Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. Luckily for the world, they are J. K. Rowling's.
A/N: Yes, it's yet another "Sirius lays low at Lupin's" fic. The title and the lyrics belong to Peter Stuart. (This is not a songfic. It just needed some lyrics at the beginning. Lastly, this is slash, Remus/Sirius. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Back To Innocence
~I wish I was innocent
We've gone too far and seen too much to ever get back
To innocence
Innocence~
He was always the fun one.
James had that reputation, too, the perpetual prankster, but he was rarely acting alone. Sirius always had the ideas, that telltale glint in his eyes preparing me for an inevitable detention before he even opened his mouth. We got caught writing those secret admirer letters because McGonagall recognized my writing style from class, but it certainly hadn't been my idea to write them in the first place—I was against it from the start. "Just pretend you're writing to me," Sirius had advised, batting those long lashes at me. I rolled my eyes, but of course I couldn't resist him. I loved him so much, just like everyone else.
Well, maybe not just like everyone else.
He was a fantastic date. I've always suspected he planned to have that restaurant "lose" our reservations on our fifth anniversary, because we ended up at the Muggle disco bowling place before I had time to be disappointed.
Our names are still up on the bulletin board at that place for most perfect games in one night, I believe. I'd never bowled before (or since), but I'm fairly certain using wands is not an accepted method. The Ministry was somewhat less than overjoyed with us.
He sits in my house now, warming his calloused hands on a mug of tea, and I barely believe it's the same man who taught his one-year-old godson to turn his mother's hair blue. He's cleaned himself up a bit, and cut off most of his matted locks in order to look less like the picture the Ministry's circulating, and overall he looks younger and more like his old self than that escaped convict in the Shrieking Shack. But his eyes have lost their light, and he flinches at the rattling of the windows in the old house. His voice is dead as he recounts the story of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and I can feel him stiffen when I put an arm around him to comfort him.
It's been thirteen years. Terrible for me, completely alone in the world, believing my two best friends dead and my lover even worse, but he's been in hell. He's escaped the madness that most prisoners of Azkaban succumb to within a few months, but I was stupid to think things could ever be the way they were. He'll never be the same.
"Moony…"
I start at the break in the silence. He's staring at a photo on the wall, taken shortly after we graduated. We're all laughing so hard the picture barely stayed on the wall at first, although it's calmed down a bit now. I am nearly collapsed on Sirius's shoulder, while James has actually fallen on the floor. Lily peers down at him periodically through her giggles, perhaps wondering if he's gone completely mad. I can't even remember anymore what was so damn funny, but it's a wonderful picture.
"I know, Padfoot," I rush. "I don't know if we can ever be that happy again, and I know we're not the same people we were, and I know it's probably selfish of me to expect anything of you, but I've never stopped loving you, even when I thought you betrayed them I loved you, and, oh hell, Sirius, I understand if you don't want to, but couldn't we give it a shot again?"
He stares at me for a minute, and then a rusty chuckle escapes from his lips. "I was just going to ask if you stole that haircut from a cast member of the Partridge Family."
I blush.
"But hey, Moony, that giving it another try stuff sounds good."
I freeze for a minute, stunned, and then we're in each other's arms, laughing, and then, I realize, both shaking with sobs.
"It's all right, Sirius," I murmur. "It's going to be ok."
And for the first time in 13 years, I believe myself.