Remus couldn't bring himself to attend the Halloween feast.
Every fiber in him was exhausted from last night's transformation, every inch of him wanting nothing more than to turn in early, perhaps with a cup of tea and an old book. At least, that's what he told himself the reasoning was. If he was honest, it was because of the last Halloween feast he'd attended.
Sirius and Peter had bewitched the floating jack-o-lanterns to sing Christmas carols; James had transfigured the Great Hall's ceiling so fog hung low over the tables, the occasional flash of lightning illuminating the room. He and Lily had sat shoulder to shoulder, squinting through the fog to try and make out what they were putting onto their plates.
"What part did you have in all this?" he remembered her asking, holding a dinner roll up to eye level for inspection.
He had responded, something along the lines of "Don't drink the pumpkin juice". She, of course, having no sense of self-preservation and an infuriating about of curiosity, proceeded to down her glass, and for the rest of the feast joined the majority of Hogwarts students in emitting black and orange bubbles from her mouth.
Something fell over in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, jolting Remus out of his memories. Pressing his hands to his face briefly, he stood and went to investigate. The door to his office opened onto a small balcony overlooking the room, dimly lit at this late hour, and initially nothing seemed amiss.
Until he noticed the shadow at the bottom of the stairs.
"So," said a voice from Remus' dreams. "You did finally become a teacher, Moony."
For a split second, nothing but blank shock registered in Remus' mind. When he saw who it was, gazing up at him from the classroom floor, his first instinct was to fling himself down the stairs, sore joints be damned, and crush Sirius Black in a hug.
But that was no longer possible.
Remembering where he was, when he was, Remus raised his wand. It was a half-hearted gesture, more out of requirement than real fear of threat. Because if he were to be attacked by Sirius Black, Remus didn't think he would be able to defend himself. Would be able to hurt the man—for there was no denying he was a man now—whose face was submerged in shadow, whose voice was full of regret and tired humor.
He didn't know what to say first. He should send a Patronus to Dumbledore, alert the school. He should stun Sirius, kill Sirius, but he didn't. Remus just stood there, staring.
"Why are you here?" Remus heard himself say. His voice was hoarse, like it usually was after his vocal chords were bent out of shape by transformation, but there was something more. Something that sounded a little too much like heartbreak.
"Would you believe me if I said it was to see you?"
"No," Remus whispered. A lie.
Sirius took a step forward, into the light. His hair, once so carefully groomed, was lank and matted, hanging to his elbows. Torn, frayed, graying robes. His once-handsome face sallow and thin. Sirius' bedraggled and broken appearance was what struck Remus the most. Sirius was a ghost of himself, and it was entirely plausible that this ghoulish man had indeed killed his best friend, because this ghoulish man could not be Sirius Black.
"Don't move," Remus said, pointing his wand again insistently. He hadn't noticed his arm falling, the shock of Azkaban's effect weakening his limbs. "Don't take another step towards me."
Sirius held up his hands. "Remus. You need to listen to me—"
"I don't need to hear anything," Remus spat, his despair and shock melting into pure rage. Maybe it was the proximity to the full moon, but his usually calm disposition was giving way to an anger that was as foreign as it was invigorating. "You killed them. You killed them! James—Lily—Peter—did we mean so little—did we mean nothing?" His voice was a hiss, his normally eloquent manner of speech reduced to shards of words and fragments of phrases. Remus' lungs felt on the verge of collapse, fury shaking his limbs, and he fell to his knees, drowning in confusion. He wanted to kill Sirius, he wanted to throttle him, he wanted Sirius to embrace him, he wanted Sirius to reveal that it was all a joke, James and Lily and Peter were alive, he wanted Sirius to attack him, he wanted Sirius to kill him, he wanted to let it happen.
Sirius had somehow ended up in front of him, hands tentatively outstretched. "Please, Remus. Let me explain—"
Remus was on his feet again in a heartbeat, the anger in his veins surging forward. His wand was pressed between Sirius' eyebrows. "Get out," he said. "Before I call Dumbledore. I don't know how you got in here, unless..." Remus' eyes widened as comprehension dawned, and he wondered how he continued to underestimate Sirius' genius, even after all this time. "The Grim. Harry mentioned he saw a great black dog—Merlin, Sirius, that was you?"
"You can't tell," Sirius said quickly. "If you tell them I'm an Animagus, they'll know you had something to do with it."
Footsteps outside the doorway, shouts out in the corridor.
Remus made a decision. It was instinct, years of playing lookout, years of trust and laughter and love that he could not, would not forget. No matter how hard he tried.
"Get in." He grabbed Sirius' shoulder, roughly shoving him into his office and shutting the door. "Muffliato." He turned back to Sirius, who was gazing around the interior as though he'd never seen anything like it before. "Give me your wand," Remus said.
Sirius didn't argue, passing it over. "Thank you," he said.
"What's going on out there? Did someone see you?"
"I...guess you could say that."
Remus pressed a hand to his forehead, and it was like they were sixteen again, arguing about some stupid prank Sirius had pulled. He didn't let himself think about what could happen, the consequences of his actions. Just for this moment, he let himself pretend. "What did you do?"
"The Fat Lady wouldn't let me in."
"You're not a student. You don't have the password."
"Usually she loves me."
"Sirius, you're a wanted murderer."
"You had to remind me?"
Remus found himself smiling, and that was the worst part of it. He turned towards the tank with the grindylow, watching the creature to hide the tears springing to his eyes. "You said you would explain."
Sirius cleared his throat. "Of course. It might be...a little hard. So bear...bear with me, please, Moony—"
A harsh knock at the door. Remus and Sirius stared at each other, eyes so wide it seemed the world was reflected in them.
"Remus? Remus, are you in there?"
"McGonagall," Sirius said, wistfulness creeping into his voice. That voice...the regret...it was intense guilt, but the kind of guilt only the innocent have. Guilt for factors outside their control. Guilt for what they could have done.
Remus yanked open his wardrobe, shoving Sirius unceremoniously into it and shutting the door. After casting the most impenetrable protection spells he could think of (self-preservation, he rationalized), Remus quickly refilled and reheated his teapot, just in case of Priori Incantatem.
He was always covering James' and Sirius' asses, even now.
Remus flung the door open to reveal a harried McGonagall. "Sorry," he said, trying to hide how flustered he was. "I think I fell asleep. It's been a rough few nights..." he tried to add a wry twist to his lips, like he didn't know what was coming. Like he didn't know the turmoil with which the castle must be boiling over.
"Black is in the castle," she said. Her face betrayed no emotion, no fear. But there was a flicker in her eyes Remus could only describe as pain. "He attacked the portrait of the Fat Lady, we're moving all the students to the Great Hall. All the teachers are supposed to patrol..." Professor McGonagall trailed off as she took in his haggard appearance. "Remus," she said, but it sounded like a sigh. "Go back to sleep. Dumbledore won't mind."
"It's quite all right," Remus said quickly. "Of course I'll be right down."
"No," McGonagall said forcefully. "You will take care of yourself, Mr Lupin. Besides..." she lowered her voice. "Severus is trying to convince Albus that you're somehow helping Black into the castle, given your...history." She had the grace to look apologetic. But Remus knew it was genuine.
His heart gave a lurch at the semi-truth. "All the more reason for me to help in the search."
"My answer is final. You will go to bed. You may not be my student anymore Remus, but you'll listen to me, if you know what's good for you." With that, she turned and left, back down the stairs and out of his classroom.
Remus shut the door to his office. "Well," he said to the seemingly empty room. "It would appear you've been spotted."
"I don't have much time," Sirius said, tripping his way out of the wardrobe. "I don't have time to tell you everything, Remus, but you have to believe I'm innocent. You know I would die before betraying any of you." He peered into Remus' face, and it pained Remus to see how much of his youth had been sapped from him by the dementors. "You do know that, right?"
"I don't know what to believe," Remus said heavily. "Why are you here, Sirius?"
Sirius' face darkened. "I'm looking for someone."
"Harry?"
Sirius' head jerked up. "No. Yes. I've been watching. Not in a creepy way—though, I guess, everything I do now is creepy." He gave a humorless laugh, more of a croak. It clanged around Remus' chest like a physical thing, battering his heart. "Harry...is he happy? Does he have friends?"
Remus didn't want to answer, but something tugged the words out of him. "Sometimes," he said. "The dementors affect him more than most, but given his past..." he saw a flicker of pain on Sirius' face. "He has friends. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger."
It was like someone had lit a fire behind Sirius' face, and the light shone through his eyes. It was the only part of him that truly looked alive. "Weasley? Molly and Arthur's youngest?"
"Second youngest, now. They have a girl, named Ginny."
"A girl," he said, marveling. "They're all in Gryffindor?"
Remus found himself smiling again. "Naturally. Ron and Hermione argue all the time, about his rat and her cat...it makes me miss school."
"His rat," Sirius whispered, and Remus had lost him. "Of course."
"Sirius?"
"I have to go," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more. I have to go."
Remus' eyes narrowed. "You owe me more than that."
"I don't know if I can see you again," Sirius said, but his mind was a million miles away, Remus could tell. He had that faraway look, like he always had when planning something. "But I swear to you on—I swear to you on Harry. I will tell you everything that happened. I promise." He stepped forward, and the intensity in his gaze was back. "Thank you," he said hoarsely.
Remus nodded, closing his eyes and swallowing. He heard Sirius transform, heard heavy paws padding across the room to bat at the door handle. Remus opened the door for him, waiting until he was out of the classroom to shut the door again.
His room looked exactly as it had not ten minutes ago, before Sirius entered his classroom and turned his life upside down. Remus eyed his wand. Could he Obliviate himself? Could he bring himself to do it?
The answer, it turned out, was no. How could he make himself forget, if there was even the slightest possibility that Sirius was innocent?
If Sirius was innocent. That glimmer of hope, that ray of possibility Remus had never allowed himself to see. It now seemed more feasible than ever, because why would a guilty man act as Sirius had acted? If Sirius was innocent, then what happened on Halloween twelve years ago?
Halloween.
Sirius had broken into Hogwarts to find him on the anniversary of James and Lily's deaths.
It could have been a cruel joke.
But Remus suspected—no, hoped—that it was because, like Remus himself, Sirius didn't want to be alone on the anniversary of the night their worlds were blown apart.
A/N
This is so different from what and how I usually write, but the idea came to me a while ago and this scene practically wrote itself. Writing Remus is usually a bit difficult for me—balancing that trouble-maker with the prefect can be a challenge, but he presented himself to me as I was writing, and I feel like I understand him better now.
That probably sounds stupid, but whatever.
I always wanted to know how Remus figured out Sirius was innocent, and how he must have felt. He shows up in the Shrieking Shack, asks a few questions, and hugs Sirius. But Remus had to change his whole worldview twice: once to accept Sirius as a murderer, and once to realize he was not. Remus is such a complex character that I felt he deserved to work through it.
So then I noticed that Sirius broke into the castle on Halloween, the anniversary, and Remus was nowhere to be found. So I wondered: what if Sirius had gone to visit Remus? What could he have said that, while not answering any of the questions Remus asks in the Shrieking Shack, was enough to make Remus consider the possibility of his innocence.
Maybe this isn't as canon-compliant as I'd like it to be.
Also, I totally ship Wolfstar but couldn't bear to make this overt. For some reason, every attempt I made at referring to a past relationship, or even a crush, just cheapened the scene. Hopefully I'll write some ACTUAL Wolfstar later.
So, let me know how my first shot at branching out from Jily went! I really hope you liked this, writing it was emotional but cathartic for me, because in order to write it, I had to feel at least some of everything Remus feels. It's like method acting, but for writing. That's part of why this took so long (I started writing it in, like, MARCH), because the anger and sorrow are exhausting.
Lastly, the title. To me, the contrast between what Sirius had once been and what he became is the most horrifying and sad part of Prisoner of Azkaban. Azkaban broke Sirius, and while he regains some of who he once was, a lot of his personality was lost. I was sitting in the car, thinking of this, when I mused to myself, "that's really the tragedy of it all." And, hello, perfect title!
God, this author's note is nearly as long as the fic. I just have a LOT of thoughts about this, it wasn't just spur of the moment. I wanted you all to know how much intention went into this, I guess. I don't know. Validate me.
Have a lovely summer!
xoxo,
Alys