Hey guys! This is my first story and I'm so excited! So, this part will give you a bit of a backstory of Remus and Sirius. While they won't be meeting until next chapter, you will get some insight on what their lives are. It will also build the suspense! Thanks for reading and please review! Constructive criticism is wanted. Also, some of my ideas are from Moonsign's Casting Moonshadows. Please do go check it out if you haven't already. Also ideas from random tumblr posts :)

—Rhea

PART TWO: ESPOSIZIONE

CHAPTER ONE

FIVE MONTHS AGO

These Italians. Remus' thoughts weren't exactly positive at this moment in December. He was stuck in a luxurious Roman hotel with a beautiful movie star, a raging party and heaps of food. To others, this was the exact opposite of a problem, but to Remus this was the very epitome of a catastrophe. Curse the person who is holding me here!

His thoughts were not very positive at that moment. What am I doing in Italy? Oh, right, tracking down the person who has ruined our lives. Why isn't the police doing this instead? Oh, that's right, because my father is an illegal immigrant and we might expose him if we show ourselves. But why am I here?

Chiara De Romano turned her attention to him. "Remus, mio amico," she said with the odd, high-lilting voice that all Italians had. "Why do you not enjoy yourself?" She flourished her well-manicured hand towards the banquet lain out before us. "Do you wish to go to the party downstairs?" From her tone of voice, it was evident she wanted to go.

Chiara was only brilliant in name. Other than that, her name severely contradicted her. She had dark and elegant hair and her haughty, heavily-lidded eyes were rimmed by long, black lashes. Her olive complexion made her seem like a Mediterranean princess. Her dark humour and vengeful nature were a legend among Italians.

Remus had known Chiara since a long time. They had been childhood friends.

Remus sighed. "No, Chiara, but you can go if you want to."

She flashed a red-lipped smile. "Only to come back upstairs and find that my favorite American has broken out of his hotel room and stolen the limousine?"

That was his exact plan. "No, of course not, Chiara. I would never do that to you." This, of course, was a complete lie. He cared little for Chiara. I need to get out of here. "But Chiara, you must enjoy yourself! Go down to the party. Don't worry about me." Chiara, the quintessential, rich, movie star down to a fault was easy to manipulate.

She looked hesitant. "But Rogelio told me not to leave you. He says it would be very rude."

Ah, then we both know you're not here out of the kindness of your heart. "Tell your boyfriend that the guest will be perfectly happy watching T.V." In reality, the Spanish soccer player was out to kill him. How did I get involved in this global criminal conspiracy?

Through some more wheedling, Chiara was heading to the party downstairs. Letting loose a deep breath, Remus stood up and began to formulate a strategy to get out. He grabbed a penknife for good measure.

Ten minutes later, he realized the only way out was through the window. "A deep dive into the urbs aeterna," he mumbled to himself. The problem, however, was that he was situated on the tenth floor of the hotel. He had to climb down, making his way through the treacherous balconies and window sills.

Yes, he was that desperate.

Taking a furtive look around the room, he climbed onto the window ledge, looked the grand, glittering city of Rome and very, very carefully reached out with his leg to the bottom ledge. Facing the wall, he took a deep breath and steadied himself. In this manner, he continued until the seventh floor, when he suddenly heard a scream.

He was staring into a nine-year-old girls face. She looked terrified to see a twenty-year old man hovering by the window ledge. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"Where are you parents?" Remus countered. "Why didn't they wake up?"

"At the party downstairs," the girl replied. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Remus wondered what he had to lose and decided he had nothing to lose anyway. And she was a child. "Listen," he said. "I need to get out of the country as fast as possible. Do you know how?"

He was expecting her to say no when she replied, "Yes. Come in first, though."

He wordlessly landed in her room. He reflected on the strangeness of the situation. Here he was, in a foreign country, trying to escape a homicidal Spanish soccer player and his less-than-intelligent Italian movie star girlfriend. This was as a result of him trying to track down their boss, Fenrir Greyback to get his father's old property back. And now, here he was getting help from a nine-year-old. "What's your name?"

"Nymphadora Tonks. My cousin will help you." She led him down a narrow hallway with flickering lamps. She was looking at him with interest. "Why are you in trouble?"

"It's quite a long story."

"Then you will tell me one day," she said. She opened a wooden door that had suddenly appeared on their right.

Remus blinked. The whole encounter felt surreal. Nymphadora opened the door. She then opened a large crate and said, "Get in."

"What?"

"Get in to the crate, and be completely silent. My cousin will drive you out."

Remus did as he was told. The little girl stared him in the eyes. She then bent down and pressed a ring into his hands. "You will tell me the story one day." She smiled and shut the crate, leaving Remus with the darkness and thinking why the hell he had consented to this.

Sirius was having the time of his life. The party was loud and exuberant, his kind of party. He had been hit on by numerous girls; he had sung at the top of his voice and he had danced.

Of course, this went downhill as soon as the Necklace Thing happened. Andy was in tears. But Sirius had no time for any of that. Because the party was in chaos then, he needed to act. He needed to find the Fiat Veicoli Industriali Truck.

He went into the parking lot and saw the truck. It was loaded and everything. He sat in the driver's seat, prepared for what he was going to do.

And as he let go of the wheel and the truck careened to the side and crashed against the cold, metallic walls of the highway, he felt no remorse even as the canisters fell into the water. For a second, he could have sworn he overheard a grown man's voice calling "Help!" from the waters. But he had imagined it.

Then he glanced at the license plate, and his blood ran cold. Lots of people in Italy had the same truck.

Yes, Sirius was having the time of his life.

As the container fell into the river, with Remus Lupin trapped inside, it began to sink rapidly. Remus was panicking.

He should not have followed the advice of a little girl! Maybe that little girl was in cahoots with Greyback! He was definitely going to die.

Then he felt something against his leg. The penknife he had stolen from Chiara.

He began to work.

Nine-year-old Nymphadora Tonks was peering down into the city from her balcony. Rome was beautiful, she decided. Its beautiful spires and towers contrasted wonderfully with the old Roman architecture, giving it the grandiose effect it was so known for. She smiled. She wondered what the strange man she had saved was doing. Hopefully Cousin Sirius had dropped him off at the airport unknowingly and safely.

Suddenly the door crashed open, and in rushed her mother and Cousin Sirius. Both looked very troubled. Her mother was saying something to Sirius with the same look on her face when she wanted to scold Nymphadora. "How could you, Sirius, how could you? You stole the wrong truck?"

Nymphadora's insides turned to ice.

"I don't know Andy!" Cousin Sirius looked like he was halfway between laughing and crying.

"What did you do to the truck?" she asked. Has the strange man been discovered?

"I left it there. It was some poor Italian bloke's truck. I left some money on the dashboard, too. Hopefully he has enough money to bail himself out." What happened to the truck?

"Sirius Black!" Her mother held the same look of contempt her grandmother, Druella, used when she was angry at Nymphadora mother. "You cannot just take anyone's truck and—"

"What's going on?" Ted, her father stepped into the room. "I saw both of you leave the party suddenly." Nymphadora began to suspect that something had gone very wrong.

Cousin Sirius opened his mouth, but her mother beat him to it. "Sirius, in his vendetta against De Romano, crashed the goods' truck on purpose and made a mess."

"All the containers fell into the Tiber, too," replied Cousin Sirius, looking proud of himself.

Nymphadora felt like she had been struck by lightening. The containers were heavy, and it would be impossible to get out of them. And what if the man didn't know how to swim? This was all Sirius' fault. No, this was all her fault. She was the one who had put Remus Lupin into the containers. She had killed a man. This was too unreal. The room was spinning; her ears were ringing; she couldn't breathe and—

"Dora, baby, breathe," her mother urged.

"What's happening?" Her father gripped her arm tightly.

"Panic attack," she heard Cousin Sirius say faintly. "Dora, breathe in, breathe out," he said softly.

Slowly, she calmed down and the ringing and spinning stopped. "What happened to you, baby?" Her father asked.

"N-nothing," replied Nymphadora. "I was h-homesick."

"Oh, baby, it's ok," her mother whispered and pulled her close.

Through her mother's embrace, Nymphadora could see out the window into the streets of Rome. She saw the dark Tiber river snaking along the black night, glittering Roman lights reflected inside it. She then decided that no one would ever know about this. No one would find out. Druella, her grandmother used to say that things people didn't know couldn't hurt them. She would live with this guilt. It would eat her alive, but she would live. And if his body was ever found from the depths of the Tiber, who would ever suspect a little nine-year-old girl?

As Remus got off at the San Francisco Airport, he knew that his father would be dissapointed. But he had under-estimated his father. His father was livid. "What do you mean you couldn't find Greyback?"

Tears stung at Remus' eyes but he held his ground. "I told you, it was hard. And father, just let it go, I'll find him again. I told you I was trapped inside Rome."

"And you say you got out when you got into a truck crash? What story is this?" His father slapped him.

"Lyall!" Hope Lupin, his mother came between them. "Please don't fight. Remus, come home, and we'll discus this further."

It had been like this forever, too much had always been expected of Remus. Remus could not stand his father. He loved his mother, but she was spineless.

And he was bitter.

But all that was going to change, because he had just gotten accepted into Columbia.

Remus got off at the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal on January the third and his immediate thoughts were disappointment. New York was nothing like the gleaming metropolis he had imagined. He could practically smell the filth on the floor. Then he climbed the stairs to Eight Street and his thoughts instantly changed.

There was no way to describe it. New York was pure sensory overload. There was simply too much going on at once. Remus could feel himself losing control of his situation quickly. He was bewildered and confused. People jostled him, cars honked at him, the towering skyscrapers loomed overhead ominously, hawkers screamed themselves hoarse, tourists snapped selfies, street musicians cooked up a cacophony and he was instantly lost in the multitudinous hoards of the sheer number of people.

A smile lit his face. New York was awesome.

The honeymoon period was over, decided Remus in mid-February. New York was not great, and he needed a change after three months in the city. No wonder New Yorkers are so stressed.

He wished he could be travelling then. Remus had always wanted to travel, but he had neither means nor money to do so.

Sirius wanted to go home, decided Sirius in mid-February. All his plans were failing. Although he loved to travel, he wanted to experience cultures and have fun. Not shadow someone else the whole time.

Through his binoculars, he observed De Romano starting to move. He meeting a bearded man with dark glasses. They exchanged some sort of package. Why is he meeting a man in the middle of a park in Pamplona?

Sirius was in Pamplona, Spain now, and desperately trying to ruin De Romano's life. He also really, really wanted to go home.

As soon as Remus opened his eyes in his new apartment at the East 92nd and 1st on an early March morning, he could tell he was going to have a hard time adjusting. He had been rudely woken up by a screech of traffic downstairs. Oh, wait, that was his downstairs neighbor. He cursed. Only two more weeks until spring break. But what am I going to do during spring break?

He reviewed his options as he took the M4 that morning. Go party down at Miami? Definitely not, who would he party with? Visit mum? What a great visit that would be. His dad wouldn't react very well to that. As he scrolled through Instagram and through all the posts about people who were already partying and overseas, he wished he could go somewhere out of the city. Somewhere in Europe. Somewhere full of history. But also somewhere full of adventure.

Paris? No, it's too expensive. Rome? No, not after last time. Prague? No, too secluded. London.

Ah, London.

Of course, there was the minor issue that it was too expensive. I'll figure something out.

All through the day, Remus allowed himself to imagine the fanciful scenarios that rushed through his head. Walking through the London fog as Sherlock Holmes did. Wearing a trench coat and strutting through the streets with hot chocolate. Having a great girl on his arm. Or guy.

It was no secret that Remus Lupin swung both ways. He had not told his family, but the entire city of San Francisco probably new. Most of the people at his university knew, too. But he had only been attracted to one boy in his whole life, and he did not think it would happen ever again.

As he walked through the rapidly emptying corridors of the university, he came upon a small classroom. It was jam-packed, well over its capacity of a hundred. There seemed to be four hundred students crammed into the tiny lecture hall. "What on Earth is happening here?" a testy voice said from behind Remus.

It was Dorcas Meadowes. Her dark, ebony hair was twisted into two Dutch braids and her deep blue lips were curved downwards into a frown. With her septum piercing, numerous tattoos, tattered jeans and shredded sweatshirt along with a leather jacket, she looked intimidating. She fixed her characteristic wolf stare on Remus, the one she was so known for. "I'm supposed to be helping out with the sound system here for the presentation but NO ONE WILL MAKE WAY!"

She said the last part in a shrill voice and the babbling crowd instantly fell silent. Her lips curved sideways into a smirk. "Thank you," she told the crowd. "Now, make a pathway so I can start the presentation."

The crowd parted without question. Dorcas fixed Remus with her stare, but then smiled. This sudden change in her facial features made Remus at ease instantly. She had a smile that was so lovely, it could be a weapon. Her face lost some of its frigid beauty and took on the essence of a little girl. "See you," she said in a small whisper.

Before he could reply, she disappeared through the crowd and reappeared on the stage. She quickly checked the wiring and microphones and said in microphone, "You can take over now, Mr. Dumbledore."

Mr. Dumbledore turned out to be an old man with a silver beard and silver hair. He had a crooked nose, but he walked in a straight, upright manner, like a man who still had his wits. He in introduced himself as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And then the things that followed were too fantastical to be true, and even as Remus made his way home, his mind would not stop thinking the tumultuous thoughts that he tried to escape.

Dumbledore had said that he could apply to a job at the Met for the Spring Break. However, because the Met was collaborating with the British Museum that year, one lucky employee would be able to go and work in the British Museum. Accommodation, flight tickets and meal would all be free and provided. The job opening was for someone to work with Entanglement Theory, something that Remus was comfortable with.

The only catch? You needed to write an essay to get in.

He had never been good at writing essays. However, what did he have to lose? What should he even write? Why not tell the truth?

And so he started off. London has always fascinated me. Walking through its streets swirling with fog would be an incredible honor. I would love to go to London this…

Sirius Black was in an incredibly weird situation that windy, early March morning, but it was still better than that time when he had almost fallen into the Thames.

Sirius Black was shepherding sheep in Australia. However the situation had run sour when he had accidentally run a tractor over a squirrel somehow and was too traumatised to continue. Therefore, in order to remedy the situation, he had run to the nearby Coles and was now committing arson by setting fire to the elevator.

Okay, maybe it was a little weirder than that time he had fallen into the River Thames. Almost fallen.

He looked at Andromeda Black, his cousin, also his partner in breaking the Australian law at the moment. Her dark hair fell over in the elegant and haughty ringlets that the Black family possessed. Her eyebrows curved upwards in a bored, supercilious, arch and she drawled, "Now, why are we doing this?"

Although her exterior was calm and politely bored, Sirius could sense she was not a happy camper. The Blacks had been taught to keep their emotions under wraps and all the Blacks were cursed with the mouth-full-of-marbles, aristocratic accent. In his mother's case, it meant having an expression that was akin to one that was smelling dung.

Swallowing his irritation, Sirius smiled in the same bored, detached way and replied, "You know why, Andy. We've got to stop De Romano from getting to London."

"Couldn't we have done that in London?" This time, her drawl definitely held the sarcastic undertone that the Blacks used to talk to people of lower status.

"Andy, he needs to be stopped from getting into London! He must be terminated! The target must be hit!" This time Sirius dropped the whole Black accent. Why doesn't she get it?

Andromeda was smirking. He knew that she knew that Sirius only lost his accent when he had an outburst of emotions he couldn't handle. Instead, he developed a fast-paced lilt that swallowed half his words. She knew she shouldn't have been riling him up, but her vindictive Black nature wanted the satisfaction. This was especially because she had ended up in a less-than-ideal situation. Sirius knew all of this, but he was still irritated.

"Fine, I'll help. What should I do?" He wordlessly handed her a flaming torch and motioned for her to follow his example. He threw his flaming torch at the elevator shaft after checking that the elevator was currently not in use.

They were standing in an empty parking lot on the roof of a Coles Supermarket in Eucla. They could peer down the elevator shaft that was currently starting to go up in flames. Andromeda threw her torch in as well.

Looking very worried, she said, "How much time do we have until they find out?"

Sirius wanted to get back at her. "I don't know, Andy. Why are you worried? I'm sure Daddy Dearest will bail us out and pay them to keep this out of the papers. Dishonor to the family and all that."

She scowled as the cool breeze from the ocean lightly lifted up the hems of her floral skirt. "When did you forget that we are the estranged members of the Black family?"

"The Black Sheep of the Blacks," Sirius replied, grinning.

"Why are you enjoying yourself so much?" Andy was rapidly losing her cool exterior. "Sirius, when are we getting out of here?"

"I really don't know," Sirius said, realizing he actually had no clue what to do after the arson part.

See, the grand plan had been to trap Adriano De Romano in Australia for two extra days. De Romano was Sirius' biggest rival. He was known to play dirty and in the past, he had stolen many of Sirius' ideas, pitched them to their boss and had been given a promotion as one of the Assistant Archaeologists at the British Museum. To make matters worse, he had also recently gotten a job with National Geographic (Sirius' second job) just to spite him.

However, when Sirius had learnt the Head Program Co-ordinator position was open for the March Break, he had leapt up to grab it. Unfortunately, so had someone else: Adriano De Romano. The interviews were on Wednesday, two days from now.

De Romano had been on a mission in Central Italy when Sirius had received that news. Sirius had decided the only way to secure the position was to stop De Romano from giving the interview. As a result, Sirius had been trying to trap De Romano in various countries. The plan here had been to trap De Romano in the supermarket for a while. The Australian law stated that if a crime had been committed in the proximity of a foreigner, the foreigner could be detained. Sirius had followed De Romano into Australia from Cambodia. His plans hadn't exactly gone great in the other countries.

First, he'd headed to Rome and stayed at the same hotel where De Romano was staying. Then he'd stolen De Romano's truck and deliberately crashed it, hoping that when police arrived to the scene they'd arrest De Romano. However, he had stolen the wrong truck.

He suddenly remembered something. "Hey, Andy, why did Dora panic so much when I told both of you I had crashed the truck into the Tiber and all the containers had fallen in?"

Andy was looking very worried now due to the acrid smell of smoke and shouts from below, but momentarily a perplexed look came onto her face. "I don't know, Sirius," she replied slowly. "She also has been very distant for the past few months. It's almost like Rome changed her."

"What do you mean Rome changed her?" Sirius asked uneasily, staring into the deep azure sea on the horizon. They really did need to move on.

"She seems guilty for something. I heard her mumbling something in her sleep about a man in trouble in Rome." Andy seemed troubled, and a million miles away.

"A man in trouble?" Sirius prodded further.

"Something unsettled me so much yesterday. She asked me the oddest question yesterday," Andy revealed.

"What did she ask?"

The cries of "Fire! Fire!" had gotten louder and louder.

Andy glanced around furtively. "You can't tell anyone."

"Bloody hell, Andy, what is it?" Sirius was starting to become highly concerned.

She dragged him by his arm and crouched by the wall. "She asked me," Andy began in a whisper. "She asked me, 'Mum, would you love me if I told you I had killed someone?'"

Sirius' stomach coiled into snake-like knots. "What did you say?"

"I didn't know what to say!" Andy's voice grew anxious. "I asked her if she was in trouble. I said I would love her. Oh, Sirius, I think my Father tracked her down in Rome and made her do something she didn't want to."

"You mean Dear Old Uncle Cygnus tracked found her and do something to her in Rome? When we were at the party?"

Andromeda nodded sadly. "The party was such a bad idea on so many accounts."

Sirius knew the exact other incident that she was referring to. It was the Necklace Thing. Something that they did not talk about anymore. He planned on ignoring that part of the night. "So how do we make it better?" He asked with determination. He was so sick of the Black family. How dare they go after a little child?

Downstairs, pandemonium was brewing. "Who did this?" a woman cried out.

"Did someone check the roof?" a voice said, much closer to them.

"Bugger!" Sirius grabbed Andy and jumped into a corner. "We have to shimmy down the pipe!"

"I'm wearing a skirt," Andy grumbled but made her way to the pipe and lowered herself down. Sirius followed swiftly and managed to lower himself down just in time for a few people to appear on the roof with a police officer.

Quickly shimmying down the four floors, they landed in a ditch near a willow tree. Through the branches, they spied the police putting up barricades. De Romano was loudly arguing. "What do you mean no one can leave this property? I have a plane to catch at two today!"

"Sorry, sir. If you are a foreigner you must be detained for at least thirty-six hours."

Sirius was guffawing to himself. "Andy! It worked!"

"You idiot!" Andy elbowed him. "How are we getting out of here?"

Sirius hadn't thought it through. "Just slip under the tape?"

"No," Andy whispered. "We'll be seen. We need a plan."

Suddenly a girl with black hair and rosy cheeks burst into tree. She held a panicked expression. "Who're you?"

"Who're you?" Andy drawled in the laid-back Black drawl used with strangers.

"Hestia Jones," the girl replied. "Look I saw you two do it."

"Do what?" First rule of Black family lying: deny, deny, deny.

In order to blend in with the locals, Sirius had pretended to be a farmer and had been trying to shepherd sheep. However, as previously mentioned, his control over the tractor was not very good: the sheep had run off to graze and he had run over a squirrel. This was because he had gotten distracted. He had seen De Romano walk into the nearby Coles and had suddenly remembered the plan.

To Hestia, he simply said, "I was shepherding sheep." Second rule of Black family lying: speak the partial truth.

"Look, I know what you did. I was going to do the same thing."

"You were?" asked Andy in surprise.

"It's a long story. See, I'll help you get out of here." She paused, smiling smugly a little.

"What do you want in return?" Sirius sighed.

"You to be my alibi. You and I went to Sydney for the weekend. You're my British boyfriend."

"I like blokes," blurted out Sirius. In reality, Sirius had never been attracted to blokes.

"And I like girls," answered Hestia. "But no one needs to know that for this purpose. And it's only if anyone asks."

Sirius agreed. "Why not? Just get us out of here." Then, "What are you so badly involved in that you need to cover it up?"

"I didn't ask you why you set fire to the lift."

"Touché."

Moments later Hestia had somehow sweet-talked the police into letting them out. She drove them to the airport and left them there. Hestia made all of them follow each other on Instagram and warned Sirius to stay in touch.

As Sirius got onto the plane, he reflected how weird the whole thing truly had been. Who was Hestia Jones? He hoped never to see her again, or to get involved in Australian small-town intrigues again. Actually, he vowed never to get involved in any intrigues from this point onward. In fact, in Cambodia the Incident had happened. The Incident he would never think about.

In Cambodia, his cunning plan had somehow gotten so convoluted that it backfired and he had managed to double-cross himself. Therefore, the Incident had ended up happening.

The past two and a half months had been extremely weird for Sirius.

Remus clutched an acceptance letter in his hands.

An hour later, he was frantically making his packing list.

Victorious, Sirius grinned at his boss. Even though De Romano had somehow made it back in time, he had gotten the job. This Spring Break was going to be great.

An hour later, Sirius was making grand plans in his head.

Review please! Also if anyone's confused about the timeline:

December: Remus in Rome

January: Remus moves to New York

February: Sirius finds out about the job opening, starts following De Romano and Remus is frustrated

Early March: Sirius in Australia and Remus finds out about the British Museum job

Thanks! Things will get exciting in the next chapter, when they'll finally meet. Some Jily might be in there too!