Part Three
It was all over.
Christmas 1978 had come and gone quickly, and the New Year's celebrations had blurred past in a haze of half-hearted drunkenness. It had been an extremely eventful year. Just to name a few key events... the first test tube baby was born to some Muggles. Spain became a parliamentary Monarchy again. John Paul II was given the position of Pope. Larry Flynt, publisher of the hardcore porno mag HUSTLER, was shot and paralyzed from the waist down by an unknown assailant. Molly and Arthur Weasley gave birth to fraternal twins. Merton Graves, who will grow up to be cello player for The Weird Sisters, was born in St. Mungo's. His mother, Katherine, was completely surprised by the birth, having put her swelling stomach down to the vast amounts of Chocolate Frogs she'd been inexplicably craving for the past nine months. Peter Pettigrew decided he was tired of chin-length hair and got a crew-cut, to his mother's dismay. James Potter proposed to Lily Evans. Remus Lupin and Sirius Black broke up.
Time to get on with 1979. Alone.
Remus Lupin folds up his newspaper and stares at the mildew on the walls of his hotel room blankly. He'd had to move out of Sirius's flat as soon as possible. He couldn't… stay. Not there, not where the playful teasing had morphed into tense silences, not when he inevitably ended up locking himself in the bathroom and sitting in the sink, reading, until Sirius went out to get drunk or went to bed. The big, empty double bed which they no longer shared.
Remus knows that he doesn't have nearly enough money to stay in the shabby bed-and-breakfast for more than another week. His Galleons are running out, and, unlike Sirius, he has no rich Uncle Alphard who could feasibly die in the next seven days and leave him all his money. It's not as if he hasn't tried to fill up his Gringotts account. Getting employment has been hard. Bloody impossible. Humiliating. No one cares about the NEWTs he's worked so hard to get, no one cares how hard he's prepared for the interview, all they care about is the little matter of the lycanthropy. One of his interviewers didn't even bother to finish asking him questions, he simply had him escorted out of the office. It's understandable, but unfair. Remus sometimes feels he might scream with the unfairness of it all. He won't, of course, because grown men don't do such things, but he's come close.
Sirius has no idea about Remus's financial situation, of course. Sirius never thought to ask. He'd always assumed that everyone coasted through life with the same nonchalant ease did. He'd never considered that not everyone possessed a cute arse and an overflowing bank vault.
I can't afford newspapers, Remus realises numbly. I can't afford this room. And I can't afford to think about Sirius.
Remus's tired gaze falls on the guitar, lying at the foot of the bed. He's been trying to avoid looking at it, thinking about it, because it's so inextricably linked with Sirius that he can't bear to touch it. Slowly, awkwardly, Remus shuffles towards the instrument, and picks it up carefully, considering it. Remus has never owned a guitar before. His parents couldn't afford instruments or lessons, not when all their money was going on doctors and potential cures for his 'problem'. Remus taught himself to play in snatches, whenever he could find someone else's guitar to practice on. Remus can't remember ever having told Sirius about how much he wanted one as a child, how envious he was whenever he heard other children complain about their piano lessons. It was that painful, agonising torture of desiring something he knew he could never have.
Remus fingers the slightly battered wood of the guitar. It's probably second-hand, but Remus likes the thought of it having been played many times before, hundreds of tuneful memories quivering over the strings. It's easy to tell why Sirius picked it. It's been painted in a gleaming black finish, it's streamlined, it's cool. It's a little bit too rockstar for Remus's liking. Remus envisions himself onstage, topless, screaming angsty love songs into a microphone. Hmm. Maybe that's a career he could pursue. Remus Lupin: Rock God.
Remus brushes the strings with his fingers gently. A few tentative notes vibrate across the room, soft, sweet, melodious. An unwanted memory flashes before Remus's eyes – Sirius, bathed in sunlight, lying asleep on the springy grass next to the lake at Hogwarts. Remus sighs to himself. His room is dimly lit and freezing. He's worlds away from those happy days spent by the lake. Remus plucks out a few chords, getting re-acquainted with the notes. It's like riding a bicycle, really. Remus clears his throat awkwardly.
"All the leaves are brown," he croons, closing his eyes briefly. "And the sky is grey..." Remus plays a wrong note, which grates with the tune and jolts him back to reality.
Christ, Moony. The voice which reprimands him is not unlike Sirius's scathing tone. Get a grip.
Sirius dismounts his new motorbike hurriedly and props it up against a lamp post, forgetting to charm it against would-be robbers. He checks a crumpled piece of paper uncertainly, glancing up at the dingy bed-and-breakfast. It's the right address, but… why on earth would Remus want to stay here? He hasn't gone in yet, but already the place is turning him off: cracked windows, peeling paint, and scraps of food rotting in the gutter. Sirius can understand Remus not checking into the Ritz upon his departure, but he'd assumed he'd have gone somewhere where they at least understood basic hygiene.
Sirius rings the bell impatiently. There is a hush in conversation from one of the ground floor rooms, and then the door opens a fraction. A short witch with a wrinkled face glares up at him.
"Yes?"
"I want to see Mr. Lupin," Sirius explains awkwardly. The witch sneers, and looks him up and down appraisingly.
"What do you want wiv Mister Loopine?"
"It's… private." Sirius replies irritably. "Could I just go up and talk-"
"You're not gonna try and get money out of im, are ya?" The witch asks mistrustfully, sucking her yellowed teeth. "Cos I had a shady character like Mister Loopine 'ere bout two weeks ago, and a flash young feller like you turned up outta the blue and beat two shades of-"
"It's nothing like that," Sirius interrupts quickly. "I just need to ask him about something. I'll be two minutes, I swear."
The grumpy witch stalls for a couple of seconds and then stands aside to let him through.
"Room Five, just up the stairs. Don't run, it wears out the carpet."
Sirius looks down at the stained, mossy green carpet and privately thinks that wearing it out could only be a good thing. Nevertheless, he restrains himself and walks up the stairs, the picture of obedience. Sirius pauses when he gets to Room Five, the number five daubed on the door in garish green paint. The door itself is slightly ajar. Not wanting to touch the doorknob and so catch some incurable disease, Sirius pushes the door open with his foot, and walks in. The tiny room smells funny, like rotting wood, but at least it's not carpeted, and the dim lighting from the lanterns on the wall hides how ugly the surroundings really are. Remus is sitting on the small single bed, holding the guitar Sirius bought him for Christmas.
"You're playing my guitar," Sirius blurts out in amazement. Remus doesn't hate him, at least not enough to have used the guitar as firewood to heat the freezing room. Remus flushes scarlet, and puts the guitar down immediately, dropping it on the floorboards.
"What are you doing here?"
"Door was open," Sirius mumbles, recovering his composure. "I pushed it, and –"
"How did you know where I was?" Remus demands angrily, crossing the room in a few strides and slamming the door closed.
Be angry, be defensive, Remus tells himself firmly. Just get him out quickly. Then you won't have to deal with any of your emotions until he's gone.
"I told James and Peter that I didn't want you-"
"Lily told me."
"Oh, Lily." Remus sweeps the newspaper off the table into the bin furiously. "Looks like she'll be meddling in our affairs quite regularly from now on, doesn't it? And how did you and her get so chummy? I thought you two were love rivals, vying for James's affections."
"Moony, the whole reason Lily helped me was because I swallowed my pride and asked her–"
"I don't want to talk to you, Sirius. I don't need you. So whether you got this address through Lily or James or Peter or Dumbledore, or Henry the Eighth is, quite frankly, irrelevant."
"I just wanted to know-"
"What, Sirius? What?" Sirius looks guilty and embarrassed.
"What you… wrote in that note."
Remus pauses, and looks at Sirius despairingly. Sirius looks back, charming and confused and caring and Remus tries his hardest to remember why he hates him.
"I don't remember."
"But-" Remus waves a weary hand to silence Sirius, and slumps down into the only chair, breathing heavily.
"And I'm glad I can't remember, because I want to forget it. All of it."
"You can't just pretend that nothing-" Sirius persists. Remus interrupts him sharply.
"Do you know what it feels like to always be second best?"
"What?"
"You and James were always best best friends. You had your own secret language, you went everywhere together – I couldn't compete with that. I didn't even try. But I couldn't believe it when it seemed like I might come first for once… somewhere…"
Remus puts his head in his hands. Sirius is silent, watching him with a kind of horrified awe, utterly distraught that he's caused him so much pain. Remus talks slowly, distractedly. He's been aching to tell someone how he feels; it might as well be Sirius. He always ends up telling Sirius.
"It hurt so much when I woke up –but it always hurts- and then I was disoriented for a while. It couldn't have been more than a couple of hours… before I realised what was wrong. You weren't there." Remus laughs bitterly. "I was so worried. I kept imagining horrible things happening to you, things that might have stopped you being there when you promised that you… I think it was when I pictured you splinching yourself in Knockturn Alley, and the hags collecting the leftover body parts… I think that was when I Apparated to the flat- even though I hadn't healed fully…"
"Kill me," Sirius interrupts forcefully. "I deserve it. I deserve worse. I deserve to be locked up in Azkaban for eternity, living entirely off a diet of Snivellus's toenail clippings and spinach."
"When I got there," Remus continues, in his relentlessly calm voice. "There were empty wine bottles everywhere; the place stank of Gillyweed… I couldn't understand it. I think I was a bit confused… I started tidying up. Then I went towards the bedroom, because I could hear your laughter… so I went towards the sound… James was pulling on his trousers. You weren't wearing any." Remus's voice cracks on the last sentence.
"I just saw you looking at me, and then you left. Without saying anything. James didn't even notice." Sirius kneels down next to Remus, looking dejected. "I came after you, you know – I got dressed and ran outside. I Apparated to the Shack. Where did you go?"
"To find a razor. Or a tall cliff. Or a pub. Whichever was nearest."
"I am so, so sorry."
"Sorry won't make it not have happened," Remus sighs and looks into Sirius's apologetic brown eyes. Sirius looks stressed and tired, but very handsomely so. There are dark shadows underneath his eyes, and stubble on his cheeks. Remus feels about ten thousand times as bad as Sirius looks. "What do you think I wrote in the note?" Remus asks rhetorically. "I love you. I love everything about you. You make me feel human. I was just trying to get that across, in my bumbling, stodgy, inherently English way."
"You are human, Moony."
"I'm a mess, that's what I am," Remus answers, scratching the back of his head irritably. "I can't bloody cope, I have no money, and I can't even scrape up enough Knuts to pay for a room at a place where half the customers don't have syphilis or cholera."
"I'll help you, I'll pay for-"
"I don't want you to feel sorry for me, Sirius. I don't want charity." There is a silence. Remus stares defiantly into space. Sirius looks down at the dusty floorboards in consternation.
Why does Moony always have to be so bloody proud?
Same reason you do.
"I- I didn't sleep with James, you know." Remus tenses. He shakes his head, smiling sadly.
"Don't. Just. Please don't."
"He came over, spouting incoherencies about Lily, and how he loved her so much it hurt sometimes, and how he was scared shitless but he's already spent so much money on her, and Christmas was romantic, wasn't it?"
"I thought you didn't know he was planning to propose," Remus states numbly. He doesn't want to hear about how it happened; he's imagined the scene enough times without having to go through that torture again…
"He was practically insensible and already drunk – would you pay any attention to him like that? I didn't think he was serious. I just did what any good friend would do…"
"Plied him with more alcohol."
"We were both pissed out of our minds. I kept talking, going on about how drunk I was, and how my liver was going to explode. And then James found the Gillyweed, and said it would cure my liver if I smoked enough of it… after I'd had a joint I turned maudlin. I started complaining about how we were losing him, losing him to middle-age and Lily and long-term relationships. He didn't like that. He grabbed me, and he looked half-crazed behind his stupid glasses, he and he kept repeating 'You're not losing me, you're not'. And then I said, 'Prove it'."
Remus looks up at Sirius, his hazel eyes boring into his friend's head.
"I never even contemplated you and James. Never saw him as a... as a threat.He's so undeniably… he's not homophobic like Peter, but the way he was brought up, the way he thinks… I'd have thought it would be completely alien to him."
"It wasn't that I was a guy," Sirius confirms desperately. "I could've been a Flobberworm wearing a top hat and he'd still've – he just wanted to make sure that he loved Lily enough for it not to mean anything."
"Did it mean anything to you?" Remus asks softly. Sirius doesn't reply immediately. "Well? Did it?"
"S'not… I love James. But not in that way. Not like… not like I love you. I just thought –I wasn't thinking – if I could keep him there… I keep thinking we're losing him, I really do. He's growing up. I'm not growing up. What's wrong with me? You're grown up. You were probably grown up when you were seven years old. Wormtail's probably growing up, I never see him anymore. Why can't I grow up?"
"Did you…"
"What?"
"Think about me at all? During any of it?"
"I did, I know I did. I didn't plan for any of it, I thought James would fall asleep around midnight and I could slip out to be with you in the morning. And when we were… in bed… we were going to go all the way, and I looked up at the window, and saw…"
"The moon."
"And I felt awful. I felt like scum. And so I didn't… with James. I passed out instead."
"Bet James was disappointed."
"Relieved, he told me," Sirius answers, not noticing the sarcasm in Remus's tone. "He couldn't believe he'd nearly gone through with it. I didn't tell him you were at the Shack, that would have killed him."
"I wonder what you would have done," Remus wonders aloud, standing up, "if you hadn't looked up and seen the moon."
Sirius stares up at Remus open-mouthed, wounded. Remus looks down at him, biting his lip. Sirius is utterly beautiful, crouching on the floor, liquid brown eyes full of hurt. Remus wanted to hug him, as soon as he walked in the room, to inhale the scent of his jet-black hair, but he had to make Sirius understand what it was that he'd done first. Remus has only felt betrayal like this once before. It was when they were fifteen, and Sirius told Snape how to get past the Whomping Willow.
"The moon's not very reliable, Pads," Remus says, extending a hand with which to pull Sirius up. "It's inconstant. It changes. It's not always there. Unlike you. The Sun never changes. You're the Sun."
"Because everything revolves around me," Sirius mumbles, making a half-hearted attempt at cockiness.
"Because you're the fucking centre of my universe," Remus agrees, smiling broadly all of a sudden. "Because you're always bright, and you're big, and you make me feel warm, and when you're there, I don't notice the moon anymore. Because it's not nearly as important. You outshine it. That's what I wrote in your Christmas present."
"There's a lot of pressure in being the Sun," Sirius manages eventually. He's trying not to fling his arms around Remus and kiss him, because he doesn't know if he's been forgiven yet. Or if he'll be forgiven at all. "But if the Sun cocks up horribly… can you forgive it, please, because the sun is a stupid, stupid, inconsequential star which deserves to be sucked into a black hole and it loves you so much that it'd do anything, anything-"
"The sun's rambling," Remus admonishes, grinning. The grin lights up his face. He'd forgotten how effortlessly Sirius made him feel so happy.
"Did you write anything about bananas in that note?" Sirius asks, regaining his confidence. He thinks he might do a spontaneous little dance around the cramped room. Remus doesn't hate him, Remus still loves him… even though he's been the most bastardly bastard in the entire world…
"No, I don't think so," Remus answers, stepping closer to Sirius. "I might have referenced mangoes, though..."
Sirius moves closer to Remus, close enough to feel the musky heat radiating from his body. He can smell the familiar scent of him, that biscuity aroma that's undeniably Remus. Remus blinks. His nose is millimetres away from Sirius's. If Sirius edged forward just a tiny bit nearer, they would be kissing. Remus wants Sirius to kiss him so badly. But Sirius isn't going to move. He's not going to be selfish and sweep Remus away in a wave of passion. He's not going to do anything that might make Remus regret taking him back. He's going to let Remus make the decision.
Remus bends his head forward and presses his lips to Sirius's. Sirius kisses him back gratefully, incredibly relieved. It wasn't like this with James. James was fumbling, awkward, acting how he imagined Sirius wanted him to be like. Remus doesn't need to be anything other than what he is. Sirius pulls Remus closer to him, needing the contact after so long. Remus laughs into his mouth.
"I do hope you're not planning on seducing me on the bed," he murmurs, tracing his fingers down Sirius's cheek fondly.
"Why not?" Sirius asks, his fingers groping blindly at Remus's shirt, trying to undo the buttons. Remus makes a soft protesting noise. "Seems like a good idea- to me."
"It's filthy," Remus whispers, kissing Sirius's neck. "I'm scared to sleep in it, let alone- stop that, you twat."
Sirius halts briefly, his warm hands trembling underneath Remus's shirt. His dark hair's fallen in his eyes. He blows upwards, only succeeding in making it flutter in the air for a couple of seconds, and then it flops back down onto his forehead again. Remus brushes Sirius's hair away and tucks it behind his ear fondly.
"We have… all the time… in the world… to do this," he promises, kissing Sirius earnestly between words. "But… not now. And there's something in your pocket… poking into me." He slips a hand into Sirius's pocket and comes up with the keys to the motorbike. "Ah, so that was what it was."
"Couldn't be anything else," Sirius agrees cheerfully. "Except the mistletoe."
"Mistletoe?" Remus feels in Sirius's pocket once more. He fishes out some spiky green leaves, with red berries attached. "This isn't mistletoe, Pads. It's holly."
"Well, I don't know what real mistletoe looks like," Sirius huffs, pretending to be offended. "I thought if all else failed I could do a Lily and wave a plant over your head." He takes the keys back from Remus impulsively. "Come on, let's get out of here. Let's go back to the flat on the bike, and then we can spend the whole day in bed, just-"
"Sleeping?"
"Sleeping… works too." Sirius extricates himself from Remus and picks up the guitar sheepishly. "Are you ever going to play this for me, or what?"
Remus takes the guitar wordlessly, and sits down on the bed. Sirius watches in barely disguised wonderment as Remus plays a rippling chord of notes. He'd never even had an attention span large enough to master the basics on his toy recorder. Sirius sits down on the bed respectfully, cross-legged, like a schoolboy. Remus's fingers dart over the strings, playing sweet melodies Sirius thinks he knows, or ought to know. His face is the picture of concentration, and he's biting his lip in an effort not to miss any notes.
"How do you do that so well?" Sirius breathes, gazing at the guitar and Remus's blurring fingers. Remus looks up, surprised.
"Do what?"
Sirius won't tell him. He just laughs, and settles back down on the tiny bed.
"Play me some more."
It was just the beginning.
It was the start of 1979. James and Lily were going to get married, sometime in the summer. Sirius was going to be best man. Lily was still trying to persuade Remus to play at the reception. Peter came back from his annual Christmas stay at his parents, having promised to grow his hair out again, and slotted back into normal life as if nothing had happened. The fights all seemed to be over. Everything was going to be all right. There was some unease in the wizarding community, slight scares about disappearances and odd happenings, but it didn't matter. They were stronger now, and there was nothing that life could throw at them that could break them up.
Nothing at all.