Author's Note: Wow. I am really sorry about how long that took. Graduation, lack of inspiration, general laziness and other sad factors contribtued to my pathetically late update of this! Please accept my sincerest apologies.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor would I ever claim to own Harry Potter. Sad fact of life.

"Remus? You here?" Sirius looked around their deserted apartment and shrugged. "Guess not."

Which was strange. The dirty dishes had disappeared from their usual abode in the sink. Sirius' pizza box was nowhere to be seen. In short, the apartment showed all the normal signs of Remus' fastidious presence...except for his actual presence.

Since Remus had returned to the world of the living, he and Sirius had been getting along quite well together, at least in Sirius' opinion. They had somewhat of a symbiotic relationship, you could say. Sirius worked as an Auror all day, came home and made a mess. Remus did paperwork for the Order all day at home and cleaned up after him. In short, life was good.

Sirius shrugged. Maybe he was shopping. For food. To feed him. Satisfied with that conclusion, Sirius decided to do what he did best: scavenge for food in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Remus probably was out shopping. There was very little that was edible in their refrigerater. Sirius slumped his shoulders, a tad disheartened, as he walked back to the living room to take a nap. But then he saw it. The perfect snack. A plate of chocolate chip cookies. Still warm even.

Ten cookies and two glasses of milk later, Sirius flopped onto the couch, feeling a tad nauseous from his cookie binge. Maybe that wasn't such a great idea after all, he thought as his stomach churned angrily. Time for a nap, I guess. And with that, Sirius kicked up his shoes to properly dirty the place up a bit and promptly fell asleep.

Back from his grocery shopping, Remus struggled to open the door while carrying the enormous amount of food that it takes to keep Sirius fed for a couple of days. Idiot, are you a wizard or not? Pulling out his wand, Remus charmed the door open. That's what I thought.

Dropping the groceries on the counter, Remus entered the small living room of their apartment to see what had become of Sirius. What a surprise. Passed out on the couch as usual, the slob.

Smirking at his friend's laziness, Remus turned back to the kitchen and the waiting groceries. Having found little order in the world, Remus turned to order inhis home to give him a sense of stability and control. His books were always arranged in alphabetical order according to subject. His kitchen was always clean. Or at least it was before he started livingwith Sirius.

Picking up an empty plate and glass, Remus placed them both in the sink. He thought of his apartment at the moment as being a zoo. A zoo with one crazy, messy animal and only one overworked zookeeper. It's not that Sirius ordered him to clean up after him or anything. Sirius didn'tcare if theplace crawled with cockroaches or not.But just as the zookeeper would always clean up after his animals, Remus would always clean up after Sirius. It was against his nature to do otherwise.

Remus was halfway through with putting up the groceries, when he heard a sound that interrupted all of his thoughts about zoos and the cleanliness of his apartment.

"Sirius?" Remus queried as he burst into the living room. "What happened?"

Sirius was sitting bolt upright on the couch, his feet still resting on the other side. But his position no longer looked relaxed. As he glanced at Remus, Remus caught a glimpse of what looked like anger in his dark eyes. But the next second, it was gone, replaced by shock, and Remusreally couldn't be surethat he hadn't misinterpreted the look his friend had given him.

"Sirius?" Remus quietly asked again. "What happened?"

The look of shock disappeared from Sirius' face almost immediately, wiped away by a tight smile.

"Oh, it was nothing. A bad dream. That was all. Nothing to, you know, scream about," Sirius quipped easily, evenlaughing forcibly for good measure.But Remus wasn't buying it for a minute. The laughter had never reached his eyes.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Positive," Sirius said firmly.

And because Remus knew that it was pointless to pursue a subject when Sirius Blackhad declared it closed, he simply raised his eyebrow skeptically athis friendbefore returning to his groceries in the kitchen.

Author's Note: Again, I am sorry about how incredibly late my update was! Please excuse any typos in this as I finally got some more inspiration/direction from this story and I wanted to post this before I left on vacation. Which is the bad news as far as updates are concerned, since I won't be back in the States until the very end of June. I really should be sleeping right now in preparation for a disgustingly early plane flight, but sleep is overrated, and I didn't want you guys to have to wait any longer than you already have been waiting!

Thanks to all my readers and especially to all my reviewers! You all rock.

Neurotica: Thanks for the support and encouragement! You asking about this story was what actually made me sit down and write the rest of it! So thanks a lot for that! I really do like this story and don't just want to abandon it, but while I have an idea of where I want this to go, putting it into practice is a lot harder!

cecelle: Yeah, I like that too. I feel bad for both of them, but they both needed a loud wake up call. Death sucks, but life goes on.

siriuslycrazy4zach: Your review replies always make me laugh! (That's a good thing, by the way). Thanks for the encouragement, and I'm sooo sorry I updated so late! Your review always made me feel guilty about that!

Powerpug: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I agree. I hate Sirius-Remusslash. Ick. And I'm only too glad to portray Peter as the manipulative little rat he is during this time period. I hope he wasn't always that way, but I have a suspicion that the capacity for evil deeds was always just beneath his surface.

Thanks again to everyone for reviewing (and reading if you're for some reason just doing that)! Reviews really brighten up my day! (hint hint)