Previously in the Darklyverse: Alice feuded with Sirius over werewolf rights and blood politics in sixth year, but she ultimately grew to become more accepting after a year of involvement in War Stories. Sirius and Remus tried to make a physical relationship work. James pushed Marlene to try harder to work through her resentment about Mary, Remus, and Sirius.

xx

April 24th, 1978: Remus Lupin

Even knowing that James wants to subsidize Remus in his probable unemployment after they get out of Hogwarts, Remus is pretty freaked out about the whole business of taking his N.E.W.T.s and searching for a job. June 5th (the first day of N.E.W.T.s) and 24th (graduation) are each marked on Remus's pocket calendar with a bright red X, and they keep getting closer and closer faster than he can stand to watch, and he increasingly feels like all his knowledge of magic is falling out of his head just in time for him to be tested on all of it.

If he thought O.W.L.s were bad in fifth year, he had another thing coming when N.E.W.T. year rolled around. On the surface, N.E.W.T.s aren't supposed to be cumulative—they're not supposed to cover magic tested during O.W.L.s, because why test those things again? But all that does, as far as Remus is concerned, is take away cushioning of your grade from easier material, so that the entirety of each exam is completely the hard stuff that you've been struggling to master for the last two years of your life. Worse, you're supposed to use entirely nonverbal spells during all of your practicals, or else you lose points—though, thankfully, you aren't expected to do any wandless magic.

Out of a mutual desire to study harder, Remus and Alice end up picking back up their old habit of studying together in their off hours, although this time, Remus brings his boyfriend in tow. Alice is brilliant and pushes Remus to be better and to learn from her, and Sirius—this is going to sound horrible, but he doesn't mean it in a bad way—Sirius makes Remus feel like he's not the only person struggling, like somebody knows exactly what Remus is going through.

It sort of amazes Remus that he, Alice, and Sirius can all hang out in a room together for hours every day without some kind of explosion happening. Nobody really gives her credit for it, but he feels like Alice has been doing a lot of growing all year in the background of everybody else's drama—like War Stories really made an impact on her the way they'd hoped it would for their pureblood members. Long gone are the days when Sirius could hardly stand to speak to Alice because of her naive assumptions that anti-werewolf legislation had some legitimate reason behind it.

And it's nice to see more of Alice, who quite honestly has sort of been hiding behind her relationship with Cresswell all year until they broke up, to the point that Remus almost never saw her. He tells her so the next time he gets her alone, and she hides her face between her hands and smiles.

He sort of—takes Alice under his wing a little, studying with her and making sure she's invited to hang with whomever Remus is with. He knows he doesn't have to do it, just like he knew he didn't have to stick by Alice earlier this year when she hadn't fully admitted she was wrong about werewolf discrimination being real. Thinking about it, Remus doesn't think Alice ever did apologize for that, even though he's almost positive that after a year of War Stories she's changed her mind.

But it's kind of the same story as when Sirius sicced Moony on Snape in fifth year, when Sirius and James were the ones who wound up fighting and Remus ended up on Sirius's side of the resulting feud. It's not that he thinks Alice was right, just like he didn't think Sirius was right, but Remus somehow—has the ability to see beyond what's personal, to accept that people do hurtful shit out of faulty beliefs, and it's the beliefs you have to target, not the people who hold them.

For what it's worth, Remus suspects that Alice has done a tremendous amount of evolving in War Stories and the Order this year, even though she wasn't vocal about it and nobody's really given her any credit for it. He likes to think that this is partly the result of Remus being there for her when she had kind of positioned herself in opposition to everyone else.

Or maybe that just makes Remus a pushover who won't stand up for himself in the face of adversity. You decide.

Once again, Remus hasn't had a lot of time alone with Sirius in a while, but this time, it's more due to the impending threat of N.E.W.T.s than it is an act of deliberate avoidance on either of their parts. Finally, after dinner one Friday, Sirius says to Remus, "You know what it's been a long time since we've done it?"

"What?"

"Hung in the dormitory."

"I could stand by that," says Remus with a grin.

They make out for a while, but get interrupted by James, who pops upstairs to grab his History of Magic textbook. "Sorry! God!" he cries, dramatically flinging one hand over his eyes while he rummages through his trunk.

When James leaves, Sirius and Remus look at each other and just start laughing. There are tears streaming down Remus's face by the time he gets himself together and gets situated on the bed, lying on his side with his head on Sirius's shoulder. Sirius is flat on his back with an arm looped over Remus's waist.

He knows this thing they're doing isn't going to last. He's accepted that both of them are going to get frustrated from not being able to have sex—that Sirius is going to meet a girl, or Remus is going to meet a bloke, whom they can actually sleep with—and it's going to get in the way of their happiness.

But for now—it's not like Remus has men lining up out the door for him, and if Sirius by some miracle is willing to give up sex to be with Remus, then Remus will take it, and keep taking it, as long as Sirius will let him. Remus just wants to be with his person; he doesn't really care how big of a hole he's digging himself that he's going to have to get out of at some future time when his bad decisions catch up with him.

They've made it this far, at least, and Remus is happy, and Sirius seems happy. If you would have told Remus a year ago that his life was going to turn out like this, he would have laughed you out of the room.

"What are you thinking about in that big brain of yours?" says Sirius.

Remus smiles and snuggles in. "Nothing important," he says, and he wishes he could say that he was telling the truth.

At the base of the staircase, they bump into Marlene, who recoils like she's been touched by something vulgar and slimy instead of just by Remus's schoolbag. "I'll catch up with you in a minute," Remus tells Sirius pointedly, and then he very gently pats Marlene on the elbow.

She jerks away, as expected. "What do you want?" she finally says when he doesn't leave.

"Can we talk for a minute?"

"Do we have to?"

"It'll just take a minute."

They stand off to the side, where the entire rest of the common room hopefully won't be able to hear them. "I realized that I don't think I ever properly apologized for how things went down with Sirius," says Remus, "and—well—I'm sorry. I'm really sorry that things happened how they did—that I did things the way I did. I get to be happy when you got your heart broken, and that sucks."

Marlene looks like she's scrutinizing him closely, but Remus hasn't really got a clue what she's looking to find in his face. His true intentions, maybe. Does Marlene believe that he's telling the truth?

Either way, she looks satisfied after a few moments, and she says, "I'm not going to say it's okay, because I'm not okay with it, but I forgive you. I had my own problems with Sirius that I wasn't dealing with because we were together. In a way, you brought that to the surface so that I could work on it and learn from it, and that's a good thing, even if it sucks."

"I just want us to be friends again," Remus implores her. "I understand if that can't happen, but you're one of my best mates, and I miss you."

"I can't," says Marlene immediately. "Not now, anyway. I'm still working through everything, and—I can't. But—maybe someday? Maybe in a little while. I just need some time first."

"Take all the time you need. I'll be here if you decide you're ready," says Remus.

He hopes she'll be ready—if not soon, then at least soon enough that her pain isn't prolonged. Yes, it was Marlene who dumped Sirius before he and Remus got together, but Remus did kiss Sirius when he was still Marlene's boyfriend, and they did both cover that up, and he knows he went wrong there—Marlene didn't deserve that. They've all been friends since they were eleven years old, and regardless of whatever romantic drama has gone down, that still means something to Remus.

He thinks they're done talking and has turned to look for Sirius again when Marlene adds awkwardly, "And—I'm sorry, too. For cutting you out and not trying to talk to you about anything that happened. If I valued our friendship, I should have asked you for the real story instead of making assumptions and treating you like an enemy. You're not the enemy. I don't think there is an enemy."

Remus shrugs. "I don't think there's an enemy, either. I definitely don't see you as being one. I just—I love you, and I miss you, and I hope you get through this all intact."

The ghost of a smile flits across Marlene's face. "Me, too. We'll, uh… we'll keep in touch after we graduate, huh?"

"Of course," swears Remus. "We'll have to, if we're both going to stay in the Order, but more than that—I want us to."

"There are just so many unknowns. I don't know what on earth I'm going to do with my life, besides Order stuff, and even that—I don't know what that's going to look like. I wanted to be an Auror, but, well, you remember how well that worked out."

He does—Marlene failed the character assessment after getting accepted into the Auror internship program last year. "You'll find something to make you happy and pay the bills. Seriously. You're a pureblood—that'll be an advantage to you."

She looks—sad and sort of guilty—all of a sudden, but the look passes quickly. "I hope we win this damn war so that nobody's blood status matters anymore," she says, and Remus has to say he agrees.