A/N: The title is taken, of course, from Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which is utterly beautiful, and I very much recommend. Written for M'rika.
Disclaimer: Sirius and Remus are the property of J. K. Rowling, Sonnet 116 of Shakespeare, and the chocolate is Green and Blacks, what else?
Love Is Not Love Which Alters When It Alteration Finds
Remus John Lupin, once a month classed by the Ministry of Magic a highly dangerous beast, with three Outstanding N. E. W. Ts to his name and more scar riddled than the moon has craters, didn't believe it was or would ever be possible to love Sirius Black anymore than he did. Not just at this moment, but at every moment. Even at the height of a blazing row, he could feel love coursing through him, stoking the heat of the fight, bursting out in clumsy profanities as they fucked their differences away.
He was filled to the brim and overflowing with love.
In a quick exchange to impart a shopping list, a few items missing from the cupboards, the hasty "I love you" seemed almost irrelevant, unnecessary. Love was manifest in the can of tinned tomatoes and the hesitant enquiry about the state of the stockpile of milk and sliced white bread. Love ran rings around punnets of peaches and angel delight, and shone in the knowledge that asking for more chocolate, dark 70% was utterly unnecessary.
Sirius just knew.
Love, vast and unchanging was not challenged by Azkaban's walls, by miles upon miles of fields, of seas, of urban sprawl, of distance. By treachery or by murder. It was detested, battered by self loathing, by the relentless march of the years but upon finding, scrawled on the back of a flier for the dry cleaners the words "get more milk", Remus, after a thousand years of solitude, still heard each word, each hastily scribbled letter whisper "I love you".
His love, unadulterated, unaltered, unabridged remained. And Sirius just knew. Had just known. Would always just know.
"We need more milk," Remus had said, as he stood on the doorstep of their Balham terrace, braving the cold one Halloween night.
Sirius, halfway down the overgrown path, had turned and walked back to him and kissed him with a love that despite mistrust and fears of treachery still overflowed onto Remus' lips and left its mark on them.
"I love you," he had murmured, and kissed him once more, "God help me, I love you."
"Get more milk then," Remus had whispered, and winding his fingers through Sirius' beautiful hair, imparted the mark of his own boundless, immeasurable love like a brand on Sirius' lips. "The corner shop's open late. Can you get me some more-"
"I know Rem," Sirius had laughed, and called back, "You're so bloody predictable," as he sauntered down the path, through the creaking gate and out of Remus' life but never beyond the reach of his limitless love.
