November 5th, 1977: Sirius Black
It feels strange to have James here with him in the Hospital Wing while he's reconnecting with Remus after over a month of estrangement. Obviously Sirius is relieved just like James is that Remus is going to recover and didn't die on them like Sirius thought he was going to for a while there, but James sitting on the other side of Remus's bed makes Sirius feel sort of indecent for wanting to kiss Remus and hug him and tell him to never do that again.
Talking about their relationship in front of James is out of the question, of course. Even though James knows what's going on between Sirius and Remus, Sirius is hardly going to start confessing his love for Remus with somebody else right there, not even just in the same room, but in the same bed.
If James weren't here, would Sirius be confessing his love for Remus? He doesn't really understand any of what he feels for Remus anymore—he just knows that thinking Remus was going to die knocked all the wind out of him, and he doesn't want to keep living his life without Remus in it.
They pass a couple of hours talking about nothing before Peter comes back with Emmeline, both of them looking very somber and anxious. "I let everybody else know that you're going to be okay," says Peter as James and Sirius are getting up to go. "Alice is going to come in with Mary before dinner, and then Lily and Marlene will be in right after. Eddie and Benjy want to stop in sometime tomorrow morning."
"Remind me to think about all of these visitors the next time I'm feeling bad about myself," says Remus, smiling.
"I'll come back when Marlene and Lily are leaving," Sirius promises. "You're going to get so sick of being around people by the time everybody leaves you alone, just you wait."
It's hard to step away from Remus's cot and out of the Hospital Wing when every instinct in his body is screaming at him to stay with Remus because Remus might not be there before the next time he comes back. Sirius knows he's being irrational—the danger has passed, and Remus is going to be just fine. But what about the Order? What happens when they grow up and graduate and start going on potentially life-threatening missions? What if he's so busy avoiding Remus and figuring out how he feels that he misses his chance to have Remus in his life at all?
"Dude, breathe," says James, and Sirius looks up, flustered: he hadn't realized he was being so obvious about panicking.
"I'm just really shaken up," Sirius says truthfully. "I don't know what to do. What am I supposed to do? I haven't figured anything out, and I'm scared I'm going to lose him before I do."
"I don't know how much what I think matters, but from where I'm standing?" says James. "All I could see in there for the last two and a half hours was two people who really, really love each other."
"But I don't know if we—"
"Padfoot, Padfoot, slow down. You don't have to have all the answers, okay?"
"But what if I don't love him the way he loves me? What if I don't know?"
James cocks his head to one side and gives Sirius a long look. "I guess it's up to you to decide whether or not you want to find out. But if you do decide you want to see if it could work, well, the only way to do that is to try and see what happens."
"I can't do that right now," says Sirius immediately. "Things aren't totally over with Marlene, and I can't."
"Well, then, you have your answer, don't you? You're just going to have to make do with your relationship with Moony staying the same as it was before."
What it was before wasn't working, Sirius wants to say, but he doesn't. Remembering that he could lose Remus any minute, Sirius feels like he'd better find a way to make it work, because he'll never be able to forgive himself if he loses his opportunity to have Remus in his life because he was waiting for the right moment that never came.
He comes back, sans James, around nine o'clock, as Lily and Marlene are leaving for the night. "Hi, Lene," he says, and she smiles in return and says hello, and that's progress, isn't it? At least she's smiling. At least she's not throwing a fit over him visiting Remus alone.
Sirius just wishes he weren't caught in the middle of two people he loves very, very deeply. He supposes it would be worse if nobody loved him, but somebody is bound to get hurt here, and he wishes he didn't have to be there to see it.
"How's it going?" Remus says weakly as Sirius approaches his bed.
"Oh, you know, same as it was this afternoon when I was here last," says Sirius with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"A little better. Walking is hard—we found that out the hard way—but I don't still feel like I'm constantly on the verge of collapsing."
"And you have no idea who could have done this to you?"
"Not at all," says Remus, wincing as he scoots back toward the wall and props himself up a little. "I wouldn't put it past Snape, but I haven't spoken to him anytime recently—the timing doesn't make sense. I guess maybe someone figured out that I was the one helping Belby with the Wolfsbane Potion…? That's all I can think of, anyway. You'd think they would have confronted me first, though, or sent some sort of message? Publicly announced that I'm a werewolf? Something."
"Something," Sirius echoes. "Well, whoever it was, I'm glad Madam Pomfrey got to you in time. When you stopped breathing and lost consciousness in the Great Hall—it was like my whole life stopped, Moony. I didn't want to picture a future without you in it."
"You don't have to," says Remus.
But Sirius shakes his head hard. "What would have happened if you had died today and we weren't even on speaking terms? What would I have done if you had died, Moony, without even knowing how much I care about you?"
"I do know how much you care about me," Remus says quietly.
"Do you? Do you know that I don't want to live without you? Because that's where I was at today, and I've been letting you think that I can just—do without you like—like it's nothing. But it's not nothing. I've missed you so much these last few weeks."
Remus looks like he's at a loss for words, or maybe like he has too many thoughts swimming around his head for him to be able to pin one down and vocalize it. Finally, he says, "I've missed you too," but Sirius is pretty sure that there's a lot more there that Remus isn't telling him. "We've all been really separated from each other this school year. We should figure out how to get back to how we all used to be."
"Yeah, but that's not what I mean," says Sirius. "I'm talking about you and me. That's the first thing that needs fixing."
"The first thing? What about you and Marlene?"
Sirius sighs. "I can't make her want to talk to me again or figure out what's going on between her and me. If she tells me she's ready to talk, we'll talk. But in the meantime, I'm going to do what I can, and that's get right with you."
"I should apologize," says Remus with some hesitation. "I've been acting like a brat setting up all these hoops for you to jump through when, the whole time, I knew you were never available. I should have respected that. I should have…"
"Hey. There's a difference between setting boundaries and setting up hoops. Sometimes I think all of us could use some more boundaries between us in our lives."
"Boundaries? What boundaries?" Remus mutters sardonically, and Sirius barks out a laugh.
"Can we just—? I can't promise what's going to happen with Marlene, and I don't want to… you know… mislead you. But can we just go back to being mates and figure out the rest later?"
Remus twists his lips, and Sirius is sure that he's going to shoot him down, but then Remus acquiesces and says, "Yeah, we can do that. And—you know, I am sorry that it went down the way it went down between you and Marlene. I know I was a big part of that, and I never meant to—break you up, or anything."
"It's okay. I think she knows that. She seems to have forgiven you, hasn't she?"
"Seems like it. I don't know, it's hard to tell sometimes whether people are being friendly because they feel friendly or because they're burying something—bad."
Sirius knows what he means. Marlene keeps up being amicable toward him throughout the two days it takes Remus to get discharged from the Hospital Wing, and throughout the days that come after that, too. Nothing has changed between them (unless you count Remus almost dying, which wasn't really directly related to Sirius's relationship with Marlene), so he has no idea where this new familiarity is coming from, how long it's going to last, or whether or not he should be worried.
He finally gets Marlene alone on Friday when she flags him down at the end of Potions while Sirius is packing up his things. "Hey," she says. "Got some time?"
He nods and follows her out of the classroom, falling into step with her a ways behind the rest of their classmates. She's wearing purple lipstick and has got her hair in tight braids. She looks cute, not that that makes any of this easier. "I just wanted to say I'm not mad about Lupe," she starts awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck. "I mean, I was. Believe me, I was. I was ready to write both of you off forever. But—well—Mary kind of convinced me to talk to him, and it's hard to keep hating someone who feels that guilty."
"And so why are you talking to me?" Sirius asks.
Marlene smiles bashfully. "It's also hard to keep hating someone who's this damaged."
"I'm not damaged!" Sirius says hotly, and she laughs.
"Sirius, your family is a bunch of inbred, psychotic pureblood supremacist lunatics who keep rows of amputated house-elf heads in the corridors and who kicked you out for not being like them. Of course you're damaged."
Sirius doesn't really have a retort to that, so he stays silent, dragging his heels on the ground as they walk. Eventually, Marlene adds, "I'm not saying that absolves you of responsibility. You shouldn't have kissed him back, and you should have just told me what was going on instead of trying to hide it. But—I get that you were trying to protect his privacy. I even get that you might have feelings you don't understand that you weren't comfortable sharing."
If she's waiting for a reply, she doesn't get one. Sirius looks at the ground, doesn't dare raise his gaze to her. "I don't know about you, but I don't have the healthiest relationship history. My only experience is with you."
"Yeah," says Sirius, clearing his throat. "I've kissed other girls and stuff, but—relationships? Yeah."
"I'm starting to wonder if we're too… too screwed up to save, I guess. I thought we were doing well these last months—I really did—but I don't think I know how to trust you after everything that happened before. And I was a mess about you for years, you know? I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be with someone who brings that out in me. Maybe I should be looking for somebody more stable who I've never felt like… like I can't function without them."
Hyperaware of the others walking just a few paces ahead of them, Sirius pulls Marlene into the unlocked classroom they're passing. "So—you're saying you want to break up?" He feels like this isn't real. His heart is thumping like crazy, and his sweaty feet are shaking.
"I don't know. Yes? I don't want to, but I think I might need to," says Marlene slowly. "And I realize what I'm about to say is an incredibly shitty thing to say, but this will go a lot easier if you don't, like, immediately start dating Lupe—or anybody, really. Give me some time to grieve before shoving another relationship in my face, yeah? I realize I have no right to try and stop you, but—it would help."
"Yeah," says Sirius numbly.
"God, this all feels so weird to talk about. I can't believe you and Lupe are gay."
"Hey, now, that's not exactly—"
"I know, but still."
He can't believe that in the space of a week, he's gone from not being on speaking terms with Remus, to Remus almost dying, to making up with Remus, to getting dumped by Marlene and now, maybe, being free to eventually start dating Remus instead. Just days ago, he was telling James that he wasn't going to pursue anything with Remus because Marlene was still in the picture. Days ago! And now it's an actual possibility that he could figure things out with Remus without breaking any promises. Sure, Marlene wants him to wait a while first, but waiting a while is better than never.
And yet—his head has been so full of Marlene since the fourth year that Sirius feels like he doesn't know what to do if he's not with her. He's so incredibly accustomed to being hyperaware of how she feels and what he's done to hurt her this time that the thought of being free of those trappings—sure, he's happy not to have the weight of his guilt dragging him down constantly, but it's like he doesn't know what to put his brain on without being able to put it on her. And it's not like he doesn't miss her. He's missed her all month. Her laugh, and her smile, and her eyes and skin and tears and…
Peter and Emmeline wave him over once he's back in the common room, and something must show in his face because Peter immediately asks, "What's wrong? What's happened?"
"Marlene broke up with me," he says hoarsely, looking around: they split up when they left the classroom, so he doesn't know whether she's here by now or not. "And I don't want to talk about it."
"Tough break, man, I'm sorry," says Peter. Emmeline puts a hand on Sirius's and squeezes.
Sirius is so busy panicking about how to tell Remus that Marlene left him that she ends up beating Sirius to it. That night after dinner, he turns in early, maybe an hour after getting back from dinner, only for Remus to follow him upstairs to the dormitory five minutes later. "Hey."
"Hey."
"So, uh, Marlene told me about you two."
Sirius feels hot all of a sudden. "So I guess she also told you that she doesn't want me to start dating… anybody else yet," he says, replacing the you at the last second.
"She did," Remus confirms. "So I think the question I should be asking is—should I be getting my hopes up for the future? Because I don't want to start counting down if…"
Sirius is acutely aware that what he says in the next ten seconds is going to determine the whole next course of his relationship with Remus, and he's desperately afraid of getting it wrong and ruining absolutely everything. "You know I haven't figured anything out yet."
"I know."
He holds in a breath. "Start counting," he says.
xx
END OF PART EIGHT