You feel older when you return, finally, to the new headquarters. The Order's probably moved six or seven times since you left five months ago, so you're not surprised when you don't recognize where you are. The only way you'd found the place at all was because you found Fenwick at the Leaky last night, and he whispered directions into your ear. You ponder whether or not you should tell Mad-Eye that he trusted you so easily, especially considering where you've been for the past five damned months. Frankly, you are surprised the wards even let you in, but you suppose maybe Dumbledore had thought of you before putting them up.
There are no boots at the door of the cliff-side log cabin, but that doesn't surprise you. You are afraid to take yours off too now. There must be someone though, because your ears pick up soft vibrations from somewhere in the house, and you smell something delicious. Christ, but your senses have sharpened since you left.
You let your dirt-encrusted rucksack thump to the wooden floor before you follow your new wolf-nose – you are hungry. You've been hungry for five months (you never really knew hunger before, but now it feels never-ending).
The place isn't very big, but you suppose it doesn't really need much, only a few beds, a kitchen and some places to sit. Books and papers and old Prophets are scattered throughout the well-used living room and you grab one at random – you've had no news at all these past few months.
You try to not to think about whose obituaries could be hidden between the pages of the newspapers around you.
You take timorous, soft steps across the room and reach the attached kitchen, where an enormous pot of what you suspect to be stew is simmering on the oven, a spoon lazily stirring it by itself. No one is around, so you rummage quietly in the cupboards to find what you need, a bowl and a spoon big enough for your appetite.
Suddenly, you are on the floor with an unfamiliar man trapped beneath you and your wand pointed at his throat. Your vision is greying around the edges and your breath comes out as a feral snarl. Every forest-toned muscle in your body is tense, and you know this means you are ready to fight.
You don't remember how you got there, and that frightens you enough to startle you back to who you were. You jump away from your victim as your vision clears, and you realise the man is speaking, but the blood pumping through your veins is so loud you cannot hear. The shame settles like dust on your skin as you realise that this man isn't a stranger at all, but that you have become the strange one.
"Sirius?" you manage, as you push yourself up against the countertop, trying to distance yourself from what you have just done. He has stopped speaking, but you think maybe you could hear him now, so you wait.
"Moony, what the hell are you playing at?" he says, and it jolts you because sometimes you forget you are both wolf and man, not just wolf, and certainly not just man. He is breathing hard, like you. "Didn't you recognize me?"
You look, and of course it is Sirius, although a different Sirius than the one you remember. This Sirius has purple-dark circles under his eyes and a shirt that hangs on his shoulders too loosely. This Sirius has a bandage on his upper right arm and a long not-quite-healed cut on his other. His black hair, though always long and shaggy, has become unkempt in a way that isn't on purpose. He smells of dog-fur and muddy marshes after rain and like the feeling of opening your trunk in your familiar dorm after summer holidays, like the feeling of coming home.
You suppose you do too (well, the dog and the mud, at least).
"I… I recognize you now," you say, your voice shaking in a way that the wolf inside you would never allow, so you know then that you have forced him to hide. You reach out your arm to touch him but drop it again, unsure of yourself. "I'm sorry, Pads. I have no idea what came over me."
(That is a kind-of lie, and you feel then that it is the first of many.)
"It's alright, Moons. I guess months of living with werewolves makes you jumpy, right?" You wonder, just then, if this Sirius could still be yours. "Come here," he says, opening his arms wide to you. "When did you get back?"
Cautiously, you embrace him. His injured arms hold you tighter than you remember ever being held before, and you think, well, if he can't be yours, maybe you could still be his.
"Just now. Merlin, am I glad to be back," you breathe into his hair (sparser than it was before you left). You reach up to put your arms around his neck, slowly, slowly, slowly, and you feel chapped lips pressing on your collarbone. He always loved your collarbones, he always said they were sexy, and you could never take a compliment so you just laughed and shook your head until he stopped stalking and started kissing.
Kissing. Do you remember how to do that? It's been so long – try to remember what it felt like. Or don't; maybe try to replicate it instead.
You pull your head back from his shoulder to look at him; the tears welling up in his storm-grey eyes tell you it's okay to lean in and kiss him, touch your lips to his, so you do. You do and it's good and the lachrymal saltiness seeps into your mouths but you don't stop, you've waited too long to stop on account of a few tears. You wonder why he is crying, and then you wonder why you're crying, because neither of you cried when you left, and this, right now, is supposed to be much happier. You don't wonder for long – you just keep kissing him. Tenderly, so the wolf knows not to return. Softly, so Sirius understands. Hungrily, because fuck, you've missed this, you've been so hungry. Not goddamn war should ever keep you from this again.
He pulls back, too soon but also just soon enough because you hear footsteps and low voices in the next room over, coming closer.
"Don't ever do that again, you fucker. The jumping, and the leaving," he says, laughing, wiping away the wetness on his and your cheeks. "I fucking missed you."
You nod. You don't think you could put into words how much truer that is for you than for him. "I'll do my best." It's not enough, but he laughs and kisses you again as the door opens to hoots and hollers.
"Oi! Who's Sirius got attached to his face?" a female voice you don't recognize yells amidst the laughter. Strange. You never imagined that this kind of laughter, bright and joyful, could survive in this place. You start to pull away, try to disentangle your arms, but he just holds you tighter still, still kissing you, lifting his right hand up to flip the onlookers off. You're uncomfortable, but not enough to stop drinking him in, tasting him like a starved man. You start to laugh too, and that's when he pulls away, not far enough to show your face (it's evident he wants to make a show of it), but just enough to throw back a mocking retort.
"Jealous, McKinnon?"
He winks at you, and you still love him, you know that now. You don't know why you ever doubted it, even though it's only here that you admit you ever did.
"Pads, we eat in here! Don't make us sick!" You recognize Peter's voice, and that's enough to make you stop playing Sirius' game and pull away for good. He pouts like a Black but moves out of your way regardless, brushing your calloused hand.
"Moony!" Peter shouts, and pushes his way past the few others crowding the doorway to hug you. He is still warm and soft and plump like you remember, and the familiarity catches in your throat so you are unable to speak lest the tears fall again.
"Pads, you sly dog. Wouldn't tell us who it was he was pining for, sitting out on the lawn sighing at the moon all night long," the woman named McKinnon says from the door. You can see Dorcas, blond curls cascading around her head like a halo, next to her, and Frank and Alice too, and your amative heart can barely take this. Thank the stars and the sun and the sky and the wind that James and Lily aren't here yet, you wouldn't be able to take it (don't thank the moon; never thank the moon).
"I did not! Besides, I'll have you know that a Black has never pined a day in his life. As for the part about the sly dog, well…" and suddenly, Sirius has taken your attack from earlier but turned it into something beautiful, because a big black dog has brought you to the ground to lick your scarred, travel-weary face, still salty from the crying. The forgotten newspaper crinkles under your back as you squirm under the beast. The parallel is not lost on you, and neither is the unexpected lightness of the mutt, but your friends begin to laugh again and move about the kitchen, gathering food and utensils and water, as you are being nudged, licked and thoroughly loved by the dog.
Is it wrong to feel hope like this?