He's scared of the dark now. In the old days... well, never mind the old days. It's funny how much he misses that bloody cave, now that he's here, at this house, instead. He finally understands, no not finally, fully—he fully understands why people are always tossing up that idea of freedom, freedom or death, freedom over safety, over comfort, over everything, anything. He understands, Sirius does. The last fourteen years have been one long understanding of that principle.
It wasn't too bad here, not at first. Honestly, the house was so filthy that for the first week or so it didn't remind him of a house so much as it did a very disgruntled petting zoo. But the layers of dust are gone, the grime and … most of the creatures, well, he's not fooling himself, the house still doesn't much resemble the Noble house of his Fathers. But it's close enough, close enough to leave him waking inside an old Azkaban nightmare whether his eyes are open or closed.
It's strange that this place is the headquarters for the Order now. The satisfaction this gives him, well, it's almost maniacal. Maniacal, crazy satisfaction, the joy at the image of his mother's hypothetical horror. He hates to hear her portrait scream, he really does, and yet..
The first time he was alone in the house it was the first thing he did. He practically ran to the entryway, he practically ripped away the curtains. She began screaming right away at the sight of him, she'd always done so and why change for death—she screamed and screamed, the hellish lament of an oldest son's mother and he laughed. He only laughed, he couldn't say how long he stood there in his ecstasy.
Remus stays at the house most nights, as often as he can, and as the occupants of the summer now fizzle away it is Remus, only Remus that tethers Sirius to his sanity. There was always Harry before, it was always easier, even in Azkaban it was always easier. The knowledge he held... sanity was injustice, sanity was bleak knowledge. And then, that interlude; the knowledge that Harry was in danger had brought more life to Sirius than the preceding twelve years had managed to.
Remus seems to think that having routines helps, so Sirius finds himself herded to the table at eight, at one, at five, at eight-Remus makes him put clothes in drawers and wear two socks at a time and brush his teeth. For twelve long years Remus thought he was a murderer, a destroyer... and now he makes him brush his teeth. Remus Bloody Lupin, turning on lights and cooking food and reading books as though the world still turns, as though books still hold words and food still tastes and there is still some sort of … point to it all.
"Harry can't wait to spend more time with you," Remus says over the top of his book as Sirius broods by the fire. Sirius longs for the chaos of the Weasley children. He longs for the rats in his cave. "When your name is cleared, I expect that you'll be cramming in fourteen years' worth of Quidditch practice..."
Remus is the only person who really knows how much of Sirius is missing. The children... well he can forget, pretend at normalcy with them, because they're ready for him to be normal. The adults, well, he's the invalid, the unstable leg of the table, the insecure lock on the door, and they can pretend all they want, but Sirius knows.
It's September the eighth. Remus has been home every day, nearly every hour of the 182 since Harry had stepped onto the train. Pulling Sirius out of the dark, out of the past, out of his head. He's played more games of chess, he's read more books he's... Sirius Black, mercilessly tugged from his melancholy, heartlessly enslaved to the confines of his parents' old house, is bored.
Remus, when he grows tired of conversing mostly with himself, often turns on the radio. The two of them sit, awash in the sound, lost to their own thoughts.
But not for long, not with Remus. Abruptly, jarringly, there is no more thinking allowed, there are floors to clean or newspapers to read or one more bloody game of bloody chess.
September the ninth dawns dull and dreary. Sirius, who finding himself steered to the breakfast table promptly at eight o'clock, is faced with the usual Daily Prophet and toasted muffin when Remus makes his announcement. "I'm off on order business tonight," he says. Sirius, who is forced to know the date on a daily basis, looks up from his half of the newspaper in surprise. If Remus is leaving, he might as well... "But wait!" he is shocked, he is shocked; Remus is eating his muffin. "Tonight is the full moon." He could say that the idea has been creeping around in his head, lurking beneath the tea set and the recipe book (Remus cooks, Sirius turns the pages) MOONY and PADFOOT...
Remus is still looking at the front page of the newspaper. "I was off on Order business for the last six full moons, Sirius," he says softly. Sirius looks down at his newspaper article. It's about lack of government oversight at Hogwarts. Only Remus knows what Sirius has lost.
"I'll be back sometime tomorrow, hopefully before teatime, "Remus says gently.
That evening Molly Weasley turns on the radio. Lacking Remus to turn it off after the others disperse, Sirius lets it play until two in the morning before wrenching himself from his stupor; he stabs the thing with his wand and it goes quiet.
In a determined tribute to his tether, Sirius does not kill Molly Weasley at the breakfast table the following morning. There is, perhaps, a point to which it was reasonable to be concerned about hypothetical mice living in the pantry and then there was Molly Weasley and frankly, Grimmauld Place is Toujour Purs to have diseased rodents anyway.
In an effort to help the war effort (the one they conduct against Voldemort) Sirius once again attempts to attain Dumbledore's permission for him to kill Kreacher and feed him to Buckbeak. By this point it is late afternoon. "No word from Remus yet?" Dumbledore asks as he unlocks locks on the front door.
"Not yet," Sirius says, instant alarm coursing through him. "He said he would be back by tea time and it's only just gone four."
"Oh yes, I was only wondering," Dumbledore says good-naturedly. In addition to not permitting Kreacher's death, Dumbledore also did not divulge any news about Harry. Or any information about what Remus is up to. In fact, Sirius is pretty certain-no, Sirius is entirely certain that Dumbledore knows something... no, suspects something... no, for Dumbledore they're the same thing-something about the relationship between Harry and Voldemort that Sirius hasn't been told. In a past life Sirius would have demanded answers.
When the old wizard finally shuts the door behind him, Sirius was glad to see him leave. So is his mother's portrait.
Tonks and Kingsley join Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen for dinner and, obligated to enjoy their exceedingly dull conversation about Ministry gossip, Sirius sits in growing agitation through the Remus-free dinner. This was always the table he'd eaten at when his mother was punishing him. Apparently "hopefully before tea time" doesn't warrant a search party, but by the time Kingsley is wishing everyone a good evening, Sirius notes that he's no longer alone in his concern over Remus and his continued absence from the Noble House of Black.
Left alone in the house that night, Sirius can't sleep. Shadows and echoes and memories seek him in the darkness. There is a void in the house, in Sirius, and it sucks at his soul and leaves him standing at the window in Buckbeak's room, staring out at the flickering street light until it finally fizzles into dawn.
He hears Remus walking up the steps to the front door. Some other Sirius might have laughed and made a joke about how he really was a dog after all. This Sirius flings open the door and watches this Remus hobble inside. His face grows tight as he duly notes the sketch of exhaustion that Remus had grown into in the time that they'd been apart.
"Your ear is..." Sirius says roughly.
"Still attached," Remus says.
"It wasn't you who did that, you couldn't have reached your own-"
"Leave it be, Sirius."
"Your leg..."
"That one's me," Remus says quietly.
While Remus sleeps, Sirius broods at the end of the hallway and counts moons and wonders if Moony the Werewolf had been as lonely as Sirius the Man. He grows agitated. He gets bored. He becomes angry. He is tired. He presses his face into the glass of the drawing room window and envisions walking on the paradise of scruffy grass in the square outside.
Because he is actually a dog, he hears Remus come up behind him. "You ought not to be up and about," Sirius says to the windowpane in his face.
"Really I ought to be reporting in to Dumbledore," Remus says. Sirius turns, agitation in his eyes, and frowns at the pale outline of his friend.
They argue, though Sirius doesn't much know the topic. Maybe it's Remus convincing Sirius not to do what he wants, or Remus talking him into doing something that Dumbledore wants. Maybe it's just that they have to argue long enough to convince Sirius that Remus is, really, alright already.
Remus, who really is fine, slumps on the sofa and picks up the nearest reading material, despite it being a piece of the newspaper from two Sundays ago. Sirius, worn-out by the extent to which they just argued about whatever it was, drapes himself across the remainder of the sofa. The light from the window falls across the pair of them, and there is a calm silence for a few moments. Remus, who is not reading the paper, turns it over as though he is going on to the next section. "Do you remember the time that James taught his trainers to follow Peter around everywhere he went?" he asks.
Sirius feels the edges of his mouth tip up. "He told McGonagall it was an accident," he says. He tilts his head against the arm of the sofa and concludes that he is going to sleep right there.