September 12th: Sirius Black

The days leading up to the first meeting of the group's new student organization are strained, to say the least. Whispers continue to follow Sirius wherever he goes, and while he's heard that there's a lot of interest among the student body in attending, he suspects that plenty of those people are only interested because they want to hear about exactly what went down at the ambush last May.

It frustrates Sirius a little that those involved who aren't Gryffindor seventh years—Frank Longbottom, Edgar Bones, even Dorcas Meadowes and the Prewetts before the three of them graduated—have largely escaped association with Sirius's cohort and avoided the brunt of the rumors. He knows that the Gryffindor seventh years were widely rumored to have been behind the unity pranks last year that led up to that day in the clearing, so when Dumbledore announced that Liz and Millie's murders were the result of a run-in with Death Eaters, the student body so quickly associated Sirius's class with whatever tussle they imagined must have happened. Still, a large part of Sirius wishes that people would, frankly, shut the hell up about matters they don't understand. He does feel bad for Benjy Fenwick, though: his girlfriend was one of the ones killed, and a different sort of whispers have been tailing him, too, all over the castle.

Trying to plan the itinerary for the first meeting of War Stories, as they're calling the org, turns out to be a bit of a nightmare. For one thing, including Eddie, Frank, and Benjy in the planning means finding a time that works for eleven people and that they can do without drawing too much of Mary's attention to their absence. They end up holing up after dinner and James's subsequent Quidditch tryouts on Monday in the passageway behind the mirror that they gave to Dorcas for order liaison meetings. (James finds himself holding tryouts without Sirius there to maintain his position as Beater on the Gryffindor team this year. While James is Captain this year and has been throwing himself into Quidditch practice to distract from what's going on with his parents, Sirius, for his part, finds himself unable to muster up any interest in Quidditch games when they have much, much bigger problems to worry about.)

So there they are, in the cavern behind the mirror on the fourth floor, carefully putting together what the hell they're going to say to what could prove to be a massive audience about the deaths and the war without outing anyone as a member of the underground resistance that is the Order. They decide to open with a moment of silence for Millie and Liz (Benjy in particular pushes that they would be remiss to ignore them altogether), then briefly memorialize them and hope to hell that they don't have to deflect an overload of questions before they move on to their main agenda, starting with inviting Muggle-borns to share stories about how wizarding purism has affected them in their everyday lives. They debate owning up to what happened and giving real contexts for Millie and Elisabeth's deaths, but ultimately decide against it: everyone may already blame the Gryffindor seventh years for what happened, but it's in their best interests not to spread any names that have any chance of reaching Death Eaters' ears.

When they've planned what they can, they squeeze back out through the mirror and set off for their respective common rooms. Since they're going the same direction, Sirius falls in line with Remus and tries to start up a conversation, any conversation, with him, but Remus just looks at the ground they're walking across and yeahs and uh-huhs his way through Sirius's very one-sided efforts.

Remus scurries up into the boys' dorm as soon as they reach the common room, and Sirius decides that he has had it with skirting around the point with him. "Give me some time alone with Moony, okay?" he says to James and Peter, and then he kisses Marlene goodnight and heads up the stairs to the dormitory.

Remus gives a start when Sirius pulls the door shut behind him. "Hi," says Remus quietly, and then he looks back at his books, until Sirius throws himself onto Remus's bed and sends them flying everywhere.

"We need to talk, dude," says Sirius when Remus indignantly starts to protest. "Tell me what I need to do to go back to the way things were."

There's a long pause as Remus tips his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. "I don't know if we can," he says finally.

"Okay," says Sirius, even though nothing about this is okay, "then tell me what I need to do so we can move forward. I hate not talking to you, Moony. I hate it."

"I don't understand you," says Remus after another pause. "You obviously have feelings for Marlene and not… well. But you keep touching me."

"But we used to touch like that all the time. I still touch Wormy and Prongs like that all the time, and so do you."

"Yes, but with them, I don't… you have to know that things are different between us now that you know about—about me. I'm not trying to throw a hissy fit; I just… it's like you're throwing it in my face." To Sirius's horror, Remus has started to cry—not a lot, mind you, but a silent tear leaks from his eye, followed by another. Sirius reaches up to brush Remus's cheek dry with his thumb, but Remus flinches away from the contact.

"So, what? You never want me to touch you again? Because I can do that, if that's what you need," says Sirius, even though he feels a sharp pang of loss at the thought of it.

"Of course I don't want that," Remus says, "but yeah. Yeah, I think maybe that's better."

"If we do this, will you come back to me? Because I can't stand never seeing you—or Wormtail, for that matter. Prongs needs us, dealing with what he's dealing with with his parents, and—I need you. If you're going to stay gone, then I don't know… I just don't know."

And he means every word of it. He's gone without Remus for months now, and as much as he's been telling himself that Marlene and James and Lily are enough, he feels like he can't breathe without knowing that the other Marauders—all of them—have his back. It doesn't gross him out if Remus has feelings for him—Sirius just wants to do what he needs to do to get his mate back.

He realizes that he hasn't actually told this to Remus yet, so he slowly adds, "It's okay with me if—if you feel the way you feel. That doesn't bother me. I just want you in my life."

Remus lets out a shuddering breath. "I've missed you. A lot," he admits.

"I've missed you, too. Let's never leave each other alone again, all right?"

Remus looks like he's about to tell Sirius that he can't promise that, and Sirius braces himself for rejection, but instead Remus says quietly, "All right."

Sirius feels like he can hardly believe his luck when Remus makes a beeline for him at breakfast the following morning. As per his agreement with Marlene, she's over sitting with James and Lily a ways down from where he, Peter, and Emmeline have grabbed seats. "Here," says Sirius, scooting to make room for Remus on his left, and he fights the urge to clap Remus on the shoulder when he sits down and reaches for the oatmeal.

"Where are Alice and Mary?" asks Peter after swallowing a mouthful of cereal. "Alice is going to be late to Transfiguration if she gets here much later."

"Mary was running a few minutes later than me when I left the dorms," says Emmeline. "Don't know about Alice, though—she'd already left; I didn't see her leave."

"Probably sitting with Dirk again," Remus says.

Sirius cranes his neck to take a look at the Ravenclaw table. He doesn't see Alice there, but then, it's hard to make anybody out from that far away with the way students are jammed in.

It feels weird to stay away from Marlene and Lily and James, like he's missing a limb—missing something he took for granted until it was gone. He can't say he fully understands Marlene's reasoning for wanting to spend some time apart, but he respects it, though, and doesn't want to encroach on the space that she says she needs to work things out. Still, he'd gotten so used to being around the three of them nonstop that he feels an odd sense of loss not continuing to do so, even if they're still seeing each other incidentally all the time.

Truth be told, taking space away from Marlene has Sirius reevaluating memories he hadn't wanted to reopen—all the time he and Marlene would dance around each other in public only to come together to make Bad Sexual Decisions in private. He remembers the cycle well: he'd get sad or lonely or broken up about the way his life was going, and then he'd seek Marlene out for sex because it was easier to be with her than it was to confront the void in his life left behind by Emmeline or his parents or Andy, and then they'd pretend nothing ever happened until it happened again, and again, and again.

He's taken a lot of shit from everyone in his life about using Marlene back in those days, and in the few days he's had to be away from her and get his head clear, he's started to feel sort of angry about it. He's not defending what they did as good or healthy or fair, but he never tried to manipulate her, never lied to her about his intentions or the way he felt about her. If she wanted to wait for someone who loved her properly, she could have done that. It was her choice to go along with their pattern; she had her own reasons for doing so—and it was never any of the other Gryffindors' business to try to interfere and drag them away from each other.

It's not like it exonerates Sirius entirely—he was using her, yes, and he owns that—but they were both consenting, and it was never Sirius's job to absolve Marlene of the responsibility to make her own decisions. Besides, while Marlene and Mary and everyone else was so focused on Marlene's pain, who was looking to see the pain that motivated Sirius? Who cared that one of Sirius's best friends—one whom he was on the verge of finding love with—abruptly shut down, shut him out, and left him to wonder what he could possibly have done wrong? Who was paying attention to the vitriol his parents and brother and cousins flung at him at home just for not wanting to kill Muggle-borns for sport? He was never toying with Marlene for the sake of itself—he was using their relationship to bury something just the same as she was, only instead of burying low self-esteem and a love that Marlene thought Sirius didn't reciprocate, he was burying the sense of rejection coming at him from all sides in one of the only people who ever in his life made him feel wanted.

Did anyone ever stop to consider that maybe Sirius hid from Marlene in between trysts because he was ashamed of himself for needing them? Does Marlene have any idea that Sirius thought he needed her for those two years as much as she thought she needed him?

He thought he was good, that he'd moved on and was happy now. But if spending less time around Marlene is throwing him for this much of a loop, maybe Sirius could use this time apart as much as Marlene can—to try to figure out how he feels about her without the constant contact getting in the way.

On the other hand, he's overjoyed to have Remus back in his life, who has been missing from being there in a meaningful way for entirely too long. Sirius hopes sincerely that Remus doesn't feel like he needs space to figure Sirius out, or at least that if he ever felt that way, that he's sorted it out and is happy to be friends again as of late. Unlike with Marlene, Sirius knows exactly who he is without Remus, but he likes the person that he is better when Remus is around. Remus keeps him grounded; he reins Sirius in when his pranks get too cruel or his jokes too hurtful, and he welcomes the opportunity to connect without ever asking for it or even believing he deserves it, even though Sirius knows that Remus deserves everything there is to give him. Remus is a much better person than Sirius is, but Sirius is better because of him, and he'd do anything for him, too.

But—can Sirius really say that that's true when he won't love Remus back the way he thinks Remus loves him?

He looks over at Remus again, for as long as he thinks he can get away with it without Remus noticing, and tries for just a few moments to imagine being in that kind of a relationship with him. Sure, he could be happy coming home to Remus every night—having him as a steady presence for Sirius to come home to and take with him when he leaves. But could he be happy with the physical relationship that would come with it?

Sirius allows himself to think back to the one time they kissed, sitting there on Remus's bed with Remus's lips on his, biting his lip a little, touching his hip with his hand. It was nice, sure. Just as nice as kissing Marlene is. But could he—?

He squeezes his eyes closed and spectacularly fails to block the mental images that come with that train of thought. It makes him feel sort of dirty and gross inside, but is that because he's grossed out, or because he's ashamed that he's not grossed out? Sirius can't tell.

Things only get more complicated that night, when it's him and Remus alone in the dormitory again, and Remus asks, "Is there something going on with you and Marlene? Only—I haven't seen you talk to her almost at all the last day or two."

"We're taking a little space," says Sirius carefully, closely monitoring Remus's reaction. "We didn't break up or anything; we're just—spending a little time apart."

"Is it going okay?"

Sirius thinks about the feelings of anger and shame and resentfulness that have all crept up on him, and he nods. "Yeah, it's going fine. I think it's helping her."

"What about you?" Remus asks.

"I think… maybe I'm better off if I don't see so much of her for a little while."

"Can I ask what happened?"

"I…" Sirius stretches and yawns and buys himself a couple of extra seconds. "She wanted to, I don't know, figure out who she is without me, I guess. Maybe she's still working through how bad things used to be. Maybe I am, too."

"Oh," says Remus, and then he falls silent for an exceptionally long time. Sirius hopes he isn't interpreting things the way Sirius is afraid he is—like there's a rift between Sirius and Marlene that has something to do with the way Remus and Sirius feel about each other—because that's not what it's about, not at all.

Right?