Never Tell
(Something about their casual cohabitation triggers Hagrid's memory. Buzzword was "awe," which I somehow missed in the extended version, and genre/cliché was "from another character's POV." I won this week!)
He knocked. He knew better than to ring the bell.
"'Lo?"
The answer came moment later - it was Remus. "Oh, hullo, Hagrid. Sirius was expecting you, wasn't he. Please, come in."
He followed Remus into the dingy house and up and up and up the stairs. He had to ascend sort of...sideways, brushing grime from the walls with every step, and it was awfully awkward. He hated this stupid stuffy house. He was pretty sure nearly everyone hated this house, even the people in it. Well, only Remus seemed to be doing all right.
But especially the one who lived upstairs.
"Beaky!" he cried, when he'd finally reached the top and squeezed into the master bedroom. He bowed hurriedly - he was practically bowing anyway in this place - and then rushed to Buckbeak, stroking his wings, scritching him under the chin, tugging the snacks he'd brought for him from within his coat. Buckbeak gobbled the first one down a bit messily and he just beamed. Oh, but he'd missed him.
"Cor, Hagrid, that's disgusting," said Sirius, hovering next to Remus in the doorframe. "How can you stand to just sit there and watch it?"
"He's so precious when 'e's all excited, inn'e?" he said, smiling broadly.
"Yes, Sirius, let them have a moment," said Remus, his smile creeping up to his eyes. "They've gone...too long apart."
Sirius shot him a funny look, then relented. "Right, fine, but I'll be in the upstairs sitting room. You can come join me when this is all over."
"I'll make some tea. What's your preference, Hagrid?"
"Eh, whatever yeh've got, with plenty o' sugar, thanks," he said.
Remus headed downstairs, and came back later with three hot cups of tea, by which point he'd joined Sirius in the sitting room. Remus passed one to Sirius without a word and Sirius drank from it completely unperturbed.
Oh.
He remembers years and years ago, a tree on the very edge of the Forbidden Forest, with the marks of four thick claws slashed into it in the shape of an X. Behind this tree, some afternoons, he rousts out a pair of eager teenage boys, experimenting with Merlin knows what in a space they assumed private. And he smiles at them and never says a word.
Now they sat before him, comfortable, even in this house. Not really experimenting, then. Experiments never ended this well. Experiments didn't live together years later knowing exactly how each other took their tea.
He smiled at them, then drank. He knew. They knew. He'll never tell.