A/N: Written for Round 4 of QL as Keeper for the Harpies. Yes, the title is an Endgame reference :)
Prompt: "Well as long as we're digging up the past, we may as well dig up your mother."
Word Count: 2103
"Wow, Padfoot, you really lived in squalor, didn't you?" Remus wrinkles his nose at the scene in front of him, taking in every cobwebbed nook and cranny of the dilapidated room. He glances up at the walls, surveying the dozens of bikini-clad Muggle girls that line the peeling wallpaper. "Nice. Very classy."
"Shut up, Moony." Frowning, Sirius kicks at a pile of papers stacked on the floor, sending them fluttering across the musty carpet in all directions. "I think it's in a lovely condition."
"Stop, you're making it worse." Remus surveys the damage. "Well, this is certainly going to take us some time."
"You two had better get a move on!" Both men turn at the shrill voice of Molly Weasley, which carries through the old hallways of the house quite spectacularly and causes them both to flinch. "That room isn't going to clean itself!"
The two had been banished upstairs after Sirius had started up a game of catch with his mother's favorite goblet, which had eventually resulted in shards of glass all over the floor and a screaming Molly. Remus was to accompany Sirius and make sure that he 'didn't get into any trouble.'
"She has no right to tell me what to do! This is my home, and I will not be pushed around like some kind of—"
Remus silences Sirius' rant with a look that makes him shut his mouth, still fuming.
"Honestly, Sirius, when was the last time this room was cleaned? Twenty years ago? Thirty?" Remus bends down gingerly, gathering up some of the loose papers that were strewn about the floor.
"Well if that blasted elf did what he was supposed to, it would have been cleaned ages ago." Sirius folds his arms, and Remus rolls his eyes from across the room. Finally, after a few minutes of standing there awkwardly, Sirius kneels down and begrudgingly gathers up some of the papers on the ground.
"Hey, do you remember this?" Remus holds up a picture, a little worn and ripped around the edges. It's all four of them, the Marauders, laughing with their arms around each other. The wind tosses their hair and rumples their Gryffindor robes, sending their red scarves tumbling around in the breeze.
Sirius puts down his papers and leans in to look closer at the image. There's Remus, hair grown out long (which Sirius relentlessly teased him about), with his quiet smile that hides a hint of sadness. Next to him stands James, whose very face sends a twinge of grief through his heart, and despite himself, he is forced to bite his tongue to keep the tears from springing to his eyes. And then, himself: young and unburdened by the pain he now feels, having lost his friend, whom he loved like a brother, and having to see his son who looks just like him nearly every day. It breaks him apart, piece by piece, another little shard of himself crumbling away.
Then his eye catches the fourth and final Marauder. A bolt of red-hot anger shoots through Sirius' body. Peter, sweet, innocent Peter, who could do no wrong, who was always kind…who is the reason James is dead. How could they ever have let him into their family? Sirius looks up from the photo, seething, and his gaze falls on a pair of rusty scissors which rest on a shelf.
"Hand me those scissors, won't you?" His voice comes out in a low growl. Remus gives him a hard stare, putting a hand on the photograph.
"Sirius, I think you should-"
"The scissors," he demands, and Remus caves, sighing loudly as he leans over to grab the object. Sirius snatches it from his hand and slices the photo in two, right in between himself and Peter, a jagged cut that leaves a ragged edge on the end of the paper.
"Happy?" Remus gives him a tired look, and Sirius throws the photograph onto the carpet where he cannot see it anymore. Where it will not remind him of what he's lost.
"Very," he says quietly, and Remus smiles at him, softly, the same quiet grin he's had all these years. They sift through more papers, more parchment, coming across more little tidbits of their past that either cut his heart in two or make him smile fondly.
"Look what I found." Remus holds up an old essay of Sirius', the messy scrawl lilting across the paper proving that he hadn't cared much about this particular assignment. On the top, a large "D" is written in thick black ink, followed by a neat see me, please.
"At least I did it," Sirius says with a shrug, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.
"I seem to recall quite a few assignments that I ended up completing for you, now that you mention it." Remus quirks an eyebrow, and Sirius' face finally breaks into a grin, baring his doglike teeth.
"Do you really?"
Remus rolls his eyes as he gets to his feet, adding in a shake of his head for good measure. Slowly, he walks over to Sirius' dresser and begins rummaging through a drawer, sending trinkets and papers all over the place.
"Dearest Moony, I think you're making it worse." Sirius' croon has no effect on Remus, who has had lots of practice with ignoring him.
"Oh, do be a dear and take those tasteless posters of your walls, won't you? A grown man should not have those in his possession." Remus' voice is muffled, his head buried in the drawer he is cleaning out, and Sirius huffs, folding his arms petulantly. "You didn't put a Permanent Sticking Charm on them this time, did you?"
Sirius freezes, his face darkening.
"Of course not." His voice is cold, unforgiving. "I would never, ever use such a disgusting charm that's only purpose is to destroy lives and haunt you with the ghost of a shrieking harpy."
"Well as long as we're digging up the past, we may as well dig up your mother." Remus' tone is matter-of-fact, but the very mention of the person, his mother, makes Sirius want to tear something to shreds. "Perhaps we should try harder to find a solution to the removal of that painting downstairs."
"I've tried, Remus. Do you understand how many times I've clawed at that blasted painting, listening to that awful woman shriek at me? I've done everything. It will never, ever come off." Sirius tries to sound petty, but Remus knows him too well for that. He hears the undertones of pain in his friend's voice, knows what that woman has put him through. But he can't let Sirius wallow in his own self-pity. He's already falling deeper and deeper into the darkness with every day he spends shut up in this house, face-to-face with his miserable past.
"Oh, buck up, Sirius. If you really want the thing gone, then you're going to have to try harder than that," he says with a wave of his hand, and Sirius gives him a dark stare.
"Were you even listening to me, Remus? I'm telling you, I've done everything a wizard can do on that-"
"Boys! I'd better hear less chatting and more cleaning up there!"
Sirius frowns at Molly's words, his mouth crooked with anger.
"We are cleaning!" he yells back. There is no response.
"On the subject of posters, have you done what I asked?" Remus' head is still submerged in the drawer, and Sirius groans audibly.
"Just so you can put them up in your room? Really, Moony, I'd expect so much better from you. You were a prefect, after all," Sirius drawls, sighing when Remus fails to respond. But despite his dramatics, he jumps onto his bed anyway and begins to peel away at one of the posters, relieved when it comes off easily. He hates pictures that don't come off. Especially pictures of his mother.
He is working at the same poster when Remus gasps a little from the carpet, the room suddenly deathly silent. The poster finally slips off the wall at that moment, and slowly floats to the ground below, sinking delicately to the carpet on unseen wings. Sirius steps off of his bed and kneels down next to Remus.
"What is it?" His voice is gentle, and Sirius makes sure to soften the edges of his words, to think before he says them. He so often doesn't.
Wordlessly, Remus holds out another photo, this one glossier than the other. In his other hand is a folded piece of parchment, decorated with neat, even writing that Sirius would recognize from a mile away. Lily's.
"Oh." That's all he says. All he can say. Gently, he takes them into his own hands, stares at the figures that laugh and move with such life that it takes his breath away. There's Harry, innocent and unmarred by the darkness of the world as he speeds around on a toy broom. Behind him, James has his arm around Lily, the two of them laughing at their beautiful son. Tears prick the corners of his eyes as he stares at them.
Blimey! And I thought you'd seemed alright!
His playful voice rings in Sirius' ears, as if he was standing right in front of him. He hasn't heard that voice in so long.
"I miss him too, you know." Remus cuts through Sirius' sadness, sending James' voice skittering away into the shadows. "Every day."
Sirius doesn't respond. He doesn't know what to say, and his hand shakes as he sees James step forward to ruffle his son's hair as Harry speeds past. He didn't deserve this. Not James, who looked out for him when no one else cared. Who welcomed him into his family when Sirius had none.
Finally, Sirius puts the photo down and looks up at Remus.
"Well, there's no use dwelling in the past, is there?" His voice is a plastic mold of cheerfulness, his smile pasted on. He can't shake James's voice, the way he'd always raise an eyebrow when he talked.
"It's okay to miss him." Remus lays a hand on Sirius' shaking one and gently takes the picture from his grip. "It's okay to wish he was still here. You don't have to be brave all the time."
"It's been so long." Sirius is quiet too, now, his heart heavy. "I feel like- like I should have let him go by now. Or at least have let go of the pain."
"We can never forget him." Remus shakes his head, his eyes shining. "And the pain is a memory, a reminder of how much he meant to us. How much they did for us. It's how much it hurts that shows how good of a friend he really was."
Sirius doesn't stop the tears that begin to fall silently down his cheeks now, landing onto Remus' hands, which rest in his own. When a sob threatens to escape, he rests his head on Remus' shoulder, and for a while, they stay there, listening to their breathing while the dust and the past settle around them. They are surrounded by memories, here in this room, and it is in that moment, one Marauder next to another, that he feels their presence. James, Lily, even Regulus. They're not gone, not really. Not while he still has this pain and these memories to keep them alive.
"Thank you." His voice is a hoarse whisper, and Remus tilts his head, burying the side of his face in Sirius' hair.
"I'll always be here for you, Sirius. You know that?" Remus' words brush against Sirius' skin, and more tears slip from his eyes.
"Of course I do. What are Marauders for?" His voice is choked with sadness, but as he looks down at the photo in his lap, his heart seems to lighten. A smile plays on his lips as he sees James grin, watches him laugh with his beautiful little family. Even after all these years, he loves his friend. He will always miss James, for as long as he lives. But he isn't alone, not anymore. He has Remus, and Harry, and the Order. He will never be alone again.
"You'd better start on those posters, Black." Remus raises his head and stares Sirius in the eye, who gives him his most dramatic eye roll. "I don't want to ask you again."
"Yes, Moony. Whatever you say." With that, Sirius rises, his hand still clasped in Remus', and faces his room.
Whatever other fragments of the past are in here, the two of them will face them together.