It's the middle of the night when he hears it. Or doesn't hear it, because there was nothing out loud to hear. But it's two nights off full moon and, while he doesn't yet have hackles to rise, he can still feel the scent on the air like a sound. Earth, and water, and blood. There must be an animal outside – a fox perhaps, he tells himself. Wind is whipping the trees outside the small window as if a storm is on its way.

Remus leans over to look at his watch on the chair beside his bed. Three in the morning. He lies back and tries to go to sleep again. But it's still there, he's almost sure of it, the sound he didn't hear. After a while he gives in and pulls a jumper over his pyjamas, thumbs finding their way through the holes in his cuffs, cold seeping through the holes in the elbows. He goes downstairs, casting Lumos to light the narrow staircase. Warm milk might help him sleep again.

In the downstairs room, he puts on a lamp and pours the last of the milk into a pan to heat on the stove's remaining element. Don't think about what that sound would have once meant, what it would have brought. He's stayed away for a year; he won't be back. Don't hope. You can't have it again.

Remus's mind is well trained after so many years of forcing himself not to think, not to want, not to trust, but sometimes, as the moon grows, memories surface briefly before he can push them down. It's harder tonight. Flashes keep slipping in. An always slightly grubby hand trailing around his neck. Grey eyes creased in helpless laughter. Skin stretched over sharp collarbones.

You're very tired, he tells himself. It's the worry about the boy in that idiotic tournament. It's the waxing moon. Perhaps it's one of those harvest moons coming, bigger than usual; except, he reminds himself, it's still spring.

The milk warmed, he pours it into a mug and goes to wrap himself under a blanket on the threadbare sofa with a book, but then the scent comes harder and louder than ever. Canine. He puts the mug down and goes to the door to shoo away whatever is out there. And as he opens it, there is Sirius, slumped against the doorframe, soaked to the skin although there's no rain, hand up to knock.

Remus catches him just in time and hauls him to the sofa, throwing the moth-eaten blanket over him. Sirius is still as thin as he was a year ago when he last held him, just for a moment. Sirius never was exactly thin. Lissome. Lithe. Limber. Languorous. All those words Remus has had to excise from his vocabulary. He reaches for the warm milk and holds it to Sirius' lips, pouring it a sip at a time so he won't choke.

When he's managed to get half of it into him Sirius speaks. 'I have to sleep. Haven't slept for two days. Just running. Dog. Fell into a fucking fen.' He finally has the strength to transform again. Padfoot curls on one side of the sofa, instantly asleep as he always could, and Remus is left to tuck the blanket over him and wait. He notices that the wind has died down again. Perhaps there never was any wind.

He must have gone to sleep in the end, because when he wakes, sitting up uncomfortably on the lumpy sofa, it is nearly light. Sirius is curled with his head on Remus's leg. His hair is matted with mud and fen water and his hands are covered in bloodied scratches, but he's dried out a little now and puffing warm air into Remus's lap. He still wears the prison robes he wore a year ago, now more tattered than before. The hardship Sirius must have endured in the last year hits Remus. He can't even begin to comprehend the twelve years before that. He sits very still, ignoring his bladder and his aching back.

Sirius starts to twitch and mumble at last, then wakes and sits up. He glances at Remus's pyjama leg, with a rapidly cooling circle of saliva on it. 'Sorry Moony,' he mutters.

'Can we talk now?' Remus asks. 'You know you mustn't be here. The Ministry have already been over this place more than once.'

''Sfine. Dumbledore sent me. Told me to come and lie low here for a bit. He doesn't think they'll come looking again. There's too much else going on now.' Sirius stretches extravagantly, then shudders as he remembers. 'Oh Moony, it's all such a cock up. Harry's ok. But He's back.' And he tells Remus about the tournament, the Crouches, the portkey, Cedric. Remus just listens, head in his hands, half unable to believe they must have this war all over again, yet knowing it was always coming. He remembers that Hufflepuff boy from his Defence class – another bright star snuffed out by the darkness. Who will Remus lose this time?

Remus gets up to find some breakfast, leaving Sirius to write brief notes to former Order members. Not much left in the cupboard. But there's bread, the heel of a loaf, not too stale, and a scraping of jam at the bottom of the jar. Sirius eats ravenously, while Remus picks. 'Better than rats, Moony,' Sirius says.

Remus smiles at the corner of his mouth. 'A bath, I think. I'll go and run it.' He needs things to do. If Dumbledore has told them only to wait for further instructions, then wait they must, but he will have to keep busy while Sirius is here. He goes upstairs and turns on the tap, ignoring the clanking protests of the plumbing as the water heats, finds a towel and some spare clothes. 'It's ready,' he calls down the stairs after a while.

When Sirius comes up into the bathroom, Remus points out the towel and clothes and makes to leave. 'Just stay, Moony, won't you?' Sirius says quietly. 'I might need some help getting all this out of my hair.'

Remus looks at the floor as Sirius climbs out of his ragged, filthy robes and into the bath with a low growl of pleasure at the warmth of the water. Before long there is a layer of scum floating on the surface. Remus sits on the edge of the bath and pours water from his tooth mug over Sirius's hair, working his fingers through the knots, easing out the clumps of dirt. He's running over Rune tenses in his head and keeping his eyes to himself, but can't help seeing the numbers etched into Sirius's wrist. He heard once how they cut those numbers into the prisoners, using crucio till they were permanent. The thought of that happening to Sirius makes him want to vomit.

When the hair is clean enough, Remus stands. 'I think you can take it from here. Run fresh water if you need. There'll be enough. I'll go to the village and get some more food in. And find an owl for those messages.' He considers the contents of his wallet. There's enough for today, but he tries not to think about the next day.

Sirius nods, a bit abruptly. 'Fine. Oh, if you can stand rummaging in there, Moony, there's a pouch in those robes. Dumbledore gave me a bit before he sent me here. You know, in case.'

Remus flushes. He hates being helped. Dumbledore has tried before. But he takes the money rather than start an argument. 'I'm going to chuck these robes, all right?' Changing the subject.

Sirius gives a small snort without looking round. 'Burn the fucking things.'

Remus appreciates the fresh air as he walks to the village. Clearing his head is what's needed. He likes the flat expanses of the Cambridgeshire fenlands. Likes seeing for miles on a good spring day. Just grass and water and clouds, apart from the spinney of trees beside his cottage on the edges.

When he gets back, he finds Sirius in the kitchen. He's clean and dressed in those old jeans, the shirt hanging off him. Still hasn't bothered with all the buttons. Never did. He's been in all the cupboards, sniffing out the last eggs, a tomato not quite on the turn, a couple of mushrooms Remus didn't realize he had. An omelette is on its way. The smell is better than anything Remus has smelled in years. The smell is almost more than Remus can bear. Cooking up a storm was always one of Sirius's skills, as long as he could focus long enough not to burn the house down. All those times during the school holidays. All the good intentions. Until it became Remus's job, James usually had to finish the cooking, laughing at Sirius's lack of concentration. James. Stop now.

Remus puts down his bag and starts putting away the food. 'Leave that bread out Moony,' Sirius calls out, high good humour bursting out of him, seemingly oblivious to the flaking whitewash on the walls, the lack of comfort everywhere. Remus has no idea how this is possible after everything. 'You can make tea, Polly. Is there tea? I'll put the kettle on. Find plates,' Sirius rattles on, humming the nursery rhyme. 'It's like that Muggle book you loved. About that little chap – second breakfast, that's it. You in your loopy little Hobbit hole, har har.'

At a sudden hiss from the kettle, Remus looks up to see that Sirius, who hasn't had a wand in years, has picked up his own battered cypress wand from the table and made the water boil in an instant. That's how it was before, two boys whose wands each obeyed the other's perfectly.

After they've eaten, Sirius leans back in his chair in contentment. 'What about Harry, eh?' he says, random as ever. 'Been through hell and back and still manages to win the tournament.' Remus enjoys watching him, glowing with godfatherly pride.

'He's a great kid, Sirius,' he joins in. 'You should see him in Defence. You know he's done a Patronus already? Seventh-year stuff?'

Sirius looks insufferably smug. 'Not just a Patronus, Moony. He can do a Corporeal. He pulled a cracking one that night I came back. And guess what his is?'

Remus waits. He already knows.

'A stag. A fucking great Prongsy stag, Moony! There were Dementors everywhere, I was nearly a gonner, and he pulls out a stag Patronus. It's like James all over again.'

'But he's not.'

Sirius is picking at his teeth. 'Not what?'

Remus sighs. 'James. He's not James. He looks like him, mostly, and he's a bit prone to heroics and saving people and risking his neck, as you well know, but he is just himself. And, as you say, he's been through hell and back. Just… go carefully with him.'

Sirius shakes back his hair, ignoring Remus's cautionary tone. 'Full moon tomorrow,' he says after a pause, out of the blue again, as only Sirius can. Remus's head jerks up. 'So, how do we manage it round here?' Sirius continues. 'No forest to run around in.'

'It's fine, Sirius,' Remus mumbles, as he gets up to clear plates and cups. Busy. Keep busy. 'There's a little box room upstairs. I just go there for the night. It locks securely.'

'Fucksake, Moony,' Sirius says with the familiar scornful laugh. 'You don't have to go it alone now.'

Remus concentrates hard on balancing the dishes. He is not going to rise to this. 'Don't I? I've gone it alone for years.'

Sirius rolls his eyes. 'Not like I could help that, is it?'

'No. I know,' says Remus. 'All the same. I'll be fine.' Don't think about how it was before, with the four of them running wild. How his friends could keep the worst of the wolf at bay.

'You're being an idiot,' Sirius says, the thoughtless mocking tone still in his voice. 'I'm here now.'

Red mist. Remus clatters the dishes into the sink and wheels round. 'Don't, don't you bloody dare make me get used to you being here. You'll be buggering off as soon as Dumbledore has another mission for you. Just like before. Sirius Black, man of action. Always bloody buggering off.'

But he finishes the tirade to an empty room. Sirius has slammed out of the kitchen and gone upstairs.

When Remus has washed all the dishes in the stone sink, and tidied everything he can find, he eventually goes upstairs. Padfoot is asleep on the bed, back to the door. Remus goes back downstairs.

The rest of the day passes. The dog upstairs is sleeping. Or sulking. It doesn't matter. Remus is alarmed at how easily they slipped back into arguing as they used to in those last months – Sirius needling him until he snaps, then storming off. He thought he would have had more patience, but the waxing moon always lowers his defences.

Eventually it's near evening. Remus is at the table, hunched over parchment, quill scratching as he finishes his translation. Such scraps of freelance work are what he lives on now. He needs to get this done before he can't. Then a throat clears. Sirius is standing in the narrow space at the bottom of the stairs. 'I just thought…'

Remus forces himself to finish writing his clause. 'Leave it. Anyway, it's about time we cooked dinner.'

Sirius crosses the room and sits in the other chair. He's less pale after sleeping so long. But the bones of his wrists seem sharper than ever before and the numbers stand out against the skin, just darker than the veins. 'This is stupid, Moony. Pushing everyone away. It's like first year again. Before we knew. Just… just.' Sirius stands again and goes to look out the window, craning up at the nearly full moon. Turns and leans against the windowsill. 'If we don't have a forest, at least let me lock myself in there with you. You know it helps. Just… be helped?'

Remus knows Sirius like this. Dog with a bloody bone. It's only a matter of time before he'll give in, so let's get it over with. He could always stand up to Sirius's scorn, but could never hold out against Sirius being kind. He puts down the quill, rolls up the parchment. 'Fine. Now, food.'

After dinner there's the small matter of sleeping arrangements. Sirius must have the bed, he can have the sofa. No Sirius won't have the sodding bed, it's yours Moony, Sirius will be fine on the sofa. No, he'll be fine on the sofa, often fall asleep there, more comfortable than it looks. No, it bloody isn't, it's a piece of crap and you know it, Moony. Fine, have the sofa then, but go dog and it'll be better. Fine. Fine.

The next day is long and careful and polite. Remus needs to finish his work. He has a deadline coming and won't be able to concentrate for the next couple of days. Sirius is sent into the overgrown garden in front of the cottage to do deadly things to weeds and not go further than the gate, where Remus has reinforced the wards. Remus wonders how long Dumbledore intends them to be cooped up together. They measure out the day in blocks between meals. At least he can give Sirius the job of cooking and being useful. That pouch of money means they won't run out for a while.

But at one point after lunch the calm is nearly broken when Sirius abruptly asks, 'Where are all your books, Moony?'

Remus looks up from the parchment on the table. 'My books?' he asks, head still teeming with runes and the coming moon.

'You don't have that many books, here. Just that small shelf in your room. Where are they all, the ones you had?' Sirius is leaning at the door, brushing leaves and twigs from his sleeves. 'Come to think of it, I can't see a single thing of yours. There's nothing from our flat.'

Remus keeps writing. Keeps his tone as careless as possible. 'After the thirty-first, the Ministry took everything away. By the time I got back to London they'd sealed the door and I couldn't get in. They were looking for anything that would help them find Voldemort. And evidence about you. I suppose they decided they didn't need anything in the end.' He can hardly bear to look at Sirius, who is affecting indifference, picking at the peeling paint on the doorframe. There is so much they each don't know about those twelve years. 'I had to write an application to get our… my things back. Since I'm a… well, they didn't exactly see me as a priority. And I was still under suspicion for a while. Dumbledore wrote too, but the Ministry had everything locked in a vault by then. I expect it's all still there, somewhere.'

Sirius remains hovering in the doorway. At last he asks, 'Is that why you didn't…?' But Remus cuts him off, anticipating the question he had been truly dreading. 'I tried to get Harry.' He puts down his quill. 'Sirius, I really did. I heard you did too. From Hagrid. When I got back from that bloody futile mission, it was all done. He was with those… those people by then. Lily's sister.'

Sirius spits a curse over his shoulder. He met them once, with James. It was not a success.

'I went to Dumbledore. I had no idea how I'd manage it, especially at full moon, but I begged him to let me take him. But he had his reasons for keeping him there. I had to trust him. I mean, who would let someone like me care for a baby? A boy?' Remus hangs his head. Did he try hard enough? Could he have shaken off the crippling grief and loss, and persuaded the old man? He has asked himself that every day. 'I went sometimes, just to check. It was worse than I'd dreaded, but I kept my distance. Dumbledore knew – every time. He warned me off.' He looks up to see how Sirius is reacting. Sirius can't meet his eyes, and Remus realises he is reproaching himself for the same failure to protect the boy. 'He had his reasons,' Remus repeats. It's not only Sirius he has to persuade.

He half expects railing and denunciations, but Sirius only nods once in understanding, and lurches back out to the garden. Remus exhales. They are both so inured to injustice by now.

Early dinner. Both men are very quiet during the meal. Remus goes out briefly before dusk falls to find an owl to send off his translations. He is beginning to ache, skin crawling, nails twitching, teeth throbbing. Sirius follows him upstairs just before dark as the moon rises, taking in the tiny room with shredded blankets, no furniture, bars on the window, bolts on the door. He whistles under his breath. 'Makes the Shack look like the Savoy. You've outdone yourself with the self-denial here.' But Remus is already going into Moony, so Sirius transforms quickly, ready for another long lunatic night.

Remus wakes at last. Early, but pale sunlight is coming through the window. Pain all over, but not as bad as before. Somehow Sirius has dragged him back to his narrow bed. He's sleeping now, Padfoot, curled at his back and radiating healing warmth through his fur.

And then he wakes again, and it's Sirius wrapped behind him. Also naked. Elegant arm thrown over Remus's side, a knee pushed between his legs. Warm breath at his neck, tickling his ear. Here we are again then. Old times. Memory lane and whatnot.

He's just trying to ease himself out, when Sirius starts to snuffle and nuzzle and slide a hand down to his groin. Remus picks up the hand and moves it back to Sirius, properly awake now. 'Ugh Moony. Twelve years without a hard on and you're denying me my slap and tickle now?' he grumbles.

He can hear Sirius is trying to make a joke of it, but also that he is aggrieved. Remus sits hunched on the edge of the bed, pulling over a sheet to hide what is going on in his lap. They are going to have to talk this one out. 'It's not on, Pad,' he says through hands over his face, allowing the old name for the first time. 'I'm not a toy. You can't just pick me up for a game because you haven't had your leg over in a long time.'

Sirius is lying on his back, hands behind his head. How can he still find being naked so easy? 'Yours was the last leg I got over,' he mutters sullenly. The spoilt boy denied his treat. 'All that Hogwarts skirt I ignored for you, remember?'

Remus needs to keep it light. He doesn't have the energy for a tantrum today. 'I wouldn't exactly say you ignored it. Them, I mean. Girls. What about Lily's friend, Marlene? From the Order? You hounded her for, hmmm, a good three days back in fifth year.'

A small snort from Sirius. 'But I always came back to my Moony, didn't I? And then, you know, when we finally got it sorted, when I finally came to my senses in seventh year and pulled you out of your prison of parchment… it was only you. It was only ever you.'

A long pause. There are so many things to be said. Remus can't begin to think where to start.

'What happened to us, Moony?' Sirius asks at last, always the more reckless and wasteful with words. 'How the hell did we end up not trusting each other?'

Remus looks down. Not too many scratches on his legs this time. He silently thanks Sirius for this, for not letting him tear himself apart. 'It's what they did best,' he mutters. 'They got in our heads. No one knew who to trust back then. Look what happened with Peter.' A muffled curse from Sirius. 'We know now. I think.'

He needs to make things clear with Sirius. His heart can only survive him once. 'Listen,' he says quietly, carefully. A small speech of some kind is needed. 'When they hauled you off, Pad, it was the end of my life. It took so many bloody years to let myself love you. To trust that you – of all people – loved me. That the brightest star in the sky loved me. And then… having to stop… because of what you'd done. I mean, what I thought you'd done. What you thought I'd done.' Remus pauses. 'There was a muggle song that came out a few years after you went. In about 1984, I think. Maybe 85. Not sure.'

Sirius grunts. 'The eighties. Don't really know much about that.' Remus realizes he owes Sirius time to talk about his time in prison, for as long as he needs, but for now he must protect himself. And guard against himself.

'It had these words that made me freeze every time I heard them. "How can you just leave me standing. Alone in a world that's so cold." That song was everywhere for a while, in every muggle pub or shop I went past. I was so cold without you, Sirius. I know it wasn't your fault.' There were other words in that song that reminded him of Sirius, but now is not the time. After that year he had forced himself to suppress memories of the past, to lock them away in a vault as deeply buried as the one he imagines at the Ministry that contains their possessions.

Song lyrics were never Sirius's strength, he remembers now, always mangling and making them up as he sang. Remus sees Sirius dancing half-naked round their dormitory in seventh year to that muggle song, 'Knowing me, knowing you,' casting what he thought were sultry looks over his shoulder at Remus on his bed as he sang into his wand, never thinking how sad the words really were. He never took the same care over words as Remus – Remus, with so much to conceal, always chose every word with care. If he had only known how happy he was then, instead of glancing at the dormitory door so frequently to check that James and Peter weren't about to burst in. If he had only known how short his time with Sirius would be.

Remus knows the next words are crucial. 'So, I had to get used to being without you again. Being cold like that. And now… I just can't be a first fling before Sirius the-wonder-boy Black gets on with his life again.'

No answer. Remus turns and allows himself a small look. Sirius is shaking with soft laughter, then curls around Remus and gives him a small nip on the bum. 'Oh Moony,' he says. 'You complete idiot. "Gets on with his life again."' Mock-pompous tone, dramatic quote marks in the air. 'What the fuck do you think this is?'

Sirius pauses for a moment. The laughter his voice vanishes. 'Do you know what happened to Harry in the graveyard the other night? When he was duelling, James and Lily came back. Priori incantatem?'

Remus nods. He knows the theory. He can hardly bear to picture the reality.

Sirius continues. 'They'd never left him. They were still there for him.' He takes Remus's hand and holds it to his chest. Remus can feel his sternum, his heart beating under the skin. 'It's like that spell for me. What we had before. We can bring it back. It never went away.'

Remus is very still. Sirius remains curled around him, holding his hand in one hand, stroking his thigh with the other. 'Do you know what it's been like for the last year – being free but not able to be with you?' he says quietly, the words humming against Remus's leg. He knows exactly what it's like. 'When Dumbledore sent me off here, I ran so hard. I wore myself out. I fell in a fucking fen for you. There's not another person alive I'd subject the locks of glory to fen for. I know the locks of glory have seen better days, but still. I did weeding yesterday. Wandless weeding. No greater sacrifice has been known to wizardkind…'

Remus shifts round to look at Sirius as he builds to slightly hysteric rambling. Can he really have been such a complete idiot twice? He's been here before. Loving without trusting he is loved back. Holding himself in such protective reserve. Closing himself up so tightly he may as well be withering in that vault with their things. Then that plummeting feeling of finally believing Sirius's words. It's a point of no return. Leaping off a cliff, with no idea what he's falling into. Terrifying. Sublime. 'Shut up, Sirius.' Leans over. Kisses him.