels like a punishment every time he looks at Remus, a constant reminder that it is his fault that his friend had to suffer alone for twelve long years. Sirius clenches his jaw against the prickling in his eyes, steels himself, and walks inside. Remus looks up and smiles.
"How's Buckbeak?"
"Oh, all right, I guess." Sirius forces himself to sound casual as he drops onto the couch.
"And how are you? You look tired."
"No. Well, yes, a bit," he amends, "but I'll sit up a little while longer if that's OK." Remus nods.
"I'd offer you a nightcap but I doubt I've got anything half-decent. I generally don't keep much liquor around, and what I do have might be a bit dodgy as I don't drink it often." He waves a hand apologetically.
"Don't worry, I don't need anything, Moony." The nickname slips out before Sirius realizes it, and he freezes, watching his friend react. There is a silence, then Remus says slowly,
"I haven't been called that in years. Years," he repeats, looking at Sirius intently, eyes soft. "It's good to hear it again." His smile shines bright and young on his haggard face. Sirius feels relieved.
"It was long overdue, but you know what they say, better late than never!"
"You never could manage to do anything on time," Remus adds, playing along. "But I forgive you." There is the sense that he is referring to more than just the twelve-year delay in hearing his nickname. Sirius sits and absorbs the depth of the moment, still and silent because it doesn't occur to him to be anything but. In the pause, Remus goes to the bookshelf by the fireplace and begins tinkering around with something Sirius can't see. Sirius shuts his eyes, leaning back on the couch and allowing himself a rare moment of relaxation.
The low blast of the trumpet is soft enough not to make Sirius start, but unexpected enough that his eyes fly open. Remus is seating himself in a chair, gesturing to the gramophone with a considerate,
"You don't mind, do you?"
Sirius shakes his head distractedly. The music playing is not a tune he knows, but it is vaguely familiar, like something he has only half-heard, or heard in another life. This is probably the case, he reflects – most likely he'd heard it sometime during his Hogwarts days, when Remus's most prized possession was his collection of records, and he'd usually had one or another of them playing in the dormitory on free evenings.
Remus had always been a complete nutter for Muggle jazz, particularly Big Band, and had tried to share his passion with James and Sirius – a brave endeavor in itself, considering that at the time they'd been into punk bands and had had little patience with anything else, particularly anything "Grandpa Moony" listened to. Perhaps it was all the years alone in Azkaban hearing nothing but the mutterings and cries of the other prisoners, or maybe it was just that he had to be older to appreciate jazz, but Sirius sits back and listens – really listens – to the crackly old gramophone, and realizes that he feels immensely comforted by the music, by the warm, clear sounds of the instruments and the upbeat, yet relaxed rhythm that is somehow the audible essence of Remus.
The room is warm and the lamps are glowing a gentle amber and the couch is comfortable and sunken, and Sirius feels as though he's wrapped in an impossibly soft, cozy blanket of sound. The singer has a voice like liquid chocolate and velvet scarves and butterbeer all rolled into one. A feeling, long forgotten but buried somewhere deep in his subconscious, descends upon him with the suddenness of a summer storm. It is not a deeply physical sensation – just a gentle warmth in his chest, a serenity in his mind. It is not home – never that, for how could it be when the word means so little to him? But he imagines it is something similar to the state of mind that home triggers in other people.
Sirius knows this is not his home and could by no stretch of the imagination be his, when everything he looks at, hears and smells cries out "Remus," but it feels right, and he knows that if he closes his eyes and opens them again, his friend will still be sitting there. Not 17 years old anymore, considerably more tattered and a bit fussy and meticulous, perhaps, but still his friend, still Moony.
Azkaban has stripped him of his looks, his health, of twelve years of his life, even, almost, of his sanity, but at least there is one thing it hasn't taken from him. Sirius darts a fond, lingering glance at his friend. This is Remus as Sirius remembers him, collapsed boneless into an armchair, head leaning back, eyes closed, an expression of utter calm – of bliss, even – on his face, one long leg crossed over the other, toe tapping vaguely in time to the music.
Sirius watches him as his eyelids grow heavier and heavier and at last fall shut. The two men sit there until the lamps sputter and die and the gramophone shuts off with a quiet snick, and all is silent.
