Late July 1994. A Reunion. Home Sweet Home.
Sirius stands on the doorstep, his nose almost touching the crusty old door. The huge, scaled doorknob is right there by his hand – he jerks away, and scratches his matted overgrowth of beard and hair.
He turns to look behind him at Dumbledore, lit by streetlights, resplendent as ever in silver-grey robes that match his sweeping beard. Match precisely, in fact. The beard trimmed and layered with professional flair. It's tied near the bottom with a silver string bow.
A tasselled silver string bow.
Sometimes Sirius wonders about Dumbledore.
The old man inclines his graceful head, a gesture, go on, Sirius.
Don't be a pussy, Sirius.
So Sirius inhales, turning back to the door, puffing out his chest and tossing his head, bravado, that's me, a man, who can face this.
But the faces of his parents, coldly indifferent, swim up behind his eyes. His neck feels hot and itches, as though he were back in a shirt from his childhood, buttoned tight up to his chin. Rage blossoms like a gas fire inside him, his jaw tightens and he aches to take a swing at something, at one of those cold faces.
He has not stood here for seventeen years. Has not felt like this since he was sixteen, tearing down the hangings in his bedroom, kicking walls, shaking hands lighting bits of paper on the windowsill. Watching his mother curse a thread stream of fire at the Black family tree, scorching away his face and name, removing all connection to his family, destroying the ties that bound them together.
He hates them all, pureblood cunts, but somewhere inside, that still hurts.
Moony would be brave about this. Moony is coming soon.
'Alohomora.'
Sirius turns the snaky doorknob. The door protests loudly as he gingerly pushes it open. The hall within is dark, and smelly. Very smelly.
How long was the old witch in here before they found her?
He steps inside. Hears a crack as Dumbledore Disapparates.
I don't want to do this alone.
Ancient gas lamps automatically ignite. As he takes another step, trying futilely to somehow not let his feet touch the carpet, the old door creaks and clicks shut behind him, making him jump and yank his wand from his belt. He screws up his face as the smell, must, mould, putrid food, damp, dead mice, dead fuck knows what else, swirls around him along with a good lot of dust.
Home sweet home.
Remus looks behind him at the beloved castle, its windows lit, its silhouette highlighted by the setting sun behind it. An evening chill is creeping in with mist around his ankles, and Remus pulls his old cloak tighter around himself, considering for a moment the hairs on the back of his hand that weren't there when he was younger.
There is the astronomy tower where they sneaked on James's sixteenth birthday and smoked up under the stars. There is the Gryffindor tower, where he was included, accepted, liked, for the first time in his life. Where he found the best friends anyone could ever dream of. There are the rooms in which he made decisions that shaped the rest of his life. Where the teenage Remus Lupin had all his firsts, and a thousand adventures besides. There is Hogwarts, in all its beauty, its strange, sumptuous, velvet, stony majesty, its magic and its glory.
Remus knows, somehow, that he'll be back one day. Truly, who Remus Lupin is was born here. Perhaps he'll die here too. Fighting beside Sirius to defend it.
He breathes it in, one last time, the faint whiff of dinner through the windows, the mystery of the Forest, the smell of adolescent dreams, the candle wax softly melting above the shifting staircases, the castle breathing.
Then he turns and walks through the iron gates to where a carriage is waiting.
Remus has a date to keep.
'Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, please.' he says to the Thestral, and climbs in with his small, shabby suitcase.
Sirius advances into the hallway, his wand in his hand. The stuffed elf heads mounted on the walls have not improved in appearance. The wallpaper is discoloured, bulging in places where some horrible thing has made its nest, and hanging in strips in others.
A couple of small skeletons are strewn across the floor.
Sirius enters the first room on his right. Again with the gas lamps. Again with the dust. It's the drawing room where nobody ever used to draw. There is something dark and hairy in the chandelier, Sirius doesn't know what and doesn't want to look too closely. It might shit on him. Or eat him. Or both.
The next door screams when he touches it and the doorknob tries to bite him. The sound is piercing in the hushed silence of a dead house.
'Damned melodramatic pureblood wankers.' Sirius mutters to himself, sucking his nipped fingers.
'You?' hisses a voice behind him.
Sirius whips around at his mother's voice, expecting to see her there, in a dark dress as always, pinched white lips that spew thin trails of saliva with every fricative. Behind him is a large painting, gold framed, intricate. For a moment nothing moves in its shadowy depths. Then a face rises from under black hair, white fingers uncurl from the darkness that Sirius sees now is an arm, a torso, a woman, shrunken into her painted backdrop, camouflaged by years of solitude and dust, dust, dust.
'Hello, Mum.'
'Sirius?'
'Yes, Mother, it's me.' Sirius grins at her, knowing he looks mad, 'I've changed a little, haven't I? Spent twelve years in Azkaban. Not one word from you, I might add. Last time I saw you, you used the Cruciatus Curse on me and locked me out of the house. Last time I saw you, you were a little more… three-dimensional?'
'Get…out…' Mrs. Black's fury is such that she is almost incapable of forming words, it seems. 'Get OUT OF MY HOUSE, YOU WRETCHED CHILD!' Her yellow teeth are bared, corseted chest heaving. The Blacks were always a kinky bunch.
'Not your house anymore,' Sirius breathes, stepping closer, face to face with his vanquished demon. 'Not since pansy old Regulus went and got himself killed.'
'HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH-'
'I DO DARE,' Sirius yells suddenly in her scrunchy little face, 'I DO DARE, MUM. ALL those FUCKING YEARS, and I'm FREE now to do what I FUCKING WELL WANT TO!' And he kicks the wall below his mother's portrait, making the frame swing slightly.
'YOU FILTH-TONGUED, UNWORTHY-'
Sirius spits in her face. The old witch screeches, tries to wipe it away, but it merely slides insolently down her dress, a trail through the dust.
'That's right,' He hisses, 'you're just a painting, a painting of an evil old hag. And I'll do what I want.'
He raises his wand and points it between her blackcurrant eyes. The rage doesn't fade from her face, but she twists into a smile, and cackles at him. She looks quite deranged.
'Did you think I never knew you would return, boy?' She grinds at him between spitty chuckles. 'Do you think your mother is as STUPID as a filthy MUGGLE? Just you TRY and burn me, TRY and get rid of me, you PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A SON OF THE NOBLE HOUSE OF-'
'INCENDIO!' Flames erupt from Sirius's wand-tip, scorching blue and white, engulfing the portrait of his mother and the surrounding wall space. They blaze and crackle, and Sirius laughs triumphantly into the inferno, but his mother laughs back, shill and evil. He extinguishes the flames, and there she is, pristine, rocking back and forth with the force of her mirth.
'You'll never get rid of me, boy,' she wheezes, 'the ancient and most noble blood of my forefathers protects me…'
Sirius grabs the golden frame, shining against the blackened and burned wall surrounding it. He heaves backwards, thinking to lift it from its hook, and a blast of smoky black magic burns his hands and expels him several feet away.
'Oof!' Several feet is enough, as Sirius's back collides with the opposite wall. He crumples to the ground as his mother subsides into wicked fits of glee. He scrambles up, coughing from the impact.
'Fuck you, Mother. Silencio.'
His mother still rolls around in her chair, but her voice has been disabled. She realizes what Sirius has done, and opens her mouth wide, silently screaming, until she runs out of breath and clenches her teeth, narrow-eyed and steaming pudding-pink.
'That's better, don't you think?' Mrs Black simply glares. 'Oh and by the way, Mum, my long-term homosexual werewolf lover will be coming to live with us this evening. I want you to keep your bigoted mouth shut. Oh wait, you don't have a goddamn choice.' His mother's eyes pop wide, and her jaw drops to rest on her black-frilled collar. 'That's right Mum. My HOMOSEXUAL WEREWOLF LOVER. I am a GAY MAN. Or, at least,' Sirius corrects himself, 'I like werewolf cock up my arse.' Mrs Black appears to suck in all her breath and draw herself up, bosom trembling, before resuming her silent screams.
Sirius laughs bitterly. 'I'm getting something to hang over you ASAP. Don't want to look at your ugly old face every day.'
He proceeds to the kitchen at the far end of the long, narrow hall with triumph in his heart, footsteps raising dust clouds.
Sirius stops in his tracks. The kitchen door is ajar. A noise, a voice, muttering.
Who the hell is that? Sirius extinguishes the lamps with his wand and backs against a wall. Pointless really, he realizes, whatever it is would have heard that damned door scream. Not to mention his stupid mother. He readies himself, shifts and takes aim with his wand at the door as it slowly creeeaaaks inward…
'…Sandalwood polish for my mistress, how she will shine, my poor mistress…'
The door opens. Sirius's jaw drops, and so does his wand.
'Kreacher?'
There stands an ancient house elf, skin hanging from his thin frame, draped in a filthy old pillowcase, a cloth and a bottle in his hands. Sirius had forgotten about his inherited elf, or just assumed that, Kreacher already being at least eighty when Sirius left home, the Blacks would have beheaded him soon after, in keeping with family tradition. Apparently, (unfortunately, Sirius thinks, surveying the cretinous thing before him) Kreacher is hardier than the rest.
'Well, well, Kreacher,' says Sirius with a twisted grin, 'How've you been keeping?'
The elf seems unable to see Sirius, or perhaps unable to believe he is real. He drops what he's carrying, rubs his eyes with veiny old hands, and looks again. Finally, he shakes his head, batty ears flapping, apparently sure he is hallucinating.
'Kreacher thought he heard a voice, Kreacher must be dreaming,' he croaks, 'who is that, standing there, it can't be Master Sirius, ungrateful little wretch I did always say he was, oh what would my poor mistress say…' And he picks up the cloth and the bottle and shuffles down the hall, past Sirius, chuntering all the way in his crackly baritone.
It feels like a betrayal. This last remnant of Sirius's childhood, however unpleasant, does not believe in his existence.
The kitchen is inches deep in dust. Sirius decides not to open any cupboards until he has backup. But where the hell is he going to sleep tonight? You have a bedroom upstairs, he reminds himself, a bedroom where you were never comfortable or felt at home. A bedroom you used to set on fire on a pretty regular basis. And a bed where you never daydreamed, or had sex, or lay in til noon, just enjoying life.
Sirius can't face the upstairs today.
There'll be time for all that later.
The next room he investigates is the sitting room, where nobody ever used to sit. Except his mother, occasionally, in the window seat to read. Like the rest, it's filthy, smelly, and dusty. But there is, at least, nothing dark and hairy roosting in the chandelier. There isn't even a chandelier. But there's a fireplace. And a chaise-longue in front of it.
'Yes.' Says Sirius to the fire and the couch.
He drops his little bag and goes in search of the downstairs bathroom.
Remus starts awake when the carriage wheels hit the ground. The Thestral snorts to announce their arrival. Yawning, Remus fumbles for the door handle and steps onto the pavement.
'Thankyou.' He gives the bony winged horse a quick pat. It snorts again and he moves away as it unfurls great black wings, rears up and launches itself skyward.
Remus's hair blows in the Thestral's departing breeze. He looks up at the grim grey buildings. Now for the tricky bit.
He steps forward, pulling out his wand, and, feeling a little self-conscious, taps the twisty iron railing that divides the doorsteps of Numbers Eleven and Thirteen.
Nothing happens.
Remus sighs.
Why does this sort of thing never seem to work for him? When wizards are supposed to just make things happen, without learning a spell and a complicated little wand motion and practising for hours, when things just happen, just because he is a wizard, this is when Remus falls down in epic proportions.
He taps again, and again, and finally just beats the cold metal with his wand, staccato ting ting ting, that fails, multiple times, to make anything happen.
He purses his lips, looking up at the divide between the houses. Sirius is in there somewhere, squirreled away with some tremendously brilliant, grinding magic. Sirius is in there waiting. Remus Lupin you are getting in this building. For God's sake use the balls you have managed to grow against all odds. Just DO IT, man.
He squares his shoulders and taps the railing again, sharply, with presumption and confidence.
'Hello,' he says to the bricks, 'My name is Remus Lupin,'
The bricks are silent.
'I may not look it, but I am in fact a wizard, goddamnit!' And he taps the metal again.
The bricks shift slightly.
'So if you would just let me in smartish, if you please…Now.' Tap tap, tap.
The wall hesitates for a moment. Then it begins to slide apart, with a great deal of rock dust, rattling and shuddering. Remus blinks bits of roofing tile out of his eyes as Number Twelve comes into view.
'Thankyou!'
Remus closes his hand on the huge silver doorknocker. It's a snake's head. Cold in the night air and bloody heavy. He lifts and drops it twice, hearing it echo inside the house.
A little while ago, Sirius had found the downstairs bathroom. Washing with hot water had felt better than anything he'd known in the last twelve years. There was even some soap in the bag Dumbledore had given him.
After that, he'd hacked off the growth of filthy matted hair and beard. His face was still skeletal, his eyes still shadowed and full of the horror of Azkaban. But he'd found something of his twenty-one-year-old self in the strange man's face in the mirror. He still wore the earring he'd had since he was fifteen. His eyes were still dark and seductive, and his smile was the cheeky grin from so many photographs.
Sirius has siphoned the dust off the chaise-longue, and is just about to light the fire when someone knocks, twice, on the door. It vibrates through the hall, through Sirius's ears and straight down into his stomach where it churns pleasantly.
'Moony!' He says aloud, and the name brings a smile to his face.
He jumps to his feet and is on the point of running to the door, but catches sight of his reflection in the rust-flecked mirror over the mantel. Sirius shakes out his hair over one eye, winks roguishly at his reflection, and goes for the door again.
'Wait,' he says, and points his wand at the fireplace, 'Incendio!' A cheery fire crackles welcomingly in the grate. It's the best that Sirius can do.
Footsteps sound behind the door. Remus's heart speeds up. He quickly combs his hand through his hair and is glad he did, for some dust and bits of brick fall out. He bites his lip and tries to stop himself from bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet.
Sirius fumbles with the locks, hands trembling, and yanks open the door, eyes burning, ready to drink in Moony, light hair messy, probably, tired-looking, perhaps wool-clad, and beautiful.
'Hello.' Sirius says huskily, his eyes bright, teeth flashing, a single tear sparkling from his eye. Remus feels blinded. He has no idea what his face is doing. In all probability, he looks like a fish.
'Hello.' Sirius says, and he feels his voice break, and he blinks, and for no reason at all, or maybe all the reason in the world, a tear falls down his cheek and drops onto Remus's shoe.
Sirius's teardrop splashes onto Remus's shoe.
Sirius is twenty-one again. He's thinner, but that is all. An earring sparkles under his rough-cut, tousled, slightly wet hair. His shirt and trousers are dark, but clean. His feet are bare. The beard is gone.
'You shaved,' blurts Remus, 'Shame really because well, I know there was no time for any of this is the Shack but I had started to like it. The beard, I m-'
And then they are kissing like Remus can't ever remember kissing before, and Sirius smells of dog and soap and warmth as he pulls Remus inside, lips chapped but sweet, hands at his face, hands in his hair, hands inside his shirt, Sirius's wet cheek and the feel of his ribs sliding beneath his skin, noises, friction heat, and a thumb smoothes the scars across Remus's chest as they pause for a moment, noses and foreheads pressed together, eyelashes tickling, against the door and a bolt digging into his back.
Sirius's lips drag the skin beneath Remus's eye, Remus breathing in Sirius's neck, never wanting to stop touching him, and he bites an earlobe, licks it, hears a little noise in Sirius's throat.
'Pardon?' He says between kisses.
'Twelve bloody, fucking years, do you have any idea,' Sirius says, aloud and breathless into Remus's hair.
'I have some,' Remus assures him, 'I have some but the question is, the question is do you have a soft surface I may throw you across?'
Sirius coughs out a laugh into the dark hall.
Remus pauses. 'It doesn't even have to be a soft surface, it could be hard surface or a fizzy-'
'Right this way.' And Sirius leads, feeling for the doorway behind him with a vague hand, tumbling in, bumping into the couch, their teeth hit together, and it's all so, Remus thinks, it's all so incredibly, it's something that he can't place his finger on just now because all ten of them are rather busy somewhere else...
